Kain was troubled…
Well, rather, he had been troubled for a long time now, but now another new trouble was added to that mountain.

Kain’s gaze was directed at Princess Fii, who was leaving the 18th Division gathering place.

Kain immediately began to move.
While suppressing his presence, he relocated to the usual location.

“Kain-saaan! I’ve come to play~!”

No sooner had Princess Fii stopped before a certain tree did she immediately move to climb it.
Before she could, Kain leapt down from his tree. A clean, silent landing.

The moment Princess Fii saw him, her face spread into a smile.

“Kain-san, I’ve come to play!”

‘Didn’t you just say that?’
Kain didn’t say that though.
He had something more important to say.

“Heath-kun, didn’t I tell you not to climb trees? It’s dangerous.”

“Yes, but I climb walls all the time, so it’s a bit late for that, you know?”

Her words seemed to stab into him.
True. She climbed walls all the time.

It was his fault for teaching her the gra.s.s skill of wall-scaling.
Naturally, it was even more dangerous than climbing a tree. Kain had even taught her various other things, like rolling to break one’s fall.
It had long pa.s.sed the point where he could warn her about the dangers of tree-climbing.

“True, but there’s no harm in being careful.”

“Yes, I’ll climb carefully.”

He actually meant that she shouldn’t climb at all…
Kain placed his hand to his forehead.

“More importantly, Kain-san, I came to play! Please teach me a new skill!”

Her words caused sweat to flow down his back again.
This was what had been troubling him.
Princess Fii who he had become acquainted with. Just like what she was doing now, Princess Fii would frequently come find him to ‘play’.

But that wasn’t the problem. Well, it was, but there was a bigger one.
The real problem was what her ‘playing’ entailed.

Each time Princess Fii came here, she came to learn his skills.

“Heath-kun, the skills of a gra.s.s aren’t a game…”

“Ah, yes, that’s true. I’m sorry! I’ll take the lessons seriously!”

(No… That’s not what I mean… If possible, I don’t want you to learn at all.)

For some reason his warning had been met with an enthusiastic reply.
Kain didn’t know what to do any more.

She was technically a VIP.
If possible, he wanted her to have nothing to do with danger.

People often said that trouble would mysteriously find those who possessed dangerous skills.
Perhaps it was mere superst.i.tion. Those who needed to learn these skills were doing dangerous things to begin with.
Even so, normally she should have been living peacefully and elegantly, surrounded by maids and guards. When he thought about how he was teaching these kinds of skills to her, he simply couldn’t stop the anxiety.
If possible, he really didn’t want to teach them to her…

But this girl would always come here to learn them, like visiting her favourite restaurant on a Sunday.

Thanks to that, most of his gra.s.s skills had been pa.s.sed on to Her Highness the Second Queen.
And the safer, just barely skills were something he was all out of. By this point, all he had left were aggressive gra.s.s combat techniques and the skills for hidden weapons.

Those were definitely impossible to teach her, he thought.

“Kain-san, what will today’s technique be?”

But Princess Fii’s eyes were sparkling as she happily awaited her lesson.
She seemed to have no doubts at all that he would agree.
And as long as His Majesty’s orders were still valid, Kain had no choice but to teach her.

(I am a gra.s.s… To protect the nation, I carry out His Majesty’s commands to the letter…
Mum, Dad… Is this really necessary…?)

His parents didn’t reply. They had always been silent people.

Kain stopped reminiscing about his parents and forced himself to face reality.
At any rate, it was a fact that he had to teach her. Therefore, he hoped for something as safe as possible.
What should he do…

At that moment, a certain idea came to mind.

“Heath-kun, what kind of technique do you want to learn?”

It didn’t see much use with gra.s.s, but it was a trading technique to probe the other’s desires first.

Going by their previous interactions, Kain would suggest some safe skill, and Princess Fii would reject him. Kain would compromise and name something else, but Princess Fii would shake her head again. Most of the time, he would eventually teach her something dangerous.
But if he asked her what she wanted first, then at least there wouldn’t be increasingly dangerous proposals.
Perhaps he could even persuade her towards safety.
Even if her suggestion was a little dangerous, he could just modify it a little to make it safer.

Kain nodded, impressed with his own idea.
If Princess Fii asked for a non-gra.s.s skill, that would be even better. He had no problem with teaching her the skills of a regular soldier.

“Hmmmm…”

Placing a finger against her lips, Princess Fii thought for a while.
And then, turning towards Kain with a brilliant smile, she spoke.

“I want to learn a.s.sa.s.sination techniques!”

“GUHUH-!”

Fii’s bombsh.e.l.l struck Kain without mercy.

https://tamakeribanchou.wordpress.com/2016/06/11/other-sketches/