34 The Princess of the Sephyr Kingdom

After we had finished our meeting with the king and queen, I took a small sightseeing tour around the capital before going back to our room in the castle.

Vespera, Gina, and I, were peacefully drinking tea when we suddenly heard a knock on the door, making Gina quickly stand up and face towards it.

A woman, most likely a maid, from the other side of the door spoke up: "Princess Melina Sephyr would like to speak with you, if you have a moment."

("Princess WHO!?") I thought with a panicked expression.

I had already mindlessly told them that it was okay to come in, but the princess' name was something I definitely wasn't expecting to hear.

The door opened, and a brown haired beastkin maid walked in first. She had long, braided hair, and her animal features for both her ears and tail reminded me of a lion's.

"Sorry to bother you this late…" she said as she made way for the princess to enter.

Right as she did, Princess Melina entered my room. A pretty girl that was my same age, or at least the age of this body, that possessed all of the "Sephyr" characteristics that were apparently extremely common in her family. Her hair was long and silver, just like her mother's, and her eyes were as blue as the sky.

She entered the room with confidence, authority, and a decisive smile on her face, which I found strangely familiar. The other Sephyr children I met back in Glorya were pretty shy, so I was expecting the princess to resemble that.

"I'm Princess Melina Sephyr, it's nice to finally meet you!" she said while making eye contact with me and without bowing, or doing any other noble pleasantry.

("Maybe she doesn't like formalities that much… I don't either, though…") I thought before introducing myself.

"I'm Ichiro, it is nice to meet you, Princess-…" I stopped. Somehow, I couldn't bring myself to say her name out loud. "Umm, what brings you here? I thought we had a meeting tomorrow…"

"Ah yes! Well… I just didn't want to wait until tomorrow. I was technically the one that asked you to come here, I'm sorry if it caused you any problems…" she said with a genuinely apologetic face, but in my mind, there wasn't anything to apologize for.

"No, it's alright. I got to visit some new places so it's not like I had a bad time!"

She seemed to like my answer because she gave me a warm smile, then asked to sit down for tea with me and Vespera. Of course, I didn't decline, so Gina served us all another cup of tea.

"The reason I called you here… Was because I wanted to ask if you could be my magic tutor…" she said.

"The King told me about it. He said something about a magic academy? I'm not too knowledgeable about this type of stuff…"

She nodded. "People enter the academy when they are 16, and it's three full years of learning magic and becoming stronger. The thing is… most people that attend the academy go there with some knowledge of magic already, since they are mostly kids from rich families…"

"Well, couldn't you just do the same?"

"I refuse! Magic is something that is fun for me to practice, and every single teacher that I've had just teaches me how to kill stuff… When I heard that you were making potions and killing monsters, it validated my idea that magic can be used for much more than just hurting others…"

I stayed silent for a moment, and she continued: "I was born with a lot of MP, so people have had this expectation that I would one day become the kingdom's secret weapon, or something… I don't want that… I mean, I don't mind learning how to protect myself, but I also want to learn how to make others happy with my magic…"

"You are right." I responded, clearly and confidently. "Magic doesn't have to be used as a weapon. In fact, I would say I use magic for almost anything. I barely ever use it when fighting monsters, only if they are really strong though."

She locked her eyes with mine.

"Princess… What is it that you want to do with your life?" I asked as the moon light that entered from the window bathed both of us. At this point, Vespera and the maids were standing on one side of the room, attentively listening to our conversation.

"I… want to travel the world… I want to become an adventurer and go to different places, meet new people, and help them with my magic…" she said with her eyes brimming with confidence and sparkling from the moonlight.

("The way she said that… Sounded just like her…") I thought before continuing the conversation.

"Well, you could still travel around the world as a princess. Although, I guess if you register as an adventurer, you get the perks of being able to take on their requests…" I deduced out loud.

"Exactly!" she exclaimed while pointing at me, then clearing her throat. "So, I wanted to give you the same test I gave the other mages that came here to tutor me…"

I raised an eyebrow in confusion. "A test?"

"That's right! This way I'll know for sure if what you are telling me it's true, or if you just want to tutor me to curry favor with the king."

"Umm, you know it wasn't my decision to be here… But sure, I'll do the test."

The princess clapped her hands together and smiled. "Well then, show me how you can use magic for fun!"

("That's the test? Shouldn't be too hard, I've used magic to kill my boredom plenty of times!")

I smiled confidently. "Got it." Then focused magic power all over the room, slowly removing the gravity that kept us down on the ground.

The maids were the first to notice their feet separating from the floor, while poor Yoru who was sleeping at the foot of the bed was floating in front of them.

Slowly but surely, the princess and I started floating too until our hands were holding onto the ceiling. She laughed in excitement and began floating around the room while the maids were too busy trying to keep their skirts from floating up.

To liven it up even more, I approached the window and used earth magic to borrow some of its glass and molded it into a small disco ball. Then, with light magic, I added a small mote of light inside that reflected all over the room, followed by making it spin slowly using gravity magic.

When it was done, everyone was having fun inside my room simply floating around. Even the maids who seemed scared at first were holding hands and moving around the room trying to catch the princess. Yoru was still asleep, even as he floated, and Vespera kept drinking her tea in a refined position, while also floating.

After a few minutes of fun, I slowly turned the gravity back to normal and returned the glass that I had borrowed from the window, using magic to mold it back to where it was.

As I turned around, the princess was looking at me with sparkling eyes.

"You pass!" she exclaimed.

I smiled a bit awkwardly while scratching my head. I wasn't against teaching her magic, in fact, now that I knew her reasons for wanting to learn, I almost felt like I wanted to teach her. However, I still wasn't sure if I was going to accept, since I did have to go back to End Town eventually, so I couldn't just stay in the capital for two years.

"Hey, hey… What type of magic was that anyway?" asked the princess as she got closer to me, curiosity all over her face.

"Umm, it's called "gravity magic"... I made it myself…" I said, sounding a bit embarrassed.

"Gravity…?"

("Oh right! I forgot they don't know what gravity is in this world…") I thought. "Yeah… So, gravity is basically the thing that keeps us down on the ground…"

"I… know… It's the magnetic pull from the ground, a force that attracts all bodies to the center…" muttered the princess with a puzzled face.

"Huh?" I audibly expressed my confusion. ("How does she know what 'gravity' is? Not even Jackson knew what I was talking about when I first did it…")

"Uhh, yeah! That's pretty much what it is…" I said while feeling extremely confused.

After I had passed the princess' test, she said she would look forward to the meeting the next day, and went back to her room with her maid.

Gina, who was cleaning up the tea area, turned around for a quick second to ask:

"Will you seriously become the princess' tutor?"

It sounded like a normal and fair question, but I felt there was more to it. Almost like she wanted me to say yes.

"I'm still not sure… I have to discuss a few things first. But I'm not opposed to the idea… Why do you ask?"

Gina picked up the last cups of tea from the table, then walked to the door where the little food cart she was using was located, and loaded all the dirty dishes in it.

"It's just… It's been a while since I saw Princess Melina smile like that… Good night." said Gina before promptly leaving the room and closing the door behind her.

I sighed. "Tomorrow might be a long day… Let's get some rest."