How To Live As An Academy Extra Villain

2 – Awareness (2)

“Ahh…”

I left the conference room and headed to a bench by the lakeshore on campus.

I roughly grasped the situation, but there were still many things I needed to sort out.

I had to get a handle on the circumstances of this life, and decide a general course of action.

How did I end up tangled in this crazy situation anyway?

In my past life, I was hit by a car and died instantly while taking an evening walk, a tired old cliche.

Well, it’s not like they were good memories, but I don’t have any lingering attachments either. I had an incurable illness in my previous life, and at the end I was so bad I could barely go on walks, so my quality of life had completely hit rock bottom.

That was probably why I couldn’t avoid the car.

Anyway, the past is already over, what’s important are the matters of this world I have to live in now.

As my illness worsened in my past life, I could do less and less outside, so as a hobby I could still manage, I turned to reading web novels.

And from the revived memories and names of characters I encountered earlier, this is definitely the world of the last web novel I read in my past life.

The title was…definitely ‘I Became a Munchkin Knight at the Academy’.

It was a novel I read a couple times since it was pretty interesting, so the contents remained in my head to some degree.

But it wasn’t really a novel with anything special despite the seemingly ordinary premise. A world with a strange mix of medieval and modern elements, an oddly anachronistic academy, monsters, magic, demi-humans – just one of many common fantasy academy stories.

If I had to name a distinguishing trait, it would be the story proceeding pitilessly without plot armor due to the author’s whims.

The main character, blonde-haired, blue-eyed pretty boy Eugene, was born to a poor peasant couple and living an ordinary rural life, but one day, a church inquisitor discovers he has a late mana awakening.

Recognizing his talent, the bishop who was his guardian gave Eugene his letter of recommendation, and Eugene ended up admitted to the continent’s top institution, St. Clifford Academy.

There he meets various heroines and gets caught up in all kinds of incidents, which could be called the rough outline of this novel.

But contrary to the seemingly mediocre premise, there was a considerable number who really disliked this novel.

Despite the page views, recommendations were always lacking, and if you sorted by recommendations, you’d have to go several pages in to find this story.

The reasons commonly given for disliking this novel were the main character’s black-and-white morality and blatantly manipulative nature, and the plot progresses messily.

But I was already in too deep and shamelessly binged to the latest chapter, and even applied to be a beta tester for the game that was announced, playing for quite a while.

The game quality was pretty decent.

Made in an open world style, you could freely traverse the entire continent, and the stories and interactions with the protagonist and side characters were implemented well.

There were even several hidden items prepared that didn’t exist in the original novel, earning various elements of the game high praise from players.

But since the game was prepared while the original was still ongoing, various plotholes emerged or bugs kept popping up, so interest waned, and once the beta test period ended I deleted the game and went back to binging the web novel.

And it was right then that I got into the traffic accident that killed me.

***

After organizing the memories from my past life to some extent, I could grasp my current circumstances more coolly.

I went to the lakeshore and checked the reflection of my appearance.

What was shown was typically southern features, with dark black hair, dull gray irises, and somewhat dark skin as the most noticeable traits.

And while I couldn’t be sure exactly, I seemed considerably tall compared to others.

But the problem wasn’t my face, it was elsewhere.

‘Just how much do I weigh…’

What kind of life did I live before regaining my memories?

There wasn’t an inch on my body not overflowing with fat.

With a tall build covered thickly in fat, if I just put on a loincloth exaggerating a bit, I could probably pass as a troll.

I’d never been overweight, let alone obese in my past life, always underweight if anything.

The oily voice reverberating from my thick vocal cords and feeling of the multiple folds of flesh between my armpits and thighs was an extremely unpleasant shock to me.

I determined dieting would have to always be top priority no matter what I did.

Just imagining living the rest of my life buried in this lump of fat was dreadful, and judging by my facial features, it seemed I wouldn’t look too bad if I could just lose the fat.

Anyway, I had the willpower now to lose weight whenever.

What I had to address immediately wasn’t my body fat, but something else.

‘Edwin Reed’

That’s my name in this life.

And this guy… I’m a minor villain who appears early on in ‘I Became a Munchkin Knight at the Academy’, also used as a plot device for the main character Eugene to get closer to the heroine.

Because Eugene entered the academy suddenly by recommendation, he didn’t have time to separately prepare for the entrance exam, and though he tried his best, due to various happenings he ends up assigned to the worst Class F.

Being recommended usually means you’ve been guaranteed a certain level of skill and education by your guardian.

Yet despite that, Eugene ended up assigned to the lowest class, so he became a laughingstock and was bullied in various petty ways by many noble students.

Eugene didn’t care much about being bullied himself, but one day he saw his friend he’d gotten close with in class had been tied up and was being tormented as retaliation.

And who was he being bullied by, needless to say, it was me of course.

Edwin Reed lost his mother at a young age and lacked proper discipline growing up, and as the precious eldest son who would inherit the family, he was doted on excessively and spent his childhood pampered.

Having gone through the important developmental period forming his personality that way, Edwin ended up with a deeply flawed character.

At the academy, Edwin meets two other noble students who share similar mindsets and conspires with them.

It was amidst their harassment of commoner students who irritated them that this incident occurred.

Anyway, Eugene, no longer able to hold back his anger, confronted them and a huge fight broke out, but the academy’s security force happened to arrive at the scene and arrested both sides.

During the pre-hearing process before the disciplinary committee, Eugene comes face to face with 2nd year top student Petricia Austin, head of the student council disciplinary committee, and recognizing Eugene’s character and abilities during this process, Petricia strongly argues for his self-defense.

Thanks to her efforts, Eugene ends up receiving the lightest punishment of only 72 hours of community service.

After this, through experiencing various incidents together, Petricia’s contact with Eugene increases, and she eventually falls for him and becomes the heroine.

That was how the original story progressed.

‘And I became the device for that…’

Realizing my fate was to be used up as a plot device in someone else’s love story doesn’t feel great, but it wasn’t really that important either.

It’s someone else’s business now, and more pressingly, I have another problem I need to resolve first.

***

I was sorting through my thoughts for a while gazing at the lakeshore when someone approached me from behind and spoke.

“There you are, Edwin.”

Now who would approach and speak to me first here?

From noble mtl dot com

And a girl at that.

Calling me by name means we must be quite close… Going through my memories, I could think of only one person that could be.

A sense of ill omen suddenly assaults me.

I slowly turned to face the speaker and let out an involuntary sigh upon confirming her identity.

A female student was standing before me.

Her waist-length, wavy brown hair glittered as it reflected the sunlight, and her oval, egg-shaped face with well-balanced features unconsciously drew exclamations of admiration from any who saw her.

That beautiful girl was staring right at me with a cold expression.

“I was looking for you since we need to talk, I didn’t expect to find you wasting time in a place like this.”

And I know who this girl is.

“There’s still plenty of time before the expulsion deadline, so I’m sure you can spare some time to speak with me briefly. I…have something to tell you.”

“…Iris.”

The girl’s name is Iris Robinet.

My fiancee, and the problem I need to resolve first and foremost right now.

And a character who appeared as a major heroine in the original work.