Rolls.
Rolls.
I was now in a carriage headed for the academy, and the day had finally come, the day I'd get to meet the main characters of this third rate story, and whoever created this world is one hell of a sick bastard who deserves to be hung upside down and castrated by wolves on a rotating schedule for the rest of eternity.
Not only did they make the protagonist, that womanizing piece of shit who stole his best friend's fiancée, the original Kael's fiancée, and God knows how many other poor bastards' fiancées as well, they made him so obscenely overpowered that the rest of us were basically decorative corpses waiting for our turn, and people like me stayed useless right up until they died.
Fortunately, I know how this story goes, so my first objective, having already had the misfortune of experiencing what being near Helene does to me, is to avoid all of them entirely, and the plan is to fail the entrance so spectacularly that I either get dumped into the extradition class that gets shipped off to the military after the first year, or get rejected outright, and if that happens then I can skip my backup plans entirely and slide cleanly out of the plot.
But if it doesn't work out that way...
Sighs.
...then plan B.
"I really don't want this."
Plan B is to go after the protagonist's childhood sweetheart, she's probably the only girl in this entire story with enough brain cells to not fall for that ugly son of a bitch on sight, so the idea is to use my completely undeniable good looks to make her fall for me, get her to be my girlfriend, maybe even propose if it comes to that, which would give me the ultimate shield and make surviving the remaining arcs significantly more manageable, and on top of that I could convince her to run away with me if things got too dangerous toward the end.
I do have other targets lined up in case that falls through.
There's the one with the obsession issue, the psycho with the curiosity problem, but that's a last resort and only if the first option fails completely, because if I can help it I want nothing to do with that girl, the guy she was obsessed with in the original story ended up dead, and she's the one who killed him, so yeah, hard pass unless I'm completely out of options.
There are other targets beyond those two, though none of them are as stable or as reliable.
Then there's plan C, plan D, plan E...
Oh, and plan F, which is sacrificing half my life force to summon demons and level the entire academy.
...which I should mention would also kill me, so that one is strictly a revenge scenario, the kind where I've already confirmed my death is inevitable and I've decided if I'm going out then every last one of those bastards is coming with me.
Plan G, plan H, plan I, which is bribing a woman to seduce and poison the protagonist, though knowing how these stories work she'd probably fall for him before she got anywhere near the poison, so that one is low on the list.
...probably.
Anyway, I'm pretty sure my plans go all the way down to Z and then loop back around, plan AA, plan AB, and so on, I've had a lot of time alone to think.
Grruuuuu!!!
Huh?
The carriage stopped, no warning, no slowing down, it just stopped, and my first thought was bandits, so I looked out the window and spotted one of the knights already moving up ahead.
"Priston, what's going on?" I asked.
"We spotted a broken carriage up ahead, my lord, the insignia belongs to the Goldbane Family."
"Goldbane?"
"Yes, my lord."
"Tsk, go around," I said.
I know the Goldbane House, they're a grand duke nobility, which technically puts them above us in ranking, but then again, do I give a single solitary fuck?
Wait, I don't.
Hahahahahaha!
"My lord, the lady has sent her men to block the road entirely, she's requesting to speak with you."
"What..."
She?!
Of course, of absolutely course I'm running into these idiots before I've even gotten there, because why would anything be simple.
If Selena Goldbane is in that carriage then her twin brother is there too, and if those two are together right now then I genuinely don't want to find out what happens next.
"Turn around and take the other route," I told Priston.
"My lord, the other route is known for bandit activity," he said carefully.
Sighs.
Those two are main characters, I can't get tangled up with them, not now, not this early...
"COME OUT, YOU COWARD!!!"
What the hell?!
That voice was close, way too close, so I looked out the window and our eyes met immediately, and well, there she was.
"I've always heard about your rotten attitude but I didn't think it would be this bad, how can you just not help someone who needs it?"
"Turn around," I said simply, sat back, and pulled the curtain shut so I wouldn't have to look at her face, which, fine, calling it a stupid face would be a blatant lie, but that's beside the point.
"Kael! I swear if you don't come out right now I will make your life miserable the next time we cross paths!"
Does this woman know me? Can someone please explain to me why she's talking to me like we have history, because this should be the first time we've ever laid eyes on each other, so why the hell is she acting like a scorned ex?
"Priston!!!" I called out instead, and within moments the carriage had turned and was already moving down the other road.
"Curse you Kael, I hope the bandits tear you apart!!!" That one was unmistakably male, definitely the brother.
There is absolutely no way in hell I'm helping those two ungrateful snakes, and as much as I can't stand the protagonist I did feel some level of pity watching them stab him in the back at the worst possible moment, so no, the protagonist has plot armor as thick as three planets stacked together, he could probably stab himself in the heart and walk it off, but I on the other hand am quite literally scheduled to die, so no, not a chance.