It's still cheating if it fails to bring the result you expected.
It's still cheating if you also get cheated.
None of these points changes the fact that he lost on purpose.
Let's say, in poker, that you use a card you hid in your sleeve to get a full house.
Your opponent also uses a hidden card to get a royal flush.
You lose the round, but you still cheated. You got cheated, but you still cheated.
I'm not excusing the organizers, but I don't excuse him either. He let down both himself and his rivals.
Once again, as I mentioned above, the fact that it failed to bring the expected gain is besides the point.
This is going on a loop,
The requirement for a cheater to cheat is GAIN not loss, if someone is manipulated and coerced to lose on purpose making things harder for the person in this case mc that isn't him cheating, its him being manipulated and coerced to lose on purpose
This isn't rocket science, you need to GAIN something to consider something a cheat which is really the simplest way of putting it, also the target audience is SHOUNEN which means the author wouldn't go so far as to expound on the meaning of the word or this twist that you're somehow trying to pull,
but in any event you're literally saying that the VICTIM of MANIPULATION is still cheating despite there being nothing to GAIN on his side of the fence when the VERY DEFINITION OF THE WORD HAS THE GAIN PART as a REQUIREMENT, he CLEARLY GOT CHEATED ON AND WAS MANIPULATED, this is very clear, you can't say he did it for riches or whatever since he wasn't rich, if he actually got rich from that he wouldn't feel too bad the way he is, the impact of the princess coming to his life wouldn't be as strong
You fail to realize that the GAIN IS THE POINT for it to BE A CHEAT, go back and please read the meaning of the word
also even if you use the second meaning which is to avoid something undesirable by luck or skill, it wouldn't fly either since he didn't avoid the undersirable thing it was still to his detriment
congratulations not one of the words say that "it doesn't matter if one didn't gain something or not" that's trying to make your own definition of a clearly defined word in the dictionary
this is literally what you're saying so despite mc not
1. gaining anything
in this case neither money, respect, prestige, a better life or what have you
2. not avoiding any undesirable outcomes
people hating him, people treating him like shit, him being miserable, him losing respect for himself
you're still arguing that the clear victim of the whole back story CHEATED do you realize how stupid that is? The word was already defined by the goddamn dictionary and you're coming up with your own meaning out of nowhere trying to make it make sense when it clearly doesn't