Arcus stared out of the window and sighed for the umpteenth time. The window looked out on the Raythefts’ well-kept garden, trees, and a great number of stone houses. In terms of civilization and culture, Arcus’s world was much like the medieval Europe of the man’s world. Unlike that man’s world, the buildings here were not made of reinforced concrete, but stones and wood.
Needless to say, motor vehicles were also non-existent. Most people traveled by horse and carriage. Television, gas cookers, air conditioning, refrigerators... none of these things existed in Arcus’s world.
They did, however, have lighting, water, and sewage systems, which was something. Not that those things comforted Arcus, who had experienced the wonders of the other world through his dream, but that wasn’t why he was sighing so much anyway.
His anguish arose from the condition of his estate.
Even after his fever went down, his parents treated him just as poorly as ever. Before Arcus’s magical abilities were tested, his parents regarded him and his younger sister like there was nothing dearer to them in the world. Now Arcus was treated like dirt.
“And I am no longer the heir...”
It had only been a short time before Arcus dreamed of the other world that he was barred from his inheritance. It all came down to magic and the weight it carried in this world.
In that man’s world, magic belonged to fiction and quackery. Here, it really existed.
The Raythefts only held a viscountcy among the gentry, but it was a position they’d maintained since the ascension of the first King. They were a military family, and it was the founder’s use of magic on the battlefield that earned him a position of nobility, beginning the Raytheft line. The house’s standing could not survive an heir weak in the Arts.
When Arcus’s aether was assessed by the family a few weeks ago, he failed to achieve even an average score.
The test was simple. The examinee was asked to use magic to create ripples through the surface of a large pond and scored on how long they could sustain the effort. Most Raythefts could go for an hour or more. Arcus, however, didn’t even last three minutes.
Ever since then, his parents looked at and spoke to him like he was pure filth. They called him “a disgrace,” “talentless,” and sometimes even “a mutt.” It was an abhorrent way to treat a six-year-old. In her more enraged moments, his mother even struck him.
Arcus had tried desperately to improve his magic skills ever since. If he could do that much, then maybe his parents would return to the loving mother and father he used to know.
Arcus had torn the family’s library apart looking for some way to increase his magical power. He even asked the servants if they knew how. In the end, it seemed it was impossible after all, and even when his parents learned of his efforts, their attitude toward him did not change.
That was how Arcus ended up bedridden with a fever. He thought back to his mother’s words.
“It’s as though she wished me dead...” he murmured glumly.
They upset him, of course, but what he felt lately was a pain that stayed with him and weighed on him in a way grief didn’t. Those words of hers made him worry about the future. Would they really carry on looking after him here at the estate? Were they planning to throw him out onto the street now that he survived his fever?
Either way, Arcus considered his dream of that man to be a great blessing. He had matured through that dream, and now the prospect of being abandoned by his parents didn’t seem as scary as it may have in the past. That wasn’t to say the idea filled him with joy either, but he realized that there was no point now in trying to win back their love.
As he gazed at the gloomy sky outside his window, there was a knock at the door.
“Brother!” Lecia Raytheft, Arcus’s sister, entered without waiting for a reply.
She was an adorable child, her hair, as silver as Arcus’, bound up in a ponytail. She marched up to her brother.
“Play with me!” she demanded.
“If you want me to, I will,” Arcus replied. “But are you sure it’s okay?”
“Okay?” his sister echoed.
“Surely Mother and Father have told you to stay away from me?”
“Uh-huh! Mother told me not to go near you!” Lecia announced proudly.
Arcus wasn’t surprised in the least, though he hadn’t expected Lecia’s rebellious streak.
“I just wanna play with you!” Lecia repeated.
“All right,” Arcus replied, getting to his feet.
He enjoyed playing with his little sister. He hoped this wouldn’t end up being the last time. He knew better than to expect anything; since he was no longer the heir to the Raytheft estate, his sister would replace him—especially since she had far outperformed Arcus in the magic test.
Celine had come to hate the idea that Lecia should associate with Arcus and would take any opportunity she could to badmouth him in front of his sister. Lecia still seemed to adore him at the moment, but there was no telling what would change with time under his parents’ education.
Lecia...
Arcus studied his younger sister as she smiled at him sweetly. They weren’t actually brother and sister but cousins. While Joshua Raytheft, the head of the family, was Arcus’s father, Lecia was the daughter of Joshua’s brother, the late Dudlis Raytheft.
Arcus’s memory of their first meeting was vague, but he recalled that Lecia was introduced to him as his cousin. When her father was killed the following year in a war with a neighboring nation, Joshua took Lecia in.
Arcus and Lecia were brought up together as siblings of the same age. His parents were probably relieved now that they had done so, but Arcus himself wasn’t sure how he felt about it.
“What’s wrong?” Lecia suddenly asked.
“Nothing,” Arcus reassured her. “What did you want to play today?”
“Um... Ummm...”
And so Arcus ended up spending the majority of the day playing with Lecia.
The next day, he was called into Celine’s room to be disciplined.
“I thought I told you to stay away from Lecia!” Celine’s shrieks pierced Arcus’s ears as she stood above him.
So long as Celine caught wind of it, Arcus knew he could expect this treatment every time he and Lecia crossed paths from now on. There was nothing he could do in response but shrink back and apologize.
“I’m sorry, Mother.”
“‘Sorry’ isn’t going to cut it! If your worthlessness rubs off on her, what then?! Would you try to fix that with an apology, too?!”
Arcus knew full well that “worthlessness,” as she put it, wasn’t contagious. But he barely finished the thought before he felt a sharp impact against his cheek. Despair and frustration at his helplessness welled up inside him.
“I’m... I’m sorry.”
“Listen, you filthy mutt! I’m warning you now! Stay away from Lecia!”
She gave him a drawn-out beating. Arcus bit his lip as hard as he could, trying to bear the pain.
“Why did God curse me with a waste of space like you? Why couldn’t you be more like the Lazrael heir? He’s overflowing with magical power!” Pulling out a handkerchief, Celine began to dab at her eyes dramatically, like she was suffering most of all. She barely finished her act before she was back to screaming again. “Next time you do something like this, don’t even think that I won’t use my magic on you!”
“Yes, Mother.”
Finally free of his mother’s wrath, Arcus left the room. On his way back to his bedroom, he heard the servants whispering.
“There he is! The Raythefts’ failure of a son!”
“Look at his face! His mother’s punishment made him cry!”
“To think he was born to the viscount, and yet his magic skills are so pathetic!”
“He’s a disgrace to the family! I don’t understand why they haven’t gotten rid of him yet!”