On the walls of the royal city of the Kingdom of Osthsebo.
The "Knight Princess" Xio Derecha, clad in full armor and gripping a longsword, patrolled the various defensive installations while gazing at the countless kinds of monsters below the city walls. A deep look of worry involuntarily surfaced on her face.
Ever since the "Hero" Giuseppe Castiya had died in battle at the "Demon King's Castle," the situation across the "world" had gradually deteriorated. By now, even a great power like "Osthsebo," which possessed a stone castle, had been besieged and was struggling to hold on. It was hard to imagine what kind of tragedy had befallen those small countries that only had wooden palisades.
"Yet even after grinding levels with such effort, I'm still only level 12, still very far from the Hero's level 25 back then… and yet I'm already the highest-level combatant in the entire kingdom…
"And among the monsters below, there are at least three at the same level as me, and there's even one that's higher… If not for the city walls, and the soldiers fighting with complete disregard for their lives to cooperate with me, the castle would have been breached long ago.
"Even so, we've already abandoned the town beneath the castle… But after the residents retreated into the castle, the daily consumption of food has been enormous. At this rate, we can hold out for at most five more days.
"And the knights sent to seek aid from neighboring countries still don't know whether they managed to break through…
"I'm afraid the neighboring countries' situations may not be optimistic either!"
Just as the "Knight Princess" Xio Derecha finished muttering a few lines to herself, she suddenly stopped, a trace of doubt arising in her heart: Why did I just say all of that out loud? It was like I was explaining the background of a story… or narrating it to someone…
But those doubts quickly vanished from her mind, and Xio Derecha once more became deeply worried.
More than ten minutes later, the sun's light gradually faded, and pitch-black night draped itself across the sky.
This should have been the time to return home and rest, but both the "Knight Princess" and the soldiers grew tense.
Because nighttime was when those monsters were at their strongest—they often launched attacks after the sun went down.
Sure enough, when the last sliver of sunset glow was swallowed by the night, a desolate horn sounded. Large numbers of grotesque monsters crawled out from collapsed buildings one after another and charged toward the city walls.
Although most of the monsters were only level three or four, with even some level one or two cannon fodder, and the kingdom's elite soldiers generally reached level five or above, the monsters' numbers were simply too great. If the durability of the walls was depleted before dawn, the human side would quickly be drowned by an endless tide of monsters.
Thus, prioritizing the sniping of high-level monsters that dealt significant damage to the walls became the foremost objective of the kingdom's defensive forces.
"Left side of the west gate, a level-seven stone-throwing troll—ballista team, prepare, fire!"
"Front-right of the north gate, three level-five piercing demons—catapults, concentrate fire!"
"Directly in front of the south gate, there's a spellcasting unit preparing—adventurer squad, go down and assassinate it, I'll open the way!"
Upon sensing the aura of magic, the "Knight Princess" immediately issued the attack order. At the same time, she herself leapt down from the city wall with her longsword, gathered her strength, and swung it, releasing a ten-meter-long flame "sword aura" that cleared out more than half of the monsters in front of the enemy "spellcasting unit."
Immediately after, an adventurer team with an average level of eight quickly followed up, killing the enemy "spellcasting unit" before it could finish its preparations.
Seeing the monsters surging in again from all directions, Xio Derecha held her sword to cover the rear, allowing the adventurer squad to quickly retreat behind the city walls.
This tactic had been used many times before, so the princess and the adventurers were highly coordinated. They only needed to wait for the cooldown of Xio Derecha's "Flame Sword" skill to end, then use this "mob-clearing" ability as cover to safely retreat.
But just as the ten-meter flame "sword aura" was released again, and Xio was about to leap back onto the city wall, an accident occurred. A monstrous bird of as high as level fifteen suddenly appeared from nowhere and, at incredible speed, grabbed Xio's armor, flinging her—still midair—back down into the swarm of monsters below.
"Your Highness!"
"Knight Princess!"
The soldiers and adventurers were horrified. They hurriedly used bows, arrows, and spells to drive away the monstrous bird while firing volleys into the monsters below, fighting desperately to buy the princess a chance at survival.
But this was clearly of little use, because these soldiers and adventurers—none even reaching level ten—couldn't break through that bird's defenses at all.
Seeing herself about to fall into the monster horde, Xio instead calmed down. Although her skills were still on cooldown, the passive effects and basic abilities granted by her level twelve were not something ordinary monsters could withstand.
It could be said that before the durability of her armor was fully depleted, monsters below level ten wouldn't even dream of breaking her defenses.
But Xio had clearly overlooked one issue—the grab from that monstrous bird earlier had already pushed her armor's durability to its limit!
Thus, after falling into the monster swarm, the "Knight Princess" endured only a few heavy blows while surrounded before her full-body armor suddenly shattered into fragments, revealing the court dress she wore beneath.
"How could this happen?" Xio Derecha's heart was instantly filled with despair, because she knew that once she lost the protection of her armor, no matter how strong she was, there was absolutely no way she could break out of the monsters' encirclement… especially since those few monsters at the same level as her were rapidly closing in.
Was she going to be killed, or captured alive and subjected to a fate worse than death? Xio bit her lip. After swinging her sword to kill a monster attempting a sneak attack, she made her decision: I'll fight until I die! Even killing one more monster is worth it!
But just as the soldiers and adventurers on the city wall cried out in grief, when the "Knight Princess" was about to meet her end, a figure suddenly "blinked" to her side. With a light wave of his hand, countless sword lights burst forth from within the monsters' bodies, killing them instantly—one strike each. Even the level-fifteen monstrous bird was no exception!
In an instant, the battlefield that had been filled with thunderous shouts fell silent, leaving only the soldiers' and adventurers' sharp intakes of breath, and the "Knight Princess's" incredulous cry:
"Y–You… are you the new 'Hero,' sir?"
As she spoke, she couldn't help but grab the arm of the strangely dressed man before her.
Yet the "Hero" in her eyes cast a few odd glances at her, then raised his right hand and flicked her forehead with a bent finger.
After taking that flick, Xio Derecha stood there dazed for quite some time. When clarity finally returned to her eyes, she immediately revealed an embarrassed and indignant expression and muttered uncomfortably:
"So this is the 'world' behind the 'door' you talked about?
"Why would it assign me such a role!"
Ebner rubbed his chin and replied teasingly, "As far as I know, this 'world's' character assignments are all based on the subconscious…
"In other words, Xio, you actually really want to be a princess, don't you?
"A princess from a kind of 'fairy-tale' story like this."
Having had her thoughts exposed, Xio didn't refute it. Who didn't have a "princess dream"? She pressed her lips together and stiffly changed the subject. "Then what identity were you assigned after entering?"
"You don't know?" Ebner's expression turned strange once more.
"Why would I know?" Xio asked, puzzled.
"Ah… nothing. Because I shook off the so-called 'fate' this world assigned me the moment I entered, I don't currently have any identity," Ebner replied with a smile.
That was the truth. He truly had no "identity" now, but when he had first entered, he had been assigned the persona of a "playboy," with rumors even saying he had an ambiguous relationship with the "Knight Princess."
This "world's" so-called "fate" really wasn't reliable… Mm, even calling it a "world" was giving it too much credit. Its total area was probably only about two-thirds of Backlund, and a country with a single stone castle already counted as a superpower…
Xio naturally didn't believe him, but she was too lazy to pursue the matter further. After all, everything here was false. She glanced around the battlefield littered with corpses and, while waving to the soldiers on the city wall to have them open the gates, asked:
"Where's 'Iceberg Admiral'? Where is she now?
"And also, after my memories recovered, why didn't my Beyonder abilities recover along with them?"
"Because the 'rules' of this 'world' are stipulated by the 'Hand of Order' within the 'Ghost Empire.' Without the level of an angel, you have to follow its rules.
"And I'm somewhat special… you know that…"
At this point, Ebner paused, then shifted the topic.
"As for Edwina… the reason I almost didn't make it in time for your battle was because all the identities I estimated she might have were wrong…
"She's neither a 'teacher,' nor a 'scholar,' nor a 'sage.'
"If it's not that this 'world' has a cognitive bias toward her, then it means that her true inner longing is very likely beyond my expectations."
So, the reason you were able to come over so quickly was because you already knew I wanted to be a 'princess'? Xio pressed her lips together again, unsure whether she should feel happy or depressed.
It was a good thing for a friend to understand her—but having even her little secret thoughts laid bare was still rather embarrassing.
(End of the chapter)