The Determination of the Reincarnated Princess

The Determination of the Reincarnated Princess

“Check.”

With a dull thud, the white king’s escape route was blocked. I glared at the board while letting out a groan.

Where now? There must be a maneuver out of this trap somehow.

I rotated the cogs in my brain, but couldn’t find a route to safety. However much I struggled to think my way out of this scenario, it was game over. My feeble ideas weren’t enough to allow my poor king to escape.

I managed to rein in the urge to grind my teeth in frustration, and released all of my irritation as a single sigh.

“You win,” I murmured, after performing the customary gesture of knocking over the white king with my fingertip.

Oh God, this is so annoying!

How many times had my artless strategies forced me to make that gesture? No, I didn’t need to count on my fingers; I remembered how often this had happened. This game marked the thirty-second black cross in my mental records, which noted my unforgettably frustrating count of straight losses.

A stifled laugh reached my ears as I scanned the board to figure out where in the world I’d gone wrong. I slowly raised my head to look at the source of the laughter. Feelings of embarrassment washed over me. There was nothing that I could do to stop the resentful look in my eyes. Was there any loser out there who could’ve stayed in high spirits, even after the victor had laughed at them?

“You’re too cruel, Chris, laughing at me,” I protested.

“Sorry,” Chris said, leisurely narrowing his faint-blue eyes which were framed by large eyelashes. He left a rather mature impression when he laughed out loud.

He’d turned thirteen a few days before, but he didn’t look like a young teenager, not one bit. Deeply reclining into the back of the sofa, with his arms crossed above his lap, his actions carried a dignity and sex appeal almost unimaginable coming from a teenage boy.

“Your emotions show on your face too easily,” Chris remarked.

“They do?” I gently prodded my cheek with my fingertips.

That’s the first time anyone’s ever said that.

I took after my older brother, whose expressions defaulted to blank. My facial muscles rarely showed up to work. I was thankful for my stoicism whenever I didn’t want people to realize that I was flustered. However, my constant worry was that I’d be cuter as a girl if I were a little more expressive.

“Your frustration is written all over your face,” said Chris.

I said nothing.

“Before I started playing chess with you, I never knew how much you hated losing.”

“But I don’t ever win,” I replied. I turned away in a huff because he’d summed me up perfectly.

He was right about my dislike of losing. Of course I was conscious of that aspect of my personality. I wasn’t fond of conflict, but when I played, I played to win. It didn’t matter whether I was playing my brother, whom I looked up to, or anyone else. I wanted to grind my opponent into the dust.

So what if that lacks charm? Girlishness isn’t going to win me any battles.

“Your play style is too straightforward,” continued Chris. “You should work on your bluffing skills a bit more.”

His point was too sound for me to argue. If ever I detested my beloved older brother, it was during times like these.

Just because he’s a little good-looking—well, very good-looking...okay, so miraculously good-looking that he shines like the sun—he thinks that gives him the right to act all high and...well okay, he doesn’t really do that either.

Chris was a hard worker who didn’t let his handsomeness become a source of arrogance. He was cool, but also doted on his siblings.

Damn it, Chris, it’s not fair! You’re such a perfect person that I can’t even complain about you in my head!

In fact, even the reason he was playing chess against me was altruistic—he was worried about his little sister. He would take time out of his busy schedule to check on me and make sure that I wasn’t feeling lonely by myself after Johan’s departure to study in Vint last year.

I’ll say it again: Damn it, Chris! Acting all cool and kind, who do you think you are? The hero from a shojo manga? A prince? Well, guess what?! You...are.

“I’ll devote myself so that one day I can play on even footing with you, Chris,” I said. I wasn’t taking my loss well and was a little annoyed. Chris reacted by showing me a gentle grin.

“I look forward to that.”

This is what I mean. You aren’t fair.

I started clearing the pieces away, feeling like I’d lost in more than one way. I’d thought that Chris would’ve left right away, but he helped me tidy up.

“Don’t worry, I’ll do this,” I said.

“No, there’s something I want to talk about.” Chris replied in a flat-out refusal.

Talk about what? I thought.

He’d gone out of his way to start this conversation, and the suspense set my nerves to work. I hoped that I hadn’t done anything to deserve a reprimand.

“Soon, there will be some sorcerers coming to the palace,” Chris told me, looking my way with his usual blank expression.

“Sorcerers?” I repeated Chris’s words in amazement.

Does he mean that sorcerer? The suitor character? The necrophile? The source of my trauma?!

My shock was made more severe by my mistaken belief that I’d have several years to prepare for their arrival.

I remembered the illustrations from the sorcerer’s bad ending. They replayed vividly in my mind.

In Hidden World, the tragic capstone moment of his bad ending was horrible—the sorcerer had convinced himself that the heroine had betrayed him, so he’d murdered her, then frozen her body in ice. He’d rarely ever looked happy, but at that point in his ending, he’d worn an ecstatic smile. He’d then kissed the ice sculpture that used to be the heroine and had left a parting remark: “You’re loveliest when you say nothing.”

The illustration of the sorcerer and his mad smile did look beautiful, and was very popular among a small group of fans, but I wasn’t having it. After all, that final line was a rejection of the heroine’s entire personality; wasn’t he saying, in a roundabout way, that he only cared about her looks and her body?

Moreover, the number of bad routes for the sorcerer was unusually high. The slightest misstep resulted in an immediate checkmate. You couldn’t distrust him, and you couldn’t act scared, but good luck trying to accept him for who he was, because too much affection would set him off too! You had to tread a narrow and arduous path, like walking a tightrope, in order to reach the finish line and unlock his true ending.

I was still scarred by his smile, which would herald the player’s entry onto one of the bad routes.

This guy doesn’t smile once in his true ending, but he’s as chirpy as anything in the bad routes. Creepy.

With a hand on my stomach to ease the sudden onset of sharp pain, I listened to the rest of Chris’s announcement.

“To be more specific, they’re apprentice sorcerers. Your teacher, Miss Altman, has taken them on as her students. Their names are Lutz and Teo Eilenberg.”

Apprentices, huh? Well, I guess they’d have to go with that cover story.

Miss Irene von Altman taught me medicine and astrology, and she was the royal family’s court sorcerer. She was a slender beauty of unknown age who possessed a graceful atmosphere. To my eyes, she looked to be in her early twenties, but in one of our conversations, she’d revealed that she was much older than my mother.

And my mother turned thirty a little while ago.

If that’s possible, then is everything possible for sorcerers?

I almost wanted to ask, except that the sorcerers in this world weren’t quite the same as the mages in fantasy novels. They couldn’t summon lightning bolts, or whip up tornadoes, or anything flashy like that. They could borrow the power of the spirits that lived in nature to bring forth water and fire, but only in a feeble way. The fire was, at best, fit for a torch, and the water was just a little spurt from the ground—only a tiny bit of liquid would drizzle through the earth, and it was not even enough to collect into a puddle, or so I’d heard.

However, that small amount of power was precious enough by itself. Most sorcerers found employment as healers or witch doctors or similar, utilizing their green thumbs to study medicines, as they were adept at cultivating flowers and trees. Some also read the currents in the air to forecast the weather.

Yet even as the power of magic faded from this world—and according to some, it was soon to be lost forever—very occasionally a real sorcerer would be born. Two of those irregular sorcerers were Lutz and Teo.

Lutz Eilenberg, the sorcerer suitor character, was a once-in-a-lifetime genius who could control ice magic at will. The other one, Teo Eilenberg, was a side character who played a big part in Lutz’s route. He was a promising youngster with an affinity for fire magic.

As an aside, although they were both called Eilenberg, they weren’t brothers. They’d grown up in the same orphanage, and Eilenberg was the family name of the priest who had raised them.

They would come to the royal palace for observational reasons, and for their own protection. Their existence, and the magnificent power they wielded, was heretical in a world which had all but lost its magic. They faced the danger of stoking fear in the hearts of the common people and ending up as a threat to be destroyed. Nevel’s plan was to apprehend them before that happened, teach them the correct way to use their powers, and rear them to be pillars supporting the kingdom.

“You’ll be learning under the same teacher, so I expect that you’ll have plenty of occasions to see them. Try your best to get along.”

I found myself at a loss for words when Chris told me to be friendly with them. Recounting the events of Hidden World, I felt nothing but terror towards Lutz Eilenberg. Although his mind wouldn’t be corrupted yet, his inexperience would surely impact his ability to control his power.

I’ve even heard that, until he learns the right way to use magic, strong emotions risk causing a spontaneous discharge of his power. To be honest, meeting him fills me with dread, but I have to.

This time, the sorcerers didn’t share a direct affiliation with Hidden World’s Rosemary. Regardless of whether the shrine maiden tried to win over Lutz, Rosemary’s future wouldn’t change one bit.

However, leaving Lutz to his own devices could, at worst, result in deaths. Even I had too much of a conscience to knowingly ignore that. If I did nothing, I’d have to live the rest of my life in shame.

I have a long life ahead of me, and I don’t intend to spend it in penance!

“I will.” I nodded to Chris with a meek look on my face.