I Reincarnated as the Villain in an Eroge, But Before I Realized, I Became a Capture Target
Translator: Reo
Editor: PalenMisha
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Luca POV 1 – Part 1
Author’s note:
This is the beginning of Luca’s story. It will take quite a while to catch up to the main story and for us to meet Zagan, so I hope you join me on this journey.
*This is just a supplement to the main story. Reading it is not necessary.
From the moment I was born, my life had been smooth sailing.
My father was the crown prince, I was born as his second son, so I didn’t have to deal with any inconveniences, and our family got along well. It was the same for my relatives who worked at the castle. They were all very serious people and, though kind, would properly scold me when needed.
Sometimes though, I’d be told that I was special. The reason for that was simple – I was a light attribute user, someone with the same attribute as the god Soleil.
About a thousand years ago, an Evil God appeared out of nowhere and tried to ruin the kingdom. Soleil was the one who faced that Evil God, and though he managed to protect the kingdom, he collapsed together with the Evil God. However, rather than disappearing, Soleil went into a deep slumber. Since then, the Evil God had returned every few decades, but Soleil never woke up.
As a result, the number of light attribute users, of which there had been many in the past, had rapidly decreased, and it had become extremely rare for one to be born.
Which was why they called me special.
I was happy to be special, but because of that, there were some nobles around who’d say impertinent things like – “If Luca-sama is crowned king, our country will prosper even more.”
Back then, I was too young to understand the intention behind their words. Was their goal to turn me into their puppet and rule the kingdom from the shadows? Or did they wish to destroy the imperial family from within by pitting me against my father and brother?
No matter their reasoning, even if I was a light attribute user, and even if I grew to be superior to my brother, I had no intention of becoming the king.
Why? Because in the Soleil kingdom, the firstborn always inherited the throne. No matter if they were male or female, or what attribute they had, this custom had never changed. In this country’s five thousand years of history, not once had someone other than the firstborn become king.
By the way, those rude nobles who said such things would always disappear from the castle before I could even blink.
In the best-case scenario, they’d be banished from the castle, and, usually, they were stripped of their noble title.
The ones who meted out the nobles’ punishment were the ministers. In Soleil, after the king, the six ministers held the most power. They were the ones who supported this kingdom.
I’m jumping subjects here, but as the secondborn, I received a different kind of education than my brother.
In roughly fifty years, when my brother would become the king, it would be my duty as his younger brother to protect him. In order to do that, I needed to be proficient in armed combat. This was why, since the age of five, I’d had different specialised tutors who taught me swordsmanship and magic and trained me to fight.
My swordsmanship teacher was selected from the royal guards. He was an old knight, close to retirement, who had served my grandfather, the previous king for many years. My magic teacher was the vice commander of the imperial mages.
I knew the old knight because I’d always seen him by grandfather’s side, but I’d never met the mage’s vice commander before. However, he was a hero who played a large role in the fight against the Evil God twelve years ago, and was said to have been the one to reseal it. He was probably an amazing person.
When I finally met the hero Lyle Brady, he looked very manly and cool. And, as someone who became vice commander of the imperial mages at the age of 30, his demeanour was confident.
“I am Lyle Brady. Uh, should I call you Your Highness Luca?”
“Yes, please do. I will call you Lyle-sensei.”
“Understood. Then first things first, let’s measure how much mana you have, Your Highness, shall we?”
I’d heard he used to be a commoner, but he didn’t try to butter me up as a prince, nor did he look down on me as a child. His speech and mannerisms were a bit rough, but that suited his hero persona.
He was a much better person than I’d originally imagined.
I had sessions with Lyle-sensei for two hours three times a week. After learning the theory of things like the basics of mana and the structure of the magic cell, I learned all kinds of things, from mana manipulation to strengthening my body to learning new types of magic. However, the things Sensei taught me didn’t quite fit with the mana I could feel around me, so I didn’t make much progress with mana manipulation or magic. Sensei didn’t make fun of me though. He just laughed, saying that everyone had something they were bad at.
My lessons with him were very fun.
Around one year and ten months after Sensei started teaching me, we took a break from our lessons.
Apparently, someone had broken into his mansion and destroyed half of it. I heard that this person broke in in an attempt to kill Sensei, a hero, but that was just hearsay so I didn’t know if it was true.
Sensei himself was unharmed, but his wife had been seriously injured, and by a curse no less, so she couldn’t be healed. Anyway, since such a horrible thing happened to his family, it seemed he wouldn’t be returning to the castle soon.
An irrevocable curse. In other words, the culprit was a dark attribute user. Someone who had the same attribute as the Evil God, who was trying to destroy this kingdom. They specialised in assassination techniques, curse magic, and summoning monsters. They were dangerous-sounding people. Also, lurking somewhere in this country was a group of assassins made up of dark attribute users – the Dark Organization, who killed many.
These reasons were enough to consider dark attribute users evil, to the point that people say that you should kill a dark attribute user the moment they are born.
But something about that kept bothering me. It was the fact that the first queen of the Soleil kingdom had been a dark attribute user.
This is a fact that comes up whenever you read a history book, but did no one think anything of it?
She was someone who had been loved by the first king, a light attribute user, and was protected by his friends, the original four grand dukes. I couldn’t think of such a person as evil.
Was I having these thoughts because I didn’t know much about the Evil God? Because I didn’t know much about society…?
Perhaps because I was still a kid, I had a naïve view of the world.
Which was why I tried asking my family. In particular, my brother, who I was close to.
“So what do you think, Aniue?”1
I was seven when I asked that question and my brother was thirteen.
“Yeah… it’s true that the first queen supported the first king, was devoted to him, and was said to be a wonderful person. But that was something from five thousand years ago, right? The Evil God first appeared around a thousand years ago. In those one thousand years, people’s thoughts have changed little by little. For example, if the Evil God were to kill me, how would you feel? Would you think nothing of it?” Aniue had replied with a troubled smile.
“I’d be… very sad.”
“That’s right. If Luca were killed, I’d also be very sad and I’d resent the Evil God. When a lot of such feelings accumulate, as a thousand years pass, they start to spill over and the resentment starts to spread over to dark attribute users as well. No matter how much they resent the Evil God, they can do nothing against him, so… they found a target, one that was closer to them, that they could direct their hatred towards.”
“Isn’t that horrible though?”
“Yes, it is. But there are some humans who need to look down on others or disdain them in order to preserve themselves, and when that seed is planted, discrimination is born.”
“Discrimination…”
“Luca, you don’t need to think that hard about it. Something that was once considered good can now be thought bad and vice versa. Everything is constantly changing with the times. This is what we call history.”
It was the kind of convincing answer I’d have expected from my kind and discerning brother.
About two months went by before Lyle-sensei returned to the castle. He looked exhausted. Though he greeted me with a smile, he was clearly forcing himself. His whole body exuded fatigue, and every now and again he’d suddenly make a pained expression or let out a sigh.
“Sensei, if it’s too much, maybe you should rest for longer.”
“My bad. Sorry for worrying you.”
He’d sometimes use rude words, but this was the first time he ever patted me on the head. He stared at his hand as if startled and then his face contorted like he was about to cry.
To me, it didn’t look like he hated the assailant. It was as if he blamed himself.
“When did I… stop patting him on the head…?”
He seemed to be filled with a deep, deep regret.
