Chapter 13

’It doesn’t matter whether that idiot dies or not!’

I looked through the spell book, trying to forget about the future that has bothered me for the past few days.

’He deserves it. God is punishing him for being so cheeky.‘

And he’s Stella’s fiancé to boot it off! They’re a well-matched couple. Although they won’t last forever.

By the way, I don’t know why, but Ark has been training alone ever since that day closely to the place where Regen is training. We were training in a space far away from the center of the training ground, where both the Holy Knights and the Royal Knights had a joint practice, so his behavior was questionable.

‘…… How can you not care about it?‘

Regen is the type of person who constantly feels a lot of pressure on him, but now he was always on edge because Ark kept hanging around. Once, I asked Ark why he was training here, but I was speechless when he answered back:

“Did the princess rent this place? It’s a shared place.”

‘Oh, yes. Do as you please…’

Today, I decided to practice fog magic. It is not too difficult to create fog around me by using elemental magic, but it was highly ineffective at my current level.

If you learn this magic properly, it will be very useful to distract the people following me by limiting their sight when I will run away.

“Calígo.”

As I tried to organize the spells that I have learned so far in my head and cited the spell, a faint fog soon bloomed around me.

“Wow! Princess, what did you do?”, Regen, who was practicing swinging his sword, looked at me in surprise.

“Don’t talk to me, Regen. I have to concentrate.”

Once the mana gets disturbed, the fog will disappear quickly, so I was concentrating with all my might, but Regen came to me and touched the fog by waving with his hands.

“Wow, if you could use this magic more efficiently, it would be useful during the war. The enemy wouldn’t be able to see us!”

“One needs a lot of mana to do that. It’s manageable when used against only a few because it won’t take a lot of mana, but when used against many opponents it consumes toon much mana compared to its duration. So it’s not useful to use in war!”

I was irritated by his over-excited interruption.

“It’s amazing, though. Oh, how about you use this spell to help me train? Attacking an invisible enemy! Don’t you think it would help awaken all my senses?”

Looking at the glistening eyes of Regen, I thoughts he’s a knight through and through, too. All he can think of is war and fighting.

“…okay, but first I have to practice until I’m proficient at it!”

“Okay, I won’t disturb you anymore”, he smiled and went back to practice.

Does he know I’m weak against his smile? Honestly, his smile is so pretty! I also tried to memorize the spell again and focus on making fog, but this time the back of my head stung.

“What is it?”, when I turned around, Ark was staring at me, “Why do you keep looking at me? This space may be open to everyone, but if you keep staring at me, I’ll make sure you loose your permission to be here!”

When I screamed, Ark was startled and his face turned as red as his hair. He hesitated to say something, then turned around, and continued his personal training.

‘What the hell is wrong with him?’

Are you mad because you’re not allowed to pick a fight? The doubts did not go away, but I decided to leave it alone. After all I knew that he was going to face a tragic fate soon.

Only a few days later the incident took place.

༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

“Wow, I can’t see you anymore, princess”, said Regen while struggling to see me, who was right in front of him.

After a few days of hard work, I was able to fully master the spell. Although after using it once, I’ll be exhausted for the full day and fall asleep instantly in the evening…

I sneaked up behind him and slapped him on the back with a wooden sword.

“Huhu, but I can see Regen.”

I smiled as I dispelled the fog spell, and he smiled at me with a huge grin. However, his expression soon darkened and he lamented in a melancholy voice: “The princess is so young and learns the spells so fast… Meanwhile I’m much older than her but even training for a long time, I haven’t made any progress at all…”

‘No, you’re trying to cause trouble again!’

As Ars Conpero, the competition between the knight divisions, approached, his condition was constantly worsening.

I’ve been watching him lately, which is why I found out that Shellman paid special attention to him, whose swordsmanship is the strongest among the current apprentices.

That’s why Shellman seems to be rather strict with him, but she doesn’t seem to know that her training method is like poison for Regen, who has a weak mind, so I seriously considered to give him a hint.

However, no matter how good his swordsmanship was, he had to be able to use divine power to counter Dignitas, who are able to use magic. Knowing that, he gradually became unable to concentrate while practicing swordsmanship.

As I approached him to patted him, I heard a sharp scream from the side: “Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!”

“?!”

At the same time, I turned my head to the place where I heard the sound from, and Ark was in great pain while holding his sword.

“Ahhh… Woahhhh!”

The black blue flame around the cling of his sword was about to spread to his hands.

‘It’s Flama Gladius!’

It is a flame technique that only a very small amount of magic swordman are able to wield. If used well, it would have a great impact in the war, but it was the most important to learn the skill properly so that it won’t affect you. But he didn’t seem mastered the basics of it yet and thus had no real control over it.

“Ahhhhhh!”

“Oh my god!”

I ran over to Ark quickly. He was trying to let go of the sword, but his already burned hand was stuck to the sword and could not be easily removed. Seeing the fire burn more and more dark blue, it was clear that he couldn’t control his mana.

At this rate, he will quickly run out of the mana saved up in his body and fall into the irreversible state of mana depletion.

“Regen, call Papa here! Quickly!” ,shouted I to Regen, who was currently hesitating whether to go to Ark or to where the Knights were gathered.

As I ran to Ark, I quickly thought about which of the spells I had memorized would be helpful right now, but I couldn’t think of the right one.

The water element magic I’m able to use now won’t be enough to extinguish that fire. I need a stronger opposing spell…. No, magic won’t be enough. We have to use the divine power here! But can Phaeon arrive on time?

At that time, Ark swung his sword in agony and part of its flame fell off and flew into my direction. In the moment when I thought about having to avoid it, the huge flames were already right in front of me.

‘No, will this the end of this life?’

While I felt its heat, my life flashes before my eyes.

I opened my eyes.

The intense light surrounded me so that I couldn’t open my eyes completely at first. I collapsed in the light. After a few tense seconds, the surroundings became quiet. I put my face on the ground while trembling and stopped breathing to hear anything. I couldn’t even raise my head up. Actually, I don’t know if I’m dead or alive.

‘If I reincarnated again after death, I would have a headache, but I guess that’s not the case!’

I looked up carefully, feeling no pain. And I saw a really amazing sight: Regen stood there holding Ark’s sword with his bare hands. The blue flame, which enveloped Ark’s sword, disappeared and was replaced by white light instead. Regen slowly took his hand off the sword and moved it to Ark’s burned hand. Ark was shivering and shedding tears in pain. As Regen wrapped his hands around his, the white light appeared and his wound began to heal.

“Regen… …is using divine power”, murmured I blankly.

When Regen pulled his hands away from Ark, Ark dropped the sword and slumped down as if his legs had had given up.

“Regen! Regen was using divine power!”

With a bright smile, I jumped up and tried to run to Regen, but when I found something scary, I hardened like a stone: “Papa…”

Phaeon stood there with a terrified expression on his face: “What’s all this about?”

He tried to suppress it, but his voice was full of anger. The pressure was so terrifying that we were all frozen in place and couldn’t say a word. The legendary Medusa seemed to appear behind him.

“It is prohibited by apprentices to use the highest level magic without at least someone of the vice-captain’s level or higher present. Ark Eleanor, wouldn’t you have known about that?”

“…”

Ark was still shocked about what had just happened and only shed tears.

“Now that you’ve done this, there will be now complaints about you being permanently expelled from the Royal Knights”, said Phaeon coldly.

What do you mean permanent expelled?

I don’t know whether his fate to die as a knight would be be better than this. Wouldn’t it be better not to be a knight forever than to die in vain as one? But seeing him crying as if the world had collapsed…

“Ah… No, Papa”, my mouth was moving on its own, “I asked him to show me.”

Phaeon looked at me with disbelief. Shellman, who came late, opened her mouth and looked at me: “Pr- princess!”

Regen shouted as if I was saying some kind of crap, but I didn’t look at him and said clearly: “Don’t expel him.”

Ark probably got nervous when I, who was much younger than him, used the magic he couldn’t. That’s why he did such a stupid thing. I now know shouldn’t have used magic on him in our first meeting… but still, he was too young to be expelled for this.

“Do you know what you’ve done?”, said Phaeon with his teeth clenched, “You could have died!”

“…”

I bowed my head without answering. Even though I was sad, I couldn’t take back the words I had already said.

“From today onwards, the princess will be banned from entering the training grounds”, he returned to his usual emotionless voice, barely genuine, “You don’t have any objection, do you?”

I nodded helplessly.

༻﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡﹡༺

Where on earth could I train now? …I spent a week lying down doing nothing. Honestly, it’s a lie saying that I don’t regret it. In fact, I was under the illusion that I became a little close to Phaeon, so I thought I could change his mind after a while. But he must have been very angry, which is why he didn’t even come to the dining room after that day. It’s no different from the beginning!

“Princess, you have a guest”, said Rosa outside the door.

A guest?

I don’t think there’s someone who would come to see me. I jumped out of bed.

“Princess!”, as soon as the door opened, Regen came running with a bright smile on his face.

“Regen! How are you?”

“Great! I can use divine power now. It still doesn’t work when I’m nervous, but I’ve already succeeded several times since!”

“Regen, you’re doing really well. Congratulations! But…”

Someone was standing behind Regen, hesitating to come out.

“…huh?”

“Princess!”, Ark knelt before me suddenly and stuttered, “I… I wanted to ask the princess officially to teach me magic. But the words didn’t come out of my mouth and then… then …”

He couldn’t speak properly as if he was choked up and trembled beneath me.

“The princess saved my life. If I had been permanently expelled from the Knights, I would have died at my father’s hands. I don’t know how to repay this favor…”

I looked at him still for a moment. I have no intention of being a savior. It’s too much to protect my body, but who saved whom? There will be no end to it.

‘…I’m the last one to meddle in someone else’s fate.’

I spoke quietly: “Make sure you swear an oath of obedience to Asha.”