It's Not Like I Want to Play the Role of a Misunderstood, Good-for-Nothing Prince in a Villainess Story! - Chapter 7 – I Brought a New Teacher

Rubert the Jet-Black Knight.

That was the name of a knight who had made a name for himself in Lindl Duchy.

A user of dark magic and also proficient with the sword—a magic swordsman.

So why did I know about him? Actually, this guy was a helper character who appeared in the game.

The trigger for his appearance was the destruction of Belze town.

The condition to recruit him was: having a conversation when visiting the graves.

And clearing out the monsters in Belze town.

However, these conditions were quite harsh.

There was a disappearance condition—if you didn’t recruit him within one month of Belze town’s destruction, he would be driven by guilt and commit suicide in front of his sister’s grave.

Furthermore, regarding the monsters in Belze town, despite being an event that occurred right at the start, their stats were too high to beat in normal gameplay.

Originally the protagonist Misty was supposed to come alone and fight—it was unreasonably difficult.

Defense was normally impossible since it was right at the beginning.

You had to win a luck-based game of dodging attacks, and unless there was a hole in the body, you couldn’t obtain the necklace, which meant Rubert wouldn’t join.

Despite all that, Rubert would definitely come if you raised the flag, but the intrusion time was random—truly sadistic.

When he showed up 6 hours later, I almost threw my controller.

Was he really a helper…?

Incidentally, regarding why Rubert initially wore a mask:

He couldn’t face anyone because he’d been away subjugating monsters and failed to protect his beloved sister, so he wore a mask.

This would continue until he buried the necklace he’d given his sister at her grave, and if that wasn’t achieved, he’d commit suicide without ever removing the mask.

However, this event was supposed to occur 10 years from now to begin with.

“Finally arrived.”

When I tried to get off the carriage, Debut opened the door from outside for me.

“Thank you.”

“No, it’d be terrible if you got injured at the very end.”

“Hmph. Please watch your step.”

Aren’t these two being kind to me?

“You’re overprotective, hey.”

When Rubert teased from behind, Garim and Debut glared at him.

“Watch your mouth from here on. This person may be like this, but he’s the First Prince of Carlaan Kingdom.”

“Hmph. That’s right. He may look like a brat, but he’s a prince. Even the Jet-Black Knight won’t be forgiven for disrespect.”

“Do you guys really think of me as a prince?”

Your words are laced with poison.

“So the First Prince is important, huh. Then I’ll start with polite speech.”

Rubert waved his hand saying “my bad, my bad” at their warning.

After getting down, I stretched my body.

It was palace air for the first time since morning, but unlike Belze’s death stench, it felt good.

Peace really is best.

“Well then, coachman, Garim, Debut. You really helped me today. Thank you. Sorry about your day off.”

“It’s fine.”

“Hmph. If anything comes up again, we’ll accompany you, so please call on us.”

The two bowed politely before walking away.

“Those guys have foul mouths but they’re good people.”

“They were complaining way more at first though.”

I’d be happy if my reputation with them improved even a little.

“Well, shall we go? I’ll show you around.”

“Yes, also I don’t need polite speech. I’m already your vassal.”

That’s true.

“Got it. Then Rubert, follow me.”

“Yes, sir.”

As we walked through the palace’s luxurious corridors, Sebastian came.

“Zeke-sama, welcome back.”

“Yeah, I’m home.”

Sebastian bowed respectfully, then looked at Rubert standing beside me.

“And this person is?”

“Oh yeah, he’s going to teach me swordsmanship and magic from now on.”

“I’m Rubert. Pleased to meet you.”

“Rubert of Lindl Duchy? …I see.”

Sebastian looked surprised for a moment but his expression quickly returned.

“Please leave his food, clothing, and lodging arrangements to me.”

“Yeah, I’ll leave it to you.”

After that, lessons in sword and magic began with Rubert as my master.

For now I practiced swordsmanship in the morning and magic in the afternoon, but Rubert’s lessons were unique.

Let me explain.

First, the swordsmanship part.

For swordsmanship, while teaching basic forms, Rubert had me do muscle training constantly.

The goal was to be able to swing a sword with one hand.

Since normally you hold a sword with both hands and take a middle stance, I thought it was unusual, but I did muscle training anyway.

Being eight years old, I thought muscle training wouldn’t make much difference… but contrary to my thoughts, my strength increased dramatically day by day.

Hmm, is this also game character compensation?

While thinking such things, before I knew it I could swing a sword with one hand.

Then what I was taught was how to handle an opponent’s sword with my left hand free, and sword techniques centered on thrusting.

When I asked why, the answer was that this would be useful in actual combat.

In Japanese kendo from my previous life, thrusting was extremely dangerous—prohibited even in middle school.

Certainly there was the issue of your body opening up full of openings if dodged, but more than that, it wasn’t effective except for the throat, and there was even a mysterious rule that it was rude to use it against superiors even when effective.

However, this wasn’t Japan—it was Carlaan Kingdom.

Thrusts weren’t limited to just the throat but anywhere on the body, and in actual combat you couldn’t afford the naive thinking of not striking because it’s rude or dangerous.

—Thinking about it that way, Rubert’s thrust-centered sword training could be said to be combat-oriented.

Also, this was related to fighting with one hand.

Why fight with one hand in the first place?

I’ll explain that during the magic section.

Magic Part

What Rubert taught was dark magic.

When I thought of dark magic, I imagined curses and occult things, but apparently that was half correct.

You could actually strengthen weapon enchantment by dripping your own blood imbued with dark attributes onto the sword.

What he used against the Donbosco was apparently that.

Anyway, dark magic.

This was extremely troublesome for swordsmen.

Basically you kept your left hand free and released it with one hand.

You could immobilize, break their stance, apply debuffs that restricted their movement, or even put out dark magic power at full force to pierce through their body.

For example, [Body Sleeve Pull].

This made a black hand appear near the opponent and forcibly pulled them.

The pulled opponent would definitely lose their stance, and if this was done at close range, it was unbearable.

Next, [Devil’s Handclap].

This created a shockwave near the opponent by lightly clapping your right hand with your left, blowing them away with the impact.

This was also quite strong.

You could also create a curtain of darkness by projecting magic power dyed in darkness from your body forward, shutting out magical attacks.

There were many other dark magic spells, but unlike fire or water, dark magic might be inferior in terms of high power.

For example, it was difficult to damage large-scale enemies like you could with fire or water.

However, it had rapid-fire capability and versatility, so it had excellent compatibility with swords—when combined they became very strong.

Incidentally, you apparently couldn’t use dark magic without the proper aptitude, but I apparently had very high dark aptitude.

In the game, Zeke’s stats couldn’t be seen before he exited, so I didn’t know, but apparently Zeke was talented enough to become a dark attribute magic user.

Anyway, from then on I devoted myself to sword, magic, and bringing books at night to study.