“How dare you!” Yelled the kid I had inadvertently run into.
He didn’t look like anything special, with his muddy brown hair, and average features. In fact, the only thing that stood out were his eyes, which shone in a brilliant and piercing emerald green. He was dressed practically, with leather training armor over his clothes. He looked about fifteen or sixteen years old, but seemed to only be a little taller than me—he was short for his age.
He hastily stood up again, and looked down at me imperiously. He opened his mouth, ready to deliver some sort of demeaning statement, I’m sure. I never found out what he was going to say in that moment though, since I simply shrugged to myself, and started walking away from him.
I didn’t want to bother myself with anything troublesome, and this kid just screamed ‘inconvenience’. I could hear him sputtering in rage behind me before he called out a hurried “Wait!”, so I picked up my walking tempo a little, disappearing around the myriad of corners in the palace.
After walking around for a while, I decided that I had lost the kid somewhere back there, and avoided a potentially annoying situation from happening.
And coincidentally, I recognized the hallway I had ended up in. That was my room there, at the end of it, right?
Looks like walking away had been the right decision in this case.
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For the most part, my time in the palace was easily spent, with most of my mornings devoted to working at the forge. I had been right to assume that there were other rare metals in there, other than the Tunnel iron that had given me such a strong first impression. There were so many different effects that these rare metals could give, that I was at somewhat of a creative loss when contemplating the ways they would influence a sword forged out of them.
Though, I had to be sure to take precautions when smithing, and testing the finished product. Rumors had gone around the palace that a small earthquake had nearly set off some of the dangerous weapons stored underneath the building, almost blowing it sky-high. Of course, I have no idea how such a thing had come about….
Anyways, my mornings were spent making dangerous weapons, each of which pushed the envelope as to how powerful and unique I could make them.
Then, my evenings were spent studying both this country’s language, and it’s history. I made titanic strides in regards to the language, but struggled with the history. It’s not that I didn’t understand it or anything, but rather that it simply didn’t go back far enough to address that which I want to know.
The oldest history book they had in the library dated back by seven-hundred years, when this city was first founded. I wasn’t the least bit surprised to learn that Joan was present during that time, and had basically founded this whole kingdom by her own power.
But, nothing any further back was addressed—especially the things I wanted to know. Things like information about demons, dragons, and the wars against the elves. Those events were likely too far back in the past to have been placed in a history book here. I did find something that helped me tremendously though.
It was a map of the world.
The map itself was massive, fully occupying a large table near the back of the library. On the map, numerous lines delineated the borders of various countries ranging from minuscule to unfathomably large. I searched the map for a good while, seeking out the country I was currently in, before eventually finding it’s name—The Kingdom of Dour.
It occupied a tiny corner of the landmass, huddled against a towering mountain range. The fact that I’ve not seen such a chain of mountains anywhere on the horizon, speaks to the size of this kingdom. But it was an infant when compared to the other nations on the map.
Hell, I suspected that this singular kingdom dwarfed that of the one’s found on the Continents. So, the thought that this world might be so terrifyingly large was hard to wrap my head around at first.
And then, there was the realization that this kingdom must be considered a backwater place, as it was on the very fringes of the land, mostly surrounded by wilderness. Dour only had one neighbor, in the form of a slightly larger country to the west. Everything else seemed wild, and unclaimed.
It seemed to be the trend, where the close to the middle of the land you got, the large the countries became, with great empires vying for power in the very center.
Also from the amp, I knew that this large landmass wasn’t the only one on this world—There was another one over the massive mountain chain to the east, though not much was known about it. It was much too difficult to traverse the mountains, apparently, and thus, few reports had ever been relayed back about the land to the east.
Other than history, and that map, there were many other things I learned from my time in the library. Stuff like the basis of the economy in Dour, the general level of knowledge held by the people here, and the jobs they typically have.
In short, I learned about the state of the kingdom, and a little bit about the world outside of it.
And, on top of all that, I had a great set of discussion partners in the form of Joan and her War Council. You would expect them to all be a bunch of meatheads at first glance, but everyone is surprisingly well versed in things outside of warfare. Hell, some of them would make better philosophers than they would warriors. And they were damn good warriors, too.
Any questions I had that were unanswered by the books in the library, I could bring before them. Sometimes, they would have a good answer for me, while other time, they would have no idea. Most of the questions I had that went unanswered by them were about the rest of the world, the land to the east, or how big the world was in it’s entirety.
I guess, I just have to find the answers to some questions myself.
Well, at least I was now confident in my ability to speak the language here. While there were still a few things I was having trouble with, I could convey my intentions fairly easily.
And, it was lucky that I could speak the language so well, seeing as what happened during one of the dinners with Joan.
At first, everything was going as it normally would. The dinner had started with platters of food arriving at the table, and we all enjoyed a fair bit of conversation before an unexpected guest arrived.
Practically everyone at the table seemed to reach for weapons not currently with them as a pale and sweaty looking squire entered the room, looking nervously around the place. Upon seeing Joan, with her multiple tails waving in the air behind her, the squire bowed low, speaking with a squeaky voice.
“L-L-Lady Joan, My king would like to extend an invitation to his annual ball tomorrow night. He requests that your n-n-new ward attends as well.”
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With that, he scurried from the room as fast as he could.
Joan looked annoyed by this announcement, like she had been planning on doing other, better things, and had no choice but to go.
“Ah—by ward, does he mean me?” I asked, since that had never really been made clear.
“Yes, it does. Though, you should honestly be considered my equal.”
“What? Why?”
Joan sighed.
“Well, even of we just take into account your age, and the level of power you hold, you would already be considered as the very cutting edge of talent in this generation. I doubt that you would find someone your age able to match you, even in the large central empires.”
“Then, if we consider your heritage, and your potential, there is a very real chance that you will surpass me in strength sooner or later.”
“And, there’s the fact that you are a reincarnated being, which shows that the strength of your soul is a cut above the rest, and your will-power immense. And, though you haven’t explicitly told me, or anyone else, I get the feeling that you’ve reincarnated more than once. Don’t you know that each subsequent reincarnation requires an exponentially stronger soul?”
I shook my head. That was news to me, after all, I hadn’t felt any sort of strain when reincarnating. It just sort of…happened. Though, I get the feeling that there’s more to it, now. After all, I have a reincarnation that I try not to remember, and another that I have no idea about.
“So, I have a strong soul. What does that mean?”
Joan smirked, apparently happy to demonstrate her vast repertoire of knowledge.
“It mean’s that you have a stronger mind, a better control over yourself and the energy of mana around you, and a ‘higher ceiling’, if you would. Oh, and soul attacks will likely just bounce off of you.”
Oh? How interesting.
“For instance, the pressure exerted by someone stronger than you? Did you know that that’s a form of soul attack?”
“Huh? What pressure?”
“Exactly. There was a reason that poor squire looked ready to shit himself.”
…
…
…
Wow. So much stuff makes sense now.
Though, there’s still the original question I had.
“Um—If I should be your equal, then does that mean I can skip out on this ball thing?”
Joan chuckled evilly, making the hair on the back of my neck rise.
“If I have to go….”, she started.
She didn’t even have to finish the sentence for me to know that it was a futile endeavor.
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I discovered a little conspiracy between the maids on this side of the palace and Joan the next day.
Apparently, everybody wants to see me in frilly little dresses.
Well, at least it suited me.
Though, I didn’t really know how to feel about the gothic-lolita style of it. It rankled my pride a little, even though I knew it could be worse. At least I didn’t have to wear a hat.
Anyway, I had been tracked down by the maids about an hour before the ball was to begin, and…’coerced’ into the dress.
A little after that, I was walking down the hallways to meet Joan. Luckily, I remembered where her chambers were.
On the way, I ran into Anhara, who was dressed in casual clothes.
“You aren’t going to the ball?” I asked her.
She shook her head, not looking sad in the slightest.
“The people there—are they the annoying type of nobility?”
This time she nodded, and I understood why she wasn’t sad to not be going to the ball.
I watched as she walked away, curious.
I had talked to her a few time now, of course—well, if you could call it talking.
She seemed a kind enough person, the immediate evidence of this being the fact that she brought me—a bloodied and unknown element, home with her. I even learned later that she had abandoned a rather important group of people to do that, as well.
Wait.
Couldn’t she have used me as a way to get out of that commitment?
Ugh. I don’t even know with her. And, I can’t exactly ask her if that had been the case. Not that I would hold it against her if that was indeed the case. After all, I would definitely do the same.
Regardless, I wanted to get to know her a little better. I get the feeling that it would be interesting.
I kept walking, deep in thought, when Joan appeared from a doorway in front of me.
I stopped. Not out of shock, or anything. I did feel a profound sense of annoyance, though.
“Oi, why is it you get to wear a simple dress, and I got this lace and ribbon monstrosity?”
Joan grinned. Indeed, she was wearing a white and blue dress without any ornamentation, though it did have an interesting shape, one that resembled that thing on earth—a kimono.
“Because, this suits me, just as that suits you. Though, the sight of you in a cute kimono would be good as well.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose with my fingers, knowing that any further talk would likely make my situation even worse than it already is.
“Ugh. Nevermind. Let’s just go to this ball.”
“One would think from your tone that you weren’t looking forward to it, Kai.”
“Oh, no. I am so sorry that you have gotten that impression from my inflection. I look forward to this ball with great eagerness.”
“Wow. One would nearly presume that that was sarcasm.”
“It was. Take a hint, woman.”
Joan laughed heartily as we approached the ballroom.
I had never been to it before—after all, it was placed on the Royal side of the palace, and I avoided that like a plague.
I could hear the sounds of music and chatter from inside, though. It sounded like the ball was already in full swing.
As we approached the door, a man entered before us, and I heard him announcing our names, even though mine would mean nothing to these people.
“I present to the Royal Court, the ladies Joan Fire-born, and Katariah Silver.”
A few eyes turned toward us at the mention of our names, mostly from the older gentlemen and ladies present. They looked at Joan with fear and respect in their eyes. The members of the younger generation who saw us simply looked at us imperiously, and in a few cases, with lust.
Oh? So only the more experienced and well-versed members of the nobility know who Joan is? I got the distinct feeling that the younger nobles had no idea what sort of being they were risking the wrath of.
As I was pondering this, though, a not-so-friendly face caught my vision.
It was the boy I had accidentally run into in that hallway a few weeks ago.
Yeah, apparently, he turnned out to be troublesome anyway.