Mirror Princess: A LitRPG Space Fantasy (Sword of Asteria Book 2)

by Eddie R. Hicks

“Look around,” said the Ranger. “The enemies are in retreat; the rest are dead and turned to crystals. We have no prisoners to interrogate.”

  “He might be worth more to us alive than dead,” Rachael suggested.

  Guy stroked his chin as his eyes narrowed. “Perhaps, but . . .”

  Rachael glanced at him with a raised eyebrow. “But?”

  “Tempeste,” Guy said to her. “If you lock Leafblade up, and Xanthe finds out . . . well. It’s not going to go over well with her.”

  Tempeste approached the men holding Leafblade and gave the imperial commander a long stare, up and down. She stopped for a few seconds to consider her next words.

  “Force him to empty his inventory, then throw him in the dirtiest and darkest jail cell you can find,” Tempeste ordered the men.

  The Lumière soldier to Leafblade’s right nodded. “At once, my lady.”

  Guy winced. “Oh boy.”

  Tempeste turned to him. “Keep your shadow angel on a leash, and all will be fine.”

  “It doesn’t work that way with Xanthe . . .” Guy said, with great concern in his voice.

  Chapter Seventy-Nine

  Days had passed since the siege of Lumière. Its elven population worked around the clock to restore the city to its original state. The power of crafting professions was something else. They rebuilt burned homes in a day or two. The trees and gardens flourished again hours after that. Their airship fleet would take longer from what Guy understood, as the elves needed to harvest more crafting materials out in the fields beyond.

  The PKers pledged to not interfere while they did that.

  Guy awoke in the bedroom he had claimed in Averyl’s chateau at the edge of the city, the morning sun shining upon his face. The chateau was his home now since the Seraphim was gone, taking with it his ride back to the fleet. Not that returning to the fleet was an option, with the sentinels searching for them and all.

  Guy buried his head into the pillow, making it hide his wince. Were he and his friends stuck on Alfheimr forever? He didn’t know, and he couldn’t find justification for giving Ulysses a hard time for escaping with Arn. Had they left Arn in orbit, the Seraphim would have burned up before they finished the battle in the city. Then Guy would still be in his position.

  Ulysses and Arn sneaking back to Alfheimr were his only means of returning to the stars now.

  A knock thumped on his shut bedroom door. Guy groaned, rolled on his bed to face it, and muttered in a tired voice. “Yes . . .?”

  The door opened, and in stepped Averyl’s maid, Marguerite, her hands folded before her white apron decorating her black maid’s uniform. “I hope I am not interrupting, Paladin.”

  “No, of course not.” Guy sat at the edge of the bed. “What’s up?”

  “The new queen wishes to speak with you as soon as you are able to.”

  The new queen. Tempeste was the new ruler of the Lumière Kingdom and had a lot of work ahead of her.

  “I’ll be there in a few,” Guy said. “Not like I have anything else better to do.”

  Marguerite left, giving him the chance to step away from the bed and get dressed. Guy sheathed Asteria’s Sword to his back, checked out his appearance in the mirror, the trench coated swordsman from space, then left his room. He walked down the chateau’s halls and spotted Xanthe leaving Averyl’s bedroom with a sinful grin on her flushed bronze face. Guy pretended not to notice. He had heard what Xanthe and Averyl were doing in bed the previous night.

  “Oh, Guy,” Xanthe said as he strode past. “I was not expecting you to be awake so soon.”

  “I’m heading to the palace.”

  “Do pay a visit to the prison and say hello to Leafblade.”

  He gave Xanthe a grin and kept walking. The elves had been prodding Leafblade for answers since his capture. The best they got was that Leafblade was a member of Serzax’s inner circle comprising of him, Emeraldal, and Veronis. Leafblade never said much after that. Not even Xanthe and Nijana’s charismatic persuasion got him to talk; he resisted them. Guy made a note to bring Xanthe and Nijana on more adventures, level them up, and farm some good gear for them. With enough charisma, they might get that asshole talking more. Sure, getting Lumière’s people to do that made sense, except that Guy had yet to see a Bard or Blade Dancer in the light elves’ ranks.

  “Good morning, Guy.”

  That was Rachael. His childhood friend was leaning against the railing and looking at the chateau’s lower level. She was wearing a thin white sleeping gown, so thin you could make out the shape of her panties. She wasn’t wearing a bra. Guy looked away with his face red. She just smiled at Guy as he walked down the stairs.

  Guy found Henrietta reading a book in Averyl’s study with a porcelain teacup sitting on a nearby table. She had moaned about her slower reading speed thanks to the Berserker class’s lower intelligence stat. Henrietta was looking forward to getting the last experience points she needed to hit level 20. She made plans to unlock Mage to gain a higher intelligence boost. All to read books faster—

  Someone with a slender hand slapped Guy’s ass.

  “Hey!”

  He turned to see Nijana had walked up behind him.

  “Found you, finally!” Nijana said.

  “To touch my ass?”

  “Was wondering if you wanted to head out to the forest again,” Nijana said. “I want to practice Dianna’s songs. I might be able to get the White Dragon talking.”

  “Maybe later,” Guy said. “I wonder why the songs don’t work indoors.”

  “I don’t bother questioning things anymore,” Nijana said. “The corruption sets its own rules, and apparently, I can only summon the White Dragon with songs when I’m near a body of water or in a forest.”

  Guy continued to the door. Nijana followed for no reason, shut her eyes, and hummed a pleasant song to him. It looked like Guy lived in the chateau with a harem. That was, until he passed the kitchen and saw Zuran and Kam eating breakfast. Their presence was a reminder that . . .

  It’s not a harem!

  Royal guards stepped to the side, allowing Guy to approach Tempeste seated on the throne, her crown nested on top of her long blonde hair draping her shoulders. The guards lowered their heads in a respectful bow to the star-dweller Paladin, the man who led the campaign to save their kingdom. Tempeste looked a lot different now. Gone was the revealing armor. In its place was a long white dress, an extremely deep V-neck exposing half the shape of her breasts. The point of the V on her gown stopped just above her navel. Tempeste sat crossed-legged, giving Guy a look at the matching pantyhose stockings.

  She smiled when he stood ahead of her.

  “Hey, you wanted to talk?” Guy asked.

  “Yes,” Tempeste said, and stood up from the throne, her sparkling heels clicking on the glass floor. Tempeste summoned her Inventory screen to appear and pulled out a letter. “This came in earlier this morning via carrier pigeon.”

  She handed Guy the letter. He took it to read, then winced. The sender wrote it in the elven language, a bunch of glyph-like letters with pretty curls to them. He lowered the letter to unveil his facial expression to her. “Eh, I never learned how to read the language of this planet.”

  “Oh, my apologies,” Tempeste said, her voice soft. “The letter came from New Svartálfar. Their queen, Meridtila, wishes to speak with you, personally.”

  Guy pointed at himself. “Me? Why? Oh, was it because my actions forced the dark elves and fae to betray each other prematurely?”

  “No,” Tempeste said, then pointed at the letter’s last paragraph. “It says here that the dark elves found the wreckage of a starship called the Seraphim.”

  Guy’s heart sank. The wreckage of the Seraphim. Ulysses and Arn never made it off Alfheimr. The sentinels found and shot them down.

  “Oh fuck . . .” Guy crushed the letter in his hand, squeezing it tightly.

  “Meridtila would like to conduct an exchange for its crew,” Tempeste added.

  �
�Crew . . .” Guy controlled his anger. “Arn and Ulysses, they survived?”

  “This letter seems to imply that, yes.”

  I guess that would make sense. How else would the dark elf queen know the Seraphim’s name? She must have captured Arn and Ulysses and forced them to talk. Guy looked at Tempeste. “What does she want?”

  “The fae we have captive.”

  “Leafblade . . .”

  “Queen Meridtila is requesting that you bring Leafblade to New Svartálfar and negotiate a trade. His life for your star-dweller friends.”

  “Why would Meridtila care?” Guy asked. “If the New Svartálfar and Autumnfall Empire alliance is dead, she shouldn’t care what we do with Leafblade.”

  “Unless the dark elves and fae mended their damaged relationship,” she said. “If that is the case, then this is nothing more than a ploy to get us to release our prisoner back into the hands of the empire. With that said, I recommend you ignore this message. Lumière is still at war with New Svartálfar. Doing this might give them another ally to fight at their side once again.”

  “The thing is,” Guy offered the letter back to her, “the Seraphim is me and Rachael’s only way back home. Ulysses is an asshole, but I can’t leave him hanging like that. Arn too, he was just following orders, and now he might die.”

  And Arn wasn’t afflicted. The rules of the normal universe applied to him. There was no Resurrection for Arn if he sucked the fat one.

  “It is my understanding that Ulysses abandoned you and Rachael,” Tempeste said. “I see no reason to assist him.”

  “Yeah, but that’s not how I roll,” Guy said. “Averyl and I helped Nijana when she stole from us and whatnot. Why did we do it? Because Nijana made a mistake, people shouldn’t have to suffer because they were scared and made poor judgment calls. It’s only fair I give Ulysses the same treatment. He did, what he thought, was the best call in the situation, and it backfired. I’m gonna get him out of that mess.”

  She tilted her head to the side, making the earrings on her long elven ears jingle. “Why?”

  “The same reason you came to me for help, Tempeste. Because I’m the Paladin, and it’s my job to protect people. This castle and the kingdom standing here, free of the control of the empire and New Svartálfar, is proof of that.”

  After what he went through on Faeheim, yeah, Guy was sure of it. He could still hear the cries of those poor people in Muruai in his sleep, back when Guy’s level wasn’t high enough to save them all. He still had dreams about Coldhorn, Dianna, and her brother, all those people who died because Guy was too weak at the time.

  No more.

  When someone needed saving, Guy planned to be the one to do it so long as he continued to grow stronger. He didn’t know what the maximum level was or if there even was one. If Serzax was any indication, the power Guy could attain would be incredible.

  But helping one world wasn’t enough. Guy had to do it on the other planets out there targeted by the sentinels and the empire. He had to stop the pointless slaughter and harvest of soul crystals being carried out in the name of humans.

  A slaughter that could one day get the entire galaxy to resent humanity because of the actions of Serzax and his obsession of finding a path to the planet called Earth.

  A new quest appeared between Guy and Tempeste.

  Enter the Walls of New Svartálfar

  Objective: Journey to the frozen northern lands of Alfheimr and into the dark elf capital city to free Arn, Ulysses, and repair the Seraphim.

  Issued by: White Dragon

  Reward: 3000 Experience Points

  Accept quest? Yes/No

  “The White Dragon wants you to accept this too . . .” Tempeste said, her eyes narrowing at Guy’s Quest screen.

  “It’s settled then.” Guy fingered the accept button, and the screen disappeared. “We’re going north. Could use an airship to take us there quickly.”

  Tempeste crossed her arms and shot him an eye-pleasing beam. “You shall have it then, under one condition.”

  He beamed back. “And that is?”

  “Take me with you, Guy.”

  “You’re the queen. You need to be the leader for your people.”

  “And you need a guide to get you there unharmed.”

  “I could do that,” said the voice of an unseen woman.

  Guy and Tempeste spun around but couldn’t see who had interrupted.

  “Right here,” said the woman.

  Synaria appeared ahead of the two, shredding the invisible field from her Stealth skill. Guy and Tempeste staggered backward in shock.

  “Your Grace!” The guards sprang to action in response to the appearance of the unwanted guest.

  Tempeste held her palms to the guards, stopping them in place. “Stand down. I do not believe this druid is here for violence.”

  “Yo, how long have you been there?” Guy asked Synaria.

  “Since you left the chateau,” Synaria said. “Nice place, by the way.”

  Tempeste scowled at the bunny-eared Assassin. “What do you want, PKer?”

  Guy chuckled to himself. Everyone is using the term PKer now! My influence is spreading.

  “Us PKers are going to be targeted by New Svartálfar now,” Synaria explained. “Since I do not see that changing soon, we shall focus our efforts on striking the dark elves rather than people of Lumière. But I would like to find spots in New Svartálfar territory to set up our camps and hideouts. So, why not take me as your guide, Guy?”

  “Whatever,” Guy said with a shrug. “I wanna get this done as quickly as possible.”

  “Fine,” Tempeste muttered and sighed. “Synaria, guide Guy, and his friends into the northern lands.”

  “By the way,” Guy said, then reached into his coat’s pocket to pull out an Ice sigil. “Zuran says thanks for lending him the sigil.”

  Tempeste glanced at the shimmering magical symbol Guy held in his hand. “He can keep it longer,” she said. “It will be better in Zuran’s hands than mine for the time being.”

  He could tell by the sound of Tempeste’s voice that she wanted to go with him. As much as he preferred to let her come, Tempeste needed to oversee the Lumière Kingdom during its transition to a new ruler.

  Later in the evening, Guy stripped naked and dove into a bathing spring close to Lumière City. It was where all the elves had gone to wash. To his disappointment, there were no elven women nearby. It was just Guy, standing in the river, washing up, having delayed it after the battle. He washed his junk clean, then felt something that shouldn’t be there. It was a long strand of hair, much longer than his. Guy brought the hair to his face to examine closer, noting that it was a bright cherry red color. Guy’s hair wasn’t red.

  “How did that get there . . .?”

  Someone with cherry red fae hair was down there.

  A fae gave Guy a blow job and he couldn’t remember it. The threesome Guy had with Averyl and Nijana was real. He lost his virginity for sure and had no memory of it.

  Guilt struck suddenly.

  Guy had spent a lot of time with the ladies he met on his adventures. He made them breakfast on the Seraphim during their voyage to Alfheimr and got two to like him enough to get naked and party with him. Not that he remembered it. Guy spent more time with the girls than with his childhood friend.

  Not having enough time to spend with each other was something Guy and Rachael complained about a lot for years. Now, the two childhood friends had ample time to hang out and chat since neither of them had to return to work, and Guy squandered it.

  That was why the guilt had hit him. It felt like he had ditched Rachael.

  Guy had to make up for it and prove to Rachael that he had no intention of building a harem. Which was precisely what it looked like he was doing.

  Guy laid back in a tent in the middle of some forest on the outskirts of Lumière. The crackling and glow of the campfire outside put a grin on his face. It’d been a long time since he had camped in a forest before
a fire, and the first time Guy spent a night alone camping with Rachael.

  She laid next to him in the tent, rolled on her side, and looked at him. “Thank you,” Rachael said.

  “Mmm?”

  “It’s not every day I get to watch the sunset and see the stars come out, Guy.”

  “And camp out in a tent.”

  “Well, we did that a few times lately.”

  “But not for the fun of it,” Guy said. “Back then, it was for survival.”

  He sat up and opened the tent’s entrance, then gazed at the night stars past the leaves of the trees. Rachael sat to his side, giving the constellations a look with her twinkling blue eyes. She angled her gaze away from the stars and onto him. “So, do you still got that cheesecake I asked you to save?”

  Guy failed to hold back a sudden cringe. He didn’t have the cheesecake because he gave it to Averyl in a rush to make her happy. Good thing he thought ahead.

  He checked his inventory, found, and pulled out the ingredients needed to synth a fae pizza, a dish that used a sweet pastry rather than dough, berry sauce covered with fresh fruits and cream. He laid out the ingredients before him and glanced at the fae pizza recipe given to him by Marguerite.

  “Here’s something better,” Guy said.

  He selected confirm on the screen, made it vanish, held the crafting thermal crystal, used it to tap each ingredient, sat back, and waited. A whole fae pizza morphed from the crafting ingredients between the two. Guy offered it to Rachael, and she took a slice with her face brightened with joy.

  “Holy shit!” Rachael bit into her slice. “Wow, thank you, Guy. You like, never made dinner for me, ever.”

  Silence fell as the two lay back and ate the tasty and sweet meal. Above, the stars continued to twinkle and remind the two star-dwellers of the home they left behind.

  “Why are we only now hanging out?” Rachael asked him. “The past month, we had more free time than normal, and you and I just boiled it down to ‘good mornings’ and ‘good nights.’”

  “Well, that changes tonight,” Guy said in a suave tone. “Let’s do this more often, huh?”