TN: I’ll start off by saying this, sorry for the late chapter, I had a power outage yesterday so I couldn’t finish it in time. My bad. So without further ado, enjoy!
A prince has to train in the martial arts as well.
My teacher is......Shreegan.
“The weak spots of the body! For the head, it’s the eyes, ears and nose! For the neck it’s the throat! For the torso it’s the stomach and ribs, and for the legs it’s the shins and the foot, and finally the crown jewels!”
“......Um, is this supposed to be martial arts?”
“Didn’t I already tell you? Your highness is still only ten, so you should just hit the weak spot once and then run away. In other words, this is self-defence. I told you that once you are able to do that properly, I’ll teach you whatever you like, be it handling a sword or a spear.”
“That somehow doesn’t sound like something royalty should be doing.”
“Survival is the most important thing on the battlefield. You're going to kill them anyway, so why not kick them in the nuts without hesitation?”
“How did you get to be a knight?””
A way of fighting where you don’t keep up appearances.
Strike one’s face to break their nose.
Hit their chin with the palm of your hand.
Kick their leg and then pull it to make them fall.
Pull down their head and strike it with your knee.
Hold them from behind and headbutt them.
Stomp on their foot with all your might.
Every move ending with a kick to the crown jewels.
Terrifying isn’t it......
Of course, Shreegan is wearing proper protection. With these moves even a child could beat an adult, so if Shreegan were to really get hit even he would collapse.
“You get it? Hesitating and being half-hearted is the worst thing you can do. You will just make them angry, and the situation will get worse. No stopping till you crush his balls.”
“As a guy, that’s hard for me to do......”
“Well, of course it is, since this is self-defence taught to ladies.”
“Ugh......”
“In other words, his highness is at the level of a woman or a child.” [TN-1]
“......A child huh.”
“From time to time I think ‘Is he older than me?’ when I look at you your highness, but your body is still one of a child. Once you are able to do this, I’ll teach you how to handle things like the sword or spear elegantly like a true noble, but until then you have to focus on self-defence single-mindedly.”
“I understand.”
Once the martial arts training was over, it’s time for dance classes.
The gap between these two is too big. Suddenly going from trying to kill each other like wild animals and trying to break each other’s balls, to elegant and graceful dancing with ladies.
If I don’t switch gears properly I might end up hitting Serea in the groin unconsciously.
“Hey! Shin-chan! You are late!”
This teacher’s gap is amazing as well.
“I apologise for my tardiness.”
“It’s all good then. Serea-chan is amazing, take a look!”
“Really, lemme see.”
Serea, who is wearing thin dancing clothes, answers while looking embarrassed.
“Since I came here first, I started reminiscing a bit in front of the mirror, and teacher saw me.”
What it the world where you doing while reminiscing?
“Serea-chan, please do it again!”
It’s rare for him to get so worked up.
Shuffle shuffle shuffle.
Eh? What’s with those steps? It’s so weird!? What’s going on?
It looks like she is normally walking forwards, so how come is she moving backwards!?[TN-2]
“How are you able to do that!?”
“It was popular when I was little, we’d do it in winter when puddles froze over. There was one girl in class who could do it, so everyone copied her.”
“So how do you do it?”
“Raise the toes of your right leg, then raise the heel of your left leg, and then slide it backwards.”
“Okay.”
“Then this time, raise the toes of the left leg, that’s now behind you, then raise the heel of your right leg”.
“Ok.”
“And then you slide the right foot backwards.”
“Serea-chan, when you are doing that, you are actually not putting any weight on the leg that sliding backwards, right?”
“Yeah.”
Teacher looks really impressed.
“......So it’s an optical illusion. You’re amazing.”
“I didn't come up with the idea ....... a singer and dancer named Michael came up with it.”
“I never heard of that person nor seen this trick.”
Of course you didn’t... It’s no doubt from Serea’s memories of her previous life.
“No matter, everyone will be surprised when they see it. We definitely have to master it! Let’s practise this for today. I wanna learn how to do it too!”
The three of us spent the rest of the dance lesson practising this mysterious move.
“Some slippery shoes would be great for practicing this. Now I understand why you practiced this on ice. Everyone, lets change our shoes!”
As expected of teacher, he quickly mastered it.
The next one to master it is Serea, while I’m the worst at it.
The three of us were shuffling to the rhythm, it looked kind of ominous.
It’s really difficult to do it smoothly without stopping at all. Teacher, why can you do it so easily?
“This is splendid! This will be our special move that will surprise everyone.”
“In that case, let’s keep it a secret until we perfect it.”
“Hmm, that’s unfortunate. I really wanted to use it, but Serea-chan was the one who taught it to me, so I think that it should be a special move only for the two of you......”
He’s making a face as if he’s deeply thinking about it, while saying that.
“Oh, I know!Let’s put this in the routine for your first official dance party. That aside, what should we call this move?”
“It already has a name. It’s called the moon walk”
Serea...why moon?
“The moon's gravity is only one-sixth that of the earth's, which makes you lighter, so you walk as if you were floating in the air, hence the name.”
Sorry, but I have no idea what you are talking about.
“I’m not sure I get it, but it really is such a strange move. I think I’m starting to get the picture, so leave it to me! I’ll make sure you perform it the best way imaginable!”
This teacher really is amusing.
It’s three o’clock, and time for a tea break.
“Let’s play sister!”
“Sis! Mother said to tell you to come and have dinner with us today!”
You really became close with my sisters, haven’t you Serea?
Seems like mother has taken a liking to her as well, but the dinner invitation is actually tableside manners training.
Her motto is ‘Get used to doing it, instead of learning how to do it’, as in get used to doing unconsciously, and have it come to you naturally.
It’s hard on Serea since she has to be careful even when she eats.
Since there is still time before dinner, we went to play with my sisters.
“Big sis! Me too!”
......My little brother, who started getting cheeky lately, came along with us.
Ever since my eldest sister Saran married into a neighbouring country, he suddenly started competing with me all the time.
Maybe he doesn’t want to be seen as a child by his new sister-in-law.There is probably a lot of things going through his head. He was the one who cried the most when our older sister left for her marriage after all.
When it comes to card games, I only know about bridge, poker, and other games for adults that you need skill to play and use psychological warfare against each other, but Serea knows a surprising amount of card games, including simple ones that children would enjoy playing. [TN-4]
There are games like ‘joker punch’ and ‘pig's tail’ which my younger sisters seem to like a lot.
"When I was in the hospital, I used to play with the kids in my room," said Serea, who is surprisingly good at playing with small children.
“Eeeh, I want to play millionaire!”
My younger brother is being selfish, but why that game? I’ve never heard of it.
He told me that the loser becomes a pauper and has to give his best card to the millionaire. In addition, the millionaire will give him his worst card in exchange. It's a tough game.
"If that’s the case, wont the millionaire just keep winning? I don't know if it's okay to let children play such a game that shows them of the reality of inequality in society......”
"Don't worry, when you gather four badcards , you say ‘revolution’ and the value of the cards will be reversed, so the millionaire will instantly become pauper.”
“I don't know if it's okay to let the children of the aristocracy play a game that aims for 'revolution'....... For starters let’s start with pig's tail.”
I can’t let my younger brother or sisters become like the rich who enjoy looking down on the commoners and the poor because they keep winning, or terrorists who want to conquer the world through revolution. As a member of the royal family, I can't let that happen.
After we finished dinner, a carriage came from the duke’s mansion, with Serea’s personal maid, miss Bell, in it.
The three of us stealthily go to Serea’s room in the castle, the one that used to belong to my older sister Saran, to review the information we just got.
“The main branch of Hans Restaurant is an ordinary but rather nice restaurant, but the potato chips, fried potatoes, and fried chicken they serve there became so popular that they opened a branch store specializing in them, which is the restaurant we went to the other day.”
“So that’s how it was......”
Miss Bell came to give us the information that we asked her to gather.
“It’s so popular that it might open one or two more branch stores.”
“They need a lot of oil to do that. Where do they get it from?”
“It’s canola oil, they got it from baron Blover. I heard that he’s gotten so excited about the popularity of the stores that he’s increasing production.”
“So, they have connections to a baron household.”
“That is correct. They are also building a large chicken coop in the baron’s territory and adding new products to the store’s menu one after another, like biscuits with maple syrup and cabbage salad, which are quickly becoming popular. They also sell carbonated water and fruit juice, all of which are produced in the barony.”
Serea nods her head in understanding.
That means she knows about those things, and that they existed in her previous life. I myself had never heard of these things before.
“The most surprising thing is the fact that all of this was thought up by Hans’, the owner’s, daughter Lins”[TN-5]
By daughter you must mean that girl right!?
"She's only ten years old, just like His Highness and the young lady, but she comes up with new menus one after another ....... Oh, I heard that the girl doesn't actually cook herself, Hans is the one who actually tries cooking whatLins comes up with.”
Makes sense, she is ten after all. She would be too amazing if she was the one cooking as well.
"But she also seems to have business sense, she established a self-service system where customers pick up products at the counter so that even a small restaurant can make a profit, as well as starting a take-out service that other restaurants don't offer.”
That’s just amazing. Is that something a ten year old kid can do?!
“......Surprised, right?”
When I look at Serea, I can see her making a difficult face.
“Miss Bell, how did you gather all of that information?”
“As the Lady’s personal maid, I have been authorised to use the Colette family’s spy network.I put one of them in as a part-timer at Hans' restaurant”
“That’s terrifying. Have I been investigated as well?!”
“Of course.”
“That’s awful! You don’t have any people who infiltrated the castle right? Right?”
“There is no reason to worry about that, since I can get most of the information about your highness directly from lord Shreegan.”
As I thought it’s Shreegan, it looks like it would be best if I had him fired.
“As I am giving the information gathered by the Colette house to you as well your highness, I would appreciate if you could overlook that much. Otherwise, I won’t be able to help anymore.”
Looks like I can’t fire Shreegan.
“Hey, miss Bell, I’ve been meaning to ask you something for a while.”
“Yes?”
“Aren’t you afraid of Shreegan’s face?”
“It’s simple once you figure out the trick to it.”
“It’s just the question of having the right technique!?”
I really don’t understand miss Bell.
“There's still a lot we don't know about the chicken recipe. We've figured out that it's cooked in a pressure cooker, like you said, which is a closed container that filled with frying oil. The thing we still can’t figure out is the herbs and spices, which we are currently investigating.”
"No, that's not what I want to know......stop looking into that.”
I'm not having you look into it because I want to eat fried chicken every day. What I want to know about is the girl named Lins, but I can't tell that to miss Bell.......
"......What I don’t understand is why are you so interested in this store your highness, my lady. Of course, I will collect any information you request, but if I have a clear goal I can gather the needed information more precisely, so might you be able to tell me the reason?"
Miss bell has a questioning look on her face.
“Sorry. For now, I’m just a little curious.”[TN-6]
“Whether it’s the storefront’s prosperity, or the enrichment of the baron’s territory, from the perspective of our national interest there is nothing wrong with either of these......”
“What we are interested in is if Hans's shop will expand in the future, and whether his relationship with the baron will grow stronger. We want to knowif they will gain an amount of power that can’t be ignored.” [TN-7]
That girl is quite skilled, she made a connection with noble in no time.
By the time the two of us go to the academy to study, she might have enough ability and fame to ‘enrol into the noble academy as a commoner’, by using her “Previous life’s knowledge”, as Serea calls it, to its full extent.
That will be the real beginning of our battle......
TN: Looks like they don’t plan on meeting the heroine any time soon, I can’t wait to see that interaction though, and it seems like Shreegan has caught himself in a honey trap, probably intentionally though haha.
