Arthur Leywin P.O.V.
The next day after the Auction House event I hear a knock at the front door, followed shortly later by one of the maids knocking on my door, "Master Arthur, there is a visitor at the door for you." she says politely.
"Thank you," I say before getting up and leaving to the front door.
Upon arriving at the front door and opening it I found a well-dressed man waiting for me, "You are Arthur Leywin correct?" He asks.
"Yes I am, may I ask who you are?"
"I am a messenger for the royal family, I am here to deliver a message to you and your family." He says, before pulling out a scroll and handing it to me.
I open it right there and read it,
...The royal family invites you to their temporary palace of residency in Xyrus City.
After reading through it I get the idea, they are having me over to their mansion in Xyrus as an apology for the incident and to fulfill my promise to train with Prince Curtis.
The thing is, why did they go this far to apologize to me, I'm sure they probably would have simply sent over a bag of gold coins or something as an apology normally for these kinds of situations.
The messenger asks, "Will you be coming?"
"Yes, it would be rude of me to decline a request from the royal family," I say. I tell the nearby maid to inform my parents that I will be leaving due to a request from the royal family. I'm sure they will be fine with me leaving the house so suddenly if it was for the king and queen.
I leave the manor and enter the carriage with the messenger. The carriage takes me to a large castle in Xyrus. The size of the castle is rather surprising to see on a floating island like this.
The carriage pulls into the large driveway to the castle. The carriage stops and the door opens, I am met with a large collection of maids and servants leading me to where I need to go. I follow and am brought to a large dining room, in which there is the royal family. The king is at the end of the table with his wife and son next to him with their daughter next to them. A maid leads me to the seat on the opposite side of the table from the royal family.
"Hello Arthur Leywin, welcome to our humble vacation home where we will be staying for the next week." the king says.
"Quite the 'humble' little home you have here."
"I know it's a bit much, I had asked for something smaller but they insisted we have something like this." He says. "Now for the reason, you are here, we don't normally apologize like this but both of my children insisted upon it." He gestures over to his two kids, Curtis and Kathyln.
"It is because of this we are going to offer this to you," He gestures for a servant to bring something over.
I look over and see a servant carrying over a small bag and a sheathed sword. The servant places both of them in front of me and I see inside the bag are lots of Gold coins.
"That is 50 Gold Coins and a well-smithed sword made to resist powerful strikes from even A-class mana beasts." the king explains the gift.
"I presume the sword is for sparring against Curtis?"
"Only if you wish to do so, my son wishes to see your skill in combat. Especially after seeing you take down Sebastian." He says.
"I agree to spar with Curtis, It can be informative for both of us."
Later Curtis and I are out at the training room they have, the size of the room is way too big to be reasonable. It's just one big mana refined room.
I stand across from Curtis, both of us wielding a sword, we both have padded armor so we don't somehow injure each other. I get into my stance and wait for him.
Curtis goes for the first attack swinging at the pads at my arm. I block his sword and catch it with the guard, I rotate it around to swing his grip. He must have had lousy teachers considering his sword flew out of his hands upon doing so.
Curtis, now disarmed, was shocked at the quick ending to the spar. "I assume that is my win, Prince Curtis?"
I can hear the murmuring of the servants nearby and look up towards the King who wished to view the event. I can see he is pleasantly surprised.
He smiles and says "You are really good, again." He grabs his sword and gets ready for another round.
It continues like this another few times, I continue to beat Curtis exploiting little mistakes he makes from his improper training. Finally, Curtis asks "Please train me, your skill is better than that of my trainer." He says. "I get I shouldn't be asking someone younger than me to be my teacher but I can see your skill and I wish to learn."
Well, that's certainly unexpected to hear, He will make a good king if he is this willing to ask for help when he truly needs it. "I would be happy to, it's just up to your Father and Mother," I say.
He looks up to his father who nods in acceptance of the idea. Curtis looks back at me and says "Great so for this next week we are at Xyrus you will train me."
***
After suddenly becoming Prince Curtis's sword instructor I returned to the castle every day for several hours to assist in his training. My parents were happy to learn that they asked me to be the person who trains the Prince, even if it's just for a week.
Curtis was a fast learner and was motivated to learn, he was probably one of the most perfect students you can have to train which made my life a lot easier. He learned what I told him quickly and if he didn't he wouldn't give up until he did so.
We had grown closer becoming friends during that week, we got friendly enough for him to even start calling me Art. Kathyln was also there watching the training take place and would often bring me water when I and Curtis would take breaks. It was strange that the Princess was bringing me water but she was not really what you would expect to see from someone of her age.
It was now the last day before I am no longer his teacher, Curtis is now facing off against some other sword instructors as a test/training to see how far he has improved. Unsurprisingly to me, he had beaten the instructor. It came as a shock to everyone else watching but being there having to train Curtis I saw his fast progress with the sword.
We spend the rest of the time training, we later finish his training, and he leaves the training room to get the carriage for me. Since I was exhausted from training I sat down to rest a bit.
Sitting for a bit I hear soft footsteps coming from behind me towards the entrance, I look over my shoulder expecting Curtis but I see Kathyln walking towards me. "Hey Princess Kathyln" Even though her face shows no emotion I can tell it bothers her for me to fall her princess, but I will just continue doing it till she asks me to stop.
"Hello Arthur, have you and my brother finished training?" she asks.
"Yup, he left to get the carriage ready for me to go home."
"Oh, you're leaving already?" She asks.
"Yeah, but I can talk for a bit if you would like."
She nods and goes to sit down near me.
"If you don't mind me asking, why do you wear that mask of emotionlessness?"
She was a bit surprised to hear what I had asked so before she can respond I say "You don't have to answer if you don't want to."
"Nono, I can answer. I have no idea why but I feel like you are someone I can speak to about this." she replies, "I can't show weakness, since I was younger I had a duty to uphold as the princess. I couldn't just ignore it like my older brother, everyone has ulterior motives."
Now I see, she has fallen into the difficulties of royalty. I had done the same when I had become King in my past life, I had shut myself out and practically became a recluse outside of mandatory events.
She continues though "I originally thought you could have had some ulterior motive when I first saw you but just couldn't see it, but it was when I saw you take down Sebastian with just your battle aura I guess I became intrigued by you. What you did was so strange but after seeing you like that it seemed like I began to understand you better." She realizes what she had said and apologies, "I'm sorry, calling you weird is rude."
"No, it's fine. That's probably the best way to describe me." I made a slight joke.
"I see, My family has tried to get me to be more expressive but to no avail," she says ending her explanation.
"I think I understand, I'm not sure that's something you can practice," I said carefully. "Just don't force your emotions down; eventually your face will move according to how you are feeling."
I make an exaggerated grin. I thought it was too much but then I see her turning her face away to giggle and cover her smile.
"See? That wasn't so hard."
I hear the door to the training room open again, Curtis enters saying that my carriage was here to take me home.
"Well my ride home is here, I guess I won't see you for a while," I say to Kathyln.
Nervous, she tries to think of something to say but nothing comes out. She simply makes a small wave motion with her hand to say bye.
I say my goodbyes to Kathyln and walk on over to Curtis who walks me to the door. "Welp I guess this is goodbye for a while Arthur, maybe try going to Xyrus academy if you awaken. I'll try to convince the Director to let you in," he says."I guess see you at Xyrus Academy In a few years then," I say before shaking his hand as a goodbye. I walk on out to the carriage and begin my short journey back home.
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