That night, Euphy went to her first mixer.
Because she’d only lived in monasteries for the last nineteen years, Euphy’s idea of a ‘college mixer’ was still largely based on American television and her own brief high school experience.
She’d expected something like a community center room with fluorescent lights and ugly plastic chairs in an old, asbestos-lined building. If she showed up in time she might get pizza and juice, and if she was late then she’d be lucky to get a stale bowl of pretzels and a sweating pile of cheese cubes in a will-they-won’t-they relationship with listeria.
So when she walked into the hall and saw what she was in for, she froze in shock.
Right. Of course. What had she been thinking?
Aegis was the place the imperial family sent their children to, a place where even nobles had to compete to attend, where the yearly tuition cost was as much as a small mansion.
It was the poshest private university in the country, if not the entire continent, and the enormous ballroom sprawled out before her forced Euphy to finally grapple with the fact that she was attending a ludicrously fancy school.
A realization that instantly made her ten times more nervous than she already was.
Huge chandeliers glittering with thousands of magelights hung over the room, casting it in a rosy golden glow. A grand staircase swept down from the entry dais and to the dance floor below, where a few hundred people primped and coiffed to perfection were currently milling. The white stone walls glinted every few feet with gold-leafed carvings and gilded mirrors that made the place seem even bigger than it already was.
Like a spider skittering past a person in the shower, Euphy ducked her head and dashed down the stairs as unobtrusively as possible.
Luckily for her, she didn’t stand out very much. The white robes she wore, woven out of slightly luminescent moon-rabbit wool from Kos Monastery, were not as fancy as other attendee’s outfits but were nevertheless of high enough quality that she didn’t appear out of place. Their color even blended in with the wall she put her back against, providing some camouflage.
So… what was she supposed to do now?
How did people actually meet at these things?
Looking out at a sea of sparkly people, Euphy couldn’t help but suspect everyone here already knew each other by the easy way they interacted. Was she supposed to just pick someone and go talk to them? What if they didn’t want to talk to her? What if there was some way she was supposed to know who was and who wasn’t open to meeting new people, and by missing that signal and bothering them anyway, they’d look at her with annoyance or pity? Then later they might talk to each other about just how embarrassing she was and—
Euphy’s face, which looked unfriendly even when she was feeling neutral, unconsciously tightened into a furious expression.
Somehow she seemed to have become adhered to the wall, and no matter how she berated herself she couldn’t convince her feet to move towards anyone. The more she tried, the more tense she became, until she was practically vibrating under the strain.
The worst part was, she knew she was freezing up because she was nervous, but that knowledge did nothing to rectify her situation. In fact, it only made her more frustrated, and that frustration turned into anger, and that anger became an intense desire to beat herself up for being such a coward when it came to this kind of thing, and as a result her furious face was now enhanced by a full-body aura of simmering murderous intent.
People who wouldn’t have noticed her before now did, and immediately gave her as wide a berth as possible.
… This was a stupid idea.
She should have known better, but something about the confident way Professor Iphis suggested she go make some friends had made her think she might actually be able to do it. It wasn’t like she never talked to strangers, but for some reason so many strangers together in one place made her feel like she was up against a monster.
Actually, that wasn’t true. She’d faced plenty of monsters, and knew for a fact she’d feel way more comfortable with something gigantic and mutated trying to eat her than she did standing where she was right now.
She consoled herself with the knowledge that she wasn’t the only wallflower here, but when she dared to try and make eye contact with any of them, they got one look at her face and moved away as fast as they could.
Well… fuck it.
Screw making friends, there was something far more important she could pay attention to instead:
The food.
Giving up on speaking to anyone helped calm her nerves considerably, and she went back into sneaky spider mode as she slunk towards the food tables, face lowered so her bangs hid the worst of her expression. Blending in with the other scavengers, she surveyed the options before her.
Monasteries kept their people fed, but their resources and budgets were limited, so the diets there tended to be healthy but monotonous.
Here, in contrast, was a seemingly endless array of dishes and ingredients, the majority of which she didn’t recognize, and all of it looked so beautiful and delicious that it nearly brought her to tears.
In the spirit of her Auntie Maria, who had more than once stuffed an entire loaf of free restaurant bread directly into her purse only to immediately request another, Euphy surreptitiously slipped plate after plate of food into the extra-dimensional storage bracelet Iphis had given her earlier, and then pretended she hadn’t done so. This kind of behavior was considered very rude basically everywhere, but she had no other choice since she was too nervous to eat here. Anyway, food in storage spaces didn’t go bad, and that meant the suffering she’d endured tonight was not in vain.
Also, wasn’t her tuition technically paying for it?
At that realization she shamelessly made a second pass and squirreled away so much more that her bracelet heated up to indicate it was nearly out of room.
Most people used storage artifacts like the one she’d been given to store their rarest and most valuable items.
Apparently she’d opted to use hers as a snack pantry.
Recalling the way Iphis had stuffed it with sandwiches and juice earlier, she felt he probably wouldn’t mind.
Her storage bracelet full and her true mission fulfilled, Euphy resolved to leave, only to be sidetracked by a nearby conversation she couldn’t help but overhear.
”… My cousin told me there was a monster attack in Electis last night—apparently it killed five people.”
“Something got through the wards? Did they catch it?”
“No and no—he says everyone thinks it was smuggled in, probably for an assassination.”
“How would they know that?”
“Because it was big, fast, and vanished after it took out five guys from the same guild! Someone must have been controlling it, otherwise it would have kept killing until it was caught, don’t you think?”
“Oh, ew… What are the wardens doing, letting something like that get past them? No, hold on, how do you even sneak something big like that in?”
“My guess? Money. All you’d have to do is bribe a border inspector, or forge a license to say it’s tame…”
The speakers drifted out of hearing range, leaving her standing by herself, thoughtful.
It was a little weird to hear plot points from the game playing out in real time, but she supposed it was a feeling she’d have to get used to.
Also, it was a timely reminder to try and make a good impression on her new roommates.
She decided to continue eavesdropping in lieu of leaving. It was a bad habit of hers, but one she found difficult to break, and as long as she didn’t try to talk to anyone she could avoid freezing up again.
She passed a few more conversations, listening in as she pretended to pause now and then to adjust her clothes, or study a carving, or admire a floral arrangement. She’d only just begun the latter when she heard a masculine voice say:
“I heard there’s a new divine holy mage among the freshmen. Raised as a commoner, although now I suppose she’d be considered one of us…?”
Her ears perked up, and she stared at the flowers even harder.
She understood their confusion. Titles and holiness went hand in hand where the nobility was concerned, which meant any commoner who received a divine blessing would eventually be awarded a courtesy title by the Emperor. She hadn’t been given one since ‘Young Saint’ already was a courtesy title, but she’d chosen not to reveal that fact and keep her identity as a commoner for a few reasons.
One, despite living as a Cydonian for nineteen years, and despite understanding their importance in the country’s ward network, the existence of a noble class squicked her out.
Two, because the moment the rest of the country found out there was a second Saint, people would start flipping the hell out in fear of the next Calamity.
”Really? Isn’t your family looking for a resident healer?” replied a more feminine voice.
”Yes, but what divine mage would go for that? I mean, my father would be thrilled if I did, but…”
”Hold on, you’re thinking about this the wrong way.” The second speaker lowered her voice, her tone now tinged with amusement. “A back-country thing like her would be thrilled to get attention from a gentleman like you, wouldn’t she? All you have to do is convince her you’re not like the other guys, and she’ll do the rest for you.”
Hmm.
Giving up on studying the flowers, she turned around and looked for the speakers.
Not too far away a man and a woman were standing together with their backs to her. Their laughter sounded familiar, so Euphy moved closer.
“Alright, not a bad idea, but… what if she’s ugly?” the man asked his companion.
“Idiot, that’s what concubines are for,” she replied, and gave him a coquettish slap on the arm.
Euphy paused, staring at them as she thought things over.
… Should she go beat them up?
She felt like she should, but doing so would probably draw a lot of attention to her, and she didn’t want that.
However, it’d also been weeks since she’d fought anyone who wasn’t an untrained bandit or a monster, and challenging these idiots to a duel so she could work through some frustration might help her relax. Plus, her secret was already out, wasn’t it? It’d only be a matter of time before everybody knew who she was anyway.
Cracking her knuckles, she decided to introduce herself to some people tonight after all and began to stride towards them.
Then she stopped, finding that her path was abruptly cut off by a mountain.
Looking up, she saw a wide chest covered in a black uniform edged with gold and adorned with a badge in the shape of the imperial crest. Above this dark blue eyes and a pale face like a brick wall stared down at her.
This fellow, she guessed, must be an imperial knight. Only a lunatic would dress up like one if they weren’t, as doing so was very illegal, and the punishment involved a particularly slow and creative public death.
”My Lady,” the mountain said, his voice rumbling down from high up in the atmosphere. “Would you come with me?”
He removed the golden badge he was wearing and offered it to her. Taking it, she felt the magic coming off of it and unhappily concluded that he was the real deal. Everyone encountered the Emperor’s mana at least once in their lives, usually at their childhood baptism, and it had a strange and unnerving quality to it that was impossible to forget.
“Who wants to see me?” she asked, handing back the pin.
“This way,” the knight said, and headed off with the assumption that she’d follow.
Ohhh, that pissed her right off. Either he didn’t know who she was and he was just being rude, or he knew and he was being rude specifically to disrespect her and the Temple.
She considered ignoring him and leaving, but instead chose to give in. There was a slim chance the person who wanted to see her was one of the heroes, and if they were, then she didn’t want to ignore them.
She followed him across the ballroom and to the back, where he opened the door for her. She stepped past him and out onto a wide stone veranda, across from which sprawled a great walled garden, extending acres into the distance where it eventually met up with the mountain and forest beyond. Taking up the majority of it was a massive hedge maze, one of the university’s more famous decorative features, which immediately drew her attention because, ooh! Cool hedge maze!
Oh man, she definitely wanted to go into that later, especially at night when it was so much spookier!
Returning her attention to the veranda, she spotted another knight and a tall man in dark clothing leaning against a table. There were only a few magelights outside, but she could still make out the auburn color of the man’s waist-length wavy hair.
Oh, great, she thought to herself. It’s this asshole.
There were only two imperial children currently attending Aegis, so she’d had a fifty-fifty chance at getting the good one.
She should have known better than to gamble, the events of the previous seven years having firmly proved that luck was not on her side.
No, no, maybe I’m being unfair…?
Just because he’d been an insufferable prick in the game didn’t mean he’d be the same in real life, right? She reminded herself that she shouldn’t be so quick to judge him.
Walking up to the man, she stopped a few feet away. “Second Crown Prince Laertes? I heard you were looking for me.”
She only just resisted adding the word ‘punk’ at the end of that sentence.
”You’re the Young Saint?” he asked in a high-class Aeonian accent.
“I am.”
Don’t be an asshole, don’t be an asshole, she prayed as she tried and failed not to glare back up at him.
He was only twenty, but the way he was lurking in the dark all cold and menacing-like made him seem much older. She hated to admit it but he was also a bit handsome in a gloomy way, with turquoise eyes, an unnecessarily sharp jawline, and smooth skin just a shade lighter than hers. Between the dark clothing, the athletic build, and the way he let his long hair hide most of his face, he looked proper, but she still sensed a subtle insecurity underneath it.
She’d gone to school with someone like that in her last life, someone who tried hard to seem normal but was secretly an obsessive weirdo like her, and she couldn’t help but feel like this guy was only an internet connection away from running a secret special interest blog about… mushrooms, probably. Or medieval history, or corvids. Something like that.
Laertes, for his part, had no idea what sort of human category Euphrosyne had just filed him under, but if he had it would have made him incredibly angry.
So instead of erupting into offended rage, he just stared at her for a few moments and then, with an air of disappointment, drawled, “I thought you’d be prettier.”
Ahhh, there it is.
She let out a little laugh, and the scowl on her face became a rueful smile.
Okay, it turned out he was an asshole in real life too. On the bright side she didn’t feel shy around people she wanted to hit, so she didn’t have to worry about freezing up or getting tongue-tied.
”Oh. It’s not as bad when you smile,” he continued.
I can’t believe you actually talk like this! she thought, twitching as she resisted the urge to slap him.
New chapter title for her memoir: ‘That Time I got Negged by the Crown Prince.’
The worst part was, as much as she wanted to bite back or cuss him out, this jerk might end up the next Emperor. Since she’d be the next Saint, that meant they’d essentially be coworkers overseeing an entire country together until the day they died.
For the sake of the nation and its people, she should at least try to find a way to work around his insufferable personality.
“If you’re done insulting me, would you like to tell me why the hell you so politely invited me here?” she said, unable to hide her annoyance.
At that he raised his eyebrows. “I see you’re sensitive, too.”
…
She let out a sigh, and briefly closed her eyes.
Never mind, screw the nation and its people, this guy was a nightmare.
“Hey, Second Crown Prince Laertes?” she asked, smiling and clasping her hands together in front of herself.
“What?”
“I’d like to cordially invite you to fuck off.”
With a stomp of her foot she threw up a glowing blue wind barrier between herself and the others.
Both the Prince and his knights were startled. She bet they’d only been watching her hands, the lazy bastards.
Everyone defaulted to using their hands for magic, but it was also possible to use one’s feet. However, most people never bothered to learn because it was difficult and uncomfortable on top of how hard magic already was.
Anyone who’d tried to use a pen with their toes knew the feeling. It was exactly like that, only if you wrote poorly you might mistakenly blow yourself up.
Euphy’d only learned to do it because she had a psychopathic survivalist as a mentor, whose training methods sometimes included temporarily disabling a few of her limbs during challenges just to spice things up.
The Prince said something but she couldn’t hear it, so she helpfully pointed at her ears and gave him a helpless shrug. Tempest magic-based shields were very good at blocking out sound, and since she’d pinned the edges of the shield to either side of the building around Laertes and his knights, everything around her remained blissfully quiet.
After that, Laertes didn’t do much more than glare at her with a furious and reddened face, but his knights had begun attacking her shield to try and break it, so she decided that was her cue to leave.
She gave a polite wave and mouthed ‘good luck’ to the trio, then turned and walked off into the garden. Shields were a specialty of hers, so it would probably be a while before they broke out, but…
If they came after her, wouldn’t it be harder to find her if she went into the hedge maze?
This thought was definitely because she wanted to avoid confrontation, and not just because she’d been desperate to go into it the moment she’d seen it.
Without hesitating, she darted inside.
The thorny bushes rose about twenty feet on either side, which meant that as she began walking down the rows she could only see the stars above and the pale gravel path below. She felt very satisfied with this arrangement, observing with approval that the rows were very long with multiple possible paths, and the bushes were tall and thick enough to convey a real sense of danger and claustrophobia, unlike more disappointing mazes she’d visited in her old world.
That said, she knew she was not actually trapped, nor was she in any real danger. Aegis had a lot of policies in place specifically to prevent accidentally killing its wealthy and powerful students, so the most she had to worry about was getting scratched by a bush if she was careless. Plus, according to the university’s brochure, this place was supposed to have a few hidden follies and miniature gardens within it, and that thought made her walk faster in the hopes of finding one.
It was almost enough to cheer her up from her brush with Prince Laertes.
In retrospect, getting angry had probably been a mistake. She should have taken the high road and made him feel like the immature one, instead of running off because she wasn’t in the mood for his bullshit.
Still, why should she have to be polite when he was the one who couldn’t behave? If he had a problem with it then he could duel her, she’d love to have an excuse to hit him and get away with it.
Also, what had possessed the developers to make him a love interest in the DLC? Princes were, in her opinion, by far the worst option for any romance story, period. They were almost always emotionally constipated narcissists whose entire purpose in life was to one day inherit the worst job in the world. Furthermore, how exactly was the Euphrosyne from the game supposed to manage double shifts as both the leader of the Temple and as an Empress? She knew Cydonia’s First Saint had pulled that off, but they’d only married First Emperor Alectryon the Conqueror so he’d stop invading Hesperia.
Not that she’d actually played the DLC. She’d bought it, and she’d planned to, but then the new Animal Crossing came out and she got so busy working on her island and trying to collect all the best cat villagers that she completely forgot about it, and by the time she remembered she was already thirteen years into her reincarnation.
So… whoops.
Still, she was pretty damn sure Laertes wasn’t the kind of guy to give up the crown just so his wife could focus on her career!
“Thought I’d be prettier—ha!” she grumbled to herself, kicking rocks on the path through the hedges.
She could be as pretty as she wanted if she so pleased, damnit! She’d trained in shape-shifting magic for years, it was just that she didn’t think there was anything wrong with how she looked—
Ah. Wait a second.
Where was she?
She realized she hadn’t been paying attention to any of the turns she was taking, and looking around didn’t help much, since every direction looked the same. She was pretty sure she’d passed one of the exits at some point, but she’d skipped it because she hadn’t found anything interesting yet, and she wasn’t sure if she’d turned right or left to get to where she was at the moment.
It was also much darker now that she was further from the building, the deep green leaves around her lit only by thin moonlight from above.
She could still sort of see, but deciding it was better to be safe than sorry, she cast two quick spells. Pressing the corners of her eyes with a brief glow of silver magic, she grew a tapetum lucidim behind each retina, and just like that the dim light around her brightened. A slow swipe of silver mana across the top of each cheek gave her infrared vision, and she wrinkled her nose in mild discomfort at the new pair of pit organs she’d grown. They didn’t hurt or anything, it was just weird to have something sitting against her cheekbones when she didn’t usually.
Happy with the results, she once again moved forward, this time keeping an eye out for an exit.
“I bet the Prince can’t shape-shift at all, the shallow jerk,” she mumbled to herself, still grumpy about earlier.
Of course, the moment she decided to give up and leave, she finally found one of those follies she’d been looking for.
A gap in the rows opened up on a small grassy field surrounding a pond. A willow sat at its edge, its silver leaves dipping into the water and swaying gently in the soft breeze. Just behind it, built out onto the water like an island, was a fake ruin in a pre-Covenant style, designed to look like an abandoned temple.
Euphrosyne was instantly thrilled. So cute! So mysterious! The overgrown grass and wildflowers lining the worn path leading to the folly gave the illusion that it really had been abandoned, and scattered broken statuary tossed here and there added to the ancient ambience.
She stepped onto the path, taking a look around. As far as she could see the place was empty, with just a few spots of warmth here and there that were probably small animals or insects. Heading towards the folly, she paused now and then to admire subtle details arranged by the landscape designers, noting that they must have researched a few real ruins to get things so accurate.
The mountains around Kos had plenty of actual ancient ruins, and Euphrosyne had visited quite a few of them. However, real ruins tended to be a lot more dangerous from both magical and structural standpoints, so she’d been too busy surviving to spend much time enjoying the atmosphere. This place might be fake, but it was far more relaxing.
She’d made it all the way to the pond, past the willow and almost to the steps of the folly when she heard voices.
Damn, she thought, frowning. There were people here, but she hadn’t been able to see their body heat through the thick cold stone of the folly’s walls. If only she’d thought to improve her hearing earlier too, not just her eyes.
Well, that was fine. She was a little disappointed she’d have to skip exploring the ruin, but it was better to just leave than risk running into more jerks. The other exit was much closer to her now than the one she’d entered from, so she decided to just sneak past the folly and go out that way.
It wasn’t until she got closer that she realized the speakers were having an argument.
“… Everytime you’re seen with someone new, I’m the one who gets criticized for it.”
The voice of this person was strained and uneven, as though they were trying not to yell.
“I fail to see how that’s my problem,” came a second voice, their disdain obvious.
“We are engaged! We’re supposed to be partners, that makes it your problem!”
Euphy covered her mouth with her hand.
Oh no.
Whatever they were arguing about sounded juicy.
Wait, no! She was supposed to be sneaking by and nothing else!
She quickened her pace and softened her footsteps.
“We aren’t married yet, so why do you expect me to behave like we are?”
“I’m not! Damon, I am—” Euphy heard someone take in a deep breath like they were trying to steady themselves. “I am not asking you to stop—I am just asking you to be discreet. Please.”
Damon… did she recognize that name? She wasn’t sure.
Either way, from what they’d said so far she could guess at what was happening. Arranged marriages in Cydonia were common, especially among the nobility. Since these didn’t always work out, it was socially acceptable for either party to take concubines in addition, but only after marriage.
Which, honestly, didn’t make a lot of sense to her. If you weren’t okay with an open relationship before you married, why would you suddenly be okay with it afterward? Stupid stuff like that just made real polyamorous relationships look bad.
Either way, it looked like Damon either really disliked his fiancée, or was too much of a dog to wait on starting his harem.
“I see. It’s not that you care for me.” The second voice sounded bitter. “You’re just concerned for your reputation.”
Huh? Why should she care for a whiny thing like you? Euphy thought, incensed. Stupid boy, don’t cheat on your fiancée and then get mad when she’s uninterested!
“That’s not—maybe I could care for you, someday—I don’t know yet, we rarely ever get to talk alone—”
“And you’re using the time we do have to scold me,” the lower voice complained. “Are you sure you’re not just jealous? That I’m capable of enjoying myself before we’re stuck together, and you’re not?”
“I… I’m not that kind of person.”
“No, you’re not, are you? You don’t have an ounce of passion, do you, Princess?”
Wait… Princess? And Damon?
Shit.
She did know who they were.
Nope, time to go, she’d dug enough pits for herself today.
It was her bad luck that, just as she managed to hurry past the folly, the speaker’s volumes rose so that she couldn’t help but still hear them.
“That’s not fair, Damon! You don’t know me!”
“I’ve seen how you’ve behaved so far!”
“Around my parents! Around our attendants, it’s not the same!”
“Then prove it!”
“How!?”
“Kiss me!”
“What!? Absolutely not!”
“If you want me to stop seeing other people, then convince me you’re worth it!“
Euphy heard a yelp, like someone had suddenly been grabbed.
Oh no.
She knew this couple’s engagement was destined to break, almost certainly because of what she was currently overhearing, but she’d assumed it was over a regular argument, not a fight that got physical.
She also knew from the game that the princess in question was more than capable of defending herself, and probably didn’t need Euphy’s intervention. The smart thing to do would be to keep moving and pretend she’d never heard anything.
“Let go of me!” the Princess shouted. “What is wrong with you!?”
Unfortunately, Euphy was also well aware that no matter how strong someone was, fear could still get them hurt.
“Me? What’s wrong with me? Look at how you behave, are you even human?”
In the stunned silence that followed, Euphy’s feet turned around of their own accord.
“Go on, prove you’re not just an emotionless little doll!”
“Stop it!”
“HEY!” Euphy shouted. She thundered up the steps and into the temple so fast that she had to slide to a stop on the stone floor. “Get your hands off of her!”
The two people before her paused in their struggle to stare at her in shock.
Why do you two look so surprised? Arguing in a public garden, not even using anti-eavesdropping artifacts, are you new at this? Euphy mentally admonished them, also unhappy that she’d had to intervene.
“Who the fuck are you?” Damon asked, his furious eyes fixed on Euphy.
Damon turned out to be a relatively short, slim man with long straight hair and a delicate face. She was a little surprised by this because, even though he’d never appeared in the game, the way he’d been described in the Princess’ route made him sound more intimidating than he actually looked.
While Euphy’s modified eyes let her see him clearly despite the low light, the downside was that she couldn’t make out much color, and could only tell that his hair and eyes were pale, his skin was medium toned, and that his dark clothing wasn’t any style she recognized.
The Princess he was holding onto was significantly taller, and it was clear she had some muscle under the dark sleeves of her blouse and pants. Both her long, thick fluffy hair and her eyelashes were a bright white, a contrast to her tan skin.
Unlike Damon, Euphy could see some color on the Princess, particularly the cherry red of her glowing irises and the faint blue light radiating from her sclera.
Ah. That wasn’t good.
This girl, First Crown Princess Chione, was one of the four heroes. If everything had gone as it had in Rabbit Heart, she and Euphy would have met in a few days.
In the game, this happened when the player stumbled over Chione in the library, where the Princess was hiding from her retainers and crying over her broken engagement. The player would comfort her, then friendship and later (if one was playing her route) lesbian shenanigans would ensue.
Although, having overheard the rotten way her fiancé spoke to her, Euphy wasn’t clear on what exactly Chione had to cry over. Maybe they were tears of joy, and the game developers had gotten it wrong?
The only problem with Chione herself was that, even though she was one of the youngest heroes at twenty-one, players ranked her difficulty level as the second-highest, in large part because the answer to Damon’s ‘are you even human’ question was a ‘sort of’ with an explosive asterisk attached to it.
Euphy knew this wasn’t the Princess’ fault, but if she couldn’t get her to calm down she might end up having to rescue Damon instead.
“That doesn’t matter, what you’re doing is assault,” Euphy said to Damon, trying to keep her voice steady.
Euphy’s comment seemed to embolden the Princess, and she put her hands against Damon’s chest and pushed him hard enough to break his grip on her arms. Damon stumbled back a few paces, eyes wide as though startled by her show of strength.
You shrimp, harassing an Amazon, what did you think would happen!? Euphy shouted at him internally, ignoring the fact that she herself was also a shrimp.
“Are you okay?” Euphy asked, directing that at the Princess.
“I’ll give you one chance to leave—” Damon began, only to be cut off by Chione as she asked, “—Were you listening to us?”
Both her voice and her chin quivered, and as she spoke big tears began to roll down her cheeks.
Across from her, Damon had the gall to look surprised by that.
“I—I only heard you ask him to let go,” Euphy lied, feeling a stab of guilt.
It hadn’t occurred to her when she’d rushed in that doing so might embarrass Chione, but it was too late to back out now.
“This has nothing to do with you,” Damon stated, and moved to go back towards the Princess.
Unfortunately for him, Euphy was faster and rushed to stand between the two of them as she said, “Seriously, leave her alone or I’ll slap you across the pond, you creep!”
Right after her threat, Euphy felt the Princess put both of her hands on her shoulders from behind, and the sudden physical contact made her bristle head to toe like a frightened cat. For a moment she worried the Princess was upset with her, but when she looked back she realized that the Princess was just hiding behind her, even ducking down slightly to accommodate for the height difference.
Chione looked at Euphy from over her shoulder, her red eyes no longer glowing, and asked, “Who are you?”
Her voice was gentle yet eager, like she was way more on board with being rescued than Euphy had expected.
“I’m—uh—er, I’m Euphy…???“
She tried to think of something charming or witty to say, but the Princess’ pretty tear-streaked face was so close to hers that she was having trouble remembering her own name.
This was because first of all, she was bad at talking to people even in ideal situations, and second of all, because there was a small unhelpful part of her mind that was distracting her by yelling, Oh my gosh oh my gosh I’m speaking to a real princess—
Euphrosyne knew she had a double standard when it came to princes versus princesses, and that it was unfair. She also generally thought of monarchies as a bad thing, especially Cydonia’s imperial monarchy, which had been doing horrible things to its own people and its neighbors for thousands of years.
However.
She’d spent so much of her last life crushing on princesses like Mulan and Wonder Woman and Zelda that, the moment she came face to face with Chione, she promptly gathered up all of her morals and threw them right out the window.
Princesses just hit different. There wasn’t anything she could do about it.
Damon, livid at becoming a third wheel in his own engagement, spat at Euphy, “Silence! How dare you threaten a prince!?”
“Who cares if you’re—oh, wait, you’re a prince?”
Oh, dang. She’d completely forgotten that Damon was the Prince of Hyperborea.
He was so insignificant to the game that there hadn’t even been official art of him, so how was she supposed to remember what his rank was?
If anything, this was just confirming her earlier bias against princes.
“Yes, you fool! I could have you thrown in jail for what you’ve said!”
“Then next time wear a name tag! Or a crown! I’m not a mind reader!”
“I—just—told you!!!” Damon gasped, almost breathless with rage, his fists clenched at his sides.
“So? Who cares if you’re a prince, scram!”
She then looked back and asked Chione, “Do you want to get out of here?”
Chione nodded, her wavy white hair swaying as she let go of Euphy’s shoulders. Euphy offered Chione her hand, and the Princess grabbed it without hesitation and began to drag Euphy away.
As expected, she’s really strong! Euphy thought as she was tugged along so fast she nearly lost her balance. Slow down! I’m supposed to be the one rescuing you!
Oh, wait a second, does this mean I found all the royal characters in one night? So efficient! If only I’d made myself a character bingo card, I might be winning by now—
“What are you doing!? Don’t you touch her!” Damon snarled.
Euphy, who was no longer stealing the princess and was instead being stolen by Her Royal Highness herself, shot Damon one last judgmental glare as Chione yanked her down the steps and out of the folly.
Earlier she’d been regretting going to the mixer, having run into creep after creep, but being hauled off like this by Chione actually felt kind of fun. Exploring a hedge maze alone wasn’t nearly as exciting as exploring a hedge maze with a beautiful princess, so maybe her luck was turning up after all?
Unfortunately, Damon had other ideas.
Chione and Euphy had just made it to the path when they heard him yell again, “I said stop!!!”
Euphy intended to keep ignoring him, but this time a crackling roar accompanied his shout, and upon hearing it she let go of Chione’s hand and whirled around, throwing up a translucent golden shield. Not a split second later a wave of fire crashed against it.
Her shield absorbed the heat and force, but the spell was so bright and hot that it briefly blinded her modified eyes. She cried out in pain and was forced to dual-cast in order to undo her earlier shape-shifting spells without dropping her shield.
What was wrong with this maniac?
He’d actually attacked them with magic!?
“Are you insane!?” she screamed at him once his spell burned itself out, blinking furiously against the tears and the spots in her vision.
“Am I insane!? You come out of nowhere, eavesdrop on a private conversation, insult and threaten me—” Damon’s face was contorted as he marched down the walkway towards her with fury in his eyes and a new spell burning in each hand. “—And now you think you can run off with my fiancée and I’ll just let you!?”
…
He was definitely still in the wrong, but when he put it like that, she could understand just a little why he’d tried to set her on fire.
Actually, hold on, wasn’t said fiancée right next to her!?
She turned to look for Chione and realized that when she’d let go of her hand to block the attack, the surprised girl had stumbled to a halt a few yards away. Still, wasn’t that pretty close? Did he not care if he roasted the Princess, too?
“Damon, don’t!” Chione shouted, her voice far angrier than it’d been before.
“I’m not done with you either!” he yelled at Chione, and then hurled the flames in his hands at Euphy one after the other.
No! Don’t rile her up again! Idiot, don’t you realize I already saved you once!?
Euphy’s shield didn’t waver as she stood her ground and blocked his attacks.
His strength wasn’t bad, but the Lady had shamelessly min-maxed Euphy for defense when She’d designed her blessing. Euphy might not be able to throw fire back, but she could stand there all night getting hit if she wanted to, and she might have considered that if not for the fact that the idiot had set the field alight!
She watched the flames lick up against the side of one of the hedges and thought, This… is probably bad, right?
… Okay, but even if it’s bad it isn’t my fault, right!?
She’d been trying to defend the country’s Crown Princess!
It wouldn’t be fair for her to get in trouble just because some idiot burned down the university’s precious hedge maze, right!?!?
Unwilling to put up with his temper any longer, she waited for her shield to absorb his next spell and then darted forward. The shield of the Lady was very useful in that it could absorb, store, and reflect back out any energy that hit it, so she planned to give him a kinetic taste of his own medicine and then aggressively bless him into a peaceful stupor.
Damon already had another spell in the works as she headed for him, orange-red mana crackling and popping in a roiling ball between his hands, and Euphy recognized it as an explosive spell miners used to blast through rock in the mountains.
Damn, was this jerk actually trying to kill her?
Gritting her teeth, she’d nearly made it to him and was preparing to smack the crap out of the little shit just as he moved to launch his own spell—
—But unfortunately for both of them, the Princess was faster.
The signs of danger were subtle: a slight shift in air pressure, a sudden drop in temperature. All things that might have happened naturally, but instinct warned her that wasn’t the case. By the time the terrifying sound began, a cacophonous chiming and shattering that reminded her of ice breaking on a thawing river, she’d already reacted, freezing her shield in mid-air in front of herself and then slamming into it, using her own momentum to throw herself backwards. It was not a graceful move, and she ended up landing on her butt, but by doing so she narrowly missed being mowed down by the cascade of gigantic ice spikes that erupted past her as big and as fast as a freight train.
The force of the spell was such that it carved through the ground itself, breaking through part of the pond, willow, and ruins without mercy, while kicking up so much debris that Euphy had to reclaim her shield and hide beneath it to avoid being hit by falling dirt and rocks.
Blinking in the aftermath of this, Euphy thought, Oh, wow. I think I almost died just now.
The ice vanished soon after it appeared, bursting into snowflakes and melting into the long crater it had plowed through the field and hedges. Euphy heard a pained moan and looked past the ditch to see that Damon, on the other side, had been thrown onto his back.
Standing some distance away, panting heavily, was the Princess. This time it wasn’t just her red eyes that were glowing, now every inch of her skin seemed illuminated by a faint blue light. Her white hair floated in a ghostly tangle behind her, and that in addition to the fanged snarl on her face made her look more like a force of nature than a person.
Seeing this, Euphy couldn’t help but shiver. She’d known it was a bad idea to piss off a greater spirit, but this demonstration really helped that knowledge sink in.
As she scrambled to her feet, trying to figure out whether or not Chione would attack again, a small part of her couldn’t help but observe the fluffy, round gray and white ears now poking out of the Princess’ hair, couldn’t help but look at that long, thick tail with its pretty black rosettes that was slashing angrily behind her, and think, … Cute.
Sure, she might die if she tried, but 10/10, would pet.
Damon made another pained sound and began to sit up. Though she was a little afraid to look away from Chione, she nevertheless took the risk and glared at him, trying to convey with her eyes that, This! Is! Your! Fault!
“What…?” Damon asked, his voice dazed as he looked at the path of destruction, and then at Euphy, daring to frown at her as though she’d caused it!
She gestured furiously with her eyes, trying to get the idiot to notice his glowing soon to be ex-girlfriend standing a few yards away.
When he finally got the hint and saw the Princess, he flinched and asked in a frightened voice, “Chione…?”
Oh now you’re afraid?
Euphy shook her head and gestured for him to be quiet, worried his cannon fodder brain would make him say something ridiculously stupid like, ‘ahh a monster!,’ but he wouldn’t look back at her at all.
“Are you alright?” he sensibly asked instead, and it was unclear if the tremor in his voice was fear for himself or worry for Chione.
Regardless, something about his question seemed to snap the Princess out of it. One moment she was competing with the fire to light up the field, and the next she was back to normal, except that now she was looking in horror at the destruction she’d caused.
Euphy, taking a look as well, wondered, Does this count as finding the maze’s exit?
The Princess’ spell had blasted clear through the entire garden, the pit dug by its force extending all the way through the hedge maze and the stone wall in the far distance, where it eventually vanished into the dark forest beyond.
“I… I’m sorry…”
Chione began to shake, perhaps realizing she’d nearly killed them both.
“I’m sorry, I really didn’t mean to,” she continued, those cute ears flattening against her head unhappily, tears once more dripping down her face as she covered her mouth and choked, “I’m really sorry…”
From the distance came shouting, and all three of them startled. Euphy had a sneaking suspicion it might be coming from Laertes’ knights, freed from her spell and coming to investigate why the peaceful garden their Prince was in was suddenly getting blown up.
As though to emphasize this thought, a part of the burning hedge collapsed in on itself, setting the bushes in the row behind it alight as well.
Chione took a few steps back, looking around with wild eyes like a trapped animal. Damon, noticing this, got to his feet and tried to reach out to her, saying, “Chione, wait—”
But before he could say anything else, she turned tail and ran away.
Damon stood there with a shocked look on his face like the big idiot he was and watched her go.
Soon, the sounds of people came closer.
“Psst! Dumbass!” Euphy whisper-shouted, “What are you doing!?”
He looked at her in confusion.
“Don’t just stand there and get caught!” Euphy hissed even louder. “Fucking run!!!”
The severity of his situation finally dawned on him, she could see it in the way his eyes widened and he grew very still.
“Over here!” someone yelled, close enough for them to hear it clearly.
Taking this as their cue, Euphy and Damon scattered in opposite directions.