“You’ll be assigned roles and are expected to play it out using the information you have.”
John handed Alysara and me a sheet of paper, each containing information on the role we were supposed to assume at the upcoming “ball.” This ball was our next trial.
The social section of our trials contained political, trading, and then a test about leadership. And to pass them, we had to play the role of what John has given to us. It was to test out our ability to adapt to a new world with whatever knowledge we had from our past life. Only, the fact we were rich or poor didn’t matter here.
I was okay with it. I had to do it already, but watching Alysara scowl at our roles made me realize this might be harder than I thought. Still, I had high hopes. Alysara had shown she was strategic and adaptable. With her natural grace, she should be able to stun people.
“Alright, so what do we have here?” I began reading the papers before remembering Alysara was blind. “Uhm, can you read letters with your mana sight?”
“Yes, if there is a different amount and type of mana in the ink and the paper” Alysara answered. “But the mana in this place is not the same as in my world so it’s harder to see small details. Although now that I think about it, I can infuse this paper and ink with my own mana…”
Realizing a workaround to her problem, Alysara focused on the paper before it began glowing softly. “Worked well enough, I guess.”
Cool. I nodded before reading the list out.
“So, apparently, I am a minor noble whose incompetent parents almost destroyed our house before I persuaded them I would take over. I am 18 and a graduate of our kingdom’s royal academy. I am an only child, making me the heir.” I summed up my background. “My goals are to secure a trade deal for my impoverished lands and also to find a fiance, since my idiot parents couldn’t find somebody for me… fuck. Are you serious, John?”
I eyed John in irritation, finding my role just shitty to play. However, our examiner didn’t flinch a bit, looking me straight in the eyes.
“The idea of reincarnation is that you possess your knowledge and wisdom from your previous world, only that you are thrust into a new life. What life it is depends on your score and luck, really. In other words, the role I gave you can be one of many doors,” he explained. “You are tasked to be adaptable. Can you work well enough with limited knowledge and succeed in a social setting? Even grizzled veterans need to know how to handle nobles, Hestia.”
“Yeah, I know that very well, but this… Urgh, fine. Whatever. I’ll just deal with my cards…” I returned to inspecting the remaining details from my role, trying to soak in as much as possible to find a way to get through this.
After I reread it for the second time, I turned around, seeing Alysara patiently waiting for me. It seemed she had finished.
“What’s your role?” I asked Alysara.
“I am supposed to be the fourth princess of a Kingdom who recently suffered a natural disaster. The neighboring kingdom is using this chance to invade and I need to secure allies for the war. The kingdom has little in terms of resources with only a mystic crystal mine which is a rare resource.” Alysara replied before turning toward John. “I assume that we can prepare a little, right? Technology or methodologies we might have brought to the world can be a major influence on the outcome of this scenario.”
“Of course,” John nodded. “We encourage using your previous life knowledge but be aware that some worlds have gods that don’t want such influence. In that case, though, they either warn you in advance or wipe that knowledge from your memory. By default, any gods who import souls do so knowing the potential consequences.”
“We can team up, right?” I asked.
“Yes, you may, but you must adapt your stories accordingly. However, please be aware that we will only evaluate your individual success. For example, if Hestia were to fulfill her goals, Alysara wouldn't auto-pass like the survival trial,” he explained before warning us about ways to fail. “Be careful, since bad negotiations and deals can also cause you to fail. The higher your background, the more careful you need to be with choosing allies. On the contrary, with a lower background, you have more wiggle room to succeed, but people will be less inclined to join you, since that might become a detriment to them.”
Jeez! This is why I hate politicking!
After John pointed us at the hall for the ball, he wished us luck and asked us not to delay it for too long. In other words, we didn’t have a lot of time to prepare. We couldn’t miss it, since we would have to wait for the next ball. As such, Alysara and I quickly went through our backgrounds again and combined them, trying to find some way to tip the scales for our negotiations. It was a bit hard since our backgrounds were worlds apart in status. I was a low noble while she was the fourth princess of a kingdom.
“We need a backup plan, though, Hestia,” Alysara noted and nodded.
After some whispers and giggles, both of us smiled mischievously. After all, this wasn’t just a normal ball between nobles and such. As John said, we could bring our knowledge and skills from our previous world to help us succeed.
With our plans done, we entered the building where the social test would start, where I stared at all the people walking around. Quite a lot of them managed to pretty themselves up by quite a bit. There were mostly boys around for now, but I did wonder if some girls were already inside the ball.
Alysara pointed at a place with “Dressing Room” written on a plate above its door. We entered it, where I noticed Alysara wasn’t with me anymore. I wondered if this was a subspace or something, and seeing as nobody else was around, I just accepted it.
Hmm, quite a few dresses.
There were free dresses around and also a styling desk where a metal golem could be ordered to do your make-up and hair. After looking at the dresses again, I decided on pulling out my usual ballroom dress.
Made from mana threads, it was flexible and easy to move in, especially since it was strapless, allowing my wings enough room to wiggle around. Using red and black as its main color made me feel more confident as the flower designs and accessories really highlighted my youthfulness. The hundreds of shimmering sequins designed like scales glimmered impeccably under the light.
After I added a ribbon to the ends of my tail, I went to the stylist golem to have my make-up and hair done. After telling it what I wanted, it quickly did everything for me. One quick check-up with the mirror and I was done.
After leaving the room, I noticed Alysara was already done. While I walked over to her, I made sure to give her appearance a good look.
It was quickly evident that Alysara made her own dress which stood out exotically from the styles offered in the dressing room. The dress was black as the void and impeccably made, accentuating her voluptuous body while a flowing long skirt parts in the back to make room for her three very long royal blue and gold-tipped tails. The embroidery capitalized on the dark dress with vivid images of an aurora-filled night sky with a red, green, and blue moon.
“Nice~ Cuuuute!” I complimented my blind friend. “And, from the looks of it, I’m not the only one thinking the same. Although, I guess for the boys, it might be a different feeling.”
Looking around, the boys were obviously down bad for Alysara. She was stunning really.
“I can sense some of them are also looking at you, Hestia.” Alysara then pointed at a few boys, drawing my attention to them. They quickly turned around, hiding their reddened faces. “Your dress looks really good too. Too bad I can’t see mundane colors, I am curious how the colors match; since it is made from otherworldly mana the colors of the mana are… weird.”
“It goes both ways, Alysara. Mana for me is mostly blue, outside of specific situations. I guess my eyes aren’t similar to your senses, so it does make me curious what you are ‘seeing,’ hiehie,” I said with giggle. I looked around to see the gathering crowd of admirers.
I smirked. If it was this easy now, then I couldn’t wait for what came next.
Alysara and I entered the ballroom, where we were introduced to a spacious place decorated to the brim of maximalism. It reminded me a bit of the one King Drangleic hosted. Both were splendid and literally looked like medieval art of historical social events.
Similarly, the participants gave off that feeling of attending a party with rich second generations, or even third. Aside from Alysara and mine, most of the suits and dresses the people were wearing didn’t have a very strong medieval or victorian vibe. They looked more Earth modern.
“Alysara?” I turned around when I saw her slightly cowering behind me. “Are you good?”
“Yeah, I’m not good with all this attention. You said before you would lead, so please, lead the way my fair ‘lady-in-waiting.’”
It was obvious she didn’t like these settings, but we couldn’t avoid it at this point. I promised I would make sure we won this round easily, but I couldn’t have her put everything on me. She had to perform, too, if she wanted to pass her test.
“A lady-in-waiting moves behind the ‘princess,’ Princess Alysara. I will attend to you, so you have to lead the way as the leader. Don’t worry, I will have your back. We will win this, alright?” I gave Alysara a slight push, making sure she understood my point.
First, we had to scout around. In a social event like this, we had to identify who the important people were since Alysara needed proper allies for the war approaching her kingdom. We needed to aim big for her sake.
In this case, Alysara’s powerful scouting abilities were the best. I could hear very well, but nothing beat Alysara using her mana to appraise everybody around. I then remembered the backstories we received, noting how everybody in this room was playing roles coming from the same world. As such, we had to choose our targets politically, meaning, countries close to Alysara’s.
This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Once we found our target, we made our move.
“Good day, Prince of Arriendal.” Alysara gave him a perfectly elegant and graceful curtsy, as if she had mastered the art of etiquette to an unparalleled degree.
“O-Oh… Oh! Ahem! M-My fair lady, to whom should I thank for this honor of meeting you?” The young man narrowly recovered in time from staring at Alysara’s dress and tails to speak, although his companions weren’t as strong.
“I am Alysara, fourth princess of Windguard,” Alysara said. It was subtle but it seemed like she had slipped into a role with her [Acting] skill to help her with the event. Her introduction, although perfect somatically, showed her social inexperience. This was where she should push her influence, and mention familiar relations or notable deeds to hook him in!
“Windguard… Ahh, of course! Our neighbor in the north. I think we used to trade a lot until your land faced a bit of a famine from a crop disease. Were your people able to survive it well, my lady?” The young man asked, perfectly reciting a part of another kingdom’s history.
“Yes, we did, but the famine had led us into some financial problems. Mostly so we could ensure our kingdom’s economy wouldn’t fall and that our people wouldn’t starve. We had to sell off quite a bit of our natural resources to recover,” Alyara answered as if she memorized a script.
“Ah, I see… Well, first, I had not expected the princess of Windguard to be… Well, to have tails and such fox-like ears.” The “Prince” strayed off a bit in the discussion, but one of the boys behind him helped him recover. “Ahem, what do you wish to speak with us about, my lady?”
“The Kingdom of Tayahlia is about to wage war against us, and I am in the process as my father’s, the king, representative to find allies who could fight with us against their tyranny. Will the Kingdom of Arriendel help us, as former trading allies?”
“… The Kingdom of Tayahlia, you say?” The young man then turned to one of his companions, letting somebody whisper information he hadn’t read up on yet. “Oh, yes, yes! That kingdom. Yeah… Your highness, you do know they are the strongest kingdom on the continent, yes? Warmongers. They are about to become large enough to establish a whole Empire.”
There was hesitation in his voice. From the look of it, joining our side to fight the empire might hinder the success of the other “nobles.” Such a huge enemy could spell their doom. However, this would only be problematic if we had only one ally.
“Yes, but if we join forces against them, we can win. I am sure the other kingdoms will join us. If we don’t fight back now, we would all lose our independence!” Alysara argued with the elegance of a real princess, but even with her ability to charm people, the prince didn’t look convinced.
In fact, he looked even more nervous. “Your highness, it’s suicide. If your goal is to fight back Tayahlia, then may I give you a tip? Try your luck next time with a better background.”
He suddenly broke character.
“It happens. This is the hardest part of the trials. Unfair, even! They give you stupid objectives to do, so they keep you here until they believe you are ‘ready’ to go. Once they think you are good, they give you a stupidly easy objective and whoosh, there you go. This is my third try and I’m pretty much set to reincarnate after this! They told me my score is high enough for an S rank world! Amazing, right!”
“Wait, what?” Alysara was dumbfounded.
“Yeah! Sure, they hold you back, but it’s mostly so you can train more. I’ve gotten so much better at speaking like a noble that I can probably be reborn as a prince or something, I dunno. Probably something amazing compared to my shitty past life. But— Nah, forget about it. Just, don’t take it badly really. Your goal isn’t supposed to be cleared. So, yeah, sorry. I can’t really sabotage myself at the last point.”
Wait, are you serious?
Alysara couldn’t answer back as the young man turned around with a wry smile. It seemed he wasn’t in the mood to roleplay anymore, intending to return to talking with his friends. I think this warranted our Plan B.
“Hold on, Your Highness,” I called out to the man. “What if we told you we had a way to fight back against the kingdom?”
“Uhm, what?” He really wasn’t playing around anymore.
“Here you go.” I held my hand in front of me and breathed out purple fire, before superheating it up and then cooling it down until it transformed into a piece of corrosive obsidian. “The attack of Tayahlia Kingdom will happen in about one year and four months, according to our scouts. In that time, we will have enough time to produce weapons and armor using this.”
“Uuuuuuuuuuuuh? What?! How did you just breathe fire like a dragon?! What the fuck!” He expressed his shock, but I maintained my role.
“Because I am. I am the adoptive daughter of a low noble. My parents have given me the authority as a house head at this point to elevate our small family. Princess Alysara here has agreed for me to become her lady-in-waiting so I could help her fight back against our tyrants. If we succeed, her father would adopt me while ranking my family up.”
As John said, we could use all the things from our past life. Experience, talents, and most importantly for Alysara and me, our new powers. We just needed to change our backstories a bit, just enough to not break any rules.
“This is obsidian.” I held up the mineral higher. “But not just any normal, fragile, volcanic glass, but obsidian made from a dragon’s breath. All I need to produce it is mana. In other words, it's unlimited. And this thing is far harder than steel.”
I managed to achieve one of my goals — to find something to help my house escape bankruptcy. That was this obsidian. I only had to make some trade deals with it now. Now, it was time for Alysara to follow up on what I did.
“If we’re talking about benefits, if you were to increase your performance during this ball, wouldn’t you be able to, I don’t know, increase your brownie points?” I nudged the young man. “If we were to defeat a giant kingdom together, for example. And, don’t worry, this obsidian isn't the only thing we are offering. After all…”
I then pushed Alysara up a bit.
“… our Princess is a wonder child.”
A little flustered from my encouragement Alysara raised her head and all of a sudden it felt like all the world’s attention was drawn toward her. The lights began to glimmer more brilliantly and the candle flames began to flicker around, almost looking like they were fairies dancing. Entrancing; that was all I could say.
Holy… You could have done this earlier, Alysara! Jeez, talking about making me jealous here. Wow. She can grab people’s attention like an idol.
Mana condensed in her hand, transforming into a solidified form as it built an object as if it was a 3D printer. A small boat with large sails stretching from above and to the sides like fins and wings, respectively, was created, floating in the air once finished.
“We have recently begun developing airship technology which will give us a huge advantage in the war. Quick mobility as well as aerial supremacy, not to mention the trading benefits this technology would bring.”
“I-I,” the prince stammered. “I’ll have to think about this”
Alysara nodded politely. Her enchanting presence faded, but I couldn’t let the guy go just like that. “Don’t wait too long, our first confirmed ally will have the benefits of negotiating with us first. Just imagine what benefits this could bring. The rewards you can receive to your, ahem, ‘new life position.’”
“…” The prince stood still, eyes widened like a goldfish. His friends, the people standing behind him quickly began to whisper behind his back, turning away so he couldn’t hear what they were saying.
“Oh, and, guys~” I stopped the schemers. “My adoptive father is a bit of an idiot, so he kind of forgot to get me a fiance. If you know any bachelor who wants to have a dragon as his wife, who will become the King of Windguard’s adoptive daughter and the Wonderchild Princess’s sister after we win the war, then please send them towards me.”
Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh, cringe! Kill me already! Fuck you, John!
And like an avalanche, the ballroom just turned into a swirling storm of chaos, with guys desperate to pass this trial swarming around us like hungry ants. Of course, Alysara and I didn’t want to deal with it, instead, we called up the few girls around, offering them some sort of relationship with us if they could help us manage all of them.
At the end of the ball, Alysara and I were sitting on some well-made chairs, having to act like princesses playing court as numerous people came to pledge their allegiance to us. Not only were they here for the airship technology, but also for the sturdy obsidian I had. This was all just roleplay at the end of the day, but holy cow, everybody really got into it.
And after it was all done.
“… Are you kidding me?”
John received a figurative punch to the gut.
“What was it again? ‘We encourage using your previous life knowledge but be aware that some worlds have gods that don’t want such influence.’” I imitated John’s voice. “Well, those ‘gods’ didn’t say anything. No warning means we did what was asked.”
“We followed the rules. You cannot disqualify us,” Alysara stated before handing John a list of people who will help us.
We couldn’t take all the people who wanted to ally with us, since Alysara pointed out it would fire back at us. With too many allies, we wouldn’t have enough resources to satisfy them. She thought of the future, even if it was roleplay.
“No, that’s not the point. You girls passed. both of you fulfilled your requirements. If your kingdom were to actually fight with the setting you created, any pseudo-empire would be destroyed.” John frowned. “It’s just that you pulled so many people into your plot. So many of these men and women shouldn’t be reincarnated any time soon, that’s why we have this test in place. But, now, we have to let some of them go despite knowing they are unprepared. Do you think reincarnating is easy?”
Alysara and I turned our faces to each other before returning it back to the distraught John.
““Of course, not!”” We said in unison.
“I can count on both hands how many times I’ve narrowly escaped death, John. Even my birth was a catastrophic disaster. And you know what? I wasn’t prepared for any of that. I didn’t know how to use magic, wield spears, or even survive in the wilderness. You think you get to lecture us on reincarnation?”
“Even with the goddess of beauty purposely reincarnating me in a peaceful place where I would have the best chance of living, my village faced total destruction three times from superstorms, monsters, and a cursed being capable of destroying continents. Even when given the best chances things can go downhill really fast.”
“Yeah, exactly what she said!” I agreed, now learning a bit more about Alysara’s past. “You might be helping these people, but all you are doing is making them anxious. We’ve only been here for a day, and we already knew how to use these social events. Stop lying to people, how about that?”
“…” John looked shocked.
Maybe we said too much?
“… You know, about your reincarnations, I’m sorry we couldn’t do anything about it. Despite what I said at the beginning, people coming to this place to prepare for their reincarnation isn’t really a common thing. In fact, we’re really just a small organization with a couple of real gods helping out, pulling in as many people as we can to give them the best chances at survival.”
It was surprising to both of us that John suddenly explained something like that.
“The gods of every dimension and world are whimsical, to a fault. We really just wanted to help more people, get them prepared so they can have a better life…”
“… John,” Alysara called him, causing him to open his eyes up again. “Sorry.”
“Don’t worry. I guess I’m getting too old. I just wish you kids a better life than your previous ones…”
I nodded, sympathizing with him. “This might have gotten a bit serious, so let’s just forget about it. Where do we have to go for the merchant and leadership tests?”
“Oh, that. You passed them already.”
““Huh?”” We both tilted our heads.
Apparently, the social event also acted as an event for all three tests. If you didn’t do a good enough job to pass them, you would be sent to the next test, but the both of us didn't need to do it anymore.
“Merchant: You sold yourself well to the other participants, while also creating something which you can sell off to. Hestia, your obsidian. Alysara, your ability to create those airships.” He read for us our evaluations. “Leadership: You managed to lead your way forward, not only inspiring yourself but also those around you. Hestia, you made sure Alysara kept on going forward and knew when to talk and when not to. You have the potential to become a powerful leader. Alysara, your charm and charisma were impeccable, drawing people towards you. You might have been more reserved than Hestia, but being able to act as an icon was also a quality of leadership.”
“… So, that’s the fourth?” I commented and John nodded.
“Yup, only one trial left and you may go back to your homes.”
Alysara and I clapped our hands against each other and cheered. Another trial down. Only one left.
It felt good that we could go back home soon, but, I felt a bit sad. After all, it meant Alysara and I would separate. It was a very short friendship but—
Ah, no, don’t think about it! Let’s just make this memorable! After all, the last trial would be—
“Time to take the stage!”
A chance for me to perform!