Mekanee, the combat genius. (Incompetence)

Jervale's mind's eye traveled to a high level of the tower. This decor... Even for a man like Jervale, who had little exposure to or care for anything called "fashion," it seemed remarkably tacky. Everything in the room seemed to have tassels or fine materials. Seated at an over-sized oak writing desk was an elegant woman in glasses with outrageously styled light blue hair, sipping her morning tea and working on a strategy document... Surely, it was Mekanee, the combat genius.

"Mekanee is not a combat genius.

When I first met her, Mekanee was an unremarkable swordswoman from some backwater village... She seemed so mediocre, so completely forgettable, that I figured no one would miss her if I turned her into a vassal. Maybe I was even doing someone a favor.

Even now, if one looks closer, the illusion of her immediate appearance wears off. She does not sip tea; she slurps it, loudly, with a disgusting smack of the lips, like a total commoner. She wears rimless glasses for fashion only, and she dons bizarre hairstyles that aren't 'fashion forward' so much as 'whatever nonsense she gets into her head to try out.' What one might mistake for 'strategy documents' are, in fact, an on-going diary she keeps. Little doodles are visible there in the margins. Now, she is dressed in a 'smart' green commander's vest with tassels and medals that mean nothing at all, white breeches, and dark, fitted gloves and boots, but on the battlefield, she frequently wears whatever bizarre getup she can to stand out. She is fair-skinned, and I must say makeup and skincare are two of the few things she gets right. Her fanged smile and slightly pointed ears are her only give-away as a demon.

Mekanee is one of those who might be best praised as a 'hard worker.' That is a fancy way of saying that while she is always trying weird new gizmos and strange combat strategies, she is thoroughly, utterly untalented. Well, she might be tougher than your average footsoldier, but that is like bringing a knife to a gunfight in a situation like ours. And yet, Mekanee is revered as a combat genius, and she's dumb enough that she actually calls herself one. Can you imagine why?

It is her curse: The Curse of Incompetence. Yes, I know I already talked about her own incompetence quite a bit, but that is not what I refer to here. The only reason Mekanee can survive on a battlefield is the reality-bending curse I had the Crystal grant her, which causes her opponents, from war-hardened veterans to grand masters of strategy, to make unbelievably sloppy errors. The best-laid plans of the sharpest minds across galaxies become a comedic series of blunders and the worst possible choices when she is the opponent. Time-tested strategies, honed discipline, and even basic muscle memory slip and falter, often leaving her foes to self-detonate. Furthermore, she is so fantastically dull as to interpret these happenings as the natural results of her own hare-brained strategies.

Writing about it is giving me a headache. Let me mention as the last word that, depending on your tastes, I suppose you could say her bust is not bad. However, it is only a bit larger than the princess's, and I have seen some truly fantastic racks in my time as a demon vassal here, so my opinion is unmoved. Still, I'd rather focus on those melons of hers than her ridiculous smug smile when we talk."