Running Away From The Hero!

RATH Side Story 3

TL: Eevee

Side Story – A certain princess's memories (3)

#4 Their story: A certain villain's story

"Is there a problem?"

"There isn't."

Why? Why was there no problems?

I'd done something that might have been a bit dangerous but then she went and said oh-so-casually that there weren't any problems.

Seriously, for personal profit I fooled the palace office workers and sold out the name of a member of the imperial family to make a herb field?

Starting from the finance department, I chose locations, made a farm to raise herbs in, and even had personnel assigned to look after it, and all that was actually done just so I could drink my favourite tea!

And there's no problems!

If this was a democracy it wouldn't be weird for me to get impeached!

"Either way, Reia's back yet. Go and soothe her a bit."

"Your Highness, people are beings that cry more when someone tries to get them to stop. Sir Reia's a simple person so if we wait she'll calm down on her own and come back."

So I say, but if I'm seen next to a crying Sir Reia and misunderstood, that's a big problem.

Seriously, I thought she was just some barony or earl's daughter, or a countess or baroness as the princess's personal bodyguard.

But oh my god! It turns out she's a daughter of one of the famous Ten Great Families of the empire, a daughter of the Areista Marquisate!

And the most famous up and coming prospect of that family at that!

She was one who held overwhelming authority within her family that even the next marquis had to show deference to her!

And if word got out I made her cry?

The Areista family could just off me without anyone the wiser.

No, before that I could get stabbed by the female knights that all respect Sir Reia.

So let's leave the teasing Sir Reia to within the princess's rooms. Of course I'm not going to stop.

That's my only joy in this palace life and I can't give that up, too!

After a moment of silence, whether she didn't like that moment of quiet the princess said with a dry voice.

"I'm bored."

She could be.

"Since Your Highness is free most of the time it can't be helped."

Other members of the imperial family have personal tutors, and experience assorted duties, but our princess is doing nothing.

"If you know then do something fun."

"How do you wish for me to do something fun?"

At my question the princess thought for a bit before she said with a smile.

"Strategy and tactics, are you good with those?"

Well, a bit of Sta**raft back in the day…(1)

#5 Their story: a certain bodyguard's story.

"Sniff. But I'm still Her Highness's bodyguard."

"Yes. Sir Reia is a splendid knight!"

"You can do it!"

"We believe in you, Sir Reia! If we don't believe in you, who else can we believe in!"

As I rubbed my reddened eyes, I came out from the nearby maids' room and headed to Her Highness's room.

Her Highness was being much too mean lately.

Since mister Ast came along, Her Highness's teasing has only gotten worse.

She keeps making fun of me as if to say she wouldn't lost to Ast, but I would really, really like it if they wouldn't play games with me.

"And…"

If nothing else, I still have the chance for growth!

The maids said.

The size of a girl's breasts do have to do with genes, but they can also be grown with effort.

And among the 208 secret techniques of the imperial palace there were also techniques to make your breasts bigger.

"Three massages a day, drink milk with blended strawberries."

I looked at what I'd written and nodded with resolve.

Yes, it's not over yet. I'm still nineteen! My growth period might not have ended!

"…Right?"

But tears spring to my eyes again.

Although my father's a unique exception in our family as one of the advisors in the palace, but whether it was a specialty in our predominantly combat-orientated family, most of the women in my house had small breasts.

I think my youngest sister has the beginnings of sprouts, but they're about as big as mine…

"It's over…"

The fire of hope died once again.

When I think that I'm the same size as my twelve year-old sister, I think I'm done for.

If I head back to Her Highness's room I think either she or Ast would tease me how my breasts are as big as a twelve year-old's.

Yep. I don't wanna go back. Should I run away…

"Sob… no, I need to go."

But I still need to protect Her Highness. Compared to her my br… my breasts aren't much… of a problem.

Yep. Compared to Her Highness's fate my breasts wouldn't even be worth comparing to.

"Your Highness, sorry I'm late… huh?"

"No, it's impossible! Never! Even if you're being pushed back isn't your argument seriously impossible?"

"I believe that Your Highness is the one that should be admitting that your commanding forces are destroyed."

But inside the room that I'd steeled myself to enter were Her Highness and mister Ast engaged in a fiery debate.

Considering the assorted types of pieces on the table, I think they were holding a mock war game.

It seemed that it was because they were at odds over a particular opinion.

And… I have a bad feeling about this. Really!

"Reia!"

"Sir Reia!"

In the middle of their argument the two of them turned to me and shouted.

Yep. As I thought. I'd had a bad feeling about this. They were probably going to ask me, weren't they?

"Do you think this is possible? This rascal, no matter how much he hates losing he's arguing something impossible."

"I am simply arguing that what can be done can be done. Sir Reia, I understand Her Highness's desire for victory, but she also needs to know when to acknowledge defeat."

Seeing Her Highness and mister Ast run towards me I tried to run away but even before I could open the already-closed door, all I could do was turn my back flat against the door, unable to retreat any further.

"Reia!"

"Sir Reia!"

Hiiik! Scary! Her Highness is scary, mister Ast is scary too!

Logically I would listen to both sides and choose one, but in that case the other would tear into me.

Her Highness is scary like Her Highness, and mister Ast is picky like Ast is.

Uwaah. I don't wanna…

I just got myself sorted! I'm about to cry again!

But mister Ast always said that even if the sky were to fall, there was always a hole to escape through.

And now is the time to find that hole in the sky!

"Ca, can't you just prove it?"

"Prove?"

"Yes! Try it out in real life and if it doesn't work then mister Ast is the loser, and if it does it would be mister Ast's victory, wouldn't it?"

At the perfect answer that would bring even a famous judge to tears Her Highness and Ast drew back from me.

I clutched my shocked chest and sighed…

'Hic, they're small…'

As I calmed my shocked chest another wound opened up and I had to calm myself again.

But I didn't know then. That this one line, would mark a turning point in history.

#6 Their story: a certain empire army(soldier)'s story (sky episode)

"It's cold."

"It is."

"No matter how I see this I don't think this is right…"

Even as I shivered in the clouds 4000 metres above sea level I continued to cast magic.

But it's cold.

Even if I do wear warm clothes when I'm out flying, if I was called up suddenly for something like this then of course I'd be underprepared. And it just had to be ice magic at that.

Damn it, I'm freezing here, and I have to make ice!

"Ast, was he? Damn him. For an asshole that sits warm and dry in an office he makes people pointlessly suffer. I will remember this."

"Don't be like that. He's 'that imperial princess's' personal retinue, you know? Look at Sir Reia. She's always suffering there."

"No, from what I heard from a reliable source, I heard he tears into Sir Reia with Her Highness as well? And apparently he's pretty skilled at it too."

"Ha? You sure of your source? Someone in their right mind would bully Areista's Sword Princess? Is that even possible unless you're a lunatic? Is it?"

"Yeah, to think an ordinary commoner would tease a swordsmaster. That's actually scary itself."

"Hey, it's dropping. Don't let it fall!"

Although we were all talking like this was part of our daily routine, this task was something that demanded oddly specific requirements.

Firstly, we needed to suppress our magic output to the point that the soldiers that Her Highness led couldn't detect us, and we weren't casting ice magic like we normally did, but drew in the water vapour in the air and froze it just like that.

It took longer to do this than you'd think, and since we're producing normal ice it doesn't even float in the air like normal magic, so we needed to keep a normal chunk of ice floating in mid-air and hence the mana drain was intense.

To the extent that because of this, we had three experienced mages on a team for this job.

"What was next?"

"Let's see. Cast protection magic and a magic barrier, acceleration magic, gravity magic, as much of these as possible?"

"It might have been harder if it was ice magic, but since it's a chunk of ice this shouldn't be too bad. It might be fun to draw a magic formation after using all those support spells?"

"But was there anyone who said that this was possible?"

"There wasn't. it's been nearly a thousand years since battlemages were first used, you guys all know just how much development's gone into anti-magic bombardment spells since then, right? Unless that enemy is either a retard or under conditions of a perfect ambush the likelihood of success isn't very high."

I answered my subordinate's question who was still diligently casting magic.

Now that I think about it, isn't this, actually quite a serious problem?

Although I thought it made absolutely no sense at first, but once we actually tried it the preparation steps were successful.

And if this actually worked, then the use of mages would change forever…

"Right, let's drop it."

"Yes, sir."

Once all the magics have been cast, the completed lump of ice was dropped.

The method was simple. We just had to undo the levitation magic we'd been maintaining and it would just fall on its own.

The gravity magic and acceleration magic let it hit the ground instantly.

"So then. What happens if this works?"

As I watched the block of ice fall to the ground at a high speed, my subordinate asked me.

If this works? Well then.

"All hell breaks loose."

#7 Their story: a certain empire army(soldier)'s story (ground episode)

"Why am I the target…"

"Well, it's not like Her Highness can do it herself…"

Who would believe that the beauty who's making a teary face beside me, is actually said to be the most likely swordswoman to succeed the current Sword Star, the Sword Princess famous throughout the empire.

If the many female knights that dreamed of her knew this truth, they'd all be running to kill that man named Ast.

Although of course they'd fail because of Her Highness.

"Even so, there's zero possibility that this would work. It makes absolutely no sense. And in a state where we know a magic bombardment is coming it can never succeed."

What is the flower of war?

It's magic.

The power of a magician brigade's large-formation spells that could overturn the results of a war thought to have been set in stone was known by every soldier out there.

And the methods to block this damage were diligently researched even in the age of peace where war was absent.

And because of that, the mages' bombardments which used to be the number one danger on the battlefield, were faced with defensive tactics and skills where they only worked in an ambush, no, maybe not even an ambush any more.

"Now, see, Sir Reia. No matter how much you hide the presence of your mana, since magic spells need to be fired off with magic power anyway, the mana reactions will be detected no matter what."

"Indeed."

I showed the mana detector device that was blinking red to Sir Reia, who nodded as she looked at it with curiosity.

No matter if there was a specialist mage that interfered with our ability to detect magic use, the limits to that were very, very fixed.

Meaning that even if you couldn't detect a mage's mana output from a distance not visible to the naked eye, once they fired it off the magic would be detected as it came to our location, and so the moment we noticed it, we could set up a magic barrier at any time.

"Now, look. They're probably going to fire off a spell while hidden in the clouds, but if we carefully raise a magic barrier then we can easily defend against it."

My subordinates were already casting layers upon layers of magic barriers up to as high as their spellcasting could reach.

Now, look.

Using these magic barriers we will stop that magic bombardme…

Shatter!

Iznt wurking?