“What weird project you got this time, Dad? Anything bigger than getting people for a maid-only assassin group, right?” Elen answered with some exposition while taking a seat for herself, all of which only made me even more worried about my situation right now. “Do you want to turn the castle’s mascot into the castle’s strike team now?”

“You’re being disrespectful with Ms. Allia now… She’s no mascot.”

“Indeed. A leech would be a weird mascot, wouldn’t it?” I added it as a joke, but no one seemed to find it funny for some reason. “I mean… I d-don’t mind training to be your shadow team or something, but I don’t think I can do it. Even if I had a gun, beating people who have magic is too much…”

“Wait! You don’t mind it?! For real?” The princess who seemed to wander around looking for assassin candidates was surprised by my acceptance of the situation.

"What? Yes? I mean, it's better than doing nothing... But I still don't think I can."

From what I saw until now, magic wasn’t powerful enough to be the absolute force, but it was still a lot. At least, it wasn’t weak enough for a small group of Japanese soldiers to hold a whole country as I saw in some stories.

I was no army either way.

Almost every soldier in this place, and many of the civilians, was capable of fighting from range. Most elements had spells with at least a hundred meters of range, and some went farther than that. Also, as I noticed by watching them train, every knight could do some sort of barrier. The element and how said barrier worked changed a lot, but they were still barriers that could deal with bullets.

And that's without even mentioning how unusually fit the people around here were.

How fast they can run and how stupid their weight training is, was appalling in the least. These people were a little too overpowered to my liking... And I'm not saying this only because I wanted to be overpowered too and am salty about it.

Either way, magic is, at least, as good as a gun here. Each element has a specialty like each weapon, but that is it. From all I saw, and ignoring heroes for this matter, the only things missing from this magic system were spells that could affect the caster's own body, but I’m sure there were ways to do it. Some spells had to work, which only made the system weirder.

In fact, ignoring alchemy and its magical drugs, there was a single element with something close to buff spells or healing. Both of them didn't seem to do more than make you heal faster or act like an adrenalin shoot from what I read, but it was very useful already.

All in all, unless someone had a good way to use stealth without magic or some convenient 'anti-magic' artifact, being an assassin was a far-off goal.

“By the gods, you’re a real piece, aren’t you? What about giving me her, Dad? I know exactly the person to train someone this crazy…”

“She is a guest Eleonora, not someone to be ‘given’ or to be trained by your ‘acquaintances’ like this.” The king admonished his daughter, but I got a little interested in her words. It would have to be something for later, though, since the king seemed to notice that the subject was moving away from what mattered. “Sigh… Let me explain why I called you here before I’m out of time again.”

“Sorry, sorry, she got me interested, okay? Let me hear you out now…”

I also nodded in agreement but didn't say anything since I wasn’t so sure of what was happening.

“Good.” He accepted the answers and then turned to me with his own question. “But first, I need to know how much you know about our situation, Ms. Illia. I heard that you took many books from our library and that not all of them were about magic, so how deep you went?”

Hearing what he said made me think that this guy either had too much time to spare or liked to waste resources, but that was fair in some ways. Even if keeping an eye on me was pretty much as useless as it could be, only I seemed to believe that.

“I know the map of the continent, the general information of the four big countries and I know that this world has a problem with demons since forever. I can bet that dealing with something like a monster spawn that appears from time to time is really troublesome...” I went on with what little I got from hearing around or the few history books I got on a whim. “I also know that you, the Kingdom of Prourene, are prone to being the frontline on that. I remember that it's not always like this, but it happened a few times in a row here. There’s also an alliance with the neighbors in place, but I didn’t get much on that...”

The tropes say every single neighbor was only holding back because they didn’t believe they could deal with the demons alone, but I couldn't be sure of that. All I was sure of was that, as in any good fantasy world, each country in the area had a specialty. We had the imperialist republic in the east with legion-like armies, the federation of small theocracies filled with variants of paladins in the west, and then the bunch of desert raider tribes in the south, though these didn’t do much cavalry for some reasons.

Each one even had its own flavor of champion, but only Prourenne could summon them and had a huge arsenal of ancient relics. This second part wasn't a specialty per se, but the country that had it before was done by having demon incursions start there multiple times in a row.

As a side note, I would like to note that this place uses a more textbook definition of 'demon' than usual. Here, they seem to be more like wild beasts that really hate humans than anything that thinks. Nothing like a 'demon race' or anything that you would expect to have a 'demon king'.

Even their 'leader' or the thing that started each incursion and spawned the monsters wasn't exactly a living being. Not that there was a lot of information on the thing, to begin with. No one seemed to even agree on what it was or how it worked from what little I got.

All I, and almost everyone for that matter, knew, was that going to the source and dealing with whatever was there would stop the outbreak for a while. Even dealing with it using an army seemed to work.

Damn, now that I think about it, I know a lot, don’t I? Seems like having too much free time and too little mana to keep on burning it forever was a hell of a reason to study, eh? Heck, give me a year and I may very well become a frigging scholar!

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Even the king seemed to be pleased by my textbook memorization skills even if what I told him was no more than the very basics.

“Very good. All I can see you’re missing are customs, but they’re nothing you have to worry about for now...” The king nodded while saying things that would make me think that he actually wanted to turn me into some sort of scholar. “Since you have a good understanding already, I will skip to the ‘project’ itself right away then.”

“Talking as if you didn’t know all that already… But whatever either way." The princess quipped with the same thing that I was thinking. "Tell me who you want to poke and why I’m taking the weird girl there. Taking me away from the frontlines isn't something you would do on a whim...”

Isn’t that a little disrespectful, princess? And why are you eating jam with a spoon? I feel this person will soon be putting her feet over the table if things continue as is... How her father didn’t seem to care was a little more worrying, but I wouldn’t be the one to say anything here.

Also, why was a princess in the frontline like this? Don't these people worry about their royalty?!

Both of them were watching me, though, even if pretending not to, so I was physically incapable of saying this aloud. Even doing anything more than the proper moves was almost impossible for me right now.

“You should learn to be a little more patient, but that’s beyond the point…” He finally continued while lessening the pressure on me for a moment and focusing on Elen. “What I need you both to do is be this kingdom’s ‘buffer’, if you may. Or to be more specific, I want to use your abnormal specialties, Eleonora, and your position as a summoned hero, Illia... All to keep everyone in line until we can be safe when the demons are dealt with.”

“Wait, wait, wait! I am but a bystander with magic I can’t use.” I cut into his words out of surprise even if the idea was close to complaining in my head like usual. “I mean, Elen is… a ranger? I’m not sure… But she can fight, probably, and she’s a princess too, so I can see many things you could ask her to do, but I’m pretty much useless here. I also don’t feel like risking myself for something that I’m sure…”

“Slow down a little, young lady.” The man who was showing where his daughter’s manners come by how he was wharfing the sweets at the table called me out. “Hear me out a little first. I don’t want to make you do the same as your friend, understand? We made it very clear that he’s the hero for sure during this week, but, for everyone everywhere, you’re an incognita still. Most don’t even know what you are since you appear so little, so they think you’re as much a hero as Mr. Hayato, although a lazy or incompetent one. And that’s ever truer for those who saw you use unknown magic and heard of Randoul’s panic… In summary, even if you can’t do much, we can use you as if you could.”

That was… a fair point actually.

Heck, it’s something I should have noticed even. Why would someone bother to avoid calling me out or going against whatever weird thing I did if they knew I couldn’t do anything back? I’m sure playing with this wouldn’t work forever and neither would it work if Mr. Hero was gone, but it seemed that I had some cards. Not that I could actually use them for much.

“But why would you want to do that? Isn’t your biggest problem fighting the things coming from the north? Why bother with having a fake hero?”

“Yeah. She sure can run, but I don’t see much fighting on this girl.” Elen added from in between spoonfuls of jam. “But as I said, I know some people that could solve it… or kill her in the process. Fifty-fifty odds, I guess…”

“I prefer not to die, please. I’m not interested in this kind of thing right now…”

“You two should really hear more... I don’t need you to fight, I just need you to pretend you can. Something to ease the hero’s work and, when he’s done with it, to avoid any possible crisis that may come from it...” He continued with a point that, the more went on, the easier it got for me to understand. “But to be honest, there’s another reason too. Giving you a proper position and showing that you’re living well is the best way to ease the hero’s personality and keep him in line. Take it as having a hostage for our justice-focused hero...”

Again, that was fair. Heck, I’m using the same trick even. Look weak and in need and Mr. Protagonist will want to help you, though I wasn't expecting to be used in this same tactic.

Putting that whole act in the first few days seemed to have affected our overbearing protagonist a little too much already. If I took what the king just said straight, it was enough to make our hero unfocused on his work since I was pretty much MIA.

It meant that I had a safe position here, at least, but that wasn't good for efficiency…

Being safe from humans wouldn't mean much if we were overrun by monsters. It also was bad for my plan of tying him to this place. Would hate to have Mr. Hero decide to return home and people forcing me to go together…

I had to do my best so he would waste as little time as possible worrying about the random bystander.

In summary, due to my antics, Mr. Hero was a worrywart and the king thought he could squeeze some use out of me. Both things were a pain in the ass, but it could maybe be interesting too. I didn’t have much to keep me entertained either way, so why not try and play along a little?

“So that’s how it is… You want us to support the hero by dealing with local threats or something of the kind, right?”

“That’s exactly it!” The king showed how pleased he was again by getting a huge smile in answer to my remark, but then went on. “Eleonora has a terrible fame due to her… uniqueness. She’s not seen fondly by the local or foreign nobility, but she’s famous in the civilian circles while also being a good fighter. One of the best even.”

“How you put it annoys me, but it isn’t wrong… Not my fault that nobles are so stiff and boring.”

“I’d say it’s more about how you’re so against socializing with them without punching someone or deciding to go visit some new place out of the blue, but that’s beyond the point...” He shot out Elen right away, but the ranger princess only shrugged at her father’s words, and the king had to give up. “Anyway, all I ask is for the both of you to act together to deal with any internal problems you can. Keeping nobles in line and holding the neighbors is getting very hard as of now... We have too much invested in keeping the demons at bay, so threats from everywhere else are many times as dangerous. Even public order is straying thin in some places due to the lack of manpower... Without some deterrents, it's even possible that someone will try a conventional war for the first time in centuries.”

“Sounds like a pain.”

"Sounds very hard to do if you ask me..." I commented together with Elen, even if our points were very different from each other.

“Any help is good, so there is no need to overwork. I’ll even give you both free reign on the methods, and as long as you have a proper justification, you can do whatever you want to solve your tasks. All I ask is that you avoid being too direct unless needed… Wouldn't want a civil war happening right now.”

"Free reign, eh? Are you sure of that?"

"Just don't go too far, Eleonora, and don't risk our second hero's life."

“Now that I can do! There are many peeps I saw while traveling around that I would love to give some beating. The only hard part will be the ‘direct’ bit, but it can be done too...”

“And you, Ms. Illia? What do you think of my proposal?”

What do I think? I think that you’re crazy! That’s what my reasonable side thinks and that’s probably the truth too, but that’s what I am really thinking…

“It depends on one question: can I add some conditions to this deal?”

“I’m open to negotiating. As I said, there’s little to invest outside of the demon problem until it’s solved, but I’m still not out of options.”

“Then you don’t have to worry, Your Highness. All I need are some tools and a little bit of publicity...” I answered while holding myself to not smile as much as possible. "Just remember that I am no hero, okay?"

"And I'm not asking for a hero, Ms. Illia, I'm asking for someone that can help me the best right now."

“Since we're in lack of a hero, a swindler will do, eh? Sounds nice to me...”

It was time to show why I never thought I had a reasonable side to begin with.