Chapter 1

Chapter 1

My Childhood Friend Was the Heroine of a Romance Fantasy.

What is a romance fantasy?

A novel where a lowborn heroine gains tremendous power, seduces men of tremendous status, suffers tremendously, and then lives happily ever after~.

At least, that was how I understood it. To begin with, I only ever devoured fantasy or modern-day stories, so romance fantasy was pretty far removed from my interests.

Looking back now, I regret that a little. Why?

Because I fell into the world of a romance fantasy!

***

Once upon a time, there lived a twenty-five-year-old man named Lee Heejin. He spent his days working hard to prepare for employment.

Then one day, after finishing a part-time job and heading home, he lost consciousness! And when he woke up...

“So it’s a fantasy world.”

A beautiful world where magic existed, monsters roamed, and even a Demon King was real.

“Henry!! Don’t die!”

“Who are you?”

“You don’t remember me? I’m sorry! It was my fault!”

When I came to after losing consciousness, I saw a blonde girl clinging to my side and bawling her eyes out.

Seriously, who was she again?

Maybe because I’d only just become aware of my previous life, memories from back then were flooding in like a revolving lantern and crashing into the memories of my current life.

“Who am I?”

“You forgot who you are? How could you! Do you have any idea how worried we were?!”

“Hold on a second, kids.”

“K-kids? You’re a kid too. He got hit in the head and now he’s acting weird. What do we do?”

Hmm... All right, let’s retrace my memories one step at a time. Who am I... Who am I? Obviously, I’m Lee Heejin. But aside from that, who am I here?

“Ah, my head...”

“Henry! Don’t be hurt!”

“No, Rose, I mean, why did you... Ah.”

“You remember!”

Henry Green. Eleven years old. Orphan. Abandoned in a field as a child and picked up by an orphanage.

Guess I must’ve chosen immunity to orphan jokes as my reincarnation bonus.

And standing in front of me was Rose Branda. The reason I was lying in a hospital bed right now, the only daughter of the baron who ruled this rural backwater, and my childhood friend of six years.

And apparently, I was also considered one of the village’s three little troublemakers...

“So that’s it. This is what it feels like.”

When you read web novels, there are plenty of cases where a character feels a disconnect between their current self and their previous-life self. As a reader, you usually think, They’re both you, so what’s the problem?

But now that I was actually in that situation, it felt complicated in all sorts of ways. Like I was myself and yet somehow wasn’t.

I was undeniably twenty-five-year-old Lee Heejin, and also eleven-year-old Henry Green.

“I’m glad you woke up, Henry. If you’d died, it would’ve left a stain on my life.”

“You’re not going to apologize?”

“Apologize? Are you demanding an apology from a baron’s daughter right now?”

“Oh, already abusing your authority? What a moment to start craving a proletarian revolution.”

“Prole...? What do we do! Look, he really did turn weird!”

“How do I even put this...”

Should I reveal that I remembered my previous life or not? That was the question.

If I told them, wouldn’t there be a one hundred percent chance they’d decide I’d gone insane and ship me off to some asylum? The thought alone was horrifying.

But if this was a previous-life situation, what kind was it?

“Henry? Henry~ Don’t tell me you broke? Did I use Henry too much?”

“Watch how you phrase things, you idiot!”

“Eek! Henry’s trying to hit me!”

“Rose, I told you, if you’re a noble, then act like...”

Ah, I remembered. No, I had remembered something I shouldn’t have. A web novel from my previous life.

Please Act Like a Noble, My Lady~! Or P.A.N.M.L. for short. The important thing was that it had been famous, for better or worse, and despite being a romance fantasy, it was a web novel even I had heard of.

People used to spread its illustrations everywhere because the female characters were pretty, and Rose looked almost exactly like one of them. Her name was similar too. So what did that mean? There was no mistaking it.

The problem was that I knew next to nothing about the actual story. All I knew was that the protagonist was a hero and her goal was to defeat the Demon King.

It hadn’t even been completed back then. I had no idea whether the story started at the academy and ended when the academy arc did, or whether it continued afterward.

If I’d simply thought I had been transported into some fantasy world, that would’ve been one thing. But realizing I’d been transported into a romance fantasy whose plot and developments I knew nothing about made my blood run cold.

“Henry? Why’d you stop in the middle of talking? Henry?”

When I kept silent, Rose must have grown anxious because she started poking my cheek.

“It’s nothing. Do whatever you want.”

“Huh?”

Rose’s shock was obvious. Her eyes wavered, and her body stiffened slightly.

From Rose’s perspective, I was the childhood friend who had been with her since we were little. The close friend who always called her out whenever she did something. If that friend suddenly stopped doing that, she’d probably think I had given up on her or was trying to distance myself.

“Are you... really mad? Um... Want me to give you something to eat?”

“I’m really fine. I just have a lot to think about. Could you leave for today?”

“Huh? O-okay. Let’s go...”

Rose fidgeted helplessly before backing out of the room. A short while later, the door opened and the orphanage director came in.

“How are you feeling?”

“I’m fine.”

“I see. Your friend looked rather flustered. Are you all right?”

“Yes, I’m fine.”

“That’s good. Then I’ll leave you be as well. You look deeply troubled. At times like these, a person needs some time alone.”

“Thank you.”

“Oh, it’s nothing.”

The director gave me a warm smile before leaving the room.

And then I was alone. Lying on the bed and staring up at the ceiling, all sorts of thoughts swirled through my head.

I knew practically nothing about romance fantasy. The only things I knew were clichés I’d seen online, web novels that twisted romance-fantasy clichés, and clichés I’d read about on Namu*iki.

The most important question was whether or not I had existed in the original story.

“That’s the most important part.”

For now, I could divide the possibilities into three cases.

First, I appeared in the backstory. In that case, there was a high chance I was already dead. Then I’d show up in a flashback when the protagonist powered up, and she’d declare that she’d grow stronger for such-and-such reason!

Second, I was a supporting male lead. You know how it goes. Since time immemorial, childhood friends have had such strong wife energy that they became a symbol of inevitable defeat. If that weren’t true, there wouldn’t be an entire childhood-friend genre built around it.

Third, my reincarnation caused me to exist here when I originally hadn’t. That would probably be the best option.

Then let’s make an educated guess based on what I remember about the original. As far as I knew, the protagonist was a tomboy. In other words, exactly like Rose was right now.

There were also quite a lot of male leads. Enough that there was even a meme that went, Oho~ The number of male leads is rising.

Then what about the plot? If I remembered correctly, the heroine ran around causing trouble, got tangled up with various male leads, and those men gradually fell for her because they were drawn to her assertive personality.

At least from that alone, there wasn’t really any place for me to appear... Ah. Right. There was one romance-fantasy cliché.

Male leads were never ordinary commoners. And even if one was, he would have some extraordinary ability or a hidden identity.

“Good. Then the conclusion is either option one or option three.”

Let’s theorize. Usually, web-novel protagonists have some sort of deficiency. The story is about filling that deficiency. And that deficiency becomes the basis for their actions.

If I died for some reason, would Rose forget about me? No. Absolutely not. A romance-fantasy protagonist wasn’t that kind of character.

If I showed up in her memories later, readers would probably react like, Oh my gosh, she still remembers that too, she really is the protagonist. Sob, sob, so sad.

So I die, Rose can’t forget me, and that makes her act even more like a tomboy. Why? Because she’d be searching for a substitute for me while also proving that she never forgot me.

Option three made sense too. If I had never existed, then it would make perfect sense for her to grow up spoiled rotten and carry that personality all the way to the academy.

“So what am I supposed to do?”

Survive. I’d been given a second life, after all. Let’s survive and live happily.

Then what did I need to do in order to survive?

“Rule of romance fantasy. Trouble happens one hundred percent of the time around the protagonist.”

Wherever the heroine went, opportunities awaited her, and because those opportunities had to be earned, trials came with them. In short, she was destined to suffer.

Go to a ball, and a villainess appeared. Go to the academy, and the academy got attacked by terrorists. A protagonist was basically a walking bomb.

Therefore.

“I distance myself from Rose.”

And that wasn’t all. Male leads in romance fantasy always had some deficiency too. Why? Because the protagonist had to fill it so they would fall in love with her.

Once they fell for her, those male leads became machines that existed solely for the heroine. That meant I needed to avoid them. I had to cut ties with her.

“...It can’t be helped.”

I wanted my second life to be a little easier too.

***

After that day, I avoided Rose for several days under the excuse that my head still hurt. Then, for a while after that, I worked hard to hide from her whenever she tried to track me down.

It was a very calculated decision based on the belief that, given enough time, Rose would stop looking for me.

She was a child. Children got bored of things easily. They also fell out with friends easily and drifted apart. That was what I was counting on from her.

The slight problem was that I didn’t have any other friends.

And so, hiding in the library to read books while avoiding Rose’s gaze became part of my daily routine.

“Henry.”

“Hello, Director.”

“Yes, hello.”

While I was reading, the director approached me and sat down beside me.

“You don’t seem to play with the young lady anymore these days.”

“...We can’t stay friends forever.”

“Why not?”

“Well, she’s a noble.”

“Is that so? Your other friend seems to play with the young lady just fine.”

“He’s...”

I tried to say something, but the words died in my throat beneath the director’s gentle smile.

“Henry, is something wrong? For the past few days, you’ve seemed like a completely different person.”

“Maybe I am. I did get hit pretty hard on the head that day.”

“Hmm. Did something happen?”

The director was a good person. She had devoted her entire life to serving at the orphanage without ever asking for anything in return.

“What if the memories of a previous life suddenly came back?”

“Hmm... I see.”

“I said what if.”

“People often disguise their circumstances as hypotheticals.”

The director chuckled softly and stroked my head.

“You’re still young. Very young. You are you. No matter what you did in a previous life or who you were. The person you are now is still you. You’re getting confused about that.”

“I’m me.”

“Yes, yes. Then what is troubling you?”

“I might go through something really terrible in the future. There’s a high chance of it.”

“How do you know that?”

“I saw a book of prophecy in my previous life.”

“Oh? How interesting. Do you know something?”

The director stood up for a moment and brought over several children’s books.

“This book is about someone who tried to avoid a prophecy, while this one is about someone who accepted it.”

“And?”

“The common point is that the prophecy came true in both. So was the prophecy genuine? Or was it false? Was trying to avoid it the right choice? Or the wrong one?”

The director’s words made my head start hurting a little. What did any of that have to do with what I’d said? Was she telling me I was worrying for nothing?

As if she had read my thoughts, the director gently wrapped me in a hug.

“The answer is that you don’t need to worry about it. Let’s say your prophecy is true. Then it’ll happen anyway, won’t it? In that case, whether you live freely and do what you want or not, the ending will be the same.”

“And if it isn’t true?”

“Then you simply live freely. Wouldn’t it be better to accept the prophecy and live a little more freely than to accept it and spend your life in fear?”

The director slowly rose to her feet and stroked my head one final time.

“You’ve gotten very good at avoiding the young lady.”

“Yes.”

“The fact that you’re avoiding her means, conversely, that you have to devote a great deal of attention to her.”

As always, the director looked at me with a kindly smile.

“Henry. You’re a clever boy, so I trust you understand what I mean. Children can easily drift apart from others, but because they’re children, they can also become intensely attached to things.”

“I know.”

“I’m sorry. That sounded rather preachy. What I mean to say is this: be free however you wish. Don’t let yourself be bound by anything.”

With those words, the director left.

I got up and walked over to a nearby mirror. Reflected there was a gloomy boy overflowing with guilt.

Even if I had a previous life, I was Henry. It was simply as if Lee Heejin had gained about ten extra years of life. That didn’t erase my memories with Rose.

Just as I was Rose’s childhood friend, Rose was my childhood friend too.

Even if my mind belonged to an adult, my body was a child’s, and neither my thoughts nor my heart could entirely escape being childish. So how could I claim to be an adult?

I looked out the window and saw Rose desperately searching for me. Tears clung to her face as she asked every child she met whether they had seen me.

Realistically, if I wanted to grow up without hardship and avoid a miserable future, distancing myself from the protagonist of a romance fantasy was the right choice.

But still. Wasn’t that my friend out there? A very childish, stupid, tomboyish friend at that. Shouldn’t a friend stay by her side and help her? And if the Demon King appeared and she failed...

Forget it. Let’s just be honest. I couldn’t abandon Rose. She was my close friend. That was who Lee Heejin was, and who Henry was. Apparently, I had always been softhearted, in both lives.

Having made up my mind, I headed toward Rose.

“He... Henry.”

The moment she saw me, Rose approached with tears in her eyes.

“Last time... I-I was wrong. Sorry... I’m reawwy sorry and I’ve been thinking about it a lot. C-can you forgive me?”

See? She was pretty even when she cried. No matter how I looked at her, she was a romance-fantasy heroine. Seriously. Romance-fantasy heroines really were some kind of irresistible something. Not that I had fallen for her.

My type was a slightly gloomy, black-haired beauty with faint dark circles and a huge chest. There had to be at least one of those at the academy.

And a sheltered noble girl from the countryside like this definitely needed someone to put on the brakes for her.

“Rose.”

“Mm!”

“I forgive you. I’m sorry for avoiding you too.”

“N-no. Then can we be...”

“Friends.”

“Reawwy?!”

Only then did Rose beam as though the clouds had finally cleared.

But I wasn’t finished yet.

“Rose.”

“Yeah?”

“Do you know what... a romance fantasy is?”

All right, Rose. Let’s feed you the red pill called romance fantasy. Time for some early education.