Chapter 5: Princess Liora’s Totally Secret Escape

The morning after Milo Finch accidentally advanced the cause of civil rights by giving a slime paperwork, the village of Brindlebarrow discovered a new kind of panic.

Not the kind with screaming villagers, flaming roofs, and livestock making poor evacuation decisions. Brindlebarrow had lived through enough goblin raids and tax audits to develop opinions about panic. This was a quieter, pricklier sort of panic—the kind that traveled from person to person in whispers, sidelong glances, and the sudden cleaning of objects that had never been clean before.

The blacksmith polished his anvil.

The baker arranged his stale rolls into a defensive formation.

The mayor had been standing outside the town hall for twenty minutes, smiling so hard it looked like a medical condition.

And Milo, who had intended to spend the morning drinking something approximating coffee and avoiding responsibility, found himself seated at a wobbly table outside the Crooked Kettle while three separate citizens pretended not to stare at the translucent blue slime occupying the chair beside him.

Pudding had insisted on the chair.

“If I am a legally recognized gelatinous citizen,” Pudding said, wobbling with grave dignity, “then I will not be placed on the floor like jam with aspirations.”

“No one called you jam,” Milo said.

“The baker did with his eyes.”

Across the square, the baker froze mid-roll arrangement and very carefully looked away.

Milo wrapped both hands around his mug and inhaled the steam. The liquid inside smelled like toasted acorns, burnt sugar, and betrayal. He took a sip anyway. It hit his tongue like a committee had tried to remember coffee from a dream.

“This,” he said, “is a crime against breakfast.”

Pudding extended a small pseudopod toward its own bowl. The innkeeper had provided it with a dish of sugared berry mash, which Pudding absorbed slowly through its surface with obvious delight. The berries vanished into the blue jelly like secrets sinking into lake water.

“You say that about many beverages,” Pudding observed.

“Many beverages deserve it.”

A translucent pane flickered into being near Milo’s mug, only visible to his eyes. He had become almost used to the magical user interface of Valoria, though “used to” in this case meant he no longer shouted whenever reality offered him a tooltip.

ITEM: Crooked Kettle Morning Brew

Quality: Questionable

Description: A bitter infusion of roasted nut husks, chicory root, and the innkeeper’s optimism. Provides minor wakefulness and moderate regret.

Milo stared at it.

Yesterday, he had rewritten a monster tag and accidentally dragged the entire legal category of “slime” into personhood. Before that, he had turned stale bread into cake, opened doors that should not have been open, and apparently become the rightful Demon Lord because ancient magical law had been designed by someone who hated edge cases.

Changing bad coffee into good coffee seemed, by comparison, reasonable.

Reasonable was how disasters introduced themselves.

He lifted one finger toward the description window, hesitated, and glanced at Pudding.

“If I do this and the mug becomes sentient, you’re my witness that I tried to start small.”

“If the mug becomes sentient,” Pudding said, “I will welcome it as a fellow citizen.”

“That is not comforting.”

Milo touched the line that read moderate regret. Golden letters shimmered under his fingertip like fish beneath sunlight. The words loosened. Reality waited, exasperated but attentive.

He rewrote the description with the cautious intensity of a man editing live server code at three in the morning.

Description: A rich, aromatic coffee brewed from perfectly roasted beans, smooth as velvet and strong enough to intimidate fatigue. Provides significant wakefulness, improved mood, and no legal side effects.

The mug steamed harder.

A smell rose from it so beautiful that Milo nearly forgave the universe for killing him with a delivery scooter. Dark roast. Caramel. A faint smoky edge. A warmth that reached into his skull and began politely reorganizing his will to live.

He took a sip.

His eyes closed.

For one blessed second, there were no kingdoms, no demon laws, no taxes, no glowing windows, no gods with paperwork addictions. There was only coffee.

Then the innkeeper screamed.

Milo opened his eyes.

Every mug on every table outside the Crooked Kettle was overflowing. Black coffee frothed from wooden cups, tankards, bowls, and one old man’s hat. The rich scent rolled across the square in an invisible tidal wave. Villagers staggered as if struck by divine revelation. The blacksmith dropped his polishing rag and whispered, “Mother.”

A rooster sprinted past with terrifying purpose.

“No legal side effects,” Milo muttered. “I was specific.”

Pudding’s surface rippled in what Milo had learned was laughter.

“Perhaps coffee is not legal.”

“Do not say that in a fantasy monarchy. Someone will tax it.”

A bell chimed at the edge of the square.

Not the rusty iron bell used for fires, raids, or announcements of traveling dentists. This was a clear silver note that made everyone in Brindlebarrow straighten as if invisible strings had yanked their spines. Conversations died. Cups lowered. Even the rooster skidded to a stop, reconsidered its life, and hid behind a rain barrel.

Down the eastern road came a horse-drawn vegetable cart.

At first glance, it was not impressive. The cart’s paint had faded from red to a tired pink. Its left wheel squeaked in three different emotional registers. Baskets of turnips and cabbages were piled in the back under a burlap cloth. A hunched driver in a broad hat guided the horse with the resigned posture of a man who had spent years being ignored by root vegetables.

But the two “farmhands” walking beside the cart ruined the effect.

They wore plain brown cloaks and kept one hand near the hilts of swords too finely made to belong to anyone who had ever shoveled manure. Their boots shone. Their posture screamed military academy. One had a jaw like a castle gate. The other kept scanning rooftops, alleys, and suspicious chickens with professional paranoia.

And then there was the girl sitting atop the cabbages.

She wore a gray traveling cloak pulled low over her face, a patched skirt, and boots intentionally scuffed with mud that had clearly been applied by someone with access to clean water and no understanding of mud. A basket rested on her lap. From beneath the cloak spilled a strand of hair the color of moonlit wheat, too glossy for a farmgirl and too stubborn to stay hidden. Her gloves were plain, but the signet ring bulging awkwardly beneath one finger made the leather stretch.

Also, the silver bell had chimed because the horse’s harness bore the royal crest.

Milo stared.

The village stared.

The mayor’s smile became so wide it transcended emotion and entered architecture.

The cart rolled to a stop in front of the Crooked Kettle.

The cloaked girl looked around the square with all the subtlety of a chandelier pretending to be a candle. Her gaze landed on Milo. Her eyes, visible beneath the hood, were a startling clear green—sharp, assessing, and entirely unimpressed by the world’s failure to cooperate.

She hopped down from the cart.

One of the guards lunged to help her.

She stepped around him without looking.

“Good morning,” she said, pitching her voice lower.

The villagers bowed.

Every single one of them.

Including the horse.

The disguised girl paused.

“You are all very polite to turnip merchants,” she said.

The mayor made a choking noise that might have been agreement.

Milo slowly set down his coffee. “I’m going to take a wild guess.”

The girl crossed the square toward him. The two guards followed at a distance that suggested they had been ordered to appear casual and had chosen to interpret “casual” as “ready to murder the weather.”

She stopped at Milo’s table and glanced at Pudding.

Pudding raised a pseudopod.

“Greetings. I am Pudding, recognized citizen of Valoria and former dungeon encounter.”

The girl gave it a solemn nod. “Congratulations on your paperwork.”

Pudding quivered. “Thank you. Few understand the emotional weight of classification.”

Milo pointed at her cloak. “And you are…?”

She sat opposite him, placed the basket on the table, and leaned in.

“Lina,” she whispered.

The entire square held its breath.

“Lina Turnipseed,” she added.

A cabbage rolled out of the cart and fell into the street with a thud loud enough to be judgment.

Milo stared at her.

She stared back.

“That’s your alias?” he asked.

“It is a common rural name.”

“Is it?”

“It sounds like one.”

“It sounds like a name invented by a noble in a play who thinks peasants are born in sacks.”

Her expression did not change, but one corner of her mouth twitched. “And you must be Milo Finch, the summoned hero who refuses to be a hero and accidentally became Demon Lord.”

Several villagers flinched. The mayor made a sound like a kettle begging for death.

Milo lifted his mug. “Legally, allegedly, and under protest.”

“Understood.” She folded her gloved hands. “I have come to hire you.”

“If this is about overthrowing your father, I’m busy until Thursday.”

“It is not about overthrowing my father.”

“Great.”

“Not directly.”

“Less great.”

The guard with the castle-gate jaw shifted. Milo glanced at him. A description window shimmered into being.

NAME: Sir Garran Vale

Title: Knight of the Sapphire Oath

Description: A loyal royal guard currently experiencing severe blood pressure due to Her Highness’s plan. Excellent with a longsword. Terrible at pretending not to be a royal guard.

Milo looked at the other guard.

NAME: Tessa Quill

Title: Royal Shadowblade

Description: Assigned to protect Princess Liora during unauthorized excursions. Has already identified seventeen threats, including a goose, Milo’s coffee, and Milo.

He looked back at “Lina Turnipseed.”

NAME: Liora Aurellian Valoria

Title: Crown Princess of Valoria, the Blade Beneath the Rose

Description: A princess attempting a secret investigation while wearing a disguise that fools absolutely no one. Politically dangerous, personally brave, and more comfortable with a sword than courtly embroidery. Currently prepared to deny everything.

Milo rubbed his eyes.

“Your Highness—”

“Lina.”

“Your Turnipness.”

Her face remained perfectly composed. Pudding made a wet hiccup of delight.

“Mr. Finch,” Liora said, “if you say my true name loudly, my guards will become distressed.”

Sir Garran was already distressed. A vein pulsed at his temple in Morse code.

“Your guards wore royal crests into town.”

Liora looked over her shoulder.

Sir Garran looked down at the small sapphire emblem on his cloak clasp. Horror dawned across his face.

Tessa Quill sighed very quietly.

“That,” Liora said after a moment, “is a decorative beetle.”

“It has a crown.”

“Some beetles are ambitious.”

Milo leaned back in his chair. It creaked ominously, perhaps filing a complaint. “Okay. What does the ambitious beetle princess want with me?”

Liora’s gaze flicked toward the villagers. The square, realizing it had been caught listening, erupted into extremely fake activity. The blacksmith began polishing the same spot on his anvil with the intensity of a man trying to erase memory. The baker stacked rolls into a tower that immediately collapsed. The mayor bowed to a lamppost.

“Somewhere private,” Liora said.

“If you’re about to offer me a quest, I should warn you that the last quest ended with constitutional implications for slimes.”

“I read the notice.”

“Already?”

“The palace has excellent pigeons.”

Pudding rose taller on its chair. “Am I famous?”

“Infamous in three ministries,” Liora said. “Admired in one.”

“Which one?”

“Records and Classification.”

Pudding shimmered with pride.

The innkeeper ushered them into a private room at the back of the Crooked Kettle, though “private” meant a storeroom where the walls smelled of onions, spilled ale, and secrets from thirty years ago. A small window looked out over an alley where two cats were negotiating territory with the cold diplomacy of assassins. Dust floated in the narrow beams of sunlight. Barrels lined one wall. Strings of dried herbs hung from the ceiling, brushing Milo’s hair when he sat.

Liora took the only sturdy chair. Milo took a crate. Pudding settled into an empty pickle tub after ensuring it had been thoroughly rinsed. Sir Garran stood by the door, hand on sword. Tessa vanished into the shadows near the window so completely that Milo had to check the description window to confirm she had not actually become part of the wall.

Liora removed her hood.

Without the gray fabric swallowing her face, she looked younger than Milo expected and more tired than any portrait would have allowed. She was perhaps twenty, with high cheekbones, a small scar cutting through one eyebrow, and hair braided tightly as if elegance were something she had learned to weaponize. Her green eyes did not soften when the disguise came off. If anything, they sharpened.

She placed the basket on the table between them and lifted the cloth.

Inside were turnips.

Milo waited.

Liora selected one, turned it, and pressed her thumb into a nearly invisible seam.

The turnip clicked open.

Inside, nestled in the hollowed vegetable, lay a roll of parchment bound with black thread and sealed in wax the color of dried blood.

“Okay,” Milo said. “I respect the commitment.”

“No one searches turnips.”

“I never did in my old life. That may have been a mistake.”

She unrolled the parchment. Dense columns of names, dates, and numbers filled the page. The handwriting was elegant but cramped, as though the writer feared the letters themselves might be arrested.

“For the last six months,” Liora said, “grain levies from the northern villages have doubled on paper, then vanished before reaching the royal storehouses. Coin intended for road repairs in the west has been signed out under emergency authorizations that do not exist. Three barons have reported monster attacks on caravans that arrived untouched except for empty coffers. And two clerks who questioned the accounts have disappeared.”

Her voice remained even, but the room seemed to cool around the words.

Milo looked at the parchment. Numbers crawled across it. Somewhere in their neat columns, people had lost food, wages, homes. Not abstract resources in a game economy. Not sliders on a balance sheet. Villages like Brindlebarrow, with bakers who judged slimes and mayors who smiled through terror.

He hated that he knew how corruption systems worked.

Design a resource faucet. Add intermediaries. Hide scarcity behind spectacle. Blame monsters. Blame weather. Blame the poor for being inefficient. By the time anyone noticed, the people responsible had bought the courtroom.

A description window appeared over the parchment.

ITEM: Smuggled Audit Ledger

Continue Reading

You are reading a free preview (50%). Log in to unlock the full chapter and join comments.

Log In to UnlockCreate Account