Newly written stories 2 – Is there a princess to whom you would fully dedicate your sword?
“…Huh?”
That day, a letter was simultaneously delivered to the daughters of knight peerage families from all over the Holy Kingdom – the main school and branch schools of the Royal Magic Academy in the royal capital – who would graduate from the Knight Course that year.
At first glance, the content looked like a common scam advertisement and was extremely suspicious. In short, it was a recruitment advertisement for [Princess’s Knight Guards].
But which princess was it for?
Originally, since nobles are influential heads who organize regional settlements, there’s no problem with calling their daughters [Princesses]. At the very least the advertisement had been sent by a high-ranking upper noble family like a Count house or above but there was no such indication anywhere, making the sender’s name even more questionable.
[Royal Broadcasting]
The daughters of knight families who received the letter couldn’t help but shout. What on earth is that!?
Knight peerage are low-ranking nobles. In other words, long ago, soldiers of nobility who were skilled gained hereditary status by racking up distinguished war services. So in the Holy Kingdom, there are over five thousand knight peerage families, with several times more knights.
Including civil official peerage with more non-combat jobs, knight peerage have little power – at best village administrators. They’re just slightly wealthier commoners so barely any girls understood what [Royal Broadcasting] as the sender meant.
While knight families produce knights for the nobility, not all daughters of knights aspire to become knights themselves.
In the first place, female knights primarily work as guards and escorts for women and children of status rather than heading off to war. They are sought more for etiquette and intellect over ability so there are few girls seriously aiming to become female knights. Instead, decent parents would think it’s better to find an ordinary marriage partner for their cute daughters than sending them off to a den of sweaty, musclehead men.
Among the daughters of knight families graduating from the Knight Course of magic academies all over the nation that year, there were only 134.
Most already had arrangements to serve the daughters and women of their main households so those girls who did have the prudence to realize the meaning of the sender “Royal Broadcasting” did not respond to the recruitment.
The ones who did were 15 year old girls who, while they did have good grades in practical skills, did not excel in academics nor deeply think too much about things – so-called “airheaded muscleheads”.
“Huh? Did you sign up too, Bridget?”
“You did too, Sarah?”
The girls gathered again at the academy in the royal capital after graduating. It’s fine for those from branch schools in the territories of upper nobility households but for Bridget and Sarah from cities near the capital, obviously attending the main school at the capital, it was a repetitive sight.
The Royal Magic Academy main school located in the capital uses up an entire block of the capital so understandably, it is extremely spacious. Naturally, there are unused school buildings due to curriculum changes and such. The classroom the two were called to was in one such building.
There were already over ten girls in the classroom but fortunately or unfortunately, because only muscleheads had gathered, no one had an uneasy expression about what was about to happen.
“Come to think of it, do you know who you’ll be serving, Sarah?”
While coming in knight attire unbecoming for even a lower noble lady, Bridget shrugged her shoulders like a male actor in a certain all-female theater troupe as she brushed up her short black hair and asked her friend. Sarah, dressed relatively like a lady in a one-piece dress, indecently sat on one of the classroom desks and swung her mid-length brown hair left and right as she answered.
“I dunno. Definitely not the royal family though, right? They don’t have a princess now…”
“I think it’s probably the daughter of some upper noble house.”
Bridget shrugged her shoulders again in a very manly gesture at Sarah’s noncommittal reply.
As Sarah mentioned, the current royal family does not have a [Princess].
To be accurate, there is a girl carrying royal blood in a Duke household but her conduct was so atrocious, her engagement to the royal family was also annulled. Rumor has it she might even be removed from the royal bloodline at this rate.
That’s just frivolous gossip from those loose-tongued noble madams so who knows how true. But it was famous enough that even lower nobles like Sarah and Bridget have heard of it.
Still, a spoiled selfish noble daughter is nothing unusual. In high society where one could fall in the blink of an eye if careless, no matter how selfish a daughter is, they would have to demonstrate some composure at a certain age. After all, just stubbornly selfish girls would only get swept up and sink in societal currents.
Unless they go as far as doing somewhat criminal things like those [villainesses] in commoner stages, they cannot live such an edgy life.
“There’s no way such a woman exists… right?”
“Hahahaha!”
(((Huh!?)))
It wasn’t the client who put out the advertisement himself but after hearing the explanation from a official-looking proxy, all the girls who applied to the recruitment unconsciously screamed internally at the same time.
They still could not disclose the identity of the “princess” they would be guarding but apparently she was someone carrying royal blood.
Normally one would be happy about this. However, as Bridget and the others talked about earlier, the only high ranking noble lady currently carrying recognized royal blood was the aforementioned Duke’s daughter and sister.
There’s no way there exists a near villainess-like noble lady.
But when it came to the prospect of serving the actual person holding such notorious rumors, the story changed.
Because it was “just a rumor”, an issue in some faraway world, Sarah and the others could listen and laugh but turning into parties involved themselves, the now tangible pressure weighed heavily on the girls, tormenting them into speechless silence.
As a result, several girls in the room applied to rescind participation on the spot and of the nearly twenty girls gathered, only ten remained.
The girls who backed out did not lose heart due to cowardice. The remaining girls simply couldn’t escape.
They had bad grades to begin with and failed to enter a decent knight brigade.
There were various reasons – some already had arrangements to marry some middle-aged knight from their households or got told by their families to not come back if they couldn’t find work. But the common thread between the girls left behind was that because they had trained their brains into muscle as well, they could do neither proper attendant or maid work.
They might have ended up female shop assistants in the marketplace instead but tavern owners would prefer to hire unproblematic commoner women over employing these daughters of lower nobility like them.
In short, there was no escape. For strong girls like Bridget and Sarah who admitted they were not scholarly, compared to being the mistress of some grandpa, there was still the slight possibility of catching the eye of a high ranking noble’s male official. Gripping the quill so tightly the paper could tear from the writing pressure, they signed the contract documents with determination to bet everything on the line.
READ THE ORIGINAL TRANSLATION AT GADGETIZEDPANDA.COM
The next day, Bridget and Sarah who officially became trainee knight guards regretted having signed it in less than a few days.
They were staying over together in training as knights, using parts of the academy but even now, they had not even seen the face of the “princess” they were supposed to protect, much less meet their employer.
Why couldn’t they meet their employer? Why couldn’t they even be told their employer’s name?
When they cattily complained about such things to the oba-sans (old ladies) helping out with accommodations, the oba-sans immediately gathered and amusingly told them about the infamous rumors of the noble lady sisters.
They said that she expelled a commoner from the royal capital for making too much noise in the academy cafeteria because it annoyed her.
They said she stripped a virtuous young noble son and graffitied lewd scribbles on him before tying him to a pillar.
They said she had the daughters of uppity noble daughters assaulted by town ruffians and forced them to drop out of the academy.
They said she crushed the family homes of teachers who admonished her and made them a warning to other teachers.
They said she had the daughter of a lower ranking noble girl kidnapped and sold overseas just because she didn’t yield the road.
And so on, they didn’t know how true these things were but the oba-sans’ information network was so extensive, Bridget and Sarah turned pale in horror that things they had previously laughed off as jokes might actually be true.
But the thing that confused them the most was the “training curriculum”.
The girls who remained were muscleheads only good at physical ability like Bridget and Sarah themselves. Not only were they not struggling with knight training, they were even more fired up but first place they were taken to was [Hair Styling] and [Full Body Beauty Care].
Baked in the steam room, they did things like scrubbing, dehairing, slimming oil massages, facials to polish them until they shone brightly and that was done repeatedly every few days. In between, they had their etiquette and walking completely reconditioned by stiff old ladies waving whips at the academy under the guise of “teachers” who looked like angels. Along with hammering in minimum level of knowledge about national affairs needed for them to converse as [Princess’s Guards], their fosterage was certainly packed full.
Of course, if they had been capable of those things from the beginning, they would not have been left behind. But almost all of them ended up escaping because of that but in less than a few hours, they were dragged back tied up in chains.
This was bad news. They had to get out but for ordinary well-bred ladies who would be happy with such pampered treatment, for these girls, even hard labor in a prison would be preferable.
So they respectfully petitioned to the demon drill sergeant old ladies but without even changing their expressions, they were shown approval letters from the girls’ families stating [we don’t mind what happens to them]. Not only that, but they were informed great gold coins, totaling ten times the monthly wages of a newly adulted artisan apprentice, had already been paid to their families.
Ten… great gold coins – that’s 100 times more. An amount almost equal to their knight peer fathers’ annual salary. And to top it off, Sarah even got a heartwarming encouragement from her mother to protect the princess with her life.
That kind of life continued for over half a year and as they barely passed, getting recognized by the demon instructors as presentable enough before people, they were finally assigned as the princess’s guards.
By then rumors had been going around noble society of several mid to lower ranking noble families getting crushed. Moreover, even the Duke house where they thought the notorious noble lady sisters they would serve were from had its ruling authority repossessed, leaving only the household name in a de facto dismantled state.
So what would happen to their work? Did it mean they no longer had to serve those delinquent lady sisters? While they felt mixed unease and relief about such developments, they were finally informed the name of their employer, seemingly taking pity on them.
“The Grand Duchy of Velzenia!? What’s that!?”
“I’ve never heard of it either!”
“Behave! “
They were immediately scolded for their misconduct and made to formally sit for half a day but whatever, along with the formal knight attire and equipment provisions supplied to them afterwards were clearly of the highest quality, exceeding what was paid in their contract fees by their families.
Escorting a luxurious carriage with matching white horses on splendid horses given to them, Bridget and the others were led to the former Duke territory where the aforementioned lady sisters originated from. Half-resigned that the princess they would serve somehow wasn’t changing, who they met was the real deal [fairytale-like princess].
With golden hair and golden eyes, a beauty too fantastical to exist in humans. An angel crafted by gods.
Everyone was overwhelmed by just how “princess-like” she was, body and mind paralyzed in shock. At the same time, they were reminded of the letter they first received advertising the position.
[Is there a princess to whom you would fully dedicate your sword?!]
Yes, this person was the [only princess] they should offer their swords for.
The princess of the Grand Velzenia Duchy carrying royal blood.
The true saint who saved many children at the expense of her own body during a certain incident.
Sixth-in-line for the succession to the Holy Kingdom Tariteldo throne.
Her Royal Highness Eurushia von Velzenia.
It was only natural they would become enraptured in their very souls upon seeing as a young child, carried in the arms of His Majesty the King with nearly everyone gathered in the castle courtyards feverishly cheering when the still young [Princess] was presented.
“Princessss!”
“Banzai for Princess Eurushia!”
“Kyaahhh! My princess!”
“Princess Eurushia, cute!”
Of course, Bridget, Sarah and the other girls present raised their hands and shouted three Banzai cheers, screaming out their exhilaration as well.
That this lovable, beautiful person was [their one and only princess].
“Alright! Let’s enthusiastically practice our “training” today too!”
“””Ohh!!”””
Once again today, the unladylike shouts of girls echoed within the courtyard of the Grand Velzenia Duchy estate.
Instead of actual knight training, they were practicing [Cool Ways of Presenting as the Princess’s Knight Guards] again today.
“””For our princess!!!”””
Afterword
This is Haruhi no Hiyori, the author of this book.
Thank you very much for picking up my work.
This work was originally a web novel, my first work published online. At that time, I had never read a web novel before and just randomly checked out the 1st ranked web novel on a site I happened to see. I somehow got hooked and by the time that work ended perfectly, I was fired up enough that three months later, I was writing this work.
The reason I wrote this work was literally on [momentum] but I did have a concept. From all the various works I read, imagining [if a character like this appeared, it’d be havoc], the concept I formulated was [in a world where multiple stories take place concurrently, an anomaly that can fundamentally destroy those narratives completely exists nonchalantly as just a supporting character nearby the protagonists].
Let’s imagine for a bit. An abomination more horrifying than the demon king is smiling innocently next to the hero struggling to save the world.
If the villain young lady and transmigrator heroine in an otome game are working desperately towards the capture target prince and happy end but the villainess’ little sister was actually a genuine monster, what would happen to that story?
So the more serious the side stories are, the more jarring it feels.
Since basically, everything’s told from only the first person point of view of the protagonist, the temperature difference from the serious third person perspective is likely chilling.
This book is my second work as an author, but it was discovered by the editors at Kodansha who have been reading this work since its web debut. Thanks to them, I am able to deliver it to all of you.
However, since it’s an early work, the way I express myself is different, and trends, information, and my writing style have changed. After considering what to do, I decided to rewrite the entire thing from scratch without changing the content, using my current writing style.
The content remains the same. The wording is different. I’ve also added some parts. Additionally, I’ve made a few adjustments to the settings to align with the web version’s final chapters.
This book also has a comic adaptation, illustrated by Mr. Shiki Satoshi. This adaptation is set in the modern Earth arc of the second part, and I’m looking forward to it as well.
The illustration for the book version is done by Mr. Geso Umiu. I’ve been fortunate to have talented illustrators, and Mr. Geso Umiu has created wonderful illustrations for this book.
I want to express my utmost gratitude to these two, to Kodansha and its affiliates, to the bookstores that will stock the book, and most importantly, to the readers who support this book.
Please continue to support Eur in the future!
That’s all for volume 1, Volume 2 English translation will begin sometime in February. Also please check another interesting novel I translated titled : Who Killed The Hero?
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