ã€ŠNecro - Stories of the undead necromancerã€‹


 Prologue - Sealing

    I might be used to darkness, but this darkness is different.

    ¡°Large one incoming!!!¡± shouted prince charming, with the others already racing away from our opponent. The next moment his foot connected with my stomach, sending me flying straight into a boulder a few hundred meters behind my previous position.

    Can I even call this darkness? It''s more like a void.

    ¡°Violent much?¡± sighed the blond elf standing by said boulder, while a mushroom cloud rose in the direction where I flew here from just moments ago. ¡°Do you want to kill our ticket to sealing the Collateral Queen?¡±

    No light. No people. No monsters. No space. No time. No god.

    ¡°Our monster of a leader would take a meteor to the face without batting an eye,¡± quipped my prince back. Isn''t he just handsome with those pointy brown ears? ¡°That lunatic''s fire magic could have actually killed her.¡±

    Do I even exist? Is my consciousness doing this at the moment I die?

    I continued casting the sealing magic while waiting for the wind to clear up the area of the dust and smoke left behind by the previous explosion.

    That can''t be. Death doesn''t feel like this. It can actually be felt. I can''t feel anything here.

    What we could see afterwards was a single girl floating over a crater with a radius of over a kilometer, blocking fireballs rapid-fired from her right.

    How would I know what death feels like? I''m pretty experienced when it comes to death, and by that I mean my own. First time hurt like hell. That''s also exactly where it got me.

    Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

    Isn''t it funny how that explosion was the same spell? Seriously, how can someone take a spell like fireball and turn it into a ritual-magic class weapon of mass-destruction?

    The second time? Well, you get used to it. Maybe you''ll wish it''ll land you right back in hell. I, at least, would have preferred that.

    While casting those overpowered fireballs took time, our opponent could still throw a bunch of normalish ones out without even chanting. Why do I call them normalish, not normal? Because she only needed two of them to get rid of our fire mage. First shattered her barrier, second one evaporated her. Not even ashes were left for us to collect. Poor girl. We''ll never forget you.

    Actually hell was a pretty decent place. Lucifer treated me like an idol. There was also the handsome prince-with-horns. Horns aside, he stayed with me right until I got here.

    At long last I finished chanting, however there was already a mid-sized fireball on its way arcing towards me. Please let the seal activate before it lands... Not like that would save me.

    This void? It took everything from me. My body. My senses. My companions. My sister. My prince.

    Who would have thought that the seal would actually catch that walking disaster? Not only that, but it did a pretty great job at weakening her, as the next moment I could see an arrow''s head sticking out of her chest below the incoming fireball. That lucky cat must have got her heart.

    If only I could go back... But the void is a cruel, emotionless place. Can''t even think of a way of escaping, when all I have here is my consciousness.

    That seal took all I had in me, so there was nothing I could do about her last spell. Sure, the two bickering elves DID cast barriers around me, but those would never be able to stop my sister''s fire magic. Confirming this, I could hear the barriers shattering. One... Two... Three?

    For how long was I here? Seconds? Days? Years? Does it even matter? Maybe god could get me out of here, but who am I kidding? The old man would not care about me, and I know perfectly well that he''s no longer there anyways.

    With that third shattering sound I could feel the world becoming distant. My sight became blurry. The elves'' shouts shifted into silence. The coldness of the boulder at my back and the saltiness of my own blood disappeared.

    Right, in the end we never found the one who murdered god.

    The pain of death, burned into my soul multiple times already... Never came. Instead came an absolute darkness. A place where neither light, matter, or time existed.

 Chapter 1: The Last Ilehoria

    I have never imagined that feeling pain would ever make me happy. What was there to like about pain? Still, I supposed even pain was fine, when feeling it meant one was actually able to feel something again. I just had to endure it hoping that my other senses would follow, so that I could at least check my surroundings out. It was pretty strange though that the only thing I could feel was my bones aching. With the amount of mana I had, I should have been able to sense both matter and magic near me, but I got no reactions. Did the seal really drain me this much? That¡­ could have caused some inconveniences. By the way, did I get teleported somewhere far away? Or was I locked in the void for too long? If it was neither, the others would have already picked me up. Whatever. In that state that might actually have been the case. With how drained I am, it wouldn¡¯t be strange not to notice being carried.

    ¡°... the city guards. It should not be our duty to deal with a pile of bones popping out of random rifts.¡± My hearing seemed to be the first thing to come back. That voice didn¡¯t sound like anyone I knew though. I wasn¡¯t sure whether I should have been glad it was the same language I spoke, or been annoyed that I was just called a pile of bones. I really wanted my mana back.

    ¡°I can see where you are coming from, but it¡¯s still better than the professor trying to handle the situation himself. Let¡¯s just hope he remembers to get help after he stops running around shouting like someone who just saw the Lich Demon Lord.¡± Excuse me?! Did people really react like that to seeing me? Also I really wanted that moniker to get forgotten. It wasn¡¯t me who wiped half of Hellesland out. Yes, I had been there, but no, I didn¡¯t do it. I wasn¡¯t actually a demon lord. I wasn¡¯t even a Demon in the first place.

    ¡°I also think we shouldn¡¯t be the ones getting rid of this skeleton.¡± Did I hear that right? Was there also a girl there? I was starting to fear I was surrounded by boys. Shouldn¡¯t have complained as long as all of them sounded to be pretty young though. They also mentioned some kind of ¡°professor¡±, so I guessed I was probably at some kind of school. ¡°Its smell¡­ It creeps me out. It doesn¡¯t smell like the skeletons we train against.¡±

    ¡°Your nose creeps me out. Stop smelling everything. You are supposed to be a princess.¡± Let me get this straight. No clue where I was, but that professor had the nerve to leave cleaning up a skeleton popping up near him to¡­ their princess?

    ¡°Brother, he¡¯s being mean to me again.¡± And their prince, too. I could see heads rolling in the professor¡¯s future.

    ¡°He¡¯s your fianc¨¦, Kathleen. You should really stop letting him¡­ ALAN, STEP BACK!¡± What was this commotion about? Was I that scary when I also had some mana to spare? All praise my high mana recovery rate. ¡°Take Kathleen and get out of here!¡±

    It was time to get my beloved body back. Being just a pile of bones was starting to become boring. My senses were gradually coming back too. I could feel the coldness of the floor below me. The pain of getting stabbed in the heart. Hair touching my cheeks. A layer of cloth rubbing against my skin. Was there an extra one? Oh well, nothing can be perfect. ¡°Could you please stop stabbing me?¡±

    ¡°You can even speak? What exactly are you? Where did you come from? Are you some kind of zombie that got reduced to the bones?¡±

    ¡°Wouldn¡¯t a zombie that¡¯s nothing but bones be a skeleton?¡± Was me getting up from the floor enough to make you back away? Pathetic. Although not as pathetic as not recognizing a lich after seeing this much. ¡°I¡¯m a lich, obviously. Necromancer at that. Also an Ilehoria, but I guess you could at least guess that much from how I look.¡± An Ilishwa? No, while he had cat ears and black hair, his eyes were yellow, not blue. That was a surprise. Wasn¡¯t my cute little panther cub supposed to be the last Alnamir?

    ¡°Ilehoria were said to have blond hair. You look more like a hybrid of Demon and Tuhina.¡± I wasn¡¯t a dark elf nor an ice fairy. My ears weren¡¯t even pointed. ¡°Or are our historic records incorrect? If you really are an Ilehoria, you are the first to be seen in over three millennia. According to the legends, the last Ilehoria was the Collateral Queen, sealed away by the Hero of Flames.¡± I¡­ didn¡¯t like how he just used those two monikers like they did not refer to the same person. He also mentioned one of my cringeworthy monikers before, so I thought using my own name could have caused some problems. Putting that aside, the part that bothered me most was where the Collateral Queen was the last Ilehoria they saw, but they hadn¡¯t seen one of us in multiple millennia. I was just fighting her, so does that mean I was in the void for that long?

    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

    ¡°Oh, right, I look different, don¡¯t I? You mentioned zombies before, so you should know how they look different from the people they once were. Same applies here, however my appearance will gradually revert back to normal as my mana recovers.¡± Hey, just until a moment before that I wasn¡¯t even able to maintain a body, so not being able to mask my Lich traits was a given. Must have slipped my mind. ¡°Give me an hour, and I should be the blonde beauty an Ilehoria is supposed to be. My eyes must have been what looked like a Demon¡¯s to you, those too will become blue soon.¡± It wasn¡¯t that large of a difference, but an undead Ilehoria really looked just a bit different from an alive one. Our blonde hair became white with a purple tinge, and our blue eyes became deep purple when we turned into undead. Not sure whether it was because I was a lich, but my eyes actually still had shards of their original blue at the edge of my iris. I have seen a bunch of undead, being a necromancer and all, but none of them had eyes like mine. Take Alnamir, like this boy, as an example. No matter whether their eye was yellow or green, an undead Alnamir¡¯s eye would become light brown, without a single speck of their original color remaining. ¡°While waiting for that, let¡¯s introduce ourselves.¡± It was time to throw out the first fake name I could think of. ¡±I¡¯m Hilde, Ilehoria Lich. Based on what you told me until now, I seem to be a remnant from three millennia ago. Last of my kind, if undead count.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m Keith Alakhir, Alnamir, prince of the Siegel Queendom.¡± Now that was an interesting name. ¡°Swordsman in training at the Royal Academy of Crater. The Academy is where we are right now.¡±

    ¡°I know of no place called Crater or Siegel Queendom, but your surname sounds familiar. I have, or more like had an acquaintance with that name, although she rarely ever used it.¡± A shame. It was the family name I gave her, but she kept using only her given name. ¡°She had the moniker ¡®Last Alnamir¡¯, meaning she must have been one of Your Highness¡¯ ancestors.¡±

    ¡°Please save the ¡®Your Highness¡¯ business for the Crown Princess. I might technically be a prince, but all that means that I have a priority seat as a retainer.¡± The country was called a Queendom for a reason. Should I have pitied him? ¡°Is the one you are referring to as ¡®Last Alnamir¡¯ the Founding Queen Clara? We were taught that the one to first use the name Alakhir was her daughter, Queen Hanna. Are you saying it was also the name of the Founding Queen?¡± That made me really glad I hadn¡¯t used my real name. I knew I should have been happy that unlike me Clara actually lived to have children, but naming your daughter after me of all people? Did you fear I would haunt you otherwise?

    ¡°Yes, Clara Alakhir is indeed the one I¡¯m talking about. It¡¯s fortunate that she managed to save your kind from extinction. Not all of this world¡¯s races were lucky enough to achieve the same.¡± Clara actually killed the last member of one of the races herself. That is, assuming an arrow to the heart was enough to finish that girl. Nothing would have actually surprised me when it came to my sister. Should I have mentioned this? I didn¡¯t think that would have been wise. I wasn¡¯t in the mood for setting flags for her coming back as a lich or something. Liches were a pain to deal with. I could be trusted on this, being one of them.

    ¡°The Ilehoria, right? Or are you referring to the demi-human races hunted to extinction?¡± I didn¡¯t want to go there. Our necromancer clan was responsible for wiping out quite a number of demi-human races. I saw two of those hunts. My father made me kill the last snow leopard cub when I was six. Way to get your daughter a DIY undead instead of a plushie. I was also supposed to kill the last cub they left in the Alnamir capital when I was eight, but suddenly everything behind me burst into flames. Managed to get away from there, but that luck did not extend to my father and our hunters. There were three survivors of that incident. The Alnamir cub, me, and the one who blew the hunting party up. I could not just bring a cub that couldn¡¯t even walk yet into an Ilehoria town, so I got ourselves into the Wingless¡¯ forest instead. Was that the correct decision? It definitely saved us from the calamity that turned the whole Ilehoria territory into swiss cheese.

    ¡°Let¡¯s settle for both. By the way, I overheard you and your friends talking about calling the city guards. It sounds like a pain, so can we somehow avoid that?¡±

    ¡°Ah that. Alan would definitely lead them here after the commotion when you started turning into this form. However, if my sister considered you a threat, her reaction wouldn¡¯t have been a simple ¡®creeps me out¡¯, so I guess I can try smoothing things over if you agree to cooperate.¡±

    ¡°What would have been her reaction if she considered me a threat?¡±

    ¡°At the least, you would have been surrounded by a few barriers that could send the court mages crying for their mothers yet again, and at the most you would have left the building following the shortest route leading outside.¡±

    ¡°Which is?¡±

    ¡°Right through the walls.¡±

    ¡°Cooperation it is then. Don¡¯t want to deal with guards of a place that has such a scary princess.¡±

    ¡°Did you just¡­ No, nevermind, I can¡¯t really argue with that. Come this way, I¡¯ll get you my sister¡¯s spare uniform, and while you change I¡¯ll grab a skeleton from the training fields.¡±

    And with that, my (after)life full of troubles in the far future began.

 Chapter 2: An Evening in Crater

    ¡°That went easier than I expected. Is wearing a uniform really enough to stop the guards from bothering you?¡± Shouldn¡¯t they have at least checked whether I was actually a student?

    ¡°It¡¯s not the uniform itself, but the royal crest on it. It shows that you are either of royal blood, or serving royalty. Moreover, you have an actual royal standing beside you. They wouldn¡¯t dare bother you unless they were here about a matter like a murder of another one of royal blood.¡± Nothing beats having connections.

    ¡°I wish this worked for every situation. Hey, can I get a free room at an inn if I bring you with me?¡±

    ¡°My presence can¡¯t help with that, but it doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m not willing to actually pay for your room. I can¡¯t just bring an undead into the castle, so that¡¯s the least I can do for you.¡±

    Finally leaving the school grounds, I spotted an Alnamir girl waving at us, with a dark elf ¨C I mean demon ¨C boy standing next to her.

    ¡°Hey, Keith, are those your sister and her fianc¨¦?¡± I poked the Alnamir prince¡¯s shoulder.

    ¡°Sure they ar¨C How exactly do you know about them?¡± His expression changed to plain confusion.

    ¡°My hearing came back sooner than any of my other senses. I could hear your conversation before you sent the others away. That¡¯s how I knew about the guards too.¡±

    ¡°Right, that makes sense. I should make sure I don¡¯t blab about anything confidential near skeletons from now on.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not a skeleton though. Your sister is pretty short compared to Clara and you.¡±

    ¡°She might be shorter than me, but compared to y¨C¡± It felt like my elbow struck something. Must have been my imagination.

    ¡°Hi there, Princess Kathleen, Alan!¡± I¡­ just really wanted to see their confused faces, okay?

    ¡°W¨Cwhat? Who are you? Do we know each other?¡± One Alan down. One Kathleen to go.

    Kathleen stepped right in front of me, and sniffed me just once. ¡°Why are you wearing my uniform, skeleton-girl?¡±

    ¡°Sk¨Cskeleton? What are you talking about?¡± He was so adorable. Can I mess with him a bit more? I looked back at Keith, but he seemed busy, facepalming with one hand while holding his side with another. Don¡¯t worry, your reaction to me eavesdropping on you was just as adorable.

    ¡°As the princess has said, I¡¯m the skeleton you saw inside. Name¡¯s Hilde. I was an Ilehoria while alive. Right now, I¡¯m a lich. Prince Keith lent me the uniform so that I could avoid trouble with the guards.¡±

    ¡°She said she knew the Founding Queen, so I thought we could ask her some questions about history,¡± added Keith, one of his hands still holding his side. Didn¡¯t look like any of his ribs broke, so I was probably safe. ¡°We could learn way more that way than by going to Professor Robert¡¯s classes. The lifespan of Sangeets is shorter than ours. Even the guard captain¡¯s stories hold more credit.¡±

    ¡°That sounds like an idea you would come up with, brother. How about we hit up the bar you frequent with that old Demon friend of yours?¡±

    ¡°Sure thing. Maestro Lucius has been alive since around the Sealing, so maybe he could join us too. You might even know each other.¡±

    ¡°Lucius? Doesn¡¯t ring a bell. Oh, and before I forget, drinks are on you, Keith.¡± The only things that landed in this era were my bones. Even if I still had my pouch, there was no guarantee anyone would have accepted coins from three millennia ago.

    ¡°I know, I know. The inn is on me too, like we agreed.¡± Hey, Lux. I know I always called you Prince Charming, but Keith played the role of a prince way better than you. Not to mention he was an actual prince.

    ¡°D¨Cdid the undead lady charm Keith already?¡± Did I? Did I? I really wanted to hear the prince calling me a lady too. Maybe Alan wasn¡¯t completely hopeless either.

    ¡°If brother was that easy to charm, he would have got himself a couple of brides way before you got me. Unlike you he is actually popular with both the girls our age and the older ladies. Why am I even your bride? Did your idiocy infect me?¡±

    ¡°They are a great match, aren¡¯t they?¡± I looked at Keith who finally managed to straighten up.

    ¡°Neither of them is easy to deal with, that¡¯s for sure. No wonder mother was relieved they could actually tolerate each other. Since then she stopped urging me to give her a grandchild.¡±

    ¡°At least they don¡¯t seem to be bad kids.¡±

    ¡°Being called kids by someone who looks our age feels strange.¡±

    ¡°I might be forever nineteen, but it wasn¡¯t yesterday that I became an undead.¡±

    ¡°Forget I said anything. But that means your body is technically our age. Sister is eighteen and we are one year her senior.¡±

    ¡°My body not aging won¡¯t magically erase those eight extra years. For the other three millennia¡­ It probably does? I couldn¡¯t exactly tell whether I was away for minutes or a few millennia. Being locked in some kind of void for that long just doesn¡¯t feel real.¡±

    Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°Not being able to see your friends again sounds pretty sad,¡± commented the princess. I didn¡¯t even notice when they stopped arguing.

    ¡°I was actually prepared for that. Probably all of us were. We were fighting a foe we were not confident we could beat. We already lost one of ours by the time I was pulled into the void.¡±

    ¡°If it was a fight recorded in history, we could check the records to see whether the others survived.¡±

    ¡°Isn''t this Demon a lot brighter than he normally lets show?¡±

    ¡°He is the second ranked student of our Academy, right after sister. Personality aside, he¡¯s definitely a genius.¡±

    ¡°Are all geniuses like this? Reminds me of my crazy friends. Not like I¡¯m one to speak. I was supposedly the worst of us.¡±

    ¡°Sorry to drop this on you suddenly, but it shows.¡± Pot calling the kettle black, princess?

    ¡°I¡¯m starting to think it¡¯s not a good idea to let you three drink together¡­¡±

    ***

    We walked for about 10 minutes on the mana-lit streets of Crater before arriving at the bar the prince supposedly frequented. Seeing mana lamps in Evernight wasn¡¯t anything unusual. People needed some kind of light on the dark hemisphere. Makes one appreciate planets like Earth. The strange thing was having this many of them. Seriously, how are they keeping this amount of mana lamps powered?

    The bar¡¯s owner was a snow fox lady of the Qar species. Other than her, I could also see a Demon man and two girls, one Telinga bunny and one black cat. Was she an Alnamir too, or maybe an Ilishwa? Could not tell by only looking at her back. Were they the Demon¡¯s companions? That guy definitely knew how to live.

    ¡°Good evening, Lady Olivia! Good evening, Maestro Lucius! Good evening, ladies!¡±

    ¡°Good evening, Prince Keith, Princess Kathleen, Lord Alan! And you too, young lady!¡± The owner greeted us in a cheery voice.

    ¡°If it isn¡¯t Keith. Haven¡¯t seen you in a few weeks. It¡¯s also pretty rare for you to bring others with you, even more so when it comes to your sister and my nephew. There is also a face I¨C¡±

    ¡°If it isn¡¯t Lucius. Haven¡¯t seen you in a few millennia. Can you still remember your old pal Hilde?¡± I presented the best smile I could muster.

    The guy broke into a cold sweat. Could not blame him, seeing how he definitely recognized me. Why did I previously say I did not know anyone called Lucius then? Because that wasn¡¯t his name. This was Lux, a Demon I knew pretty well. The very guy I dated three millennia ago. My Prince Charming who had the annoying habit of not keeping his distance from brothels, no matter where we went. I was pretty sure I could guess the identity of these 2 girls with him too.

    ¡°Good seeing that you haven¡¯t changed one bit. You are still surrounded by girls wherever you go, are you not?¡±

    ¡°Sorry girls, seems like I have other matters to attend to this evening. Can you get back without me?¡±

    ¡°Sure thing, Maestro Lucius!¡± the girls said in unison, then left the bar.

    ¡°Mistress, two bottles of your strongest Fox Spirit please. Also I¡¯m paying for all their drinks.¡±

    ¡°I agreed to pay for Hilde¡¯s drinks though.¡±

    ¡°I. Said. I. Am. Paying. Was that clear? Or do you want to let her make the royal family go bankrupt?¡±

    ¡°U¨Cunderstood, Maestro.¡±

    The owner put two expensive-looking bottles in front of Lux, one of which he instantly pushed to me. ¡°Want a glass, or is the bottle enough, like usual?¡±

    ¡°First time I¡¯m here, so let¡¯s go with the glass for now.¡± With that Lux stood up and took two glasses that looked pretty small from the shelf above the counter. They seemed to be about 2 cls each. What exactly was he trying to make me drink?

    ¡°Owner, three glasses of World Tree on the rock, please,¡± ordered Kathleen while Lux poured a glass of the Fox Spirit for each of us.

    We both downed our first glass, before he asked me the most important question: ¡°Where in the hell have you been for the last 3065 years? Why did you only show up after this long? Do you have any idea how much it hurt us to lose both Lucia and you?¡± The Academy trio practically froze with their glasses in hand.

    ¡°I saw Lucia die, so I can somewhat guess what you must have felt. For where I was until now, the best description I can give is ¡®in the void¡¯. I can¡¯t say why I haven¡¯t shown up sooner, nor why I did today. Keith here said I popped out of a rift that appeared at the Academy. That¡¯s all I can tell you.¡± Down the hatch another glass went.

    ¡°If you only lost Lucia and me, that must mean the plan succeeded, right? I doubt you would still be alive if my sister got away.¡±

    Lux downed another glass too. ¡°Yes, the plan succeeded. Or more like both plans did. Both ours, and hers. You definitely managed to catch her with the seal, and Clara even got a fatal hit in. The problem is that she pulled the same shit she did when you were killed.¡± I did not like where this was going. ¡°She managed to add another layer to your seal''s magic circle. She hijacked the mana flow of the seal and used it to turn herself into a lich.¡± This was the worst possible scenario.

    ¡°Wait wait wait,¡± a confused Kathleen interjected. ¡°You are talking about THE Sealing, are you not? The one where the Hero of Flames, Lucia, sealed the Collateral Queen, Colette, away.¡±

    It was time for us to be confused. ¡°Hey, Lu¡­cius, wasn¡¯t Hero of Flames one of Colette¡¯s monikers before people realized she was a walking disaster?¡±

    ¡°No mistake there, that was definitely one of your sister¡¯s monikers. I have never heard anyone calling Hotheaded Lucia the Hero of anything. Her magic was powerful, but not on the level of a hero.¡±

    It was Alan who gave us the next question: ¡°Doesn¡¯t the two of you having been there mean there were more people taking part in the Sealing than passed down in the Founding Queen¡¯s stories? According to them, other than Queen Clara and the He¨CI mean Lady Lucia, the only ones present were the Saint, Lord Gabriel, and Prince Consort Lux.¡±

    This time it was my turn to freeze. Actually Keith was also frozen, with his face white as a sheet. Lux was quite pale too. He definitely felt his demise rapidly approaching.

    Out of the three of us the prince was fastest to act. He ripped the bottle out of Lux¡¯s hand and downed it in one go. I had no clue what might have gotten into him. This surprised Lux enough to give me time to get behind him, bottle still in hand. ¡°Would you be kind enough to tell me¡± I started before a large sip of the strong spirit ¡°what Alan meant by Prince Consort, dear Lux?¡± The rest of the bottle''s contents soon followed.

    ¡°Did you dare lay your hands¡± Did he use illusion magic to make me see two of him? ¡°on my sweet Clara too?¡±

    ¡°Lady Hilde!?¡± I heard the princess¡¯ panicked voice. The next moment someone caught me.

    ¡°Lady Hilde, I suggest you rest for today. I¡¯ll get you an inn room, like I promised.¡± Was this Keith? I was pretty sure that was the first time he called me ¡®lady¡¯.

    ¡°Alan, go help brother!¡±

    ¡°No need. You two should make sure Maes¨CLord Lux gets home safely.¡±

    ***

    Keith was carrying me to the inn when I finally lost consciousness. However, just before that I still heard his last question: ¡°You are Lich Demon Lord Hanna, are you not?¡±

 Chapter 3: The Royals of Siegel

    Mornings in Crater were just as dark as the middle of night. Not like noon was any better. There was no doubt about the city being in Evernight, the dark hemisphere. Was it a depressing place? It might have been for people who knew Earth. How did the people of Lursail cope with this? They were born to this strange planet which only ever showed one of its sides to its two suns, so they didn¡¯t even find it strange. What about the third sun, one might have asked. While there was indeed another one, it was at a distance that made it insufficient to provide a decent amount of light, while still being close enough not to warrant calling it just another star. It was also the sun people used to divide their lives into days, so by no means was it of no importance to them.

    The exact same third sun has marked the beginning of my second day in the era I suddenly dropped into. What it brought with it was a lonely morning for my hungover self, except I didn¡¯t have a hangover, which was a nice pro of being undead. The lonely part wasn¡¯t exactly correct either, as it seemed like I have managed to acquire a body pillow to keep me company.

    Said body pillow must have had a hard time surviving the night with my drunk self, which was well illustrated by its shredded cover. Luckily, it seemed like the damage was mostly limited to the cover, meaning that I could easily restore the pillow to perfect condition. I really needed to wash myself up, and decided to use that opportunity to wash the pillow too. Undead did not have a need for food, but this morning I actually had a use for the breakfast the inn served, saving my portion from being wasted. After having that behind my back, I would meet up with the royals in one of the nearby parks.

    ***

    Luckily I wasn¡¯t the last one to arrive at the park. Actually I scored myself a second place out of the four of us, Kathleen being the only one to arrive sooner.

    ¡°Mornin¡¯, Your Highness! How come you aren¡¯t with Alan?¡± I only met them the day before, but it was already strange seeing one without the other accompanying them.

    ¡°Good morning, Lady Hilde. That useless idiot went to find brother, as he did not come home last night. He might have gone after the girls Mae¡ªI mean His Highness Lux was with after taking you to the inn. By the way, was the inn to your liking, Lady Hilde?¡±

    ¡°That inn was straight luxurious. Maybe even our old family estate would not have been able to compete with it, much less the inns of my time. I didn¡¯t even dare checking the room prices. I¡¯m glad Keith was paying for it. Talking about him, didn¡¯t Your Highness say yesterday that he wasn¡¯t interested in girls? Why would he go after those two then?¡±

    ¡°Brother is definitely interested in girls. What he isn¡¯t interested in is finding himself brides. Mother and great-grandmother have stopped bothering him about it after I got engaged to Alan, but Lady Eva and the head maid practically harass us to have children as soon as possible.¡±

    ¡°He definitely mentioned something about your mother and the grandchildren matter. Who is this Lady Eva though, Your Highness?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s the previous queen. She is still in charge of most matters, even after mother has officially taken the throne. But forget that for a moment, Lady Hilde. You call both Alan and brother by name, do you not? Why am I getting the ¡®Your Highness¡¯ treatment?¡± Suddenly she dove in near and grabbed my shoulder. ¡°You should call me Ka¨C¡± Did I see her nose twitch? ¡°¨Csister. Yes, let¡¯s do that. Let¡¯s call each other ¡®sister¡¯ from now on.¡± Her smile told me I have messed up. The cat was out of the bag. Or was that the Ilehoria?

    ¡°A¡­as you wish, sister.¡± I made my bed, so I had to lie in it.

    ¡°Should we find Alan and tell him to stop looking for brother?¡±

    ¡°That might be a good id¨CNevermind, he is here.¡±

    Alan just appeared at one of the corners, from the same street I popped out from a few minutes ago. Did he give up on the search already, and decided to meet up with us instead?

    ¡°I¡¯m back, Kath! Morning, Lady Hilde!¡± Why did he look like he might burst out laughing any moment?

    ¡°How useless. Couldn¡¯t you even find brother?¡±

    ¡°Is your opinion of me really this low? I actually found him. He went back to the castle to change.¡±

    ¡°I wouldn¡¯t have minded if he came in what he was wearing yesterday. Those uniforms are fine to wear multiple days in a row.¡±

    ¡°Yeah, normally. Not this time. His uniform was in a terrible state. It¡¯s like he was ambushed by a pack of sewer rats.¡± I had to turn away from the princess¡¯ stare.

    ¡°Let¡¯s just all go back to the castle then. It¡¯s faster than waiting for brother to get here.¡± That was a long sigh there, princess. ¡°Come on, Alan, sister, we have to get to the castle before brother leaves.¡±

    ¡°Why did Kath call you ¡®sister¡¯, Lady Hilde?¡±

    ¡°Just ignore it.¡± Explaining it would have been a pain. ¡°Sister, will I be able to enter the castle? Yesterday Keith said that he could not bring an undead like me in.¡±

    ¡°I bet brother just did not want Lady Eva or the head maid seeing him bringing a girl to the castle. I wouldn¡¯t be surprised if they locked you in his room for the night if he brought you. It should be fine as long as you are with me, not him.¡± I felt less and less like going to the castle was a good idea.

    ¡°That might make her safe, but the same doesn¡¯t apply to me. I shudder from even thinking about what the head maid could do.¡± Just who was this head maid?

    ***

    ¡°Has brother left?¡± That might have been short, but it scared the guard all the same. The princess seemed to be quite skilled when it came to sneaking up on others, proven by how the guard didn¡¯t notice her. I couldn¡¯t have done that even if they were slacking off.

    ¡°P-princess? N-no, the prince just arrived a few minutes ago. What happened to his clothes? Another fight with the sewer rats?¡± Sounded like that actually happened in the past. I thought Alan just meant that as a joke.

    ¡°Yeah, something like that. This girl here is with me, so can you tell the others to let her in if they see her later? She¡¯s pretty easy to recognize.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s definitely a unique look. I¡¯ll be sure to inform the other shifts.¡± With that we were in the castle grounds. I was, however, completely unprepared for what welcomed me inside.

    ¡°Why did you only pour tea for little Alicia and yourself, Sylvie?¡± whined a long-eared girl at a black-haired short woman in maid clothes.

    ¡°Shut up, hag! You are perfectly capable of pouring yourself a cup of tea, aren¡¯t you?¡± shouted the maid back.

    ¡°Who are you calling a hag, you crypt escapee? You are almost as old as I am!¡± That elf must have been pretty young if the maid wasn¡¯t much younger than her.

    ¡°I¡¯m still over half a millennia younger, hag.¡± Or her definition of not much must have been pretty odd. The maid looked to be around 30, or 40 at most, and she was definitely some kind of human, most probably a Fushane. The elf was an Arid, a desert elf, with a possible lifespan of multiple millennia. There was a huge difference between being 30 or over 500 years old.

    The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°Calm down, you two,¡± the old human lady the elf called Alicia whispered. I wouldn¡¯t have been surprised if she was over a century old. ¡°It might be rude for me to point this out as the youngest one here, but the two of you tend to behave like a pair of rude children.¡±

    ¡°WAIT, SHE¡¯S THE YOUNGEST OF THEM?!¡± I couldn¡¯t help but interject. That made all three of them look at me. A moment later tha maid dashed at me.

    ¡°Eva, back me up!¡± she shouted, drawing a pair of daggers from her thighs. I¡­ knew those daggers.

    ¡°Hey, where did you get those from?¡± I couldn¡¯t help but ask while working hard intercepting the maid¡¯s incoming slashes using only my bare hands. Somehow I managed to catch both her wrists, but then a huge hammer sent me flying through the corridor. What managed to stop me was one of the pillars.

    ¡°Nice strike, Eva,¡± the maid cheered. ¡°She was strong enough to stop my slashes, so it could have been bothersome to stay that close to her.¡±

    ¡°Is she even stronger than you? Damn, why must all undead be so overpowered?¡±

    ¡°What are you doing, Lady Eva, head maid? Is this how you welcome guests?¡± questioned the princess. I could also see Alan running towards me. With his help I managed to get back on my feet.

    ¡°Kathleen, dear, come pour me another cup of tea.¡± Alicia didn¡¯t seem bothered by the events at all. ¡°Let those three play for a bit.¡±

    ¡°But great grandmother!¡±

    ¡°No buts. Lady Eva and Master Sylvie can¡¯t be easily stopped once they become this fired up, and your new companion doesn¡¯t look like she¡¯ll break that easily.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m glad you have such high expectations of me, but it¡¯s pretty unfair not having a weapon to fight back with. Not to mention being matched up against this set of artifacts.¡±

    ¡°I always like an opponent who can appreciate my Panther¡¯s Bites.¡±

    ¡°Yours? One of those is mine. The other should be sealed together with my sister. Now that I have a closer look at it, that hammer¡¯s handle looks familiar too. It¡¯s Formless, isn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°So it was really you¡­ No wonder you reminded me of Colette.¡± Did I know this Arid from before the Sealing too? How did an Arid even become a queen of the Alnamir¡¯s new nation?

    ¡°Ah, you figured it out too?¡± came Keith¡¯s voice. ¡°Lady Hanna, could you take them down from their high horse, please?¡± With that, he just casually joined the tea party.

    ¡°Hanna? Wasn¡¯t sister called Hilde?¡± The tea party continued with Keith almost suffocating on his first sip of the drink.

    ¡°Since when are you calling her ¡®sister¡¯?¡±

    ¡°Since this morning. You know how good my sense of smell is, right?¡±

    ¡°What exactly did I miss? Is it related to how your uniform got ripped?¡± joined Alan too. Why couldn¡¯t they stop talking about b(r)othersome topics?

    ***

    ¡°I give up! I give up!¡± A scythe¡¯s blade at her throat was enough to take Eva¡¯s will to fight away. Said scythe was the same Formless she used to send my flying at the start of the fight. It was a long white rod with a light blue crystal at the tip, that could manifest different weapons using the user¡¯s mana. Eva used it as an earth hammer, while my usual pick was an earth battleax, but this time I went for an ice scythe instead.

    I looked at Sylvie, who chose to fight to the end instead of giving up. ¡°I get it already. We lost. Can someone just get me back on the floor?¡± She was pinned to one of the pillars by the pair of Panther¡¯s Bite, with a chunk of ice around each preventing her from escaping by cutting her own hands with the daggers.

    ¡°Anyone else looking for a fight?¡± I asked the attendees of the tea party, whose number increased by another four members since I started fighting back. There was a brown-haired bear child - probably Medved - clinging to Alan, a woman who looked like a Tuhina ice fairy, and two Alnamirs sitting around Alicia. If it wasn¡¯t for her eyes, I would have thought one of them was a man, but both of them had green eyes marking them as women.

    As for their answer, everyone shook their heads. ¡°Hoped so. Now then, is anyone willing to explain to me why the yellow Bite isn¡¯t sealed?¡± The ancient duo looked away. ¡°Why do I have the feeling that I don¡¯t actually want to hear the reason?¡±

    The maid was the one to answer: ¡°Wouldn¡¯t it be better not to hear things you don¡¯t wa¨C?¡± I felt like my elbow struck something yet again, but this time it was accompanied by a cracking sound. I looked at the elf.

    ¡°I¡­ might have messed up when turning Sylvie into a lich.¡±

    ¡°You probably still need your lungs, so I¡¯ll let you pick. Legs or arms?¡± I released Formless¡¯ scythe transformation and propped it next to Sylvie.

    ¡°P-please spare me. Your sister is actually pretty harmless now. If she wasn¡¯t, we would have been wiped out ages ago.¡± The newcomers tilted their heads. Kathleen and Alan have already heard who I was from Alicia and Keith.

    ¡°Harmless? Are we talking about the same person?¡±

    ¡°Knowing the legends I can see why you would be hard pressed to believe this, but Lady Colette actually saved our hides many times,¡± chimed Alicia in. ¡°I have lost my children to a dragon they accidentally angered, which she then stopped from wiping the city out.¡±

    ¡°Granny, are you saying the hero who avenged my parents was the Collateral Queen?¡± the flat Alnamir asked.

    ¡°Yes, it was the very Lady Colette from the myths.¡±

    ¡°Who is the one sealed in the central tower then? I mean that busty woman with the Wingless-like blonde hair.¡±

    ¡°I wanna know too.¡± This was the first time I have heard the Tuhina woman speak. ¡°I have seen her multiple times too, and I just assumed her to be the actual Collateral Queen.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s her, no mistake there,¡± smirked Eva. I¡¯m the one managing who and when can enter the tower, so making it look like she¡¯s always there is childsplay.¡±

    ¡°Basically you only let us in if she¡¯s there, right?¡± Most sane people would have probably made the same assumption as the better-endowed Alnamir of the two around Alicia did. However, it was a waste of time to think sanely when one was dealing with Eva.

    ¡°Yes, but no. It¡¯s pretty much the opposite, as I just ask her to go back there every time one of you wants to go near the Seal. Other than those times, she rarely ever goes near the tower.¡±

    ¡°So where is she right now?¡± I couldn¡¯t help but ask.

    ¡°Her room is right next to Lady Eva¡¯s one.¡± Eva looked like she wanted to say something, but Alicia beat her to it.

    ¡°WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT???¡± came the synchronized shout of everyone other than the three old ladies and the Medved child. Yes, that included me too.

    ¡°Keep friends close, enemies closer, and people who can remove these daggers from my hand close enough to be considered helpful.¡±

    ¡°I thought you could not possibly become any more annoying, but I was wrong.¡± I grabbed Formless then held it out towards Eva. ¡°Could you use that hammer trick of yours to make her shut up?¡±

    ¡°Why would I hurt her?¡±

    ¡°Legs it is then.¡±

    ¡°Y-yes, Lady Hanna! I¡¯ll definitely make her shut up.¡± She grabbed Formless from my hands in a panic. ¡°Sorry, Sylvie. I don¡¯t want to lose my legs.¡±

    ¡°I hope you lose your ears, Eva.¡± Eva swung the now-hammer Formless, solving one of my problems, although only temporarily. The maid¡¯s shattered skeleton would restore itself after some time, followed by her body reappearing on it, just like it was the case with me.

    ¡°Can you take me to this room next to yours then?¡±

    ¡°I can, but Colette isn¡¯t in right now actually. One of the skeletons under her supervision caused some problem at the Academy, so she¡¯s investigating that matter right now.¡±

    ¡°Are you telling me it¡¯s my fault she isn¡¯t here?¡±

    ¡°I said nothing like that.¡±

    ¡°Sure you did, Lady Eva.¡± I had to thank Keith later for taking my side. ¡°The skeleton that caused said problem was Lady Hanna.¡± I had to punish Keith later for selling me out.

    ¡°Back on topic, when will she be back?¡±

    ¡°Probably in three or four hours.¡±

    ¡°Can someone lock this Seal-breaking idiot in her room until that?¡±

    ¡°You can¡¯t just give commands to the royal fa¨C¡±

    ¡°Go to your room, Eva.¡± The flat Alnamir seemed to agree with my idea at least.

    ¡°You forgot the magic word. Saying ¡®please¡¯ can do wonders, you know.¡±

    ¡°By my authority as the ruling Queen of Siegel, I order you to stay in your room until I tell you otherwise. Were there enough magic words in that for you?¡± I didn¡¯t expect her to be the current Queen. The other Alnamir looked a lot more similar to princess Kathleen. ¡°Lady Hanna, would you mind accompanying me while your sister is away? I have so much to ask from a warrior of legends like you.¡±

    ¡°It would be an honor, Your Highness.¡±

    ¡°Bella, Maya, Kathleen, you join us too. Alan, Keith, please go and play with Sara.¡±

    ¡°Lady Eva, could you take me with you?¡± Alicia was the only one who did not get any orders, but it seemed like she didn¡¯t actually need any.

    ¡°Sure, little Alicia¡± she helped the old lady up from the chair. ¡°Want to play cards?¡±

    ¡°No, I¡¯ll just make sure you do nothing irresponsible like sneaking out of the window.¡± I could totally see that happen. ¡°Master Sylvie will probably come looking for you when she recovers, and leaving the two of you on your own always comes back to bite me.¡± She must have had it difficult with seniors like the head maid and the previous queen. Even I was easier to deal with than them.

 Chapter 4: Reunion of the Hildakoa Sisters

    *** PoV: Colette ***

    ¡°I can¡¯t believe this brat,¡± I spat, closing the door of the tool shed - scratch that, skeleton shed - behind my back. ¡°Pulling pranks on teachers is fine, but did he seriously have to make me waste my whole day with this skeleton incident? If you¡¯ll cause some mess using one of my skeletons, at least make sure the others don¡¯t see it¡¯s you who took the scapegoat outside.¡±

    Being the one who made all of the training skeletons the Academy used, I could obviously communicate with them, so if one wanted to make sure they did not blab to me, one had to wipe out any witnesses.

    ¡°Why did you have to get even the guards involved though? Even his own shadow could scare poor little Robert, so no one would have even batted an eye to him running around screaming,¡± I muttered. Prince Keith wasn¡¯t someone who would call the guards on himself for a prank, and Princess Kathleen would probably join in instead of running to the guard station. ¡°I just hope they won¡¯t try to run from me when I get back, but if they do¡­ Sewer rats, it is.¡±

    ¡°You called?¡± Luckily jumpscares like this stopped working on me centuries ago. Still, it was somewhat disturbing that this rat could pop up from anywhere the moment I mentioned him or his lackeys.

    ¡°Go away, Brad. It¡¯s not like I want to pay for your drinks.¡±

    ¡°But if they try fleeing, you will, right?¡±

    ¡°Sure, sure. But make sure it¡¯s not only Keith you catch this time.¡±

    ¡°Understood, boss. I¡¯ll have my daughters behave just this once.¡±

    ¡°Even you can¡¯t seriously believe they would comply. At least tell them to share their prey with me sometimes.¡± And share they did.

    ***

    ¡°Did that annoying goddess dedicate this week to skeleton-related incidents, or what in her name is going on here?¡± I couldn¡¯t help but ask, seeing the half-assembled pile of bones next to one of the pillars of the main corridor.

    ¡°You seem to be in a foul mood. Found nothing out of the ordinary?¡± Now THAT was a jumpscare I didn¡¯t expect. At least her being able to speak meant she wasn¡¯t another one of the skeletons I made. I mean, sure, I was the one who turned her into a lich, but she wasn¡¯t just an empty body programmed to follow orders.

    ¡°Sylvie? What happened to you? There shouldn¡¯t be anyone able to overpower you around here.¡± Thanks to the boost that came with being an undead, even the prince¡¯s strength fell behind compared to her, and he was one of the strongest in the capital.

    ¡°The problem isn¡¯t the location, but the time. It¡¯s normal for her to be here, but she shouldn¡¯t be in this era.¡±

    Sigh. ¡°I¡¯m not sure who you are talking about, but at least now I understand why you were put into this state.¡±

    ¡°Could you maybe help th¨C¡± No, it definitely wasn¡¯t my kick that reset her restoration¡¯s progress.

    ***

    ¡°So who is the little prankster that needs some scolding?¡± It took me some time to find the prince, but there he was, playing house with her little sister and Alan.

    ¡°Oh, Director Hildakoa. What prank did Alan pull this time?¡± asked the prince, like he wasn¡¯t the confirmed perpetrator in this case.

    ¡°I¨C I swear I didn¡¯t do anything this week,¡± shouted Alan while running past me, with Sara right at his heels.

    ¡°It¡¯s unlike you to not even try stopping him,¡± said Keith with a confused face. ¡°If it¡¯s not him you are after, could it be that you are here because of the mess that skeleton caused yesterday? Lady Eva has already sent someone to investigate that matter.¡±

    ¡°The one she sent has already finished questioning the remaining skeletons, and is currently standing right in front of you, the person who took the supposed culprit of said mess out of the shed. Any last words?¡±

    ¡°But the one who was sent¨C¡± I couldn¡¯t understand why he stopped there, staring at me. ¡°Director, could it be that you are the Collateral Queen?¡± I must have become as white as a sheet. How could he figure my identity out? I knew that my family name wasn¡¯t recorded in the legends, that¡¯s why I could still use it without having to rely on fake names, so that could not have been the clue. My appearance was also altered to that of a Fushane, and no one would mistake their black hair color with my original blonde one, not mentioning the fact that every legend said I had heterochromia, which was no longer the case.

    ¡°What makes you think I am that person?¡± I could feel the cold sweat on my back. ¡°Do I look that similar to her?¡± I was hoping I could still get myself out of this situation.

    ¡°No, nothing of the sort, but now that you mention it, the only difference I can see compared to when you are in the central tower is your hair color.¡± Was the cat really out of the bag? ¡°The only clue I needed was the fact that Lady Eva sent you, as she told us Lady Colette had left the castle for that very reason.¡±

    ¡°Where is Eva right now?¡± Now I was completely lost. The elf hag should have had no reason to disclose my identity to anyone, let alone the royal family. Could it have been somehow connected to Sylvie having been beaten?

    ¡°She got locked up in her room for concealing she has unsealed you.¡±

    ¡°So¡­ How exactly did she manage to mess up and reveal it?¡±

    ¡°That was actually a byproduct of the skeleton incident. As you have already figured out, I was the one who took one of the skeletons from the shed, but it was not the skeleton that appeared during the class. I took it to substitute the actual cause of the uproar.¡±

    The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

    ¡°Actual cause? Was there another skeleton there? Why did you have to substitute it? What did you do with it?¡± It just made no sense.

    ¡°What appeared during class wasn¡¯t a normal skeleton, but a lich, just like the head maid and you, and not just a random one at that. It was the Lich Demon Lord of legends. Lady Colette, your sister is back. As for how Lady Eva¡¯s secret got found out, Lady Hanna has recognized the daggers the head maid used, one of which she claimed was supposed to be sealed together with you.¡±

    *** PoV: Hanna ***

    ¡°This bath really made it sink in that I¡¯m in an actual royal castle. The one at the inn wasn¡¯t bad, but it has no chance against an opponent this mighty.¡± I just walked out from the royal bathhouse followed by my four companions. ¡°Now I understand why you had to send the boys away, Your Highness.¡±

    ¡°I know, right? It¡¯s the only upgrade to the castle made by Eva that all of us approve of,¡± laughed Queen Brianna, the one who invited me to the bath in question. ¡°Apparently people from the D¨¹rre desert really love their baths, the Arid even more so.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t judge them for that. Living at that dry place is a real pain, not even considering all the sand. I gave up and moved back here after a single year. Anyone who doesn¡¯t want to soak in a bath after being exposed to it must be insane,¡± added the ice fairy Bella.

    ¡°I still can¡¯t understand why you moved there of all people, sis. You had to know you wouldn¡¯t be able to deal with the heat, being a Tuhina and all,¡± chimed the panther Maya in.

    ¡°Can you blame me? They have the best public baths on whole Lursail. If it wasn¡¯t for the sand, I would have stayed.¡±

    ¡°Maybe I should give them a visit too, then. Those baths sound f¨C¡±

    ¡°Haaannaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!¡± I got tackled at the corner by a Fushane-looking woman. Her hair and eyes might have been a different color, but it was still obviously my sister. Soon I was forced into a position that would have made me suffocate, was I still alive.

    ¡°Director Hildakoa too? Why does it seem like everyone important knows sister?¡± wondered Kathleen.

    ¡°Everyone important seems to have some secrets. In the Director¡¯s case it¡¯s that she¡¯s actually Lady Colette,¡± said Keith appearing next to us.

    Colette looked up at Kathleen, her face becoming quite scary. ¡°Hanna is MY sister. Keep your paws off of her, Princess. You already have your own sister anyway, don¡¯t you?¡±

    ¡°Waaaaah, brother Keith, sister Kath, heeeeeelp,¡± came the shouting little bear sister Colette just mentioned. ¡°They kidnapped Alan!¡±

    ¡°Who did what now?¡± asked the Queen.

    ¡°The two rat ladies took him away.¡±

    ¡°Rat ladies? Don¡¯t tell¨C¡± started Keith, but Colette interrupted him.

    ¡°Oh crap. I totally forgot about them. Don¡¯t worry, little Sara, I swear I¡¯ll bring him back. Sorry for the mess I caused.¡± I finally got freed from her hug. ¡°Braaad, lead the way!¡± Who was she talking to? Keith took his panicked little sister away, so it was just the five of us again.

    ¡°Well, if the Director says she¡¯ll get Alan back, we have nothing to fear. Eva was right, we can really let her out in the wild, although her being the same person as the one who was feared by the whole planet in the past makes me wonder what happened to her that turned her into a mass murderer. She never seemed to be one to get drunk on power, even though she definitely has the power to wipe any city or even country out.¡± The Queen had a point.

    ¡°Even I don¡¯t know what made her snap back then. Before she wiped our fellow Ilehoria out, she seemed to be a normal, loving big sister. People didn¡¯t even realize it was her going around blowing whole cities up, and thought she was a hero saving the survivors. Her eyes of a Hero did not help either.¡±

    ¡°So how did they figure it out in the end?¡± Maya asked.

    ¡°She stopped saving people. A bit after I was hunted down for supposedly being the Lich Demon Lord, the voices of the survivors praising her as their savior were replaced by the voices of survivors being the witnesses of her rampage. Her targets also changed. Before that her only targets were Ilehoria cities, but afterwards she became indiscriminate.¡±

    ¡°I guess we¡¯ll just have to listen to her version too,¡± suggested Bella. ¡°If someone knows her reasons for becoming the most infamous villain ever, it must be herself.¡±

    ¡°By the way, where did the Lich Demon Lord name come from? No matter how I look at you, I wouldn¡¯t be able to mistake you for a Demon,¡± was Maya¡¯s next question. It seemed like she was the one to come up with the most on-point questions out of this group.

    ¡°Ah, that¡¯s a funny story. You know the legends of previous Heroes and Demon Lords, I suppose. Just like Colette, they had eyes of different colors, and usually appeared at nearly the same time. One of them was a Demon every time, who would throw the world into chaos, while the other, whose race varied from occasion to occasion, would go against them and save the people. This time, however, the only one to appear was Colette.¡±

    ¡°That means the supposed Hero took the place of the Demon Lord, while there was no supposed Demon Lord to take the place of the Hero,¡± added the princess with an unusually serious face.

    ¡°Exactly. People were well aware of the legends, and looking at how they already found their Hero, they needed to find someone to be their Demon Lord. They needed someone who was present when the first incident happened, whose only known survivors were me and the still infant Clara. It did not help either that a few years after I flew to Elfenwald, I teamed up with the prince of the Demons, Lux, who was apparently looking for me around the world, neither that I was already known as a powerful necromancer by that time. People generally feared the undead, and there I was, leading a horde of skeletons into dungeons with a Demon at my side. It didn¡¯t matter that I had no heterochromia, I was just the scapegoat they needed, so they sent a group of adventurers including Colette after me. The only thing they knew about their target was that it was a young Ilehoria necromancer, so when they ran into us and Colette introduced me to them as her sister, we actually teamed up to look for the Demon Lord together. However, we got split up during a monster ambush, and when I summoned some skeletons to help their party leader and myself, he realized who I was, and stabbed me in the heart from behind.¡±

    ¡°Then you went and actually became a lich. Cliche much?¡± I could have been fine without that comment from the princess. I preferred when she was serious.

    ¡°Sure I did, but don¡¯t ask me why Colette brought me back. My party was only able to tell me that they found me sitting next to the charred corpse of the party leader, with my hair silver and my eyes purple. Most of the other party was also killed, while the few who were spared said they were barely able to flee from the supposed Demon Lord, who they confirmed to be Colette, not me. This cleared my name, but with me becoming a lich, the moniker stuck to me.¡±

    ¡°And after this, she started attacking cities seemingly indiscriminately. If you ask me, these things seem to be related pretty closely.¡±

    ¡°You might be onto something, Lady Bella.¡± I was quite impressed. ¡°If you are right, that probably makes me the densest little sister she could have.¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t mind if my sister is dense,¡± smiled Kathleen.

    ¡°It might be a good idea not to say things like this while Colette is around, sister.¡±

    ¡°Having my daughter be this close to the legendary Demon Lord makes me proud.¡±

    ¡°You think I¡¯m close to her, mother? You should see¨C¡±

    ¡°Sister. Stop. Please.¡±

 Chapter 5: Might have maid a mistake

    After being at the castle for a few hours, I expected the royal family to provide me with some quality entertainment, and they delivered without failure.

    ¡°I¡¯m back, everyone!¡± appeared Colette, followed by a pale and shaking Lux carrying a curled up Alan.

    ¡°Welcome back, Lady Colette,¡± replied Keith and the Queen without delay. The Queen¡¯s cousins, Maya and Belle, have already left, while Keith, Sara and Sylvie have joined us.

    ¡°Hi, Colette. It¡¯s good to see you being well. Wanna tackle me again?¡±

    ¡°Ah, sorry for that. I was just way too excited after not seeing you for thousands of years. Did you miss me too?¡±

    ¡°I sealed you about a day ago. Why would I have missed you?¡±

    ¡°Sounds like you have more things to catch up with than I do, then. The Demon boys here seem to be in pretty bad condition, so could anyone help?¡±

    ¡°Heh, like Alan deserves help after being done in by some girls. Brother, can you handle Lord Lux? I¡¯ll take this useless idiot back to his room.¡±

    ¡°Stay away!¡± said Sara, tackling the unsuspecting Kathleen. ¡°Stop bullying Alan! Be like that nice lady who brought him back!¡± A sisters¡¯ quarrel? If Sara was ten or so years older, I would have thought she was Kathleen¡¯s rival in love.

    ¡°Lux? Isn¡¯t that Lucius, Alan¡¯s uncle?¡± wondered Brianna.

    ¡°Lucius? Isn¡¯t Lucius Datsemuli dead, Queen? This guy is his brother, Lux Datsemuli, my cute little sister¡¯s boyfriend. And little Sara, my name is Colette. Want me to help you nurse Alan, so you wouldn¡¯t have to let your sister bully him?¡±

    ¡°Yes, big sis Letty!¡±

    ¡°Oh, am I Letty now? Thanks for the cute nickname,¡± smiled my sister at Sara, then a surprisingly wide grin appeared on her face as she turned towards us. ¡°Look, Princess, I took your sister, just like you took mine.¡± She quickly turned back and continued speaking to the Medved girl. ¡°Little Sara, can you help me carry him? Unfortunately I¡¯m quite weak, that¡¯s why I had to ask Lux here to bring him home.¡±

    ¡°Sure!¡± It was a strange sight to see, how the short bear girl took Alan from the tall Lux¡¯s hands and princess-carried him away, Colette following close behind. He must have lost all his remaining dignity after showing such a sight to the Queen. Keith then led Lux away, leaving the stunned Kathleen and surprisingly silent Sylvie with the Queen and me.

    ¡°Nice job sister,¡± I patted her shoulder. ¡°May I suggest you refrain from verbally abusing Alan for some time? You managed to alienate your own sister pretty quickly but you could probably still save your relationship with him.¡± She hugged me with tears rolling down her cheeks but did not say a thing.

    ¡°Lady Hanna, could you explain to me what''s going on with Alan¡¯s uncle?¡± asked the Queen, choosing to ignore her daughter¡¯s troubles for the time being.

    ¡°What exactly is there that needs to be explained? He is indeed Lux Datsemuli, Lucius Datsemuli¡¯s little brother.¡±

    ¡°But¡­ Lucius¡¯ brother was the husband of our Founding Queen, who was said to have died together with her, yet Lady Colette said he was your boyfriend.¡±

    ¡°He definitely was my boyfriend until sealing Colette but it seems like he married my cute little Clara sometime after that. That was quite the shock for me too, when Alan pointed it out last evening. As for him being supposedly dead, you can see it¡¯s not the case but I can¡¯t provide you with the hows or whys of that.¡±

    ¡°I see. Then, what might have terrified him this much?¡±

    ¡°That was definitely my sister. I guess she just showed up next to him like they were old friends, and he got scared, realizing she was no longer sealed. I can confidently say that she made everyone in our old party suffer a lot in the past, making this the natural reaction.¡±

    ¡°That helps reinforce some of the legends about her but it still feels like the Director is a completely different person. The Colette Hildakoa I know is the friendly and helpful woman, who just accompanied Sara and Alan.¡±

    ¡°Reminds me of when we were still children. I hope she stays like this but it gives me the creeps, knowing what she¡¯s done. Hey sister, would you let go of me?¡± She didn¡¯t reply, instead hugging me even tighter. ¡°What should I do about you? Do you maybe want me to stay with you for the night?¡± I could see her nod.

    ¡°Would that be okay with you, Lady Hanna? We can provide you with your own private room if you prefer so.¡±

    ¡°I can take care of that, you just have to ask,¡± came Sylvie¡¯s voice.

    ¡°Woah, you scared me, Master Sylvie. I actually forgot you were here. What¡¯s with you being this quiet?¡±

    ¡°Just trying not to get killed. I already got reduced to a pile of bones by both Hildakoa sisters today, so I thought maybe I could stop playing with fire for once.¡±

    ¡°I did no such thing. It was Eva, not me, who crushed you. Isn¡¯t being dealt with this way normal for you though? Seeing how casual, or in Eva¡¯s case straight rude you are with the royals for being a maid, I would expect you to get severely punished all the time.¡±

    ¡°Oh, that? I¡¯m pretty sure being executed was a severe enough punishment to justify me no longer getting punishments for my offenses.¡± So much about not playing with fire.

    ¡°More undead stories. Sounds interesting.¡± Brianna¡¯s eyes were literally sparkling. ¡°Go on, let us hear the details.¡±

    ¡°Well, you see, I was actually an orphan taken in by Eva as a personal maid for the elderly Andrew Alakhir, the last living Alnamir of the time.¡±

    ¡°Oh, yet another time when the Alnamir almost went extinct?¡± I couldn¡¯t help but ask. ¡°I can see why the prince and princess said you and Eva are actively urging them to have children.¡±

    The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

    ¡°That¡¯s indeed our reason for doing this, but you are quite mistaken about the Alnamir almost going extinct at the time. They did go extinct, without a doubt.¡±

    I looked at Brianna. ¡°Excuse me, but could you please tell me what race you belong to?¡±

    She was just as confused as me. ¡°I¡¯m supposed to be an Alnamir, a descendant of Andrew Alakhir at that. Do you have an explanation for this, Master Sylvie?¡±

    ¡°We¡¯ll get there eventually. So, the thing is, Andrew Alakhir died while only having one child, a Farkas boy.¡± Farkas are a race of wolf demi-humans, for those in the dark. ¡°Eva found his cold body in his own room when checking on him after he failed to show up for multiple marriage interviews in a row. His personal maid was also nowhere to be found, so looking at all the evidence they had, they started a manhunt against her, the prime suspect of a murder case.¡±

    ¡°You just said you were his personal maid, didn¡¯t you? Did you kill him?¡± The million dollars question, asked by the Queen herself.

    She looked away from us. ¡°Yes. It might have been unintentional but I was the one who killed Andrew Alakhir.¡±

    ¡°Then you were caught and executed. So, how are the Alnamir not actually extinct after that?¡± I refused to let Brianna hog every chance to shine.

    ¡°Have some patience. You are incorrectly assuming that they could catch me, while in reality I was able to slip out of Siegel without the Royal Army ever being able to trace me down. It wasn¡¯t until eleven years later that I gave myself up, and got publicly executed. Now, the reason why the Alnamir did not stay extinct is that I was able to give birth to a healthy Alnamir boy under the protection of the Datsemuli family.¡± Lux seemed to be involved with each and every woman ever getting into trouble somehow. ¡°I was raising him until he became ten years old, then brought him back to Eva, fully prepared to meet my end in the process. You should have seen her face when instead of the Demon delegation she was expecting, it was me who walked into the castle.¡±

    ¡°Wait wait wait wait, let me get this clear. Are you saying that you are THAT Sylvie, Adam Alakhir¡¯s mother?¡±

    ¡°Yes, that would be me. Surprised?¡±

    ¡°Obviously. I wasn¡¯t even aware you were undead until earlier today, so I have never made the connection between you and the Sylvie in our family tree, but this means you are actually my eighth grandmother, doesn¡¯t it?¡±

    ¡°Putting that aside for a moment, why did Eva bring you back as an undead if it was her who got you executed in the first place?¡±

    ¡°Ann, can you remember who Adam¡¯s first wife was?¡± First my sister started speaking to some ¡®Brad¡¯, then Sylvie did the same to this ¡®Ann¡¯ person. Did people in the castle have imaginary friends?

    ¡°How many times did I tell you to stop calling me that?¡± Maybe in Sylvie¡¯s case she could just give nicknames to anyone, including the Queen. She could really do whatever she wanted. ¡°I¡¯m pretty sure that was Alan¡¯s sister, Emilia Fero. Oh, right, you were under the protection of her mother¡¯s family, so my guess is that you arranged that marriage.¡±

    ¡°Sure I did. I¡¯m not petty enough to only offer my head and son after making a fool of Eva for over ten years. She seemed to like the gesture, as the next thing I remember after she beheaded me is waking up next to her pale and shaking form, with an Ilehoria beauty looking down at us.¡±

    ¡°Were you not afraid of my sister?¡±

    ¡°Why would I have been afraid? She was just a friendly-looking woman I knew nothing about. Did you maybe expect an orphan who never got a proper education to know the legends about her?¡±

    ¡°My bad. What about when you were told who she was?¡±

    ¡°What would you think if Eva suddenly told you your combat trainer was a mass-murderer?¡±

    ¡°I would probably soil my pants while being glad I was her trainee, not victim.¡± That did not sound like something the Queen should say in public, even less so with a completely straight face.

    ¡°That second part sounds like my most probable reaction too.¡±

    ¡°Now, imagine the same after realizing that said trainer is laughably weak, with her only strong points being her fire magic and the high regenerative power specific to the undead.¡± She had a point. My sister was so weak physically that I couldn¡¯t help but wonder how she managed to walk for more than a few minutes without taking breaks. Unlike me she also didn¡¯t have an affinity for earth magic, making it unlikely that she used magic to reinforce herself. If she did, she wouldn¡¯t have needed to rely on Lux when retrieving Alan.

    ¡°This makes me wonder why she taught you combat skills over magic. The only weapon that she is relatively decent with is the dagger, and even with that one only needs to block her once to make her stumble.¡±

    ¡°What she taught me was not normal combat but fighting mages, no matter how strong. Following this very principle, the final exam she gave me was defeating her one-on-one while both using artifact-class weapons.¡±

    ¡°Ah, one Panther¡¯s Bite against the other?¡± That was practically the same duel after which she gifted me the green dagger from that pair of artifacts as a reward for defeating her. The rules were simple: Both of us used one of the Panther¡¯s Bites, but I could only keep mine if I won.

    ¡°What? No, it was me with the pair of daggers against her using Formless. If she used one of the daggers, I would have defeated her within seconds, but it took me over 3 hours to finally beat her and her spear of fire.¡±

    ¡°That must have been an interesting fight to watch,¡± chimed the Queen in. ¡°I wish I could have seen it.¡±

    ¡°If you want to see that, she actually challenges me at the Academy¡¯s tournament every year. If cute little Ann insists, I can make an exception and accept it this year.¡±

    ¡°Please don¡¯t call¨C¡±

    ¡°Colette being the one who challenges you instead of it being the other way around is already pretty mind-blowing, but there being a person who can just casually decline makes me glad I accepted sister¡¯s invitation to the castle. You royal bunch are truly great entertainers.¡± Kathleen¡¯s pridefully smug but still teary face almost made me laugh out loud.

    ¡°Like I was trying¨C¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m glad I can be of service to you.¡± Sylvie¡¯s serious reply, however, made me shudder. It was just¡­ not like her. Sure, she was one of the most annoying people I have ever met, but that was part of who she was, and it fit her to a T.

    ¡°Could you please¨C¡±

    ¡°Sister, will you also join the tournament? Your fight against Lady Eva and the head maid was a spectacle to behold, and we really need some fresh attractions if we want to keep the populace interested in the Academy¡¯s public events,¡± came the long-missed voice of the Crown Princess. ¡°Brother and I are on the organizing committee, meaning I can easily slip you in as a seeded participant.¡±

    ¡°Listen¨C¡±

    ¡°That would be great, but wouldn¡¯t someone from an extinct race participating be strange?¡±

    ¡°It wouldn¡¯t be stranger than someone getting away unpunished after not letting the Queen get in a single uninterrupted sentence.¡± Did someone interrupt the Queen? Must have been Sylvie. Sister and I definitely did not do the same afterwards. ¡°You are Director Hildakoa¡¯s sister, so can¡¯t you just camouflage yourself as the same race she acts as? Also please stop using us as some kind of cheap source of entertainment.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s a nice idea. I could probably even pull it off better than she does, with me being this short. She might have average height for an Ilehoria, but she is way too tall compared to real Fushane.¡± I went ahead and tweaked my appearance on the spot, gaining applause from my three spectators.

    ¡°We can now actually be sisters,¡± laughed Sylvie.

    ¡°Why would I have to be your sister? Do we look related?¡±

    ¡°Right, I haven¡¯t properly introduced my official persona yet, so you wouldn¡¯t know. The identity I use when interacting with those unaware of my circumstances is¨C¡±

    This time the Queen was the one to interrupt Sylvie. ¡°Sylvie Hildakoa, the older sister of Colette Hildakoa.¡± It felt strange when our last name was used for someone unrelated to us, but Her Majesty being aware of that name meant she was probably using it since a long time ago. I couldn¡¯t realistically make her change it like this.

    ¡°Why are you the older one?¡±

    ¡°Because that¡¯s actually the case. I was alive for one year longer than her, then got turned into a lich the exact same time she got unsealed. Other than that the only difference in our ages is the slightly over 800 years she was sealed for.

 Chapter 6: Dangers in the night

    *** PoV: Kathleen ***

    I thought having company for the night would help me calm down in a wholesome way, not by pushing my survival instincts to the edge, forcing me to forget my problems if I wanted to stay alive. Sure, it was all fun and games when we were still talking our time away, but right after we got into my luxurious bed fit for royalty, the absolute nightmare began. I was literally fighting for my life there. One moment my ribs barely survived a tight hug without breaking, then right as I managed to free myself, an elbow landed in my face, crushing my nose. That must have left some difficult to clean bloody spots on the sheets. The next moment I had to roll over to avoid a heel aimed at my teeth by a hair¡¯s breadth, instead getting headbutted in the stomach. I was too busy figuring out how Hanna¡¯s head got here so quickly after she pulled her leg back, but I faintly remember hearing something crack. Did the bed give out under me? When I bounced off of the wall of my own room from a powerful kick to my spine, finally getting outside of the attack range of the wild, uncontained limbs, I got to understand what my brother must have lived through the previous night. I clearly had to stop harassing both him and Alan for how bad they looked after their encounters with sister and the rat girls, seeing how after only an hour I no longer even had the strength to lift myself up from the floor. As for the disturbing sound I heard on impact, the wall probably crumbled behind me. It definitely wasn¡¯t the sound of my bones shattering. The maids must have been terrified when they found me lying there like a disfigured rabbit after being torn into pieces by a pack of wolves. As for the healers, I just had to hope they liked sweets.

    ***

    ¡°Alan! Sister Kath is finally awake!¡± The first voice that I heard after I regained consciousness was that of my little sister, Sara, who I thought would refuse to talk to me for days, or possibly even weeks after the events of the previous day. Slowly lifting myself up, I could see over ten healers and Directory Hildakoa lying around my room, all of them being visibly drained. Alan and Hanna were sitting on Sara¡¯s sides, both deep asleep, though on a closer look I realized Hanna¡¯s limbs were tightly tied to her chair.

    ¡°Is this heaven?¡± A single near-death experience wasn¡¯t enough to stop me from messing with people. Just like how the head maid kept intentionally pushing the buttons of people, I wasn¡¯t about to change my ways either. Or maybe I was, but I planned to do it slowly. I knew perfectly well how creepy the serious Sylvie was when everyone was used to her usual self.

    ¡°What are you talking about, sister Kath? This is your room. This is where I found you last night. How can you still joke around like this?¡± Sara¡¯s teary, but at the same time angry face scared me a bit. ¡°Sister Letty said you would have died if I hadn''t found you.¡± That meant instead of the maids it was my little sister who had to live with the trauma of finding my bloody unconscious body.

    ¡°Thank you. You are the best little sister I could wish for.¡± Her scrunched up face told me everything I wanted to know. ¡°See? This happens when I stop messing with people for a moment, and that¡¯s exactly why I still do it, no matter how bad the situation is, but putting that aside for a moment, I actually meant that. Thanks for not letting me die here.¡±

    ¡°You are welcome. Just please promise me one thing.¡± She jumped up from her chair and leaned in so close our noses almost touched.

    ¡°No, I won¡¯t give you Alan, but I¡¯m willing to treat him better.¡±

    ¡°I wanted to ask you something else, but thanks, sister Kath! Please tell us if you want to sleep with Lady Hanna! I¡¯ll join you so that I can protect you!¡± Sara could be really sweet when I wasn¡¯t actively teasing or bullying Alan near her.

    ¡°Do you think you could protect me from her?¡±

    ¡°Yes I can! I managed to tie her to her chair when she fell asleep while waiting for you to wake up, and almost hit Alan in the face.¡±

    ¡°...¡± I could not believe what I was hearing. ¡°Are you saying you are stronger than her? Sometimes you seriously terrify me.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not terrifying! I just trained a lot with Papa to become strong enough to protect Alan and you!¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s reassuring that you included me there as well. Want to come over and sleep with your big sisters today?¡±

    ¡°Yes! It¡¯ll definitely be fun trying to sleep with this many new people. Sister Letty was so comfortable too.¡±

    ¡°What do you mean by comf¨C Oh. Actually I have a pretty good guess,¡± I couldn¡¯t help but mutter when I looked at the Director again.

    ¡°Can I invite her too?¡±

    ¡°Please consider saving Princess Kathleen the compensation for me declining your invitation.¡± Colette was still on the floor, but she was definitely awake and listening to our conversation.

    This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

    ¡°Afraid of your own sister?¡±

    ¡°Want to wake up as a lich the next time you get your shapely little bottom handed to you by her?¡± Were both Hildakoa girls this dangerous?

    ¡°I¡¯ll pass. I¡¯m too young to become an undead.¡±

    ¡°Listen here, you little shit,¡± came Hanna¡¯s voice from the top of a dangerously creaking chair. ¡°You are only a single year younger than I was when I died, so stop spouting nonsense.¡±

    ¡°Wanna try me?¡±

    ¡°She did, Princess, and you lost.¡± Colette wasn¡¯t pulling her verbal punches, that¡¯s for sure.

    ¡°Who is the one getting done in by a girl now?¡± Alan had to pick this time to wake up. I wanted to throw a stinging remark at him, but I knew this wasn¡¯t the right time. Even I could learn from my own past mistakes.

    ¡°Oh, good morning, Alan. Seems like everyone important is awake now, so I want to ask, for how long were you all here looking after me?¡±

    ¡°I have been here since we went to bed,¡± came Hanna¡¯s answer, but she was avoiding eye contact.

    ¡°We heard something crashing, and Sara came back from checking it out with teary eyes saying that you were a bloody mess, so since about that time. I only left for a short while to get more healers, as Director Hildakoa wasn¡¯t able to handle your wounds alone, but other than that we all were here for the whole night.¡±

    ¡°But you were sleeping most of the time, Alan. I even had to protect you from Lady Hanna while sister Letty was healing sister Kath. I was a good girl, so can I get some reward?¡±

    I wasn¡¯t about to argue with that.. ¡°All I can offer are some desserts you like, and maybe some sisterly sharing too, if you can wait another 10 years.¡±

    ¡°I love you, sister Kath! But please write a¡­ What was it again? Con¡­ Contact? Cont¡­ Ah, a contract! Please write a contract, sister Kath!¡±

    ¡°Was it the head maid who taught you tricks like this?¡±

    ¡°Yes, Lady Sylvie told me I had to make people write contracts so they keep their promises.¡±

    ¡°Whatever. Get me some parchment and a quill, and I¡¯ll take care of it. We even have some witnesses here.¡±

    ¡°What are you two talking about?¡± came Alan¡¯s question. Was I really not allowed to make a retort?

    ¡°Dense as always, I see.¡± Sister executed what I failed at without any hesitation, so all was good in the world. It felt nice not being the one who had to worry about the backlash.

    *** PoV: Hanna ***

    After completing the annoying task of being the witness for the improvised contract between Kathleen and Sara, Colette dragged me out of the princess¡¯ room. We were heading towards the middle of the castle, where a tall tower stood. Sylvie and Queen Brianna were waiting for us next to a towering door, with the latter being the first to notice our arrival.

    ¡°Good morning, Director, Lady Hanna. For what reason were we invited here?¡± Did sister have time to send someone to Her Majesty while healing the princess?

    ¡°It¡¯s the matter of the tournament, isn¡¯t it, Colette?¡± asked Sylvie before Colette had the chance to answer.

    ¡°That¡¯s one of the topics I want to talk about, but let¡¯s save that for after getting in the tower. Way less curious ears there.¡±

    ¡°Ah, Master Sylvie, could you get Eva then?¡±

    ¡°Meh, not in the mood to walk that much. Why do we even need her?¡± the head maid asked, tilting her head.

    ¡°To get us into the tower, obviously. I might be the queen, but even I¡¯m not able to open the door. She never registered me with the mana signature lock.¡±

    ¡°We don¡¯t actually need her then,¡± shrugged Sylvie. There was a loud click, then the door started to open. ¡°Both Colette and I can open it.¡± My sister was standing next to the door, with her hand on some kind of crystal embedded in the wall.

    ¡°I can understand the director of the Royal Academy having some privileges, but is a maid having higher authority than the queen normal in this era?¡±

    ¡°Sure it is,¡± replied Brianna.

    ¡°Only in this country,¡± corrected Colette. ¡°Siegel¡¯s royal family is a bit of a special case, with this cocky maid and Eva raising them from childhood. Her being above them is pretty much imprinted by the time they learn to speak.¡±

    ¡°But it is like this in Oase too, so it must be normal,¡± claimed Brianna.

    ¡°It¡¯s great to know that Oase still exists, but I¡¯m pretty sure King Patrick didn¡¯t have maids above him back in our time. Has he changed this much since then?¡±

    ¡°Did you know Eva¡¯s father, Lady Hanna?¡± Brianna¡¯s eyes started sparkling again, marking the possible start of another history class.

    ¡°Did? Oh, are you saying the old man has already passed away?¡±

    ¡°He passed away a little over a hundred years before Eva unsealed me. Are you not even surprised by Eva being his daughter?¡± asked Colette.

    ¡°Him having children is more of a surprise than Eva being one of them,¡± I shrugged. ¡°I always thought that man leaned the other way. The only woman I have ever seen him show interest in was Clara. I barely avoided being executed when I beat his ass for that.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t really argue with that observation of yours. Eva said he gave in under the pressure from his retainers, and married two of Clara¡¯s granddaughters. His children are Eva and Oase¡¯s current king, Oscar Pesok, who is both Eva¡¯s half-brother and cousin at the same time.¡±

    The tower¡¯s door closed with a click behind our backs.

    ¡°So then, what is it you wanted to talk about, Director?¡± Brianna was suddenly in business mode.

    ¡°I want to report on an accident that happened last night.¡± I was screaming internally.

 Chapter 7: An accident that happened last night

    ¡°I want to report on an accident that happened last night.¡± Colette¡¯s statement made me scream internally. Did she really plan on telling the Queen that I almost killed Princess Kathleen? ¡°Due to some carelessness on his part, the Wingless envoy broke their leg when he fell from the stairs in the living quarters.¡± I froze in place. What was she talking about?

    ¡°What envoy? No one told me a Wingless would be coming to the castle.¡± The Queen was just as confused as I was, even though our reasons for it were different.

    ¡°Oh, is that boy sniffing around shamelessly again?¡± asked Sylvie who seemed to know a bit more than the two of us. ¡°Did he accidentally trip on the leg of the hag¡¯s boyfriend?¡±

    ¡°I seriously can¡¯t understand why Eva keeps you around,¡± came a sigh that could have been mine from Colette. ¡°Yes, Brad made sure he would not get away unnoticed.¡±

    ¡°Is everyone crazy here, with Colette¡¯s imaginary friend being Eva¡¯s man?¡±

    ¡°I ain¡¯t no imaginary friend of Boss,¡± came a voice from just next to my ear. I could not help but jump in panic, then I peeked out from behind Colette¡¯s back.

    ¡°Long time no see, Elder Brad. How are your daughters doing?¡±

    ¡°They are fine, but a bit offended by how Boss took away their plaything yesterday.¡±

    ¡°It couldn¡¯t be helped, the Fero boy isn¡¯t as tough as Prince Keith is. It would have been bad if they broke him.¡±

    ¡°Am I the only one who finds a random rat popping up in a locked down location strange?¡±

    ¡°There is no such thing as a locked down location when it comes to Brad. There is a reason why he is the vice of the intelligence corps.¡±

    ¡°But we don¡¯t have an intelligence corps.¡±

    ¡°YOU don¡¯t have an intelligence corps. Eva does.¡± Was Brianna really the Queen?

    ¡°So who is the head of the intelligence corps, if he¡¯s the vice?¡±

    ¡°That would be Boss, obviously. She is way better at sneaking into high security places.¡±

    ¡°I can¡¯t see how the guards¡¯ eyes would avoid her gravitational pull.¡±

    ¡°What are you talking about?¡± asked Brianna, who I was hiding behind.

    ¡°I mean, look at these lumps of fat. There is no way it wouldn¡¯t catch any healthy male guard¡¯s eyes.¡± I lifted my hands in front of the Queen¡¯s chest, trying to grab something that wasn¡¯t there. I looked up at her face, then looked at the other Brianna standing next to Sylvie. ¡°WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT???¡± Her transformation abilities were unbelievably good. While I was comparing them, I noticed that the real Queen¡¯s hands were on her flat chest, and tears were flowing down in streams on her cheeks.

    ¡°Sorry, I went too far,¡± bowed my sister, pushing her massive boobs into the hands I still held in front of her during the process. She was back in her normal form, with the Fushane traits dropped too.

    ¡°What did the envoy want?¡± Sylvie¡¯s attempt at changing the topic was godsent.

    ¡°No clue. There wasn¡¯t anything suspicious about him other than the fact that he was in the castle,¡± explained Brad. ¡°Actually, after I caught him, he only asked for healers and permission to stay for the time.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯ll¡­ let Eva handle him.¡± Colette using her as an example of someone not busty seemed to do a bit too much damage to Brianna. ¡°Is there anything else you want to talk about?¡±

    Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

    ¡°Yes, there is. I looked into some of the new applicants for the tournament at the Academy. Seems like some countries are sending pretty outstanding talents this year, so I thought if we wanted to keep up with the competition, we should up our game a bit.¡±

    ¡°Do you want to make a show of us in the duels?¡±

    ¡°That sounds good too, but I¡¯m more concerned about the team battles. I thought of hiring another instructor to train the students, and maybe even compete in the faculty team.¡±

    ¡°Do you have anyone specific in mind?¡±

    ¡°Yes. The instructor I want to hire is my sister.¡±

    ***

    The three of us were on our way to meet with the envoy when we ran into Keith and Lux. Brianna has left to grab Eva, while Brad just disappeared into thin air. It was funny seeing Lux shaking while failing to hide behind Keith.

    ¡°Good morning Hanna, Lady Colette, head maid.¡± That was a real prince for you. ¡°You have some nice fresh looks. By the way, where¡¯s sister?¡±

    Colette was the fastest to deliver an answer. ¡°Princess had the wonderful idea to sleep with my sister.¡±

    ¡°Ah, rest in peace.¡± Was Keith trying to commit suicide?

    ¡°Poor thing. She was so young.¡± Et tu, Lux?

    ¡°Did I miss something?¡± asked the confused Sylvie, tilting her head.

    ¡°Not really. I just spent the whole night healing the Princess after she almost got killed by this sleep-fighter.¡±

    ¡°So that¡¯s what Brad was talking about,¡± a tall Medved man appeared at one of the corners. ¡°Good morning, Master, Keith, Lucius. Is that your original look, Director?¡± He then turned towards me. ¡°You must be the Director¡¯s sister. Allow me to introduce myself. I¡¯m Prince Consort Ethan, father of Keith, Kathleen and Sara. Welcome to our home.¡±

    ¡°Good morning, Prince Consort Ethan. I¡¯m Hanna Hildakoa, Colette¡¯s sister.¡± We exchanged handshakes.

    ¡°I heard you are an experienced fighter, how about you join me and Sara training this afternoon?¡±

    ¡°You and your ulterior motives. Will you ever change, Ethan?¡± There was only one person around who would speak like that to royalty.

    ¡°Oh, come on, Master. I just want to come out on top against you ONCE.¡±

    ¡°Is there anyone at the castle who can beat you, Sylvie?¡±

    ¡°Sebastian can go head to head with me.¡± New name. Who¡¯s that?

    ¡°And you still have a 80% win rate against my muscle headed brother.¡± I actually expected him to walk up to us when mentioned, but that didn¡¯t happen.

    ¡°How about Sara? She was able to restrain me, so she must be strong.¡±

    Sylvie¡¯s shoulders visibly dropped. ¡°I haven¡¯t been able to beat her even once in the last year. She isn¡¯t only strong, but uses her head, unlike her uncle.¡±

    ¡°My pride and joy. I¡¯m looking forward to how strong she¡¯ll be in a few years.¡±

    ¡°Hey, Ethan! Weren¡¯t you planning to stay with Sebby and the other guards today?¡± Together with the cheery Maya, Brianna and Eva also arrived behind us.

    ¡°That was the plan, but I was told Kath had an accident, so I came back.¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s good to see my great-grandfather being well.¡± Eva casually bounced past me and stood in front of Lux.

    In the meantime Brianna grabbed Ethan¡¯s arm. ¡°I checked on Kathleen on my way to Eva¡¯s room, she¡¯s fine. Should we have a date, now that you are back?¡±

    ¡°Energetic, aren¡¯t we? Sure, let¡¯s go.¡± They waved us goodbye, then left towards the castle gate.

    Finally getting a chance to talk, Lux beat me with a question I wanted to ask. ¡°Are you not even surprised that I¡¯m not my brother?¡±

    ¡°Initially I wasn¡¯t certain you were Lux, but I knew you weren¡¯t Lucius. I met him a few times before you took his place. What surprised me was how no one seemed to notice. Other than your father and sister, the only person that I assumed to know about it was the pope, but none of them ever said anything about it.¡±

    ¡°Still, if you weren¡¯t certain, wasn¡¯t it more likely that someone else was acting as him? I officially died way before him.¡±

    ¡°I saw you in the city a few days after she unsealed me, and confirmed your identity to her.¡±

    ¡°It fills me with pride to know that my great-granddaughter was the one to unseal the walking calamity who almost killed me multiple times.¡±

    ¡°Sorry for making mistakes. Happens to the best of us.¡±

    ¡°Let¡¯s¡­ stop this here,¡± I suggested seeing how fast Lux¡¯s expression shifted into something so dark it made me shiver. Just what mistakes did he make in the past?

    We finally arrived at the hall where the envoy and two maids were waiting. His leg was already healed by the looks of it. He stood up then walked right past Eva who was trying to greet him, stopping in front of Colette.

    ¡°I¡¯m Father Thomas of the Holy Church. By the order of His Holiness the Pope, you are to follow me to the cathedral.¡±

 Chapter 8: The Holy Church

    *** PoV: Colette ***

    The Church finally caught me 3065 years, 8 months and 13 days After Sealing. I had no idea where I might have slipped up, but here they were, bringing me in for a reason only known to them. It wasn¡¯t like I could refuse unless I wanted to cause problems to everyone else in the royal family too, seeing how they were hiding the fact of my seal being broken for thousands of years. Fighting back might have been an option under normal circumstances, but nothing about the church was normal thanks to the person leading it.

    The church was mostly made up of the Wingless, who got their race¡¯s name from supposedly being the descendants of angels, with their wings lost when they descended to Lursail. If one asked any passerby, they would claim the Pope was just that, another normal Wingless man. If one asked my sister or Lux, they would say it was one of their old party members, one who saved their lives more times than they dared to acknowledge, though they might be in the know. Being one of the people responsible for my sealing, he definitely had the power to pose a threat to me, but that wasn¡¯t my greatest concern.

    The Pope, Gabriel Fero, was possibly the only person who knew my true identity on Lursail. Yes, the royal family already knew that Director Hildakoa was Colette Hildakoa, also known as the Collateral Queen, but only Gabriel could see behind that name. He knew me, and I knew him. The reason for this was pretty simple, but pronouncing it loud would get me in all kinds of trouble. We had already met each other before we were born on Lursail. Before my reincarnation, I knew that man by the name Archangel Gabriel.

    *** PoV: Hanna ***

    Everyone present at the time Colette was summoned to the church were following closely behind her and Father Thomas, walking through the streets of Crater. Eva, Sylvie, Keith and Lux had their hands on their weapons and seemed ready to attack on the slightest breeze, Lux looking for any strange movement my sister might make, while the other three were staring daggers at the priest¡¯s back. I trusted that my sister could take care of herself, having fought her multiple times in the past, and Maya was so carefree I wasn¡¯t sure she didn¡¯t only follow us out of the fear of being left out of something interesting.

    I expected paladins to surround my sister as soon as we stepped onto Church lands, but nothing of the like happened. Walking into the cathedral, the millions of mana lamps have temporarily blinded us, lighting the inside of the building up so much that, had someone claimed I was transferred over to Hellesheim, I wouldn¡¯t have doubted it for a moment. Brightness on this level felt alien on Evernight.

    What I first noticed after regaining my sight was a magic circle nearly the size of the one I used to seal Colette, however it looked way more complex. I wasn¡¯t sure whether I should have been glad or worried about the fact that they weren¡¯t trying to put her back in a seal. The second thing was a large group of Farkas demi-humans waiting on the other side of the circle, surrounding some kind of artifact.

    ¡°I have brought the Ilehoria girl,¡± announced the priest. ¡°Is everything prepared?¡±

    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

    ¡°Yes, Father Thomas,¡± replied one of the oldest-looking Farkas. ¡°The Church¡¯s mages did an impressive job drawing the circle this quickly under my supervision.¡±

    Colette had an amused look on her face, observing the circle. Was she able to figure its purpose out? I wasn¡¯t able to make heads or tails about the spell engraved into it, and my sister, while having incomparably more mana than me, was never good at anything over beginner magic. She usually just overloaded simple spells with mana to make them match advanced magic in power, like she did with her fireball when she blew the crater the city was built on top of into the soil during our last fight.

    The Farkas elder handed the strange artifact over to my sister, then made her stand in the middle of the magic circle. Eight Wingless priests took up positions around it and started chanting.

    Eva turned to Father Thomas with some concern in her voice. ¡°I hope you are aware that we won¡¯t just sit idly if you hurt one of our citizens without any justification. You might be from the Church, but we have higher authority here.¡±

    ¡°Worry not, Lady Pesok. His Highness, Pope Gabriel, would take our heads if we caused harm to the girl. We are also not foolish enough to go against the Savior of Orphans.¡± Eva had quite the moniker. Was that related to Sylvie¡¯s story?

    As the priests finished their chant, both the circle and the artifact started giving off a swirling greenish aura, slowly encompassing Colette. For the next few minutes, the only noteworthy things in the cathedral were Colette¡¯s and Maya¡¯s puppy-like excited looks, but that changed with a loud crack.

    This was the first time I saw Colette panic. Father Thomas was on his knees, shaking. The group of Farkas were trying to break the spell by showing the priests away. Lux was pulling Keith and Maya towards the cathedral¡¯s gate by the scruffs of their necks. Eva and Sylvie were pushing themselves against the swirl, trying to reach Colette. I was staring at the rift that opened over Colette¡¯s head.

    Suddenly the swirl exploded, pushing us off our legs, then an earthquake shook the city.

    Pushing myself up from the cold floor, I saw Colette collapsed in the middle of what remained of the magic circle, the artifact still held in her hands. The priests who already managed to get on their feet were running from person to person, healing any injuries they suffered.

    Father Thomas walked over to where Colette laid, crouched down and touched her arm. He let out a long sigh, and seemed to calm down somewhat.

    ¡°She¡¯s alive. Thank you, our merciful God.¡± He stood up, turned towards us, then made the announcement. ¡°Lady Hanna has received our God¡¯s love, and was successfully resurrected.¡± I wanted to facepalm.

    ¡°Father Thomas, there seems to be a misunderstanding here,¡± came Sylvie¡¯s voice from somewhere behind me. She was most probably knocked back by the explosion. She walked closer and stood next to me. ¡°Lady Hanna is the girl standing next to me,¡± she pointed at me.

    ¡°Jest not, Lady Sylvie. The one standing next to you is obviously a Fushane, just like you are. Lady Hanna is an Ilehoria.¡±

    I undid my transformation, and looked into his eyes. ¡°Father Thomas, I am indeed the one called Hanna. The one lying there is my sister, Colette.¡±

    ¡°Your sister?¡± He looked at Colette. ¡°Are you claiming the Collateral Queen is freed from her s¨C¡± Colette opening her eyes shocked him into silence.

    ¡°The Hero¡¯s Eyes,¡± I heard muttering from around the cathedral. And indeed, Colette¡¯s eyes had different colors, just like they did before the sealing.

 Chapter 9: The Heros Eyes

    *** PoV: Lux ***

    The Hero¡¯s Eyes. I have only seen two who possessed them, and I wished that number would not increase any further. Technically, my wish got granted, as the one currently in front of me was the same person who I first saw those things on, Colette. Back in the day, she was a calamity threatening to wipe Lursail¡¯s population out. She was nothing like her seemingly peaceful undead version I just met the previous day.

    The second one was a girl I took care of for over a decade before she would become the legend known as Siegel¡¯s founder, and a bit later my wife too. Even though Clara was the last survivor of her race and missing one of her legs, she was an energetic and cheerful creature. It was difficult to believe it was that gloomy duo of Hanna and I who took care of her since before she could remember. Then she received those god-forsaken eyes.

    It happened when we defeated Colette. Hanna managed to lock her in a seal, and a lucky shot from Clara killed her. Sure, she managed to bring herself back as an undead, but that did not matter to us. Lucia was dead. Hanna disappeared. Clara collapsed at the edge of the crater left behind by Colette¡¯s fireball. She regained consciousness the day after, and when she opened her eyes Gabriel and I were shocked to see her left one became yellow.

    After that, she changed. We assumed the pain of losing both Hanna and Lucia broke her as she refused to leave the vicinity of the crater, but as time passed, it became more and more obvious that wasn¡¯t the case. She was wary of everything and everyone. The only one she seemed to tolerate was me, but over time she stopped talking even to me. All I could do was feed and protect her.

    Over a year had passed by the time I managed to get her to eat without help and speak again. I thought she would be back to her old self, but instead, she pushed a letter addressed to Gabriel into my hands and kicked me out. I haven¡¯t seen her for over 40 years after that. By that time, she founded Siegel and became its Queen.

    These experiences perfectly justified my actions after seeing Colette¡¯s eyes.

    *** PoV: Hanna ***

    Lux rushed out of the cathedral screaming like he saw the dead rise. What prevented me from shrugging it off with a ¡°Typical Lux¡± was that I was actually considering following suit. Both of us were sure that we just saw the birth of a Demon Lord.

    ¡°I¡¯m glad everyone is this energetic, but would anyone be kind enough to heal me too?¡± Colette finally got on her feet. ¡°We have an emergency that you¡¯ll need me for, and it would be problematic if I wasn¡¯t in perfect condition for it.¡±

    ¡°Are you telling us you¡¯ll fight and defeat the Demon Lord to protect the people of Lursail?¡± I highly doubted that, but it felt like the best way to land some verbal hits on her. ¡°If so, she¡¯s right in front of me. Need some time to prepare?¡±

    ¡°Very funny. Yes, fighting the Demon Lord is exactly what you¡¯ll need me for, assuming they ARE the Demon Lord, not the Hero. Father Thomas, we¡¯ll need to inform the Pope about the presence of two people with the Hero¡¯s eyes. Can you handle that for me?¡± The way she instantly tried involving the church made it unlikely that she was just pulling our legs. How many bombshells could be dropped on us in a single day? How many of them could be related to my sister?

    ¡°Why do you assume there is someone else with those eyes?¡± Even when I was sure she wasn¡¯t joking, I couldn¡¯t just accept there being a Demon Lord or Hero without some proof of their existence.

    ¡°Comes with the territory. We can tell whether there are others who possess these things, and we can also tell their approximate direction from us.¡±

    ¡°Correct me if I¡¯m wrong, but doesn¡¯t that mean that whoever the supposed other person is, they can also tell that you exist, and also pinpoint your location?¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s exactly the case, but I can¡¯t really do anything about that. In the first place, the one with the Hero¡¯s Eyes should be Clara, not me.¡±

    ¡°But Clara never had the Hero¡¯s Eyes.¡±

    ¡°Sure she did,¡± came Lux¡¯s voice from near the entrance. ¡°She got them after you sealed Colette.¡±

    ¡°To be exact, she got them by killing me. That¡¯s how the Hero¡¯s Eyes are passed from one person to another. Point is, I should not have them, but I do. As for the other person with them, normally I would say it has to be Clara, but this time it¡¯s different. After having lost these in the past already I¡¯m not that confident, but I¡¯m pretty sure that whoever is here is another person I know. Unfortunately, I¡¯ll have to rely on Gabriel¡¯s help to confirm this.¡±

    Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!

    ¡°Why Gabriel?¡± asked Lux.

    ¡°If I¡¯m right, the person I¡¯m assuming to be the Demon Lord is one of our mutual acquaintances,¡± shrugged Colette.

    ¡°You seem to know Gabriel pretty well. Not like that should surprise me at this point. Hey, Hanna, what should we do about her eyes?¡±

    ¡°She should be able to change her appearance. She¡¯s surprisingly good at it, being someone who couldn¡¯t cast anything other than a fireball in the old days.¡±

    ¡°Right, let me just turn myself back into a lich right after being resurrected just to be able to use undead camouflage on myself.¡±

    ¡°Shit. I thought that was a good idea.¡±

    ¡°Can¡¯t she just keep going like this?¡± asked Maya who was being supported by Keith.

    ¡°Sure she could, but that wouldn¡¯t be wise. While a Hero showing up could be considered a fortunate event, people will also start fearing attacks from the Demon Lord.¡± Eva had a good point there.

    ¡°Why is it us who has to come up with an idea for this?¡± The moment Sylvie started speaking I was ready to silence her, but surprisingly she failed to give me a reason to do so. ¡°Isn¡¯t it a better idea to leave it to Colette herself?¡±

    ¡°Why is Sylvie the only one who believes I can handle this much?¡±

    ¡°¡°Because we know you!¡±" shouted Lux completely in sync with me.

    ¡°Ah, well¡­ Brad, do you have an eyepatch at hand?¡±

    ¡°Give me five, the girls should have some.¡± He didn¡¯t even bother to show himself, all we could hear was his voice.

    ¡°I can see why the Director was that difficult to catch before she got sealed. People who freeze up from hearing an idea this simple probably make terrible hunters.¡±

    ¡°Oh shut up. Try using your brain while being ready to cast an anti-fireball barrier any moment.¡±

    ¡°Did your barriers ever work against my fireballs?¡±

    ¡°Director versus Hanna, one to nil.¡± Keith sounded like he needed some talking to. Boys who play around with girls instead of down with one deserve worse treatment, but I was gracious and let him get away with some verbal poking around.

    ¡°Look who''s talking. It¡¯s our dear prince who still doesn¡¯t have a bride after all the urging from the royal family. He is popular with the girls, and even fools around with an undead, so why does settling with someone scare him so much? Or did he pick yours truly just to hide the fact that his balls can¡¯t do their job of producing heirs for the family?¡±

    ¡°He did what now? Anyways, Hanna versus Keith, one to nil.¡± Eva was quick to side with me on this one even in her momentary surprise, but neither of us expected Keith to have reinforcements at the ready.

    ¡°Make that a draw,¡± came Brad¡¯s voice from next to Colette, who was already tying her newly acquired eyepatch behind her head. ¡°I can¡¯t say anything about him being afraid of the girls, but he did take care of the heir problem.¡±

    ¡°Nice joke and I would be the happiest about it, but even Keith is not tha¨C¡± Eva ended that sequence short when she saw Keith¡¯s panicked face. Yeah, that pretty much confirmed it. Keith was a dead man. ¡°You seem to be well informed, as usual, Brad. Mind enlightening us about this matter?¡±

    ¡°I need details on this too, but this is the single possible occasion when it¡¯s not the time for this,¡± muttered Keith.

    ¡°Unfortunately, you made me curious too. Which of the sisters was it? Also, congratulations on becoming a grandfather, Brad.¡± Colette¡¯s remarks made me think I was the only one in the dark, but Eva quickly destroyed my misunderstandings.

    ¡°Seriously, Keith? Don¡¯t tell me it¡¯s one of Brad¡¯s daughters you knocked up.¡±

    ¡°You know my daughters. I¡¯m not confident they gave him a choice,¡± Brad said, attempting to absolve the offender.

    ¡°Should I have restrained myself from introducing Bridget to the brat and Keith?¡±

    ¡°Was this actually your doing, great-grandfather?¡± Eva looked at the demon.

    ¡°Please don¡¯t call me that.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, Luc¨C Lux. It¡¯s actually Suzan, not Bridget,¡± clarified the Spy, in an attempt to calm the situation.

    ¡°Having multiple candidates actually makes it worse, doesn¡¯t it? Lux, Keith, I hope both of you are prepared for what¡¯s waiting for you when we get back to the castle,¡± I said, swiftly undoing his efforts.

    ¡°Hey, Colette, can you bring the boy back afterwards?¡± Eva concerned herself way too much with the well-being of this unfaithful idiot. She should have used that extra energy for more profitable matters.

    ¡°Do you actually want me to?¡±

    ¡°Please do, boss. I would prefer for my grandchild to have a father,¡± Brad pleaded.

    ¡°Can you bring your daughter over tomorrow? I want to talk to her a bit,¡± I said in the least threatening tone possible.

    ¡°Spare her, would you?¡± Okay, maybe that wasn¡¯t the least threatening tone I was capable of. Whatever.

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I think of her as a victim and witness, not as a perpetrator.¡±

    ¡°Consider it done then. Just make sure both her and the boy come back alive,¡± he said, finally deciding to listen to me.

    ***

    For some inexplicable reason Colette had to be on healing duty the day after too, and Lux was just as worn down from being near her as he was from the initial beating he received.

 Chapter 10: Trials of the brides-to-be

    *** PoV: Suzan ***

    When Father told me I was summoned to the castle, I was sure I was to be executed. I knew pretty well what I was risking, as the story of the maid who slept with one of the princes of old was one I heard from Father before. In the end, it wasn¡¯t enough to stop me from laying my hands both on the princess¡¯ fianc¨¦ and the very prince I now carried the child of. Did I assume that Father could keep me safe, seeing how the Queen Eva of that story was so fond of him? Haven¡¯t they even become lovers after Mother has passed? No, that¡¯s not it. I was just a fool, taken by the boys¡¯ lack of prejudice against us - Zub ratfolk. Even with the common folk, we were fortunate to only be called names. I heard that before moving to Siegel they would go as far as firing spells and arrows at us whenever we showed up near any of the towns. The only race that accepted us were the Farkas, most of whom lived isolated from the other races. In this situation who could resist those two handsome boys who talked with us like anyone else? Definitely not me or my sister.

    To my surprise, where Father brought me was the prince''s room. The next surprise was the woman accompanying him. She was of a race I have never seen but had features reminding me of the only human race that ever went extinct. She couldn''t be one of them, could she? I could feel an instinctive fear taking my whole body over as if I was looking at someone who could bring doom to any demihuman. She only noticed my entry as Father closed the door behind my back, and her eyes locking onto me made me shake uncontrollably. I just stood there as a rat in the torchlight as she approached me. Even though I was prepared to get abandoned by the prince just minutes before, right then and there I was looking at him, hoping he would save me, but what I saw there¡­ Was he just as terrified as me?

    I was on the verge of passing out when she stopped in front of me. She wasn¡¯t nearly as tall as the prince, but she still had a head¡¯s worth of advantage over me. Her hands reached out, grabbed the back of my head, and ¡­ pulled me in, pressing my face right into her chest.

    ¡°So cuuute!¡± came her cooing voice from above me. ¡°Hey, Keith, I must say you at least have good taste. You don¡¯t see an adorable little critter like her every day. I¡¯ll let you off the hook if I can keep her.¡± I had no idea what was going on, but it sounded like my life would be spared.

    ¡°You are talking about a person, not a pet,¡± said Keith. It sounded like he was pretty spent. ¡°I can speak to Mother and Lady Eva about letting her stay here, but she should have the right to decide whether she wants to.¡±

    ¡°Are you still talking back? Do you want to sit through that lecture once again? I can keep it up for days, so choose wisely,¡± reprimanded the mysterious woman. Was the prince in trouble because of me?

    ¡°Yes, Lady Hanna. Understood, Lady Hanna.¡± That was a pretty long sigh the prince let out. ¡°Su, do you mind living here at the castle with us?¡±

    ¡°Are you not planning to punish me?¡± I looked up at the woman holding me.

    ¡°Me? I don¡¯t have a reason to.¡±

    ¡°B¨Cbut with the prince, I¡­ Aren¡¯t you the prince¡¯s bride?¡±

    ¡°Am I, Keith?¡± she asked, a bit of mischief in her eyes.

    ¡°I¡¯m not against that, honestly, but I¡¯m pretty sure that¡¯s not what you want me to confirm.¡± he responded, seemingly afraid.

    Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.

    ¡°Did I miss something?¡± I asked quietly, puzzled by the exchange.

    ¡°I just met him three days ago, so seeing the situation we are in, the one he takes as his bride should most probably be you, not me," she said while smiling towards me. " It¡¯s not like I can have children either, as I¡¯m an undead, which could be a problem seeing how the royal family needs heirs.¡±

    ¡°You heard her. She has yet to become my official bride, and even though I have only known her for three days, I¡¯m positive she would not allow me to abandon you in this situation, no matter which of you I met first.¡±

    ¡°In that case, I wouldn¡¯t mind staying here, assuming I¡¯m not intruding.¡± I agreed with barely any hesitation, after all living in the castle would be a dream come true.

    ¡°Glad to have you with us. Feel free to call me Hanna. Can I call you Su, like Keith does?¡±

    ¡°It¡­ would be an honor, Lady Hanna.¡±

    ¡°Let me add just one thing,¡± warned the prince. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t sleep in her room under any circumstance, nor should you let her sleep in yours.¡±

    ¡°You are being mean. I¡¯m not planning to steal her away from you,¡± Lady Hanna argued, sounding offended.

    ¡°Did you already forget last morning?¡±

    ¡°I don¡¯t want to talk about that,¡± she said, her voice a lot quieter than before.

    ¡°Make sure you don¡¯t accidentally crush her,¡± the prince''s words made me shiver slightly.

    ¡°I will, I will.¡±

    *** PoV: Hanna ***

    ¡°That¡¯ll be all for now. Keith, you are dismissed.¡±

    ¡°Thank you for your mercy, Lady Hanna.¡±

    ¡°Drop that already. Calling me ¡®Lady¡¯ now that the cat¡¯s out of the bag about us and I¡¯m no longer lecturing you feels wrong. Do you want to make people think I¡¯m someone even the prince bows down in front of?¡±

    ¡°Please remind me what I was doing mere moments ago, then tell me it¡¯s not your fault.¡±

    ¡°We could have a long talk about each other¡¯s faults, and I don¡¯t think you would be the one to come out on top. See this cutie here?¡± I pointed at Suzan. ¡°You know whose fault is that she¡¯s in this situation right now, I presume.¡±

    ¡°It was actually¨C¡± started Suzan.

    ¡°Stop. I might not have been there so I won¡¯t say you did not have a hand in this, but he is at least partially responsible for what the two of you did. You taking the blame for his actions won¡¯t do any good for him.¡±

    I could see Keith performing an impressive jump the moment he stepped out of his room. The only people capable of scaring him that much I could think of were Sister and Sister ¨C erm¡­ Colette and Kathleen. I guessed one of them would be waiting right in front of the door, but didn¡¯t actually expect both of them to be there. What¡¯s more, they also had the other princess with them.

    Suzan was dragged away by Kathleen, while I was forced to join Sara, Prince Consort Ethan, and his brother, Sebastian, for training. Colette followed me saying she would help me with the paperwork for enrolling at the Academy after we finished.

    ***

    I messed up. There was no way I wouldn¡¯t have gone easy on Sara after being told she wasn¡¯t even 10 years old yet. I could have saved both of us. Her, from the trauma of seeing something so gruesome, and me, from the pain and shame.

    I beat both Ethan and the muscle-headed Sebastian in mock duels, then got crushed like the training ground¡¯s walls the minute my fight with the innocent-looking girl started. Did that sound like a strange analogy? A poorly chosen metaphor? Tell that to my body that my older Medved opponents were trying to dig out from below the rubble right around then.

    The only thing saving me from dying then and there was the fact that I was already dead. Not that it mattered to Sara, who was unfortunate enough to catch my severed head after her punch sent my body flying from below it. She wouldn¡¯t stop screaming until Colette took it from her.

    This incident left me with one question: How did Sara¡¯s usual training partners survive?

 Chapter 11: First day at the Academy

    *** PoV: Hanna ***

    ¡°As you maggots all know, the Academy¡¯s Tournament is rapidly approaching,¡± came my most recently acquired big sister¡¯s voice from inside the lecture hall I was waiting in front of. Even though Colette put me in her own class, she claimed she had some urgent official matters to attend to, and dumped her duties both as the lead professor for the armed combat course and as my guide on Sylvie. Thanks to that, not only was I stuck with her in the castle, but even here at the Academy.

    ¡°I have two pieces of information to share with you in relation to this. First, Director Hildakoa hired a new instructor for both armed and magic practical combat classes.¡± She never mentioned a salary though. Did work laws not apply to the deceased?

    ¡°Second, a transfer student will be joining this course starting today.¡±

    ¡°How is that related to the Tournament, Professor Hildakoa? Are they someone powerful enough to compete in it?¡± asked one of the students.

    ¡°I mean, there would be no point in hiring someone who isn¡¯t appropriately strong as an instructor,¡± came the amused response from Sylvie.

    ¡°I wasn¡¯t asking about the instructor, but our new coursemate,¡± the student protested, not understanding what she meant.

    ¡°You can¡¯t ask about one of them without also asking about the other when they are the same person,¡± she responded, slightly annoyed.

    ¡°Eh? Is the transfer student our new instructor?¡± came the confused response.

    ¡°Yes, she is. You may enter now.¡±

    As I opened the door, everyone but the facepalming Keith and bored Alan were looking at me. I could hear someone whistle from the back row, followed by the voice of the same student who was conversing with Sylvie before. ¡°Why aren¡¯t you showing any interest in her, Alan? Do you not like shorties, or did you perhaps outrun us and got a taste of her already?¡± Just like that the Ilishwa brat with the scarf got himself a reservation about being my assistant when doing fighting technique presentations. Anyone who wanted to be spared was better off not mentioning my height. Fortunately I never really liked black cats like him, so nothing of value was lost. The same applied to Shadow Elves, like his friends who were visibly smirking at me, but at least they weren¡¯t wearing scarves in the classroom.

    I walked up to Sylvie, turned to the class, and introduced myself. ¡°Hi! My name is Hanna Hildakoa. I¡¯ll be joining the academy as an instructor and an attendee of this course. Please take care of me.¡± Not having to use a pseudonym was strange, but other than some of the royals, no one seemed to recognize my name.

    ¡°Another Hildakoa? You can¡¯t mean¡­¡± That curious, or more like observant girl was the sole Shadow sitting away from the Ilishwa brat¡¯s group.

    ¡°Oh, that. As you might have guessed, I¡¯m the sister of Director Hildakoa and Professor Hildakoa.¡± Calling them like that felt even stranger than casually using my name, but they asked me to do so.

    ¡°¡°¡°Eeeh???¡±¡±¡± came the boys¡¯ surprised voice.

    ¡°You won¡¯t get special treatment just for being my sister, so don¡¯t come to me crying if they start bullying you. Now, go take a seat wherever you like, and let me start the class already.¡±

    Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

    I stepped off of the podium and turned right into the first row of seats, promptly sitting down in the most comfortable-looking place I could find. A seat that wasn¡¯t too soft nor too hard, had a nice temperature, and also smelled pretty nice.

    ¡°¡°¡°¡°¡°¡°EEEEEEEEEEEH?¡±¡±¡±¡±¡±¡± This time the girls also joined in, with some hardcode murderous intent in their stares.

    Alan turned around to look at the scarfed bratcat. ¡°Did that answer your question?¡±

    ¡°How sweet of you. I guess I won¡¯t blab to Kathleen about how they assumed you would hop on me the moment you saw me.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m not fond of near-death experiences so I appreciate that.¡±

    ¡°You still keep asking for it though,¡± said Keith, poking fun at him.

    ¡°¡°¡°Disgusting,¡±¡±¡± arrived the unanimous judgment of the girls in the room.

    ¡°¡°¡°Lucky bastard,¡±¡±¡± the boys declared their disagreement on the topic.

    ***

    The day passed quickly, and finally, it was time for my first class as teacher, armed practical combat.

    My idea for the day was splitting my students into groups, and making them participate in a mock siege. One group would defend me and the earthen magic outpost I built outside of the city, while the others would try to take me captive.

    ¡°For today¡¯s practice, you¡¯ll be split into 3 groups. The group leaders are picked by me, but you are free to decide which group you want to join as long as it doesn¡¯t tip the balance too much.¡±

    ¡°Won¡¯t that just give you a chance to put those you already know in the same group while calling it balancing?¡± the boy with the scarf - whose name I knew as Claude Noir now - asked.

    ¡°No, I¡¯m actually making them two of the group leaders.¡± I proceeded, handing Keith and Alan their teams¡¯ armbands, yellow and red respectively. ¡°I also planned to put you in command of the last team, but you can decline if you want to join one of theirs.¡±

    ¡°I like this line-up. Looking forward to beating your asses,¡± he smirked at the other group leaders before grabbing the remaining blue armbands from my hands. His lackeys didn¡¯t waste any time and lined up behind him, forming a team of darkness from all the Ilishwa and most of the Shadows in the class.

    The rest of the class split up to join Keith and Alan¡¯s teams, and while their headcounts were almost balanced, the same could not be said about their gender ratios with most of the girls standing behind Keith.

    ¡°This took way less time than I anticipated. Are you all trying to take my job on my first day?¡± I joked. ¡°At least let me do some minor balancing on the teams. You there, the Shadow girl in team yellow. I¡¯m pretty sure you haven¡¯t introduced yourself yet.¡±

    ¡°I¡¯m Lina Durand, Miss Hanna.¡± I didn¡¯t know why she seemed to avoid the gang of the Ilishwa and the other Shadows both in the classroom and here, but to pull off the prank I prepared for the day, I needed her to team up with them.

    ¡°Lina, I would like you to join Team Blue instead. Any objections?¡±

    ¡°As you wish, Miss Hanna.¡± Her sigh was so deep I wouldn¡¯t have been surprised to see her soul leave her body. Still, she proceeded to walk over to Claude¡¯s line with drooping shoulders.

    ¡°With that taken care of, let¡¯s not waste any more time. Each team is to wait at the city gates. Team red, you¡¯ll start from the northwest gate. Team Blue takes the southeast one. Yellow, south-west is left for you.¡± I could have used the northeast gate too, seeing how the area I picked was to the west from Crater, but I opted to avoid making any of the teams passing over the wastelands Colette left north from the city.

    ¡°You¡¯ll be leaving in an hour together with your assigned escorts. I¡¯ll be escorting the defenders, and the attackers will be escorted by the Honig brothers from the city guards.¡± One would think getting the prince consort and his brother to accompany the students on their fun little trip outside would involve some overcomplicated paperwork, but in reality, they volunteered for the task.

    ¡°My team will need about an hour to set up our defenses, so the attackers must stay in the camps their escorts lead them to until they give the signal to start the siege. They¡¯ll also brief you about our approximate location, so pay attention.¡±

 Chapter 12 - Mock Siege - Part 1

    *** PoV: Alan ***

    ¡°That bastard. Did she really have to assign me to your team, Alan bro?¡± our escort greeted me. It was Sebastian, Kath¡¯s uncle, meaning our team was picked to be on the attacking side.

    ¡°What¡¯s exactly your problem with being assigned to us? What did we do to deserve this treatment? You didn¡¯t even bother to properly greet us. Are you trying to insult us?¡± Knowing him, his problem was that my team had no girls. I could see why he would have preferred some eye candy, but come on, he was a married man with his own children.

    ¡°Eh, hi Alan bro, why aren¡¯t there any girls in your team?¡± he inquired with a noticeably disappointed face. See, I was right.

    ¡°You are trying to insult us, aren¡¯t you? How many girls would be willingly joining a team led by you?¡± He had the same kind of bad reputation as I did, so definitely not many.

    ¡°Two, most probably. Maya would be one of them, and she would make sure everyone other than Sara sis would not dare join me.¡±

    ¡°Great, so you can best me thanks to your wife and niece. I¡¯m impressed.¡±

    ¡°Not like your brides wouldn¡¯t join you if they had the chance.¡± Or so he claimed. One of my brides was already a candidate for his team, turning him into one of my rivals.

    ¡°That sounds like you have multiple brides, Alan.¡± Was that the sound of my popularity falling even deeper? Sometimes I wished my coursemates would be a bit denser and did not pick up on all these remarks.

    ¡°Don¡¯t look at me like that. I swear I had no say in this.¡± Usually, it was me picking girls up behind Kath''s back, but in this specific instance, Sara just went and announced she wanted to become my wife.

    ¡°Who is the lucky maiden?¡±

    ¡°It¡¯s Sara sis,¡± Sebastian announced. Thanks for taking away my chance to announce it myself. Not like it should have been made public yet.

    ¡°Princess Sara? When will they hold the funeral?¡± one of my teammates asked.

    ¡°Rest in peace. He was fated to achieve great things, but the skies took him way too soon,¡± another of them added.

    ¡°I never knew jealousy could turn into pity this fast. Reminds me of how swift your deaths will be.¡± Vengeance will be mine or whatever.

    ¡°Not as swift as yours if you make Sara sis punch you. She landed one single hit on Hanna sis, and it took us hours to dig her out from under the rubble.¡± Perverted old dude says what?

    ¡°Oh, so that hole in the training ground walls was the result of Hanna crashing into it?¡± I knew who the perpetrator was without him telling me, but the identity of the victim being the undead lady was unexpected.

    ¡°Are they talking about the Hanna I think they are talking about? Surely not,¡± yet another classmate wondered.

    ¡°Yes, we are. Why?¡± There went Sebastian blabbing again. I wonder how he was yet to slip anything confidential.

    ¡°There is just one little thing I can¡¯t understand. How is she still alive?¡± These guys seriously had to be sharp at the worst time. I wanted Sebastion to stop before he actually said too much.

    ¡°She is n¨C¡± See? This is what I was talking about. I had to clap my hands on Sebastian¡¯s mouth before he could cause any more damage.

    ¡°She¡¯s pretty tough. At least we won¡¯t have to look out for her when defeating her guards.¡± I definitely wasn¡¯t sweating like a horse while throwing my little lie out. Was that even a lie though? It was a fact that the undead lady was tough. Even more so mentally, staying sane for multiple millennia. Even some of us elves couldn¡¯t pull that off, and she was just a human originally.

    Sebastian peeled my hand off his mouth and said ¡°It¡¯s time we left for that siege thing. I don¡¯t want to get chewed out by Hanna sis for being late.¡±

    *** PoV: Keith ***

    ¡°Where did you leave your white steed? That damsel in distress will be sooo disappointed that her prince came for her on foot like this,¡± smirked Dad. I was sure her problem would be completely unrelated to my lack of a steed. Thanks to him poking fun at me since the incident at the church, I would have preferred my brainless uncle as our escort over dad. He was doing this from the moment he heard about my relationship with Hanna.

    Suzan¡¯s case was at least smoothed over by Lady Eva and the head maid, so I had near zero backlash from that other than Hanna rubbing it under my nose and the fact that I was to become a father. Hanna was one thing, as I didn¡¯t really expect anything else from her, but were the other two really content with any action as long as it resulted in more descendants of our royal family?

    ¡°Could you please cut it out? I¡¯m not really in the mood for this right before having to deal with whatever way of defense Hanna prepared against us. Alan might be a lazy piece of shit normally, but he knows how to put up a fight.¡±

    Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit.

    ¡°Isn¡¯t calling him a lazy piece of shit a bit too much? Aren¡¯t you friends?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t change the fact that he tends to only do the bare minimum, even though he would be capable of way more.¡± Yeah, he did the bare minimum. And my sister. But that¡¯s a different topic.

    ¡°He still beats you in academics without even trying,¡± Dad laughed while poking my side with his elbow.

    ¡°He beats me in whining too.¡± When he was with me, he whined about missing Kathleen, but when he was with her, I could still hear him whining about being overworked by her over the castle¡¯s thick walls.

    ¡°Just make sure he doesn¡¯t take your harem away while he¡¯s busy whining.¡±

    ¡°¡°¡°We aren¡¯t his harem!¡±¡±¡± shouted the girls in my team.

    ¡°Let¡¯s just pretend I was talking about them and change the topic,¡± he said with an amused face.

    ¡°Much appreciated.¡± That was a close one. Dad almost let something he shouldn¡¯t have slip.

    ¡°Who is the last team¡¯s leader?¡± he asked. Hanna seemingly only gave him info about my team, or possibly only the location where my team was assembling.

    ¡°It¡¯s Claude.¡± I couldn¡¯t help but grimace at the pure disgust I could see on Dad¡¯s face. His opinion of Claude was that bad, even though he did spend way less time around him than we did.

    ¡°The Noir boy? He doesn¡¯t look strong, but you should look out for whatever tricks he might use. Ilishwa and Shadow are a sneaky bunch.¡±

    ¡°Lina is with him, he won¡¯t be able to pull anything dangerous. Even a guy like him has someone holding him on a short leash.¡±

    ¡°You are saying this like that girl wasn¡¯t one of them,¡± Dad retorted. ¡°She actually feels more dangerous than the boy.¡±

    ¡°Isn¡¯t it time we left?¡± I didn¡¯t want to have that conversation about Lina again. No matter what Dad said, she was nowhere near as bad as the others, including Claude.

    ¡°Sure it is. On your feet, ladies and gentlemen, the other teams won¡¯t wait for you!¡±

    *** PoV: Lina ***

    ¡°Why did I have to join your team, Claude?¡± I would have preferred being teamed up with Prince Keith over my asshole of a nephew.

    ¡°Beats me. Why does it bother you this much though?¡± I couldn¡¯t believe him, with that confused face of his. Did he seriously have no self-awareness?

    ¡°Because you always mess up in the worst way possible, and I¡¯m the one who has to clean up after you!¡± I couldn¡¯t help but shout at him.

    ¡°I never asked you to do that. It¡¯s not like I can¡¯t stand up for myself if I get caught,¡± he shrugged.

    ¡°Oh, so you are willing to sit through a lecture by your father, did I get that right?¡±

    He tilted his head. ¡°Sure?¡±

    ¡°Well, I¡¯m not. And I would definitely get dragged into that lecture by my sister.¡±

    ¡°That sounds like Mom alright.¡± He looked at me, then took a step back with a surprised look.

    ¡°And I sound like the best escort you might have asked for,¡± whispered Lady Hanna to my ears.

    ¡°This will be a pain to clean up,¡± I sighed without even turning around. If we were attackers we could have taken advantage of the other team, but we ended up with the shorter stick.

    ¡°That one I can agree with. Make sure you don¡¯t land in Kei¨C¡± I felt a sudden chill on my back, and Claude went pale as he quickly corrected himself. ¡°... Alan¡¯s bed when he beats us.¡±

    ¡°Nice save,¡± replied Lady Hanna, finally stepping out from behind me.

    ¡°I¡¯m not willing to hide your corpse,¡± I whispered to Claude as Lady Hanna walked towards the others in our team, ¡°so try to not get yourself killed.¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t worry, I¡¯m not stupid enough to mess with her. I am capable of learning from my past mistakes, and thanks to you I had some close calls with death.¡±

    ¡°I never got close to killing you.¡± I had to avert my gaze. Accidents do happen, and I wasn¡¯t an exception to that rule.

    ¡°That¡¯s a bit of an understatement, isn¡¯t it? Mind reminding me who had to pretend he managed to break his legs by falling off a tree and get laughed at for being an absolute failure of a cat just so that you would not get chewed out by my mother?¡±

    ¡°I¡­¡± I couldn¡¯t reply to that. He actually fell off the balcony at home when I tripped and pushed him.

    ¡°Are you done with your lover¡¯s quarrel? If we don¡¯t leave soon, we won¡¯t have a fortress to protect,¡± Lady Hanna barked at us from next to the others.

    ¡°He¡¯s an idiot, why would I be his lover?¡±

    ¡°She¡¯s my aunt. No clue why her greatest problem isn¡¯t that we are related.¡± I could practically see myself turn red. He turned his back to me, and started walking towards everyone else. ¡°Can¡¯t argue with the idiot part though,¡± he muttered under his breath.

    ¡°Why are you admitting it?¡± I cried out.

    ¡°Unlike you, I have some self-awareness,¡± he looked back at me. Him being the one to tell me that hurt quite a bit.

    ¡°You guys sound just like sis¨C Princess Kathleen and Alan,¡± sighed Lady Hanna.

    ¡°See, Claude? I¡¯m like a princess,¡± I stroke a pose, pointing at my nephew.

    ¡°Sure, sure. I have mixed feelings about being compared to Alan though. Not like I¡¯m not at least somewhat jealous of him.¡±

    ¡°Shall we leave? Our fortress won¡¯t build itself.¡±

    ¡°You won¡¯t work us to the bone, right?¡± I couldn¡¯t help but ask our teacher.

    Lady Hanna just smiled back at us instead of a reply.

    ¡°We won¡¯t be defeated before the siege even begins, RIGHT???¡±

    ***

    It was an absolute nightmare. A nightmare for us, who had to do most of the work, and a nightmare for anyone who was unfortunate enough to trigger the dark magic spells we were tasked to set up all around the perimeter.

    I thought we would be given a different kind of manual labor, but building the fortress took no more than 10 minutes thanks to Lady Hanna¡¯s earth magic. After the fortress walls finished rising from the ground, she just hopped into a makeshift throne and started throwing her unreasonable commands at us. I actually wished the attackers had taken her away then and there.

    Claude led the Ilishwa out of the fortress to set up illusion-based traps. Mirages, disorienting fields, perception-blocking barriers, they made them all. At the same time, I was filling the fortress walls with skeleton archers. I¡¯ve never used necromancy before, but Lady Hanna proved to be a great teacher when it came to dark magic. I just wished we didn¡¯t have to walk back to her makeshift throne every time we needed pointers.

 Chapter 13 - Mock Siege Part 2

    *** PoV: Keith ***

    When Father gave the signal, the girls rushed out on a moment¡¯s notice. Alan being our enemy, they were just so eager to beat his ass. I could see where that came from, as Alan was definitely an enemy of maidens, but following the same thought, so was I. Why did they prefer me over him?

    Despite their eagerness to fight, fortunately they kept their cool for long enough for us to flank the fortress instead of rushing straight in. Unfortunately, that only lasted until the moment they caught sight of the red armbands of Alan¡¯s team. They rushed at the boys. So much for me being their leader.

    Something felt off though. Why was Alan¡¯s team here? Sure, offense might be the best defense in some situations, but when one knew two separate teams would attack them, it was utter foolishness to leave their fort undefended while striking at one of those teams. The other team would just walk straight into the empty fort.

    And then¡­ The gates of hell were let loose. I was sure my eyes caught an armband changing colors in the middle of the melee. And another one further away. The fight between our teams became a literal free-for-all. The girls of my team were attacking whoever was nearest to them, and so did Alan¡¯s boys. Teammates no longer existed.

    My eyes locked onto Alan, his arm waving, at the other side of the battlefield. When I waved back, he pointed at the fortress. Without any better plan at my hands, I turned that way and started running.

    ¡°Hey there. Why are you out here? Shouldn¡¯t you be guarding that undead lady of yours?¡± I was assaulted by Alan¡¯s questions the moment he got near me, but those questions confirmed it: We¡¯ve been had. Hanna fooled us into thinking we would be fighting each other.

    ¡°I thought you were the one protecting her. To think both of us would be attackers¡­¡±

    ¡°Yeah, didn¡¯t expect it either, but looking at that mess, she made the correct choice with Claude¡¯s team.¡±

    ¡°Why would Claude ever be the correct choice?¡± I looked at Alan confused.

    ¡°It¡¯s not Claude she picked. It¡¯s all of the Shadow and Ilishwa from class. She made a group of dark magic users protect her.¡±

    ¡°So that¡¯s why she made Lina switch teams. She wanted everyone with dark magic affinity on the same team.¡±

    ¡°Sounds like it. If she left her with you, she could have spotted every single trap they laid.¡±

    ¡°We could have spotted them either way.¡±

    ¡°Did you?¡± Alan¡¯s disapproving stare was aimed straight at me.

    ¡°Obviously not. Everyone else just rushed ahead ignoring my orders,¡± I looked away.

    ¡°Same here. Those guys on my team hate your guts.¡±

    ¡°How come they are fine with you? It¡¯s the opposite with the girls.¡±

    ¡°You are a prince, Keith. Any girl you pick is off-limits to them, and the girls themselves want to marry into the royal family. It¡¯s a given that girls would love but the guys would hate you. In my case, I have no such value to the girls, and the guys can just sell me out to Kath if I dare to look at the girls they like.¡±

    ¡°I call double standards on that. It also doesn¡¯t stop you from picking up girls.¡±

    ¡°It only works the first time, and don¡¯t say that like you weren¡¯t the one taking me on those excursions.¡±

    ¡°You need me to be able to sneak out of the castle without the guards noticing and reporting it to Kathleen.¡±

    ¡°Speaking of sneaking out, how about you sneak into this fortress and open the gate for me?¡±

    ¡°Let me have a quick peek¡­ Are those skeletons?¡± I shuddered. ¡°Why are skeletons walking on the walls? I know Hanna is the one in there, but isn¡¯t this too much?¡±

    ¡°Don¡¯t assume the undead lady is the only one able to use necromancy when she has all those dark magic users around her.¡±

    ¡°That¡¯s not what I meant. You know perfectly how little skeletons are capable of when left on their own. They need someone to give them commands constantly, as they can¡¯t really adapt to the situation at hand. Wouldn¡¯t it be easier for them to stand guard themselves?¡±

    ¡°Doesn¡¯t that just make sneaking in easier for you?¡±

    ¡°It does,¡± I muttered with dropped shoulders.

    ¡°Then why are you complaining?¡±

    ¡°Because I don¡¯t want to believe they would make that mistake after making our teams crush each other.¡±

    ¡°Lina¡¯s hands were probably full, setting that thing behind us, so she did not have time to babysit Claude,¡± Alan shrugged, clearly losing interest in the topic. ¡°I¡¯m surprised he can even get dressed without her in the mornings. He must really hate that the girls are in another dorm.¡±

    ¡°Actually those two rented a flat and live together.¡±

    ¡°Is that why we never ran into Lina in the girls¡¯ dorm?¡±

    ¡°Obviously. Well, let¡¯s just get this over with. Give me five minutes and you¡¯ll be able to walk straight in.¡±

    *** PoV: Hanna ***

    Lina messed up big time. I knew it was her first time creating a skeleton army, but did she really assume she could place them and just let them be? I had one of my own skeletons mixed in the group, and they didn¡¯t even notice.

    Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

    I used that skeleton to monitor our surroundings, and it didn¡¯t take long to spot Keith and Alan through its vision. They seemed to be in the middle of a strategy meeting. A bit after that they split up, Alan staying behind, waiting near a random boulder while Keith started approaching the walls making sure he was behind cover every time Lina¡¯s skeletons bothered to look his way.

    After about 10 minutes, he managed to get to the fortress walls without any of the other skeletons noticing, then climbed inside when all but mine showed their backs. He might have not known that, but he was in the safe from the moment he passed the wall.

    Claude was the first to notice something was off. His ears, worthy of a cat, picked up the creaking sound of the gate opening, but it was too late. By the time he reached halfway there, all of us could hear Alan screaming, trying to dodge the volley of arrows let loose by the skeleton guards. However, even that stopped the moment he stepped inside.

    Lina¡¯s command for the skeletons was to attack anyone approaching the walls, which, obviously, did not extend to anyone inside the walls, or retreating from the walls for the record. That made me remember how long it took me before I could give accurate instructions to my zombie snow leopard back when I was a child.

    ¡°Everyone, into defensive formation! We have a VIP to protect!¡± Claude gave his commands the moment he spotted the two boys walking towards us.

    ¡°CHARGE!¡± Lina shouted from right behind him. The team members prioritized her commands for some reason, and left their defensive positions at a moment¡¯s notice.

    ¡°Hey, Alan, I got you inside safe and sound, so could you do something before they trample both of us?¡±

    ¡°Safe and sound is stretching it,¡± Alan growled, breaking the arrow sticking out of his left arm before using the same arrow to point towards us and start chanting his spell. ¡°As a descendant of Satan himself, I shall scorch the lands and skies.¡±

    The Shadows did not spare a moment to chant their counterspells, expecting the Demons¡¯ signature [Demonic Hellfire] spell. ¡°¡°¡°Let our scent be masked by the raging waters. [Flash Flood]!¡±¡±¡± The spell, however, got their Ilishwa teammates way before reaching Alan, and cats definitely did not like getting drenched. Claude climbed his way up the fortress wall, while Keith jumped onto Alan¡¯s shoulders - making the latter grimace in pain - to avoid the sudden flood of water rushing towards their legs.

    Alan, on the other hand, never finished the spell he started chanting, switching to a completely different one instead. ¡°When the cleansing flames get purged, an eternal winter takes over. [Frozen Hell].¡±

    I could not blame the defenders for falling into this trap, as even for me this was the first time seeing a Demon use ice magic. I was aware that most of them could wield it, thanks to my Demon ex-boyfriend telling me it was one of their racial affinities, but he was one of the rare individuals without any proficiency in it. In exchange for not having ice magic, his fire magic was stronger, and he could also use simpler dark magic spells. Unlike him, Alan seemed to be proficient with both types of their racial magic.

    Keith jumped off of Alan and started knocking the stuck members of the defending team out, while Lina and Claude landed on top of the ice with a loud crash, the former having clung to the latter¡¯s scarf to escape from the ice, nearly suffocating the boy and ultimately making him fall down.

    As for me¡­ Yeah, the chant should have clued me in, but I was just standing there with my legs embedded in a thick layer of ice. I had to use Formless¡¯ hammer form - which I haven¡¯t had the time to master yet - to break myself out, then I promptly hid behind the team of my proud guards. Sorry, correction: the last standing pair of my proud guards.

    ¡°Are you willing to surrender, Claude?¡± Keith asked. ¡°You don¡¯t seem to have any options left, and I¡¯m not losing in a fair fight.¡±

    ¡°Are you mocking me?¡± Claude laughed, holding his stomach. ¡°You know I never fight fair.¡±

    ¡°I like your spirit, but do you really have any tricks you could use to defeat them?¡± Lina asked. ¡°I could probably handle Alan, but Keith is stronger than me.¡±

    ¡°Teach, everything is allowed in a war, right?¡± Claude asked me with an ears-wide smirk.

    ¡°Only if you win. It¡¯s up to the winner to decide what¡¯s fine and what¡¯s not,¡± I replied.

    ¡°In that case, let me be the worst scum the Academy has ever seen. Lina, I¡¯m leaving Alan to you. I¡¯ll handle Keith myself.¡± Suddenly he looked way more serious than I have ever seen before. Not that I knew him before that day.

    ¡°Sounds fun,¡± Keith grinned. ¡°Alan, you heard Hanna too, right? If we win, you¡¯ll be forgiven even if you accidentally grab Lina¡¯s breasts.¡± Did they forget that this wasn¡¯t an actual war? I could already see Sister¡¯s face when I told them what Alan did.

    ¡°Is that your way of encou¨C¡± My only guess for how that was supposed to end was ¡°¨Craging me?¡±, but we¡¯ll never know. How it actually ended was Alan¡¯s eyes nearly popping out of their sockets, then a bright-red-faced Lina with steam shooting out of her ears punching him in the face, promptly knocking him out. Just a second later Claude¡¯s sword stopped a hair¡¯s breadth away from Keith¡¯s neck, who was similarly staring at Lina¡¯s bare breasts.

    Claude used the time while two on the attacking team were talking between each other not to attack Keith, but to slash at his own teammate¡¯s armor straps. She was so occupied with preparing for an actual fight that if it wasn¡¯t for Alan freezing up, she wouldn¡¯t have noticed what happened. Reminder to myself: wear something long - preferably with sleeves - under my armor so it needs more cuts before completely falling apart.

    The clanking sound of Lina¡¯s chestplate hitting the ice below our feet marked the end of our first mock siege.

    ¡°Stop staring at me, pervert!¡± Lina shouted at Keith while trying to cover herself.

    ¡°What pervert? Where?¡± Keith asked with a smirk on his face. ¡°It¡¯s not like I saw anything, as there was nothing to see. I knew elves had modest chests, but some of you not having any is news even to me.¡±

    ¡°Wow. I might have been the scum who exposed her, but even I would not go that far,¡± Claude whispered to Keith, slowly withdrawing his sword and taking a step back.

    ¡°You bastard.¡± I could feel a sudden chill on my back. ¡°I¡¯ll gouge your eyes out.¡± For some reason that didn¡¯t sound like an empty threat. I silently took a step towards Lina, getting ready to stop her on a moment¡¯s notice. ¡°I¡¯ll rip your limbs off and shove them up your ass.¡± I reached my hand out trying to grab her shoulder.

    ¡°Lina, that¡¯s enough. I¡¯ll beat him up for you, so please calm down.¡± Claude held his empty left hand out towards her.

    ¡°I¡¯ll bite your throat if I have to.¡± I was too late. Lina jumped towards Keith with her hands held out ready to grab him before I could have caught her. She never reached him though. Only her splattering blood did. Her headless body fell in front of the prince¡¯s legs, her flying head with a confused expression on her face passing by him.

    Both Keith and I looked at the culprit. He squeezed his sword and scarf so tight his fingers lost all their color. Furthermore, he was shaking. That did not look like the shock of killing someone for the first time, but something rooted way deeper.

    We stood there frozen stiff for minutes before I could get myself to speak.

    ¡°Keith. Get the medics and your father here.¡±

    ¡°What can the medics do about this?¡± asked the pale-faced prince.

    ¡°They can make sure we can get Claude back to the city alive,¡± I said, then knocked him unconscious with an uppercut, making him and his teeth fly in opposite directions. ¡°I¡¯ll do something about the girl in the meantime. We don¡¯t need the others to see this when they wake up.¡±