Chapter 10 – 43rd Day of Training [Part 2]
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I was sitting in the dining hall, at my right, sitting at the head of the table, was the king; the queen was sitting in front of him at my left and in front of me there was prince Alexander. For some reason the queen had been watching me with an air of hostility completely different from the usual one since I entered the dining hall with the king.
“Dear, this morning I saw the new maid and she appeared a bit flustered. I asked her if something happened but she didn’t want to tell me so I insisted a bit.” Said the queen after she finished the second course.
The moment she finished her phrase I could hear the king and the prince murmur things like “rest in peace” or “that poor girl”.
(Ooh, this will be fun.)
“I can hear you two, I did nothing bad to her.”
“Alexander, quick! Write a letter of apology to her family!” Said the king while laughing.
“August Lucian Olivie, I do not think it is time for you to be joking.”
The king froze at the words of the queen.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Yes you do.”
The king gulped.
“How comes that when the maid entered Hero Fortuna’s room she found her naked next to you?”
“I can explain, she was going to dress and we were talking about the reports on her training. We were not doing anything else.” Said the king who was getting more and more nervous.
“You are telling the truth…”
The king sighed in relief.
“Then, Hero Fortuna, why didn’t you ask my husband to leave your room while you were changing?” Said the queen, looking at me.
I looked at the king who was pleading me with his eyes.
(You can look at me like that but this is too fun to make it stop now.)
“Well, because he had already seen me naked before so I didn’t really have a problem with it.” I said, with a calm tone.
Alexander spit the vilam he was drinking while the king was looking at me completely baffled and the queen was looking at him full of anger.
“Father!”
“August!”
“Fortuna!”
“Donkey!”
Now all the three were looking at me baffled.
“Sorry, I had to do it.” I said while laughing.
“Do you think this is a game?!” Said the queen to me in an angry voice.
I sipped some vilam from my glass.
“Well, yes”
The eyes of the queen were now furious while looking at me.
(Maybe I should explain myself before this ends in someone getting stabbed…or losing an arm.)
“How dare y—“
“Wait, let me explain” I said interrupting the queen.
“First, this morning was the first time King August saw me naked and it was an accident at first as I said him to enter my room when I still had not dressed up thinking it was Lucilla. Second, I made him stay in my room and made it so that the maid would see us next to each other when she entered to play a bit with her and I do think it was hilarious.”
“So it was just another joke of yours?” Asked the queen, who had calmed down a bit.
“Well, yes.”
Both the king and the queen had a tired look as they held their head with a hand while the one who was now visibly angry was Alexander.
“Do you realize what you are doing? A normal person would already be in a jail for something like this! Can’t you stop being such a child and take something seriously once in a while?!” He shouted at me.
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I sipped some more vilam.
“Don’t you think it’s funny?” I asked him.
“What is?”
“You people summoned me against my will, stuck the hero title to me, asked me to fight against the demons and made me undergo a hellish training without a day of rest. I accepted everything without complaining but now a paltry, arrogant prince gets angry because I played a bit with a maid and what’s more you insult me behind my back. Because don’t even think I don’t know what you say to those petty people you call friends.”
“How dare you insult the first prince and the nobles of this country?!” He shouted even louder at me.
“Your Majesties, I beg your pardon in advance for what I’m about to do.” I said while getting up.
I started walking around the table.
“What are you doing?” – I reached the side of the table where the King was sitting – “Do you think that you can leave this room” – I walked behind the king and reached the other side of the table –“before permission is given to–“
I kicked the floor and punched the prince off his chair, sending him on the floor. He was now looking at me dumbfounded while holding his cheek.
“Are you crazy?!”
I grabbed him by the neck with one hand and pulled him up. His feet were now hanging in the hair while his hands were trying in vain to free him from my hold.
“I might be.”
“Stop! Stop! Father! Mother! How can you let her do all this and leave the destiny of our nation to someone like her?!”
I started walking towards the window, while the queen and the king were looking at me and Alexander with a mixture of anger and disappointment but still they didn’t move.
“You see, my dear prince, I promised your mother and your uncle that I will in no way go against this country and I also declared in front of all the people present at the party the day I was summoned that I will fight against the demons and it’s my intention to honor those pledges. In fact I’m working on it, training every day so that I will be of use during the war. There is one thing I didn’t promise your uncle when he asked me to though and that is not to hurt you and I am so glad I didn’t, because, you know, I like to keep my word.”
With that I threw him against the window, which crashed, making him fall in the snow outside unconscious.
I turned toward the table were the queen and the king were still sitting and did a light bow.
“Again, I am sorry for the sight I have shown you.”
“Even though you had a major role in this and I still don’t like you, I do not think it was entirely your fault. Sometimes I think I might have failed somewhere with Alexander.”
“If you give your permission, I think that having him train with me and Gabriel might return him to having his feet on the ground.”
The queen and the king looked at each other then looked back at me.
“You are right, after all Lord Gabriel his not really famous for going easy on people. I will speak to him and see what he can do for this son of mine.”
“Well then, I think I should go now, we can all agree that if I stayed any more it would only be awkward. I suggest we meet in Lady Raphael’s laboratory about an hour from now, as that is the usual time we start the afternoon training session. If Your Majesty agrees to it.”
“I think it would be wise to do so.”
“Very well, I will retire to my room then. Again, I am sorry I ruined your lunch.”
I bowed a bit again and went out of the dining hall.
When I entered Lady Raphael’s laboratory the king was already there.
“Fortuna, I heard from the king that you had a little dispute with Prince Alexander.” Lady Raphael said to me the moment I closed the door behind me.
“Well, yeah…” I said, while scratching my cheek.
“I was going to start teaching you space-time magic today but I think we could have our weekly duel today if you want to blow off some steam. It would also be useful to show His Majesty your progresses . What do you say?”
(Ooh yes!)
“I think it would be better that way too.”
“Perfect, let’s go to the usual place then.” She said while grabbing a small leather bag.
We went to a field completely covered in snow not too far from the training grounds. Lady Raphael made the king sit in a gazebo where he could see almost the whole field from and, after giving the king a fire magic stone, surrounded the gazebo in a barrier made with the stones she carried in the leather bag.
When everything was set we put some distance between the king and us and stood in front of each other at a distance of about ten meters.
“Your Majesty, if you would like to give the signal to start, we are ready any time.” Shouted Lady Raphael through the falling snow.
The king stood up from the chair he was sitting on.
“Then, the duel will start at my three.”
“One.”
I started concentrating on the mana in my body.
“Two.”
I started imagining the spell.
“Three.”
I jumped to my left as a fireball appeared where I was just a moment before and flew towards Raphael but she was already high in the air, surrounded by a multitude of ice spears that in a moment started raining on me. I started running while lifting a part of the field then slid under it. When I heard the spears hitting the earth above me I hardened it and made it explode towards the sky. Lady Raphael was expecting it though and was already low on the ground taking cover behind a earth wall she made. I made two compressed spheres of air, surrounded them in sharp ice crystals made them slowly move towards the wall. Fireballs started shooting out of the wall but I easily dodged them all. Suddenly Lady Raphael flew out of the wall as the last fireball came from it and I sent the two spheres after her but she started shooting ice lances at me, which I intercepted by creating small earth pillars, one after the other. The two spheres reached her and exploded in two stars of ice crystals but she created a last moment ice wall to protect herself and came out of the explosion with only a few holes on her cloak but she was now on the ground. I lifted two rocks, transformed them in two globes of lava and threw them at her but she evaded them by sliding on the surface of the snow. The two globes of lava hit the snow and vaporized it, I took control of the mist which was created and had it follow her. When the mist reached Lady Raphael I concentrated it around her and froze it but she managed to surround herself with a fire cocoon and escape behind the wall she used before… she had made a full circle around me. The sense danger skill warned me of an incoming attack from all direction, not knowing what kind of attack it was going to be I had to surround myself in a pure barrier.
Lighting struck me from all around me.
The barrier was quickly draining my mana while the lightning kept coming at me.
“I surrender!” I shouted.
The lighting stopped just a moment before my mana was completely depleted.
Lady Raphael walked to where I was.
“You did well.”
“Thanks. I didn’t win though…and you weren’t even serious.”
“I still have to teach you too much to fight you seriously after all. Let’s go to where the king is, shall we?”
As we were walking towards the gazebo I noticed a thin, almost transparent tread on the ground where the earth was burnt from the lightning.