I Reincarnated As My Waifu, What Do? 11 (Patreon)

"I hate myself and I hate everything and I know nothing but blood, agony and death!" 

"Stop being so dramatic, it's just your period," I said, rolling my eyes.

The priestess turned an accusatory finger towards me. "Well excuse me princess, for not having an invincible body that doesn't suffer from cramps!" she responded, eyes full of fierce fire ready to shoot out at me, before she sighed, and straightened herself as much as she could.

"Can't you just heal yourself?" I asked, frowning. 

"That," she said, "is a misuse of holy magic," she said, affecting a tone and face as if she was parroting something someone else had said. "The Gods don't look kindly on those who would frivolously use their gifts for such a thing."

Well... I was using my gifts for great justice, peace, and, to be quite honest, to get laid. Wonder how they felt about that.

Amalia cleared her throat. "Your status remains much the same," she explained, "naturally you're seeing improvement on all areas, as per my ability to read you goes, due to both your continued training and the natural gifts of your blood. If I didn't know better, I would wonder if a God had personally given you powers beyond everyone else..." she muttered.

I, pointedly, said nothing on this topic, and instead elected to move on. "Well, it's good to know nothing strange developed during my trip far away. Speaking about which, how have the soldiers been treating you? Roughly, I hope?"

Sister Amalia, she of saintly purity, blushed red like a fruit, and pointedly looked away.

"I'll take that as a confession," I said, smiling. "Well good to know, I did leave orders to treat you like a VIP."

"VIP?" she asked.

"Stands for Very Important Person," I explained, "you know, like you are."

"Well I'm flattered," the priestess said. "Still, this confessionary has become more of an old wives' gathering spot by now, and though I may be your personal counsilor, please consider my own position and situation when you come speak with me, your highness."

"You mean I'm interrupting you?" I asked, blinking. "Oh. Ooooh. Nevermind yes, I'm sorry," I admitted. "I'll leave you to that. If you need anything, you know where and how to find me," I spoke, nodding and heading out of the private room that served as the spot I would meet regularly with Amalia, our person within the church.

Unfortunately, I needed deeper hooks in order for the big fish in the church to start biting down and getting caught. The bait was... probably the right one. Sister Amalia was young, physically attractive enough, and in a theoretical position of vulnerability. The sort of man who would plot against the nation giving them shelter would surely also be the sort of man to take advantage of their position, right?

"Well I sure hope so," I muttered to myself, as I walked at a brisk pace, my hood back in place, veiling my presence from the masses that visited the cathedral practically daily.

Father had become considerably less averse to me leaving the palace on my own recently. The One Armed Beast's endorsement of my ability to care for myself had been a bigger blessing than I had thought; father had even approved of my martial training. That man is stronger than a platoon, and if he recognizes your strength, you know you're on the right path.

And I knew he was being honest, for he had first seen me as Otto's masked apprentice, before giving his assesment!

I was flying a bit high still, from my recent successes, but even so, being back in the capital was a bit of a rush after so much time spent relaxing. So much to do, so little time to do it in! As I exited the church, I used my awareness of my people to check on my surroundings. The guards posted were not mine, unfortunately, so I could only have a general idea. Locations are more difficult to lay claim to than people, after all, you needed both take it and then defend it.

I've been piecing together more and more details about the Privilege system, with Amalia's help. The royal library has many an interesting tome on the subject, and in particular in the origins of the Royal skills and why we even had them in the first place. At least if our records were to be trusted, those of sufficiently blue blood, so to speak, could trace their lineage to the Divine entities that had forged this country from chaos into order... the gods, indeed, were our very ancestors!

I dodged a running boy, followed by another boy wileding a stick like a sword, smiling at their antics. Some things never changed. 

I didn't feel like immediately returning to the Palace, and instead, I did as I frequently did, I stepped out into the city, in disguise, to observe its citizens. I had made note of many a place where I would have the guards check in, subtly informing father of problems within Trom as best I could.

Playing innocent dumb girl with Father was tiring sometimes, but it would pay off over time, he listened to his daughter, after all, but would be quite worried if he knew what sort of problems she was getting into, and that would be terrible for said daughter. I couldn't afford to be Daddy's Little Girl when I needed to be the Crown Princess and future Queen of Trom.

Queen... huh...

My mind wandered as I made mental note of a particular merchant's shop, that seemed to be selling counterfeit or contraband merchandise. It was a hunch, a feeling maybe, but some of the stuff he was selling looked familiar... The stylings of certain sectors of nobility tended to be distinctive, and though I could not recall the motifs off of memory, I know that there shouldn't be cutlery of this sort in the capital easily accessible...

Well, it didn't matter for the time being. I didn't have the expertise to launch into this sort of investigation without muddying the waters and making things worse. If the merchant operating that shop was buying cutlery from disgraced nobles... well, there wasn't much of that in Trom just yet, but maybe it was third sons looking to make their fortune?

It didn't necessarily need to be-

Wait. Why am I making excuses? Why am I trying to rationalize it? Oh, now I'm definitely making a note of this. Something was fishy here, I thought as I looked into the shop for several minutes, feeling my face twist into a frown almost against my will.

I wasn't sure how I would proceed, but I certainly made a note to present this issue to someone who might have the ability to investigate this. It... probably wasn't a good idea to go running into the church now, at any rate, so I simply made absolutely certain to commit the details of the shop to memory. I'll visit it as the princess later, probably with someone competent as my escort.

I can play the dumb princess to distract the shopkeeper or owner while my escort did the investigating. Probably the best thing to do.

But with that out of the way, I continued my walk. The farther I got from the noble and royal quarters of the city, the less clean, polished and perfect the city became, but in some ways, it became warmer, more lived in. Less... sterile. There was life around me. There was life in the cats chasing vermin, there was life in the children playing in the streets, there was life in the stall serving junk food.

Delicious, warm and somewhat greasy, I paid a small handful of coins of the lowest value for a piece of fluffy bread, slathered in fish sauce, covered in cheese, and most important of all, containing a chunk of unidentifiable meat.

It was absolutely delicious. In a different, more primal and greasier way than anything served at the palace could ever be, it was simply an expression of peasant delight, a construction of excess and at the same time, of deprivation. A creation made not out of culinary genius, but out of necessity and limitation.

Necessity, the mother of invention, had created something that was different, yet just as great, as the work of a genius. 

Such was life, finding worth and progress in the strangest of places.

As I finished enjoying my improvised junk food sandwich, I decided I might as well double back and return to the palace - not much was going on in the lower class section of the city, there was need of more guard presence, I saw someone take a traveler's coin purse, but that could be someone else's problem quite quickly.

After all... There's nothing wrong with me convincing father by playing the cute princess some more, right?

"Right," I muttered to myself.

And then, just as I passed an alley to my right, a hand erupted from around the corner, and I felt the world fade from around me, as something wrapped around my face and a stinging scent flowed up my nostrils. My last thought was about how much of a bullshit cliché it all was.