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It was about the time puberty hit me when the memories of a life long past suddenly poured into my brain. It was like one moment I was just Leon Fou Bartfort, then the next, I was also someone else entirely. An entire life’s worth of memories and experience just got added to who I was. I reacted in the most reasonable way I could when I thought that I was insane and just suppressed it all. For the most part, I tried to ignore the memories of that other life. Did my best as the son of my parents and the brother of my siblings. The images of a world without floating islands, strange technological devices, and a complete lack of any form of magic just ended up as occasional objects of my dreams.
A few years later, Zola showed up and demanded that I be married off to one of her friends. That was when everything ‘clicked’ and I realized that I was a reincarnate. I also realized that I was in a world that was supposed to be fictional. Hell, I wrote a fanfic about it. About a Leon who gained the power of Getter Robo and completely derailed the plot after it was already derailed by someone else. Was that what I was supposed to do as well? Swoop in and help Angelica, Olivia, and whoever else? Have adventures, maybe even love? Live the dream, as it were?
It was pretty interesting to think about until I realized one important detail. The location of Microtransaction Island where Luxion or whatever it may have been replaced with was never actually given. The most I knew about it was that it was a remote island somewhere that had a mass of swirling clouds protecting it and that any compass you were using would go nuts if you got near it. I wouldn’t even know where to start looking. The other Leons and Self Inserts found the island because they had an idea where it was because of in-universe game knowledge. Something I completely lacked.
To my horror, without a way out of my situation that didn't end with me dying out in the wilderness, I ended up getting married to a woman who was even older than my mother. There wasn’t even a ceremony. I didn’t even know what she looked like. All that happened was that I was forced to sign the marriage certificate and that was it. I was married. I thanked the stars that, since Nicks was inheriting the estate, I wouldn’t be required to produce an heir with that woman. The flipside was that I was needed to report to the recruitment office at the Capital as I was going to be shipped off to the frontlines of whatever conflict Holfort was having at the time.
There was a surprisingly emotional goodbye from my family. My mother especially got me in a bear hug that I was sure I wouldn’t be able to break out of by myself. Colin cried and begged me not to go. I told him to be strong and take care of the place while I was gone. To my surprise, my sisters also demanded that I not die on the battlefield. Finley threatened to learn necromancy so she could kill me herself if I died. Jenna just yelled at me to come home when my tour was done before stomping off to hide the tears in her eyes. Well, what do you know?
The Capital itself was a lot bigger than what the media made it out to look. Made sense since it was supposed to support a lot of infrastructure for education and government. I got to the recruitment office and had to wait for four hours for my turn to be processed, so no difference with the bureaucracy back on Earth. I was given a short physical test as well as a written aptitude test. Since I was technically a noble, I was even given the chance to check for my ability to pilot an Armor. Oh boy! An actual mech! I wonder how well I would be able to–
“Argh!” I grunted as the training Armor that I was using fell forward and onto the dirt. It turned out that there was a lot more to becoming a great pilot than just willingness and a fondness for mecha. You actually needed talent too.
I was sent to a military base on a small island near the Capital for basic training. It was about as harsh as I expected it to be. The memories of old war movies did little to prepare me for how hard it actually was. It was even harder when I had to work in a team. I had always worked best on my own, where the only person I needed to worry about was myself. I didn’t really make any friends through the whole experience. They were just other guys, both commoner and nobility, who were sent out to become rank and file soldiers for Holfort.
When I got out of basic training and was given my assignment, I was surprised at where I ended up. For one thing, I wasn’t actually being sent to the frontlines. Instead, I was to work as part of border security within the Field territory. The name immediately rang a bell. Brad Fou Field, one of the original love interests of the main protagonist Olivia. The idle wonder of how they were doing without Leon there was short lived when I saw which unit I was going to be assigned to.
“Leon Fou Bartfort, reporting for duty.” I declared to the chief mechanic. I was at the base that I was assigned to and my direct superior was the son of a Knight. Apparently, due to my scores in the written tests and my apparent ability to think well under pressure, I was a good fit to become one of the people responsible for the care and maintenance of military grade Armor. I wasn’t sure why that was the case, but I didn’t have the luxury of complaining. Besides, this was better than charging into enemy lines somewhere else.
It took me a week to get familiar with all my responsibilities. A month to actually be good enough not to get yelled at by my boss. Three to be trusted enough to run maintenance on our assigned complement of Armors by myself. During those days, I started feeling something I hadn’t since I realized that I was reborn in an Otome Game. I was developing a routine.
Get up, take a shower, get dressed, eat breakfast, and report to the chief. Check for anything outstanding that needs to be taken care of and deal with those first. Get lunch and head back to perform the standard maintenance on everything else. Have dinner and head back to the barracks for some relaxation time and sleep.
Day after day, that's what I did and I was starting to like it. There was structure and certainty in it. I didn’t really socialize much with any of the other maintenance team or the Armor pilots either. Whenever they invited me for a drink or something at the nearby town, I politely declined and asked them to have a good time on my behalf. At some point, they just stopped asking. That was fine with me as I liked my free time to be spent the way I wanted it. At the beginning, I spent it learning more about my job and how to better perform it. However, once I became better and better at it, I started having more and more free time that I wasn’t sure what to do with anymore. Then I had an idea.
I was a man of few skills, but one of those was writing. I didn’t go to any writing schools nor was I professionally trained. I mostly just ended up writing what I felt like at the time. The results varied greatly in my old life. But here? I decided to do something different. I decided to bring over a few things from Earth and put them to paper in Holfort. I started with a book that was near and dear to my heart. Something that helped me through some tough times in my previous life. It took me several weeks to complete it as I still needed to do my job after all. In the end, I had a completed handwritten manuscript.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, condensed and modified to make it look like the words of a fictional Emperor.
I didn’t really know what to do with it once it was done, so I asked my boss for advice. He asked to read my writing and told me to get back to work. The following day, I was called up to the office of the man in charge of our base. He was a Baron, like my father, but he was much older. A career soldier, most likely.
“You are the author of this work?” He asked, waving the pages of my writings. I blinked and nodded.
“I am. It was just something I started doing in my free time.” I admitted, making the Baron’s eyes narrow at me.
“I’m willing to speak about terms on sponsoring this book to be published and distributed at the Capital.” I was surprised at the offer. Was this for real?
“You want to publish my work?” I asked and got a serious nod.
“Why not? It’s good writing and should make us a nice profit. Not like the Crown pays any of us very well.” We both had a chuckle at that. In my case, I hadn’t even seen a piece of my salary as it all went straight to my darling wife. She was probably pissed that I was still alive and was trying to milk me as much as she could.
“Okay, what are the terms?” And so it was that, a couple of months later, Meditations was available for purchase in local bookstores in the Capital.
I was in the middle of converting Star Wars: A New Hope into a fantasy book when I realized the date. I had already been on my assignment for over a year now and Fanoss had not attacked. That gave a pretty obvious possibility, Marie wasn’t at the Academy and I was in the regular game’s timeline. Olivia would be going through everything on her own, but with her love interests intact. I wondered if that also meant that Noelle would have to deal with the events of her game organically but decided that it wasn’t even any of my business at all anymore.
I looked at the sales numbers of the books I had been writing and it didn’t really feel like I was a best selling author. Unfortunately, once my wife figured out that I was the one writing those books, she immediately snapped up all the profits I would have gotten from them. It sucked, but it wasn’t like I could use the wealth while I was stationed at our base. Meditations was a hit for a lot of men, as expected. But the real surprise was that the Skywalker Trilogy was a hit as well. You’d think that people who literally lived in a fantasy setting would see something like Star Wars and consider it as mundane. It was especially popular with teenagers and young adults. Who knows, Olivia might have been a fan.
The second year of my tour went by without much action either. I did hear that the Offrey house ended up being dissolved due to their involvement with pirates, which lined up with the game timeline of events. Olivia was probably going to be declared the Saint soon. That also meant that Fanoss would finally be making their move. I couldn’t really do much on my end aside from making sure that all our Armors were in the best shape they possibly could and hope for the best.
It was in the middle of my third year of my assignment when the shoe finally dropped. Fanoss declared war and our base was on high alert as the Field House literally borders the Principality. When they attacked, it was swift and brutal. Warships and monsters both descended from the skies one early morning and tore through the local patrols without any issue. The main fleet was there to reinforce but our base was too close to the enemy fleet to commit resources to.
All noncombatants were ordered to retreat as the regular soldiers and Armors were prepared to lay down their lives for their country. The chief refused to leave, saying that someone had to stay and repair our Armors when they returned. All I could do was watch from the evacuation ship as our base went up in flames. It took them less than a day to punch through Holfort’s defenses.
I was quickly reassigned to another location, a ship this time. Apparently, my boss and the base commander gave me glowing recommendations behind my back so I ended up in one of the royal warships that housed the best Armors. I was to be the personal mechanic of one of these Armors. When I saw the gleaming white, silver, and gold, I knew who the pilot was.
“You must be the one who will take care of my Armor, it is a pleasure to meet you. I am Julius Rapha Holfort.” The charismatic prince greeted me with a smile. He held out his hand and I took it in a firm handshake.
“A pleasure to meet you, your highness. I am Leon Fou Bartfort.” His eyes widened at my words.
“The Author?” He asked, smiling wider.
“Yeah, people have that reaction when they meet me.” I pointed out with a chuckle. It was the same thing that happened when a representative from my publisher had a meeting with me at the base one time.
“You seem so young.” He pointed out as he took a closer look at me.
“I think we’re about the same age, your highness.” He nodded with a hum.
“And working as an Armor mechanic as well, I’m impressed.” Man, he was acting so differently from any of the things I remembered him from. Well, aside from my own fanfic.
“Julius!” Someone called out and we both turned to the speaker.
“Ah, Livia. Look who I met! It’s your favorite author!” It was my turn to be surprised when I saw Olivia wearing full Saint regalia walking towards us.
“Leon Fou Bartfort, at your service, Saintess.” I greeted her with a bow. Her eyes sparkled and she walked closer to me
“You know me?” It was pretty obvious who she was considering she had the full Saint set on her.
“I know of you.” I clarified, making it look like my familiarity came from her reputation.
“He came highly recommended as a mechanic and has ended up being the one to take care of my Armor.” Julius explained and somehow that made Olivia happy.
“Please do your best to help Julius.” She said with absolute sincerity. Man, the charisma of an Otome Protagonist was scary.
“Of course, Saintess Olivia.” I assured her. She and Julius started talking between themselves and all I could think about was one thing. I hoped that Angelica would land on her feet somehow.
Holfort was on the backfoot the whole time, with the Principality having superior forces and the Black Knight. I was personally introduced to what he could do when Julius came back with a third of his Armor gone. The man was lucky that Olivia was there to heal his injuries or else he would have died. His Armor was a complete loss. The only reason why he could even fight again was because I cannibalized it for parts and stuck all of it on another Armor that was available. It was slapdash, but it was enough. With the refurbished Armor and the literal power of love, Julius was able to defeat the Black Knight in single combat.
The conflict lasted for about two more months until it ended about as abruptly as it started. Fanoss summoned a giant monster that couldn’t be permanently harmed no matter what the fleets threw at it. It got so bad that it managed to reach the Capital and cause havoc. In the end, it took Olivia and Julius unlocking Weiss and its ship to defeat it. Olivia used Compelling Voice to make everyone stop fighting and that was pretty much it.
One of the more unexpected things that ended up happening during the war was that my wife along with Zola were actually killed during the assault on the Capital. She never had an heir, so all her assets defaulted to me as her husband. I ended up getting an island of my own as personal thanks from Julius along with a Knighthood and the official title of Baron. I pretty much converted the island into an agricultural center. A mansion was built on it but it was just me and some servants living there. The actual day to day was handled by people who were way better at that than I was so I was free to just keep writing.
I was in the middle of sifting through some letters when I found one addressed to me from my father. I groaned when the contents spoke about me getting remarried since I was a proper noble now. Talks had already been made between my father and another party so my future new wife would be arriving in a week. I only hoped that my father had better sense than Zola did in finding me a match even as I instructed the servants to prepare the mansion for her arrival.
A week passed and, while I was in the middle of writing a fantasy rendition of Ace Combat Zero, I was informed that the woman who was to be my wife had arrived. I took a deep breath and went downstairs. My eyes widened and I froze mid-step when I saw who the woman was. She looked at me, resigned and sad, before giving a perfect curtsy in her travel clothes.
“Greetings, Baron Bartfort. My name is Angelica Rapha Redgrave. I shall be in your care.”