“Come on, Your Majesty, let’s play in the courtyard today.”
The news, delivered by today’s wet nurse, stirred a bubbling of excitement in my chest. I had only ever seen the courtyard from the windows before.
Technically, going by the standards of my previous life, “garden” or “park” would have been more accurate. Seeing so much wide-open space was thrilling, in a way. Once I learned to walk, I’d be able to go on entire adventures on my own.
For the first time in a while, I had something to look forward to. The lush carpet of grass looked terribly inviting, and the thought of dozing off on it had me feeling warm and fuzzy.
So you can imagine how betrayed I felt when the wet nurse plopped me down in a chair at the edge of the courtyard, rather than upon the great green expanse. If I had been able to speak, I would’ve told her to grab a dictionary and reacquaint herself with the definition of “play.”
I supposed it wasn’t her fault, though. There was probably some societal taboo against emperors rolling around in the dirt—not that that soothed my disappointment any.
Boy, was it hot, though. The stuffy clothes I could understand, given my status, but couldn’t the highest office in the land afford some more breathable fibers?
If only there were a breeze blowing. If I knew any magic, I could stir one up myself. I tried imagining what that would be like.
“Ah auh! Goo!” (Translation: O wind, blow!)
I worked my underdeveloped vocal cords into some mangled form of a vocalization, and to my surprise, there was a breeze—though only for an instant.
Was that me? Or just coincidence? If it was the former, what had I done differently than last time?
Well, nobody was looking at me right now. What if I tried using magic to gather the water in the air...?
“Auh ah-ah! Foo!” (Translation: O water, form!)
Plop-splash.
A tiny droplet of water formed in the air and fell to the ground.
I was confused. Why would magic start working for me now? I had to find out.
＊＊＊
I’ll skip to the conclusion I reached: I could use magic in the courtyard, but not indoors. That was about it.
When I gave it further thought, it seemed fairly obvious why. In this world where everybody—or at least a meaningful fraction of the population—could use magic, allowing its use throughout the imperial demesne would be like an open invitation to anyone looking to discreetly bump me off. Death by spell would presumably leave even fewer traces of foul play than conventional assassination.
The solution would of course be to prevent the use of magic indoors. I didn’t know what sort of gimmick made it work, but there had to be something suppressing any magic use within the limits of the palace.
Why did the diaper device still work indoors, though...?
Whatever, I would leave that question for another time. Right now, I could bask in the joy of knowing I could use magic.
Since then, whenever I got the chance, I would use magic when the maids weren’t looking. Gradually, I became used to the sensation of manipulating mana. It didn’t come to me naturally just yet, but with enough concentration, I could get it to work.
I also made another major discovery in the process: There was mana in my body too. Furthermore, it was a heck of a lot easier to manipulate than the mana in the air. It felt kind of like using a magnet to accumulate iron filings: easier to gather, and easier to control.
With ambient mana, it was difficult to make small adjustments or manage the potency of my output, making it unsuited for practice in secret. I decided to stick to my personal mana reserves.
That being said, using my personal reserves alone didn’t result in any magic. There was some part of the process that I was missing...
＊＊＊
Ever since the first day I successfully used magic, it was all I could think about. If the old light novel conventions held true, there was a possibility that the people here had discretely measurable mana reserves that expanded with training. In that case, I was obliged to start beefing mine up daily. Though, since I didn’t have access to a status screen or anything of the sort, I wouldn’t be able to tell if I was actually making any progress.
I think, deep down, I knew I was just desperate.
I couldn’t just use magic whenever I wanted, however—I needed to be outside. Thus, I threw tantrums every day. Whichever maid or wet nurse tried to console me, I wouldn’t stop until they had taken me out to the gardens. If I could instill the impression that I just really liked being outdoors, soon enough they would take me out the moment I began to wail.
Being honest, at least some of the crying was genuine desperation. Also, sometimes the wet nurses were so soothing that I fell straight asleep. That was some skill. Buses and trains had always lulled me to sleep in my past life, and the wet nurses’ rocking would give those a run for their money.
Whatever the case, soon enough I was getting outside almost every day.
Today was no exception; I had been left alone in a chair, and nobody was around. Hardly anybody was around me in general, in fact. I had worked out that as a general rule, only the wet nurses were allowed to touch me, while the maids assisted them. This wasn’t strictly enforced, however: While it was pretty much only the wet nurses who ever picked me up, sometimes a maid would hurry over to adjust my position before I could fall from the courtyard chair.
From their conversations—which I still couldn’t really understand most of—I figured out that the wet nurses were of relatively significant noble standing, while the maids were actually ladies-in-waiting—that is, the daughters of lower-ranked nobility. There were apparently commoner servants around too, but I had never seen them.
The maids—no, wait, ladies-in-waiting—were in a live-in apprenticeship kind of situation, where they also received an education. Whether they were paid or not, I wasn’t sure. But I digress.
Each time I was taken to the courtyard, my wet nurses went back inside, probably to take a break. Fair enough, given that I just sat in the same spot the whole time, though they’d come rushing back out at the slightest hint that I’d start crying again.
As for the ladies-in-waiting who couldn’t touch me, they would hover at a slight distance, keeping an eye on me. By which I meant they were slacking off and not watching me at all. Again, I didn’t blame them; it had to be boring watching an infant do nothing but sit there for hours.
All in all, it made for the perfect chance for me to get in my practice sessions. Over time, I made several discoveries that led to a better picture of how it all worked.
First, regarding the issue of mana reserves: I still couldn’t tell if using magic increased my overall supply or not. However, I could tell that when I cast spells, my personal reserves didn’t decrease.
I couldn’t make any definitive statements, but going off what I could sense, this was likely because I was only using my personal reserves as a medium. Thus, I was only expending the ambient mana. Given that, I probably didn’t have to worry about the size of my personal reserves.
Secondly, regarding magic itself: I was only fumbling about with half-baked concepts of what magic should be, but I could already tell it was a complex art. For example, I was practicing creating spheres of water, and it would often be easier on the days before a rainstorm. By the same token, it was far more time-consuming after a few consecutive sunny days.
I suspected this was due to the moisture content of the air. No doubt when I cast the spell, I was unconsciously gathering it in one spot. Regardless, the point was that magic could be affected by environmental conditions, such as humidity.
That being said, I had also recently picked up the ability to create a ball of ice—and this magic wasn’t affected by temperature, humidity, or even the presence of water. It simply created the ice from seemingly nothing, always taking the same amount of time, like the magic one saw in games or anime. My theory was that this was because it was an actual, formal spell rather than shapeless magic, and that it was consuming pure mana to manifest the phenomenon.
Once I found that out, I attempted to create water from pure mana, rather than using it to gather the moisture in the air. However, I couldn’t quite pull it off—the humidity levels still affected it. I didn’t think it was a problem inherent to the magic; I was probably still thinking of it as gathering moisture. I was going to have to start unlearning some thought patterns before I could learn to produce the effects I wanted.
With enough time, I could probably train myself into the right frame of mind...but I decided to focus on widening the variety of my magic for the time being.
I was pressed for time. At any moment, my puppet masters could decide that I was no longer worth keeping around, and I would be gone, just like that. Somehow, some way, I had to get strong enough to survive.