I Favor the Villainess Chapter 134

There were three possible love interest routes in RevoLily.

The first was Empress Dorothea, whom we had an audience with just the other day.
Although the protagonist, Philine, and Dorothea were related by blood, the forbidden love between mother and daughter was what sold the route.
After meeting with her that one time, I found it difficult to imagine romancing somebody like Dorothea, but she remained popular with the players nevertheless.
Since Dorothea had that kind of personality, I thought she would've touched my heartstrings the same way Claire-sama did, but in the end, I did not desire for her at all.
When I compared Claire-sama to Dorothea, there was a clear difference between them.
I could not favor Dorothea.

The second target was an Imperial bureaucrat named Hildegard Eichrodt.
As an ambitious female bureaucrat in the Empire, she wanted to get closer to Philine and use the latter's status in order to boost her own.
The selling point behind Hildegard's route was that their relationship went from being ambitious and calculating to genuinely being in love with each other.
I did not dislike her scenario.
I have not been acquainted with her yet, but I may eventually meet her.

And finally, the third love interest was a student of the Imperial Academy by the name of Friedelinde Imer.
She was standing in front of me right now.
She was a woman with chestnut brown colored eyes.

"Hi~ Rei. Good morning."
"Good morning, Friedelinde."
"Non non, please call me Frieda."
"Alright, Frieda."

The girl who was speaking with a rather distinctive intonation was Friedelinde―― or Frieda for short.
Her name made it sound like she was from the Empire, but she was from a different nation, just like us.

It was morning time, and we were all in our classroom in the Imperial Academy.
Mei and Alea were behaving well this morning, so we were able to arrive earlier than usual.

"Oh! Rei, Claire, you are both so beautiful today. What a treat to my eyes!"
"Thank you very much. My appearance is all thanks to my mother."
"Thanks……"

Frieda's words were disgustingly flattering.
Claire-sama was more tolerant of things like that, but I was not used to it.
I mean, what was I supposed to say if somebody came up to me and suddenly complimented my appearance?

You may have already noticed, but Frieda was a bit of a smooth talker, and was somewhat of a pick-up artist.
She was quite the romantic, which was something that a lot of girls liked, and she was always flirting with somebody in her free time.
She was fun to watch as a love interest in the game, but when you actually had to communicate with her, it was rather tough.

"You two, what are your plans for tonight? If you have free time, come to dinner with me?"
"Thank you for your invitation. However, we will have to decline since we need to take care of our kids."
"What!? You, both are married!? And at this age, you even have kids!?"
"Yes, but we're not blood related."

Speaking of which, we never mentioned Mei and Alea to any of our classmates yet.

"Wonderful! Because they are your kids, they must be beautiful children!"
"No, like I said, we're not blood related."
"Non non, even if you are not related by blood, kids still take after their parents! How about it then? Dinner with me, and bring your kids too?"
"No, I'll have to decline."

I wasn't going to let this girl come close to our daughters.
Frieda's scenario was quite special. Actually, she was what you could call a "yandere".
Despite her usual cheerful demeanor, Frieda was actually raised under extremely complicated circumstances. She was the daughter of the royal family back in her home country.
Her native country, Merika, resisted the influence of the Empire until the very end, so rather than being annexed, the entire nation was destroyed instead.
Frieda grew incredibly resentful due to what happened, so she had complex feelings towards Philine.
In her scenario, some of her bad ends were notoriously scary.
I wasn't going to let somebody like that come anywhere near my daughters.

"Oh, shame. Then, maybe next time. You two, have become more comfortable with the Empire?"

Rather than being persistent, Frieda decided to change the topic and asked us a question that concerned us.
She was a yandere character, but she was easy to speak with on regular terms.

"Yes, for the most part. It was easier to get adjusted in the Empire than we thought."

Claire-sama answered with whatever was on her mind.
Upon hearing her response, Frieda's face distorted into an expression that was almost beyond recognition for just a moment.
Although she immediately replaced it with a smile, I didn't miss it.
It seemed that Claire-sama didn't notice it, however.
She really was a yandere beyond redemption.

"Yes, the Empire is very, very easy to live in. Bauer too, I hear is also a very good country, but the Empire is also great!"

She replied with a bright laugh and gave Claire-sama a gentle slap on the shoulder.

"Frieda, Claire-sama is mine, so please don't touch her so casually."
"Oh, this, I'm sorry. But this, is just a normal skinship between friends, right?"
"She is right, Rei. You are overthinking it."
"Rei, has a strong desire to monopolize. Too much restraint is, not good, you know?"

I don't want to hear that from you.

"Oh, Philine! Good morning!"
"G-Good morning……"

It was rare to see Philine come in later than us.
She seemed somewhat unwell.
Come to think of it, didn't she have low blood pressure?
It looked like she was overwhelmed by Frieda's high energy.

"Philine, you are also beautiful today. My eyes are happy to see you."

That was probably something she said to every girl she saw.

"T-Thank you……"

Philine looked timid.
I felt a bit sorry for her.
But I was relieved when Frieda's attention was directed over to Philine instead.

"Whether it is Dorothea or Frieda, it seems that these love interests are difficult people to try to win over."
"Yes. The love interests have to stand out somehow."

That being said, RevoLily's characters were a bit too quirky.
In fact, the reviews on RevoLily's characters were quite divided.
For example, some people wanted characters that were a bit more normal, and others didn't want people of royalty involved at all.
Nevertheless, RevoLily was still considered a masterpiece due to how amazing the writing was, and the revolution route was considered to be perfection.

"So we are currently aiming for the revolution route, correct?"
"Yes."

There were several conditions that needed to be met in order to enter the revolution route, but the minimum requirement was that you had to make sure you weren't already on a love interest's route.
Since it was only May, there was still lots of time before any of the individual routes were even available.
Even so, I wanted to take the time to check on Philine's current affection levels.

"How are you planning on doing that?"
"There's a certain girl I was going to ask. Anna, can I talk to you for a bit?"

I called out to the red-headed girl who usually sat behind Philine during class.

"Ah, Rei. Morning."
"Good morning. Actually, I had something that I wanted to ask you."
"What is it?"
"Well, it's about Philine-sama."
"Philine?"

Anna tilted her head when I brought the topic up.

"You and Philine-sama are close, aren't you?"
"Yeah, I suppose."
"Does Philine-sama have anyone that she likes right now?"
"Eh, are we talking about love now?"

Anna leaned forward.

Anna played a similar role to what Misha was in the main game―― in other words, she held the position of the protagonist's best friend.
There was a lot of information that could be obtained from her, but the most important thing was that she was able to share information on what the affection levels of each love interest were.

"Let's see. I don't really think there's anybody in particular right now, though."
"Is that so? In that case, among all of her friends, who is she the closest with?"
"That would probably have to be Frieda. Although Frieda's feelings seem to be one-sided, she's one of the few people Philine talks to, despite being so shy."

Hmm, so it was Frieda.

"What about Dorothesama?"
"Her Majesty? Her Majesty is, hmm…. Things don't seem to be going well between them. It seems like there might be some bad blood between them."

So she still had a long way to go with Dorothea.

"Is that so? What about Hildegard-sama then?"
"Eh, Rei, were you acquainted with Hildegard-sama?"
"No, but I heard that she was sort of making advances on Philine-sama."
"I see. Her relationship with Hildegard-sama is…… well, it's normal, I guess? Like Frieda, things seem to be one-sided, but she's more scared of Hildegard."
"Hmm?"

In short, the current standings for her affection levels were Frieda > Hildegard > Dorothea.

"Ahh, but there's another person who has left a better impression with her though."
"Who?"
"It's Claire."
"What…… did you say……?"

Hold on, give me a minute.

"Wasn't Philine-sama afraid of Claire-sama?"
"Yeah, she's definitely scared of her, but it seems that she's deeply interested in her. Look, Philine is a kind and shy girl, right? She really admires people like Claire."

'And she's not as ice-cold as Hildegard-sama,' Anna added.

Something strange was happening here.
What am I supposed to do when the protagonist is clinging to the villainess?

Well, not like I was the one to talk, though.

"Well, since she's aware that Claire belongs to you, I don't think she wants to pursue a romantic relationship with her. She probably just wants to be her friend, no matter what."
"Hmm……"

Still, there was no such thing as being too careful.
If, on the off chance, she were to enter the Claire-sama route, I would have no choice but to fight to the very end with my own flesh and blood.
No, I refused to believe something that dangerous would happen.

"Somehow, it feels like something strange is happening……"

Translator's note: Frieda speaks with an accent and sometimes uses English words here and there. I tried to convey that by making some of her sentences grammatically inconsistent, but for the most part, she understands the language well, so I tried not to overdo it.

Chapter end