The Patran Family Party (8)
Listening to the condemnation pouring down from every corner of the room, I couldn't help but let out a hollow laugh. I mean, they'd asked for my impressions, and all I'd said was that the guy was a scrub.
The First Prince looked genuinely startled too...
No, wait. Why is he making that face? Hadn't he figured something out and plotted all this on purpose?!
I'd assumed he was just a deranged lunatic who'd call me a gloomy shut-in, so when he demanded my impressions, I figured he was baiting me into causing a scene — so I just blurted it out!
And then he acted surprised because I went off from the very start?! That's so unfair! If he'd done it deliberately, fine, I could've written it off as the First Prince being a son of a bitch. But realizing I'd gotten caught in something he threw out carelessly? That burns on a whole different level!
<Now, now, lass.>
'What is it, Grandpa?'
<Didst thou not say "First Prince" with thine own lips but a moment ago?>
What kind of nonsense is that? You know how thorough the Mesugaki skill's translation is. There's no way I would've called him "First Prince."
Old and senile as you are, Grandpa, that doesn't mean you get to mishear things.
See? Check the log. It says gloomy shut-in prince.
...
Huh.
HUH?! I DID say it?! I literally said "First Prince" just now!
What the—?! What's going on?! Why did the words "First Prince" come out of MY mouth?!
I simply could not wrap my head around it. I'd been suffering under the Mesugaki skill for nearly a year now. There had been plenty of times the skill twisted what I called people, but not once — not a single time — had it ever let me address someone normally.
What variable changed? What on earth made the Mesugaki skill permit an ordinary form of address?
While I was turning the question over, the condemnation around me kept coming, but I let it wash right past. This mattered more. If I could figure out why I'd been able to call him "First Prince," it might just be my ticket out of the Mesugaki skill's shackles!
Maybe I could finally call my friends by their actual names! How about that, huh?!
"Pfft, hahaha!"
I was ignoring everything — absolutely everything — but the laughter ringing out right in front of me was not something I could brush aside.
The First Prince was laughing. The same man who, mere seconds ago, had been frozen in shock.
"The arrogance of the talented, is it? Very well. The victor has earned the right to say such things — though I wonder how long you will remain the victor."
The reason everyone had been tearing into me a moment ago was my disrespect toward the First Prince. And now that he had chosen to recognize that disrespect as the entitled pride of the gifted, heaping further condemnation on me would do nothing but irk the First Prince himself.
The quick-witted among them caught on fast, and instead of piling abuse on me, they pivoted to extolling the First Prince's magnanimity.
<Thou owest me a debt, Lucy Aln.>
At that moment, a human voice echoed through my skull.
Not Grandpa's voice. Someone else's entirely.
Startled, I snapped my head up — and there was the First Prince, regarding me with eyes utterly devoid of emotion.
...Excuse me? A debt? From me?
No, just join the crowd and insult me like everyone else! I don't want to owe you anything! I don't want you calling in favors from me later! Can't you just scream you rotten girl! at me instead?!
I shrieked internally, but my cry never reached the First Prince's ears.
A great deal of time had passed since the night of the Patran family's party.
You can tell by the fact that I'm still alive and well that the party wrapped up cleanly, with the First Prince himself smoothing over the mess I'd made as the grand finale.
The word "debt" had sounded pretty ominous, but seeing as he simply left without hunting me down afterward, it seemed he had no intention of crushing me just yet. Honestly, I'd have preferred if he had screwed me over on the spot — then I could handle whatever he demanded, wash my hands of it completely, and be done.
Leave a debt hanging over your head, and some corner of your mind never stops being uncomfortable!
At least let me prepare in advance, like the Scrub God does!
Wow. Never thought I'd see the day the Scrub God got a reputation upgrade.
What, just don't pay it back, you say?
Oh, sure. And do you have ANY idea how the First Prince might decide to break me if I did that? Unless I one day grow strong enough to look down on the First Prince myself, if he ever truly sets his mind to it, I get crushed. Period.
Even Benedict couldn't save me then!
I mean, the man's a monster, but nobody beats an entire kingdom...
...Huh. Hmm. Could he, though?
Opponent being Benedict, I genuinely can't say for sure.
Anyway, that's all I can say about the First Prince for now, so let's move on to other things.
The Mesugaki skill business first, I suppose.
Long story short: the one time my form of address came out normal was the only time it ever happened. After the party ended, I ran experiment after experiment, and never again did my wording change. No matter how many times I tried to say the First Prince's name, "gloomy shut-in prince" came out instead.
Every other name was the same. There was not a single person I could address properly.
Grandpa and I researched it from every angle we could think of, and our conclusion was: no clue.
If we absolutely had to explain it, the best guess would be that the Scrub God intervened to keep his promise about raising my reputation. Which, come on. There's no way the Scrub God would actually do something like that for me.
If the Useless God actually cared enough to pull off a stunt like that, wouldn't he have lightened the Mesugaki skill's penalties ages ago? Think about it. That trash enjoys it when I curse him out. He loves it when I'm in trouble.
The idea that he'd help me just because I'm suffering is—
No. No, of course not. My apologies, Lord God. I got a little worked up there and said something foolish.
If I trash-talk him any further, the next quest he dumps on me is bound to be something horrifying, so let's change the subject.
Yes. The Duke's reward — that's a safe enough topic.
When we crossed paths again after the party, the Duke told me that if I wished for anything, anything at all, he would make it happen. His abilities, he claimed, could accomplish even the most outlandish desire.
He wasn't wrong, by and large. With the weight of the Patran Ducal House behind him, whatever a single noble daughter could dream up was well within his reach.
Where the Duke miscalculated, however, was in assuming I was an ordinary young lady.
Frankly, the things the current me wants are precisely the things a Duke can't procure. Endgame-tier armor, shields, skills — those aren't things you buy with money. You have to move, fight, and seize them yourself.
If I'd been leveling a magic-based build, I'd have had a wishlist a mile long for Duke Patran. Sadly, I'm a Divinity-class tank.
I could have asked him for other things, of course, but when a heavyweight like Duke Patran personally tells you to name your heart's desire, asking for something ordinary feels like a waste.
As I cycled through various items — each flickering into my head and vanishing again — one particular request finally surfaced.
Something impossible in the game. Something only possible because this was reality.
Direct NPC intervention.
'Your Grace... might I claim the right to ask a favor of the Careless Duke at a later date?'
I'll defer my reward until then. In exchange, whatever I ask for when the time comes — grant it.
It was a presumptuous demand, perhaps even a rude one, but the Duke didn't show the slightest flicker of displeasure as he nodded his assent.
After that, we made ordinary conversation. Anecdotes from the Academy, how Joy was getting along with school life, the sort of advice old men inevitably hand down — that kind of thing.
"Ah, now that you mention it, you said you gave Joy some advice. Might I hear the details of that as well?"
It was hardly confidential material, so I told him right away — how to lay the proper foundations when raising a magic-type character.
The moment Duke Patran heard what I'd taught Joy, his brows suddenly drew down and he began murmuring to himself, muttering something or other under his breath.
He looked exactly like a mafia boss scheming how to annihilate a rival organization, and I instinctively sat up ramrod straight — but he wasn't plotting anything sinister. He was simply dismantling the idea I'd laid on the table.
"Astonishing."
What came out at the end of it was pure admiration.
"Repetition. Mastery. And then subordinates, hmm? Training magic the way one trains the body... If the old fogies of the Mage Tower heard this, they'd scream the rafters down. But it may well be worth researching. Lady Aln — who taught you this?"
'Nobody taught me anything, Your Grace.'
"Careless Duke, my dear man — as if those other scrubbed-up morons could ever come up with an idea like this?"
That part was one hundred percent genuine. This build is something I created and invented myself! Right up until the day that masterpiece game died, there was no build better than this one!
"A notion of your own devising?! As expected. Is it precisely because you are no mage that you could conceive of it?"
The Duke hoisted me up on a pedestal, declaring that the word "genius" didn't even begin to cover me, and then let out a rueful laugh.
"I summoned you here intending to reward you, and instead I have come away with something. Are you truly certain there is nothing you desire from me at present? Even something small would do. I dislike accruing debts, you see."
'In that case, there is one thing...'
"Then there is something I would like to ask."
What had happened before the Patran festival that forced him to leave his own territory? I threw the question at him. I was curious what matter was urgent enough to summon a Duke away in such haste.
The Duke answered readily, without a moment's thought.
"Duke Burrow requested my aid. Anyone in such a panicked state must be facing something dire, I judged, so I went to him myself — but by the time I arrived, everything had already been resolved."
The Duke clicked his tongue, grumbling that he'd wasted his time before the festival for nothing.
Something happening to House Burrow at this point in time? Surely there was nothing over there that could go wrong. The question itched at me, but if the Duke had personally confirmed everything was fine, I figured there was no cause for worry and let it slide.
Aside from that, nothing of note occurred. Receiving Arthur's tearful plea to please, please take it easy on him; giving Frey a sparring match because she kept clinging to my sleeve and begging — things of that sort.
And then I left Patran Territory, returned once more to the Aln household, informed Forsell that my body had recovered, and threw myself into training alongside the other knights.
"The young lady is a great deal stronger now, so I shall not be going easy on you as I did in the past."
'That's exactly what I was hoping for!'
"Pah. Who's going easy on whom, exactly? All that bravado. You think you'll fare worse than these other scrub knights?"
"Excellent spirit, my lady!"
As for my review of the experience? Let's just say death would honestly have been the more comfortable option.
When I trained alone at the Academy, no matter how brutally hard I pushed, it ended somewhere around "this feels like I might die." But training with the Aln knights was on an entirely different plane. It turns out that when a person is driven to the true brink of death, their mind goes white and thought simply ceases to exist.
The problem was, my growth lagged badly behind all that grinding. At first I assumed it was because my base stats were already so high.
But as I turned the matter over, a certain fact came crawling back to me.
The Scrub God's reward from Menesteil. The one that raised my stats automatically — in exchange for making it impossible to grow through training.
To put it plainly: while I was rolling myself half to death with the Aln knights, I was gaining absolutely nothing.
You cannot imagine the emptiness I felt the moment that realization landed. I denied reality, cursed the Scrub God, cursed my own idiocy, and cursed him a second time for good measure.
Some things don't show up as proficiency or stats, so it wasn't a total waste of suffering — but hollow is hollow, damn it.
Time passed in this fashion, and before I knew it, the start of the Academy's second semester was bearing down on me.