I’ll Live My Second Life! - Chapter 41

Fii’s first friend from Déman appears in the next chapter.

“Kain-san! The Captain told me to ask you for techniques, so here I am!”

As Princess Fii said, York had sent her over here to learn.
What’s more, she even had a formal directive, signed with York’s name. To a Grass like him, it was the same as a direct order from His Majesty.

At any rate, it was dangerous for her up here, so he had her climb down before talking.

“You’re amazing! To think that you were hiding up in a place like that. I had no idea! What were you doing?”

(I was observing you…)

“…”

But of course he couldn’t tell her that.
Seeing him stay silent, Princess Fii seemed to guess something.

“Ah-, I’m sorry. It must have been some secret mission, huh!” she exclaimed, eyes sparkling for some reason.

“Yes…”

In fact, it really was a secret mission.
Though it was probably not as cool as she was imagining.

“So Kain-san, what kind of technique will you be teaching me?”

Apparently Princess Fii had completely decided that she would be teaching her. He could see the sparkles of expectations in her eyes.

(No… Is this really fine…?)

Kain once again went through his lord’s orders in his mind.

『Observe Princess Fii.』

『If she is ‘black’, report it.』

『Teach Heath(Princess Fii) your techniques.』

Mn, there didn’t seem to be any contradictions.

In fact, observing Princess Fii as he taught her techniques, and reporting nothing to His Majesty was in fact quite easy.

There didn’t seem to be any contradictions…

No contradictions…

(This is weird, right…! From a common sense point of view…!)

Kain wanted to clutch his head and scream. Or rather, he was already clutching his head.
He had stayed true to the role of a Grass, he had stayed true to obeying his orders, and the result was that the situation had grown even more confusing than before.

“Kain-san! Kain-san!? Are you okay!?”

Princess Fii looked at him, worriedly.
Resolving himself, Kain stood right up.

“Yes, I am fine. I apologise for worrying you.”

(I am a Grass… One who accomplishes his missions, and nothing else…)

He asserted that he was a Grass in his mind, but he was actually feeling desperate.

“I see. Thank goodnesss. I don’t have anyone left to ask but you. So, what is it that you will be teaching me?”

(I can teach her techniques, but wont that be dangerous…? This lady is a princess, no, you could say that she is already a queen. It begs to reason that I can’t teach her anything dangerous… Then, I absolutely can’t teach her offensive skills. Practising movement skills might injure her too… In that case…)

“Then, break fallin――”

“Something flashier would be good.”

Just as he was about to suggest something safe, Princess Fii puffed up her cheeks.

(Oh? She’s surprisingly wilful…?)

His impression of her during his observations, had painted somebody a little different from the girl he was speaking to now, and that gap made him a little bewildered.

“Then, a defensive technique to avoid being grab――”

“I’ve already learnt that at apprentice school.”

After that, Kain continued listing safe things that he could teach even to Her Highness the Second Queen, but every single one was met with rejection.

“I want something flashier please. If I can’t show off to anybody, there’s no point. I BELIEVE IN YOU, KAIN-SAN!” she declared, even though it should have been their first meeting.

Fii was also desperate. Kain-san was her final hope for a secret technique.
And from Fii’s eyes, Kain-san was emitting the aura of somebody who was just filled with secret techniques.

(This is bad… I don’t have any safe techniques left… Can’t be helped… At least a movement skill then…)

In the end, Kain decided to compromise…

Kain brought Princess Fii into a rear garden.
As a Grass, he fundamentally avoided places where many people would see him.

“This kind of feels like a secret training session, doesn’t it.”

Princess Fii looked at him with excited eyes.

This rear garden had a wall. It was one of the shortest walls in the castle.

Kain produced a thick rope from his pocket with a claw at the end.
Holding the claw in his right hand, he tossed it strongly up onto the wall.

Catching onto the wall, the claw fixed the rope in place. After that, Kain smoothly climbed the rope without a sound, and a few seconds later he was on top of the wall.

(H-, How’s this…?)

Looking back at Princess Fii to check, he found her looking up at him, and in her eyes were more sparkles than ever.

“A-, Amazing…!”

Apparently he had met her expectations. Sighing in relief, he descended the wall to land in front of her.

After that, it was her turn to practice.

“Ei-! Huh…? EI-…!”

Although Princess Fii threw it many times, the claw couldn’t quite hook the top.

“This is pretty hard, huh…”

In fact, Kain had been aiming for this. There were a lot of difficult things with this technique, but none so difficult as getting the hook to latch to the wall to begin with.
The technique could be said to be very dangerous as a whole, but there was no dangerous as long as she never began climbing.

Princess Fii continued to challenge the wall for another 20 minutes, before finally handing the hook back to Kain.

(Phew…)

He was sure that she had given up.

(Thank goodness… With this, my mission is over…)

For a moment, Kain though this.

But.

“Please throw it up for me. I want to try the climbing practice, too. I can practice the throwing by myself later.”

(How efficient… Or rather, why didn’t I think of this myself…?)

Kain held his head in worry again…

Princess Fii hadn’t said anything wrong. Thanks to that, Kain could only accept.
The hook caught the top of the wall. He threw it more carefully than usual.

Immediately, Princess Fii grabbed the rope, and then began practising her climbing.

In a panic, Kain rushed over underneath her, and prepared himself to catch her.

The first time she climbed, Princess Fii suffered a huge stumble. Kain thought his heart was going to stop.
But she recovered surprisingly quickly, and because climbing up the wall again.

(Oh my god…)

Normally, this wasn’t something you could do in one go, even if somebody ordered you to.
There was the issue of balancing yourself as you climbed. Inexperience with supporting your weight. Not to mention the fear of heights. All of them would come together to interfere, and the first try would always end in failure.

But for Princess Fii, despite a number of stumbles, she steadily made her way up the wall.
Not only that, but the further up she went, the more stably she climbed.

A light body, an excellent natural athleticism, and finally, an unflinching bravery.
In Kain’s opinion, despite her unfamiliarity with it, these qualities of hers had led her to her success.

(We’d love to have her in Grass… Wait, what are you thinking. She’s the Second Queen of this country, you know…)

Kain denied the thought that came naturally to mind.

In the end, Fii splendidly reached the top on her first try.

“Kain-san, I did ittt!”

Princess Fii waved at him from on top of the wall.
And as she made merry up there, she lost her balance.

“Uwawah, oh?”

She fell from the wall before his eyes.

(UOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!)

Kain forgot himself, and charged over to catch the Princess.
And then, he scolded her in as loud a voice as his Grass status would allow him.

“Right after you succeed is when you need to be most careful! Please stay focused until you reach the ground!”

“Sorry.”

Perhaps because she knew she was in the wrong, Princess Fii obediently nodded as she lay curled up in his arms like a cat.

“Then I’ll try not to fail this time. Ah, and please teach me how to get down too.”

Showing no fear from falling once, Princess Fii immediately began to practice again.
Like that, she ended up spending the whole day on climbing up and down.

“Thank you for teaching me such an amazing technique, Kain-san!”

After the training, her expression was completely satisfied.
Then, for some reason she bite her thumb and stared ennnnviously at Kain’s chest.

It was the same place he had stored the hook-rope.

(It can’t be that she wants it…? No, you can’t. I only have one of these. It’s essential to a Grass… I can’t part from this…)

After thinking for a short moment,

“Please ask Galluzzi… I’m sure he can create a new one…”

“Yes!”

Hearing his words, Princess Fii nodded with an extremely happy smile.

*妹*

A few days later, Fii appeared before her apprentice friends with a smug smile.

“I’ve finally learnt a secret technique too!”

She had practised her grappling hook for the last few days, and could finally use the skill properly.
The first people she wanted to show were Slad, Gheith, and Remié.
Incidentally, when Gorms heard about the secret technique, he had immediately made his escape. Fii had already decided that she was definitely going to show him later.
At any rate, first she was going to show off to these three.

“Ohh? What kinda technique?”

“I thought we had already run out of new techniques over these last few days, but…”

“I’m looking forward to it.”

Slad was simply interested, Gheith seemed to be thinking deeply about it, and Remié gave Fii a smile.
And then, the moment she brought out her grappling hook, their three expressions turned complex.

“Heath, you…”

“That’s…”

“That’s against regulations, you know…”

All three of them were astounded, and looked at her with pity.
Apparently that secret technique boom had at some point gained rules.

Supposedly…

Sword techniques gained 1.5x the points, bow and spear techniques would gain 1x the points, and everything else was against the rules.
The length of the demonstration could not exceed 10 seconds.
If they moved further than two metres from their starting position, they would be disqualified.
If it was a sword technique, you could only use three of them.

Because the techniques being shown off grew wider and wider in scope, the boys imposed rules on themselves.
Since Fii had been training with a grappling hook these last few days, she had absolutely no idea.

When Remié explained the rules to Fii, her face turned deathly white.
The secret technique that Kain taught her had no use whatsoever.

“W-, Well, try your best next time? Okay?”

“EHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!?”

Remié’s awkward encouragement was to no avail, and Fii’s mournful cry resounded through the school.