“Good Morning, Mr. Marcus.”

Upon entering the dining hall with thoughts of pigging out, a familiar lady greeted me with a calm and gentle smile. It was the queen in all her majesty. She was sitting at the head of the table, enjoying a light breakfast with tea. Alice and Kari were here as well. They were sitting in chairs on both the left and right side of her majesty.

As for the surrounding area, while there’s only maids and butlers here, I can see that a few of them are new faces and my senses tell me that they are quite skilled in combat. Were these people the queen’s bodyguards?

“Good morning, your majesty. Did you have a wonderful night's rest?”

Putting the question of the castle staff’s actual position to the back of my head, I gave a slight bow and said politely.

… With how I acted earlier yesterday and her being the king’s wife and the other ruler of the country, it looks like I won’t be able to act like a man who hasn’t eaten in days and hog all the food like I usually do. Despite not caring about what the staff thinks of me, I have enough tact not to act rude in front of the person who can kick me out of the castle and take my privileges away. 

In order to continue my days of lounging about, I must abstain from eating till I’m full!

“There’s no need to be formal. Come take a seat. I was just talking with Ms. Alice and Ms. Kari here about the things of your world. Can you continue Ms. Kari? What was that small device called?” 

Saying this, the queen turns back to Kari. With an ecstatic voice, Kari happily pulls out her smartphone and continues. During this time, I sat down beside Alice and began to eat my breakfast.

It was delicious as usual.

“In our world, this thing is called a phone. On it, we can do just about anything. We can watch movies, listen to music, play games, read books, and communicate with people all across the world. See?”

Kari then expertely maneuvers around the screen of her phone and hands it to the queen. 

“Oh my! What’s the contraption he’s riding in? Is it an armored carriage? He’s killing his enemies so easily!”

The queen said with a face full of surprise and excitement. From the phone I could hear the sounds of a car being driven and crashed into many things.

“Kari, what are you showing her?”  

Alice asked in an accusatory tone. Shrugging her shoulders, Kari simply shrugged her shoulders and said.

“What? I was just showing her Wickman 3. I was gonna binge watch it with the prequels but I got summoned here before I could download them all.”

Hearing this, I stopped mid way of eating my porridge.  There were sequels to Wickman? When did they come out? I love the first movie!

“But still, don’t you think it’s rude to just show her people getting run over and stabbed with pencils?”

“But that’s the best part about the whole movie. Who do you know that can kill a person with a pencil?”

… I may or may not have killed someone with a fountain pen before. He was a street performer who wanted to kill me under the guise of a magic trick which was a pen disappearing into thin air. Using misdirection, he tried to stab me in the leg with a poisoned tipped pen but unfortunately for him, before he could touch me, the pen ‘disappeared’ into his ear. 

A few weeks before the last battle between me and Wilbert, me and my party were trying to hide under Denoria’s radar as we snuck into the country. In order to do that, we had to act as wandering merchants under a company. At the time, we were handing out healing potions to the unfortunate few that survived the aftermath of war, whether it was a devilkin or human. After word got around of our deeds, people from both devilkin and humans alike, weren’t too happy with what we were doing and sent assassins after us. 

That guy was just one of the many assassins that got killed on the way to Walpurgis Castle.  

“That’s besides the point. Why didn’t you show her a romance show?”

“Romance? I never downloaded any. All I have is action, horror and thriller movies. Romance movies give me goosebumps due to how cringy they are.”

“Ah, why are you such a tomboy!?”

“I’m in agreement with Kari on this one. The shows of today are cringe.”

I said off-handedly to which Alice looked towards me with a deadpan expression and responded coldly.

“I don’t want to hear that from a person who’s been out of touch with the world for three years.”

“I-I can’t refute that.”

I’ve been out of the loop for so long that I've lost touch on what’s hype and what’s not… before I get my feelings hurt more by finding out other things that I’ve missed, I’m going to be quiet and eat my meal.

“Ah!? The screen went black.”

As Alice and Kari continued to bicker about which was the better genre, the queen said in surprise. 

This in turn caused Alice and Kari to stop arguing mid-way. With a shrug, Kari looked at her phone and said.

“Ah, I forgot to charge it today.”

“Today? How have you been charging it?”

I asked curiously. From what I could tell, this world doesn’t know the concept of using electricity to power appliances. Instead, it uses magic, a force that defies science in general. Which is why this world isn’t as advanced as Earth’s. 

So how…

“Oh, back on Earth, I kept a portable charger with me at all times. I use it to charge my earphones and phone when they’re about to die. The best thing about it is that all I have to do is place it in a sunny spot for about an hour and it’ll have enough power to charge my phone.”

“I see. Then can I use your phone to listen to music every once in a while? I haven’t listened to any in a while. Six months of replaying the same songs in your head over and over again gets boring after a while.”

“Sure I can do that.”

“Thanks.” 

“No problem. Uh, your majesty, can I please have my phone back.”

At Kari’s words, the queen snapped out of her daze of staring at the black screen and handed back Kari’s phone with a gentle ‘here you go’. After a few seconds of thinking she continued.

“I think I remember seeing one of these ‘smartphones’ about eleven years ago. I believe the former hero Mars had one similar to this one.”

“...”

Hearing this, I felt my heart momentarily stop. Does she know who I am? Did she see my face back when I saved King Paul? Am I making myself look like an idiot by thinking she doesn’t know who I am?

As I was coming up with such conjectures in my head…

“Really?”

Alice asked, slightly surprised before taking a quick glance at me. 

“Yes. It was during a summit with the now Queen of Artasia. He was her bodyguard at the time. He had small things in his ears at the time bobbing his head back and forth as he used one of those.”

The queen then points at Kari’s phone.

Hmm, a summit where I was the bodyguard of Grace? Wasn’t that all of them?… I can’t remember. When I was at those places, I just put in my earphones and shut everything out. It was tiring trying to play political games in a time of chaos. 

That’s a politician’s game, not mine.  

“So you saw his face before?”

Alice said as she got to the main point. Let’s see whether or not I made a fool out of myself once again. 

“No. he wore a damaged helmet that was covered in scratches and dents. His armor was dented and damaged as well, covered with sword slashes and arrow indentations. And the aura he gave off made him unapproachable. It was to the point that Queen Grace had to tell him to stand in a corner in order for her to negotiate with the other government officials.”

Well, that was because I didn’t want to be there. At the time, I would’ve rather been practicing the [Heavenly Annihilation Technique] or finding a way to return home. Also, I’m glad I wore my helmet! It paid to keep my identity hidden. 

“I, myself, was included in that group. If one got too close to him, all you could’ve smelled was iron, throwing a lot of people off.”

…Sorry, I hardly ever had a chance to wash back then. I was always on the go. ‘The quicker I ended this war, the quicker I returned to Earth’ was what I thought. The good thing about smelling like blood was that it acted like a repellent so I didn't have to worry about government insects bothering me. The downside of smelling like blood was however that it acted like a perfume that drew battle hardened crazies towards me. 

…Wait, was that why some military officials took a liking to me?

“He seemed quite unsociable then didn't he? What a weirdo.”

Kari said with a smile. This person loves throwing jabs at me when I can’t fight back huh? Okay, wait till the next sparring match.

“Well, I wouldn’t necessarily call him unsociable. He apparently talked quite frequently with a few prominent military leaders. A few of ours included. They said that he’s both a tactical genius and a demon at the same time.”

The more the queen talks the more I feel attacked. Screw those old men!

“Wow! But it’s nice to know that the ever infamous former hero was a person from our time. I wonder what music he listened to?”

“I would like to know that as well but because I feel cooped up in this castle, I’m going to visit the city. No need to provide security since I'm a nobody out there.”

There’s a few more things to confirm about the butler’s place I’m going to take and I need a new supply of Hanoka leaves. My pack is almost empty.

“Ah, before you leave. I’d like to inform you that there’s going to be a party later on tonight in celebration of me and my daughter’s safe return and Ms. Alice and Kari’s first expedition out of the city. Please enjoy it to your heart's content.”

The queen said with a smile as she waited for the maid to fill her cup with tea. Giving her a nod, I get up from the chair and smile wryly.

“I’ll be there. However, I don’t think I should be there considering that the majority will most likely disapprove of me being there.”

“Nonsense. After all…”

Queen Katherine then takes a sip of her tea before continuing.

“I am the queen. If they say something please inform me or my husband. It’s the least we can do since we forcefully dragged you here.”

“...I understand. I thank you for informing me, your majesty.”

“My pleasure.”

And with that I left the dining hall. And as I was walking I couldn’t help but chuckle a little.

“Despite her calm looks, her majesty is not someone to play around with.”

While she didn’t say much, the intent behind her words were clear. “I’m the other ruler of this country. I have the power to do as I please. So, if someone is making trouble for you, send them my way and I’ll handle it.”

“But I’m not gonna lie, having the backing of two of the country's most powerful people feels great. Is this how it feels when main characters become friends with royalty?”

Not that I’m saying Grace isn’t royalty. But after being together with her and the others everyday for close to three years, the graciousness that she exuded slowly faded away and a more familial sense became more prominent. 

She’s the closest thing I got to an older sister in this world. The same went for the others as well. If we meet now, I’m pretty sure the bonds we share between us haven't changed. So this feeling of actually having the king and queen, who’s the royalest of the royalest as your backer is really invigorating. 

Author’s Note 

- What’s poppin my readers? I hope you had a wonderful week! Mine was okay my knees, back and veins hurt but because I was able to see the sights of San Antonio today, life is good. 

Anyways I apologize for being late like I’m always am. School is very tiring and the days are long. But let’s not drag y’all’s day down with my bitching. Enjoy that chappy and have a nice day.