Return of a King

Chapter 3: Grace Rosethorne

-Grace-

It was more than two weeks ago when I found out what would happen to me, so I ran away from home and here I am…walking alone in this path to a town in the side of the country.

--Two weeks ago--

The birds outside of the palace were chirping and the rays of the sun hit my face as I was trying to shake away my sleepiness, I stood up and went to the personal bathroom that was in my bedroom and took a bath in the tub.

I was there for almost thirty minutes, the water was warm and the heat was getting me and I felt a bit dizzy so I got out of the tub and proceeded to wash away the last bit of sweat that was on my body.

I then took clothes from my wardrobe and put it on, it was a simple clothing that does not restrict my movements for I am gonna be training for my swordsmanship. After I put on clothes I immediately ate from the silver platter that was served to me a while ago, when I finished eating I ran quickly to go to my trainer

I hope the trainer isn’t hot-headed this time, when he’s angry he tends to pour it all on other people, that is maybe the cause for his very bad reputation but even though his reputation isn’t very impressive we still hired him because he was good at handling the sword.

I ran faster to the training grounds to start training and as I was running towards the grounds I saw the trainer’s face and it was fuming red, when I saw his face I ran faster than before and finally reached him.

“What took you so long?!” he shouted angrily as I arrived the platform.

“It’s still morning, come on. It’s not that late” I said to him, I walked away from him and took a wooden sword from the arsenal and took a battle stance. He also whipped out a wooden sword and we started to spar….or maybe you can call it duking it out because he’s angry, anyway we took turns to swing sword at each other until late in the afternoon came.

When we finished draining his anger out the training came to an end and I went straight to the big hot spring that was inside the palace, I quickly took my clothes off, took a towel, and went to jump in the hot spring.

“Ahh~ This is pure bliss, a warm bath after a very sweaty activity is the best after all” I said as a sign of relief, I stayed there until I was dizzy. I then got out of the bath and asked a maid to get a change of clothes for me.

I stood there and waited for the maid, when she came back I quickly put on the clothes that was given to me. I planned to go to the dining room when I suddenly walked across my father’s private room, I heard him talking to someone and out of curiosity I eavesdropped on my father’s conversation.

“My daughter, Grace, is already fifteen years old, she needs a fiancé to marry. My son is still five years old so he is not suitable for the throne, as my friend I hope your son will agree to this engagement” my father said to someone…I was panicking inside, I don’t want to get married yet!

 I need to think of some way to avoid this arrangement, my father is someone who is very stubborn. He won’t listen to me even if I didn’t agree to it, he always says it’s for my best but this is just unfair. Even when we were picking someone to be my trainer he insisted on picking that hot-headed man.

After giving it a lot of thought while I was walking I suddenly came up of something, I then entered the dining room very carefully and sat on a chair and waited for my family to come here. When they arrived the maids then served food cooked by the royal chefs, we proceeded to eat the food in front of us.

“Grace, I have a surprise for you tomorrow” father said, I guess the surprise that he is saying is the arranged marriage. I won’t ever marry anyone I don’t love, that’s why I will take action and hope that everything goes exactly as planned.

We then finished eating and then went to our separate bedrooms, after a short while I started moving and put on my clothes that I use for training and went straight to the arsenal. When I got to the arsenal I took my personal armor and my prized rapier and started running.

I went to the front gates and knocked out the guards that were guarding the front yard of the palace, I started running faster and went to the east gate. At this time of the night the east gate is left unmanned so I decided to go there, after I got there I chanced upon a carriage that was leaving the royal capital.

I snuck inside the carriage and decided to take a ride and find out where it takes me, hopefully it isn’t some illegal carriage.

--End of flashback--

And now here I am, in some place where no one can be seen for as long as I walked. I’m hungry, as I was walking I happened to see a carriage that was blocked by a pack of slimes. I saw a small man come out from the carriage with a sword in hand.

I watched him try to fend off the slimes but he wasn’t very good of a swordsman because he missed a slime…A SLIME! Anyway, I ran quickly towards him when I saw him drop his sword and just stood there and stare at his hand, what’s his problem?

“Heads up, weakling!” I shouted at him as a warning…and maybe as an insult. The man picked up his sword and then dodged, I quickly stabbed the slimes and as I finished the slimes off I quickly walked away without looking at it because cool people don’t look at the mess they did.

As I was walking I saw a town and quickly went to it, the guards then took out a crystal ball and told me to put my hand on top of it and the ball then shone blue. They then let me in and I searched for an inn, of course I brought money with me and all the money I have with me is Twenty Gold coins.

I found an inn and decided to check-in, they gave me a key for a room that costs Ten copper a night. Good thing they had change or it would’ve been very troublesome for me, I entered the room and went to lie in the bed.

Not gonna lie, this is a very decent room for only 10 coppers, I guess many people visit this inn.

After a short while I fell asleep.