Hello again! I kinda feel that after today the chapters will be rather spread out, since I have yet another busy period of hard work to prepare for. 

Hopefully I can keep the schedule, but if not, then you'll know why. it's because I'm busy.

Well, anyways, I finished this one on time at any rate. Enjoy~!

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“I hate this job.” Laura muttered to herself as she trudged up the road, head covered up in a hood.

“Would you rather have my job? I assure you it’s far more interesting than being a simple mysterious cloaked figure, ohime-sama.” Thera hissed.

Laura shuddered, and hastily shook her head. “Nope I’m fine, thank you! I am completely okay with my part in this!” She would not have Thera’s part at all, nope.

The two were walking together, with Laura’s figure hidden under her ranger’s hood. However, Thera had undergone a somewhat shocking change.

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Three hours earlier:

Master Thales and Madam Rothema finished another of the many voiceless conversations between each other.

Then Master Thales suddenly said, “We should split up.”

“What! Why?” Laura immediately exclaimed.

“If we were to meet with any stronger type of bandit, things would surely get troublesome.” Thales said.

“Why would it be troublesome?” Thera asked.

“Because don’t you think that by now, our numbers and genders have been leaked? There’ll be spies everywhere now, looking for us!” Master Thales said, trying to keep a straight face.

But, Thera could see that his eyes were looking elsewhere.

I call BS. She almost said, but refrained from doing so.

“Well? What did you have in mind?” Thera asked.

“You and Laura will go together down the path, while me and Rothema will scout around the area for stragglers. We’ll meet up with you at the inn in the village after the next one.” Thales explained.

Thera nodded. “It sounds reasonable.” She agreed.

“Ah, but..” Master Thales looked at the two girls. “Two girls alone is too suspicious. One of you will have to go as a boy…Thera, I nominate you.”

Thera started. “What, me? Why do I have to be the boy!?” She asked.

“Well, just look at Laura.” Thales said. “She could obviously pass as some sort of foreign princess with that hair. You, on the other hand, have a more believable structure when it comes to boys, so you’ll have to do.” Thales said with a lazy drawl.

“If it makes you feel any better, I’ll unlock your mana shackles so you can fight to your fullest if you run into a brown class.” He said, laying the bait while showing her the key.

Thera didn’t say anything as she held out her wrists.

“Deal?” Master Thales asked. He wasn’t a fool. No deal, no benefits. That was one of his rules.

She sighed. It seemed she couldn’t get out of this one.

“Deal.”

The mana shackles fell to the ground.

“Good! Now that that’s settled, can I place the illusion spell on her?” Madam Rothema asked. She had floated down from her flying house in order to perform the spell and get the fine-tuning done and out of the way.

“Go ahead. Better now than later.” Master Thales said. “Oh, and Thera? You should go by the name Briar or Thorn, or Bramble from now on. It should be something easy to remember, so that we can find you later.”

Thera rolled her eyes at that. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Rose bushes are briars, and briars have thorns. Sheesh! You could ease up on the name puns, you know.

“I’ll go with Briar, then.” She said, smiling at the irony of the situation: the former Briar being reincarnated as Thera, now roleplaying as…’Briar’.

“Hold still, then, Briar. I need to make sure the illusion fits you.” Madam Rothema instructed. “You don’t know how many times people have wrecked a good illusion by moving before it was finished being placed. Ah, perfect! That looks good enough.”

Thera couldn’t really see the transformation, but now she looked like a strong male adventurer, just a tad bit on the short side. She placed a hand on the band circling her forehead.

“Don’t take that off, whatever you do. It’s the key to the illusion spell. You take it off, and the whole thing disappears.” Madam Rothema warned.

Thera placed her fists on her hips in a traditional male pose.

“Well? What do you think?” She asked.

Thales stared expressionlessly at Thera for a few moments before scoffing.“…Rothema, did you HAVE to make her into a pretty boy? Now she looks like a day-dreaming nimrod.”

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“My spell, my rules.” Madam Rothema replied. “I you wanted a certain look, you should have specified~.” She pointed out. “Now it’s done, and I need a cup of tea. Call me when you’ve found any sign of bandits in the area.”

Madam Rothema floated back up to her flying mansion and the door shut near soundlessly behind her.

Master Thales sighed.

“It’ll have to do. Anyways, while we’re scouting around, you two make sure to keep a low profile while you travel ahead, got it?”

Laura enthusiastically saluted soldier style. “Understood~!” She said.

Thera began to feel the beginnings of a headache as she took out her magic sword, Thorn.

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Back in the Present:

Actually, it wasn’t that bad, masquerading as a boy. She could wear pants, and carry a sword, and didn’t have any mana shackles. She was in a rather good mood, so when Laura blurted out that earlier bit, Thera couldn’t help but tease her.

“Good. Let’s not forget this. I would hate to have to tell your father that you refused to do things simply because you didn’t like them. princes-ahem, I mean Miss Laura.”

She changed her address when Laura elbowed her in the ribs.

‘Father’ was their codename for Master Thales, not Laura’s actual father. Although, quite frankly, Laura’s actual father would have been ecstatic seeing Laura pretending to be a princess.  

A new voice broke into their conversation.

“Well well well…now what do you suppose we have here, eh boys?” A thin man dressed in rather high-class clothes, albeit a bit dull in colors of brown and green. He sneered as he eyed the two figures in front.

Behind him, a group of large men built like lumberjacks came out of hiding.

Thera knew it was time to play her role properly and quickly stepped out in front of Laura, unsheathing her sword. She had already sensed these people about three kilometers back, but they had decided to let them be if they didn’t cause any trouble.

“Who are you! And what do you want with us?” Thera asked She had previously changing her voice with magic to sound a bit more masculine.

The sneering man sneered even more. He had been told to be on the lookout for a man and two girls. These were a boy and a girl, completely different from the report.

Judging from the fact that these two hadn’t noticed them until they came out, they were probably just setting out after finishing the basic common education.

The boy probably wouldn’t be past soldier rank, considering his age. The girl, well, considering the blonde hair that peeked out from the hood, she could still fetch quite a lot of coin, even if she wasn’t pretty.

On the whole, these two would make quite a bit of profit for him as a slave trader. He chuckled to himself.

“Now, now. Let’s not get too hasty. We wouldn’t want to be considered damaged goods, would we-” He was interrupted when his face came into contact with Thera’s foot.

 In half a moment, all the other men fell down as well, unconscious, with the imprint of a shoe clear upon their face. She hadn’t even needed to use a skill.

“Darn it! Just a bunch of slave traders.” Thera grumbled. “I thought we’d get something bigger than these wimps. How many is that now?”

Laura giggled. “So far, we’ve encountered fifty-two men. You really need to work on your manly presence, there, Briar. Everyone seems to think you’re some sort of pushover.”

“One more word out of you, and I’ll leave you down the first dry well we come to.” She grumbled, glaring at Laura.

Thera wouldn’t really…she was just playing her character of Briar, a short-tempered martial artist that had been roped into escorting a ‘foreign princess’ through dangerous territory.

“You wouldn’t dare. My father would have your head. Literally.” She said.

“Maybe. Or just maybe he’d congratulate me for ridding him of the kingdom’s largest pest~Ouch!” Briar was once more elbowed by the cloaked figure at ‘his’ side.

“How rude! For a retainer, you sure do have a lack of manners!” Laura scolded.

“Then you should’ve chosen a different man to be your retainer.” Briar replied with a scowl.

“Not every man will fall at your feet and die for you just because you’re a princess. Some of us have lives to live, after all. And, quite frankly, princesses are a pain in the neck.Ow! Ouch! See? I have already proven my point~Hahah~!”

Briar ran a little bit ahead of the cloaked figure, who was chasing after him with raised fists.

“Get back here, you incompetent guardsman!” Laura yelled.

“No way! And get hit by you again? Ahahahah!” Briar laughed. Already they had sensed another group of men further up the road.