I became friends with Lily, and when Alisa and the ducal household servants saw my slightly dirty dress, they screamed. Then Dad and the Duke, back from their meeting, laughed at how I looked. Lily gave me a "Bye-bye!" that was nothing like her firstylike greeting. Then the Duke and his people left.
After that, I went back to the mansion and, as Dad told me to, headed to the salon. There, Dad sipped his tea, finally looking relieved, and told me:
"The engagement is settled. As of today, Lily is officially your fiancee," Dad said.
"Thank goodness..," I breathed.
Hearing Dad's satisfied words, I let out a breath of relief.
"What's this? You already in love with her?" Dad asked with a grin.
"No, I mean, she's cute and all, but I'm not gonna fall for her that fast. It's just, she's the Duke's daughter. I'm glad we got along, but if the engagement fell through, it'd look like it was all my fault."
"What's this? That's not something a kid like you needs to worry about."
"I can't help worrying about it, okay?"
By the way, in my inner monologue I call myself "I," but in front of my family I call myself "me," You know how it is, changing how you refer to yourself depending on who you're with.
"Well, anyway, this means you'll be able to get married properly. Good for you, no need to worry about finding a wife in the future," Dad said.
"Yeah. A girl that cute, I'm proud of it too."
"I'm the one who found you such a cute fiancee, so you should thank me, you know?" Dad said it like a joke, so I laughed and thanked him.
"Thanks. Well, winning that girl's heart was all my doing, though."
"Not bad, huh? That's my son, he was always popular."
"You're complimenting yourself too, aren't you?"
"Hahahaha!"
Dad jokes around like this all the time, but I know he's actually an amazing person. I asked Alisa and the servants, and Mom, and sometimes Dad himself, and I read through the books in his study, I looked into all sorts of things. They say he's the strongest man among the Four Generals. They say he was a hero who defeated a demon when he was young. They say he was the commander of the Imperial Guard, one of the empire's three strongest divisions. They say he's one of only eight S-rank warriors in the empire.
There's no end to the stories about him, but they all seem to be true. It sounds like something out of a storybook about a brave hero, but this is my actual father, and it's strange. Normally he doesn't seem like that at all.
Well, that's probably why a top-ranking noble like Duke Bernstein came forward himself to propose the engagement. Everyone around him, the big nobles included, judges that having ties to a man named Karlheinz and to the Marquis Fahrenheit family is worthwhile.
I'll inherit this margrave family someday. So I won't be laughed at as riding on my parents' coattails, and so I can properly protect a cute fiancee like Lily with my own strength, I have to get stronger.
"I'm going to train," I announced.
"Now? It's already getting dark," Dad said.
"It's fine. I'll be back by dinner."
"Striving to improve yourself as the eldest son of the margrave family is a fine thing, but don't go overboard and wreck the garden. It's big, but it's been our family's land for generations."
"............Mm, well, I'll be careful."
"What kind of vague answer is that... Fine. Go do your best. I'll give you some training myself soon."
"Really? Then I'll look forward to it."
Leaving those words behind, I headed to the back garden. Our back garden is huge. From the woods where my secret base is, to the small hill where the orchard spreads out, to the tall wooded mountain, all of it is on the grounds of our Marquis Fahrenheit family estate.
What I was heading to now was the mountain I usually go to when I train. It's the back mountain where Alisa scolded me not to put holes in the garden.
It's my own personal training ground, where I've been training for the past several years.
About a kilometer from the Fahrenheit mansion toward the back garden is a small mountain about a hundred meters tall. It's a plain, unremarkable mountain, the kind you'd find anywhere in the countryside of Japan, but to me it's more special than any other mountain.
From the sparse trees at the foot of the mountain, an animal trail leads up toward the middle of the slope. I call it an animal trail, but I'm the one who made it.
I followed the trail up to a point a little above the middle of the mountain. There's an open space about the size of an elementary school gymnasium. What stands out is the countless holes everywhere, in the ground, the trees, the cliffs, the rocks. The small ones are a few dozen centimeters, the big ones a few meters. These holes came from four years of training.
"...Well, let's start with one set today."
Deep breath. I steadied my breathing and calmed my mind. Then the next moment, I jumped.
With a thud, the ground where I'd been standing was gouged out. I leapt several meters in an instant, and without landing, I stepped on a tree branch midair and jumped again.
I leapt between the trees, kicked off the ground to run up a cliff, vaulted over a boulder, and raced up the mountain in one go. I ran up a steep slope that was clearly unsuited for climbing, like a ninja, in less than a few seconds.
-Sshh.
A few minutes later, I was back at the starting point. I was only slightly sweaty, and my breathing wasn't ragged.
"...About five minutes. Well, I guess that's a lot faster than when I started."
I started this training at the beginning of the year before last, when I was finally allowed to go outside freely. Back then it took me a whole day, until dark, to go around the mountain once, so I've really grown.
By the way, my Physical Ability right now, at age six, is "42," Compared to my ridiculous Mana stat of "23298," it's a totally normal, unremarkable number. Probably not much different from any other six-year-old.
So why can I do these superhuman feats? It's not that six-year-olds in this world are superhuman. This is one of the results of my four years of training.
"...Ha!"
Boom, boom, boom!
I swung my fist. Dozens of holes, from a few dozen centimeters to a meter wide, opened up in the cliff more than ten meters away.
"...Okay, firing off [Impact] repeatedly isn't hard anymore. Accuracy is perfect too."
Right, the trick behind my explosive acceleration, my jumping and bouncing, and my ability to punch holes at a distance is my Unique Magic, [Impact]. With Mom teaching me the tricks of magic, I learned to use the ordinary Non-Elemental Magic from the "Compendium of Magic," plus this Unique Magic [Impact], to this level.
The effect of [Impact] is extremely simple. It generates a physical and Mana-based shock from my body, at any strength and timing I want. Unlike other magic, it needs no Magic Circle, no Runes, no incantation. I just will it, the same way I move my arms and legs.
Now I can use [Impact] as naturally as moving my arms and legs, but it was rough when I started. It was like riding a bike with the handlebars reversed. If I lost focus for even a moment, the power would burst out and I'd get hurt. I was still small, so Mom worried a lot and scolded me over and over.
In the end, no matter how many times she told me, I wouldn't quit training, so Mom started watching over my training the whole time. Thanks to that, in about two and a half years I finally got the basics of handling Mana and using magic down.
Since then, I've come to this back mountain and trained to raise precision and power. I have more Mana than I can use up, so whenever I have free time, it's training. Unlike when I lived on Earth, I can really feel that the more I work, the more my strength grows, so training every day is a lot of fun.
Still, honestly, I'm getting a little bored of the same routine every day. It's about time for a change. Until now I wasn't allowed to leave the estate grounds, but I'm six now, so I should go talk to Dad directly about whether I can go outside the grounds. I want to expand my world.
Trivia:
- The narrator's habit of switching between "I" and "me" depending on who he's with hints that his reincarnated adult mind still consciously manages a child's persona in front of family, a subtle layer of performance in his daily life.
- The hundreds of holes scarring the training ground are described as proof of his strength, but they also quietly show how many thousands of repetitions he has already poured into a single technique, foreshadowing the grind behind every future victory.
- His father's offhand promise to "give you some training myself soon" is easy to overlook, but it implies the legendary S-rank warrior has been watching his son's progress all along and is ready to step in personally.
Notes:
• Alisa - Personal maid of Eberhard, hired by his parents. Originally a general servant before being officially assigned as his exclusive maid after being credited with discovering his magical talent. Taught him to read and write, including runes. Practical, watchful, and quick to scold him for reckless behavior. Servant of the Fahrenheit household who attends to Eberhard. Determined and efficient, ensuring he is dressed and prepared properly.
• Lily - Henriette Lily von Bernstein, eldest daughter of the Duchy of Bernstein. Six years old, beautiful with a bell-like voice. Switches between a formal company voice drilled into her by her father and a frank, cheerful everyday manner. Might become Eberhardt's fiancee. Young daughter of a duke, six years old. Cheerful and energetic with a tomboy side, though she carries herself with a proper young-lady air at times. Her speech is slightly babyish in places. White dress, grass-stained from play. Childhood friend of Haru.
• Marquis Fahrenheit - Head of the Marquis Fahrenheit Family, holding the rank of margrave and the position of Northern General among the Four Generals. Gentle, doting father who teases his son about the betrothal.
• Karlheinz - Karlheinz Klaus von Fahrenheit, Eberhardt's father and lord of a margrave territory. Close and genuinely friendly with Duke Lagard. Tries to assist his son during the sudden request to be alone with Lily.