A/N: I'm all better now. No headaches anymore and I just finished my writing my essays. I will update Peace at Last as soon as I have some time.
Now, onto the reviews.
Guest: Thank you for the criticism. But I made Taiga more of a mention than a character. I would introduce her again in future chapters.
Bucio: I don't have much to say here but thank you for the kind words. I happen to have some freetime so I managed to whip out a new chapter.
As that's the only reviews I feel like answering. Let's starts.
Raul
Raul Edinburgh started his job as librarian and head scribe a week ago, his training with the old scribes was an enlightening experience to say the least. Spending his time with likeminded people is something that he has been looking forward to.
All those pompous nobles at the academy were always breaking his eardrums with their frivolous and preposterous stances in life, some of them being all so proud about the position they're getting because of nepotism.
He thought the royal family was the same, considering that the ones descended from the founder has only two members left.
But he was surprised when he was introduced to the king, at first he thought he was just like those other nobles but no, he didn't even have time to talk properly. Greeting without being greeted back would be considered rude if it was other people.
But when he saw the king… he was amazed, not looking up even once, only giving him instructions about his duties then sending him away to his office at the library, the king's sheer commitment and focus to his work was an inspiration. An example that all people in power should strive to be.
The princess was another story however, she first greeted him at the second day of his work. If he could describe the princess in one word it would be "delicate". She was pure and always smiling, her stature always being upright and elegant.
He has never seen someone like that in his whole life, the noble ladies of lower houses were elegant, ofcourse. But they could never top the sheer perfection that is the princess.
One of the other things that he liked about her was her intellect. She was intelligent as she was curious, having interest to history and magic.
They talked all day about all sorts of things, getting entranced by her beauty from time-to-time. All he could say was: She is too pure and delicate for this dirty world of ours.
He was thinking of all of this while he was walking to his station to start his duties for the day. But suddenly, he was dragged by someone.
He walked into the royal knights' training ground, or should he say FORCED to walk into the training grounds by a dimwit named Jackson saying things like: "You gotta see this!" Truly his lack of tact is unbefitting of his bloodline.
But back to the topic. What he saw surprised him dearly, it was the king and the princess bolting throughout the battlefield. The princess shooting beams made of mana from what looked like birds made of glass and the king deflecting all of it with a single sword.
As his eyes widen he asked Jackson: "What is happening?"
Jackson grinned, as if saying something like 'I was expecting that reaction!' He then spoke. "Cousin Elise and his majesty are having a duel."
"Why?" Raul asked, extremely perplexed.
"For a smartass you're awfully ignorant…" This made Raul angrier. "Don't you know? Elise is a talented mage. They do training like this all the time!" Jackson said with enthusiasm.
The librarian looks in astonishment at the fighting pair. What he saw was anything BUT training, this looked like a fight to the death!
The princess shot a concentrated beam of mana to the king, he then dodged at and dashed to the princess to close the distance.
Suddenly, he was tripped by something, it looked like his face was heading to the ground any second now! But then- A second sword appeared in his left hand out of nowhere. This shocked Raul.
He looks at Jackson for questions. The other just shrugged.
Using his new sword, the king mitigated his fall and stood back up to balance himself. He cut off one of the doves while deflecting another shot.
Trying to up the playing field, the princess formed a white sword out of thin air. She flung the sword to her opponent, the king dodging it at the last second.
After that, the princess charges a beam and shoots it, causing a large explosion, a fog of dust surrounded them, obscuring their figures to the spectators.
Moments later the fog settled, they see someone kneeling and looking up, a sword pointed to their throat. The winner was clear.
The surrounding knights cheered as they sung praises to both combatants.
"Okay, that's enough!" The captain of the knights yelled.
The king nodded and kneeled to check his sister for wounds. They smiled as the princess stood up and dusted off her training garments. The king was holding only one sword now, the second one disappearing as if it were never there in the first place.
Raul stared at them analytically for a few seconds. All he thought at that moment was that the royal family is NOT to be trifled with.
Shirou
An hour or two later, Shirou arrived at his throne room. The sparring session exhausted him but his schedule demands that he hold a meeting before lunch.
It was a way for the representatives of the noble families to introduce themselves to the king. Maybe even find some suitors for him, much to Shirou's dismay.
Illya was by his side as usual as she doubles as princess and royal advisor, due to the fact she is actually more proficient in politics than him, he just knows how to manage well, most of the schemes come from Illya… which made Shirou pity whoever tries to cross them, the child of winter can be quite cruel if she wants to be.
In front of them were nobles of all kinds of stature in life. The majority of the nobles near the capital attended, with some either didn't respond or outright refused in one way or another.
All of them kneeled as the king sat at his throne. "You may approach now." Shirou spoke, permitting the nobles to introduce themselves.
One-by-one they introduced themselves. They gave gifts and greetings, some young men even made a move on Illya, a simple glare from both of them made them back away, thankfully.
The Patriarchs offered their daughters to the king as a wife, unfortunately for them, Shirou refused respectfully.
At the background, he could see someone observing carefully. That distinctive pink hair… it was Meriel. She was crossing the room when they made eye contact. She waved to get his attention, she was promptly ignored.
Illya said that this is where the villainess named Elizabeth would be officially introduced as the king's fiancé and soon to be main wife.
This is a vital moment for the route as this starts the romance section between Isaiah and Meriel as he saves her from being shamed by Elizabeth.
Illya's place beside Shirou would've been Elizabeth's as his real advisor would've been a man named Gregory Dalsson, a fallen noble in this timeline.
But Elizabeth was still missing, Shirou issued a search party for her, ordering them to bring any news they gather… all they gathered at the moment was that she ran away from her house. If she were to be found, she would be dragged to the castle to be interrogated.
He could only hope that this mystery could be solved soon enough.
Raul
Raul was in the library to calm his nerves after the fight that he witnessed. The princess… was strong, he could even say that he was ashamed by his assumption about the white-haired woman.
As head scribe it would be his duty to record this event… he would get around it, eventually. He excused himself and broke his self-oath of diligence to wait for his brain to wrap around what he just witnessed.
Suddenly, the door opened… the one who entered was a maid, her name was Meriel as he remembers. Frankly a very annoying girl who acted like she knows him, he dislikes people like that, people who act friendly but with no substance. At least that dimwit Jackson had substance and truly means well.
Meriel however- felt empty, her greetings felt scripted and practiced like in a play. And then she always guesses his preferences accurately, normally he would've dismissed it as just coincidence. But she guesses it with utter precision all the time, like she'd known him for life. Honestly it terrifies him.
"Raul~ I got scones for you!" She twirls as she gives a bundle of scones at Raul. The scribe picked one of the scones and ate it.
"Mhm, it's good." He says.
"Aww~ no thank you?" The annoying girl kept being annoying.
"Thank you." He says coldly while not looking at Meriel, he WAS focused on the book he was reading before she showed up.
"Hey! Hey!" She calls. "If you can describe me in one word, what would it be?" The maid asks, disturbing the poor librarian once more.
"Annoying."
"Mou~ that's mean! You describe me in two words, then!" Again, annoying as hell.
"Noisy and Annoying."
"Hmph!" She pouts and turns her head like a child. "If that you think of me as annoying then I would just get out of your sight!"
"Feel free, I didn't lock the door." He stated shortly, not wanting to waste more air with this woman.
Meriel froze for a second, her eyes widened as if she has seen a ghost. She then silently walked out of the door.
This appalled Raul, but he let it go. His peaceful afternoon was back and that's all that matters.
Meriel
Meriel closed the door on the library, sweat trickled down her forehead as she walks distressingly to the servant's quarters. On her way there, she thought what of what happened after her entry to the castle.
Everything about this doesn't make any sense, she thought. Isaiah's behavior is literally a mirror to the Isaiah she knows, the high and mighty prideful king now feels… humbler, somehow.
He doesn't even berate servants as that's the thing that the heroine fixes later in the route. On the other hand, Raul seems to hate her.
In the game, Raul is what you could call a tsundere. He isn't honest with his feelings and lashes out on anyone he holds affection to, that includes the heroine. But he immediately apologizes for his self-proclaimed uncouth behavior.
But here, by the way he looks at her, it seemed that he genuinely hates her, the way he coldly offers her the exit is enough as evidence.
Lars was… the same. The anxious young man is a fan favourite because of his timidness, he is the same as ever.
He is also as clingy to anyone he considers close friends like the heroine. It is the same here, it would not take long until she captures him.
Jackson was annoying to find, she expected him to roam around the castle gardens as he hates training because the teachers are often weaker than him.
Here, he holes himself to the training grounds, swinging his sword earnestly unlike the lazy prodigy that he is in-game. If he's not in the training grounds, he disappears out of nowhere, Meriel heard rumors that he goes to his cousin, the princess for magic training.
That's bullshit as she knows that Jackson hates Elise because of her excessive bullying when they were children.
Speaking of Elise- she was supposed to be the villainess to Raul's route. She's an idiot that covets Isaiah's throne, though due to her incompetence, despite her compatibility with magic she's always failed to enact her plans, ending up with the villainess with the most death flags, even to Jackson's route.
Here, she's a little bit different, instead of sporting her signature drill hair style, she instead wears her hair down. Even more bizarre was that she was calmer here, not lashing out on servants.
Lastly; Elizabeth, the villainess for Isaiah and Lars is missing. Lars spent the majority of his route being abused by Elizabeth. The heroine incurred her wrath when she defended Lars from said abuse. Here, she's nowhere to be found. This made Meriel concoct a theory; what if everything that's happening was somehow the fault of Elise?
'Yes, yes. That's only logical.' Her different demeanor seems to resemble a trope that she's read on novels- the reincarnated villainess. It is a trope where a random woman from earth gets reincarnated as the villainess of a known novel or game.
What if Elise was a reincarnator like her? Trying to get all the capture targets for herself. Then there's only on conclusion, she would confront her and make her confess her evil manipulation of the capture targets. It is only logical that the hero needs a villain.
In Meriel's mind, she proclaimed herself the hero and made it her mission to make the capture targets snap out of Elise' machinations.
But she needs to prepare, the evil princess has made her roots deep into the castle, even tricking the poor servants into thinking that she is a good person. Her first target would be Isaiah as he seems to be also the first one to be deceived.
Thus, she would take back all the things that were rightfully hers as the heroine. Everything in this world was hers and hers alone, even the world itself was made for her. Oh, yes because she's the heroine.
She's the hero.
The Protagonist.
EVERYTHING WAS FOR HER AND HERS ALONE.
???
"Teacher! Here, more monster corpses!" A young man called an older man.
"Aright, coming." The older man responded. He looked through a pile of hobgoblin corpses that the young man pointed out.
"These were cut very clean…" He touched one of the corpses.
"Do you have an idea of who did this?" They were sent by the adventurer's guild to find out who has been culling the monster population at the northern forest. Apparently wanting to thank and compensate them.
"I have a clue, these clean cuts could only be done by a swordmaster, and there's only one swordmaster I know in these parts…" He said as he narrow his eyes.
"You don't mean-?" The younger of the pair said as sweat come down his forehead. He knew who his teacher has been referring to.
The old man nods. "Yes, the one who did was the wandering knight-"
"Ector the Holy Blade."
A/N: Oh geez, I wonder who could it be? In all seriousness, I feel like this rewrite has been successful thus far. No tangents, compact chapter. And most importantly: The plot is actually moving.
That's all I gotta say. Please follow and favourite, it's one of the things that motivate me. Also, please leave a review as your feedbacks help me improve my skills. Thank you all, peace be with you.
