Aurel
Hiya!
It’s everyone’s favorite (BLEEP)-year-old, Aurel!
Yep, my age is a seeecret.
I am the daughter of a noble family, y’know!
Even if we’re damn broke.
But being a cute little noblelady who’s still unmarried at my age, I’m starting to fall behind the curve here.
According to my life plan, I was supposed to be married by now and have popped out a kid or two, so what the hell happened?
See, I’m the second daughter of a poor noble family in the boonies of the empire.
Yep. I’m from the sticks, I’m poor, and to top it all off, I’m not even the oldest.
At that point, being nobility doesn’t really mean a damn thing.
If I were the eldest daughter, I mighta still been able to get married off into some other friendly noble fam, but since I’m not, I wouldn’t hold my breath.
Besides, there’s not a thing to be gained by getting close to a poor noble family like ours anyway, so I doubt there are gonna be people lining up for a marriage with us in the first place.
Oh, by the way, my older sister did manage to get married off to someone in a neighboring country.
And my older brother’s gonna take over as head of the family, so I really gotta get hitched someplace.
But since we’re dirt-poor and all, finding someone is a huge pain in the ass.
We really don’t have coin or anything to offer, either, so yeah…
That’s why I was shipped out as a live-in assistant so I could raise some dough and make a few connections at the same time.
It’s not super unusual for a noble family’s second or third daughter to be sent out as a live-in servant to a higher-ranking house.
You get paid, and if you’re lucky, you might even meet someone special.
Depending on how good a worker you are, there’s a chance you can stay on with that family permanently.
’Cept, since I’m from the boonies and I have the mouth of a sailor, I more or less got thrown out before I even made it through the damn interview.
I guess I just ain’t got what it takes to act like a proper lady, so I never get picked for that kinda crap.
But while I was practically going on a damn world tour of failing every interview, I was lucky enough to run into Mr. Ronandt as a potential employer.
Ronandt is the number one strongest court mage in the whole empire, the elite-est of the elite.
Basically, he’s a damn living legend.
But I thought, for a guy that important to hire some chick from the boonies like me, there’s gotta be a catch, yeah?
Oh, there was a catch, all right.
If I had to sum up that geezer in a word, I could go with perv, magic-obsessed moron, freak, total brute, and so on.
Oops, that was more than one word, huh?
Basically, the dude is unhinged.
But if I ran away from this job, I’d never be able to find work again.
So I bravely held my tears at bay and served the damn weirdo.
Looking back, this is where my life started to get real weird.
Work for the geezer, save up money, and get married to someone who’s loaded enough to at least make sure I won’t go hungry, even if they’re a commoner.
That was my highest goal at the time.
Best I can hope for, with my damn dirty mouth.
I shoulda given up on the idea of marrying into a noble family from the start.
My poor-ass family is barely any better off than commoners, so I didn’t really mind getting out of the nobility game anyway.
If I can just be a commoner with a half-decent life, that’s good enough for me, dammit.
And yet, my prime marrying years are pretty much over, and I’m still friggin’ single.
But maybe not being married is the least of my problems right now.
Why the hell am I on a shitty battlefield anyway?
“Goddamn, this is a real mess.”
I end up grumbling out loud despite trying to rein it in.
How does the second daughter of a poor noble house from the boonies end up as a court mage?
If you’re confused, that makes two of us.
Basically, it’s all that damn geezer’s fault for saying “You have a talent for magic!” and forcing me to be his apprentice.
Mostly ’cause the hero Sir Julius, who became the geezer’s apprentice first, barely survived his insane training.
You can’t even call that training at all. It was straight-up torture!
He literally looked like he was gonna die, so I used Healing Magic on him on the spot, and that’s when everything went to shit.
The old geezer saw me do it and assumed I was good at magic or something…
But the only reason I knew how to do it in the first place is ’cause when we were traveling in a carriage a while back, the old man used Healing Magic to fix up my sore butt, so I thought Hey, that’s pretty damn handy; I should learn it and practiced in secret.
There wasn’t any real reason for me to hide it, but looking back, I think young me really made the right call.
Because the moment the geezer found me out, my life turned into a living hell thanks to the torture he calls “training.”
I’ve tried to escape him tons of times since then, but that old man is a Space Magic master.
No matter where I run, he always chases me down with teleportation!
So I figured my only choice was to learn Teleport, too!
But learning Space Magic just wound up making things worse.
The government itself started taking notice, and before I knew it, I got shoved into a court mage seat and even got a fancy title.
All I wanted was a roof over my head and food in my belly. Instead I found myself moving up in the damn world instead…
All ’cause Space Magic is super rare.
But since I’ve got a personal noble title now, maybe someone will actually wanna marry me!
Except I’ve been so damn busy with work that I haven’t had time to even worry about that.
Imperial court mages have a lot of crap to do, y’know!
And even when I’m free, I end up having to teach things to the other court mages and their apprentices and stuff, for the sake of future generations or some junk?
One day, I’ll be like, Sweet, I don’t have any work today!
And then the next day, I’m suddenly drowning in more crap I have to do.
Where am I supposed to find the time to meet someone to marry now?!
Honestly, though, this war takes the cake.
Why is a sweet young maiden like me giving orders on a battlefield, huh?
“Ughhh. I just wanna retire, dammit.”
Right now, I’m giving directions to restore a fort wall that got wrecked.
Luckily, the damage was fairly light, so the other court mages and I can get the wall back into half-decent shape, even if we can’t fix it completely.
“Ma’am, could you help us instead of complaining, please?”
One of my fellow mages starts whining, but I’m having none of that crap, thanks.
“I just worked myself half to death, dude. Just lemme rest a little, okay?”
Damn right.
That’s literally what happened.
In fact, if I had made one wrong move, I really would’ve died.
I was pushing my magic to its limits in that crazy long-distance firefight, y’know?
Who the hell was that freak?
Since when does the demon army have someone like that?
I hear the guy who messed up our fort’s wall is a demon called Merazophis or something, but his magic might’ve even been on par with my master’s, which is ludicrous!
Master Ronandt already falls way outside the normal limits of human strength, but I dunno if even he could bust the wall of a fort like this from such a long distance…
Although the scary thing is that maybe he could.
“D’you think my master coulda pulled this off?”
“Surely, this would be madness even for Elder Ronandt…although I can’t say for sure that it’d be impossible…”
My colleague seems to have the same opinion as I do on the matter.
“I mean, yeah, Master’s pretty wild, but this Merazophis guy seems absolutely monstrous, too.”
“Ma’am, that makes it sound like Elder Ronandt isn’t human.”
“Well, yeah, he’s definitely at least half given up on being human by now.”
“Ahhh…”
The way that guy simply nodded like it all made sense really goes to show what the people around Master actually think of him.
But that also means that the guy we just fought was so bizarre that he might’ve even been a decent match for my master.
Honestly, if those young adventurer kids hadn’t held him off, this whole damn fort might be a pile of rubble by now. It was seriously that bad.
My master likes to say, “The truly strong can fight any number of riffraff with ease.”
Might as well have been talking about himself.
Forget dozens—it’d take hundreds or maybe even thousands of people to try and take down that geezer.
Since I’ve seen that geezer fight up close, I can understand this Merazophis guy’s insane level of power to an extent, but that doesn’t mean I’m happy he’s on the enemy side.
I felt sorta bad for the demons who got sent to the fort where my master was stationed, but who decided I gotta fight a demon even stronger than those guys?
Am I being punished for something I did or what?
All I can think of is that time I snuck some poison into the geezer’s food.
“Bah! You’ll need ten times this amount of poison if you want to kill me!”
Yeah, he was totally fine…
Is that geezer really human?
Honestly, sometimes I half-seriously think he might be some super-strong monster in disguise.
I mean, the whole reason my life went off the damn rails is ’cause that monster of an old man set his eyes on me…
“I was supposed to be making out with my super-hot husband by now…”
“You’re back on that again, ma’am?”
I’m always talking about how I just wanna marry half-decently and retire, so I think my colleagues are sick of hearing it.
“Ma’am, if you really want to get married, all you’d have to do is rub that chest of yours up against whatever guy you want, no?”
“You know what comments like that are called? Sexual harassment, dammit.”
Yeah, my chest is on the large side, that’s for sure.
It’s one of the few things I can be proud of, but it also comes with a lotta problems.
Like creepy stares from lots of dudes and some major back pain to boot.
Even that purehearted Sir Julius always glances at ’em whenever we meet…
“Well, the real problem is there aren’t any guys I wanna marry.”
“I think your standards are just too high, ma’am.”
“Nnngh!”
I can’t argue with that, since it’s kinda true.
Especially since Julius happens to set the bar extremely high.
Good looks! Perfect pedigree! Great personality! Power to spare!
I know it doesn’t make sense to compare other people to someone like that, but it’s hard not to when you know an actual hero.
The one downside is that being the wife of a hero sounds like a huge pain.
But compared to that…
The guys usually around me are all mages who are a buncha weirdos, especially the geezer.
I look at my colleague’s face and heave a huge sigh.
“Ma’am, isn’t that a bit rude?”
“Whatever. I’m allowed to sigh at grown-ass men who call a younger lady ‘ma’am.’”
That’s right. All the other court mages, not just this guy, are older than I am!
But they all call me “ma’am” for some reason!!
And not even to be rude—they seriously mean it.
For imperial court mages, your magic power decides your position.
And since I’m second only to the geezer in strength, that means I get almost as much respect as he does.
I guess some people might fancy the idea of a buncha older guys falling all over themselves to heed your every word, but really, it just means I’m surrounded by damn magic-loving weirdos, okay?
Not exactly the kinda guy I’m looking to marry…
But most of my days end up being spent with these guys from morning till night.
I hardly ever meet anyone new, and even if there’s someone who catches my eye a little, I rarely get a chance to talk with them.
Besides, most of those people are already engaged or married to boot.
The best ones always get taken early, y’know?
Next thing you know, everyone half-decent’s already spoken for, and there’s hardly any damn singles left who’re near my age.
…I might seriously be screwed at this point.
“Aaargh! Aren’t there any awesome guys who’re my age lying around somewhere?!”
“Hmm. I mean, I can think of one…”
“Huh? Who?!”
Is my colleague gonna throw me a bone here?!
“You know—Sir Hero.”
“Argh…”
Makes sense.
But that isn’t an option.
“Sir Julius is way outta my league, dude.”
“You think so? But you seem to be pretty close with him, so I do believe you have a chance, ma’am.”
“Like hell I do. Me and him aren’t a good match.”
“Why do you always sell yourself short like that, ma’am?”
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that Sir Julius, who’s a prince and the hero, could do a hell of a lot better than some poor noble girl from the boonies.
Besides…
“Besides, me and Sir Julius just aren’t like that.”
I know he’s super amazing and all, but that makes it even harder to see him as more than a friend.
“Sir Julius is a light, dammit. A light that draws people to him. All kinds of folks end up gathering around him and decide to walk alongside him of their own free will, y’know? That’s what makes him a hero. A legend.”
Yaana the saint once said that he’s like gentle sunlight or something.
But I don’t think so.
He’s way more intense than that, like a fire blazing wildly in the darkness.
You know it’ll burn you if you get too close, but people can’t help moving toward him anyway.
And then they sacrifice themselves in his name.
Now, I’m not saying that’s a bad thing.
It just shows how much charisma Sir Julius has, to the point that people want to dedicate themselves to him.
“But I just wanna live in peace, so that light’s a little too damn bright for me.”
Sir Julius is noble and all, but staying by his side kinda seems like a heavy burden to bear.
Personally, I think he could stand to take it a little easier, y’know?
But he’s always been super uptight, ever since he was a kid, so I don’t think he’d be able to change the way he lives at this point.
“So being a step behind him as a friend is the right place for me.”
“I see.”
“I just hope he’s not doing anything too crazy in this war…”
But knowing Julius, he’ll end up doing something reckless no matter what anyone says to him.
“But that sort of sounds more like a worrying older sister than a friend, don’t you think?”
“I guess you could call it that.”
“How fitting for you, ma’am.”
“Ugh.”
I can’t say he’s totally wrong, so I just quietly give my colleague’s back a shove to send him off to finish fixing the wall.
Right now, I’m more worried about whether Merazophis is gonna attack again than my stupid marriage prospects.
Between those three adventurers and me sniping at him from here, we managed to chase him off, but I dunno if it’s gonna go that well again next time.
He seemed totally fine even after I landed a direct hit on him. I aimed right for his heart, too…
I doubt there’s a lot more freaks like him out there, but either way, it seems like this battle’s gonna be harder than I thought.
So much for the rumors that the damn demons being in such dire straits that we were even getting refugees at the border…
I don’t think folks like Master and Sir Julius are gonna go down easily, but I wanna make sure they know to be extra careful.
But I guess I’m in no place to worry about other people right now.
Better get down to business.
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