“Well met my loyal subjects!”

“Bless you.”

In front of Peter stood a young blonde girl in a red and silver dress. She was the only champion he met so far whose appearance was appropriate for her age. At a glance she was the physical embodiment of royalty. So far she was just like how Peter expected her to be, except for the speech.

“Please excuse my impertinence. My dear mother has always told me to always treat people the same way I would treat my own countrymen.”

“I’m not sure I follow your logic, but she probably meant it more figuratively.”

“I am unsure about the meaning of your remark.”

“Well, you see…”

Leon was starting to suspect that there was more than one thing wrong with the children. A great example being the two that were with him. Both of them knew what the meeting was about but they managed to derail it the moment one of them started talking.

“Hello princess. This boy here is Peter Williams, he will be your bodyguard for the foreseeable future. Do you have any objections or can we move on?”

“If that is the wish of my mother then I shall have no complaints.”

“Great! Then I’ll leave you two alone. Have fun!”

And just like that, he left. For the next ten minutes the two stood in front of each other in silence. After their initial conversation was interrupted Peter didn’t know what to say and he guessed the princess was in a similar situation.

Eventually Peter broke the silence. The two of them were going to spend a significant amount of time together so he wanted to know what kind of person he was supposed to protect.

“The prime minister already did my introduction for me, but may I ask what name you chose?”

“You may. My name is Artoria Aereus, a name fit for a prospective queen.”

“That’s nice. Mine doesn’t have that much meaning behind it.”

A few more uneventful minutes passed. Being unable to come up with another conversation starter, Peter was about to leave. He was yet to see his own room and he also wanted to find out where his friends’ rooms were.

He was halfway through the door when Artoria finally decided to speak by herself.

“Though I have no intentions to question the queen’s decision, I would still like to inquire as to why mother chose you to protect me?”

Initially Peter was wondering about that himself but by now he was starting to have an idea. He was in fact not the best choice as a bodyguard, but that wasn’t actually his job. He had to do something that most adults couldn’t because of her title. That was also the most likely reason for her being there instead of the island with all of the kingdom's resources to train her.

“She wanted you to learn here, not just train. I’m probably the best teacher she could find.”

“Excuse my rudeness but I doubt you could teach me more than my tutors.”

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“I’m going to teach you something completely different. Your first lesson is to try speaking like the rest of us.

“But…”

Before she could continue Peter left without saying another word. Though before the door was closed completely a streak of darkness managed to slip inside and it fused with Artoria’s shadow, making it look a bit larger.

313.1.09.

The first night passed without incident. Peter’s room was right next to the princess’ but he ended up camping in the hallway anyway, just to be safe.

After a brief visit to the canteen everyone was gathered on the central field for their first combat class. The class was divided into more manageable sized groups and the first half hour was spent determining who should go in which group.

A lot of people got exemptions as not everyone’s abilities were combat related. They were sent to a much shorter self defense class. The rest were categorized based on their combat style and overall strength.

Everyone who had a weapon got lumped together, which included Peter and Manda who got his own only recently. Their class was made up mostly of the guest trainees who had enough support to get divinity. The rest of them had some other way of making regular weapons effective in a fight.

The latter portion of the group was easier to train because there it was possible to find people with similar abilities. One such person was their instructor Mr. Smith. Aside from being a swordsman, which was quite a rarity, he was also the head of security at the academy.

[Entity class 18.]

[Abilities: Weapon Aura, Battle Sense, ]

In terms of raw power he wasn’t the strongest present but he was a skilled fighter and also intensely loyal to Leon. With that in mind it was easy to see why he was put in charge of the VIP students.

Because no one knew each other and they were short on time Mr. Smith decided to give a short evaluation to everyone individually. Everyone was asked to show how they would fight normally and then he tried out each weapon himself before commenting.

From what Peter could tell he was giving pretty good advice, but even he was stumped by some of the weapons he saw so most of his suggestions went toward their fighting style and not their movements while fighting.

One of the more straightforward examples was Manda. He had a pair of ill-fitting gauntlets which didn't cover anything past the back of his hand making it almost useless for its primary purpose, punching.

“Are you sure these are the right ones? They seem a bit too big.”

“I’ll grow into them!”

“If you say so. Anyway, there isn’t anything particularly wrong with how you fight. You are clearly talented but I’m guessing you learnt from street fights. Try to pick up some martial arts, just to see how it’s meant to be done.”

Peter, who had some idea about how Manda’s abilities worked, could guess the proper use of the gauntlets. They might have been too big for the boy normally, but they would have been a perfect fit for his transformed hands. They were not really weapons by themselves but served as protection for his actual weapon.

Nex up was Peter who had one of the more impressive weapons in the group in the form of the Asteri, though it was clear to everyone that he wasn’t actually that experienced at using it.

“Okay that’s enough you can bring it here.”

Mr. Smith carefully examined the weapon and came to the conclusion that it was just as awkward to use as he thought. From a practical standpoint it was a really long mace with a stake attached to it. One redeeming factor was that it was heavy which compensated for its awkward weight distribution.

“The best advice I can give you for now is to think of it as a blunt polearm. Once you get used to the weight you should try using the pointed end against more immobile targets.”

He gave back the lamppost to Peter but the boy didn’t leave like everyone else.

“Actually there’s another one. I’m not really sure how to use it so I’d like to ask you.”

“Sure, I’m glad to help. Now let’s see what you have.”

Peter then summoned the weapon he received from Lilith’s blessing. It was a small dark crystalline dagger that would have been almost indistinguishable from a regular shadow if someone put it on the ground.

As soon as Mr. Smith got it in his hands and took a good look at it he immediately ave it back.

“You shouldn’t be showing off something like that.”