Dragon-chan saves Douglas, and more reveals

A week after the party, I was in my room, practicing shifting into a form other than that of Nene the adventurer, and drafting the script for my public debut as the princess, as opposed to as the adventurer, when Douglas used the Red magic stone I gave him to call for my help. I shifted into my form as Nene the adventurer, used that stone as a beacon, and used spatial magic to create a {Gate} there.

When I stepped out of the {Gate}, I saw that I was on the side of a road, in the middle of a an encirclement by group of at least 60 bandits, with the corpses of at least 20 more bandits scattered around, as well as the corpses of several adventurers hired as guards for the merchant's caravan that was also within the encirclement. About a dozen more adventurers were fighting back against the bandits, but Douglas was lying with his guts spilling out near me, so I cast an A rank healing spell on him before joining the fight.

"Oi, boss, some little brat just came out of nowhere! Looks like she's a mage type!" (Bandit A)

"I can see that you idiot! Someone cast anti chant! She'll be nothing if she can't chant spells!" (Bandit Boss)

"{Magician's Bane}!" (Bandit B)

"You know, Magician's Bane is useless against those who can cast S rank spells, or who can use chantless magic. You ought to have noticed I used magic without any chant when I healed this guy, and as - ah hell, it won't matter if I say this or not, I just wanted to sound cool, but I won't waste time... Well, time to get to work... {Wall of All-Consuming Flames} {Wall of All-Consuming Flames}... A word of advice, don't try to touch those walls, they will burn your hand off until there aren't even ashes left of your bones. They are also immune to magic, save for... three spells. Two can put the flames out, one can resist the flames for a few seconds" (Nene)

I cast the spell twice, and enclosed the bandit group with one, cutting off their way to escape, while the other blocked them from attacking the adventurers or merchant carriages.

"Bitch! Who do you think you are?! We're the Dogfang Bandit Group, and an S-rank threat, from what the guild says! You are out of your league here, so I suggest you surrender and pay with your body. You'll make a nice slave for some noble once we're done with you ourselves. I was asked by Lord Greshom is for a nice pretty bedwarmer of about your age, and you fit the bill. We'll see if he wants you, and if not..." (Bandit Boss)

"First off... Pay with my body? I'm barely seven years old. You must be a pedophile, and so I feel no sympathy for what I'm about to do to you. My name is Nene, if that's what you were asking when you said 'who do you think you are'. It doesn't matter if you think I'm the princess of this here empire, or just the only S ranked adventurer in the last 197 years. At least one of them is true, both would give me the authority to wipe you out if I felt like it, or to capture you alive. I can torture you, as you are attacking innocent people, and even kindly named yourselves as bandits. Also, Lord Greshom, was it? I'll remember that, so I can report this to the Empress. I'm on good terms with her, so I think she will listen if I tell her about a corrupt noble. By the way, I already used truth-seer's magic before I got here, so I know that everything you said was true. Don't try to lie later, it won't help you at all... Now than... What spell to use... Eh, it's overkill, but why not. I love this spell so, as it's non-lethal but will cause extreme agony... {Curst Wall of Gehenna's Flames}" (Nene)

Half a second later, I removed all three walls of flame, and decided to wait to use purification magic on the bandits while I went around to all of the bodies lying on the ground, checking for any survivors. I found two bandits that were alive, so I healed them up enough that they wouldn't die, but not so much that I wouldn't have left them in pain, but I only found one surviving adventurer. I healed him fully, healed the other adventurers as well, used purification magic on the bandits, and just threw them into a holding cell that could fit about 100 people at the guardhouse near the city gates, with a note on the outside of the cell telling them to ask for me at the guild if I haven't shown up by sunset, so that the guards would know how and why the bandits got there.

"Nene, thank you very much for saving us. My name is Stefan, I'm the leader of this merchant caravan. I was hoping we could make it to our destination, but... we seem to have lost all but one of the A ranked adventurers that we hired, and we only have three B ranks left. That doesn't seem like it would be enough, so we will have to turn back. I wish we could make our deadline, but it can't be helped... Boss is going to have my ass for this though. Oh, sorry. Could I trouble you to guard us until we reach the capital? It should only take a few hours, and we will pay you for your troubles." (Stefan)

"I have another idea. You have seen what I can do, so I'm willing to guard you until your destination, as if I had shown up earlier, you might be able to make it without needing me as a guard. As such, I won't ask for your money beyond what you would normally pay a single A rank, and you won't get in trouble with your boss. I should be enough for any troubles that come your way, even if I have to take out a group of Wyverns, and so I'd like to send those who would like to go back to the capital, and I will explain what happened to the guild, so that the request isn't marked as failed for those who return, and so that I can officially be your guard. Is that an acceptable offer?" (Nene)

"I will take you up on that. Who all would like to return?" (Stefan)

"I would. I have to break the bad news to the families of my comrades" (Douglas)

"I'm fine, I want to guard" (B rank 1)

"No thanks" (B rank 2)

"I'll stay with you as another guard. I won't be much help, but I can take a shift or two at night" (B rank 3)

"We from Wyvern's Hide would like to go back, we have no casualties, but we are not needed here" (C rank)

"You, Douglas, will have to rest in bed for a few days. You lost a lot of blood, and my magic can't fix that. So much as getting out of bed without help will have to wait, I am sorry to say. You can stay at my place, I can have someone there to give you your meals and help you to the bathroom, and this is a decent reason to have you meet my family... My mother has been wanting to meet you for a while... Though I will say that that too will wait until after I return. It should only take a few days, I might even be back before you are able to do much more than go to the bathroom without help... If you want to be with someone else, I can take you there instead. What do you say?" (Nene)

"Ugh... I don't have anyone at my place, and all my friends but you were with me on this. I guess I'll be fine at your place... Actually... If you said that you'll have someone with me, but you have no siblings, and your parents won't meet me until after you are back, that means it'll be a servant... Are you... a noble?" (Douglas)

"That's a nice bit of logical deduction, but you missed two possibilities. Regardless, you will find out once we get there. Well, we're off, I'll be back in about ten minutes" (Nene)

I used {Gate} to bring Douglas to one of the guest rooms in the palace and set him on the bed

"I wonder when I'll stop being surprised at you having this much strength despite having such a small body... Can you at least tell me what you expect me to do with myself while I'm on bed rest?" (Douglas)

"You can be talking to me through the Green stone, reading a book, or sleeping, among other things. If you want to play with a cat, that's fine whenever, for a dog or any other animal, you can ask for that starting tomorrow after lunch, I'd say. If you want something else, ask for it. There's a blue stone in the wall behind you for calling a servant, and you ought to look out the window sometimes, there's a nice view. We have a huge library, so whatever you want to read, we will probably have it. For books, a servant will get you what you want, if it's not some sort of restricted material. I'll be back in a few days. Someone will be with you in a minute, and they'll check on you every hour or so after that. A doctor will give you a full exam soon. Anything else?" (Nene)

"Yeah... Just... who are you? I don't know of any wealthy families with showing beastkin blood at all" (Douglas)

"Well, this is a good way to get you to sleep, I bet you wouldn't otherwise, despite it being the right thing for you... My ears are not part of my original body, I made them myself. My full name is Nene Drachen" (Nene)

Sure enough, Douglas lost consciousness instantly, and so I went to tell a servant about him, and my parents what I was going to be doing for the next few days, as well as that we had a guest who was injured, and I'd like to be there when he meets them... and that he'd probably want that too. I used {Gate} to bring the C ranks and the corpses of the other adventurers back to the guild, explained what happened to the guildmaster, and had their quest be marked as transferred to me. I then used {Gate} to return to the merchants. My escort request was completed in three days without any major events, the biggest was me spotting a wyvern in the distance and using spatial magic to teleport a fireball into its lungs, before storing its corpse in my Hoard. I returned home to find out that Douglas had been repeatedly fainting within a few minutes of him waking up for the first day or so, and that my parents were eager to meet "my prospective suitor", a misconception I spent half an hour trying to squash... I informed the three of them that

I had some other big thing to reveal to them, so I arranged for there to not be anyone in the room but the four of us when it came time for the two of them to meet Douglas.

Three days after I got back, Douglas had recovered enough to be able to meet with my parents, and so we went to the room I had prepared to talk over lunch, which was Wyvern steak and Kraken sashimi, with a side of soup... Miso soup, something I taught the chefs how to make for this very meal.

"So, you want to marry my daughter... for what reason do you wish to do so?" (Father)

"Father, please, I already told you that's not it... I think... Douglas, do you want to marry me?" (Nene)

"I can say that, at the moment, the answer is no. In the future, I might find myself considering it, but not right now... Also, not trying to change the topic, but... this soup is really good, what is it?" (Douglas)

"I don't know, I've never tasted anything like it. I'll ask the chefs, just a moment" (Mother)

"Oh, I can tell you that. It's miso soup... miso is made from fermented soybeans, if you were wondering" (Nene)

"And you know this... how? Did you find this recipe somewhere and show it to the chefs?" (Mother)

"Not quite, I'll explain after this. It has to do with the big reveal I mentioned earlier, so..." (Nene)

"Ah. I suppose I can wait for a little while. This really is quite nice though" (Father)

Two hours of conversation later, my father seemed to be best friends with Douglas, and I figured the time was right to change the topic.

"Lest we forget about the other item on the agenda, I may as well tell you this now. You are going to want to make sure you don't have any food or drink in your mouth, as it will probably come out if you do" (Nene)

"Sounds like a really big reveal. Did you save some other country such that their king offered you his son's hand in marriage or something, without knowing that you are already a princess?" (Douglas)

"That would be easier to believe than what I'm going to tell you, but what I am saying is true. That miso recipe? It came from the country of Japan" (Nene)

"I've never heard of Japan, is it really far?" (Mother)

"You have no idea. Japan is on another planet, and one without magic at that. They do, however, have all kinds of technology that more or less makes up for the lack of magic" (Nene)

"How did you get that recipe then?" (Father)

"Well... I guess that, what I'm trying to say is, I may have been born seven years ago, but I have almost 20 years of memories... I was a human from Japan in a past life, and I was reborn here in this one. My name was Kurosaki Nene... Oh right, in Japan, everyone has a family name, and it comes before the personal name. I wasn't a noble, nor royalty, I was an ordinary child who had so much anxiety that I basically withdrew from the world and played in my room with others like me... Well, they weren't in my room, I just had some technology that allowed me to talk with them, and see the same fictional world they were seeing... well, it's complicated... I don't know how to describe it better. That fictional world was a lot like this one, in terms of the monsters, spells, and stuff like the way being an adventurer works. In it, I was the second best adventurer in the world" (Nene)

"Wait... so, the reason you could use even S ranked magic without being taught was because you had years of experience at it from a past life?" (Mother)

"I think it's also the reason I was able to learn how to control my shapeshifting so easily... I already knew how to move a human body. And for Magic, no, I had a year of prior experience with it, not several" (Nene)

"Oh... So you learned S rank magic in a year, learned how to make this... Miso, was it? Learned how to make Miso, and probably other things too, and then you died at the age of 12 and were reborn here?" (Father)

"I learned S rank magic in two months or so, and I don't think I died, I just started playing one day and found myself in an egg instead. I know how to make lots of things, and I can figure out how to use magic to make several others" (Nene)

"Wow... I don't know what to say... but it seems like I have to believe you, but... this is a lot to take in" (Mother)

"Yeah, it is. I also can't say why, but I feel like my friend Yuna... well, rival is more like it... I think she may have been brought to this world too... I can't really tell you why I think that, but my intuition has rarely been off about this sort of big stuff though. If you hear of someone is a bear outfit who seems strong with the name Yuna, please tell me. I'd love to meet her again..." (Nene)

"A bear outfit? Why? Would she have been born wearing it or something?" (Douglas)

"No, she just likes bears... a lot... Enough that she'd probably wear that kind of outfit. I don't know if she'd be an adventurer, a noble, or just some kind of shopkeeper or private guard, but... Unless the place she works has a uniform, she'd probably be wearing that outfit... Wait, now that I think about it, in the calendar of the nearby countries, I was born on the same day of the same year as I was born in Japan, so... she might be the same age as me, if my birthday was a coincidence, or she might be a different age than me. She might not be here at all, but I'll bet she is. I have no clue what her birthday is, I never met her in person. For all I know, she's actually 80 years old, but her voice sounded like she'd be about 10-15 years old when I was last in Japan" (Nene)

"Actually... wait, this means you are the same age as me? No, slightly older, I guess. I'm 18, you'd be 19... huh. I'm going to have to get used to that. I always felt like you were older than you were, but now..." (Douglas)

"I trust that this information won't change our relationships too much, and that it won't leave this room?" (Nene)

"Huh? Oh, yeah. I think so, and I won't let it leave this room" (Father)

"Same here, I won't let anyone else learn it from me" (Mother)

"I'll try not to let it affect our relationship too much... but don't blame me if I start getting attracted to you despite your current body being a decade younger than me, now that I know you are older than me on the inside... I mean, I like you, but at the moment, I don't know if it's in that way... and I still won't tell anyone this" (Douglas)

"Thank you... I'm glad I have such a good family and an amazing friend in this life" (Nene)

We talked for a few more hours, had dinner while still talking, and eventually I left the three of them as I went to bed. They may have the bodies of adults, but I still find myself needing to go to bed earlier than I would want to. I sound like a child when I say that, but I don't have a better way to put it. I guess what I'm trying to say is that my body's sleep schedule is off of how I am used to it from my life on Earth... hmm... I still don't know what this planet is called, actually. I ought to ask that at some point...