"nobles' children would rather pay a fine than be conscripted."
That fine better be fucking huge if it's a choice between that and familial extermination.
In this very chapter she mentions that the fine is 300,000 gold. Since a gold should be well over a dollar relative to the US dollar, if we lowball it and say a gold has the purchasing power of roughly 100 $ that's a fine of 30 million$.
@Geohie
My issue isn't the fact that she's trying to showcase an average skill level. My issue was that she decided to pretend to be average and then proceeded to pretend to be completely below average--like by far the bottom of the barrel terrible where she ends up with a reputation of being so bad.
Her initial purpose of hiding her skills, if I remember correctly, was to keep from standing out. By being too good or too bad renders her efforts completely useless, as you can see from the end result.
@Racchi I mean, sorta? The Prince expects great things from the son of a Dragon Slayer, so even a mediocre performance might be taken as an indicator of untapped potential. So being very bad is more likely to discourage a observer from putting in any effort recruiting her than being mediocre.
also you'd think the kingdom would compensate the freaking dragon slayer with money after he's fallen into hard times. then again, he did randomly quit his job.