An Unborn Hero

Rose lay awake despite the time of night. She was desperate for a wee, but the princess clamped onto her arm made the normally simple task of getting out of bed rather difficult.

She poked the aforementioned princess a few times, but the only response she got back was louder snoring.

"Okay, we're at the point where either I employ violence or I wet the bed..." she muttered. "And I'm far too old to be wetting the bed."

The sleeping princess didn't respond.

"Violence it is then," said Rose, attempting to pry Grace's grip open. When that failed, she shifted into Aster Blue form and tried again, this time with more success, before sprinting to the bathroom. Alas, she'd forgotten that in Aster Blue form, her panties were irremovable. She hung around, dancing the dance of the truly desperate as she did her best to wait out the spell without leaking. Its ending was followed by a veritable whirlwind of torn-off clothing, and a massive sigh of relief as the poor girl successfully brought an end to the incident without wetting herself.

"... You... okay...?" whispered Mystery into her mind.

"Eep! Don't you ever sleep? And why are you in the bathroom? But yes, I'm fine. It's her you should be asking."

"... Still... princess..."

"Yes, both Kellela and Rrillandral agreed on that translation," nodded Rose.

"... Her... choice..."

"Was it? She certainly wouldn't have behaved like that normally. She wanted to, but knew that she shouldn't, so she deliberately got herself drunk enough to stop caring about the consequences... I've really messed up her life, haven't I?"

"... No... Me..."

"Hah. Fair enough, I'll give you that one. We messed up her life. But... I don't think she minds."

"... You... don't...?"

"Well, I don't mind, and Grace feels similar. You completely upended my life too, remember? I should be hunting goblins in the outskirts of the forest, not fighting demons and consorting with heroes and princesses."

"... Sorry..."

"I said I don't mind. It's... scary, but someone needs to do it. And... okay, maybe it's selfishness. My parents are only bronze ranked, and maybe they'll hit silver before they retire, and if I stick with them, I'll be just the same. It's an opportunity to surpass them. Or rather, I've already surpassed them. I have a never-before-seen occupation. A rare spell. I have a brand new sub-skill for [Swordplay] that explicitly references my ability to summon swords. I... can see where Grace was coming from when she said I was a big deal now. And... that's slightly scary too, but as long as I'm with everyone, it's fun."

Mystery didn't answer, but just radiated relief.

"Anyway, thanks for the chat, but it's the middle of the night. I need to sleep. So should you!"

"... Can't... sleep..."

"Aww. Are you stressed out too?"

"... No... Literally..."

Rose blinked. "Wait, like you really can't sleep?"

"... No... brain..."

Rose blinked again. "Okay... I guess that explains why you're up. Doesn't explain why you were in the bathroom, though."

Mystery didn't answer, feeling the strain of prolonged [Telepathy] use.

ding

For holding what was very nearly a complete conversation, [Telepathy] advances to level 8 and [Translate] to level 6.

"Night night," whispered Rose, climbing back into bed with the freshly minted, but still somewhat drunk, [Magical Princess].

Which was, of course, an appropriate time for someone to hammer on the front door. Hard.

"Seriously?" complained Rose, staggering back out of bed.

Grace continued to snore, far too out of it to be woken by any noise, however loud.

Knowing demons had launched an attack inside the capital, Hayedalf had warded their rented home into a fortress, so Rose felt fairly safe opening the door.

Outside was the [King], flanked by the [Royal Knight] and the [Queen], the new [First Princess] Mercy behind them, along with a battalion of knights.

Rose looked down, suddenly aware that with the earlier rush and brief transformation, combined with being half asleep, she'd left most of her nightclothes on the bathroom floor.

"Uh... Mystery? You still there? Clothes, please?" she called, carefully closing the door.

It didn't shut, on account of the foot stuck in it.

"Grace?!" yelled the [King], rushing in and completely ignoring Rose. "Grace? Are you okay?"

ding

For salvaging a despairing maiden's dignity, [Cosplay] advances to level 3.

"Rose is a despairing maiden now?" thought Mystery, having hurriedly dressed Rose up as Rose. "But why is a chunk of the royal family here? If he tries telling Grace off just because she wanted to have a day off from etiquette, I'm going to shove him into one of her corsets and see how he likes it."

"She's asleep!" called Rose. "What's wrong?"

The [King] spun around to stare at Rose. "She's safe?" he demanded.

"Of course she is," said Kellela, coming down the stairs with Hayedalf. "What happened to make you think otherwise?"

"Mercy inherited [First Princess]," explained the [Queen], having entered the house far more calmly.

"Oh my... How many bottles of whisky do we have left?" Kellela asked, turning to Hayedalf. "I think she's going to want another dose when she wakes up."

"Whisky?" demanded the [King]. "What happened?"

"Nothing bad. It's just... the stress of being a member of royalty, rushing to pass her exams, and the knowledge that we're probably all going to die soon finally got to her."

"That... sounds pretty bad," pointed out the [Queen].

"Look, she changed occupation. That's all," snapped Rose. "Don't you dare get on at her over it! She hasn't done anything wrong."

"You tell him!" agreed Mystery, unheard by anyone. "Wait, when did Rose get so confident? She's shouting at the [King]!"

"I... wasn't going to..." hesitatingly answered the [King], unused to being shouted at by commoners and not entirely sure how to react.

"We just wanted to check she was safe," added the more composed [Queen].

"Well, she is. Now can everyone go back to bed, please. It's the middle of the night!"

"You'll need to forgive me for wanting to check for myself," said the [Royal Knight]. "Not that I don't trust you, but these things must be verified."

What he didn't point out was that the shouting should have been loud enough to wake the dead, and yet there was no sign of Grace. He marched up the stairs, followed by the [Queen], leaving behind an impatient [King] and scowling Rose.

"Thanks," said the [King], breaking the silence.

"Huh? What for?"

"For being her friend. She doesn't have many."

Rose scoffed. "And whose fault is that? Not hers."

The [King] looked somewhat abashed, before peering at the young [Magical Swordsgirl] appraisingly.

"She's fine. Or will be, until she wakes up," said the [Queen], returning from upstairs. "I do not envy the hangover she'll have."

"She said she wouldn't have one. She healed it pre-emptively," pointed out Rose.

"I wasn't talking about a physical hangover," said the [Queen]. "But we have taken up enough of your time. We apologise for the late-night visit."

The group left the house, leaving everyone to return to bed. Rose climbed back into hers, Grace unconsciously reacting to the movement and latching back onto her arm.

"I feel like I've picked up a pet dog or something," she muttered as she tried to fall back to sleep.

Meanwhile, Mystery hovered by a window, watching the royal procession leave.

ding

Achievement unlocked: [I Couldn't Stop Breaking The System, And Now I've Been Smited].

"Wait, what? What the hell? I didn't do anything! I'm just hovering here!"

I Couldn't Stop Breaking The System, And Now I've Been Smited (Epic)

You just can't help yourself, can you? And this time, you don't even know what it is that you've done. No matter; you don't know your punishment either, so it all evens out.

"What the hell?! I didn't screw up Grace's life that badly, did I?"

And Rrillandral—who'd missed the commotion on account of having important business at the elven embassy—smiled in satisfaction at the young-looking and unusually frilly elf who'd volunteered as her guinea pig.

Out in the slums, someone else suffered a rude awakening, springing up out of bed to the noise of shattering glass. Being a [Merchant], he had no combat skills, nor perception skills of the sort that would be useful in this situation, but violence wasn't the role of a [Merchant]. Instead, he simply hired people for whom it was. And, being somewhat unscrupulous in his dealings, he required a fair number of them. Being successfully unscrupulous meant that they even got paid.

He heard them running through the property, two of them bursting into his room to act as bodyguards. Nothing came for them, though, and the noises soon ceased. A third hired guard turned up minutes later to report.

"A burglary," he said, plainly. "Both warehouse guards killed, with no sign they had a chance to fight back. Oddly, there was nothing taken but the food stocks. No sign of the thief."

The [Merchant] scowled. He was used to people attempting to steal food out of desperation, but such people wouldn't be able to take out two of his men. Someone capable of doing that would have no need to act out of desperation. Besides, even a capable warrior wouldn't have been able to shift much food before reinforcements showed up, unless they'd been there for some time before the crash. They'd be better off going for goods with a better value-to-volume ratio, like jewellery.

That left only one obvious option. A vigilante. Someone didn't like him monopolising food distribution among the starving slum-dwellers, and was making moves against him.

Rose was woken up by a scream. It didn't help that the scream took place about three inches from her ear.

"Volume!" she complained.

The scream cut out, replaced by a thoughtful silence.

"Why am I in your bed?" came a careful question, asked very quietly.

"I have no idea! You weren't exactly making much sense at the time, but you wouldn't let go of my arm."

"Did I... do anything?"

"Aside from almost making me piss myself, no. Also, you snore. Loudly."

The silence returned.

"Everything okay in there?" called out Kellela from outside. "I heard a scream."

"Just Grace waking up," answered Rose.

"... Sorry..." came the whispered voice of Mystery.

"Huh? What for?" asked Grace. "And why are you spying on us in bed?"

"Good question," added Rose. "First the bathroom, now our bedroom..."

"... Saw... scream..." answered an offended Mystery, who'd actually been downstairs, launching miniature fireballs at targets and earning herself the [Multishot] sub-skill and a couple of levels in the process. She didn't want to drain mana from Kellela while she was sleeping, in case it woke her, but small enough fireballs turned out to be highly mana-efficient.

"Doesn't explain the bathroom," huffed Rose.

Mystery didn't answer that one. How could she put into words the fact that her magical girl sense had tingled, so she'd simply rushed over to see why one of the girls had transformed?

"... My... fault..." she instead whispered to Grace.

"Yes, it is," agreed Grace. "Thanks to you, my world view has been completely upended, my life along with it, and I'll probably be dead soon, and yet... if someone offered to snap their fingers and put everything back to how it was, I'd turn them down in an instant."

"...?" asked a confused Mystery.

"What's so confusing about it?" asked Grace. "Now, come on, I have a transformation sequence to practise."

"Don't you have school?" asked Rose.

"Screw school," said Grace. "Surviving next week is more important."

"Are you still drunk?"

Grace considered the question carefully, before healing herself of any lingering alcohol-related effects.

"If I was, I'm not now. And, to reiterate, screw school. Let's all go prance around in nonsensical dresses and shout cheesy things about love and justice. And then let's see if we can drag Hayedalf down with us and get his occupation changed to something with 'girl' in it."

"... You still sound drunk," commented Rose. "Anyway, that plan's all good, but can we go get some breakfast first? And we need to tell you about last night's visitors."

"Fine. I should probably eat," agreed Grace, walking towards the stairs. "And what visitors?"

"Your father turned up," explained Rose.

Grace stopped walking.

"And mother," added Rose. "And sister. And about twenty knights."

"... I'm dead already, aren't I?" she moaned. "I'm not even going to make it to the forest. They know."

"Nah, it's fine. I shouted at him until he went away. But yes, Mercy inherited [First Princess]."

"Shouted at him? You shouted at Father? At the [King]?!"

"I was tired and grumpy, okay? Anyway, breakfast!"

Rose finished the trip downstairs, walking into the kitchen, where Rrillandral was already eating.

At least, she assumed it was Rrillandral.

"You look... different," she observed.

"Huh?" added Grace, catching sight of the elf. "You're that worried about us not being prepared that you'd learn even more skills?"

"No, not at all," answered Rrillandral, who had apparently aged ten years overnight. "After all, thanks to Mystery, I can do this."

A look of concentration passed across her face, at the end of which she'd re-obtained her young-teen appearance.

"Yes, it restricts my fashion choices, but otherwise it's a reasonable workaround."

"Wow. Mystery really has turned everyone's lives upside-down," grumbled Grace.

"Hey. Since when have you been able to cast [Magical Girl Transformation] subvocally?" complained Rose.

"Really? That's the part you're going to latch onto?"

"Huh? What's that all about?" pondered Mystery, having no idea what Grace was talking about. "I didn't do anything bad to Rrillandral, did I?"

Mystery (Human)

Age: -9 months

Occupation: Hero (L)

Skills:

- Soul's Eye (U) (35/100)

>> Sense Vitality (U)

>> Sense Soul (R)

>> Sense Mana (U)

>> Sense Light (C)

>> Sense Sound (C)

>> Pierce Illusions (U)

>> Sense Miasma (R)

>> Multi-focal (R)

>> Sense Spirit (R)

- Astral Projection (U) (22/60)

>> Sure Navigation (U)

>> Uncontainable (U)

>> Tether of Will (L)

- Robust (C) (20/40)

>> Hardened Soul (R)

>> Secured Mana (U)

>> Pain Tolerance (C)

- Stealth (C) (3/20)

>> Camouflage Vitality (R)

- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (20/30)

>> Age Correction (R)

>> Gender Bending (R)

- Light (C) (12/20)

>> Heterochrome (U)

- Increased Attributes (C) (10/20)

>> Mana Storage (U)

- Investigation (C) (3/10)

- Cosplay (U) (3/10)

- Mana Absorption (U) (4/20)

>> Drain Mana (U)

- Translate (U) (6/20)

>> Two Way (U)

- Telepathy (U) (8/30)

>> Reciprocity (U)

>> Empathy (U)

- Lightning Bolt (U) (2/10)

- Fireball (U) (4/20)

>> Multishot (U)

- Wall of Light (U) (1/10)

- Energy Resistance (U) (1/10)

Achievements:

- Early Bloomer II (R)

- First Skill (C)

- Journeyman (U)

- Survivor of Zarklaxxos, the Arcane Infernal (R)

- I Broke The System, And All I Got Was This Lousy Achievement (E)

- Astral Explorer I (R)

- First Spell (C)

- I Broke The System Again, And Now The Administrators Hate Me (E)

- Spell Forger (R)

- Demon Slayer II (E)

- Monster Slayer V (E)

- Curiosity (U)

- War Veteran (U)

- Royal Audience (C)

- Diligent Hero (L)

- Studious (C)

- Pioneering Guider (E)

- Royal Pervert (R)

- I Couldn't Stop Breaking The System, And Now I've Been Smited (E)