Chapter 15:

'AGHH! this is the most annoying thing I've ever been through!' Kara whined.

'Eeeee!'Peanut screeched.

Peanut is so relieved that his master is finally not banished, but she keeps whining about how unfair her mother has been to her.

'I'm not whining peanut! Stop talking, I am slowly figuring things out on my own!' she snapped.

'It's just...People confuse me. I just don't know if they are helping you because they want to or because they seek the validation of others by showing their superiority.' she sighed.

'That's not all. My own mother hates me to her guts. I just know it.She doesn't even care about me. Even if she did give me a fair chance, it's just to show off her name as a fair and generous queen. And not only did she heavy the potions now I have to take chess as a subject. WHO HAS CHESS AS A SUBJECT?' she choked.

Peanut simply shrugged.

She dropped onto her bed. Boy was she exhausted!

'Yeah yeah, life is easy for you huh? all you do is eat peanuts and follow me around. I wish I was a monkey. Then I can also eat peanuts and not do what 2 times 23 is.' she sighed deeply.

Peanut climbed on her and growled lightly.

'Man, how do I get anything done? I really don't know. Now I have to pass arithmetic, spelling, etiquette, sword fighting, martial arts, history of war, war tactics, and chess.'

'Eee!'

'What? no, that's the only one on the list.'

She pulled out the silver scroll.

'Oh wait a second, no! how did I miss an entire subject?? Since when is cooking a subject? And why on Earth did I miss it?' I slapped her face.

'Okay, I need to find a way to pass all these subjects. I really need to do something.' she scratched her head.

Just then, she noticed the prisoner's watch glowing like a crystal ball at night.

'What kind of dark magic is this...' she jumped from her bed to the table.

The watch had some kind of inscription.

'What are these? I don't recognize these letters.'

'Eeeeo!' Peanut panicked and defended himself behind the animal head collection.

'Isn't this the prisoner's watch? Maybe it can help us.' she exclaimed.

'Magic watch, tell me a way to win the contest.'

The watch began to glow brighter.

'Error: contest not specified. Please specify the date and name.' it spoke.

She was amazed and continued to fill in the name of the contest.

'The annual hunter's contest.'

'The annual bunny contest?'

'No the annual hunter's contest!'

'Do you mean the Amazon forest?'

'What? How is this thing so useless?'

'2323435 results for 'how is this thing so baseless.'' She finally gave up.

'Oh, I'll never win this. I'm just going to be the forgotten princess of the Zhan empire.'

'2356788 results found for the Zhan empire.' it chimed.

She immediately stood up from her bed.

'Say what?'

'Do you want to read the first article?' it asked with the options 'yes' and 'no' displayed as a neon hologram.

She curiously clicked yes.

After 20 minutes of scrolling and reading, the shock went to her heart.

'Oooh, I think I need to lay down.' peanut helped her pull herself together by slapping her in the face.

'Ow! you could've just pulled me up or something!' she exclaimed.

'Ee!' it apologized.

'Unbelievable, this boy is really from the future. All these articles about Zhan are full of war and bloodshed. Millions of people died, setting houses on fire and the crumbling of the empire piece by piece due to the conflict. And it says, it's all my fault!' she whispered unable to say the last word.

'How could it be? It says that princess Kara lost all the contests even when she passed her warrior license and that she set the kingdom into chaos and madness. She also got beheaded due to her treachery to the country.' she gulped.

Sweat trickled down her forehead.

'I don't-' she didn't have any words to speak.

'No way they're lying, they're badmouthing me because they don't want me to participate! they're just scaring me so I would retreat! lies! all lies!' she protested.

But somehow, all the information up till now was true. S

he is the child of Queen Maguire and all the details about her grandparents and their legacy is true. They even specified some very confidential monarch secrets that no one except the royal family knows.

'But, why would they do something? No! someone is setting me up for this! it's that scum boy for sure! I know it!' she bellowed.

'I'm going to kill you, you wimp!' she screamed as she left her room to get her revenge.

Meanwhile, Cyran is working really hard on making powdered forms of the crystallized chemicals he made. 'Hey you have a grinder, anyone has a grinder?' he asked around.

'Yes, we have a stone grinder.' guard 1 replied. '

A what now?' he asked puzzled. They presented him the stone grinder and the large stone they used to crush it.

he tried to lift it but it was too heavy to lift.

'Oh my, this is quite heavy. Do you think there's something else that's uh...teen-friendly?'

'Sorry, we don't make grinders for wimps. Because we don't have any. Even the starved and hungry babies are much stronger than you.' one of them derided.

'Hey! mind your language. I'm the next overlord for the ship!'

Then, an idea struck him.

'Okay if you think you are so strong, why don't you fix the screws of this airplane without breaking it.' he challenged them.

'Really, Why are you embarrassing us with these measly jobs? If you think you can do this, you think we can't?' number 2 laughed. He knows very well that you can't screw it without a screwdriver.

It's literally impossible to do it within 2 hours.

'You'll see. Now get to it.' he ordered as he turned to crush the crystallized calcium sulfate.

Redhead walked to the entrance of the prisoner's working office.

'Alright, are you done or-' he looked at two passed-out soldiers and one boy getting beaten up by a very angry princess.