RATH Side Story 8

TL: Eevee

TLN: Check Release Notes regarding immediate future of this translation.

Side Story – A certain princess’s memories (8)

“Yes, arrange for it to be done.”

“Understood, Your Highness.”

As Reia looked at the maid bow and leave the room she asked.

“Your Highness, must you escalate things like this?”

“Ast started it.”

“We, well, but still.”

I mean, members of the imperial family can be picky eaters, why not.

And it wasn’t like I was an especially picky eater, I only hated cucumbers and carrots and yet despite knowing this Ast finally ended up making me put both those things in my mouth.

The foul texture of carrot and the disgusting taste of cucumber that lingered in my mouth.

There were many other ingredients aside from those two, but due to the invasion of the cucumber that had a very high moisture content, everything else was infected with the taste and scent of cucumber as it violated my mouth.

And this was what I heard later from a maid, but my sandwich was one that Ast requested especially from the imperial kitchens, a sandwich absolutely chock-full of cucumber and carrot.

This was a challenge against me.

“Your Highness, there’s no need to go a far as calling in that person, wouldn’t be sufficient if I came forward?”

And because of that I came up with this plan, but it seemed that Reia was against calling in that old man.

“You’ve already lost to Ast, Reia.”

“Th, that wasn’t me losing with my sword! I didn’t know that Sir Ast would come out like that either!”

When I gave her a direct command, and Reia was about to seriously steal Ast’s sandwich.

Ast stuffed it all into his own mouth and swallowed it just like that.

Because of that, after pulling her sword out seriously for the first time in a while, Reia ended up losing without even being able to take a swing.

“But a loss is a loss. You could not carry out my command, Reia.”

“I’m sorry.”

As Reia bowed her head looking like she could cry at any time, I sighed.

I honestly wanted to spread the news of this, but then Ast could get killed by the female knights that admired Reia.

I still haven’t found out his secret yet, I can’t let him die now.

No, before that, he’s toyed with me this much, so if he’s going to die then I need to kill him with my own hands for me to be satisfied.

“And you said it as well, Reia. Ast seems like someone who knows his way around a sword.”

“Yes. I had a chance to see him training briefly, it was a clean swordsmanship that didn’t fit Sir Ast.”

“Really?”

Reia once said that if you saw someone’s swordsmanship you could also see their true personality.

And so.

“Reia, between taking back your statement that someone’s swordsmanship reflects their personality, or admitting that you are a poor judge of character, which one will you choose?”

“Y, Your Highness?”

“Because according to your words then Ast’s true personality is clean.”

“Ugghhh..”

I pressured Reia who was struggling with herself.

To think that Ast who was the fusion of all filthiness would have a clean personality.

There’s no bigger bullshit than that.

“I, I think I’m a poor judge of character. I’m sorry, Your Highness.”

As Reia bowed her head and apologised I pat her on her back.

“There there, it’s alright if you know it.”

“Yes, Your Highness. But.. there is no need to actually call in that person. If it’s the sword then I have the confidence to not lose to Sir Ast.”

“Of course. Reia is strong after all. But in order for Ast to admit defeat then you can’t step forward, Reia. Ast has almost no magic power after all.”

Even commoners have enough magic power to play one or two games of strategy chess, but Ast doesn’t even have that.

If you were to ask how bad it was, Ast has so little magic power that at I thought he could be undergoing a pilgrimage after being chosen as a god’s apostle.

To become a god’s apostle, he could possibly be a pilgrim who was deliberately emptying out his magic power to receive the power of a god, that’s how empty Ast’s magic power reserves were.

And if that Ast, fought against Reia, who while not quite at the level of the Sword Star was still among the top of the female knights in terms of her magic power, Ast will never simply admit his loss.

And so the person that was needed was one with pure overwhelming swordsmanship, and yet had little mana so Ast couldn’t use that as an excuse.

I had to find someone like that to beat Ast and make him admit his defeat, and then after that I can claim that he lacks skill as my personal steward and have him go train in the army or with the knights!

Because a personal steward has the duty to protect his master!

And when that happens, I have a very legal way to make him suffer as much as I want.

And this perfect plan.

“Huh?”

“Lies!”

With Ast holding out using his sword as a cane to barely stay standing, and the old man that had fallen down in front of him.

As the thing that could never, ever happen actually happened.

Failed with the unexpected result, that Ast would become victorious.

#11 Their story: A certain villain’s story.

“Learning the sword?”

“Mm, I need it for self-defence.”

As Her Highness nodded, I turned to Sir Reia.

“What do you think, Sir Reia? Do you believe that Her Highness needs to learn swordsmanship?”

“Yes, I do.”

And the answer that came back was unexpected.

I would have thought that she would say that as long as she was there Her Highness would be safe so she had no need to learn swordsmanship even for self-defence.

“I.. am a useless guard, that lost to Sir Ast and couldn’t even obey my liege’s commands, after all. Sob.”

“H, huh?”

But the following words were ones of total self-denial.

Was this because of me?

“But Sir Reia, Sir Reia didn’t lose to me in swordsmanship, so you should have more confidence in..”

“No, no! I lost! I let my guard down, and I was taken aback at when something I never could have expected happened!”

“No, there’s no need to go that far..”

“It is. Back then if I had thought to perfectly carry out Her Highness’s orders, I should have cut off Sir Ast’s hand the moment it moved for the sandwich!”

Hey, don’t cut off people’s hands just over cucumbers and carrots!

“But I did not do such a thing. Rather, I couldn’t even think to do such a thing.”

Whether she knew my thoughts or not, Sir Reia stared at me with her eyes wide open as she said.

“And therefore, I have no rights to say anything against Her Highness.”

“Yes, is that so.”

Since it felt like if I said the wrong thing here I really could destroy her personality so I decided to leave her for now.

Because between Her insane Highness, and the imperial court where I could be offed at any minute for some political reason or another, teasing Sir Reia is my only joy.

I can’t lose my only fun in life like that.

“So are you planning on learning swordsmanship from Sir Reia?”

“No, I’m going to learn from a proper teacher. Reia, is too much of a genius.”

“Isn’t it quicker to learn from a genius?”

As I tilted my head at the unexpected answer, Her Highness turned to Sir Reia.

“Reia, how did you become a swordsmaster again?”

“Ah? I was enlightened when I watched the snow in winter.”

“When you were watching the snow during winter?”

I was curious as to just what enlightenment she came to while watching the snow, and the answer that came back was simply absurd.

“Yes, Sir Ast. That day, there was a lot of snow so we were making a snowman.”

I heard that she became a swordsmaster at 18, so did that mean at the age of 18 she was making a snowman while guarding the princess.

As I imagined Her Highness rolling around a snowball in order to make a snowman, the image sent shivers down my spine as I glanced at Her Highness.

“Ah, I wasn’t there, by the way. I had something to do with His Majesty so Reia didn’t come with me.”

“Yes, I was having a competition with my little sibling as to who could make a bigger snowman at our family home.”

As if she read my mind, Her Highness denied what I was thinking.

“And so after I squished up my snowball, and kept on rolling it, I wondered if I could squish my mana like this as well. So I did it and my sword ki became sword aura.”

As if she was satisfied with her story, Sir Reia nodded while I stared at her.

I waited, and waited some more but no more came.

“Sir Reia, is that it?”

“Yes, that is it?”

As I stared at Sir Reia blankly, she tilted her head with a face as if something was wrong.

“You see, that’s what Reia’s explanations are like. I can’t learn from that.”

At Her Highness’s words, I nodded with her.

You can’t teach someone with those Mister Bob(1) explanations.

If you drew it all and said ‘easy right?’ then what the hell were you supposed to do as a student!

“So I decided to learn swordsmanship from someone good at teaching. So, Ast.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

“Fight him.”

Why me again?

“You Highness, is there a reason? If it’s something like that then I personally believe that Sir Reia is more suitable.”

“No, that person’s not quite like you Ast, but for a swordsman his magic power’s more on the lacking side. So of course Reia would win if she fought him.”

“Then what about learning from him without fighting him.”

“No, his rumours could be exaggerated, after all. So Ast, you check him out for me.”

Although she was making a face like a duelist who’d set a face-down trap card and was just waiting to activate it, but my poor life was one where if she ordered, I couldn’t refuse.

And so a few days passed, and the man who was supposedly Her Highness’s swordsmanship tutor arrived.

“It’s been a while, Your Highness. You’ve gotten more beautiful since the last time I saw you.”

“Mm. it’s been a while, gramps.”

Judging from the way they talk they seem quite intimate with each other.

Could normal people meet Her Highness and still leave in a good mood?

I heard that most people don’t last more than a month before they run?

Meaning that, unlike his sagacious appearance, that old man either had a trash personality, or he was a lunatic.

Because there are no normal people other than me around Her Highness!

“Ah, so would you be my opponent Ast?”

“Yes, my name is Ast de Lilac.”

He seems close to Her Highness, and speaks down on me despite knowing who I was, so he seemed a man in a very high place.

At times like this I need to know to crawl on my own.

“A good match, I’m looking forward to it.”

“I’ll do my best.”

I grasped his outstretched hand and shook it.

A bumpy, hardened hand.

Perhaps it was because he was to become Her Highness’s swordsmanship instructor, but those hands were ones that had spent a long time handling a sword.

“Now, I’ve prepared the location, so let’s head over.”

I was tense because the opponent seemed like he would be quite troublesome to handle, and all of a sudden Her Highness got close beside us as she led us to her own personal garden.

“Now, I’ve already had the guards and battlemages on standby to prevent anyone else from approaching this place, so fight as much as you want. Even if you lose an arm we can put it back on, as long as you don’t die.”

A ten year old wants a bloodbath of a fight!

“Then, here I come.”

“Please take care of me.”

I glanced at Sir Reia with a look of help, but Sir Reia avoided my gaze.

In the end I took my sword out to face the enemy, as long as he didn’t use magic as he promised, I had the confidence to not lose.

Kang!

That was, until I took his first strike.

“What the?”

“Hoh?”

The strike of a man who looked in his fifties on the outside, but since there were people who could delay the ageing of their bodies with magic, he could even have been in his sixties, yet his attack was so heavy.

“Your Highness really does have a way of finding interesting people.”

But it seemed that the old man in front of me was as shocked as I was.

“I think it might be fun even if I go a bit harder.”

No, should I say his true colours came out as you’d expect from an acquaintance of Her Highness?

His expression was a simple child’s enjoyment, yet his fighting aura his body was emitting felt like it would really kill me.

“Noww, how about this?”

I tried to parry away his blade that made a straight line towards me, but the old man’s sword never touched mine, and instead slithered around like a snake to reach me.

“Damn it.”

“Hm?”

To dodge the blade that came driving into my heart in an instant, I immediately dropped my sword and stepped back.

“A swordsman dropped his blade, can I take that as your loss?”

As the old man scowled at the sword lying on the ground, I lifted my left hand.

“If it’s a sword then I’ve got one here.”

What I held in my left hand was a small dagger.

To fight against the man who’d already managed to get into a space where I would have an awkward time fending everything off, a dagger would be better than a longsword so I made the choice to boldly abandon my sword.

“Good choice. A dagger would be better at that close range. But right now the distance between us has widened again.

“Indeed.”

“So what are you going to do?”

In a situation where there is distance between us, the ranges of our weapons are important.

Just why were rank and file soldiers given spears?

Was it not to stab the enemy before they could get in and start slashing away?

Of course between a short and a longsword, the longsword is superior.

And Sir Reia and Her Highness both seemed quite disappointed.

But there was no way I would have come empty-handed to a place riddled with trap cards after all?

“This.”

I lifted up my left hand, and threw my dagger at him.

“What the?!”

The old man was infuriated with the action that would never happen in a clean fight, but I ignored him and unsheathed another hidden dagger and went in for my second attack.

This was Her Highness’s mistake.

She told me to fight my opponent, she never told me to fight fairly.

And moreover, she even gave me a situation where no one was looking?

Did that not mean I didn’t have to care about what other people would think either?

And so, I threw my second dagger at him and engaged in a battle style I was very, very good at.

It was the moment a degenerate, filthy dogfight between the old man and I began.