The next morning began with me having an aching back and a sore neck. Groaning in pain I rolled off the couch and fell onto the ground. Good grief, this morning already felt as horrible as the entirety of yesterday. I really couldn’t look forward to the rest of the day.

“You are finally awake?”, Maira’s smug voice came over from the close by table and I suddenly noticed the alluring smell of fresh breakfast.

Grimacing I stood up from the ground and rubbed my sore back.

“Let me guess, you planned to leave me asleep while you girls eat alone…”, my mood was already foul so my tone of voice reflected the annoyance I felt.

“I-I’m sorry I tried to wake you, b-but she threatened that she would stun me with magic.”, Riina who was sitting at the table and held a half-eaten piece of bread in her hand stood up and nervously justified herself.

I threw Maira a dark look and sighed.

“Maira, from now on you are not allowed to harm any of my property and every time you try to play a prank on me you will pee yourself.”, the combination of my sleepiness and foul mood led to this somewhat unnecessarily cruel punishment.

The princess stared at me with a gaping mouth. She couldn’t believe what I had just said.

“Are you for REAL?????”, now she really was angry.

I shrugged my shoulders. Thinking about it for a moment it really was a little excessive, but I had no intention to back down at that point.

Letting out a loud yawn I sat down onto a chair and began to eat. Maira also began to stuff herself with food, occasionally throwing angry and somewhat teary looks towards me. Riina and Ilea were absolutely silent while eating their share of the food.

Having something to fill my stomach and with the pain from my back lessening a little my, mood gradually improved.

“Ok I take back my last order. You are still no allowed to harm Ilea or Riina in any way but if you try to play pranks on me you will just have a hiccup for the next two weeks.”

The person in question threw me a strange look, but her mood had visibly improved.

“A hiccup? Really?”, she couldn’t quite believe it.

“Oh, believe me, two weeks of continuous hiccupping is worse than wetting yourself once.”, I replied with a grin.

This got Ilea to chuckle while Riina had a cute grin on her face. Maira threw the two of them dark looks before continuing to eat her food but after a short moment she too had to chuckle. It only took a short moment before she once again gave me death glares though.

I did not mind and walked over to the bedroom to change my clothes.

“Seriously though, I won’t sleep on that damn couch anymore. This back pain is FUCKING unbearable!”, I nagged them from the bedroom.

“Try to touch any of us and I will show you hell!”, was the empty threat coming as response.

It’s not like you could stop me if I wanted to…

Honestly, I had already decided that I wouldn’t allow myself to fall to such a low point.

Just as I had changed clothes to a simple white shirt, a pair of black trousers and a leather jacket, someone knocked on the door leading to the hallway. I wrinkled my brows and stepped outside of the bedroom. Maira had gone to open the door and now a startled Sir Mullen was standing on the doorstep.

“P-princess!”, he stuttered and for some reason refused to look straight at her face. How cute, that little knight was in love. Sadly, that gall is already mine!

“Sir Mullen,”, I greeted him and came closer.

“What has brought you to me THIS early in the morning.”, I knew that he had been appointed to be my personal guard, but coming this early in the morning did seem weird. Especially since there shouldn’t be anything to protect me from in my bedroom…

“Sir Hero.”, seeing my face his expression returned to the same sullen grimace I had to endure yesterday.

“Yeah I’m also excited to see you.”, I replied dryly.

“What do you want?”

The knight sighed dramatically and finally walked into the room.

“His majesty has decided that apart from acting as your personal guard I shall also be appointed as your teacher in wielding the sword. His royal highness has ordered me to train you in the basics of swordsmanship for one week before starting to hunt monsters in the forests around the royal capital. This way you will first learn some basic skills before increasing your level and building up your raw strength.”

“So, there is a level system after all.”, I said with a relieved sight. Up till now I still had been very much oblivious to any sort of strengthening system that existed in this world. Magic was all good, but I expected there to be some sort of restriction in form of mana or ‘magic points’ so it was good to know that the good old game-like powerups were an actual thing here.

The knight nodded and for once he actually seemed sincere in his explanation.

“You can check your own level and your constitution by saying the spell: ‘Statae’. A small window containing the most important information such as level, stamina and mana should appear in front of your eyes. Once you raise your level by killing monsters these basic stats will rise proportionally with the level you have reached.”

I nodded and with some excitement I immediately casted the spell.

“Statae”

Just as Sir Mullen had explained it a status window that could have been taken straight from an old RPG Game appeared in front of me. I quickly read through the stats.

“Level: 1

Strength: 14

Endurance: 11

Mana: 12”, of course I had no idea if these stats were good or bad since I had no reference.

Sir Mullen seemed surprised.

“That’s quite a bit above average, especially your strength is two points above what is considered to be highly talented. Usually the stats of a level one-person average at about 7 to 8 with those who have 10 points being considered talented and those with over 12 points being highly talented and eligible for training to become a high ranked royal knight or magician.

14 points in strength… this is really something you would only find with heroes or extraordinary figures that can rival heroes!”

Oh great, so I actually was something special. Up till this point I really thought that the only thing that qualified me to be a hero was my divine ability which had serious restrictions. Knowing that I had a little bit of talent was very reassuring.

“Can I raise my level through killing humans too, or is it restricted to monsters?”, I asked after some thought. It’s not like I planned to kill someone, but in case I would have to it would be good to know what to expect.

“Any living organism gives experience which after being accumulated to a certain point increases your level. Furthermore, killing stronger beings is rewarded by more experience and a faster rise of levels.”, he did not seem surprised that I asked about the murder of other people in relation with becoming stronger. It seems that unlike his idealistic views towards love and sexuality his view on death and murder were more pragmatic and fitting for a knight.

“I see.”, I scratched my head.

“When do we start the training?”, the faster I learned proper swordsmanship, the faster I could go and raise my level and become stronger. Honestly my current weakness was very worrying considering that I was expected to fight foes that even the trained soldiers of this kingdom were unable to face. They hadn’t summoned heroes for fun after all.

Sir Mullen began to smile, and I immediately got a really bad feeling about this so-called training of his.

“We can begin right now!”, I was immediately dragged away and through the entire palace. Once again, I realized how god darn big this place was. I walked by dozens of hallways and saw at least a hundred different servants and yet this was only a mere corner of the royal palace of Haelia.

Finally, we reached a small training field enclosed by roofed hallways. A few knights were training with wooden swords and executed fast paced attacks against each other. Blow after blow was exchanged while they fought their mock battles. I had been curious about the skills of this kingdom’s knights and now I had to admit that the meager skills I had acquired before coming to this world were not even enough to block a single strike of these highly trained warriors.

As soon as Sir Mullen and I entered the training field the knights stopped their training and greeted us with a bow.

“Sir Mullen.”, one of them said with respect.

“We will continue our training later, so please feel free to train the hero.”, they immediately left, and I had to reevaluate my new personal guard. Their disappearance almost seemed a little too swift, making me doubt whether this ‘training’ had really just been a presentation of skill meant to impress me.

Also the way they treated Sir Mullen was a little weird. I originally assumed that this always unsatisfied knight was some low-level noob since he had been sent to guide me around the city and later assigned as my guard, but now it seemed like he was actually quite a big shot.

“Are you actually someone amazing?”, I asked him with a disbelieving expression.

That bastard immediately became smug and laughed loudly.

“Well, I am one of the three best swords masters in the kingdom, so I guess you could call me amazing.”, god I really wanted to punch him in his smug face.

Instead I took the wooden sword that he offered me and braced myself for whatever this weirdo was going to do. I really expected him to trash me since we had quite a strained relationship with each other.

Turned out he first asked some questions.

“So, do you have some sort of training? Any sort of experience in fighting?”, unlike I had expected he actually behaved like a teacher should.

I replied honestly

“I did train a little but only the basics. Stabbing, parrying and simply combinations coupled with drills.”, using a dagger to threaten somebody was something different from truly wielding a sword after all.

He nodded and thought for a moment.

A moment later I suddenly found myself laying on the ground. I blinked a few times.

“Da heck?”, the exclaim escaped my libs without my notice.

From the sidelines Maira and the other two girls had been watching and that darned princess couldn’t help but laugh at my situation.

A hand suddenly reached out to me and Sir Mullen helped me to stand up.

“THIS is how a knight wields his sword. If you want to learn it you have to be ready to get some bruises.”, a stoic but sincere expression had appeared on his face and I could tell that he was truly offering to teach me, provided that I would bear some rough treatment.

I couldn’t help but smile. This was the kind of teacher that you would need if you really wanted to achieve anything with the sword. Special treatment was never a good thing, only rough and tough work would actually amount to real skills! No amount of talent could ever substitute harsh, painful training!

“I would be glad to.”, my reply was brief and decisive.

Sir Mullen only shrugged.

“We will see about that.”, he clearly doubted my perseverance.

The rest of the day was spent on that very training field with me experiencing the worst trashing I had ever experienced in my rather short life. At the end of it I had somehow learned how to avoid a wooden sword and parry a few strikes, but my body was riddled with bruises and I couldn’t move at all.

It had been an endless and merciless slaughter that always ended with me laying on the ground or crying out in pain. Over and over again the knight attacked me only to have me defend with everything I had. Occasionally he would tell me how to move and demonstrate a certain way of parrying or avoiding a blade, but then it was all on me to somehow understand how it worked and master these skills while avoiding any more painful bruises.

Since none of these moves were truly skills or abilities, my divine ability which had been helpful in dealing with magic had proven to be useless for the basics of fighting. It was truly on me to learn how to fend of this devilish, sadist knight.

After a pointlessly painful and desperate day, Mullen and Ilea had to carry me back to my room and lay me down onto the bed.

At least Maira did not have to worry about anything I could do to in her sleep since I was a goner the moment my face touched the comfortable matrass.