Chapter 13: 12

“Princess, no matter whether you’re a princess or not, your making big statements. I am the eldest son of a count! Please be polite”, huffed Ark.

I’m sure it’s the first time he has heard this from someone else.

“It’s a knight’s honor to respect his opponent no matter who he fights with. Ark didn’t keep his honor!”

When I spoke as firmly as I could with my pronunciation as clear as I could, both Ark and Regen were surprised and round-eyed.

I spread my legs, crossed my arms, and spat out at the Ark without hesitation: “The name of the first Knight division is Dignitas, which means ‘honor’, but you’re more like a local bully! Why don’t you just scare the commoners on the streets and steal their money? Ah, that would fit you very well!”

“Well, how can you…”, Ark’s face turned pale.

He couldn’t figure out what to answer back, and looked around anxiously, then turned around and tried to get away.

I didn’t intend to let you go just like that. I put my hands on the tree in front of me, and recited the intermediate magic I had memorized and trained he for the last days.

“Trĕmor!”

Then, the tree shook and the pine cones hanging on the tree poured down on his head.

“Argh!”, he was struck by a stinging pine cone and ran away in a panic.

“Hmph! Coward! Dignitas are the ones with a defective eyesight!”

Regen asked me with his mouth wide open, as if he had forgotten the pain he was in: “Princess, are you really only 4 years old?”

I felt his prickling gaze on me.

“Ye- Yes. Asha is three years! I’ll be four soon!”

“The princess doesn’t seem like that. My brother is three years old, and he could never talk like the princess does.”

“Ah, it’s because Asha is quick to learn! But Regen, you need to get a treatment for the wound on your leg!”, I quickly evaded his suspicions and pulled him along. Phaeon was already approaching this way.

“ItIt!”

Regen blushed again and tried to hide his injury in a hurry. However, it was not enough to cover the long cut starting below the knee.

“How did you get hurt?”

“I- I made a mistake. I’ll wait until it gets better.”

“Please explain, Regen”, said Phaeon sternly.

However, Regen shut his mouth and mumbled only with tears in his eyes: “We had an argument with an apprentice of Dignitas. I… I wanted to protect Veritas’ honor.”

Phaeon looked down at him quietly, and then reached out his hand and put it to his head. A warm white light enveloped Regen and the wound on his leg disappeared in an instant.

“…make sure to win next time”, he patted Regen on the head. Regen’s face was redder than the color itself.

‘What? Why are you so considerate?’

I felt a sudden surge of irritation.

‘This… this feeling is absolutely not jealousy. You’re so cold to your own child, but it’s annoying when you’re so nice to someone else’s child.’

“Asha as well!”

“What do you mean?”

“Asha as well! Pet my head!”

He stared at me for a moment and said bluntly: “The only person who can stroke the princess’ head here in Santra will be His Majesty.”

Then he went off to coach the other knights.

“Uh… !”

I held back the tears that welled up in my anger.

༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

That afternoon in the Mansion of Count Eleanor.

The red-haired young lord Ark was circling in his room.

“That little kid used magic… magic that I didn’t know.”

Ark clenched his fists and trembled. The bump on his head throbbed.

‘I’m the one who will inherit the title of Count Eleanor, but I was defeated by a four-year-old girl!’

He recalled the little girl who was talking to him with a stern look, and felt a strange feeling, of he was unsure whether it was shame or his hurt pride.

‘That imitating aura… Is it because she’s a royal?”

Then, a small knock was heard: “Young Master, the lord is calling for you.”

He left the room helplessly and headed to the study on the second floor, where his father waited for him. Bertrand Eleanor did not take his eyes off the document even though his son came in, but after a long time he finally raised his head. The father of Ark and one of the three counts in Santra, was also the vice-commander of the Dignitas knight division.

Eleanor has produced many outstanding knights from generation to generation that made their mark in the history books of Santra. The current count Eleanor is also proud of his family and has taught his son mercilessly since childhood to prepare him for inheriting his family’s honor.

“Did you call me, father?”

“You’re here, Ark. You’ve been training hard today, haven’t you?”

“……Yes, of course”, answered Ark and swallowed his saliva. He thought it’s a relief that one cannot see the hump on his head.

“You will be able to see how hard you have worked during Ars Conpero in a month.”

Ars Conpero is the day on which the Holy Knights and the Magic Knights compete with each other every year. It’s like a game in which the two knight divisions compete as fiercely as if they were fighting an actual war.

Victory or defeat is determined by the winning rate of each knighthood, and if you win first place among the apprentice knights, you will receive the honor of becoming an official knight right away without having to take a promotion test.

“If- if I were to lose to a commoner…“

While looking at his son with a sharp gaze, the Count said: “It would be better not think about coming home defeated.”

The Ark trembled inwardly. He wasn’t without confidence. He was the strongest among the apprentices of the Dignitas knights. Most of them had manifested their aura, but their technique using them has yet to be perfected.

However, because Veritas has some promising apprentices who could defend against his attacks, he needed to improve as soon as possible.

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Ark carefully opened his mouth: “I-… father. Maybe… could I learn some other magic spells?”

The count wriggled his eyebrows: “What kind of magic do you want to learn?”

“For example, vibration magic…”

If he could learn the magic that the princess tried earlier, he would be able to make a surprise attack while the opponent stumbles or falls because of the vibrating ground. Then definitely…

“It’s a spell of the weak Royal Wizards! Where did you hear about it?”

As the count slammed his hand on the desk in anger, Ark was surprised and hesitated to make an excuse: “I happened to see it… and I thought it would be pretty useful.”

“Do you think you can perform magic on a horse while holding a shield and a sword?! To do that, you would have to throw away the sword! If a knight throws away his sword on the battlefield, it means death!”

The count was furious. His face was filled with contempt.

“You can’t even manifest the Flama Gladius yet. Can you afford to be distracted by that?! I succeeded at the age of 11!”

The Flama Gladius. The Eleanor family gained the title of Fire Knight from generation to generation because of their ultimate sword technique. By developing aura into elemental magic, it had the terrifying power to devour not only the enemy in front of you, but also more than 100 nearby enemies with its flames.

“… I had a moment of vain thoughts. I will devote myself to honing my swordsmanship”, replied Ark in a firm voice and bowed.

However, even until he left the room, he couldn’t get the princess who scolded him and used magic proudly out of his mind.

༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

“Princess, your posture is wrong. That’s not how you do Ochs (basic posture of swordmanship).”

“Um… but Asha’s arm won’t go up to there.”

“Hahaha, Regen! You look like an teacher!”, teased the senior knights, who were on their way to the drinking fountain, Regen, who was teaching me.

These days, it has become my daily routine to visit the training grounds every day, and as a result, I have become acquainted with other knights besides Regen. Now that they became a little more friendly with me, they lough and talk to me.

“Seeing the princess is my only source of healing these days.”

“Whenever we run our laps on the trainings as a warm-up exercise, it’s so cute to see how the princess is running along…”

“You look a little tired, Sir.”

Paeon was extremely nervous because he had to jump up and run to me to use his divine power whenever I stumbled or fell while running.

 

“How long do you intend to let the princess stay here? His Majesty will hit you when he finds out!”

“I’m so, so sorry, Sir Parciel. Once spring comes along, we’ll all be able to take a breather. Until then, please take care of her for us.”

“And the princess loves to come here… she even talks in her sleep about it.”

 

In fact, the three priestesses tried to find someone else to take care of me, but I refused. Thanks to this, Phaeon took care of me from morning to evening. Still, I spent most of my time with Regen. His hostility towards me has melted away. All of a sudden, he went so far as to teach me the sword enthusiastically.

‘You must have fallen for my charms.’

Well, there’s no harm in learning swordmanship. If I learn swordsmanship in my spare time while studying magic until I turn 111, won’t I be able to defeat any adult Magic swordman? While I was grinning deep in thoughts, Regen was defeated by vice-comander Shellman again, and walked away in a depressed manner.

“Haaa…”, he sighed deeply and slid down against the beautiful tree.

“Regen, do you not know how to train?”

When I asked cautiously, he buried his face in his lap and said in a hoarse voice: “I just can’t use my divine power.

I can’t feel it at all.”

If magic is to reverse the laws of nature by using mana, divine power is the life force of nature given by god, that is, the power to take and give life force.

Unlike mana, which is mostly passed down to a child by their parents, divine power manifests itself 100% by itself. So the fact that Phaeon was the one who made Regen an apprentice means that he had seen him use divine power before…

“Regen, how did Papa bring Regen here?”

“…When our village was attacked by demons and destroyed, he miraculously appeared up with the knights. My father died and I had to protect my mother and little sister all alone, and he was the one who saved me!”, Regen looked dreamy as he recalled the past, He’s my… my one and only hero. However, I won’t even be able to compete in the upcoming Conpero. It’s like throwing an egg in his face.”

He was clearly depressed. I don’t know all the principles of divine power, but I learned that the source of divine power is different, although not a lot, to mana. Both mana and divine power depend greatly on ones mind. If you are under serious pressure and stress, you cannot express your strength well.

I also learned magic in my first life and was framed under the context of heresy, which caused me in my second life to become afraid of using magic. So I was unable to use magic well even though I didn’t suppress my strength myself. Regen feels the same frustration and helplessness that I felt at that time.

“Regen, start with something very small. Here, let’s start with making the grass fresh and green again. Let’s just try!”

He smiled faintly as I patted the grass, which became dry because of the current season of winter. He looks pretty when he smiles!

While Regen closed his eyes and groaned to convey the divine power to the grass, I encouraged him by saying “It’s a little revived!” and “It’s green now!” Phew, I hope this helps.

However, I felt a presence behind the beautiful tree.

Oh? That red hair…

He ran away as soon as I noticed him.

“Why the hell is he peeping at us? That’s unpleasant.”

Regen stopped concentrating for a second and got angry. At that moment, information about Arc Eleanor suddenly came to mind. It was a conversation of the maids, that I have overheard when I was seven.

 

“Did you hear that? The eldest son of Count Eleanor… …is dead!”

“Oh, you mean Princess Stella’s fiancé? He’s still too young. Did he die in the current monster subjugation mission?”

“But since I have a second son… I’m glad there’s no problem with succession, well.”

“Yeah, I guess he fell off a cliff and fell into a valley. How devastated the count must be…”

 

The conversation that I had overheard wasn’t very important to me then.

Ark will die three years later, at the age of 14.

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