“Meira, this hero is dangerous, and you know it! It’s bad enough that you are staying with him just to avoid the marriage that father has arranged, but now you even defend him! This barbarous man has brought demi humans into these sacred halls, enraging the protector god of our kingdom!

Many of the rural nobles will support me in vanquishing him in the name of our lord!”, the first princess’ hushed voice reached my ears and I quickly understood what was going on.

“Lika, just stop it! Do you even realize what you are saying? You are talking about the hero of this country, a person who has decided to risk his life in order to defend us. The gods themselves have send him so how can you truly believe all of this non-sense?

Please, promise me that you won’t do anything stupid!”, Maira seemed quite adamant about stopping her stupid sister. I wondered whether it was because of the orders that I had given her or the fact that it was really just stupid to kill their own hero.

Having heard their conversation up till this point I suppressed the desire to directly run to that treacherous little bitch and slap the heck out of the first princess. Instead I carefully looked around the corner of the hallway until I spotted the pair.

Seriously though, having a crucial discussion like this in a hallway was BEYOND stupid. They were practically asking to be found out. I couldn’t believe that Maira of all people would make such a stupid mistake.

Then I realized that it wasn’t a mistake.

Her sister might be stupid enough to not realize it, but Maira had purposefully raised this topic in the hallway to make others overhear it. Sure, enough I quickly spotted at least two servants overhearing the conversation while hiding behind corners and decorative pillars.

Maira was obviously aware of them as she occasionally checked whether they were still present. Her sister on the other hand seemed to be too worked up to realize anything.

Thinking about it, Maira most likely wanted the nobles of the capital and her father to find out about this matter and contain her sister without any large ruckus and most importantly without having me meddle around.

Having confirmed the situation, I calmed down a little. Seriously, I truly hated that first princess, but as long as her stupidity was under control and there was no real danger coming from her, I didn’t mind pretending like I hadn’t heard anything.

Looking back to Riina who had clenched her fists and looked quite angry I put on a wry smile.

“Let’s return to our quarters. I will have a servant bring food over.”

She was very surprised by my cool reaction and the fact that I wasn’t going to do anything after having found out about this nefarious scheme. Despite that she remained silent and simply nodded in agreement.

Silently we retreated, careful to avoid being noticed by Maira or her sister Lika. On the way back, I briefly asked a roaming butler to organize some food and bring it to my accommodation. Then we reached my rooms and found Ilea who was leisurely reading a book.

“So, you are the type who likes to read.”, I stated as I saw the beautiful girl lost in an imaginary world.

She was startled by my sudden, unnoticed appearance and immediately put away the book.

“I’m sorry that I haven’t noticed you, master!”, as always, she was completely in her role as a slave, being even more subservient than Riina.

“You girls should really stop that. I told you many times that I don’t mind a more relaxed behavior on your side. Actually, I would really just prefer it!”

She bowed again.

“I will keep that in mind, master.”

I rolled my eyes. She was obviously ignoring my words…

A few minutes later a servant carrying to food that I had asked for came through the door, followed by Maira. At first glance she seemed composed and cocky as she always was, but once I paid a little more attention, I noticed that beneath her usual facade she was quite troubled.

As soon as the servant left again, I measured her with my eyes.

“Everything ok?”, a knowing look mirrored in my eyes.

She immediately understood that I knew about her sisters plan.

“So, you already know… Has one of the nobles told you? Or has my father send someone?”, she sounded tired.

“I overheard your conversation with that little bitch.”, I answered in an unceremonious fashion.

She sighed and shook her head. Finally, she walked in front of me, and looked straight into my eyes.

“Please, could you ignore my stupid sister this once?”, she was truly asking me from the bottom of her heart.

For a moment evil thoughts sprung up in my mind and I was tempted to simply say no. A little of that anger I had felt earlier rose up inside me and I imagined what would happen if I wanted to get back on Princess Lika.

But in the end, I simply nodded.

“Nothing has happened yet, so I won’t bother with your idiotic sister.

Now let’s eat. Frankly I am quite tired, and I will have to fight Sir Mellen again tomorrow.”

Maira seemed relieve and nodded, sitting down on the chair beside me.

“Thank you.”, she said with a charming smile on her lips that seemed to make her even more beautiful than she already was.

For a moment I didn’t know what to say. Actually, I never really found out what I could have said on that evening.

…

The next morning came and with it another day of sparring against the evil knight of sadism.

Every time I thought that I had become able to withstand his assaults he would simply increase the speed and strength of his attacks and beat me into submission. Of course, I was now able to minimize the amount of damage he did to my body, but the difference in level and most importantly skill meant that I was completely at his mercy.

Two more days were spend simply refining my defense and learning how to switch from defense to an instant counterattack using a martial skill. We fought dozens of mock battles and over time my reaction time increased as the mistakes I made decreased. Finally, six days after I had begun to train under Sir Mellen I was finally deemed ready to kill some monsters in the woods.

“Normally, you would have to choose some party members from among the adventurers in the city. The problem with those guys is that they are often quite untrustworthy and not really dependable. But since you have two slaves who are able to fight quite well, we can just go with them. Also, Princess Maira has volunteered to act as the magician of the party.”, it was the early morning of the 8th day since I had arrived in this world and Sir Mellen was standing at the center of my living room.

I was practically still asleep, while Maira, Ilea and Riina looked very annoyed to be waked at this early hour. Not to mention that Sir Sullen Knight had returned to his trademark sullen expression after realizing that I was sleeping in the same bed as his beloved princess.

Listening to his explanation I realized that I had no idea about the fighting power of Ilea, Riina and even Maira. I had briefly fought the later, but who knew whether she had had the chance to use all her skills at that time?

Riina and Ilea were supposed to have some experience with weapons. After all I had requested slaves who could fight, but I had no clue what kind of weapon they wielded and what level they were.

“Come to think of it…

Riina and Ilea, what level are you?”

“I’m level 20!”, Riina replied proudly.

“I am level 34, master”, came the reply of Ilea.

Dude, these two girls could easily kill me in the nick of a moment! I never realized that I had been sleeping in the same bed as two battle hardened warriors!!! Of course, they couldn’t harm me due to the effect of the slave seal, but I was still shocked to find out how much stronger the two frail looking girls were compared to me.

I threw a careful look over to Maira.

“Don’t tell me…”, I really wouldn’t be able to take it if she was also as strong as my other two slaves.

“Don’t be stupid.”, she rolled her eyes.

“I’m still level one. Do you think a princess usually goes around killing monsters?”

Well at least she is at the same level as me.

“Then let’s get you guys armed.”, Sir Mellen said while scratching his head.

We were taken over to the royal armory and given a weapon of our choice. As expected of a wealthy kingdom the collection of weapons in the palace was more than impressive and I had quite a lot of trouble to decide on a sword I wanted to use.

Yes. A Sword.

While there were other weapons that had advantages, the sword was a good allrounder that could fare well in most situations. Choosing another weapon just to be special was just something a fool would do!

Also, I had received only sword training, so my choices were limited by my own skills as well…

I settled on a usual sword made of high-quality steel and imbued with magic that made it more durable. Of course, I could have chosen some fancy weapon with special effects, but I was going to hunt goblins. What the heck would I need a fire spitting sword for when killing some little, green guys with pointed ears and long curved noses?

Riina chose a pair of curved daggers, taking the role of an assassin, while Ilea had as expected chosen a bow as her weapon. Just as I thought the Elvea were truly similar to the Elves in fantasy literature. Maira on the other hand simply received a wooden stick… nah it’s a wand.

Apparently, the use of a wand eased the manipulation of mana while casting an incantation resulting in less mana expended. Depending on the quality of the wand it could even halve the amount of mana used to cast a spell! In this case it only managed to cut it by 10 percent. Despite that it was a useful tool to a magician like Maira.

Now that we had chosen our weapons, we were provided some simple armor in the form of hardened leather armor and lead out of the castle under the lead of Sir Mellen.

“I cannot help but think that this equipment is a little too inconspicuous.”, I mumbled as we left the palace through the main gate.

Especially the armor was so bad that it was only used by beginner adventurers who had no funds they could invest into proper protection. I get that it’s just goblins, but real steel plates wouldn’t have hurt…

“You shouldn’t have to rely on your armor to defeat your enemies!”, said Sir Mellen who had somehow overheard my mumbling. Well that was a valid reason for the crappy equipment… still something didn’t seem right.

I kept my doubts to myself and we quickly proceeded to walk through the large city heading for one of the main gates that lead to the grand forest to the east of the capital. This was the hunting ground that had been chosen for us by the king himself.

According to the information I was given it had a bunch of low-level monsters within it and was usually only used as hunting ground for beginner adventurers. Real experts couldn’t be bothered to cut down the endless amount of goblin tribes and horned rabbits that called the forest their home.

We reached the outskirts of the forest by early afternoon. It was truly an impressive sight. An endless sea of tall ancient trees that seemed to stretch on forever as it expanded along the horizon. In earlier times it was said to have housed dragons and giants, but by the time the kingdom had been founded and the capital was constructed all of these mythical beings had been hunted down by skilled adventurers and the generations of hero’s that have been summoned to fight some sort of treat.

Now it was just an ancient forest with a bunch of lowlifes inside it.

We entered the forest.

And I was immediately attacked by a dragon.

What can I say? I’m a character in an isekai story after all!