Chapter 1: Prince Zyr
"i'm okaaay!" I said rather dizzily, still comprehending what was said. I knew the bed was luxurious, far superior to my previous bed, but...to think I was a prince?!
This completly had me shocked.
But more importantly, the two in front of me were fussing over something.
"Why are you out of bed?!"
"You should be resting!" the maid said, putting her forehead to my own to check my temperature. "Eh...Talo, his fever is gone".
"What, let me check!" the boy said, pushing the girl out of the way and putting his forehead to mine as well. "No way! He was burning up just a few hours ago! The poison was not supposed to wear off that quickly, we didn't even get the antidote from the alchemist yet!"
More like, you both just put your foreheads against the forehead of a cute naked boy so casually....your faces were right there...though I dont feel as embarrassed as I normally would for some reason.
Also from what they said, I heard something inexcusible.
"Eh...poison?"
"Don't you remember? An assassin snuck into the castle and attacked you. You somehow managed to dodge it a little, but the blade still grazed you before the assassin was taken down! You went down with a fever and everything!"
"And it was apparently a super lethal kind! We slowed it down as best we could with magic, the entire Temple's collection of Priests came to help! Do you not remember?"
"Ermm...no?"
The two looked dumbfounded for a moment, but then the boy thought of something.
"He might have surpressed such a terrible event".
"Maybe the poison never entered his system, and he got a fever from sheer panic?"
"...maybe. It sounds more plausible then somehow shrugging off the poison itself".
At that moment, I realized myself, since I was isekaied into this position, it was probably my Cheat.
Everyone gets something to help them out. Magic, Spirit Power, something like that.
In that moment, a strange menu, like a HUD from a game, came up in front of me, but no one else seemed to notice. However, they made a huge fuss about me collapsing still, but I felt fine.
Rather, I finally began to remember things about my reincarnated life here. I am Prince Zyr Ryzamer, a Dog Beastkin Third Prince of the Ryzamer Kingdom. I am currently seven years old, and thanks to having two older brothers and two older sisters who are all very capable, I likely wont inherit the throne and can live as I please.
That said, the Kingdom seems to be worried about some neighboring empires planning to invade them, evil plots of Demons, and such. It seemed it would not be so peaceful.
The two attendents forced me to lay down in the bed, basically picking me up and putting me on the bed, belly down. They didn't seemed too phased about me being naked, but that made sense. They were the ones that bathed and dressed me ever since I was a toddler, and were both my loyal attendents and bodyguards. Interestingly enough, they were both only a year older then me. Apparently Royal Attendents and Guardians were the ones who got closest to the Prince, so it was a way to have good, trustworthy friends.
Score! My friend count is already at two! Well no, that is not it! I do have more! From my memories, it seemed there was another boy, the son of a Duke Family, who often came to play with me. Leo, a cat Beastkin. Ah, but not all Nobles are Beastkin, there are humans too. In fact, both of my attendents are human!
Humans are friends, and are not mistreated at all! I promise!
Anyways, it seems that we have ocean access, so we have ports as well! Our kingdom is pretty big, and we have very good people! Well, according to pupa...err, I mean....papa, or rather, the King, there is some concern of corrupt nobles maybe trying to sell out our Kingdom to the enemy.
As for those enemies, there is the Humanis Imperium, which is heavy in human superiority and doesn't like the fact there is a non-human ruler. They are pretty big as well, and we clash a lot. Its not civil or friendly.
Then there is the even more oppressive Empire, Susko Empire. Children's stories say they just wish to conquer the world or such.
Well, I dont feel like listing them all, so I will just leave it at those two!
Since my attendents ran off, I decided to try and call up the HUD again. It came up the moment I thought about it. On the top it said User: Zyr.
On the side, there were a few options. Ymos Records, which probably meant this world's records since it was called Ymos, Other World Internet (Limited), Other World Archive, Cheat Skills, Relationship Tracker, Magic Creation System, Chat Room (0/1 Online).
It was pretty cool, but the first thing that caught my eye as an isekai fanatic and otaku was Cheat Skills, so I looked into that first.
And then the long list appeared. I basically skimmed through it, but a lot of things caught my eye.
High Speed Recovery (Enhances Recovery Process)
Once a Day Ressurection (Self Ressurection, only triggers once per day) (Used for the day, eight hours remaining)
Titanic Strength (You have the strength of a Titan. A safeguard is in place so you dont accidentally break anything...or anyone, without meaning to)
Overflowing Magical Power (Your mana pool is grealy enhanced and you can call upon higher level spells more easily)
High Ailment Resistance (You can resist all of the strongest ailments. Warning, does not work against natural, unaltered diseases)
Unbelievably Cute (You will always be short and cute, due to your request)
Spirit Weapons (You can summon spiritual weapons to aid you)
All Language Download (You understand and know all of the languages of this world)
DIvine Line (You can easily talk to and visit the Gods, even in their Divine Realms)
Danger Sense (You can automatically sense danger and trouble)
There were more, but I couldn't help but notice those in particular. In the first place, three of those skills were clearly related to me surviving the poison. However, it said one of them had been used...did that mean my Cheat Skills did not activate until I died?! Does that mean that my memories awakened from that, or did my soul fly in after he died and ressurected the body?
I am going to think it was the former. Reincarnation means being born into a new body, not taking over a dead one...at least, I am pretty sure that is how it works. So, that is what I will stick with. Additionally, I was starting to recall memories of before I regained my old life's memories. If I was a different soul, clearly I would not get them. So no little boys died! This is good!
Still, to think there are such scary people...
"I will need to be more careful" I said to myself, as I noticed the fluffy pillows. I squeezed one of them and hugged them. Then I looked down at myself.
"Its already 2PM and I am not dressed...well, I guess I was dressed, but then the poison gave me a powerful fever and sweat a lot? I see...its a traddition of this world for sick people to remain in bed naked, especially Nobles and Royalty, so that they can stay cool when their bodies are hot, and to limit the amount of expensive fabric they might throw up on...and commons do it because they cant afford to do laundry too much and waste money on new clothes and such..."
While thinking about such things, I decided to investigate the other features.
Magic Creation was as expected, I way to create new magic for myself to use.
Other World Archive and Internet though, when I investigated them I nearly jumped out of the bed in joy. All of my manga, web novels, light novels, and anime! It was all accessible! When I used them, a laptop appeared in front of me to use. Not sure why it was like that. if I selected a manga, a book appeared. If I closed the laptop, it disappeared. I could even summon multiple laptops.
Before I could get further, I heard a lot of panicked running outside, so I quickly dismissed them all. Right after I did, a bunch of worried, cute looking people with Dog ears and tails similar to my own came in, and looked at me.
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"Zyr, you are okay!"
"Oh thank god, he is alive after all!"
"Zyr! Thank the gods!"
"Ahh, look at Zyr's cute body! Its okay!"
"I knew Zyr was a real man! He wouldn't die from that!"
As five people came into the room, they all swarmed my bed, some jumping right on from the door, and hugged and cuddled me. It seems in this world, I was very well loved! But wait, some of those comments seemed weird! And I am still naked....I guess they are family, so its fine though. Bathing with friends is normal in this world too, and even bathing with the opposite gender is not that unusual if one is close friends.
Although, from my recollection, it seems there are no swimsuits in this world, but that was a trivial thing right now.
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After confirming that I was okay, I was told the fate of the assassin who poisoned me. It appeared he commited suicide, so they were unable to learn anything from him. However, they were able to identy the poison as that of a Greater Basalisk, which has a venom so strong it is rumored to even work on gods.
As such, everyone now believes the wound was so shallow it did not actually deliver the poison into my blood. The wound was already healed itself, so it would be impossible for anyone to check that. Score, I got away with keeping my secret! After all, if they heard the truth, I was rather afraid that there would be a massive uproar, or something like that.
Either way, since I had slept most of the day, I was feeling rather energetic. Because of that, I finally got dressed. Even if my naked body was cute, I also looked really cute AND cool in these new clothes!
A pair of black boots, to feel sturdy but also comfy!
A white shirt, sleeveless yet otherwise nice and good, not a workout shirt but a nice but also comfy sleeveless shirt.
Some grey shorts, that only went halfway to my knees.
And something that caught my eye, something that people tended to wear with pride. Something always worn for formal events, but is also frequently worn casually.
And so, he put that around his neck. A collar, which was fastened behind the neck. It was fitted perfectly for him, and in the front had a luxurious round golden tag. On one side was the insignia of the Ryzamer Kingdom, with a crown on it, and on the other side is the name of the owner, as well as a magic circle. It was a protection spell, both for itself to prevent theft, and to protect the wearer from harm. Only Royals and Nobles could afford that feature though.
Now I looked really cute and cool! I kept thinking that as I walked down the hall happily. Those who saw I was alive was relieved, and some even seemed to cry tears of joy.
From what I recalled, I was the youngest of hte royal family, but apparently even though my entire family was considered kind and wise, coming from the blood of the famous "Wisdom King of Kindness", my kindness was considered exceptional. Although, apparently I sometimes tried to sneak out of the castle to play with the kids in town.
As I walked around, I ran into my two younger older siblings. Both of them were about eleven and twelve years old. Both of them were wearing the same thing. A brown short sleeve light jacket, a white short sleeve collared shirt, a reddish brown tie with white stripes going down the center, black shorts that also went halfway to the knees, and the only variation was that my sister was wearing red lighter shoes that looked good for running, while my brother was wearing more sturdy brown boots.
The reason for such matching clothes was because they were both students at Esmes Academy, an Academy for children of all heritages, commoner, noble, or royal.
"Shouldn't you be resting?"
"Haha! Now is the time to work out and become muscular like me!"
"Dont give weird ideas to Zyr! One musclehead is enough!"
I backed away from my younger older brother, Azamus. Although he sometimes had wise words to say and was kind, he was basically a musclebrain! I didn't want to ruin this cute body with something ugly like muscles. It made me remember my previous life, when a bunch of muscleheads always thought their muscles would attract me or such. It was weird and annoying and eventually just disgusting, so no thanks!
"See! Look! You are scaring him!"
My younder older sister, Liathalmus, defended me. For the record, Zyr was essentially just a shortened name. My full first name was Zyrmandius, but everyone thought that was too long and just called me Zyr. Apparnetly, the one who named us all was mother, who is currently away subjugating an evil Dragon. Apparently she is also an adventurer, but recently powerful and dangerous monsters and beings have been rising up, so she has been forced to travel the world with her adventurer party to subjugate them.
"Anyways, Zyr. You should be careful. We are still checking the castle for more intruders, so while this area was cleared, it should be safe...but still".
"Speaking of which, father asked us to check the cellars. So dont wander around, okay? And get muscula...ow!"
And like that, his two siblings ran off.
"Assassins huh...how many could there possibly me?" I questioned myself, and then remembered something I could do. It was a bit mana taxing, but I had one ability called Radar. It was rather vague and sometimes had issues indoors, undergrounds, or such, but it could give me information about an area. ANd so, searching for "People with murderous intent", I searched.
"...eh?"
And what I saw was four red dots heading right towards me from the other direction, three more red dots in the surrounding rooms, and another red dot that was...directly above me.
And so I used another one of my skills, Thought Acceleration, which allowed me to temporarily accelerate my thoughts for a few moments.
I had an enemy above me. Three enemies in the rooms in the directions I can escape to. They are already moving towards the door.
I also have a group of four coming at me from behind.
There are no innocents in this area. I hoped that meant they had all simply not been here, and not that the assassins killed them.
In short, I had eight assassins using highly lethal poison coming to kill me. Furthermore, my Danger sense activated fully while thought acceleration was in effect, and I realized these guys were super dangerous.
Thankfully, it seemed I had reincarnated with a lot of skills and such to use. But, these guys go for instant death! My ressurection skill is still on cooldown, and my Regeneration wont be effective if I get killed in the first hit. Although during Thought Acceleration, it was hard to invoke magic, it was not impossible. Especially if it was magic that targeted myself.
I applied magic armor to myself, warding armor which would try to direct attacks away from me, and I used my Physical Enhancement cheat to further increase my already high endurance and strength. I then activated a multi-layered normal barrier around myself, and considered what actions to take. The moment I stopped accelerating, the fight would likely begin. The four coming from the back will distract me, while the guy up top drops down and slits my throat. That was what my Forecast skill told me. Even with all of my defenses, if my throat would be cut while poisoned that would be bad. Even though I had an ability to resist abnormal ailments and such, according to my Analysis Skill, if I was repeatedly poisoned with the powerful poison they are using which can even hurt divine entities, it would surpass it and kill me.
Furthermore, the blades themselves are enchanted, and wounds made from them are harder to heal.
This was insane...even though we have such a nice king, other empires seem to be envious of what we have and want to take it all. These assassins were sent to cause distress in the leadership. They believed if the youngest was killed at least, such grief would overpower them, cause them to make mistakes which they would then take advantage of.
Of course, if they were able to kill any more royals after me, all the better.
I didn't have much time left till Thought Acceleration wore off. I had raised defenses, but how would I attack? I had Titanic Strength, and magic...but, I had to deal with multiple attackers at once?!
No no...I can do this...
I thought that to myself. Calming down, I prepared a spell to cast to at least give me more breathing room...
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The assassins smiled, as they saw their ambush would work perfectly. They had made preparations so they could deal with the guards, but it appeared the boy was all alone. He was deemed the Focal Point...if he died, it would start a chain of events that would cause the downfall of this kingdom. A seven year old boy...and with all the assassins around, they would succeed for sure this time.
And so, they executed their plan the moment he was alone in the hallway. As the four approached, and the three burst ouf of the rooms, the man from the top dropped down...
"Flame Nova!"
But then, a burst of fire errupted from Prince Zyr and knocked several of them back.
"XL Burst!"
Zyr then appeared behind one of the guys who came out of the door at a fast speed, and kicked him right in the back as he jumped up, causing him to fly through the air in a sideways V shape.
Even the professional assassins who were experienced and used to seeing strange and irregular things needed a moment to process a seven year old boy, even a Prince who is the son of a living hero, doing such a thing. It was clearly beyond absurd.
"Spark Blaster!"
Suddenly, several sparks appeared in his hand. He gripped them, and as he spun them around tossed them at four of the assassins. The sparks flew fast, and while two were able to recover fast enough to dodge, the other two were still getting up off the ground and seemed to be electrocuted, collapsing to the ground instantly foaming at the mouth. That seemed a bit weird, but he had no time to think about it. The others got up, coming to their senses that this boy was not to be trifled with.
"Don't think you can win so easily...alright brat, give us more of your power" he said, as he seemed to press a button on a bracelet he was wearing. Suddenly, the group was covered in shadows, and Zyr felt their danger levels increase.
"Seriously...to think they still had trump cards" Zyr muttered. The assassin smiled, seeing that he was caught off guard, and charged at him. Unfortunately, Zyr pushed his palm out, and the moment he was hit the shadows dispersed. Zyr also seemed surprised, but hte blow did kill the momentum, so Zyr quickly struck with his other palm. As such, he was also sent flying.
The other assassins tried to use this opportunity to attack, but as they did, several barriers seemed to come up to repel them. Some broke through the multiple barriers though, only for another barrier to ward off the attack. Then finally, a few more came and even got past that, all in the span of a few seconds. ALl of those defenses penetrated by multiple high level assassins. And yet, as they reached the skin, their blades found it tough to penetrate. One still managed to do so, but the poison did not seem to take effect, startling them.
In the next instant, they were all blown away by a tornado that centered on Zyr, and they were all sent flying. With the sheer force of it all, they were all knocked unconscious. The only one who seemed to remain conscious was their leader, who could not move...
He stared at the seven year old boy who began to approach him with fear and shock, something that did not happen often for the assassin.
"M-monster!"
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I was so relieved I had decided to rish using all that mana to put up all those defenses. Seriously, isn't the starting few days supposed to be weak enemies or something that can be defeated? Sure, I did defeat them...but, usually in mangas its not this stressful or close on the first fight!
The enemies were way too high level! It was insane!
And then, that last guy was mean enough to call me a monster! After he was able to take magically strengthened Titanic Strength hit! I had to hit him twice!
And the assassins took mere seconds to get through my barriers! I was able to take the singular attack that got through, but if a second one had gotten though, I could have died!
Who would send eight high level assassins to kill a seven year old?!?!
But, there was something I heard I could not ignore. I took the bracelet from the man, and used my power for limited mind manipulation to compel him to answer my questions.
"Where is this 'brat' that you mentioned?"
It seemed they still had a hostage maybe, based on my Insight and Forecast, and I was not going to let that slide.