Bruno scoffed. “Oh, I’m so thankful I could cry,” he said sarcastically. “We go to private school and live without want all for the sake of saving face as nobility. We are the oldest noble family still, even if our house is like this now.”
“The oldest noble family?” I asked.
“All it actually means is we’ve been nobles for many generations. But ’cause of that, maintaining our reputation is all the more important.”
“I see.”
The oldest noble family... This would explain the whole party Charles held for the birth of his daughter, who might just help them extend the family’s succession rights.
An emperor or prince falling in love at first sight with a woman of lowly status, whose family eventually rises in the ranks when she becomes empress—this was a well-worn cliché in stories and plays that even a former commoner like me was familiar with.
I was starting to piece everything together... Well, not quite everything.
Seriously, why did I end up like this? What happened to my original body? When can I go back? And what if I can’t go back and have to stay like this forever...?
“Ho ho ho.”
An old man entered the room with a relaxed laugh. He looked very much like a friendly and good-natured grandpa, to the point that a foulmouthed person might even say he was starting to go senile.
“I see you are both here. In that case, I will begin today’s lesson.”
“Take it easy, gramps. No point in putting your back into it,” Bruno dismissed him with the same nihilistic tone, acting like someone who had his life all figured out.
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. I was born the fourth son of a noble house. I can just call it good here and enjoy the rest of my life.”
The old man and I both fell silent at his statement.
Call it good and enjoy my life... Should I do that too?
“Magic?”
After our unenthusiastic study session, Bruno responded to my question with an incredulous look.
“Yeah. I want to learn.”
“You’ve changed,” he said, stunned.
Of course, I didn’t say this for no reason. Magic was a greater form of knowledge than whatever we were going to learn in private school, and that knowledge was power that the imperial family and nobility almost exclusively monopolized. As a commoner, I knew that magic existed and had seen nobles using it, but not how they used or even learned it.
When I heard Bruno talk about calling it good and enjoying life, I immediately thought about learning magic.
“Am I not allowed?”
“’Course you are,” he immediately refuted. “There’s an archive room in the manor, right?”
“Yeah.”
I hadn’t actually known that, but I nodded anyway because “Liam” would know. I could just ask one of the maids about it later in some roundabout way.
“Then you can just read the grimoires in there. Well, only one in a hundred people have the talent for magic, so you’re just wasting your time, if you ask me.”
Maintaining his nihilistic shtick till the very end, Bruno left the private school.
As for me, I made a beeline for the manor now that I knew about the archive room. There were a bunch of things I wanted to check out in this new town I found myself in, but I returned home without sparing any of it a glance—magic came first for now.
A maid greeted me when I entered the manor. “Welcome back, Young Master Liam.”
“Where’s the archive room?”
“Er...” She frowned in confusion, clearly wondering why I didn’t know.
“Come on, show me!”
Maybe the excitement got to me since Bruno told me I was free to read the grimoires; I didn’t bother beating around the bush and instead straight-up demanded to know where it was. The maid looked at me strangely, but fifth son or not, I was still a “young master” of this noble house. In the end, she meekly guided me through the halls.
Eventually, we arrived in front of a rather grand-looking door. The moment she opened it and entered the room, an odd smell tickled my nose.
“What’s this smell?”
“It is the smell of books,” she answered. “This happens when many books are stored in an enclosed space.”
“I see.”
As a former commoner, it was my first time encountering a room full of books and the smell that came with it. Equipped with that new experience, I entered the archive room and looked through the book spines, scouring the shelves for what I came for.
I soon came across a book titled Beginner Flame Magic. I pulled it out, opened it up, and read from the very first page, which began with a rather long-winded preamble. Starting from an introduction to flame magic, it talked about how raising the temperature was an easier form of magic, meaning one in a hundred people had the talent for it. On the other hand, lowering the temperature with frost magic—which was mentioned here even though it was a book on flame magic—was more difficult. Only one in a thousand had the talent for it.
I skipped all that and flipped right to the page that explained how to actually cast the spell. It said that I should first try creating a small flame on the tip of my finger like a candle. The book outlined the concentration, breathing, and movement techniques I needed in order to pull it off, so I went ahead and tried them out one by one.
Following the book’s instructions, I closed my eyes, focused, and controlled my breathing with the technique I just learned. Then—just as it instructed—I poured power onto the tip of my finger!
“It worked! It’s magic!” I exclaimed with a gasp.
“Wow, congratulations!” The maid who guided me here clapped her hands.
A small candle-like flame flickered right on the tip of my index finger.