“What’s the point of a greenhouse on the roof?” I called out, causing the curled-up elf to jump in surprise. “I mean, we’re in a frontier citadel, right?Sounds like such a waste of resources or even a liability…”

  Standard reaction, pretty much. She soon turned to an expression of confusion while weakly staring, but the initial surprise is always fun to see. Keeping a conversation with broken sign language and mimics wouldn’t be too useful, though. But I had a plan for this one, and it came in the form of a stolen pen and parchment I got on the way here.

  “Let us have a chat, okay? I have to show off soon, so it’ll need to be fast.” I gave her both items as I spoke, which didn’t make the little elf less confused, but that’s that.

  She didn't write anything right away either, so I had to continue the conversation myself.

  “I do have an idea of why you’re here, but I won’t pep-talk you. You’re not wrong anyway, and if you stay around me, setting one person on fire will be only the beginning...” I jumped to the point right away, somewhat shocking Lhoris with the bluntness. “Still, I'll ask, what do you wanna do?”

  Lhoris only wrote an ‘I don’t know’ on her paper in answer. Somewhat expected, but not what I wanted to hear, which she seemed to notice as she continued.

  The start was just about how she wanted to help after not being able to with Mr. Hero and how it was going well. It seemed that, although not pleasant, she didn’t feel anything bad when firing at the fort, but when she had to fight actual people, she became useless again. She couldn’t even defeat someone who was clearly coming for the person she wanted to help until the choice was either doing something or letting me die. And even then, the image was haunting her since then.

  She even took a while to get the whole text right. All for a big and convoluted way of explaining what she was feeling. Everything from still seeing the burning guy to thinking about everyone else who died there. The sort of thing one would expect from someone who lacked the disposition for murder…

  Pretty much what I expected, to be honest. In fact, I could even convince her to internalize what happened without much trouble. It would make keeping her support around very easy if she ended reliant on me. A huge boost to my combat powers and no one would complain if I turned the little elf into a proper soldier.

  Hence why I couldn’t do it. And while I was wondering about all this, the elf scribbled one last question for me. A very important question that I wanted to avoid too and read as: ‘don’t you care about killing people, Illia?’

  That… That isn’t something I can answer directly, but I don’t want to lie either… Troublesome to say the least.

  “No one can ‘not care’ about it. At least, no one who’s normal. Some people don’t get hit that much, others panic just by seeing blood, but everyone feels it in some way. Weapons in my word evolved to fight this effect even, so that's not a thing you can fight off…”

  See? I can be deep too. I’m only kinda repeating what I heard people telling others on TV when in this situation, but it sounds deep. It also avoids having to answer properly while not lying. My words even had the little elf entranced, almost.

  "The best you can do is accept the need for it and move on. Or actually, the best would be if we didn't need to kill anyone, but that's not happening." I continued, keeping the attention of the elf stuck on me while changing subjects. "And that's why I won't be asking for you to follow me if you don't want to anymore."

  Don’t get me wrong, I would love to keep this one around. Her way of fighting has something very interesting in it, and her magic isn’t something I understand yet. Elen and Eve are very powerful by themselves, but they lack the range Lhoris have. And that’s without the R&D possibilities I would have with her around.

  But I don’t want to do it.

  Even if it is the most effective path, I’m not willing to corrupt someone like this. No point in adding more people to the ‘party of the hoax hero’ only so I can be more unheroic. And worse, no reason to give myself more power than I can safely keep.

  “Either way, you don’t need to bother with what happened there. No matter how you look at it, I was the one doing the fighting and the one who caused the damage. All you did was help the fake suicidal hero do another stupid thing, nothing more.” I smiled at the shortstack while patting her head just because I felt like it. “So, don’t bother about whatever happened there, and go wait for Mr. Hero to wake up. He’ll need help, and I'll make sure he'll have the chance to use it.”

  I then got up and started to move away as I saw my words sink on Lhoris’ mind, but she held me back. She was also scribbling furiously as I turned around with my cool moment stopped, forcing me to wait. What she wrote was something that almost made me laugh, though.

  A very simple ‘you are a bad liar’ in her parchment, with a smaller ‘but I like it’ below it.

  “I’m sure many people would say otherwise, little elf… In fact, I’m sure most of the people around already believe I’m a hero.” I fixed my clothes with a smug smile and started to leave the area again. “Come down when you’re ready. I’ll be heading to the festival outside after I’m done here. Find me if you have the chance…”

  I then left the somewhat isolated area on the top of the castle and wandered to the darkness outside for a few moments before stopping.

  “And you two shouldn’t spy on people just because you can, you know?”

  “C’mon! How?!” I heard Elen’s shout as she left her hiding spot with Eve in tow. And as they did so, all I could do was give them my evil-looking smile again.

  “Why so? I didn’t.”

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “Heh? You annoying brat...”

  “And you should be at a party right now, shouldn’t you? The fun one.” I shot back while trying to get my head back in character. “Can I take it as you wanting to have ‘fun’ with the nobles instead?”

  “No way in the hells. We were ensuring you wouldn’t do anything weird to the forester girl over there… Or something like that.”

  “I was only following Your Highness’ whims, milady.”

  “You’re being very outspoken today, aren’t you, Eve? Wanting a pay cut or something?”

  “I’m only thinking of your best interest, Your Highness. Nothing more, and nothing less…”

  “You damn…”

  “Hahahah!” My laughter stopped the banter as I lost control for a moment. “Goddammit, you two are something. A real something for sure…”

  “Look who’s talking…” Elen answered with slitted eyes and a small smile. “But that’s that, I guess. You sure about trying to send that girl back? Isn’t she important to that trick of yours?”

  “She is, but that’s fine. I won’t be using that again. Heck, if I do, I’m not so sure we won’t be attacked right away… That’s a slow-to-set trick, and they know about it now.”

  “Even so…”

  “It’s fine, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it… I feel we’ll keep jumping into messy situations and I don’t want to lose the option.” I gave one decent enough excuse for Elen, even if only to avoid saying that I would feel bad dragging Lhoris any longer. “If needed be, and if she wants to, I’ll call her again. Good enough, no?”

  “You also would gain from being more honest, milady.”

  “And I don’t even see why you keep moving around the subject…”

  The two answered in turn, making me feel that I wasn't in my best state right now. Still, being straight with these things isn’t my style, okay? Saying Lhoris kinda reminds me of someone I knew and that it wouldn’t be good if I had her become some cold-blooded killer wasn't right. Not fun to see and not very heroic, and heroic was my thing at the moment.

  “How much do you trust me, Elen?” I asked out after thinking a little about the whole situation. “Is it enough to take on a job you’re sure would be suicide?”

  “What the hells are you going on now…?”

  I started to wander away from the greenhouse and towards the walls while talking randomly. My main excuse was that I planned to go there anyway for a little trick, but it was more so Lhoris would have a harder time hearing.

  “Just answer me, it’s important.”

  “Weirdo…” The silver-haired girl mumbled while still following me around until she decided to answer. “I’d say I trust you enough. Wouldn’t follow you to something that was obviously hopeless, but if you have a good enough plan…”

  “Now that’s fun to hear… And you, Eve?” I turned to the quiet maid following us. “Trusting me a lot already? More than you trust our rogue princess here?”

  “I would do my best to follow your orders, milady... As long as they don’t go against Your Highness or her family.”

  “More conditional, but that’s still a lot, no? Is this only because I’m ‘interesting’ or the whole ‘being a summoned hero’ is the real reason?” I continued asking as I climbed on the crenelations of the wall but didn’t give time for anyone to answer. “Doesn’t really matter, to be honest. What matters is that I can influence you two already, can’t I? So, what if I told you we really really need to kill some civilians? Or something worse. What would you do?”

  “That’s a little…”

  “Is it?” I cut into the princess’ weirded-out expression and then turned to her and the maid. “I’m sure I could be convincing enough to make you consider it and depending on the situation, it would be reasonable. And then, by the next time, my words would be even more convincing, and I could pull something more drastic…”

  “What are you trying to say here?” Elen asked while still unsure of where I was going.

  “What I’m saying is that I could convince Lhoris to ignore this and follow us. She could act like both you and Eve, and she would be able to rationalize killing. That would be the end of it and no one would bat an eye.” I sighed and went to stop the serious talk for good. “I don’t want that kind of power… I know it well enough to be sure of that,”

  I hope my voice could make it obvious that I knew what I was talking about. Or at least, that it could hide my real intentions well enough. Saying this much already felt bad, though, so I had to change subjects before my mind went too deep. I also still have one last task to accomplish. No time to dwindle on the funny feeling or watch my companions look worried either.

  So, I changed the tone of my voice and aura, as usual.

  “Well, that’s it from my reasoning, so let’s go to what matters more.” I put on my flashing smile and puffed my chest. “I have one last job to do, and since you two are here, what about helping me?”

  It took a while for the two to react to it, Eve doing so decently faster than her master.

  “Whatever I can do, milady.”

  “Sigh… I sometimes don’t get you.” Elen answered eventually. “Hard to guess if you’re serious or a doofus… What you need?”

  “Can you make me shine for a while? Something like a big light around me. And for you, Eve…” I got the pen and papers stuck in my pockets and then drew a circle there. “Can you try this spell on me? It should get you tired, but if it works, then it should help me waste less mana.”

  I didn’t add the part that using this spell would likely make my aching body hurt even more, but no one needed to know that. This spell should be more like a ‘brain stimulant’ than anything else anyway. With some tweaks, it could even be a powerful anesthetic.

  “What the hells is this thing…?”

  “Is this really a spell, milady? Where did you find it?”

  “In books. All the parts of it, at least. Something like strapping spells together to make something I couldn’t find…”

  Experimentation, I call it. Since it’s possible to read runes, it should be possible to make new spells with them. That was the theory, and with just a little bit of testing, the results were more than positive. Not perfect since I had to memorize the spell or write it down very fast, but that’s beyond the point.

  Makes me wonder why people don’t create weird spells since they have all those examples… It's all about reading the runes and moving them around. Not easy, but can be done with some time.

  “You’re crazy…” Elen sighed, but I could see she was almost laughing by now. “Is it safe?”

  “Probably. More than another potion, at least.” I answered both of her sentences in order but then turned around with my last question for now. “Are we good to go?”

  “Your Highness…?”

  “Go on. But stop right away if you feel anything going wrong, Eve.”

  “Understood.”

  The maid touched my back as I got ready to use my own spell and I could feel Elen getting ready too. I could feel another person moving closer, but it was fine if she saw it now. My head was focused on copying the spell from the sending stone that got me here to begin with and change it to add more power anyway.

  A light show and some speakers to draw the city’s attention was more than perfect...

  “Good evening, everyone!” I shouted in my most boisterous voice for the whole city to hear. “Are you ready to hear how your most noble hero defeated the barbarian invaders knocking on your door…?!”