An Unborn Hero

"How did she know?" asked the [King], somewhat infuriated. "Even by teleportation, the Vale of Myllearn is a multiple day trip from Karn's Vigil. She must have started travelling before Kellela left the capital. Even we didn't know at that point."

"I believe the answer to both that and the question of how she entered Flinel undetected are one and the same," responded an aide, delicately thumbing through an ancient tome with gloved hands. "She said her name was Rrillandral Lehibeborn? Then she is the [Eternal Princess] of the Vale. And also, with a single notable exception, a party member of every single Flinellian [Hero] dating back to the founding of the Kingdom. She likely walked straight through the demonic forest."

"She what?"

"If we had someone available from the time of the last [Hero], with the near-immunity to miasma granted by stacking [Hero's Party Member] and high ranked demon slayer achievements, and the levels to reach and battle the demon lord, would we not dispatch them to the centre of the forest whenever activity flared up, to check if a new demon lord had been born? And if one had been, it would also confirm the existence of a new [Hero]. From there, it would be a simple matter of receiving information from channels both official and otherwise, hunting for suspicious behaviour that could indicate an undiscovered [Hero]. If we had the certain knowledge that a new undiscovered [Hero] was present, we'd assuredly have approached the Kellela situation differently."

The [King] held his head in his hands.

"Since the founding of the Kingdom?" asked another aide incredulously. "Just how old is she? And with her around, why the heck do we even need a [Hero]?"

"According to these notes, my predecessor serving at the time of our last [Hero] attributed her actions to boredom. She's old enough to have experienced everything in this world, so she seeks out heroes in the hopes of being stimulated by theirs. Historically, she's always been a trustworthy and powerful ally, but her real strength lies in knowledge. Her combat ability is high, but not overwhelming, given the elvish curse on learning skills."

"What about that whole thing about princesses and heroes, and why it's a terminally bad idea for the kingdom in question?"

"That's not applicable to elves. They're immortal, so the question of succession never arises. She'll never claim the throne from her father, short of abdication, foul play or accident, and none have taken place in the Vale since before Flinel was founded. In any case, an elf and human can't bear children together."

"We have no choice, do we?" moaned the [King]. "She knows Mystery's language. We've had our scholars examine every word in that notebook, and we couldn't recognise any of them. Whereas she apparently absorbs alien knowledge from heroes like a sponge, and can speak all of them. And based on her past behaviour, we have no grounds for suspicion. We need to let her in. We need her. And if we do, rejecting the other envoys becomes that much harder."

"We don't need her. We can claim to her that the [Hero] understood none of the languages offered and continue on our own."

"Chances are good she'd discover the deception at some point," argued another aide.

"No, we need her," repeated the [King]. "I know you wished to use Kellela and Mystery as bait to protect the rest of our kingdom, but the plan has been more effective than anticipated. They've come under multiple attacks per day. Never mind the months it would likely take her to learn our language, we need to open full communication with Mystery in a time I'd prefer to measure in hours."

"There will be political consequences to this," warned an aide. "Every kingdom on the continent will take it as a sign they can just turn up at Kellela's front door and expect a favourable reception."

"Have I ever mentioned I hate my job?" whined the [King]. Sometimes, there were simply no right answers. "What if we send an invitation to all the embassies, the Vale included, to an event here in the capital? A ball or something, to celebrate the discovery of the new [Hero]. And if the Vale happens to send Rrillandral to represent them, and if she happens to get on with Mystery, then... that's not our fault."

"A somewhat convoluted suggestion, but perhaps we can make it work."

While the [King] and his aides plotted a grand ball, which was always a terrible thing to inflict upon an unsuspecting victim, Mystery was kicking herself. Metaphorically. As has been amply mentioned already, she had no feet with which to kick.

"That elf knew English! Someone who knew English was right there in front of me, and I had to run away!"

It wasn't as if she had any choice in the matter, but that didn't make the realisation any less bitter.

"Will she come back? It looked like that guard was rather unhappy about her, the way he was frowning all the time. Argg, I could almost talk to someone for the first time in over a month! Kinda... It wasn't as if I had any way to talk back, but we could have come up with something, even if it was a giant board of letters and me casting [Light] over them one by one."

She glared at the white-haired girl, who still seemed far too enthusiastic about hanging around her, and plotted a set of costume variations to calm herself down.

"Why is she hanging around me all the time, anyway? Another question that could be answered instantly if I could actually talk to people."

Little did the pair of them know that they were both after similar things. Grace wanted the [Hero's Party Member] achievement, and if only she'd been more confident about it, she might have got it already. Alas for her, Mystery had got the hang of not accidentally casting magic by wanting it too hard.

So, when Rose poked her head in the door, called to Mystery and gestured at herself completely shamelessly, then Aster Blue went running back out, Grace couldn't help but feel somewhat embarrassed.

"Uhh..." she started with a slight blush, unable to vocalise her request. Initially, she'd been unsure if she was strong or experienced enough to stand by the side of a [Hero], but her thinking had been twisted since then. Rose was no-one special. She was no genius, no superhuman, and hadn't reached impressive levels in any of her skills. Yet she'd slain a demon. This [Hero] could instil power in those she chose.

The problem was the price that needed to be paid for that power. Born at the very apex of high society, with etiquette drilled into her since before she was capable of pronouncing etiquette, Grace was rather worse off than Kellela, who had been born a commoner. Kellela may have thought her magical girl costume was scandalous, but at least she didn't have palpitations just thinking about wearing it. Rose—having never suffered from etiquette teachers drilling into her the unacceptability of ankles—was somehow not bothered at all, worrying only about her lengthened hair being easy to grab by monsters, and not at all about the indecency. The very thought of her underwear being on display caused the unfortunate Grace a reflexive reaction, the memory of her etiquette teacher smacking her with a harisen playing back so strongly she could feel the impact.

"Is it really necessary to dress up like that to join the hero's party? What if I wait till we can talk properly?"

Grace pondered. It wasn't as if Mystery could only do short, revealing dresses. What she'd done to that assassin had been even worse, but it had been different. It hadn't involved a dress at all. What were the limits? Could Mystery's spell create an outfit that wouldn't render a princess unfit for marriage?

If her goal was to attract Mystery's attention, there was nothing better she could possibly have done than grabbing some paper and sketching herself in a dress.

Of course, as a [First Princess], she spent most of her life in expensive dresses of various kinds. Most of them even shared the feature of Mystery's magical girl costumes that they were impossible to wear or remove unaided. Stuffing Grace into some of the more formal outfits was a three person job, and involved equipment that wouldn't have looked out of place in a torture chamber. Heck, Grace was fairly sure that the palace [Torturer] did borrow one of her stricter corsets when faced with a particularly difficult customer.

For this job, she put such elaborate constructions out of mind, and went for something a little simpler. Keeping Mystery's apparent preference for flower-based designs in mind, she kept a petal skirt, but with the skirt only splitting below her knees, and the wide petals providing decent coverage as far as her feet. Yes, there would be a small amount of skin on display—certainly around her ankles, maybe even as high as her shins—but she could cope with that much.

"Well, Mystery?" she asked, pointing at her sketch and then at herself. "What do you think?"

"Oh?" thought Mystery. "Is she designing a magical girl costume for herself? But that looks more like a ballgown. It can't possibly be practical."

If Rose had heard Mystery's thoughts at that point, she'd likely have had an aneurysm.

"I suppose if I bring the skirt in a bit, it would look like a lily? Lilies are well enough associated with white that it would work, but they have that weird upturned petal thing going on. If I added that to her design, it would make her look like a cartoon exploding trumpet... My original jasper design is similar to a lily in the way the petals are largely fused, so if that's the sort of design she wants, I think shortening the skirt to look like a jasper would be better than narrowing it and turning up the bottom."

And so, discarding the one part of the design that Grace actually wanted, Mystery cast her spell.

The [First Princess] was enveloped in the usual white light, feeling slightly nervous. Oddly, that nervousness had nothing to do with her transformation, and more to do with her royal duty. She'd convinced Mystery to cast the spell on her, but would that automatically make her a [Hero's Party Member]? She needed to live up to the expectations of her father, and the first two members had earned the achievement using the power the [Hero] granted them to fight. It wasn't true that everyone she transformed got it, or else the assassin would have gained it too, albeit only very briefly.

Fortunately, she was blessed with success, the ding sounding as she was still mid transformation. Mystery had wanted her for her magical girl squad since she first saw her hair, after all. After volunteering, Mystery had every intention of claiming her and never letting her leave.

Grace's healer's vestments melted and flowed around her body, shimmering like liquid metal, before the light show died down, leaving demon slaying magical girl Jasper White where a mere [First Princess] once stood. Most people would have considered that sort of job change a downgrade, but Mystery had very interesting opinions on the correct hierarchy of occupations.

Grace looked down. On the bright side, fused petals meant no accidental flashes of panties as individual petals moved around. On the downside, knees.

Knowing from Rose and Kellela's experiments that the protection offered didn't correlate in any way with material, with a thin glove as difficult to pierce as their thicker heels, her design had included delicate shoes that could be better described as foot-gloves. There had been no further leg coverings, not so much because she didn't want any, but more because her supposed-to-be-long skirt hadn't left her space to draw any.

For the first time since... probably ever, her knees were on display somewhere other than the privacy of her bedroom, to someone other than family or a personal maid.

Three more guards ran into the room in response to the resulting scream, who were all unfortunately male. The scream grew louder.

"What's wrong with her?" thought Mystery. "I thought she wanted me to cast the spell on her? Did I interpret things wrongly? I need that elf back, dammit!"

ding
For decimating the marriage prospects of a princess, [Magical Girl Transformation] advances to level 14.

"Oh, come on! Now you're just making stuff up!"

"Please leave some mana for me," complained Kellela half-heartedly, turning a page of her book and doing her best to ignore the surrounding chaos. For better or for worse, she was starting to get used to it.

Spoiler

μ̵̼͉̐υ̴̡̽̿σ̷̭͓̃̀τ̸͉̤̾̆ή̶͎̱͌ρ̸̤͕̏̿ι̷̬̾͜ό̸͈ (Human)
Age: -8 months
Occupation: Hero (L)
Skills:
- Soul's Eye (U) (28/80)
>> Sense Vitality (U)
>> Sense Soul (R)
>> Sense Mana (U)
>> Sense Light (C)
>> Sense Sound (C)
>> Pierce Illusions (U)
>> Sense Miasma (R)
- Astral Projection (U) (20/60)
>> Sure Navigation (U)
>> Uncontainable (U)
>> Tether of Will (L)
- Robust (C) (18/40)
>> Hardened Soul (R)
>> Secured Mana (U)
>> Pain Tolerance (C)
- Stealth (C) (3/20)
>> Camouflage Vitality (R)
- Magical Girl Transformation (R) (14/30)
>> Age Correction (R)
>> Gender Bending (R)
- Light (C) (8/20)
>> Heterochrome (U)
- Increased Attributes (C) (7/20)
>> Mana Storage (U)
Achievements:
- Early Bloomer II (R)
- First Skill (C)
- Apprentice (C)
- 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 I (R)
- Monster Slayer I (C)
- Curiosity (U)

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