CH 86.1

Chapter 86.1: Kuroki-Sensei’s Honey Lesson

◆Dark Knight; Kuroki

There was a garden in Demon King castle called Lampas’ garden. There were so many big and thick trees growing inside this garden along with numerous other beautiful flowers blooming inside.

This was the place where Modes invited me to drink tea when I’d just come into this world.

The place where we drank tea was in a corner in this garden, I mean, this garden was HUGE.

The Demon King’s castle was really huge and so was its garden. Rather, it was more like a forest rather than a garden.

And by the way, the ones who managed this forest were the dark elves. They, who had deep ties with wood spirits, were the best gardeners for this garden.

And now, I’d been called to come to this garden of Lampas.

Both Modes and I were sitting at the table and chairs prepared at one corner of that garden, enjoying some tea.

「Here you go, Your Excellency.」

The queen of dark elves Mintia brewed the tea for us.

Mintia was the mother of the apparition general, Shirley.

Despite having lived the longest amongst the dark elves, her appearance looks even younger than her daughter Shirley’s.

My status might be second only to Modes in the Demon King’s army, but I would’ve never expected that the queen herself would brew the tea for us.

There were many Lords that submitted under Modes, the High-Lord, in Nargol.

There were also the thirteen orc lords and the seven goblin lords, with Datie being one of them.

But, there was only one dark elves’ lord, Mintia.

Even amongst the Daemon tribe, the strongest tribe in Nargol, there were only three lords. Or four, if the fallen angel tribe was included in the equation.

Even with such rarities, dark elves’ lord rarity goes one rank higher.

「Thank you very much, queen Mintia.」

Mintia replied with a sweet smile as she took a step back after I expressed my gratitude to her.

And just like that, she joined the ranks of dark elf maids behind her.

I then looked at Modes, the one who’d invited me for tea.

In front of us was a lovely tart-like sweet made from raspberry to accompany our tea.

It seems to be Modes’ favourite sweet. I also received the same tart.

「Eh? Me teaching swordcraft to Her Highness Polen?」

I couldn’t hide my surprise upon hearing Modes’ request.

「Yeah, Kuroki. I don’t know why but… Polen suddenly said to me that she wanted to learn swordcraft.」

A few days ago, I collided with Polen in the corridor. When I recalled the memories of that day again, her appearance did resemble Modes. And her strength could only be described as monstrous, even by my standards.

Though I managed to somehow avoid a direct collision, the residual strength alone was enough to numb my arm. Should I say, as expected of Modes’ child.

That encounter was also my first encounter with Polen. So what made her want to learn swordcraft from me?

「My apologies, Modes. I’m also still far from being a master. I’ve yet to have the qualification to teach someone…」

I desperately shook my head in denial.

「Please stop being such a humble person, Kuroki. Everyone in the world already knows that you’re the strongest swordsman in Nargol. If you say that you have yet to have the qualifications, no one in Nargol can say that they have the qualifications either. Moreover, Polen, who is always staying in her room, finally wants to come out. My apologies for asking this but, will you teach her?」

Modes went as far as bowing his head to me.

This was a troubling matter. There was no way I could refuse his request when he was willing to go this far for his daughter.

I also heard about Pollen on the way to this garden.

Polen has been hiding in her room since she hated her appearance.

Maybe because he thought that it was his fault, Modes could only heave a sigh, unable to do anything for his daughter.

In addition, I heard that her relationship with her mother, Mona, who loves her father with all her heart, has deteriorated ever since she said that she hates her father’s appearance.

As a result, their family relationship had grown cold.

Nevertheless, for Modes, Polen was still his adorable daughter.

For some reason, Polen’s action was like that of a hikikomori. [TL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori]

「But, even if you say such a thing…」

「PLEASE, KUROKI!!!」

Modes was literally pleading to me right now.

I was troubled.

I was clearly ill-suited to guiding someone.

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Much less to say that the other party was a princess. I was really bad at dealing with girls.

Kuna aside, I had no recollection of getting along with other women other than Shirone.

Maybe that was the reason I was spending less and less time outside.

But then, I couldn’t help but feel responsible when he asked me to teach his daughter.

「I understand. If you’re okay with it…」

I agreed unwillingly.

◆Princess of Hell; Polen

「Please take care of me, Master!!」

「Best regards, Your Excellency.」

Currently, I was meeting Master Kuroki in the training grounds near the Demon King Castle.

This was the training ground for the orc soldier.

Honestly speaking, there should be many orcs training right now, but I couldn’t see any of them around right now.

The reason they’d vacated the training grounds was that I’m gonna use this ground for training. That’s why none of the soldiers approached the training ground.

The training ground was huge. And no roof to cover it. For that reason, we could see Nargol’s dark sky.

Poh-chan has been fidgeting nervously since we arrived at this training ground.

I wanted to talk with master Kuroki.

He had the appearance rivalling that of Elios’ gods while being my dear father’s comrade after all. And he was really kind on top of that.

That’s why I wanted to meet him once again.

And this training was the result of my consultation with Poh-chan.

The result of our discussion was, “Let’s use sword craft training as a reason to get close to him”.

「Best regards to you too, Your Highness Polen.」

Master Kuroki replied to our greeting with a smile on his face.

It was such a kind and gentle smile.

He seems to use “Diehart” as his alias in order to prevent the hero party from realizing his name.

「I hear that you want to learn swordcraft from me but, Your Highness, have you ever held a sword before?」

I shook my head when Master Kuroki asked me that question.

「Nope. I’ve never held a sword before.」

「I see, let’s start from the way to hold a sword then.」

He then gave me a wooden sword as he spoke.

「Please try to swing this.」

「Y-YES!! HEYAA――――！！」

I swung the wooden sword with all my might.

But, since I put too much power into my swing, the sword ended up slipping from my hand and striking the ground beneath me.

KABOOO―OOOOOOOOOM!!

A moment later, a thunderous explosion resounded throughout the entire training ground.

Upon a closer look, I saw that the wooden sword which slipped off from my hand had already broken to pieces right in the middle of the crater that had just been created.

「Uhm… Your Highness… You put too much power into your swing just now.」

Master Kuroki made a dumbfounded look on his face as he told me so.

「My apologies, Master. I broke the sword.」

I ended up losing such a precious article in a single swing.

「D-Don’t worry about it, Your Highness!! I shall bring a replacement for you!! Here, please use this!!」

Master Kuroki handed over the second wooden sword as he said so.

It seems he got flustered after seeing the dejected look on my face.

Nevertheless, for it to break in a single swing, wasn’t this wooden sword way too fragile?

「Well then, Your Highness. Please try to swing the sword again.」

「Y-Yes!」

I tried to swing the sword again.

「First, don’t grasp the hilt too strongly. Please keep some distance between your right-hand and left-hand.」

Master Kuroki then touched me as he gave me some pointers.

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My heart felt like it was about to explode when Master Kuroki brought his face closer to me.

「BUHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIHI――――!!」

I was too nervous to the point that I ended up making a strange shrill.

「Uhm…? Is something the matter, Your Highness?」

Master Kuroki got away from me as he asked such a question with a puzzled look on his face.

DAMMIT!! I GOT TOO EXCITED JUST NOW!!

「NO!! NO PROBLEM!! BUHI!!」

I shook my head in desperation, trying to quell his worry.

「Well then, please try to swing it carefully without putting too much power this time, Your Highness.」