“Isabel! Rin is a genius on the battlefield!” Roy exclaims as we catch up with the exhausted-looking group of Isabel, Hilde, and Liz.

Roy and I had arrived at the beautiful marble castle gates before Isabel, but since Isabel hadn’t shown up at the castle yet, we had to wait at the front of the giant marble castle for Isabel to arrive and explain to the guards that Roy and I were part of her party.

“I’m sorry Roy, but I’m extremely tired right now. Can we talk about our days during dinner?” Isabel pleads as she drags her feet past a royal guard.

“Lady Isabel! Allow me to show you to your rooms.” A royal guard worriedly exclaims as he supports Isabel with an arm.

I watch over Liz and Hilde who had dead expressions on their faces.

Hilde without energy? That’s brand new.

“What happened?” I asked the exhausted pair as Roy supports Liz.

“We were lectured by an old ‘expert’ on battle tactics, but Isabel refused to listen to his section on defense and started an argument with the old Elf.” Liz whispers, “They got into a battle and he just defended all of Isabel’s attacks with ease. Eventually, Hilde and I got brought into the battle as her Spirits, but that old Elf was such a high level, it made no sense!”

“Isabel kept ordering a rematch until she ran out of MP and collapsed.” Hilde says as he uses my body for support, “That girl has too much MP, we pretty much battled that Elf all day without a break.”

Ah, that’s why they’re this exhausted even though Roy and I had been sparing all day as well. They probably didn’t have liquid armor or break rooms.

I sighed as I followed a guard who showed Hilde to his room, once inside, Hilde collapsed onto the bed like a bag of bricks.

After a couple more minutes of walking, I thank the guard as he directs me to my room in the castle.

“Castle rooms are on a whole other level huh?” I whisper under my breath as I walk around my marble-filled castle room.

The room had marble walls and flooring and was about as large as an expensive apartment. However, as every person should when examining a new place, I check out my bathroom.

I whistle as I enter the expensive-looking bathroom. Then again, the whole room in general was expensive looking. However, my eyes light up and my heart starts pumping fast as a piece of certain bathroom equipment catches my eye.

“A bathtub!” I exclaim in joy.

I quickly remove my clothes as I prepare a warm bath for myself. I sink my body into the warm water and I feel all the strain from battling the whole day escape my body, the soothing atmosphere causing me to sink deeper into the bathtub. I close my eyes and feel my consciousness grow weaker.

Soon enough, I fall asleep in the bathtub.

I regain consciousness after who knows how long, and although I was awake, I didn’t want to open my eyes.

Suddenly, I hear someone humming a soft tune. I couldn’t recognize the song, but the tune was oddly relaxing…

Wait, someone is in my room!?

I quickly stand up and jump out of the bathtub. The humming stops.

“W-who’s there!” A voice outside the bathroom asks.

“I should be asking you that!” I answer back as I cover myself in a bathrobe and summon my shield.

“Don’t play dumb with me! You’re in my room!”

“No, you’re in my room!” I reply to the voice in frustration.

I ready my Parma shield and jump out of the bathroom door, and staring back at me with pure shock on her face, was Isabel who wore nothing but a towel.

“Nooooooo!” Isabel shrieks as she closes her eyes and shoots a small fireball at me.

I quickly block the fireball and hide my eye behind the shield.

“That’s dangerous! Think about how expensive this room must be!”

“W-w-what are you doing in bathrobes in my room!” Isabel demands as her eyes begin to water.

“I was in this room first though!”

Just then, loud knocking could be heard on the door.

“Rin! Is everything alright?!” Roy shouts.

“Y-yeah Roy! Don’t worry about it!” I shout back.

“You don’t sound fine, wait for me!”

The door opens as Roy jumps in with his sword at the ready. His expression changes from one of a shock to confusion as he slowly exits and closes the door.

I observe the situation clearly.

 Isabel and I were both naked with nothing but a bathrobe and a towel covering us…

I run out of the room and chase after our knight, “Wait, Roy! It’s not what you think!”

* * *

An awkward silence fills the grand dining hall.

Word quickly spread among the castle that lady Isabel of Lastaria had walked into the room of her Spirit and both were found to be barely clothed in the room.

Of course, the story got completely changed among the people of the castle, but what really happened was that Isabel got called from her room to talk to Aquaria’s father, the king of Eskal, and ended up mistaking my room for hers while she walked back full of exhaustion.

I really couldn’t blame Isabel as our rooms were right next to one another, but right now, I had to clear things up at the dining tables.

“Uhm, you see, Isabel was just tired and she ju-”

“It’s alright, I completely understand.” The king of Eskal says as he takes a bite out of a chicken leg. “The queen and I were just as lively when we were in our younger years as well.”

I look at Isabel for help, but she was a silent, blushing mess, which definitely wasn’t helping our case at all.

I look across the table.

Aquaria was teasing Isabel, Liz and Roy were staring intensely at me, and Luna kept blushing as she took glances at Isabel and me, while Leo, Lev, and Hilde were all busy stuffing their faces with food.

I sigh as I stare at the rare steak on my plate, I had given up on explaining myself as all my attempts earlier had been waved off by the King and the Queen.

Apparently, the King of Eskal used to be a rebellious prince who was a party member of the Queen, who had no idea he was the to-be king of her nation until they agreed to get together.

To be honest, it sounded pretty romantic, but no matter how many times I tried to prove my and Isabel’s innocence, they would tell me about their youth together.

Seriously, stop countering my explanation with the stories of your youth love life together!

“On a more serious note,” the King begins, “I heard you managed to beat my daughter in a spar today.”

I choke a bit on my steak.

“I’m uh, sorry about that.” I let out in a low voice.

The king raises an eyebrow at me and begins laughing out loud.

“There’s no need to worry about it, did you think I would order to have you executed because you beat my daughter in a battle?”

“Uhm, to be honest, yeah.”

“I would have if you weren’t the party member of Aquaria’s best friend.”

Hey, why’d you go all serious on that last line?

The King finally switches his attention to Roy and begins asking him about his life before becoming a Spirit. As those two begin conversing with each other, I turn my own attention to the rest of my meal.

* * *

After dinner, Isabel had called us into her room, which was much bigger than mine, and wanted to know what Roy and I had done today. Roy begins informing Isabel about my performance during the first spar with Aquaria and how it was my best performance of the day.

“Well, that’s just mainly because Roy got fired up after the spar with Aquaria.” I admit, “After that, all the elves and other adventurers that challenged us got swiftly dealt with by Roy.”

Isabel nods her head at me and looks back at Roy.

“So? How many levels did you two gain?”

Roy brings out his sword and checks his stats, “Right now, I’ve reached level 22. We’ve gained two levels, that means Rin must be around level 9, right?”

Once my level escaped Roy’s mouth, the reality of how under-leveled I was sunk in again.

The whole room fell into a heavy silence as nobody knew whether to look at Roy, Isabel, or myself.

Everyone looked uneasy, except for Isabel who simply nodded, “Good, to be honest, dungeons would be much faster to level up, but I think sparing against other people will also help out with battle tactics over power.”

I widen my eyes at Isabel in shock. 

Was she… learning?

“W-what are you giving me that weird look for?” Isabel abruptly asks as she brings her arms up to her chest to cover them.

“To be honest with you, I’m just surprised with what you said earlier,” I admit.

“What? It makes perfect sense that dungeons give you levels faster.”

“Not that, I mean, about how you seemed to view battle tactics over power.”

Isabel tilted her head in confusion.

I figured I wasn’t making much sense, but as I looked at my party members, I saw them nodding in agreement with me. Isabel looked even more confused with them agreeing with me.

“Spirits are so weird, I swear.” Isabel sighs.

Liz giggles, “Well, I would recall the long events, or rather, the event we had today, but I’ve already informed Roy and Rin when we met at the castle gates.”

Isabel nods and lies down on the bed. “Thank you, Liz. You may all return to your rooms. I’m beat.”

The rest of us relate to Isabel’s tiredness and head out of her room together.

As I exit last to close the door, I look back at Isabel and can’t help but smile a bit to myself over what she said earlier.

“To be honest, dungeons would be much faster to level up, but I think sparing against other people will also help out with battle tactics over power.”

I return into the room to cover her with a blanket before finally closing the door.

 

A/N: Hey guys, Sakutani here, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter. Did you guys get mad over the cliche fan service scene? Ahahah, I apologize, I just wanted to have some fun. Anyways, it's already been 4 months since I've started uploading across various sites, and the support and feedback I've received have both been eye-opening and amazing, I just wanted to write a small letter today to thank everyone who has stuck with me, and the new readers who have found my story. Thank you so much.

Oh, I tried starting a discord server, but tbh I don't really know how to set one up. I'll try again sometime in the future.  I still want to have an interactive community, so if you want, feel free to head over to my Instagram (@michael_sakutani) where I try to be as active as possible! 

I also have a Patreon where you can access and read a chapter draft earlier than the general audience, so if you'd like to read the juicy outlines, find out how terrible my writing actually is, or support me, head on over to https://www.patreon.com/michaelsakutani

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