WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Mordor

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◈ I Became the Second-in-Command in a Romance Fantasy Novel ◈

Chapter 2: Became the Royal Family's Punching Bag (2)

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Doomed Sword.

Just as its name implied, it was a sword art designed for defeat.

Yet despite its name, it was filled with such wondrous techniques that even renowned sword arts from across the continent would have to concede their inferiority.

That was only natural.

It had been created by the greatest swordsmen of the Leon Kingdom, renowned as a nation of knights, pooling their knowledge.

After all, it had to contend with the swordsmanship of a martial royal family that believed one had to first become a knight before claiming one's place as royalty, a family that occasionally produced the strongest swordsman in the kingdom!

That was why learning the Doomed Sword was several times harder than learning one's family swordsmanship.

"You're truly a genius unlike any in a thousand years!"

Still, in the end, the Doomed Sword was the Doomed Sword.

It was dazzling and powerful swordsmanship, but it always ended in defeat.

That was why the talent required to master the Doomed Sword was not talent at swordsmanship.

"You've already surpassed me."

Those were the words of the commander, one of the finest swordsmen in the Leon Kingdom, a close friend of the current king, a Sword Master recognized across the continent, and the head of the royal instructors.

There could be no higher praise for a swordsman.

Unfortunately, it was not praise for my skill with a sword.

"Your acting is so convincing that even I can't tell what's real and what's fake..."

That was right.

The completion of the Doomed Sword depended not on swordsmanship, but on acting ability.

Swordsmanship was relative, after all.

I only needed to be good enough to satisfy the Fifth Prince I would serve.

Building up to a defeat so agonizingly close, trading a strike of the soul, then conveying to royalty the bitter resolve to prevail next time. That was the true completion of the Doomed Sword!

And I had pulled it off.

Perfectly enough to earn the recognition of a Sword Master who stood at the pinnacle of swordsmanship!

"The other instructors should watch this and learn."

The number of royal instructors in the order was equal to the number of royals.

Sometimes an instructor lost their position because they could not keep up with their royal charge's level, but even then, a reserve instructor prepared in advance would take their place.

The instructors assigned to the princes and princesses older than the Fifth Prince had already been dispatched.

In other words, with four princes and three princesses older than him, I had at least seven seniors.

"Aren't my seniors carrying out their duties admirably as well?"

"I thought so too, but you keep raising the standard."

The commander laughed heartily and roughly ruffled my hair before his expression stiffened.

"Which brings me to this."

The commander often acted clumsy in ways that did not suit his station, but he was one of the swordsmen representing the kingdom of knights and the head of the instructors responsible for royal education.

Whenever he handled official business, he sometimes wore that expression.

I could roughly guess what he was about to say.

"Are we finally setting things in motion?"

"Hm? Setting things in motion?"

"A completely coincidental, fateful encounter with the Fifth Prince, right?"

"Ha ha."

Apparently pleased with my phrasing, the commander nodded.

"Yes, I suppose it's time to set things in motion."

A few weeks later, I heard that preparations were complete.

"The scenario is simple."

"Exactly."

As befitted its title as a nation of knights, the Leon Kingdom treated knights with great respect.

Its knights were never inferior even to those of the Empire, called the center of the continent. It had no geographical reason to clash with the distant Dale Kingdom, known as the kingdom of mages, yet the two countries were always at each other's throats.

Given those national traits, approaching the Fifth Prince was easy.

"You'll simply swing your sword around, and the instructor assigned there beforehand will arrange a spar between you and the Fifth Prince. It's the perfect scenario!"

True to its nickname as the nation of knights, the Leon Kingdom actively trained knights on a national level.

Promising children were called to the royal palace and taught the sword.

I only had to blend in among them and swing my sword like normal, then cross blades with a royal who came to the training grounds under the pretext of an inspection!

"Um...?"

Something felt off.

"Take your stance."

The red hair symbolizing Leon royalty fluttered in the wind.

As I stared blankly at it, black eyes, likewise symbolic of our kingdom's royal family, glared at me.

Sparring with royalty to make contact with them. It was the perfect situation for my objective.

The problem was that it was not the Fifth Prince.

"Referee!"

"Princess Hestia and Adam Smith will now begin their spar."

At the princess's command, the knight serving as referee approved the match with a bewildered expression.

I could only grit my teeth and glare at the commander.

You said it was the perfect scenario!

* * *

A little earlier.

The Leon Kingdom took immense pride in being called the nation of knights.

Naturally, even the royal family considered learning the sword a given.

It was such a deeply rooted tradition that boys and girls alike received a wooden sword as a fifth birthday present and a real sword when they turned ten.

It was hardly strange for the strongest swordsman in the kingdom to come from the royal bloodline. Sometimes a king was such a person, making the ministers pale whenever war broke out by declaring that they would personally lead the vanguard.

As a nation like that, its royals had maintained close relationships with outstanding swordsmen for generations.

Conversely, even those of excellent birth could face discrimination if their skills fell short.

"Hah."

"Y-Your Highness."

Unfortunately, Hestia herself took this skill-based harshness to an extreme.

"You couldn't even last ten exchanges."

Hestia's black eyes sank as deep as the abyss.

As befitted a royal bloodline that had built a culture of living and dying by the sword, her talent was so exceptional that none of her peers could compare.

Her primal thirst for the sword was even stronger than that talent.

She regularly crossed swords with promising youths called the kingdom's future, yet she had never once been satisfied.

It was unfortunate, but it could not be helped.

Hestia had been born with talent recognized even within the royal family. On top of that, from a very young age, she had received every kind of elixir and treatment meant to strengthen her mana circuits.

That was not all. When talent and background supported someone so thoroughly, they should at least have lacked effort.

Unfortunately, Hestia had been born a swordswoman. Unlike children her age, she preferred swinging a sword, and while she might skip meals, she had never skipped sword practice.

Natural talent, status, and the effort to develop them even further.

It was no exaggeration to say Hestia had been born to be a swordswoman.

Demanding that level from other children was unreasonable.

"Hoo."

Even after knocking down a prospective knight at least three years older than herself, someone whose talent had been recognized by the state, Hestia remained dissatisfied.

'The gap in skill is too wide.'

The knight trainee brought in for her to fight was only that good.

Yet she was still not strong enough to fight a real knight.

She might have been able to give everything she had against a newly appointed knight, but Hestia bore the title of Second Princess.

'I'd rather fight trainees.'

Telling newly appointed knights to fight a princess was too heavy a burden.

Winning was a problem, and losing was a problem. If they accidentally injured the princess, no one knew what would happen.

Of course, neither Hestia nor the royal family would take issue with such a thing.

One had to be a knight before one was royalty.

Would a royal family that passed down words like that persecute a knight over an injury sustained during a spar?

Yet regardless of the intentions of those lofty people, those beneath them had problems of their own.

Even if the king and princess said, "Well, cuts can happen when you're swinging swords," the knights could still be branded archtraitors among their fellow knights for shedding royal blood.

That was why most newly appointed knights made such obvious efforts to lose.

That sort of acting was good for neither Hestia nor her opponent.

She would rather hit training dummies alone.

Even so, Hestia could not stop herself from rushing in whenever new recruits arrived, still searching for someone evenly matched with her.

"Hah, I should've just waited for Lucia."

Thinking of her frail friend, the one person who could at least fight her evenly, Hestia sighed softly.

Everything was fine except that Lucia had been born sickly and frequently returned home to recover.

Hestia decided she should prepare some restorative tonics for her.

It was for herself, but it was also for the kingdom.

It would be a national loss if a swordswoman of Lucia's caliber had to put down her sword because of a weak constitution!

Unaware that Lucia, who was supposedly resting in her hometown, was crying in the royal instructors' quarters that she could not take it anymore while her superior tore up her resignation letter, Hestia was about to leave after her third victim.

"S-Sis!"

She had no choice but to stop when she saw her younger brother arrive with a group of people.

'Has that time already come?'

One of the royal family's traditional ceremonies.

At five, one received a wooden sword. At ten, one received a real sword. At twelve, one received a person.

Among the talented children brought to the royal palace, they would select one child of similar age to serve directly under them.

A lifelong friend, rival, right hand, and most trusted retainer.

It was an old tradition of the Leon royal family, and whom one gained here could change the course of one's life.

Had Hestia herself not gained Lucia two years ago?

Unaware that the friend, rival, right hand, and retainer who would stay with her for life was crying as a superior tore up her twelfth resignation letter, Hestia decided she would find someone as excellent as Lucia for her adorable younger brother.

"Princess Hestia?"

Unfortunately, that resolve was nothing short of a disaster for those who had arranged everything and were about to put the plan into action.

"What did you just say?"

"I said I'd do the testing instead!"

Her spirited declaration was still cute for someone her age.

The content, however, was not cute at all.

To the commander and everyone involved, it was pure horror.

"No, according to royal regulations..."

"There isn't a regulation like that, is there?"

"..."

They tried to wave it away with a plausible excuse, but failed.

There truly was no such regulation.

'How does she know that?'

The officials carrying out the procedure did not know every detail of every procedure.

Normally, if someone higher up cited a regulation that sounded believable, they would simply think, Ah, I see, and let it go.

"Traditionally, the royal chooses personally after facing the candidates themselves, but it's only a tradition. There have been cases in history where another royal tested them instead, haven't there?"

Had she only made a lucky guess? The commander thought so, but as she continued with that precise explanation, he could only close his mouth.

"So, it's fine, right?"

The commander had no choice but to nod at Hestia's words.

'How good could he be?'

Hestia's reason for acting so stubbornly was not solely her affection for her younger brother.

Carix, commander of the Royal Educational Knights and head of the royal instructors, had served as the king's instructor. To Hestia, he was as familiar as an uncle.

He was also a renowned swordsman whose name was recognized beyond the kingdom and throughout the continent.

Yet he had heaped lavish praise upon this genius.

So much that the person had already been designated as her younger brother's partner.

'Lucia wasn't praised this highly.'

Unaware that Lucia was currently wiping away tears while writing her fourteenth resignation letter, Hestia wanted to see the skills of the person said to possess even greater talent than her friend.

For her younger brother, for her friend.

And...

"Raise your sword."

For her own selfish desires!

Footnotes:

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