Chapter 93. Life of a Hero (1)

POV: Merry Paper

"Your majesty, this girl is the prophesied hero that I was trained to accompany on her journey against the Zombie Lord."

Froggy, me, and Bobby were on one knee on the ground while in front of us was the Royal Family.

Three children's and two parents.

The king had a golden crown on his head and a red robe on his back, his eyes were stern and his white beard was well-kept.

The queen beside him had a few wrinkles under her eyes but still had a look of authority, and her long hair was black not touched by age.

The first prince was on the right side of the king, he looked pretty similar to his father, maybe by choice or the genetics were that strong, but even with his stone look I could see a hint of curiosity when looking at me.

Next was the only princess who didn't even bother to hide her excitement about me, from what Bobby described her as it was because this would be an achievement for her as well since Bobby and Froggy 'found' me.

The last one was the second prince, and I could still see the youth in his eyes, and he didn't bother to hide his annoyance at his sisters happiness.

"Is that true young girl? Are you the chosen hero by the system?"

"Yes, I do not belong to this world, and from what the others told me I'm more special than the people here."

"How so?"

The king asked with curiosity.

"I can hold all the skills given by the system, and I can brake or place blocks three times faster than anyone."

This seemed to make the others curious as well, so they asked me to demonstrate.

I took some cobblestones from my inventory and placed them down, and people's eyes were already in shock, I then took my enchanted iron pickaxe and broke the blocks after a few swings.

Their eyes were almost out of their sockets at this display.

"Fascinating, you truly must be the hero chosen by the system!"

The first prince said with awe.

And if they all didn't have those big noses I would've considered him as a love interest, but it's just too big to ignore.

The king while impressed seems more interested in my enchanted pickaxe.

"When you came to this world, were your levels high already with the Enchanting and Crafting skill?"

"Oh no, it was all at first level. But in the past two months I got here I managed to level up my Crafting and Enchanting skills to a respectable level. And this pickaxe was a gift from my teacher since I cannot craft with iron yet."

"Your teacher gave you that powerful pickaxe as a gift?"

Theoretically, Trader lent me an iron pickaxe since I couldn't make my own yet to mine my materials. But he had too many of those to care if I took one or two more from his chest, and I was the one to enchant the pickaxe, that's why I've learned so much enchanting after all.

"Yes."

"Who would your teacher be?"

"He's someone that likes to live alone and doesn't communicate with a lot of people."

The king seems disappointed by the answer but accepts it nonetheless.

"Bobby told me you wanted to learn how to fight, that's why you came to us, is that true?"

"Yes indeed, I heard this is the best place to learn a lot in a short time."

The kind smiled gently at what I said.

"Then we'll train you to fight the Zombie Lord since he's the enemy of humanity not only to our nation. Welcome hero, to Stone Kingdome!"

We did one last bow before we all left, I was given a tour of where I would stay and what facilities I could use before let go to do whatever I wanted.

Tomorrow was the day all the training will start after all.

As I was walking along the halls looking at the design of the castle two villagers stopped me.

They both looked with a hint of hate at each other but didn't say anything and just wanted to talk with me.

"The first prince wished to talk with you in private."

"You don't have to listen to him, the princess would be more than happy to accommodate you."

I could even see a small lightning pass between those two, almost ready for a fight.

While I was kind of interested in how they would fight if it came down to it, I had to make a tough decision on who to choose, because clearly, this was a political move.

Trader did warn me to stay away as much as possible from political fights, but if I did decide to join in one, he advised me to stick with the one in charge aka the king.

He specifically warned me that princesses can promise me the world and have the ability to do that, but if the king says no. Everything will be for nothing.

From his expression at that time I could tell it had a story behind it, that he didn't want to talk about it, so I didn't press further.

Suddenly an idea crossed my mind, I took one of the messengers and talked with him far enough that the opposing party couldn't hear us.

After I was done, his face changed to that of dissatisfaction.

"Fine, if you choose this I won't force you, but the Prince will remember this."

The other message seemed to have hope all of a sudden until I had a private talk with him as well.

"Even if you are the chosen hero you can't just do whatever you want, the Princess will remember this."

The both of them left with a huff each on their way.

What did I tell them?

'Act as if I just refused you, and I'll visit your master later.'

This was enough for me to be neutral while visiting both of them to see what they had to offer.

First I chose to visit the princess since I was most familiar with her.

So here I was in front of a normal-looking door and I gently knocked.

"Come in."

A soft voice answered from the other side, and I opened the door.

The office was simple in design, with a desk in the middle of the room, and on the walls were some paintings or bookshelves.

I could see an Ender Chest not too far away from the desk, which most likely meant this room was her main office.

"Ah, hero I'm happy to see you, what's your opinion about our kingdom?"

"It's pretty nice, but unfortunately I haven't had the chance yet to see too much of it."

"You did say that you've only been here for two months, maybe we can arrange to have a tour of the city when you'll be more free."

We kept talking like that for a while, she tried to guess my position through subtle questions while I also asked her some questions to find out if she had some interesting information.

Unfortunately, I was disappointed, while the information about the geopolitical status of this world was kind of interesting, the stuff that can make me stronger quicker was not that easy to find.

While this place was getting most of their money through trading raw ores, they weren't that good at crafting with them, instead, they were very good at making potions of all kinds.

They knew all the recipes for the system-made potions and subtlety hinted at some made without the system.

Unfortunately, that was not something that I was too interested in, I liked a weapon in my hand, not a potion, and while she hinted that she would tell me the secret recipes if I joined her side, I already knew all that information from Trader, information that would be the secret of the nation, was casually given one day when Trader was bored and wanted to teach me about all the potion variants you can do.

She didn't even know about the iron golem, which was a great weapon to fight against such a monster as the Zombie Lord.

And from what Trader told me, there's a much more dangerous weapon that could destroy everything if it's made.

He didn't tell me how to make the weapon though, no matter how much I asked him.

In conclusion, what the princess offered me was tempting for anyone else but me, since I already knew the information or wasn't interested.

After an hour of talking, I decided to leave telling her that I would think about the offer but no promises.

This discussion was pretty nerve-wracking with me constantly trying not to give away too much of what I know, so I decided to take a break before going to meet the Prince.

As I walked towards where I remembered to be the lunch area I heard a voice yelling from the other side of the hallway.

"Hero, stop right there!"

I looked towards the voice and saw that it belonged to the second prince, and he was approaching me with quick steps.

His expression didn't look too good, which instinctively put me on guard, unpleasant memories flashed before my eyes.

"You! Be mine!"

"Excuse you?"

"When I laid my eyes upon you, it was love I first sight, I can't bear the thought of us not being together."

He got down on his knees and took out a golden crown from his inventory to give it to me.

"Hero Merry, will you be my wife?"

At first, I was angry when he talked like that, but now it was all forgotten in the shock that I just got.

I looked deep into his eyes and it was similar to the boys that fell in love with me in the old world, but his eyes were on another level of affection.

I knew for sure that he had fallen in love when he first saw me, but I couldn't see anything attractive about him.

The big nose is an issue for me that I can't easily ignore.

"Sorry young prince, but I can't return the same feelings for you, we've just met after all."

I tried to slowly reject him not knowing how this madman would react if I outright rejected him.

His face changed to one of confusion, then it went to anger and finally settled with realization.

"I understand beautiful hero, I'll have to fight for your love. No worries, nothing is too big or expensive for me to get, I'll make you fall in love with me even if I have to defeat the Zombie Lord myself!"

Before I could say anything to him, he turned around and left.

"Well, he took it better than I expected. I hope he won't do something too crazy now."

With that done I decided that I wasn't hungry anymore, so I went directly toward the first Prince's office.

I had to walk for a while since I got lost in the big castle, but in the end and with some help I arrived at the door.

I gently knocked on the door, and a voice from the other side permitted me to come in, so I did.

His room was more spacious and had more decorations, than his sisters office, which took me by surprise a little.

"Hero, thank you for coming, please take a seat."

The prince had a different aura than his brother and sister, he was more confident and closer to the king than the others, so I unconsciously sad down without realizing it.

Like with the princess, we started with small talk, how I was doing, who was my teacher, how much I knew about enchanting, and other stuff like that.

His method of questioning was way better than the princess, I accidentally slipped a few things about me that I wanted to keep a secret, he was sly as a snake, and that made me more on guard around him.

After a while, he started to talk about the benefits I'd get if I joined him. Unlike his sister, he didn't promise knowledge but instead land, people and riches.

Which were tempting in their ways, but I wasn't that good at building so I didn't need land in the kingdom, people to trade were for nothing since I had a different system then them, as for the riches, I saw what Trader was capable of producing if he was grinding for a few weeks, nothing that he promised was that worth it.

In the end, I gave the same response as I did to the Princess, and he only smiled as I left his office.

"What a day, one is a bookworm, one is a lover and the last one is sly as a snake. I kind of like the plot that I'm going with."

It was enough activity for today, so I went to get some rest.