I Enlisted as a Man, and Ended Up Creating a Reverse Harem Chapter 2

“Ha! I expected as much, but we really do look exactly alike.”

Elia gaped at her reflection in the mirror.

“How can we look this much alike just because I cut my hair a little?”

The face reflected in the mirror belonged to a handsome young man with red hair. Anyone who saw him would think he was her twin brother, Erian.

She was wearing Erian’s clothes and armor.

They felt a little awkward at first because she was used to wearing dresses, but once she put them on, they fit her perfectly, as if they had been made for her.

For a man, Erian was rather thin and small, while Elia was tall for a woman.

Now that she had deliberately disguised herself as a man, she really did look like a pretty young man.

On top of that, her voice was low and slightly husky rather than high-pitched and feminine, which also helped her look more like a man.

‘But will this really work?’

Although she had come up with the plan herself, a flicker of anxiety crossed her mind.

“Elia, are you all rea— Gasp!”

Just then, the baroness opened the door and walked in. The moment she saw Elia, she gasped in surprise.

“Mother, what’s wrong?”

“You look so much alike… For a moment, I thought Erian had come back to life.”

Tears quickly welled up in the baroness’s eyes, and her hunched shoulders trembled weakly.

She was clearly thinking of Erian.

Seeing her like that made Elia’s heart ache, but at the same time, it gave her confidence.

If even the parents who had given birth to them and raised them felt that way, then other people certainly wouldn’t easily realize she wasn’t Erian.

‘Instead of wasting time worrying, I should focus on looking as much like Erian as possible.’

With that resolve, Elia walked to the entrance and said goodbye to the baron and baroness.

“Then, I’ll be off.”

“Elia, are you really sure about this? What if they find out…?”

When the baron asked in a worried voice, Elia answered firmly.

“We have no other choice anyway.”

At her reply, the baron and baroness fell silent, their faces filled with sadness.

They knew very well that there wasn’t much difference between Elia getting caught, being expelled, and punished, and staying here to starve to death under the weight of their debts.

“So I’ll do my best not to get caught.”

The baroness wiped away her tears with a handkerchief and asked,

“More importantly, we still have some time. Why are you leaving in such a hurry?”

Elia smiled at the baroness as she answered.

“The barracks are far from here, and who knows what might happen on the way? Besides, I think it would be better to arrive as soon as possible and get used to things.”

“I see…”

“I’ll write to you from time to time, so don’t worry too much. And since it’s the military, I should be able to come home on leave once in a while.”

“All right. Please take good care of yourself.”

After saying goodbye, Elia climbed onto her horse and left the baron family’s shabby mansion behind.

 

 

****

 

 

“I’m almost there.”

Elia muttered as she looked at the enormous mansion in the distance.

Dozens of magnificent castle towers rose high into the sky, creating an overwhelming sight.

A tall, sturdy wall surrounded the entire estate below.

“It’s incredible in person. Well, it’s the mansion of the famous Vonberg family, after all.”

The empire’s greatest leader,

The legendary greatsword master,

The iron-blooded ruler of crimson blood…

Those were some of the titles used to describe Grand Duke Vonberg in GDD. They were a little over the top, but that was how he was portrayed in the novel.

The Grand Duke had long wielded such tremendous influence in the empire that even the imperial family was careful around him.

But after the war between humans and demons, which had broken out several years ago, his power had grown even greater.

The army he led had crushed the demons in a sweeping series of victories, leading the empire to win the war.

‘Meanwhile, the imperial army suffered a crushing defeat and could do nothing but flee in a panic.’

Naturally, the Grand Duke gained tremendous support from the people of the empire after the war.

He was unanimously appointed prime minister by the capital’s nobles, and from then on, he seized control of both the political and economic worlds of the empire.

The emperor was nothing more than a powerless puppet. The Grand Duke was the empire’s true ruler.

In fact, even children in the empire knew Grand Duke Vonberg’s name, even if they didn’t know the emperor’s.

And the Anti-Demon Army, which she had to join in Erian’s place, was stationed inside that magnificent mansion.

‘The Grand Duke converted an annex of his mansion into military barracks.’

Turning one’s own perfectly good home into a military base was a crazy idea in itself. But the purpose of this unit was to select personal guards and potential sons-in-law for the Grand Duke’s daughter.

Naturally, the Grand Duke wanted to keep all the men under his control.

‘And he also needed them to stay close to Lavinia.’

That way, she could flirt with the male leads and start dating them, right?

Elia took a deep breath as she gazed at the distant Vonberg mansion.

Honestly, she wasn’t particularly worried about military life itself.

‘Ha, I never thought my miserable life in my previous world would come in handy like this.’

A self-deprecating laugh escaped her before she realized it.

In her previous life, she had graduated from a military academy.

Of course, she hadn’t enrolled by choice.

“What does a girl need a college education for? I won’t give you a single penny for tuition!”

“You think you’re so great just because you’re good at studying? Instead of earning money to help your older brother, who’s struggling through his third attempt at the entrance exam, you just sit there doing nothing…”

Because her parents favored only her older brother, she had no choice but to attend a military academy that offered a full scholarship.

And because she couldn’t stand the sight of her family anymore, she enlisted as an officer after graduation.

‘But they still took every last penny of my pitiful salary.’

For the record, her pathetic older brother was still retaking the entrance exam at the time, and her salary was spent on his cram school fees and entertainment.

‘He skipped cram school all the time and did nothing but drink. I wonder if he ever made it into college.’

Not that she wanted to know.

Anyway, thanks to her previous life, she was familiar with military life, which was at least one thing in her favor.

‘Still, once I enter that place, I’ll have to keep my wits about me.’

For reference, readers of GDD called the mansion where the unit was stationed a den of demons.

That was because fifty strong, handsome young men lived there,

‘Forty-nine now, if you don’t count me…’

When you gathered a bunch of young, hot-blooded handsome men in one place, all sorts of things were bound to happen.

Even more so when they all had the lofty goal of becoming the son-in-law of the ruler of the empire.

Fierce power struggles and schemes, and…

Even some embarrassing things that were too scandalous to describe here!

‘A few characters are already coming to mind. When I was a reader, I enjoyed watching all of it from the sidelines… Ahem!’

But from Elia’s perspective, as someone who needed to keep her head down and stay out of trouble, those were exactly the kinds of things she wanted to avoid.

After all, she had absolutely no desire to become the Grand Duke’s son-in-law, so she would be eliminated from the competition early on anyway.

Therefore, she planned to pay as little attention to such things as possible.

But there was something else she needed to worry about first.

The identity verification process she would have to go through as soon as she arrived at the barracks!

Once she submitted documents such as her draft notice and medical examination report, the officers would verify that she was the person who had been ordered to enlist. Only then would her enlistment be officially confirmed.

It was merely a formality, but if anything suspicious turned up, she wouldn’t just be denied enlistment. She would be kicked out on the spot.

All she had to do was submit Erian’s medical examination report, but for Elia, who was hiding her true identity, this was an extremely nerve-racking hurdle.

‘That’s why I came so early.’

Today was the second Wednesday of the month.

Normally, a strict examiner would handle identity verification, but today, the person who happened to be staying at the mansion would be doing it instead.

Judging by that person’s personality in the original novel, the verification process should go smoothly.

That was because he would be astonishingly uninterested in her, an extra character.

“Let’s go!”

She tugged on the reins and headed toward the Vonberg mansion.