“Surely they wouldn’t be that stupid to do something that would jeopardize our fight, no?” Alissa asked with not a little incredulity in her voice. Fighting for power to the extent of killing one’s own blood siblings were commonplace in history – both this world’s and her previous one’s – but to do so when an existential threat loomed over the whole nation was not normally done, as far as she could tell.
Or at least she dared to hope that nobody would have been that foolish.
“I wish I could answer you with a firm yes, Alissa, but that would have been a bold-faced lie on my part,” admitted the Princess with a downcast and disappointed look. “Fact of the matter is, I know that at least one of my siblings would see my becoming a [Hero’s Champion] as both a political threat and a personal affront, while I could not really gauge how the others would react.”
“Could you elaborate a bit on your family… Nadine? I haven’t really spent that much time learning about the royal family tree, as you might have guessed,” said Alissa in turn. While she had done some reading about the history of the world and the likes out of her own curiosity, said readings had not yet encroached upon the current royal family, as she was more keen to find out about the past. As for the teachings from Sir Inolet, most of them were either something related to combat, or to war.
“Right, of course. I am the Fifth Princess, as you already know,” said Nadine, to which Alissa returned an affirmative nod. “I have three younger and four older siblings. We can discount the younger ones. Even the eldest, Elric, is still nine this year, so he wouldn’t be trying to scheme my downfall or the likes anytime soon, while Ava and Oleana are still toddlers.”
“Out of my four elder siblings, we can mostly discount my eldest sister, the Second Princess, as well. Big sister Gertrude had already married out of the family, which by default meant giving up on her rights of succession. Her husband’s family are from an old lineage of knights like Moira here or Sir Inolet, who I’m certain you’re well acquainted with. You can pretty much consider them neutral parties when it comes to political infighting as they want no part of it.”
“I get that part, yeah. Ol’ Henri often spoke rather harsh words about the current nobles while he trained us, so I already gathered that he had little taste for politicking himself,” replied Alissa with a slight chuckle as she recalled one of the old knight’s tirades. “Had always wondered where he stood in the hierarchy if he could curse out all sorts of nobles so freely without consequences, though.”
“Sir Inolet, much like most of our senior fourth tiers, are outliers to the hierarchy. They had the prestige of having fought in the last war while contributing greatly and surviving the defeat, so while they might not be that high in the command chain, not even my father would have lightly demanded things out of them,” explained the Princess. “His protecting me during our expedition was the result of father begging for a favor from him.”
“Huh. I had not expected him to be so… influential. Ethan and I had just pegged him as a cantankerous old knight at first,” admitted Alissa to a series of chuckles escaping from the lips of the gathered group, only to be silenced moments later by wary shushes. “He sure hid it very well.”
“Alissa, Sir Henri Inolet, despite his disabilities, is one of the five most powerful individuals in the Kingdom, when it comes to fighting prowess,” explained the Princess hastily, while looking uncertain whether she should laugh from Alissa’s takeaway of the old knight or to cover her face with her hands instead. “We have more fourth tiers, some who are higher in level, even, but those who gained their fourth tier during the wars always had greater qualities on their classes and skills than those who climbed up to it in peaceful times.”
“Anyway, back to my elder siblings. The other three are the ones I cannot help but worry about. Worry that they might do something stupid that they’d live to regret, that is,” she continued. “The First Prince, my oldest sibling, should be an obvious one. He has both the motive to be worried about me and the power to potentially do something about it.”
“I assume he had been first in line to the throne until… well… We got summoned and the next thing he knew his little sister became one of the [Hero’s Companions]?” asked Alissa, to which the Princess replied with a firm nod. “I can see that rankle, yeah, when something you thought was already in your hand suddenly gets taken away just like that due to happenstance.”
“The succession was something that was up for grabs and heavily fought over anyway, so if he thought it was already in his hand just because he’s the oldest and got the support of the more conservative nobles, he’s dreaming,” replied the Princess with a disdainful scoff. “But yeah, combine that with my eldest brother being the sort who always pays back even petty grievances, and you have the potential problem at hand. Sad to say, I don’t trust him to keep his hands to himself during the war. He’s unlikely to do anything to endanger the war effort as a whole, per se, but arranging it so that a certain [Hero’s Companion] got isolated behind enemy lines by accident? I could see him do it.”
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“Got it. So the First Prince is a source of potential trouble and we have to watch our marching orders closely,” said Alissa with a nod.
“Technically they could only ask you to head one way or another, Miss Alissa,” said Bronwen, whose words made everyone else around the table nod in agreement. “As the Princess said before, neither the church nor the crown has any authority over you. They can ask politely, but they cannot order you around like you’re one of their subjects.”
“Of course, Sir Inolet is an exception. He is after all, technically your teacher at the moment,” said the Princess with a smile that was full of schadenfreude. “So technically he could order you around as a teacher commanding their students. He’s so apolitical that I doubt you’d ever have to worry about him being complicit in any such plotting, though.”
“I always felt that Sir Inolet was more of the… straightforward kind of man, yeah,” admitted Alissa with a nod at the Princess’ words. The old knight that served as her and Ethan’s martial teacher had been harsh, but also highly effective as a teacher. The way that he was one of the few people who weren’t prone to going all [Hero] this or [Hero] that in their presence helped, too.
Now that she thought back about it, the old people around Sir Inolet’s generation were the ones most likely to treat them just as another person instead of gushing about them being the [Hero]. Probably wisdom and experience from having worked with and fought alongside other [Heroes] in their youth, she had thought.
“Anyway, that’s roughly the case about my eldest brother. My second brother, the Third Prince, is in a more… complicated position. I don’t know if Alissa has noticed during the time she has been here so far, but power in the Kingdom is very centralized. The nobles exist on the King’s allowance, though they have some voice in the meetings,” said the Princess in a more serious tone. “It has been that way for generations, due to the need for rapid action during the wars.”
“Not everyone is happy with that sort of status quo, I imagine?” replied Alissa who quickly understood what Nadine was implying with her words.
“A gross understatement, to say the least. Let’s just say that if the summoning of [Heroes] and the war with the demons aren’t such a constant, looming threat, this Kingdom would have broken into civil war long ago,” replied the Princess with a tired sigh. “Of course, those who campaigned the most for more power just happened to be those old families whose lands just happened to be the furthest away from the fighting, and thus had many generations to build up their own powerbase, unbothered.”
“Why doesn’t that surprise me in the least?” replied Alissa sarcastically.
“It’s the hand we were dealt with in this generation,” answered the Princess without missing a beat. “Anyway, my brother the Third Prince is a rather… ambitious man, albeit saddled with a lack of skill to manifest those very same ambitions of his,” she continued. “Needless to say, the conservative nobles generally prefer my more competent eldest brother. As such, my second brother was relegated to look for support from other avenues.”
“So the reactionary nobles are on his side,” Alissa stated as a matter of fact, having guessed as much from what had been said so far. “I take it there are other reasons behind your worries with the Third Prince. It sounded to me that his faction is not in favor of the crown, and doesn’t have the influence the First Prince’s does.”
“That is correct. They are, however, far more prone to getting things done by hook or by crook, though preferably done in such a manner that it couldn’t be traced back to them,” replied the Fifth Princess as she shook her head in disappointment. “Where my Eldest Brother’s supporters might try to get rid of me in ways that seem like tactical mistakes or failures on my part, my Second Brother’s would try to directly send someone with a knife addressed to my back.”
“It’s not that I worry about assassins that much, mind you. I’m confident in being able to tackle most people in my tier with the benefits of my new class, and those in the fourth tier are loyal to the Kingdom one way or another and I don’t see them moving to these factions’ whims instead,” elaborated the Princess. “But I cannot be awake all the time either, and having to worry about such things everytime I go to sleep is rather annoying.”
“I’ll be honest that I didn’t expect things to be so… political despite the looming war. Was this the norm here?” asked Alissa with some more incredulity creeping into her voice.
“Oh, you just happen to be lucky to be summoned while the Kingdom is currently on the backfoot after repeated losses,” replied the Princess with a smirk. “Back when the Kingdom was on the winning side and encroached on the Demon’s territory, it was more common for the summoned [Heroes] to see the insides of a ballroom rather than a training area.”
“You’re shitting me,” said Alissa with a raised eyebrow.
“Nope, it’s even recorded in many of our history books as if they were things to be proud of. Everyone would be trying their best to lick the new [Hero]’s ass, spots for potential [Companion] and [Associates] would be traded as if they were commodities on the market…” added the Princess with a widening smirk on her face. “And of course, everyone would be pushing their sons or daughters or both to the [Heroes] in the hopes of them landing on their bedrooms, just so they could either claim their descendant as either one favored by the [Heroes] or better yet, have a descendant that carried the [Heroes]’ bloodline in a more direct manner.”
Alissa remained quiet for the moment as she was left rather speechless at the brazen way the Princess had said it. She judged that it was unlikely to be a lie, as it would have been one too easily disproved when Alissa checked the history books herself. Just the idea of people trying to brown-nose and get their descendants on a [Hero]’s bed when there was war looming over them somewhat short-circuited her thoughts, however.
“For that matter, the current royal family, including myself, supposedly were descended from the [Hero] from three summonings ago. If we had still been on the winning side, your friends would likely have been swarmed by all the young noblewomen in the Kingdom whenever they showed up in public, I tell you,” continued the Princess without missing a single beat. “Hell, knowing my father, chances are me and my Second Sister would be amongst them.”