For a second time now in just about a day I was finding myself staring down someone much more powerful than me, not just physically but in status as well. The wielder of this sword was none other than Princess Roxanne Luxandria of The Aurora Kingdom. Her torso length golden hair was still made up in dozens of curls. Too many for me to even try to count, even if I could take the time to do so in such a precarious situation. She was wearing a rather fancy red dress that left little to the imagination when it came to her generous curves. It wasn’t skin tight, but the cleavage of her large chest was on full display. A cut went straight down in between them. From this angle I could even see the her well defined ab muscles, as if the tone I could see on her sleeveless arms wasn’t enough of a display of her strength.

Out of fear, and general respect, I was keeping my gaze on her eyes which glared at me with a hatred I had never seen before.

“You!” She didn’t yell, but her voice was still raised in anger, as if she was trying to rein in the rage she had been holding in to not let any passing guards overhear her even through these stone walls. This place did seem to echo and the doors were only made of wood so it wasn’t an irrational worry. “Because of you, everything is ruined! Everything I have worked for all these long years! Do you even care what I have had to do!? What risks I had to take!? My-! My-!” She stopped herself as she saw my gaze starting to drift down. Stepping forward she looked me dead in the eyes and said, “My eyes are up here, you no good commoner pervert. If you so far as have an impure thought start to form about me, I will-“ She started to pull at the sword stuck in the wall as if to make a point about what she would do.

My gaze had been moving down to her breasts, but not on purpose. No, I swear. I was too afraid of a sword being shoved through my head to be thinking like that. My head was only tilting downwards because there was something forcing me to look down to make the Princess angrier by causing my eyes to wander. Even as I was trying to push against it, that force which was like a hand gripping my head was still there as I began to move closer to Roxanne, my weight being knocked off balance as I slowly began to tip over and fall on top of the enraged princess.

I guess I should have expected my face to hit something soft as the Princess’ chest was what my head was being pushed towards but that didn’t help as much as the rest of my body hit hers as I ended up on top of her, my face nestled in the gap of her dress. I could just barely see the red fabric on the edges of my vision. For a moment, I froze. Not because I wanted to savor the position I was in, but because the fear I already had from somehow angering this woman so much already was spiking up even higher.

As quickly as I could, I pushed myself up to a sitting position and backed away from her, sliding myself back against the same wall I had just been pinned against. I couldn’t explain what was actually happening. First of all she wouldn’t believe me even if I told her, and second, if she knew what was really happening she would have more of a reason to kill me.

“I-! My legs gave out! I’m Sorry! I’m Sorry! I’m Sorry!”

My apology was as sincere and as truthful as I could make it, and it was just as useless as I was afraid it was. Even if the reason behind my movements had to stay secret, that didn’t change the fact I was honest about how unintentional it would be.

The Princess looked at me with the same anger as before, now coated in a wave of added disgust as she reached for her rapier which had come loose from the wall as I fell down on top of her. Grabbing it in both hands she pointed it down towards my lower body, aiming for a very specific region. “Die.”

The Princess lifted her blade back up and thrust it down again and again and again as she tried to deal with the perceived problem of me thinking with my little head directly. She was too blinded by rage to do anything but stab violently which meant that it wasn’t hard to dodge but it still felt like things were getting cut a little close.

Despite the fear I could feel something like laughter echo in my head. It wasn’t my own, but someone else’s. Perhaps this was just a curse I would have to bare, one undeserved, but just as my body was being puppeted around to dodge the wrath of a Princess who thought I was the worst man in the world, I felt like the ability to control my whole life had been drained away from me in the last day.

All I had wanted to do protect the ones closest to me. I thought that the worst thing that would happen would be me dying, but at war and not like this.

“Why! Won’t! You! Die!” With several more thrusts into the stone bricks on the ground done, the rapier the Princess was using finally snapped in two. It wasn’t built to be used as a pickax. Half of the blade was lodged into the floor next to me and the other stayed in her hands until she roughly threw it to the side and looked back up at me with the same rage, her failed attempts at death by castration had done little to rob her of how incised she was.

With no weapon left to use, she balled her fist up and swung a tightly clenched punch aimed right at my head. This woman was determined to kill me even if she had to use her bare hands. I had no idea why the one that made me piss her off so much thought this was a good idea. If I was better off alive, why make her want to kill me? If I was better off dead, why jerk my body around to protect me from her attacks?

I closed my eyes to brace myself for getting hit. My life was flashing before me. It was a simple life, but I was content, and I would much rather have returned to that than to be here as a thorn in the side of a Princess I was only vaguely aware existed before today.

Oh, and did I mention that I’m engaged to her now? That wasn’t my choice either but like everything else, that didn’t seem to factor into what she was doing now any more than being pushed on top of her.

Just before the fist grew close enough for me to be moved out of it’s path, a voice came echoing in from the hallway. “Oh Princess!” I recognized that voice. It was Eric, the guy whose life I saved which made me end up in this mess.

The man that was supposed to be engaged to the woman sitting here trying to kill me. The true Hero.

I felt a short breeze on my face when I should have felt either movement or my skull being caved in. Hesitantly I opened my eyes and saw Roxanne’s fist stopped mid-swing in front of my nose. The breeze must have been from the force of her stopping her punch.

I sat there, breathing heavily as it seemed like my life had been spared for now, but one thing was for certain.

I was not supposed to be here and my presence was unwanted, but there was little anyone could do about it. I’m just Ben, a poor farmer who had been drafted into this war.

I wasn’t the one that was supposed to kill the Demon King.