I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel

“By definition, what is ‘darkening’ (blackening)?
First, literally, it’s the trait of turning physically darker—like the appearance changing to black.
But beyond that, personality, thoughts, and values grow darker and more ruthless.
In the worst cases, the original personality flips completely to its opposite.
Plus, there’s always the baseline of a stats boost.
Simply put, in the worst case, you get a version of Daisy whose personality is dirtier but whose abilities are far superior.
Since Daisy’s flower language roughly means purity, hope, peace—
Black Daisy would probably mean despair, destruction, wouldn’t it?”
“‘It’s fine, isn’t it?’”

Because of that, I immediately glared at Violet and shoved the responsibility onto him.
“I trusted the romance fantasy female lead!”
“The romance fantasy female lead’s darkening—can you stand that?”
“That’s something you really can’t stand!”
In typical romance fantasy plot development, there’s always an unbearable arc like that.
The problem is that you have to endure it.

“You think you can win?”
No matter how absurd Daisy’s growth speed was, she still had a long way to go before beating me.
But since Violet admitted she wielded the overpowered demon lord’s magic sword—and now with the added darkening—I couldn’t guarantee anything.
At least on this side, the Individual Tribe’s warrior squad existed…
But after seeing many awakenings where large forces were wiped out, that was actually a source of anxiety.
“…”

Thus, the darkened Daisy looked at us.
Her hair color, of course, and even her eyes had turned black…
“Huh? Why is my hair this color?”
“…”
“…”
She seemed surprised herself, eyes wide open, starting to touch her hair this way and that.
“A trap?”
“Could be.”

But we weren’t careless.
There’s always a possibility that she’s pretending to be normal like that, only to slash when you get close.
So—
“Alright, you go first.”
“Me?”
“You’re childhood friends.”
“Well, here it’s more boyfriend than childhood friend…”
I wanted to use Violet as bait for now, but Violet seemed to catch on and wanted me to go instead.

“…Daisy?”
In the end, Violet cautiously approached Daisy, who tilted her head as she looked at Violet with black eyes.
If Violet got stabbed there, the fight would start immediately!
“D-Don’t you hear what I’m saying?”
“Hear?”
“That… like ‘Do you want power?’ or something like that.”
“Do I have to hear that?”
“Not exactly…”

But Daisy didn’t seem intent on stabbing Violet.
Instead, she looked at Violet’s sudden nonsense with a strange expression.
“My hair suddenly turned black.”
“Yeah.”
“And my eyes turned black too.”
“Really? I didn’t notice because I wasn’t looking at your eyes. Is it because of the sword?”
Daisy said that and stuck the sword into the ground.

“Huh?”
When she put her hand on the hilt, Violet’s eyes widened seeing Daisy return to her original appearance.
“So it’s just the color that changes?”
“Seems so.”

When Daisy lifted the sword again, her hair and eyes turned black once more.
“A disguise sword?”
“…No way.”
“Right? But it’s the sword the goddess sealed. So what’s the effect?”
“Uh, um, well…”
Still wary, Violet glanced repeatedly at the blade Daisy held as he finished explaining about the magic sword.

“It’s an incredibly good ability. The sword was made by the goddess?”
In response, Violet shook his head with a strange expression.
Roughly, he seemed to be suppressing the urge to say the goddess wasn’t capable of that.
“…Usually, when something is sealed, it’s because it’s dangerous, right?”
“In legends, sometimes it’s sealed so that it doesn’t fall into the hands of those unworthy.”

“Is that so?”
“Yeah. Then if you use this sword, you can absorb and use the opponent’s mana…”

Daisy’s black eyes glowed brightly.
The problem was that the brightly glowing eyes were directed not at Daisy, but at me.
“Let’s have a match!”
“Me?”
“Right.”
“Why?”
“Because I want to test it.”
“But Violet is right here.”
“Fighting a mage with a sword isn’t fun, is it?”
True enough.
In Leon too, the regular matches between sword club and magic club always had similar complaints.
…but how does someone who’s not even a swordsman know that?
Maybe I should persuade him to switch clubs for real this time.
“If you don’t want to?”
“…Well, then the price of cheating? Setting up a fight with an angry girlfriend?”
“Why don’t you just break up?”
“There aren’t many months left anyway. Basically, when we return from Lias to the academy, it’s over.”
“Well, then it can’t be helped.”

I couldn’t just let a budding swordsman from Leon go unnoticed.
It might cause trouble if she switches to swordsmanship and gets involved with Prince Ellen…
But aside from club activities, others would understand her trying not to get tangled with Prince Ellen, her ex, during classes.
If it’s Prince Ellen… he might leave me and go to Daisy, but since it’s a fake boyfriend condition involving him,
Unless the story suddenly throws a plot twist, Daisy wouldn’t betray me.
…Really, she wouldn’t, right?
“I’ll teach you a move.”
“Anytime!”
Thus, the first romantic fight began.

The preparation didn’t take long.
Perhaps confidence, since the Individual Tribe didn’t require us to surrender our weapons when taking us to their village.
I simply pulled out the short sword at my waist and infused it «N.o.v.e.l.i.g.h.t» with mana.
I gave Daisy the same preparation time.
“Here I go.”
After the preparation finished, I gave the signal while watching Daisy.
The moment she nodded, I stepped forward and lightly swung my sword.

Clang!
The swords clashed.
At that moment, I realized—indeed, the demon lord’s sword.
Damn.
It’s ridiculously overpowered…
“Hm.”
“Hmm…?”
Since Daisy could also use magic, she lightly coated the sword with mana.
Unlike a swordsman’s sword energy, this was literally a sword wrapped in mana.
Of course, that wasn’t easy either.

Ordinary mages surprisingly can’t properly manipulate raw mana itself.
Most mages are sensitive geniuses to mana.
It’s like everyone knows how to breathe but can’t explain how to do it.
They easily use mana as magic, but controlling pure mana alone is often difficult.
But this was literally just mana wrapped around the sword.
It couldn’t have the same density as sword energy.
At best, it just helped the blade take less damage.
That alone was a huge advantage in battle, but given the amount of mana used, it was disappointing.
If it collided with real sword energy, it would easily break.
“Mana…”
But Daisy’s mana didn’t break even when colliding with my sword energy.
No, actually, my side was the one that broke.
The problem was that it literally shattered.
The part where the mana collided cracked and fell off a bit.
Daisy’s mana greedily absorbed that.

Of course, it was really small.
It was small enough to be repaired immediately.
Still, I lost where I should have won, and suffered a disadvantage.
On the other hand, the opponent gained an advantage at the moment they should have lost.
If it was due to Prince Ellen’s skill and sense, I’d feel unfair, but
Just wielding a sword like that and getting that result…
I honestly didn’t feel bitter about my time as a swordsman.

In my past life, there was a saying that a master doesn’t blame their tools.
But even the royal potions I was given support for were things ordinary people couldn’t achieve.
So right after exchanging blows, the first thought was, “Can I use that too?”
Honestly, if I used that magic sword, I might even beat Prince Ellen.
If I could borrow it for the remaining three years at the academy, I even thought about extending my boyfriend status by a year.
“You could be a bit stronger, right?”
“You might get hurt.”
“Did you forget who I am?”

I hadn’t forgotten.
Saint. Someone who can heal most wounds with self-healing.
But why did it feel like an appeal of toughness rather than healing wounds?
“Then, a bit stronger.”
With her consent, I also wanted to gauge the sword’s true power.

“Ugh!”
It seemed the pure strength itself, not mana, couldn’t be blocked.
Using a bit stronger strength, Daisy frowned and swung the sword.
Maybe the demon lord in the original was a heavyweight, so it didn’t show,
But Daisy’s size still wouldn’t allow real physical fights with true swordsmen.
“Do it like this, right now!”
“If you feel unfair, switch to swordsman.”
“Argh!”

Clang!
From the parry alone, I saw potential.
And unlike before, I was again surprised by how chunks of mana broke away.
“What did you do?”
“Secret!”
Clang!
I clashed again with the incoming sword.
Again, mana chunks flew off, and the mana inside Daisy’s sword surged even more.
Could it be…

“Hm.”
For the experiment, I recklessly loaded mana into my sword.
Not compressing it as usual, but just matching the volume of mana in Daisy’s sword.
If my guess was right…
“Y-You’re not going to swing that, are you?”

Lost in thought, Daisy looked shocked by the massive mana in my sword.
Her eyes widened, as if to say, “You can’t be serious?”
But—
“I am.”
Here, she showed a lack of experience.
Any experienced swordsman would know a sword with obvious mana swelling like that isn’t that scary.
I felt my heart pounding a bit at being overwhelmed by sheer size.
A talented newbie can be this cute!

“Then, here I go.”
“D-Don’t come!”
Sword and sword.
No, mana and mana clashed.
The shockwave was enough to make the watching Individual Tribe warriors exclaim.
“Hm…”

In the end, I was utterly defeated.
Of course, since I confirmed what I expected, my goal was met.
“Seriously overpowered.”
I wondered if the amount of absorbable mana increased proportionally to what was absorbed.
Why is this real?
If that’s the case, the more we trade blows, the less likely I’ll ever win.

“Violet, cast magic.”
“Huh?”
“Like this?”
“Violet?”
Violet seemed to catch on and quickly prepared what I wanted.
He looked quite surprised, so maybe this part wasn’t explained in the original?
“W-Wait a minute?!”

The darkened—no, Black Daisy’s eyes widened.
Her expression was full of betrayal.
It seemed like the betrayal was not from the one who darkened but from her allies.
But experiments are important.
“Fire.”
“N-No! I was just teasing earlier! Just teasing! I thought we all knew each other, but you keep coming up with unknown things! I just felt a little betrayed!”
As magic spells formed one by one, Daisy unexpectedly made a confession.

“Here it goes?”
“Hey, you traitor?!”
In front of her wasn’t childhood friend Violet but the ruthless agent Boradori.
Ultimately, Black Daisy had no choice but to shed tears seeing the magic flying toward her.