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–––Luvias’ viewpoint

I’m Luvias, the third princess of Bordaule. I’m still rather young, turning sixteen this year. I have two brothers and two sisters, all older than me. Since I had the lowest position in the royal family, there were not many nobles or merchants that tried getting closer to me, opposite to how it went with my siblings. In other words, there was not much expected from me, though while my parents still cared for me, my siblings constantly looked down on me. My relationship with them was not the best.

The life of a royal princess without inheritance was pretty much worthless. A prince would be able to earn a small territory in the countryside and govern over it, or marry into a noble family and increase their status. But for me that was impossible, the best-case scenario would be to get married off to the royal family of another country to form a sort of alliance, but if things took a turn for the worse I would end up living the rest of my life alone sheltered in a castle.

I really wanted to avoid that kind of life, so every day I tried to learn something new that would allow me to fend for my own if needed. Luckily for me, I also had a strong personality so I never hesitated to ask someone to teach me if I wanted to learn something. Thanks to that, I learned how to use a sword or spear, as well as horse riding or how to command troops, even a little bit of magic.

I devoured any information I could find on how to fight. Still, given my position, the only opponents I could spar with to train myself were the soldiers and knights of the palace. I reached the point where I could put up a decent fight against them, but I knew it was hard to believe they would give it all when fighting against a princess, so I understood that I would never be able to make a name for myself as long as I stayed here.

There was also a limit to how much I could train inside the palace. I really wanted a master who was strict and did not care for my status. Someone who was very skilled and would not hold back knowing I am a princess. While I collected information in search of a person like that, I heard a very interesting story.

Far to the south of the capital, there’s a small city governed by Count Grom. There was a flood of monsters nearby so they were in a very perilous situation, but a single girl easily defeated the entire armies of monsters together with their Lich leader. She was around the same age as me, but was crazy strong be it swords or magic. Then when the training schools were built, she became an excellent instructor with crowds of students following her. When I heard about her, I knew it had to be her.

If that girl became my master, I was sure to become much stronger than I currently am. When I started to plan a way to escape the palace and somehow reach Count Grom’s city, I heard a surprising story, she herself was going to visit the capitol.

It was my once in a lifetime chance! I was stumped with my plan to leave the palace, but now it felt like my prayers had been answered as she was coming to the palace instead. I waited impatiently for her arrival, counting the days. Two weeks after Father summoned them, Count Grom and the girl arrived at the palace.

My first impression of seeing her was that of a frail and extremely cute girl. I had some confidence in my own looks, but after seeing her that confidence was shattered and the remains scattered by the wind. It was hard to believe someone so beautiful could exist in this world. Not even elves who were genetically closer to fairies looked as beautiful as her. But that also brought doubt to my mind, her appearance suggested she was not suited to fight. She looked so delicate that even a knife would seem heavy for her.

Still, only an idiot would judge someone by their appearance. I had to see her in action first before saying anything, so I remained silent. But my oldest brother, Stied, together with a group of nobles began accusing her of being a charlatan and having lied about her exploits, without regard to the claims made by many of our country’s honorable spies and soldiers who witnessed her action. Stied has a rather rash temper and tends to prioritize the reality inside his mind rather than the facts in front of his eyes, so his outburst was something I was expecting.

In the end, to appease Stied and his group of nobles, it was decided that Lapis would go through a mock battle. Her opponents would be the most prominent knights and soldiers of the kingdom. Even the best swordsman of the entire kingdom, Transalp, who was given authority over an army of thousand soldiers, was included as her opponent. I had sparred with him many times in the past, but never managed to find an opening on him. To top it all off, expert archers and imperial magicians were also included, so in a way, it felt more like a public lynching rather than a mock battle.

Everyone thought that even Lapis would be unable to survive something like that. Not even I thought she had a chance of winning, so I tried to assemble healers to treat her wounds soon as possible. But in the end, it was Lapis’ overwhelming victory. All those excellent warriors had been defeated while she never even unsheathed her sword.

Her reactions were almost as if she had eyes on the back of her head, her movements refined and without any wasted energy, prioritizing immobilizing her opponents. Catching an arrow that was flying towards her was impressive enough, but she threw it back with even more speed than it was fired at her. All the magic cast on her was neutralized with even more powerful and numerous spells. In the end, she chantlessly cast a huge fireball and launched it to the ground, melting it, but after all that, she did not even seem out of breath.

When the fight was over, she elegantly bowed to the audience before completely healing all her opponents in an instant. From that fight alone I was able to ascertain she knew how to use fire, ice, lightning and healing magic. And all of them without chanting. None of the best magicians or adventurers in our country could do that.

…I thought she was a monster. It was hard to believe someone like that existed in our world. Maybe she was not as strong as the ancient hero of legends, but her power was certainly befitting of a similar title. With her strength, I thought that even if the Demon King were to be resurrected she would be able to deal with it without much problem.

After the mock battle, Father and a group of nobles formed a meeting. In the center of which was obviously Count Grom, the governor of the city she lived in. The meeting was called to decide if she should earn the title of hero or not. All other countries had recognized their own heroes, people chosen to defeat the Demon King in case of an emergency.