Chapter 190 Girl talk

A day after the fight between Ashley and Lara, the two alongside Rika, Hilda, Kithra, Rachel, Natasha, and Kuro were in a large room inside the mansion of the Regalcrags wearing their nightgowns. Valdel had practically forced the girls to have this meeting.

At first, he was planning on it simply being a simple meeting between Ashley and Lara, just to clear the air between the two. He was also planning to join in so that he could monitor the situation and act just in case things got out of hand. But when he told the others of his plan, they all told him that he was being creepy. It was at that moment Rika decided that she and all the other girls should have a sleepover so that they can get to know each other.

If all of them were together it might lighten the mood. Valdel was still a bit worried, but in the end, he relented.

...

Rika and the others were already expecting Lara and Ashley to be at each other's throats the moment they saw each other. But contrary to what everyone expected Lara and Ashley looked like they had some kind of understanding and simply nodded at each other upon meeting.

'Is this perhaps the legendary friendship after a battle? Are they now friends and at the same time rivals?" Kuro who was simply filled in about what happened was getting a bit excited seeing how the two acted. She has been recently taught how to read by Galius, and her current favorite books were about hotblooded adventurers that would become better friends after every battle. Seeing the two girls acting the same way as the protagonists of the novel she was reading made Kuro giddy.

"So everyone, thank you for coming today. Because will be working together from now on, I hope to get to know you guys better. So how about we start with some introductions, I'll start. Hello, everyone, I'm Rika Hemlin the bodyguard and close friend of the princess." Rika happily introduced herself.

"I guess I'm next, I'm Kithra basically the oldest one here. So all of you should call me big sis." Kithra who was sitting beside Rika gave her own introduction.

"I'm Hilda Kirche, an A-rank adventurer." Hilda who was also forced to be here was feeling slightly better than before. After a few weeks of thinking about things and consoling her sisters, Hilda had finally accepted what happened to her mother. She then decided that she needed to be stronger than ever, both mentally and physically for her sisters and herself.

"So it's my turn, as you all know I'm Ashley Reschbeauch the only princess of the Reschbeauch Kingdom. I'm also more famously known as the sword princess." Ashley proudly introduced herself.

"Alright it's-" Natasha was about to speak but before she could do so, Rachel spoke first.

"I'm Rachel the holy maiden of the temple of the God of War, it's nice to meet ya." Rachel happily introduced herself. The people who knew the relationship between Rachel and Natasha were already expecting Natasha to be emitting killing intent at this point. But for some reason, Natasha simply continued to smile.

"Oh my, if you wanted to speak first you should've just said so. You really are such a child sometimes... How cute." Natasha then looked at Rachel with pity. When Rachel saw that look of Natasha's, she wanted to rebut but then she noticed the others looking at her as well. There was no proof but Rachel felt like all of them were looking at her the same way as Natasha. Rachel decided to shut up for the time being.

"Hello everyone, I'm Natasha a holy maiden of the temple of Justice. I hope we all get along." Natasha showed a very sweet smile at the others, and for a brief moment, she looked at Rachel with a smirk. Rachel who saw Natasha smirking at her made her feel extremely mad and knowing she couldn't do anything, just made her even madder.

"Greetings, I'm Kuro a knight of New Grenton and a subordinate of my master Valdel. Please take care of me." Kuro who was surrounded by very important people felt a bit out of place. Still, she really wanted to get along with everyone.  The others then noticed the swaying tail of Kuro and upon witnessing such a scene, they couldn't help but smile, all except for Lara.

"I'm Lara." That was all Lara said, which made everyone who was smiling at Kuro now smile awkwardly.

...

After the initial introduction, the girls started talking about random things, from which weapon they prefer using, to what kind of armor feels nice. The topics they were having weren't really something normal girls would talk about. Noticing what was happening, Rika decided to change the topic.

"Since we are all girls here, how about we talk about something else... How about we talk about men? Lika, among the men we know who do you guys like the most?"

"Oh, that's very interesting," Kithra nodded her head in approval.

"Ren," Lara answer without hesitation. When the other girls heard her answer all of them had the same thought 'We already know that.'

...

"I guess if it's the personality I think I like Ren the most, but if it's about looks I'm for Valdel and if it's about the body then Iselv," Kithra answered straightforwardly. Lara frowned for a bit when she heard Kithra's answer. On the other hand, Kuro was blushing while holding her tail.

"I see... As for me, I prefer Valdel overall, he got the looks, the strength, the kindness, and a guaranteed knight position, also from what I heard he's like the kindest person around." Rika gave out her opinion. After Kithra and Rika said their part, the others who were hesitating started to talk as well.

"For me, it's actually a tie between Stephan and Valdel. I can't explain why, but that's just how I feel at the moment." Rachel answered with a tiny bit of hesitation.

"Well as for me it's gotta be Valdel. For some reason, he and I feel a bit similar somehow." Natasha answered while flipping her hair over her ear.

"... Ma-..." Kuro tried answering but she instead started blushing real hard.

"Huh? What did you say?"

"Nothing," Kuro shook her head.

"Come on just say it, who is it that you like?" Kithra chimed in.

"It's alright, no one is going to make fun of you here." Ashley gave her support as well. The others then started to encourage Kuro.

"It's master! I like master Valdel!" Kuro suddenly shouted but then she backed away and covered her face with her tail. The expression she was making was so cute that the other girls wanted to hug her.

"It's alright Kuro no need to feel embarrassed," Rachel spoke to Kuro. While Rachel was trying to calm Kuro down, Ashley was next to tell who she liked.

"I think I like, Ren... Not too sure at the moment, but out of all the men I met he's the one that I'm interested in." Ashley gave her honest opinion, in which Lara simply made a hmph sound.

"So the sword princess likes that Ren... Well, I guess even with his face looking like that, he is someone influential, strong, and rich... Now that I think about it, aside from his face isn't he already the perfect guy?" Rachel suddenly came to a realization and showed a shocked face.

"Ren is already the perfect guy," Lara spoke with a tone that made no room for any argument.

"Well, that's your opinion." Rika joined in the conversation.

"It's not an opinion it's a fact." Lara was not going to back down with this.

"Wait, wait, wait! Before this escalates there's still one person here who hasn't said who she liked." Kithra looked at Hilda, which prompted everyone to look at Hilda. Seeing as she wasn't able to sneak out before anyone noticed, Hilda sighed.

"Ren..." That's all she said, which made Lara show a triumphant expression at Rika.

"You see Ren is superior to everybody," Lara told Rika.

"Um, for your information the people in this room answered Valdel five times, while Ren was four times, Iselv and Stephan one time each. Tell me if I'm wrong but doesn't five defeat four?" Rika answered with a smug look on her face.

"Ren transcends such numbers." Lara then gave out such an illogical answer with a straight face, which then started an even greater argument. The others also started to take sides which made the whole thing escalate.

Though they were arguing one would notice that most of them were smiling, even Lara was smiling from time to time. Their talks continued throughout the night, which made the girls feel a bit closer to each other than before.