Stories

"Aaaaaaaahhhhh! Sweet comfortable beds again!" Helena cried as they arrived in front of the inn they would be staying at tonight, "And the day's still young! Let's sign in and get some lunch!"

"Helena, take it down a notch." Kaguya sighed as she placed a hand on her fellow princess' shoulder.

Before any of them could step inside though, a man and woman stepped out to meet them with welcoming grins.

"Welcome to our inn, sirs and madams." The woman bowed, "I presume you are the party of royalties that we've been expecting?"

"Yes, but there's no need to treat us any differently." Momo replied, "We can take the normal rooms if you have them."

"We're not fancy enough to have penthouse rooms or anything." The man laughed, "And this is just our usual customer service. Me and my wife here have been working at this inn for close to a decade now!"

"Really?" Kaguya asked.

"Indeed." The wife smiled, "My name is Barbara and this is my husband, Mikhail. We've inherited this inn from Mikhail's family who've been running this inn for over 20 years."

"But that's enough talk!" Mikhail laughed, "Why don't you let us help take your bags up to your rooms for you? Our chef will have cooked up a warm meal for you in the meantime."

"Oh!" Helena said as the couple moved to help take the backpack off her, "Well thanks!"

"It's no problem at all." Mikhail replied, "Vera! Come help carry our guest's luggage to their rooms!"

"Coming!"

A young girl only a year or two younger than their group bounded down the stairs of the inn, a bubbly grin on her face, "Welcome dear guests!"

"Oh!" Corissa said as Vera took the backpack off her, "Perhaps I should go help in the kitchen?"

"Corissa, just how much do you like cooking?" Helena smirked as she hooked an arm around Corissa's neck, "Come on, it's nice to be pampered every once in a while right? Just sit back and let the workers help us out for once. We're princesses after all! Can't be expected to do everything ourselves all the time! Besides, these folks seem nice enough."

"O-Okay..." Corissa gulped.

"Hey hey!" Vera bounced over to the men of their group in the back, "You're all knights right?!"

"Well of course we are!" Roland cracked a proud smile, "We're here to protect our princesses from all sorts of dangers!"

"Wow! You must all have some incredible stories! Can you tell me about them some time?!"

"Well sure!" Roland grinned, his face practically ecstatic at the chance to brag about his deeds, "I've got plenty of stories! Like this one time, I was fighting a giant and-"

"Hey, you look kinda different!" Vera said, already turning to ignore Roland in favor of Roko, "Are you also a knight?"

"Well..." Roko said, "Not really."

"Then what are you? Are you a squire?"

"I'm...kind of the tactician, I guess?"

"Wow! I've never met a tactician before! So you're kind of the brains of the group?"

"Umm..."

"He sure is!" Helena said as she went over and hooked her other arm around Roko's neck, pulling Corissa along with her, "He's no slouch in battle either! He's the most well rounded in our group!"

"No, I think Mikado's got pretty balanced stats and probably has higher numbers than m-"

"His name is Roko by the way." Helena interrupted him with a wink at Vera, "This is Mikado and the scary black knight is Varis."

"Ooo..." Vera said as she looked at Varis' fancy black armor, "He looks real cool!"

Roland straightened up, fixing his armor and swords as he prepared for his introduction.

"Vera! You can talk once our guests have settled in!"

"Alright!"Vera held out her hands towards Roko, "Come on!"

"I can-"

Helena's arm around Roko's neck tightened slightly. Roko kind of glanced at Helena before he sighed, said "Fine" and relinquished his back pack to the young girl.

In small time, everyone's rooms were set up and lunch was all ready for them downstairs. As everyone ate, Vera was right there in their table chatting with anybody who would answer her. Even after lunch, the young girl kept bouncing around between them, gathering stories primarily from the princesses who were happy to tell her even about their normal lives in Memoria Auspice. With the exceptions of Roland who kept waiting to be called on but never was even though he had kept his swords on him to try and look cool and Corissa who Vera just seemed to look upon with curiosity and respect from afar.

"Do you think I scare her?" Corissa sniffed.

"If anybody's scaring her, it's Varis." Roko scoffed as he sat down on one of the fences in the inn's backyard, "You're probably just too pretty for her or something."

"Oh gosh, do you think so?" Corissa blushed slightly.

"I thought you were used to this."

"It's different when it's coming from you."

"Uh huh. Anyway, it's clear that she respects you. Just give her some time."

"But we're not staying here for long are we?"

"Helena's been getting a bit sick of the camping life so she's been saying we should stick around for a bit longer than normal."

"Oh. Are we going to be staying long?"

"I give it like three days before Helena's ready to move on."

"That's surprisingly specific."

"Even if she isn't ready, I'll be leaving without her."

"Well, that's fair." Corissa giggled, "By the way, what are you doing?"

"I've been gathering scan data on normal folks across the different towns we visited and I'm starting to compile them." Roko replied as he continued to scribble in his notebook, "The data's been mildly interesting."

"How so?"

"As I suspected, the sum of the stats of people in normal environments have been much lower than anybody in Memoria Auspice and still notably lower than the people in Galia. It's like royalty gives some sort of stat boost not just to those under the crown but those mildly related to them."

"I'm not an expert or anything but given the responsibilities of a royal and royal adjacent position, would that not attract people with higher 'stats' or develop higher 'stats' in those who do take the position?"

"That doesn't really explain the Galians."

"Hmmmm...you got me there." Corissa sighed, "Then I guess I'll leave you alone for now. Unless you're willing to make me a cup of milk tea."

"You can make one yourself, it's really not that hard."

"Yeah but it tastes better when you make it."

"I assure you it doesn't."

"I assure you it does." Corissa giggled, "Bye!"

Corissa turned and left with Varis following behind her, back into the inn before she and Vera bumped into each other. Vera gave a polite apology and bow much to Corissa's well hidden dismay before they parted ways again, Vera walking right up to Roko.

"Whatcha doin?" She asked.

"Math." Roko replied.

"Wow, I should have known you could do math." Vera nodded, "That's the kind of stuff that smart people like you do."

"You can do it too. The fact that you think this is relegated only to 'smart people' is your only barrier."

"Really? So what exactly are you doing?"

"Charting binomial distributions across several sets of data for future reference."

"Yep. That sounds way smarter than the kind of math that I know."

"It really isn't." Roko sighed as he closed his book, unable to concentrate on his work anymore, "Is there anything I can help you with?"

"Tell me some stories!" Vera cried excitedly, "I've never been outside the village so I don't have any idea what it's like out in the world!"

"Did you not have enough stories from the other princesses?"

"I can't ever have enough stories! All the ones they told me were all so different and interesting so yours must be really special!"

"What kind of stories have they been telling you?"

"There's one where you all hatched your own pets and fought some evil guy forcing animals to fight?"

"Yeah that was pretty recent."

"And there was that time you fought an army of dead people?!"

"There wasn't really an army but there were dead people."

"And you fought a cult!"

"I fought like two cults so you're going to have to be more specific."

"Wow, I thought there was a strange amount of stories with you in it but you really do seem to be at the center of everything!"

"Well..." Roko sighed, "Any of the princesses would be more entertaining storytellers than me so there's no point in asking me for stories."

"But I want to hear from you! Tell me about how you came up with your plans!"

"My plans?" Roko frowned, "You want to know about my plans?"

"Yep!"

"...Alright, fine." Roko shrugged, "Which do you want to hear about first?"

"Tell me how you beat that old military zombie!"

"Kyousei? That was more a matter of luck. My initial plan was to use a polearm and use the reach advantage to try and squeak out a win. Turns out there were some unexpected variables; my staff turned out to have some special properties. I managed to leverage that to some level during the fight but I ended up falling back on my back up plan."

"What was the back up plan?"

"It turned out his sword was made with material that was weak to extreme cold so I captured it in some dry ice and destroyed it."

"Wow, how'd you figure that out?!"

"One of his oldest friends was kind enough to tell me about the material so I went off to conduct research on it. Hardest part was actually finding the tree where its sap was used. After securing some sap for myself, I had to bring it back and try some experimentation to come up with a good plan. It wasn't hard to find something that would work but finding some way to not only conceal it but be able to utilize it instantaneously was the tricky bit. In the end, I settled with hiding the dry ice in my sheath."

"Wow! I don't know what I would have done in your situation! I can't imagine going through all that trouble for a back up plan."

"You can never have too much safeguards." Roko shrugged, "The problem is constructing them so that they do not interrupt each other and are ready to be implemented at anytime."

"So that's what important about being a tactician?"

"No, the important thing is coming up with one plan in the first place." Roko scowled, "Getting to the ideal scenario while keeping everyone safe, keeping the situation contained the best you can...making the right sacrifices..."

"Oh wow." Vera gulped as Roko rubbed his eyes tiredly, "You really give this a lot of thought."

"Someone has to..." Roko growled.

"Does nobody help you out?"

"Oh the girls are happy to point out the flaws in my plans." Roko sighed, "And don't get me wrong, I appreciate it but we have different priorities sometimes."

"Like?"

"I want to protect them. They want to protect me. That's the basics of it."

"Hm. So would you say you work better alone?"

"Good question." Roko sighed again, "Sometimes it feels that way."

"Like your battle with the demon?"

"You know about that too? You haven't spoken to Corissa yet so I assume you're working off of third party information."

"I don't know what that means but yeah, I haven't talked to the pretty lady yet." Vera nodded, "She's kind of intimidating."

"She's quite nice once you get to know her."

"Oh...but what about the demon though! You were there right?! You can tell me the whole thing!"

"I guess." Roko shrugged, "But the story behind that fight starts before the fight even begins."

"Wow! Tell me all the details!"

Inside the inn, Helena was watching the two talk from her table, observing with no idea as to what they were talking about.

"Those two seem to be getting along well." Helena said as she leaned her chair back forward and placed her drink back on the table, "Vera seems like a pretty nice girl doesn't she?"

"She's a bit too exuberant." Kaguya smiled, "But she's quite likable. Like a hyper little puppy."

"I for one am pretty much out of stories." Momo sighed, "All I do is fight so I don't have time to observe the big plan in action."

"You still have a unique perspective." Helena chuckled, "At least you got interviewed unlike a certain someone."

"What are we talking about?" Corissa asked as she sat down at the table with a cup of tea.

"About how Roko and that inn girl is getting along really well." Helena smirked.

"Oh. Well, that's only natural." Corissa replied as she picked up her cup, "Roko's a really nice guy once you get to know him."

"Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if he decided he wanted to stay here and marry that girl."

"That's just silly." Corissa smiled, "Roko's never been interested in romance."

"Yeah but that's because he's been around us all the time, remember?" Helena grinned, "You know him, he doesn't want to become a king. That's why he's never been interested in us. But a random inn girl? I dunno, they're getting along pretty well."

"That's ridiculous." Corissa replied with a smile.

"Think about it. How would you feel if Roko wanted to abandon us and live a peaceful life in this village?"

Corissa cocked her head up curiously as she gave it some thought. A few seconds passed before Corissa placed her teacup back on the table.

"...I don't want that..." Corissa said quietly.

"Oh!" Momo smiled, "Helena made her cry!"

"Oh shoot, seriously!" Helena cried as she sat up, "D-Don't worry, Corissa, Roko's probably not going to abandon us! Probably!"

"Well, Roko wouldn't have to fight anymore if he could stay here so he could probably stop being as reckless." Kaguya added.

"Not helping, Kaguya!" Helena cried as she ran over and hugged the softly sobbing Corissa.