Re:Demon - Reborn as a Demon Book 1

3

The sixth birthday party for Princess Allbray U'Vellquor was an affair anticipated by everyone, except for the princess herself. She would have thrown a fit if she could have, but she knew that it would do no good, so she'd let her maids dress her in the ridiculous new dress her parents had commissioned just for the occasion with a slightly sour expression.

The reason she wasn't anticipating the event wasn't because she wasn't going to get as much attention as she wanted, nor was it thoughts of the presents she knew where down there, she didn't care about any of that, what was killing her enthusiasm was that she knew what else was down there, what the real purpose of the event was. It was just an excuse to show her off to prospective fiances.

When she'd first awoke in this new world, she'd been seriously confused. In fact, if she had been able to focus more, she probably would've gone mad trying to figure things out, but instead, she'd been unable to process too much, so by the time she'd really figured things out, she was getting used to it.

She supposed it had helped that she'd been born to nobility, so she'd been taught things from birth. She'd never had much of a head for learning in her previous life, but it seemed that in this one, she was better, or maybe it was that she had some baseline to compare with, so she found it easier.

Still, she lamented the fact that she was the first born of the country's rulers, since it meant all kinds of ridiculous expectations were being put on her. She was sure that Akane would've been right at home with all the attention and while Yuki wouldn't have been as comfortable with it, she would've known what to do to get her way. But instead of either of them, she'd gotten stuck here, which made her wonder how it had happened. She knew it was a popular trope in books, that someone from Earth would get sent to another world, but she'd never read those books, so she didn't know anything about it. She'd been much more likely to have watched one of the anime about it, but she'd been too distracted by all of the sports teams and her work with them to have time to watch, so she felt a bit lost.

She remembered being on a bus for a school trip, but that was all. She didn't remember what had happened or how she'd got here, but since she was here, she'd figured she should make the best of it.

She'd initially been happy that she'd been born where she was, it was a smallish country, not small enough that it had to worry about its neighbors trying to swallow it up, but also not big enough that everyone wanted to form an alliance with it, so she'd figured she'd be alright to grow up how she'd wanted, but it seemed that a princess running around like a child was frowned upon and she'd been constantly yelled at by her nannies. That didn't stop her, of course, but it did mean that everyone was starting to look for ways of calming her down.

It certainly hadn't helped when she'd discovered the soldiers' training grounds and had immediately run up to the head instructor and demanded to learn. He, of course, refused and when word had reached her parents, her mother had nearly fainted at the prospect.

But she'd been adamant about it, using her years of dealing with her parents in her previous life to her advantage and after sneaking out to the training grounds for three months and practicing the same motions with a stick, or a large spoon or anything else she could get her hands on, she'd been drug in front of her parents to argue her case.

Using all of the logic she'd been able to come up with, most notably that she might need to defend herself one day, her father had relented, hiring her a personal trainer under the strict compromise that she apply herself to her other studies at least as hard as her sword training, that she not practice anywhere but with the instructor and that she stop running around like a common boy, all of which she'd agreed to, though she wasn't so sure about the last one, since she had no idea of how to run around as a girl.