I Think My Fiancé Has Regressed

Chapter 70: Magic Amplifier (1)

After completing a painful and long carriage journey that lasted a week we reached the Kingdom Academy.

Upon my return, I was struck down with motion sickness as if it were a matter of course, and was forced to spend the next two days in my dormitory bed.

…At least I won’t have to suffer from motion sickness from now on.

At least, none of the events that I know of would require traveling as far away as the Eloreal Empire.

It’s a good thing I hurried a bit and returned home a bit earlier than the opening date.

A later departure would have meant that I would have gone into the new semester’s classes in such poor shape.

Tomorrow marks the start of the first semester of my fourth year at the Academy, my graduation year.

In other words, it’s also the end of the game’s setting, aptly named “Academy Light Romance”.

With Alex’s help, we’ve cleared all of our initially daunting schedules, and now we’re down to one final boss, the Demon King, the final opponent of Academy Light Romance and a great demon that must be defeated for a happy ending.

Additionally, it is an opponent that the protagonist’s light magic is more effective against than anyone else.

…To put it bluntly, without the protagonist’s light magic, it’s an opponent you can’t be confident of defeating.

So far, Alex’s holy sword has gotten the job done, but the upcoming final battle will leave a lot to chance.

Specifically, will Alex be able to penetrate the demon’s magic to reach the final boss?

And unlike the Witch of Walpurgis, he’s even impervious to dark magic, so there’s a good chance Alex will be fighting the final battle alone.

That worries me, so I ask Alex about the Demon King, and what I get back is my fiancé’s confident response.

“It’s okay, I can do it.”

“Are you sure you’re going to be okay, it’s not going to be easy.”

“I’ve already fought him once, and I failed the first time, but I know why I failed, so I’ll be fine this time.”

“What? You’ve fought him once?”

“…I meant that I fought it in my head.”

Perhaps he saw a future where he and the Demon King fought as a prophecy.

He spoke so casually, as if he had actually fought, that I almost misunderstood him.
After all, if Alex, blessed by the prophecy, is talking so confidently about it, it must mean that there is some tangible possibility of it actually happening.

If that’s the case, all I can do as his fiancée is to believe him and help him.

In order to do that, I need to finish some things I’ve been working on separately.

The first thing I need to see is the magic amplifier that Ms. Sophia is developing.

Since I’ve invested all of my emergency savings in this research, I want to make sure that I see the results with my own eyes.

…Before we get to the results, I have to make an honest confession: I don’t necessarily need her reagent to cure Alex’s heart disease.

I have the technology in place to cure Alex’s heart disease somehow, even if the odds of success are low.

The only remaining element I need is a sufficient amount of magic, and I need dark magic that I can use.

In a game like this, where there’s no means of restoring magic like elixirs, the closest thing to that is the magic amplifier that Ms. Sophia is working on.

So I’m looking forward to seeing the results of her research.

Every little bit is good, so if I can increase the amount of magic I have available to me, I’ll have a better chance of saving Alex.

The more backup means, the better.

With no clear-cut solution to fixing Alex’s heart, I’m going to need every tool at my disposal.

If I had any surgical knowledge, I’d rather operate on Alex’s heart myself.

Unfortunately, I’m not a programmer with a medical license, so I can’t use my knowledge to cure his heart disease.

The only thing I can say I’m good at in this world is dark magic, so I’ll probably have to resort to that to cure his heart disease.

…And if I fail, I’d rather fail in the area I’m most confident in, as that’s the least regrettable way to go.

As I approach the end of the story, I start to think.

I wonder if I’ve done a good job so far, and yet it will still end with me failing to defeat the Demon King.

Maybe there’s still a tragic ending I haven’t solved.

I wonder if the method I’ve developed to cure Alex’s heart will be for nothing.

I can’t seem to calm down.

The thought that Alex could leave my side in an instant is starting to cross my mind more often as the days go by, and every time it does, my heart aches like crazy.

I think part of the reason for this is that I haven’t had a room to myself since I returned to the academy.

Basically, the dormitories at the Kingdom Academy are single-sex rooms.

Of course, since almost all of the students at the academy are nobles, many of them are engaged to each other, and there are no rules that prevent fiancés from going in and out of each other’s rooms.

It is strictly forbidden for men and women to share the same room, even if they are betrothed.

While this may seem like an old-fashioned custom, it’s really just something we’ve put in place for development convenience.

Once you create a system where fiancés share the same room, it becomes a significant obstacle for the protagonist to meet some targets.

On top of that, I’d have to spend a lot of time reworking the game to make it work.

I was overworked when I finally finished this piece, and if I had added another element, it would probably have remained unfinished.

By the time I finished an early lunch that Elise had brought to my room, the sun had begun to tilt slightly westward.

I thought about stopping by Alex’s room in the afternoon to spend some time with him, but then I realized that seeing him again would give me strange feelings.

Even when Alex came to see how I was doing this morning, I almost had an emotional breakdown.

If only I could get some reassurance that I’m doing something right.

“…I guess staying still won’t change anything.”

I barely managed to pull myself out of bed after that.

I was about to head out of the dorm to get things in order when I heard Elise at the door.

“Ariana, you have a visitor, may I come in?”

First of all, when Elise asks me if she can come in, it means that the guest is not Alex.

“Who is the visitor?”

“Viscountess Sophia Kylie.”

“Please have her come in.”

I got up to go see her, but I bought myself some unexpected time.

* * *

I made light eye contact with Miss Sophia as she was ushered into the room by Elise.

Elise escorted Ms. Sophia to my dormitory’s private room, then stepped out of the doorway so that me and Sophia could talk alone.

“Oh, hi….Ariana….”

“It’s been a while, Miss Sophia.”

Miss Sophia greeted me, her voice clearly tired.

She had the cleanliness and attire to be a basic young lady, but beyond that, an air of exhaustion oozed from her body.

There was a faint haze around her eyes that she tried to hide with heavy makeup, and the skin of her face and lips were dehydrated and puffy.

Regardless of the results of the research I’d entrusted her with, it wasn’t hard to tell that she’d at least tried.

“I’m sure I know that without having to ask, but may I still ask the reason for your visit today?”

“Yes, yes, yes…! I’m here today to show you, ah, Ariana, the finished product of my magic amplifier…….”

Narrowing her bleary eyes, Miss Sophia began to furiously rummage through the bag she had brought with her, busily pulling out the colorful vials inside.

A few unnerving clicks sounded in my ears, and before long, a half-dozen reagents tumbled out of the bag.

“Ah, ouch!”

Reeling back to her senses, Ms. Sophia reached for the falling potions, but unfortunately, the vials sailed past her hand and plummeted to the floor.

“Purr! Wind cushion!”

“Kooo!”

Somehow I knew this would happen, so I directed the command I had prepared in advance to Purr, and the wind magic she used created a gentle airflow on the floor.

The circulating air acted like a soft cushion, and none of the dropped vials broke or spilled.

“Go, thank you, ah….”

After muttering her thanks in a weak voice, Miss Sophia immediately knelt down on the floor and began picking up the fallen reagents.

“Miss Sophia.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Ariana. I just got distracted and made a mistake…. Well, I’ll get it ready again in a minute, if you’ll just bear with me….”

“Miss Sophia.”

“So, what’s in this bottle is the magic amplifier….And what you have here is the final prototype….Oh, no, this was the prototype?”

“Miss Sophia.”

“Now, just a moment, Lady Ariana, if you’ll just hold on a second….I’m going to show you my completely different magic amplifier….”

“Stop.”

I grabbed Miss Sophia’s shoulder as she frantically gathered up the vials from the floor, meeting her bewildered eyes.

“Oh, Lady Ariana?”

“As much as I’d love for you to explain the effects of the magic amplifier, why don’t we just get some rest?”

And, as a bonus, do something about her dark eyes and dry skin.