Title: Leon-less Route

Summary: Imagining Marie-less Route, but Leon-less.

Yes. I managed to oust the protagonist without any difficulty, and Julius had fallen for my wiles within days. It was no challenge given my memory of the game.

My future was set. I need only play the demure mistress until the villainess's temper boiled over. So long as I did nothing else to introduce instability to the system, I won.

Speaking of instability, I looked at the tea party invitation from Brad. Seducing the crown prince had been ridiculously easy. If he was of any indication, I could probably seduce the rest of the founding heirs and barely be inconvenienced.

I snorted before putting the invitation away. There was no need to fly too close to the sun. I already achieved my goal and anything more would just jeopardize my prize. Just focus on the prince and everything would be fine.

That was when I heard sniffling. Looking around the corner, I saw Olivia sobbing in a pile of ripped paper. Judging by the design, it looked it was for Brad's as well. Looking at her, I felt disgust rather than pity.

Crying parasitic slut. This was supposed to be the Saintess? I just couldn't see it. She couldn't stand up to schoolyard bullying. As annoying as it was, it was only just.

I turned to walk away from the wretch, but then I thought of something.

It might be worth it to introduce the real protagonist to the others. It could benefit me twofold. It might redirect the heat away from me since a commoner dared to court the founding heirs was far more scandalous than the daughter of a destitute viscounty. Additionally, not having the potential Saintess hate me was always a plus. I didn't need her to like me. I just needed her to not hate me.

With a nod, I went to deliver my decoy to the prince's friends.

I blinked when Olivia gave me a tearful goodbye. She couldn't take the bullying from associating with Brad. She had opted for a monogamous route with him. It was supposed to be the easiest route to complete with minimum bullying.

And she couldn't take it. She folded within a month.

In an odd twist, it was probably for the best that I stepped in. There was no way this child could step up to become the Saintess.

At least she had enough brains to quit before the spelunking class. It could have ended badly for her if she was forced into such a stressful situation.

Now the question was why she came to me to say farewell. I wasn't particularly close to her. I simply dumped her on Brad and just gave cursory greetings.

Looking at her tearful face, I could only sigh. How she got me from feeling disgust to pity was beyond me. I could only attribute it to natural... I'm not sure if charisma was the proper word.

In any case, I guess I could lend her a helping hand.

"I can send you some tomes regarding magic for you to study from."

"Thank you for the thought, but I'm afraid I will be unable to take up your generosity. I'll be far too busy paying off my debt for dropping out," she sniffled.

"Debt?" I said as alarm bells went off in my head.

"Ah, there was a penalty clause for failing to graduate."

I groaned. She reminded me too much of me when my original parents had cut me off or now since my current parents settled me with their debts, but it was worse since she didn't do anything to warrant this. She would also likely be forced to work in the mines to pay off this debt. It was pretty much a death sentence even for the hardiest of people.

With a sigh, I said, "I'll talk to Julius about this."

It was official, Jilk was bottom tier. The asshole took my request for Julius to forgive Olivia's debt as a sign that I was a gold digger.

I mean, I was. But for the snake to make that conclusion from an act of genuine altruism for someone the royal family was already supporting was completely galling. This was what I got for not seducing him, but in the end, it all worked out.

More importantly, Julius valued me more than the opinion of his friend, and this act cemented my image. My charity to his friend's lover highlighted how magnanimous and perfect I was.

It was not worth it since I had pretty already maxed out Julius's affection meter.

There was a lesson to be learned from this experience. Sticking my neck out for others was a sucker's move. From now on, I needed to look out for my needs above all else. Anything else was an unnecessary risk.

I stared at the glove that the villainess threw at me. Why was the event happening so early? It was only the first semester.

... Jilk must have been involved somehow. I had been relatively discreet, so very few people knew or made a stint of my relationship with the crown prince. All of Julius's friends but Jilk had found my presence acceptable.

When the crown prince placed a hand on my shoulder, I decided it didn't matter that much. The event was going to happen, and there was nothing I could do about it without derailing my plans.

Besides, it wasn't as if this would do anything in the long run. I would just be subject to less inane bullying. The only possible concern was with Fanoss, but really.

It was completely unrealistic that the war actually hinged on the duel occurring. There had to be so many things going on in the background that war was going to happen in the third year because Fanoss was already preparing for it then. It's not as if a single broken engagement would change the date they would be ready. I could maybe see it being pushed forward by a few months if the showing was too poor, but years? Julius and his friends or the Redgrave representative would have had to have such a disastrous showing to the extent that we would have to watch something akin to a tiger mauling a baby.

Now that I thought about the consequences of a poor showing, the fear that Julius could lose to Redgrave's champion crept up. I wasn't sure if Julius would be enough to handle the challenge even when I had him focus on his training (I knew how difficult the game could get). The knight was supposed to be a third year boss, and I'm not sure how far Julius's training pushed him in terms of levels. It is like necessary that I will need to game the situation further.

Looking at Brad, I could see him glare at Angelica. He had taken on that attitude to most girls after he realized his girlfriend had been targeted so ruthlessly. The fact that a couple of Angelica's followers had been caught bullying me had burnt any neutral feelings he had for Angelica.

I could use this.

I let out a sigh of relief. It had been a near thing, but thanks to Brad (for petty revenge), Chris (to test himself), and Greg (for an adrenaline rush) volunteering, we had managed to squeak by. All armors had been destroyed, and Julius and Redgrave's knight had devolved into a fist fight. It was only thanks to the knight's reluctance to punch seriously did Julius win.

With this out of the way, there were only a few more key events to worry about before I was in the home stretch. I needed to collect the relics, and both of those were in endgame areas. I could probably save finding the bracelet for later, but I needed to worry about the necklace.

With the duel occurring so early, I couldn't help but worry that Stephanie would enact the pirate scenario early as well. Additionally, with the armors as damaged as they were, I needed to find replacements... and better ones if a single knight could do all this.

As I looked at the despairing villainess, I inwardly huffed. Spoiled brat making me have to worry so much. The idea of her marrying some ugly rural baron was gratifying beyond belief. She literally would have to marry into the bottom of society.

She'll have to learn what's it like for the rest of us common folk.

Why was the villainess not kicked out of school? She broke an unspoken rule by involving her family! The plot demanded she be relegated to the frontier!

Was this a side effect of events happening earlier? So what if she needed to finish her education! She was disgraced!

Looking over at the girl, I saw how miserable and alone she looked. Somehow, this felt like a worse punishment than what the original plot called for. Forced to watch her love gallivant with the other woman while the entirety of the school mocked her. Seriously, what was her father thinking subjecting her to this torture.

Still... I couldn't bring myself to truly pity her or extend a hand. She made me feel... unsettled. She never approached or confronted me. She just stared. Her eyes scared me.

Where is it?! I know the bracelet should be on this floor! I even found the secret passageway... apparently a secret passageway. I must of went into the wrong one since the bracelet wasn't on the pedestal! Curse my failing memory.

"Marie, let's go back. I think we've searched every nook and cranny of this floor."

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

Fuck

The villainess was just bequeathed the Saintess's staff. She had found the bracelet first and was able to attune to it.

I needed to find the necklace now.

AN:

1) This was one of my backlogs and why it came out so soon after my last update. Most of it was written up to the duel part. I just wasn't sure how to cap it off.

2) Marie did mention she initially only planned to seduce Julius, but she then got the intrusive thought of getting all five due to how simple it was. This is basically ignoring the little voice in her head.

3) Angelica is semi-possessed. She has enough willpower to make her own decisions, but she is also mentally unstable enough to listen to the Saintess. End goal basically sees the Kingdom burn and have Julius caged and mind whammied into being a vegetable only capable of saying specific phrases. Angelica gets her man, and Ann sees the five's legacy burnt to the ground while the ringleader of the five is forced into a vegetative existence.

4) Leon's role was not considered at this point. Probably just have him be Alzer Leon for this fix.

Review Response:

Rodvek97: I'm pretty much going to fanonize Gardenia as a last name.

NewFanDamz: Regarding how Angelica and Julius need something extreme to occur for them to get together is somewhat a byproduct of how events shake down canonically. I personally believe that had they not been surrounded by such shitty people (their friends enabling their stupidity instead of giving good feedback), they could have had a honest conversation much sooner.