That World of Otome Games is Tough for Us - Volume 3 - Chapter 10.2

“Don’t worry,” I told Marie. “I don’t gamble.”

“What? You just said you’d take Olivia’s place.” Marie’s face scrunched in confusion.

“I don’t gamble. I love playing games I’m guaranteed to win, though.”

Luxion, who was still invisible, instantly caught on to what I was saying. Exasperated, he whispered to me, “What you are planning is even more dastardly than their cheating.”

I made a surreptitious gesture with my hand, telling Luxion to get on with it, and he floated unseen through the air to take his position. Meanwhile, I pushed through the crowd to the table where Dolly and Donna were. Kyle was nowhere to be seen. The girls’ servants had apparently dragged him off somewhere, although they were back now, glaring at me from behind their mistresses. The other students scowled at me, too, annoyed at my refusal to read the room and stay out of this.

I stopped beside Olivia and reached for the cards set in front of her. “Anyway,” I added, “it’s not very fair of you two to cheat like that.”

The two girls immediately averted their eyes, trying their best to hide how startled they were that I’d noticed.

“’Scuse me?” Donna said, her canine teeth poking past her lips. “We’re not accepting a stand-in. Like, I mean, what’re you even thinking, offering to help this commoner? Are you really an aristocrat?”

“All you want is the spotlight. Scram already,” Dolly added. “You guys are such a pain. You really think doing something like this will land you a bride? This is exactly why women don’t want you.”

Those words were like a dagger straight to the heart. Thankfully, it wasn’t too painful, since I was already safely engaged to Marie! Knowing that other women hated me would still leave me crying myself to sleep for a couple nights, but hey, it could be worse.

My gaze moved to Olivia, who was staring at her lap again.

“I couldn’t just stand by while something this horrible went on,” I told Dolly and Donna. “Are you really that scared to face me?”

It was practically unheard of for a male student to antagonize a female student the way I just had. The whole room erupted in murmurs again. The guys’ commentary was especially noisy.

“He really just said that to a girl?!”

“He’s being awfully arrogant.”

“He’s a hero. We’ve got a hero in our midst.”

Dolly and Donna flushed with anger. They probably didn’t have much experience with men challenging their authority the way I had. That would be true of virtually all the girls at the academy; they had really short tempers.

“You upstart. You’re a real pain—and you’ve let your success go to your head. You actually think we’d give you the time of day?” Dolly spat at me.

She was absolutely right that I was an upstart, but frankly, I thought I deserved to let success go to my head a little. Now that I was engaged, I was practically invincible. Okay, that was a lie. Women were still kind of scary! So what, though? I could overcome that with bravado. Plus, I had Luxion!

“Yeah? And who are the two cowards backing away from this upstart?” I sneered.

Donna ground her teeth. “Don’t throw your weight around with us just ’cause you got lucky as an adventurer one time. My daddy could swat you like a fly if I asked him.”

“That’s right,” said Dolly. “You’re from a poor backwoods barony. You think you could win against court nobility? If so, you’re as much deluded as you are a pain. Keep this up, and we’ll crush you.”

Military might wasn’t everything in aristocratic society. Court nobles didn’t have personal armies to the same extent as regional lords. Still, they had their own ways of taking down opponents. Such underhanded strategizing was the last thing I wanted to deal with.

As I hesitated, unsure how to respond to the girls’ threats, the click of high heels cut through the murmurs around us. The way the sound echoed through the air caught my attention somehow. When I turned my head, I saw the dazzling, beautiful Deirdre. Confident and graceful in equal measure, she strode right to the table.

“What an interesting conversation you seem to be having,” she said.

The moment Deirdre arrived, Dolly and Donna shrank back. They were so intimidated that they couldn’t even look her in the eye. In terms of the school’s female hierarchy, Deirdre was well above the pair, which they seemed keenly aware of. Deirdre was also a Roseblade, so her family wasn’t part of the Redgrave faction, and the girls couldn’t browbeat her with the family’s power and influence. In short, they couldn’t pick a fight with Deirdre as easily as they had with me.

“Miss Deirdre,” Dolly said haltingly, pasting a smile on her face. “What brings you to such a boring place?”

Deirdre pointedly ignored her and walked to my side, planting a hand on my shoulder and leaning her weight against me. “When I heard this cutie was up to something interesting, I came to have a look. But that’s neither here nor there. It would be most shameful for the both of you if you’re bringing up your family names while also cheating to guarantee your victory.”

“What did you say?” Dolly glared at her.

You know, this has been on my mind for a while now, but doesn’t it seem like this game’s developers took way too much inspiration from manga about delinquents for their characters? And for the academy in general?

“I heard the details on my way to the casino,” Deirdre explained. “As I understand it, a servant spoke out of turn to you two, so you’re taking it out on their mistress. But aren’t you taking this a step too far?” She looked at the other students; they quickly looked away. It was incredible how her admonishment silenced them all.

You’re amazing, Miss Deirdre!

Donna trembled but bravely retorted, “Would you please stay out of this? Like, it’s personal for us. And this guy friend of yours is the one who stuck his nose in uninvited.”

What—is she trying to say this is my fault? I mean, I guess I did jump in where I wasn’t welcome. But how does the protagonist feel about all this? That’s the real question.

I turned to her. “Miss Olivia, please name me your stand-in. Not only will I make sure you don’t have to leave the academy, I’ll see your debt nullified, too.” I’d given up on reasoning with Donna and Dolly.

Olivia’s whole body trembled. “Why…?” she whispered hoarsely. “Why would you save me? You won’t get anything out of it.”

Because you’re the game’s protagonist, that’s why! I couldn’t very well say that, although it would’ve been way easier. Instead, I had to come up with some other excuse—make up something on the fly.

“Because I hate bullying, I guess,” I said offhandedly, giving Dolly and Donna a dirty look.

Olivia lowered her head again. In a voice thick with sadness and strained by tears, she said, “Please…be my stand-in. Save me, I beg you.”

“I won’t let you down.” I put my hands on her shoulders and coaxed her out of her chair.

“We don’t accept this!” Dolly howled at me.

I had the perfect plan to shut Dolly up. I signaled Marie with a look. Her expression was disgusted, but she approached the table all the same, handing me a bag.

“Thanks,” I said.

“You’re a horrible person. I hope you know that.”

The bag she handed me was stuffed with “platinum” coins. They’d originally been gold, but they were now imbued with magic that made them glow white. Thus, they looked more valuable than normal gold coins.

As I dumped the bag’s contents on the table, the looks in Dolly and Donna’s eyes changed instantly.

“I’ve got plenty to bet. See?” I said. “I may have been lucky in succeeding on my first adventure, but as you can see, I’m loaded.”

The mountain of coins stoked the girls’ greed. Perhaps they assumed that, although I knew they were cheating, I hadn’t yet figured out how. Or maybe they were simply so confident in their methods that they thought it didn’t matter.

“This means you’ll owe us everything Olivia lost,” Donna snickered.

I nodded. “That’s fine.”

“For the record, if we take everything from you—even the shirt off your back—we still won’t be done with you. This game doesn’t stop until both parties agree. As big a pain as that rule is, we’re going to follow it. Are you still brave enough to go through with this?” Dolly cocked her head, her smile self-assured.

They’d probably come up with that “rule” to drive Olivia into a corner. Oh well. It made things more convenient for me.

“That’s fine. I like that rule,” I said.

Dolly sniffed at me. “We won’t show you mercy even if you break down into tears.”

“Glad we see eye to eye on that, at least. Now, let’s get serious.” I plopped down in Olivia’s vacated chair.

The two girls exchanged smug grins as if they thought their victory was guaranteed.

Deirdre leaned close to my ear. “You really did see through their trickery, didn’t you?” she whispered. “I’d at least like to know that you weren’t just bluffing when you said that.”

It didn’t matter that someone was cheating if you couldn’t prove how. Regardless of how suspicious you were that they were up to something, they were free to keep doing it as long as they didn’t get caught.

I kept my eyes on Dolly and Donna as they took their seats. Speaking more loudly, so that they heard me, too, I told them, “Speaking of, your servants don’t need those cards they have stowed away. Come on, did you think I wouldn’t notice the extras tucked up their sleeves?”

Dolly and Donna’s servants instantly flinched. They immediately tried to hide the proof of their involvement in the cheating, but a crowd member stepped forward and grabbed both servants by the arm, shaking loose a couple of cards that fluttered to the floor.

“What a shame. If you were involved in cheating, you’ll need to be punished.” It was Lucle who’d come forward to catch the servants red-handed for me. His eyes, normally narrowed into solid lines, were now cracked partway open. The hold of both his hands on their arms was firm and unyielding.

“P-please don’t!” one servant pleaded.

“If you’re going to cheat, you should be prepared for the consequences,” Lucle said as he briefly released one servant, only to take the opportunity to snap the other’s finger. A terrible crack resounded as their bone broke. There were myriad reactions from the crowd; some people watched grimly, while others glanced away.

I appreciated Lucle seizing the two before they could hide their involvement, but when he meted out justice so quickly, I panicked. I hadn’t intended to have them punished. On the other hand, the male students really hated the personal servants. They seldom physically attacked us, but they clearly looked at us with disdain. Maybe, since the chance to get back at them was so rare, Lucle had gotten a little too carried away.

Oh, man, I hope that’s it. Someone tell me that’s all it is.

Marie stood there solemnly. To my surprise, she didn’t seem the least bit bothered by what she’d witnessed. “A single broken finger’s nothing. Mine have been broken countless times.”

Somehow, I didn’t really want to know how or why her fingers had been broken. Maybe she’d injured herself while hunting? Either way, she made it sound like she’d suffered way worse than broken fingers.

I sucked in a deep breath, trying to stay calm and relaxed. It was a rule in Holfort that if cheating was exposed, it had to be punished. If you cheated, and were caught, that was your own fault. I couldn’t let anyone see how shaken I was—it would kill the intimidating air I was trying to affect—so I did my best to keep an unreadable poker face.

Meanwhile, the other guys from my group started piping up.

“What’re you doing breaking that guy’s finger, Mr. Lucle?” one asked.

“What?” Lucle responded, confused. “Isn’t that the rule? You get caught cheating, you get your finger broken.”

“No. It’s supposed to be your arm, right?”

“You’re kidding. I was always taught it was your finger.”

Everyone seemed to disagree on the appropriate punishment. Different regions apparently had different rules, and of course, bickering ensued as to which was the proper one.

Having retrieved an axe from who knew where, Deirdre returned to the table and swung it down. Whack! The blade bit into the wooden tabletop so loudly that it redirected everyone’s attention, and the guys’ arguing voices fell silent.

“Enough pointless squabbling!” Deirdre declared. “Since these ladies brought their family names into the game, it’s only fair that the penalty for cheating be one’s entire arm!”

“Wha—?!” I squeaked in surprise. 

Unlike the two girls I was taking on, I had Luxion on my side, so I didn’t need to worry too much about getting found out. Still, an arm seemed like too steep a price.

Dolly and Donna shook like a couple of leaves in the wind.

“No, um, like, I think that’s going a bit far,” said Donna. Her bravado had fled.

Deirdre planted her hands on her hips, chin held high. “Why is that? You understand the situation’s gravity, don’t you?”

“B-but I think going that far would be a pain, you know?” Dolly stammered, lips trembling.

“When you bring up your house’s name in the course of a competition, it’s no longer a game,” said Deirdre. “Surely you’re prepared to take this seriously. Or am I mistaken? Let me make this clear—I hate people who can’t walk the walk!” She glared at them, her lips forming a thin, flat line.

Rattled, Dolly and Donna just stood there, still trembling. Even I was a little—okay, a lot—intimidated by this point.

Deirdre turned to the crowd. “You all remember Stephanie Fou Offrey. Even she humbly accepted her punishment after being defeated. Surely no one here is so cowardly that they can’t be at least as brave as Stephanie.”

Dolly and Donna were still pale, but when Deirdre mentioned Stephanie, their expressions set in grim determination. They couldn’t let themselves look weaker than someone like her.

“Ha! Fine. We’ll go ahead, then,” Dolly declared.

Her bravery actually made me think a little better of her. Just a tiny bit, though. After what she and Donna had done to Olivia, I still couldn’t empathize with them. Plus, there was a bigger issue at hand.

“Luxion,” I muttered under my breath, quietly enough that no one would overhear me. “I’ll be fine, right? Miss Deirdre and the others won’t pick up on my cheating, will they?”

“As I suspected, your confidence in involving yourself stemmed from your plan to use me to cheat your way to victory,” he responded in exasperation. “Now you are terrified because you think they may somehow catch you.”

“Stop stating the obvious! Hurry up and tell me whether it’ll be okay,” I snapped, anxious for some sort of reassurance.

“You underestimate me far too much, Master. This is, as you humans would say, child’s play for me.”

Praying he was right, I charged into this tricky gamble to save the game’s protagonist.

***

The excitement inside the casino had transformed completely. Olivia watched from the sidelines, speechless at what she was witnessing. The two women who’d mercilessly tormented her only moments earlier had turned deathly pale, and their hands trembled with fear as they held their cards.

Dolly moved to throw away a card, but Leon pinned her with a hard look. “Hold it. You sure you want to risk losing an arm? If you try to switch in that card you’ve got hidden, it’ll be all over for you.” His gaze moved to the axe still embedded in the table.

Dolly sucked in a panicked breath. The axe was intended to chop through a door or wall in an emergency, so its edge was finely sharpened. She only had to look at it once to rethink her intention to cheat. Her breaths were fast and erratic, but it was no surprise that she was so on edge. Leon had already won back all the money she and Donna took from Olivia.

At this point, Dolly and Donna were the ones putting themselves in debt to buy more chips. Meanwhile, there was a mountain of chips piled beside Leon.

Having given up on cheating, Dolly and Donna threw down their cards. They had fairly decent hands. Then Leon, with a perfect poker face, set his cards down.

“Victory’s mine again,” he said. “Give me your chips.”

They obediently pushed their chips to Leon’s side, cleaning themselves out. At this point, they’d already done that—and then put themselves deeper into debt to continue playing—countless times.

Leon glanced at the dealer and nodded, signaling him to deal again. Then he glanced at the two women sitting across from him. “Time for the next hand. Get your chips ready fast.” He was essentially telling them to dig themselves even further into debt, since that was the only way they could keep playing. And, due to the way things had unfolded, their debtor was Leon. He’d put a much steeper rate on their loan than they’d given Olivia, and the amount they were borrowing only climbed higher and higher.

Donna burst into tears, collapsing forward onto the table. Tears also streamed down Dolly’s cheeks.

“Have mercy,” wept Dolly. “We’re sorry for being such a pain, all right?!”

“Yeah! Take it easy on us,” sobbed Donna.

It was painful for Olivia to watch.

At first, the girls’ card game with Leon had been perfectly ordinary. Then they’d begun losing to him repeatedly. As soon as their chips began to run low, they’d stooped to all sorts of methods to cheat their way to winning. Olivia couldn’t even tell what they were doing, but Leon could. He saw through each and every attempt—and let them get away with it. Even so, he beat them. They couldn’t best him when they cheated, and they certainly stood no chance when they didn’t.

Perhaps most humiliating of all was that, every time Dolly and Donna resorted to cheap tricks and still lost, Leon always ended the hand by saying, “What a shame you couldn’t beat me even by cheating.”

At the beginning, the two girls kept brave faces on. As the card game pressed ahead, though, their spirits broke. They regarded Leon with looks of terror. They’d been wary of Deirdre initially, but it was Leon who struck fear into them now. That was partly their own fault, given their arrogance and selfishness. Leon shattered their pride and left them in tears, pleading for leniency. It was a complete role reversal; their own rules, which they’d created to trap Olivia, were backfiring on them.

“If I remember correctly, you said the game only ends when all the players agree, right?” Leon said pointedly. “You also said the loser needs to pay their debt, however steep. Those are the rules you decided on.” Despite his winning streak, he wasn’t smiling. There was no emotion on his face at all. He wasn’t acting triumphant and rubbing his wins in their faces; he was curt and businesslike, as if he found the whole situation burdensome.

Still sniffling, the girls signed another promissory note in exchange for more chips. A minimum bet was in place to ensure no one could weasel through the game by simply conserving their chips each round—yet another rule they’d put in place for Olivia. Every single trap they’d laid for her now came back to haunt them.

Chips were added, and the next round began.

Once the cards were laid out, Leon said, “There. I win again.” It had taken him no time at all to beat them.

“This winning streak is way too much of a coincidence to be fair play!” one male student complained, stepping up for Dolly and Donna. “You haven’t lost a single round this whole time. It’s obvious you’re the one cheating! Don’t you guys agree?” He glanced back at the rest of the crowd. Around half the onlookers showed agreement in some form.

Deirdre sighed. “In that case, shall we pat him down and search him again?”

Leon shrugged. “This is already the third time. It’s about time you guys gave it up.”

The male student stepped up to search Leon, confident that he could succeed where others before him hadn’t managed to. This time, he removed Leon’s jacket, shirt, and even his pants, trying to find a hidden card somewhere. There was nothing to be found, however. Not a single piece of evidence.

“Y-you’re kidding me,” he stuttered, baffled.

Deirdre snapped her fingers. “I assume you’re ready to face the consequences of interrupting this game for no good reason.”

The male student immediately tried to scramble away from Deirdre. She didn’t even bother to look at him, but Lucle and the others from our group surrounded the student in no time.

“Really sorry we have to do this,” Lucle said in a chillingly casual voice, “but rules are rules.” With that, he and the others dragged the student to another room.

“Something has to be going on! I just know it! St-stop this. You guys can’t—gaaaah!” The student’s screams echoed even after the door closed behind him.

The whole reason he’d tried to intervene with a baseless claim was that he thought defending Dolly and Donna could score extra points with other female students. That tactic was for naught, of course, since he hadn’t found anything to substantiate his accusation.

Olivia tried to shut out the boy’s screaming, her gaze focused on the floor. In the meantime, Leon pulled his clothes back on.

“Let’s keep going, then,” he said.

It was admittedly odd that he kept winning, but he came out clean in each search. Even when someone thought he was cheating, no one could pin down how.

Since Leon had refused to bend to her tears, Dolly lost her temper and leapt out of her seat. “This game doesn’t mean anything anyway! I’m going to tell Daddy all about this. He’ll ruin you, you know!”

“Don’t say that!” Donna cried, latching onto Dolly’s arm and tugging it. “It’ll only get worse!” She shot Deirdre a fearful look.

Deirdre stared back at the two with open disdain. “After all the trouble I went to in order to warn you, you still insist on defiling this game. Very well. My family will be your opponents as well. We’ll take this as far as you want to go.”

By the time Dolly realized what she’d done—made an enemy of one of the most powerful women at the academy—it was too late.

“I’ll have to deal with your whole house next, is that it?” Leon asked in a low, menacing voice. From the man partly responsible for the fall of the Offreys and Lafans, that didn’t sound like an idle threat.

“Please forgive my impertinence,” Dolly muttered meekly as she sank back into her chair. Fresh tears trailed down her cheeks. “I won’t be a pain anymore, I promise. I won’t do anything. So, please, have mercy!”

Donna followed her example, adding, “We can’t pay all this money back! Even my house can’t afford it. Like, my daddy would be furious with me. Please!”

Faces wet with snot and tears, they begged with everything they had, paying no thought to how shameful or embarrassing it was. They must’ve realized how cold and unsympathetic the crowd’s gazes were. Still, they didn’t hesitate.

Leon showed no inclination of offering them any of the mercy they so desperately pleaded for. “We’ll continue,” he said. “And we’ll keep going until you finally realize who you really need to apologize to. You can’t tell me you don’t know who I mean.” 

Olivia. He obviously meant Olivia. He wanted them to bow their heads and apologize to a commoner. In some ways, that would perhaps be the greatest humiliation for a noblewoman.

Dolly and Donna were too terrified to think of their reputations, though. They turned toward Olivia, leaping out of their seats to rush over to her. Then they threw themselves at her feet, remaining on their knees as they apologized profusely.

“I’m sorry,” Dolly cried. “We won’t be pains in the ass anymore, I swear! Please forgive us!”

“Yeah, like, we were the ones who messed up! We’re so sorry! Have mercy!” Donna pleaded.

It was such a dramatic shift from their prior arrogance, Olivia struggled to digest it. “Um…s-sure,” she said.

Watching her accept their apologies, Leon let out a small sigh. Was it just her imagination, or did he look relieved? He seemed disgusted by this whole card game, too.

“Then it’s over,” he told Dolly and Donna. “I’ll put your debts on hold for now. Next time you try anything on the scholarship student, I’ll come after you to collect. Just keep that in mind.”

They were finally off the hook—from the card game and their debt. Bursting into sobs, they threw their arms around one another.

“Donnaaaa!”

“Dollllly!”

Leon lifted himself out of his chair.

“How kind of you,” Deirdre said sardonically. “I doubt you intended to make them pay to begin with, knowing you.”

Although Deirdre was exasperated with Leon, Olivia couldn’t help smiling.

“I’m rich, remember? I don’t need their money.” Leon turned to leave.

Olivia chased after him. “Th-thank you for what you did for me!” she exclaimed. “But, um, why exactly did you save me?”

There was no point sticking up for someone like me, but he did. This is the first time any aristocrat has done something so kind for me. Since he’d rescued her from one of the scariest situations she’d ever experienced, she couldn’t help wondering about him.

Perhaps embarrassed and unsure how to respond, Leon scratched his cheek. “Because you were in trouble, I guess? Also…sorry I couldn’t step in sooner to help you. Anyway, see you.” As if trying to escape her, he hurried away.

Olivia reached a hand out after him. “W-wait! Your name…” She stared sadly as his back receded.

Deirdre approached from behind, arms folded beneath her ample breasts. She sighed to herself. “I don’t know what he’s acting so embarrassed for. If he’d managed to keep that suave act up until the end, it would’ve been perfect. But I digress. His name’s Leon Fou Bartfort.”

“Lord Leon Fou Bartfort,” Olivia repeated to herself. 

Bartfort? Come to think of it, I’m pretty sure Prince Julius mentioned him, too. That was back when the two had walked past each other at the academy. Julius had mentioned that Leon was a promising man the same age as them. I didn’t realize he was so kind.

“He’ll be a baron once he graduates,” Deirdre added, like a proud older sister. “But right now, he’s just a knight in training. I consider him a cute little brother.” She pressed her fan over her mouth. “Now, if you’ll pardon me,” she concluded, and promptly left.

Olivia set her hand on her chest. Her heart was pounding. So much heat had rushed to her head, she was sure it had to be her fever. 

Clutching her shirt, she mumbled his name again to herself. “Lord Leon Fou Bartfort.”

Even if he’s still in training, he’s basically a knight, right? Yes. A knight in shining armor. The thought called to mind an image of the strong, kind knights that bards sang about. I didn’t know there were aristocrats like him out there.

Leon was very different from Julius and the other boys, and he’d somehow captured her heart.