Chapter 4

Rhinese al voth Alda stood on the balcony of her room. Staring at the stars. She holds a rather interesting position: she is the Regent Princess of the Aldaen kingdom

The Regent Princess is a unique existence that only appears in the Aldaen Kingdom.

The concept of Regent Princess was something that originated with the kingdom’s thirteenth king. A Regent Princess is essentially the pseudo-Queen. She performs all the rights and has all the obligations of a queen, while the king and queen are still in power. The idea is that the princess learns to properly perform the duties of a queen while still in a position to be advised by her mother.

Unlike most kingdom’s in the world the Aldaen kingdom doesn’t pass the crown to the eldest male child, but the eldest child period. If a female is the eldest she gets the crown. If a male is the eldest he gets the crown. Since Princess Rhinese is the eldest she gets the position of Regent Princess. If her brother Prince Zaike had been born before her he would have been named the Regent Prince. Simple.

Here’s where it gets complicated: if the Regent Prince/Princess shows they are unworthy of the position of King/Queen, after their tenure as ‘Regent’ then the next child will be named ‘Regent.’ If they show that they are worthy then they are named the Crown Prince/Princess.

The Crown Prince/Princess is the next in line for the throne and will hold the position until they inherit the throne or they show they are unworthy. It was a complicated process and gave most people involved a headache. The reason the practice was upheld despite the sets was because of how successful it was.

A prime example of how successful this practice was this generation. Rhinese is only the second born of the king. The firstborn Prince Kaine actually got pretty far in the process he was even named Crown Prince.

Crown Prince Kaine held his position for less than 24 hours before the honor was stripped from him. During the celebratory banquet he’d had a little too much to drink and proceeded to go partying with his friends. Then in his drunken stupor the Crown Prince performed serious acts of vandalism and burned down several buildings.

It was determined that Crown Prince Kain vir ank Alda was no longer fit for his position and was stripped of his Crown Prince rank. The only possible way he could have gotten his rank back was if a trial had found him not guilty of his crimes. Needless to say his trial found him guilty.

The Prince lost his rights to the title of ‘Prince’ and became Fallen Royalty: Royalty who had committed a serious crime. For his crime he spent several months in a cell before being strapped in public. The King and Queen had mercy on him and allowed him to remain in the castle, but he had lost any and all of his former powers as prince. He even received a title to reflect his actions. Being considered Fallen Royalty is the same as never existing in the line of succession; which is why Princess Rhinese is considered the eldest even if she technically isn’t.

After the prince was strapped in public Princess Rhinese was named the Regent Princess, and has been serving her term ever since.

“Well,” Regent Princess Rhinese muttered to herself, “Kaine always coveted the throne for the wrong reasons. He would have destroyed the country.”

Princess Rhinese looked up and watched the stars.

She and Kaine had never gotten along, but it was especially bad ever since she had been named Regent Princess. It was clear that Kaine wouldn’t take this while sitting down.

Her parents had been too soft on him. It was true that Kaine was the first Regent Royalty to fail in such a big way. Most of the past Royalty who failed did so because they weren’t suited for the position or because the King/Queen had a role they were better suited to.

Kaine was the only one to fail by becoming Fallen Royalty.

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Princess Rhinese sighed. This thought process wouldn’t get her anywhere and moping about her brother would only increase her stress.

She reached out with one hand and held it in the air as she focused her mana to it. It coalesced into her finger and spread out forming her status screen allowing it to float in the air in front of her as she checked it.

Rhinese al voth Alda

Titles: Regent Princess, Cold Politician, Kind Healer, Compassionate Healer, Bane of Undead, Slime Hunter, Hated by Slimes, Unyielding

Class: Royalty 22/25

Sub-Class 1: Cruel Priestess 9/10

Sub-Class 2: Determined Priestess 4/10

Alignment: Lawful Good

Health Points (HP): 4600/4600 r/s: 2.1

Magic Points (MP): 390/390 r/s: 3.8

Stamina (STA): 38/80 r/s: 2.1 [suspended]

Strength (STR): 19

Agility (AGI): 11

Constitution (CON): 8

Vitality (VIT): 21

Intelligence (INT): 39

Wisdom (WIS): 38

Perception (PER): 24

Willpower (WIL): 106

Charisma (CHA): 78

Luck (LUC): 40

Her WIL had shot up recently because of her ‘Unyielding’ title after that “accident.” Overall her stats were very good for her level. While her Royalty class was standard both her priestess classes were variants.

To gain access to a class you need to learn a related skill like with both her priestess classes. For example she needed to learn Holy magic to gain access to priestess. To get a variant you needed to use the skill in a unique way before getting your class.

Princess Rhinese had used her Holy magic to purify undead with netted her the Cruel Priestess class. It was one of the most offensive classes afforded by Holy magic. To get her Determined Priestess class she had used her Holy magic to buff other people. If she had used it for healing instead she could have gotten the Loving Priestess Class.

Overall Classes were vary complicated and Rhinese had been very lucky to get such excellent classes, especially getting two variant classes; while her Royalty class wasn’t a variant it was still a rare class. The special thing about the Royalty class, even among rare Classes, is that the stat gains is different from Royalty Class to Royalty Class.

Getting the Royalty class was easy enough for Princess Rhinese; all it took was having the Etiquette skill and her Princess title. Rare classes often required unique titles or circumstances to get. The Paladin class requires the skills: Sword Mastery, Shield Mastery, Holy Magic, as well as a special ceremony prepared by a priest or priestess.

Because of how many hoops you have to jump through it is more common to get Paladin as a Sub-Class instead of the primary class. It was often that case with rare or variant classes. Getting them as a primary would mean fulfilling the conditions while level 1 with only your base stats. For most people it would be near impossible to get a variant primary class.

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Princess Rhinese had especially high stats for royalty. She would often go dungeon delving with a group of knights; acting as support for buffs and healing, or at least she used to. All royalty are expected to have all three Class slots filled with reasonably high levels. How can you expect your Queen to be weak?

Princess Rhinese enjoyed dungeon delving and getting stronger, meaning that her level was much higher than most other 19-year old royals. Unfortunately she’d had less time to delve ever since her rise to Regent Princess. It sucked.

There were three dungeons near Falst the capitol city of the Aldaen kingdom. The first was filled with mostly undead the second was a slime dungeon. Her time in the undead dungeon was what allowed her to get her Cruel Priestess class, and she earned a few titles from her horrible experiences in the slime dungeon.

A maid walked up to Princess Rhinese as she was brooding over her stats and trying not to shudder over her memories of the slime dungeon. The maid bowed to her.

“Your Highness, please come to bed. The sun has long since set and it would not be proper for a lady of your standing to be up all hours of the night.”

Princess Rhinese held in a sigh. She had taken to staying up a little late recently because it was the only time she had to her self.

“Very well Sammy, I’ll come to bed. Help me dress?”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Princess Rhinese walked back into her room. Tomorrow would be an exhausting day; in addition to her regular duties she had to visit the holding cells. The guards had found a naked half-dead boy in front of the gate a few hours ago and it was her job to monitor his interrogation and determine if he would be set free.