.｡.:✧ Chapter 2 ✧:.｡.

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Translated By Arcane Translations
Translator: FusionX
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“…What the fuck.”

What was this? I was scared.

Although a system message had suddenly appeared, there was something more important than the mysterious message itself.

Possession, reincarnation, regression – in addition to various other situations that only occurred in novels – what should we do first when faced with them?

Should we try to grasp the situation? Search for the cause? Or simply enjoy and live the new life given to us?

All of those were incorrect answers.

The very first action that the reincarnated, regressed, or possessed should take was incredibly simple.

“Status window!”

I shouted loudly, not caring about the attention of those around me. I was utterly convinced that the game system would manifest before me.

However, no matter how loudly I called for the status window, it did not appear.

Well, the status window hadn’t appeared even when I first became aware of my reincarnation, so it was no surprise that it wouldn’t appear now either.

“…What window?”

“I don’t know. It sounded like it came from the young master’s room.”

All I heard were the murmurs of the servants and maids passing by the hallway outside my room.

If only the status window had appeared, I would have endured the embarrassment. But since it didn’t, I had to bear the full brunt of my belated foolishness.

“If that’s the case, don’t make me have false hopes.”

*Snort* *Tsk* These days, systems really do like to tease people.

It felt as if a robotic voice was asking in my ear, “Did you really think the status window would appear, human?” All the excitement from before had vanished, and only then could I calmly examine the notification window, or whatever it was, without any agitation.

– System synchronization complete. Primary heroines will now regress.

– Eileen, the Archduchess, regresses. Eileen becomes aware that she has regressed and is confused.

– Lassiel, the Admiral, regresses. Upon realizing her regression, Lassiel immediately turns the fleet she had just deployed back towards the home port.

– Princess Elena regresses. Elena ponders the past before her regression as she prepares to inspect the Weiss County.

– Sylphia regresses. Aware of her regression, Sylphia abandons the hibernation she was preparing for and immediately begins seeking new amusement.

– Arwen regresses. Recalling the past before her regression, Arwen sheds tears, then pushes open the coffin lid and rises.

“The primary heroines are regressing…?”

The still-persistent system message displayed an array of unrecognizable names and identities.

From what I could gather, it seemed that after the system synchronization was complete, the primary heroines regressed. However, I had no way of knowing who these primary heroines were at the moment.

This was a world where gender roles were reversed, so if I tried to do anything, my father would appear and scold me sharply, “Hmph! A noble should conduct themselves more properly!” It was a chaotic world.

On top of that, we were a rural county stuck in the countryside. We might have been called counts, but we were really just rural nobles – it wouldn’t be strange if we were referred to as “Count Bumpkins” or “Count Peasants.”

If I were to ask the Empress who ruled this empire – or simply the Emperor in this gender-reversed world – “The Weiss County…? I think there was a house like that…?” she would probably respond that way, which tells you how insignificant we were.

“I have no idea about this.”

Unlike the three whose titles or ranks gave me some clues about their status, I had no idea who Sylphia and Arwen were.

Hibernation? Amusement? Coffin? From the descriptions, they seemed to be non-human heroines.

Hmm, a tough case.

I solemnly pondered, wracking my brain for any information from the memories I had gathered in this rural area. It was only after that lengthy process that I could arrive at a conclusion.

“…I don’t know.”

First, Princess Elena. She was definitely a princess, but I didn’t even know the name of the princess of this empire I lived in.

No, I’m not lying – I really didn’t know.

An information asymmetry.

Of course, the amount and quality of information known to the son of a prime minister working in the imperial capital would be vastly different from that known to the son of a rural count.

The Weiss County was an area known for agriculture and flour milling, so I had a rough idea of how much flour could be produced from a certain amount of wheat. But I had no clue about the political situation unfolding in the capital.

My mother might know, but when I considered asking her, I immediately dismissed the idea. If I suddenly showed interest in those individuals, I wouldn’t have a good answer for why.

I stood there muttering to myself like a mute with a stuffy chest for quite a while.

Then, a brilliant idea struck me.

“The newspaper.”

Even in this rural area, my mother consistently subscribed to newspapers. Our territory might have been in the middle of nowhere, but the soil was fertile and the summers were dry, making for good farming conditions. That’s why I said we lived a prosperous life, even if we weren’t wealthy.

So my mother indulged in the rather expensive hobby of subscribing to the daily newspaper from the capital, which was quite pricey since printing it with metal type, gathering news, and writing articles in this era was no small endeavor.

For that reason, she kept all the newspapers she had read, stacking them neatly instead of throwing them away. If I read those newspapers, perhaps I could solve this mystery.

If they were important enough to be called the primary heroines, they must have been mentioned in the newspaper at least once or twice.

“Could I be… a genius…?”

As I had felt since being able to smoothly teach myself magic, I might have had an unexpected talent for intellectual pursuits in this world.

Magic was said to be a difficult subject, but at least for me, I had been self-studying from magic books for the past three years without hitting any roadblocks.

“Ahem, ahem.”

Leaving my self-praise at that, I opened the door with a grin. Then I stopped a passing maid and said,

“Excuse me…”

“Yes, young master? What is it?”

“Sorry, but could you bring me the newspapers my mother has finished reading and kept?”

“…The newspapers?”

Perhaps it was an unexpected request. The maid blinked her eyes before nodding.

“Understood, please wait a moment.”

“Yeah, thanks.”

The maid I had asked hurried away, and I returned to my room to wait patiently. I didn’t feel like leisurely reading a magic book, as this was the first event to occur in nearly twenty years of my reincarnated life, leaving me quite flustered. I didn’t think I could focus on the contents of a book.

After waiting for the maid to arrive…

*Knock knock*

“Come in.”

“I’ve brought all the newspapers that weren’t thrown away, young master.”

“Yeah, thank you. You worked hard.”

“Not at all. Call me if you need anything else.”

The maid responded with an awkward smile before leaving, perhaps because I didn’t usually give orders or make requests of the servants and maids in the manor.

All that remained was the thick pile of newspapers stacked on my desk.

Chuckling at how they were bound with a string reminiscent of my previous life, I immediately began checking today’s newspaper first.

International affairs, policies within the empire, incidents and accidents in the capital, and simple gossip.

This was like…

“Hmm, it’s shockingly no different from my previous life.”

The sections – international news, politics, entertainment, incidents and accidents, etc. – were exactly the same as newspaper platforms from my previous life. Of course, the design wasn’t as sophisticated due to the limitations of the era.

I stared intently at the tiny printed letters until my eyes started to hurt, tossing aside newspapers after reading them and picking up new ones to scrutinize their contents once more.

After spending over thirty minutes straining my eyes like this, I was able to confirm three out of the five names from the system message.

“So in the end, I could only find these three.”

They were the names I had expected.

Each time I confirmed a name I was looking for, I had clipped the relevant newspaper article with scissors. The contents written on those clippings were:

“…Her Grace Eileen Nord, Archduchess of the Northern Nord Duchy of the Empire, has personally led a knight order to depart on an expedition to subjugate monsters.”

The passage I read line by line was related to Archduchess Eileen of the North, who the system said had become aware of her regression and was confused.

“Recently, Admiral Lassiel Castol, who subjugated a group of pirates terrorizing the southern seas, put on a performance burning 56 captured pirate ships as spoils of war…”

The next passage was about Admiral Lassiel of the South, who had immediately turned her newly deployed fleet back towards the home port upon realizing her regression.

“This time it says, ‘Her Highness the Second Princess Elena Estgellant achieved the honor of winning the equestrian tournament held in the capital, defeating all the formidable knights in attendance…'”

And in the most recent newspaper, there was an article about Second Princess Elena Estgellant winning an equestrian tournament in the capital, defeating all the powerful knights present.

Of course, there were many other articles about these three individuals as well.

However, I still could not find the names of two out of the five mentioned by the system.

‘Sylphia’, who had abandoned her planned hibernation to immediately seek new amusement, and ‘Arwen’, who had shed tears before pushing open a coffin lid and rising – no matter how thoroughly I searched through the past six months’ worth of newspapers, I could not find their names anywhere.

Well, that was to be expected. If the descriptions indicated they were non-human races, it made sense that their names would not appear in the human-published newspapers of the empire.

According to the clues provided by the system, those two were probably…

“Hibernation and amusement, so… Sylphia is likely a dragon. And Arwen is… an undead? A vampire? I can’t tell which from just ‘coffin.'”

If my guesses were correct, Sylphia’s race was almost certainly a dragon, but with only the clue of “coffin” for Arwen, I couldn’t tell if she was a regular undead or a vampire. I supposed I would find out if I met them directly…

“…This isn’t a time to be pleased.”

The system had said that the five primary heroines of this world had regressed. I truly didn’t know why they had regressed. After all, I wasn’t the one who regressed, so how could I know?

But one was the Archduchess of the North, another was the Second Princess of the Estgellant Empire, and another was an Admiral commanding a great fleet in the South. On top of that, one was confirmed to be a dragon?

I didn’t even need to consider the unidentified race of Arwen. There were already plenty of formidable individuals.

…Though I wasn’t sure if a dragon could be called an “individual”, but anyway!

This “big event” of the system appearing for the first time in twenty years of reincarnation might actually have been a time bomb.

What rotten luck I had. Not only was I reincarnated into a gender-reversed world, but now this was happening too.

I’d rather die than suffer through this.

After letting out a long sigh, I was about to put away the read newspapers when a memory from my previous life suddenly surfaced.

The Archduchess of the North.

Not the Crown Prince, but the Second Princess.

The Admiral of the South.

A dragon.

A vampire.

And the heroine.

…Wait a minute, this was definitely…

“…the plot of a romance fantasy novel I had read, wasn’t it?”

The Archduchess of the North and the Admiral of the South – those were clichéd occupations used for the male leads. So they alone wouldn’t be enough evidence. However, if you added in the non-human races of a dragon and a vampire, which appeared far less frequently than dragons…

If there were a total of five male leads, including the main male lead and sub-male leads…

My head spun for a moment. I definitely remembered it now. But in that novel, the Estgellant Empire was spelled slightly differently as the “Estjellant” Empire, and the names of places and people were off by one letter each, which was why I hadn’t noticed until now.

A romance fantasy novel about Ludvia Bayan, a young noblewoman of the agriculturally prosperous rural Bayan County.

“…Oh my god.”

Suspicion turned to certainty. If my guess was correct, then I had reincarnated into the world of a romance fantasy novel I had read before – in the same way as being reincarnated into a novel world.

Not only that, but all the characters had undergone a complete gender swap reversal into this distorted world.

…And I was the protagonist.

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