“Wow, I seriously can’t choose. There are too many.”
Invitations from academies were piled high on my desk.
The rumor that the youngest son of the Seirin family wished to enroll in a Warrior Academy had spread throughout the Empire.
After all, taking in the son of a powerful count was an excellent opportunity for an academy to raise its prestige, so it seemed that almost every academy that heard the rumor had sent me an invitation.
Thanks to that, Tyr and I had already spent two full days agonizing over the decision.
“Young Master, perhaps you should focus on choosing one of the Golden Gates after all?”
“That would probably be best, wouldn’t it?”
I agreed with Tyr, but truthfully, the idea did not appeal to me very much.
The Golden Gates referred to the ten largest and most prestigious Warrior Academies in the entire Empire.
They had earned the nickname because the plaques personally bestowed upon them by the Emperor were made of gold.
The problem was that, precisely because they were so large and famous, their entrenched cliques were no joke.
Of course, a noble with a background like mine probably would not suffer too much, but my current lack of skill bothered me.
“But if I get in because I’m a noble and then get looked down on because I have no skill…. I’ll be miserable for all three years.”
“What do you mean you have no skill?! You defeated me!”
“Come on, Tyr. I told you, that was just a fluke.”
“There is no such thing as a fluke in a contest!”
Yes, yes. How very impressive of you.
Still, no matter how much Tyr insisted otherwise, what I said was true to some extent.
I had only won that match because I deliberately made Tyr lower his guard. If he had been fully prepared from the beginning, even ‘Physical Enhancement’ would not have worked.
Moreover, ‘Physical Enhancement’ was not something I could use whenever I wanted.
Someone like me, who had been born physically frail, had to endure tremendous aftereffects every time I used it.
Proof of those aftereffects was the brace currently wrapped around my ankle.
Forcing my body to move beyond what it could naturally withstand inevitably placed a serious burden on it.
“Then what about this place?”
“Lion Heart? This is….”
“Yes. It’s a fallen academy on the frontier now. But a hundred years ago, it was one of the Golden Gates and was famous as the greatest academy under heaven.”
“Hmm….”
Lion Heart Academy.
It was one of the only academies whose founder remained unknown.
Until a hundred years ago, it had been the most prestigious academy of all, but the headmaster at the time had trusted too much in the strength of his disciples, launched a rebellion, and brought the entire institution crashing down with him.
Since it had once been the very best, its martial tradition should still possess considerable depth.
At the same time, it was no longer a major academy, which made it a good fit for someone like me.
There was only one drawback.
It was located on the frontier.
“I don’t want to go all the way to the frontier….”
“Young Master. If you keep adding conditions like that, you won’t be able to go anywhere.”
“Tch.”
He was right.
It was about time I made a choice.
Should I attend one of the Golden Gates?
Should I choose somewhere in the middle like Lion Heart?
Or should I enroll in some obscure academy I had never even heard of?
“Good. I’ve decided.”
“Lion Heart?”
“Yes.”
Father read Lion Heart Academy’s invitation with a displeased expression.
The elaborate invitation, decorated with a silver lion, was filled with rather conventional language, but its message ultimately amounted to—
Please come to our academy and help us enjoy another golden age.
Something along those lines.
“You are a direct descendant of a count’s family. Why would you not consider entering one of the Golden Gates?”
I could not tell whether it was a question or a reprimand.
Father sat before the fireplace, sipping tea, and I could read absolutely nothing from his expression.
Then I might as well give him an equally ambiguous answer.
“If a member of the Seirin family enters a Warrior Academy and chooses one of the Golden Gates, it would hardly be anything remarkable.”
“Do you wish to be remarkable?”
“I am sixteen, Father. I’m at exactly the age when I enjoy receiving attention.”
“Hmm….”
In truth, I had no desire whatsoever to be remarkable.
In my previous life, I had reached the pinnacle of magic, only to fail at the decisive moment.
In this life, I wanted to reach the pinnacle of martial arts instead.
Of course, if wanting to reach the pinnacle of martial arts counted as wanting to be remarkable, then I supposed it was true.
But if I entered one of the Golden Gates with my current level of ability, I was not even sure I could keep up with those extraordinarily talented cadets.
“You have already proven your resolve. At this point, I suppose the name of the academy hardly matters.”
After saying that, Father removed his hand from his teacup and stared at the ceiling in thought.
But I knew exactly what he was thinking.
‘Haa, if only he would attend the Magic Academy, he could become the greatest mage in history.’
He was probably lamenting something along those lines.
“I will personally write you a letter of recommendation and submit it along with your application to Lion Heart Academy.”
“Thank you.”
I bowed and was about to rise when Father suddenly grabbed my arm.
Then he began staring at me with strangely sentimental eyes.
What are you doing?
This is embarrassing.
“Ruben. Of all my children, you were my greatest pride.”
Were…?
Wait.
That was past tense.
“I may not have expressed it well, but your mother and I have always believed in you.”
What exactly was he planning to say after laying this much groundwork?!
“So, Ruben. I will ask you one final time. Do you truly have no intention of changing your mind? If you became a mage, you might become the greatest Archmage in all of history. As your father, I am certain of it.”
Ah.
As expected….
“I am not trying to diminish your resolve. It is simply that, as your parent, I—”
“No.”
I cut him off before he could continue.
It was terribly disrespectful, but I needed to shock him at least this much.
Lucian Seirin.
My father had been the same kind of man in my previous life.
He was not evil, but his damned obsession with achievement and his inferiority complex had tormented him endlessly.
He had constantly striven for success, and because of that, his family had always come second.
That was why I felt very little affection or sympathy toward him.
Even now, as he held my arm with tears glistening in his eyes, it ultimately came down to his desire to see his son become a successful mage.
In his eyes, I might have been nothing more than a young boy.
But I had already experienced every sweetness and bitterness life had to offer.
“I will show you this once, and only once.”
I gently pulled my arm free from his grasp and formed a series of complex hand seals, rapidly condensing the mana of nature around me.
My joined hands, which had been expressing an intricate formula, slowly moved apart.
Each hand carried a different energy as I manipulated something exceedingly delicate and subtle with both independently.
“Ru… Ruben…!”
Father, whose sensitivity to mana was exceptional, quickly realized what I was doing.
Yes.
I was completely isolating the temperature inside this room from the outside and controlling it independently.
It might have sounded trivial, but manipulating thermal energy inside an isolated space was impossible unless one’s understanding of the elements and sensitivity to mana had both reached an extraordinary level.
Of course, no actual spell like this existed.
What mage would waste time devising magic for something so pointless?
I was merely demonstrating the level my magic had reached.
If I had to compare it to swordsmanship, it would be like using an impossibly swift sword to shave away only the edge of a mosquito’s wing while it was flying.
In other words, I was showing off something spectacularly impressive and spectacularly useless.
“How did you achieve such mastery…?!”
Because I am a genius mage, of course.
Although magic turned out not to be very useful when it truly mattered.
I could not exactly say that, so I merely smiled.
Before long, white mist began spilling from both Father’s mouth and mine.
The temperature had plummeted to that of midwinter in an instant.
Father stared at me in utter shock.
“I have no need to attend the Magic Academy.”
With those words, I bowed politely and returned to my room.
He probably would not bring up the Magic Academy again.
Father possessed two defining traits.
An intense hunger for achievement.
And the profound inferiority complex born from it.
He would probably want to send me far away now.
Because he would be jealous.
He would be proud of me, yes, but at the same time, jealousy and inferiority would torment him over the fact that his son had reached a realm he himself never could at such a young age.
“It’s not as though I plan to manage the territory anyway.”
I had never intended to govern the county in the first place, so falling out of Father’s favor did not particularly bother me.
Even in my previous life, my eldest brother had eventually inherited the territory and become the head of the family.
Now all that remained was to leave.
If I wanted to reach the northern frontier where Lion Heart was located, I would have to depart in fifteen days.
This time, I would become a genius swordsman and make absolutely certain that I prevented the end of the world!
Fifteen days later.
As academy enrollment season began, young people from territories across the Empire started departing for whichever academies had accepted them.
There were nobles riding along the highways in carriages, as well as commoners setting out with little more than a few pairs of shoes and changes of clothing.
Long-distance travel was generally done through Teleport Stations, but there was an unwritten tradition that academy freshmen taking their first steps into the wider world should travel by carriage or on foot.
As a result, the entire Empire seemed to become bustling and lively whenever this season arrived.
The future of the Empire set forth with light footsteps, each young person carrying grand dreams and taking a hopeful first step into the world.
And I was among them.
“Young Master! Look at that! A bird is flying!”
“Young Master! Good heavens! There are people walking over there!”
“Young Master! They’re selling food here!”
The problem was that traveling with an excessively excited attendant made the journey incredibly noisy.
This was Tyr’s first time leaving the territory since he was born, so I could understand why everything seemed fascinating to him.
But a seasoned mage like me preferred to spend journeys reading, contemplating, and meditating.
Even now, he was eating an utterly ordinary chicken dish as though it were some legendary delicacy, exclaiming over every bite.
He really was still a child.
“Eat slowly. You’ll give yourself indigestion.”
“Mmph… munch…. Instead of saying that… chew…. you should have some too, Young Master!”
Wasn’t it supposed to be your job to attend to my meals?
Why did I feel as though I was the one taking care of you?
I wondered that as I handed Tyr a napkin, his mouth thoroughly smeared with every seasoning in the dish.
Still, it had been a long time since I had enjoyed such a peaceful journey, and I was in a good mood as well.
In my previous life, once the Otherworld’s invasion began in earnest, my life had been filled with nothing but battle.
Simply looking at this peaceful world felt as though it were healing my soul.
“Hmm. Then why do I keep feeling all these unpleasant stares?”
The world was undeniably peaceful, yet there was something violent about the gazes directed at Tyr and me while we ate.
I looked around.
Several groups eating inside the restaurant were watching us with peculiar expressions.
Those eyes were almost like….
How should I put it?
The eyes of predators watching their prey.
“Hey, Tyr. Something feels strange.”
“Yes, Young Master. I think we’ve been marked.”
Only then did Tyr begin cautiously surveying our surroundings as well.
Because we were academy freshmen, we had brought no separate entourage despite being nobles.
At most, there was the coachman currently outside tending to our horses.
Moreover, this was not our territory but someone else’s.
A pair of young boys wearing fairly expensive clothing and ordering costly food would naturally make tempting targets for robbers.
“Young Master. Once we leave the village, I suspect some of them will follow us.”
“That’s possible.”
And that afternoon, roughly thirty minutes after we left the village, Tyr’s concern became reality.