This Novel is not my Novel

"The man who kept harassing you is coming to apologize."

"What?! Really? Dremby is?"

Helga's look of revulsion vanished, and her eyes widened in surprise.

"I thought he was the kind of person who wouldn't reflect on his actions even if it killed him... That's unexpected..."

"He has not reflected on anything. That is precisely why I must accompany you. I need to make certain he gives you a proper apology."

I immediately corrected Helga's misunderstanding.

There was no chance the confession villain would offer a sincere apology.

If Helga expected one, only to receive some worthless excuse for an apology instead, her anger would boil over rather than subside.

And if the two of them became emotional and started arguing, something unexpected might happen.

"I knew it... Ah! Then does that mean you used your influence to make Dremby apologize to me?"

Helga nodded with a cynical expression, showing that she understood, only to turn toward me with sudden admiration.

Just as she had guessed, I had pressured the man and put him in a position where he had no choice but to apologize.

By now, however, my dear readers could probably predict how I would answer.

"I shall tell you this now to prevent any pointless misunderstanding: I did not do it for you or your father. I acted solely because that man had the audacity to overstep his bounds with me. As punishment, I intended to trample upon his pride and humiliate him. I merely forced him to bow his head to the father and daughter he had looked down upon and treated with contempt."

"You sounded calm and sincere when you were speaking to Her Royal Highness. Why are you acting so coy again?"

"Who, exactly, is acting coy?! I always speak sincerely, and what I just said was no exception."

"Rey seems to love it when you act all coy like that, but I don't, so you can spare me the performance."

The way she flatly declined without the slightest hint that she was teasing was irritating in a manner that resembled Reisir, yet somehow differed from him.

Was it because they were childhood friends?

I was so dumbfounded that I could only stare with my mouth hanging open. Then the protagonist of someone else's novel stepped forward and proved that he was the true originator of this particular brand of irritation.

"Perhaps Karvaldr becomes human when he speaks politely, but turns into a cat whenever he uses that imperious register."

"What nonsense are you spouting after barging into the conversation?! I employ a perfectly legitimate formal plain register. Stop inventing absurd terms for it, and stop comparing me to a cat!"

"But the symbol of House Austri is a cat, isn't it?"

"That is... true, but...!"

Even so, I was not originally a member of House Austri. I was a member of the Lee family from Korea.

Unable to say that aloud, I swallowed the words, whereupon the protagonist of someone else's novel burst into laughter.

Apparently, he thought I had conceded the point.

More importantly, only a few minutes ago he was radiating hostility toward Fjodora and casting a pall over the entire atmosphere...

Yet he had already returned to his usual cheerful self.

I found that tremendously reassuring, but it also left me uneasy.

I couldn't shake the suspicion that, without realizing it, I had somehow been saddled with the role of the comic-relief character responsible for changing the mood.

Comic-relief characters generally tended not to die, but Author Senna, the creator of this world, was not particularly inclined to take such conventions into consideration.

And in some works, the comic-relief character was the only one who met a heroic death.

There was no reason whatsoever to regard this as a favorable development. It merely felt as though I had lost face for nothing.

I glared as fiercely as I could at the person I suspected of treating me like some button he could press whenever he wanted a laugh.

He casually ignored my glare and changed the subject with a broad grin.

"May I come with you when Helga receives her apology?"

Had he said anything else, I would have snorted, turned my head sharply away, and ignored him.

But since this would be useful to me, I decided to give him a proper answer.

"Do as you please."

Judging by how easily he had held onto me and refused to let go in Chapter 312, he apparently had energy to spare.

I could not relax completely merely because the protagonist of someone else's novel would be there.

Still, having him was far better than not having him.

"May I... come along as well?"

As his distinctive manner of speaking made obvious, the person who abruptly joined the conversation and expressed his desire to accompany us was Ríolíkin.

Reisir was practically family to Dyuf and Helga, so there was nothing strange about him wanting to be present when they met the man who had wronged them.

Especially after hearing that the offender felt no remorse.

Of course he would be worried.

But I had no idea why Ríolíkin wanted to come.

Apparently, I was not alone in failing to guess his reason. Confusion appeared on everyone else's faces as well.

Helga asked him outright.

"Why do you want to come?"

"Because... Karvaldr is going, Reisir is going, and Helga is going...?"

His argument appeared to be that more than half the people he considered relatively close to him were going, so he ought to be there as well.

He reached the pinnacle of absurdity by inviting Vigdís to accompany us too.

"Vigdís, would you... like to come as well?"

"What? Me too? Um...... Shall I?"

I could not understand why she responded with "Shall I?" when she should have been stopping Ríolíkin.

Judging by Vigdís's bewildered expression, the answer had probably slipped out while she was still caught off guard.

But the fact that she made no attempt to correct herself even after the fact and merely stood there blinking made her response equally baffling.

"Why don't we all go together? If the goal is to humiliate Dremby, the more spectators there are, the better!"

Pret was simply... Pret.

I could only accept it.

He was intensely interested in other people's private affairs, and he had the sort of profession one could hardly endure without enjoying spectacles of this nature.

"Am I... the only one who's tired...?"

Sveinn was conscious of Fjodora, who had yet to make a decision.

However, he apparently found it too difficult to address her directly, so he needlessly looked around and pretended to direct the question at no one in particular.

Judging by his behavior, he did not want to follow us.

It was an entirely reasonable reaction.

He barely knew who the confession villain was, nor was he particularly close to Helga.

Whether the confession villain apologized to Helga had nothing to do with him, so naturally, he wanted to return to his room, stretch out, and rest.

Had there been no chance of the confession villain causing trouble, I would have done the same.

"I am tired as well, but..."

Fjodora had just spoken for the last time when five people and a cheetah spirit beast came rushing toward us.

The cheetah spirit beast alone made it obvious that two of the five were Valtraus and Lissy.

A considerable amount of time had passed since the Demon Realm was cleared, yet we had not gone to meet them.

Perhaps they had begun to fear that some accident had occurred during our battle with the Boss Monster and had come to find us themselves.

As for the other three...

It was surprising in one sense, yet obvious when I thought about it.

They were Dyuf and the villain brothers.

"Why have all of you come here together?"

"We encountered those people on the way."

Valtraus gave Fjodora that curt response, yielding the right to speak to someone else.

Apparently, he had no intention of offering a detailed explanation himself.

The person who stepped forward to answer the Princess's question was Dyuf.

"While helping the students and faculty escape the Demon Realm, I encountered these two. They said they needed to meet the two young lords of House Austri... and ordered me to guide them here."

The academy grounds were surrounded by high walls, so Dyuf must have led the others to the main gate and opened an exit from the Demon Realm there.

Valtraus and I had entered by creating an entrance at the same location for the same reason.

The villain brothers, unable to create an entrance themselves, must have waited outside the academy's main gate until one appeared and people began pouring out.

They had apparently made Dyuf, who had safely evacuated everyone, guide and escort them here...

No, have they lost their minds? I can understand the elder brother doing this, since he wouldn't recognize Dyuf's face. But the younger one has no such excuse!

He had said something so vicious that it made a man faint.

Worse, he had come here to apologize to Dyuf and his daughter Helga.

I did not know whether Dyuf was aware of the purpose behind the villain brothers' visit.

However, I could tell at a glance that he found the situation unpleasant.

Did it never occur to them that Dyuf might harden his heart and throw them into a horde of monsters?

I was dumbfounded by their behavior, but only briefly.

Then it occurred to me that they might have been convinced Dyuf could never do such a thing.

Dyuf had worked as a professor at Valhalla Academy for only two weeks, while his daughter Helga had perfectly concealed her true personality throughout the previous year.

They could not possibly have known about Dyuf's kind nature and concluded from that knowledge that he would never harm them.

They simply dismissed him and looked down on him.

They had insulted him, yet clearly assumed he would never dare harm them.

Moreover, according to Dyuf's explanation, the villain brothers had invoked the names of this body's family and Valtraus, presenting themselves as our guests.

That would have made it difficult for Dyuf to refuse their demand and given him a reason to protect them from the monsters.

After all, Dyuf did not know what sort of relationship we had with them.

Even so, he could have claimed that the Demon Realm was dangerous. Or that people might still be hiding inside awaiting rescue, so he was too busy searching the entire area and continuing the rescue operation. He had plenty of excuses he could have used to stop them from entering the Demon Realm and close the entrance...

Apparently, I was not the only one who had wondered about this. Helga challenged her father outright.

"Why did you agree to that demand, Dad?!"

"Because I was worried about you and Rey. I had already evacuated everyone I rescued, so one could say I had fulfilled my role. But others might not have seen it that way... I wanted to use their coercion as an excuse to come and help you. Looking at the situation now, it seems that wasn't necessary after all."

"Daaad...!"

Dyuf smiled gently, looking proud of her, and Helga melted with emotion before flinging herself into his arms.

I found it absurd that her father should need to submit to such coercion just to come and rescue his own children.

Nevertheless, I had to admit that the sight before me was heartwarming.