Chapter 1: My Skill is Weeding. Got a Problem With That?
“So my skill is Weeding. Got a problem with that?”
Meet Her Royal Highness Princess Margot Neuland—the seventh princess of the glorious Kingdom of Neuland, a ripe seventeen years old, and currently brandishing a pair of giant, beloved hedge shears with a terrifyingly smug look on her face.
With her silky blonde hair, eyes like a clear summer sky, and a slender frame, she was the textbook definition of a gorgeous noble girl. From a distance, anyway. Up close? Her skill was a total joke, her behavior was utterly bizarre, and her mouth was completely unfiltered for a royal. To put it bluntly, her family considered her the ultimate black sheep.
While the sea of royals and high-ranking nobles looked down their noses at Margot, she was an absolute star among the lower-class staff and commoners working in the palace. She was a royal who was actually down-to-earth, never acted high and mighty, and was a total beauty. Best of all, the rumors said she was a beast when it came to hard work. Again, despite being a whole princess.
Princess Margot literally made a living weeding the palace grounds. The moment the sun peeked over the horizon, she would start hacking away at the weeds with those massive shears. Word on the street was that after Margot swept through an area, not even a single blade of grass would dare to grow back.
Thanks to the insanely fertile soil of the royal capital, the weeds grew at a terrifying, supernatural speed. If you let your guard down for even a second, the entire place would get swallowed up like a jungle. A massive crew of workers spent every waking hour locked in a brutal, never-ending war against the greenery.
“Before Princess Margot unlocked her skill, every single day was a living nightmare,” one gardener recalled. “No matter how much we pulled, the weeds would just respawn by the next morning.”
“The courtyard we made spotless yesterday would be a total jungle again by sunrise.”
“Honestly, I was having a mid-life crisis wondering what I was even doing with my life.”
“We couldn’t even tend to the actual flowers. It was just weed, weed, weed.”
But the second Margot went to town with her shears, snip-snip-snip, the weeds stayed dead and buried for a good long while. That meant the gardeners could finally focus on the fun stuff—making the grounds look pretty and taking care of the flowers.
Since a literal princess was doing all the dirty, backbreaking work, the gardeners got to enjoy the rewarding parts of the job. To say they worshiped the ground she walked on was an understatement. So, hearing that the royal family mistreated their savior made their blood boil.
Unbeknownst to Margot, the lower-class staff and commoners had already formed a secret society: The Princess Margot Protection Squad.
While Margot was sweating it out cutting grass and the palace staff were basically worshiping the ground she walked on, a new king ascended the throne. Philip, the proud owner of the overpowered Overlord skill, had officially taken the crown. And let’s just say Philip’s skill was no joke. With a single glare, he wiped out every rebel faction in sight, and the monsters that had plagued the kingdom for decades suddenly decided to play dead.
The previous king, Maximilian, possessed the Philanthropy skill. Under his chill rule, the citizens lived relaxed, peaceful lives. The new king, Philip, however? Brilliant, hyper-competent, and thanks to that Overlord skill, absolutely ruthless. Because he was so damn good at everything, he despised inefficiencies and waste. He surrounded himself only with the absolute elite, creating an atmosphere around him so tense you could cut it with a knife.
“Philip, a kingdom needs a little room to breathe,” Maximilian chided his son during a private dinner. “People can’t be happy in a place that’s suffocating. It’s like a river that’s too clean—the fish can’t survive.”
Philip didn’t even blink. He reached for a second bread roll, tearing it into delicate, polite pieces with his perfectly manicured hands before popping one into his mouth. He chewed slowly, letting the savory flavor coat his tongue. Only after he finished the entire roll did he finally deign to speak.
“With all due respect, Father, have you never heard of the boiled frog syndrome? If you sit comfortably in lukewarm water, you won’t realize it’s heating up until you’re boiled alive. I fear this kingdom is full of frogs enjoying a nice, warm bath right before the water boils.”
Maximilian looked like he wanted to argue, but Philip didn’t give him a single second to cut in.
“The Kingdom of Neuland has insanely fertile soil, and agriculture thrives. The people never starve. And because they’ve never known hunger, they’ve gotten lazy. From where I sit, it looks like three totally mediocre people are doing a job that a single competent person could finish in half the time.”
To a hardcore efficiency freak like Philip, being incompetent was practically a crime against the taxpayers.
“I think it’s time we slash the salaries of those useless losers with trash skills. As the saying goes, ‘If you want to change the world, start with your own backyard.’ In our case, we start by trimming down the royal family.”
Philip decided to use his father’s guilt to bulldoze his way forward. You see, Maximilian, with his Philanthropy skill, also happened to love women. A lot. Taking advantage of the queen’s total checked-out indifference, he had loved everyone from high-ranking noble ladies to commoner girls without discrimination. Starting with Philip, the son of the legal queen, Maximilian had sired a whopping eight princes and seven princesses. ‘Philanthropy’ or not, the guy had seriously overdone it. Whenever the topic came up, Maximilian looked suitably guilty. And Philip knew exactly how to twist that knife.
Naturally, the summons went out to the absolute most useless, trash-skill-owning royal of them all: the seventh princess, Margot.
“Margot. Your skill is, if I recall correctly... Weed Pulling, was it?”
“It’s Weeding, dear brother. Got a problem with that?”
Margot replied, puffing out her chest with absolute pride. Since she had been summoned right in the middle of her yard work, she was still clutching her massive hedge shears. Philip’s brow furrowed in pure disgust.
“Whatever it is, it’s an absolute embarrassment of a skill, completely unworthy of royalty. You are a drain on taxpayer dollars. Effective immediately, you are stripped of your royal status. You can keep the title of ‘Highness’ for all I care, but your allowance is officially cut off. You are royalty in name only from this day forward. Figure out how to survive on your own.”
“With all due respect, brother—”
Margot stared back at Philip, her large eyes gleaming with intensity, not showing even a flicker of intimidation.
“My mother and I do not receive an allowance from the royal house. My mother works as a chef and I work as a gardener right here in the palace to earn our wages. In practice, we are already living as commoners.”
“I... I was not aware of that.”
Philip seemed caught off guard, his words faltering for a moment.
“However, having you on the palace payroll is bad for our reputation. It is no different from being supported by taxes. In any case, your positions are likely merely symbolic.”
“That is quite offensive. Both my mother and I take our work very seriously.”
“Fine, fine. An investigation will be conducted to see if your work is sufficient. You will be contacted later. Now, leave.”
Philip waved his hand dismissively, as if shooing away a fly. Margot opened her mouth to retort further, but she was ushered out by the guards.
