It was the ceiling of Ferdalos manor, which I had not seen in a long time.
Three days ago, at the Afterparty, I had invited Senior Sian to join my party.
Afterward, I took Stella and Lulu, who had drunk far more than usual and passed out, back to their respective dormitories.
Two days ago, I hurriedly prepared and boarded a carriage bound for my hometown.
Traveling from the imperial capital to the Highgarden Margraviate, then from the Highgarden Margraviate to the Viscounty of Ferdalos, took an entire day.
Exhausted from the journey, I had gone straight to my room upon arriving yesterday evening.
In truth, I still had matters to handle at the academy, so going all the way down to the territory was a somewhat troublesome addition to my schedule.
But if I did not return during this break, I would probably have difficulty setting foot in the territory again until graduation.
Of all the breaks I had left, the summer break of my second year was the one that afforded me the most freedom.
Delphina would enroll at the academy next year, so I would be able to see her often.
But this summer would be my final chance to sit face-to-face and talk with my parents.
That was why I had made time to visit the territory despite my busy schedule.
In fact, Delphina’s enrollment at the academy was another event that had never occurred in my previous life.
After Mother failed to survive the winter and passed away, Father spent nearly every day drowning himself in alcohol like a broken man and neglected the territory.
I was going through an extremely busy period at the academy and had no time to examine the situation back home.
In a way, it was only natural that the highly responsible Delphina gave up on furthering her education and devoted herself to managing the territory.
In my previous life, I did not learn that my younger sister had abandoned her education until the first semester of my third year had already begun.
By then, she had already missed the enrollment period.
Of course, if the territory had stabilized to some extent, I could have sent Delphina to Alexandros Academy’s Department of Spearmanship the following year.
But in my previous life, the Viscounty of Ferdalos and financial hardship were practically inseparable terms.
In the end, Delphina could not step away from managing the Viscounty of Ferdalos until she married out through a political marriage and became part of another household.
This was the part of my previous life that left me feeling the greatest guilt toward my younger sister.
The primary reason was that I, the eldest son, had left the management of the territory—something I should have handled—to her.
The second was that she had supported me while being unable to pursue her own desire to learn.
My final regret was that, for the sake of preserving the territory somehow, I had been forced to marry her off through a political marriage she did not want, almost as though I were selling her.
Of course, in this life, Mother had safely risen from her sickbed and was actively participating in the management of the territory.
The future would probably not take the same pitiful course as before.
Even so, I needed to confirm with my own eyes that the future had truly changed.
My own schedule was hardly relaxed, so I would only check how the territory was functioning before immediately returning to the academy.
While I was here, I could also help Mother with managing the territory.
I had reached the level of a Fourth-Circle mage, which was respectable enough in its own right, so there would be no shortage of places where my abilities could be put to use.
“I should shower first.”
Yesterday, I had been so exhausted from the journey that I collapsed as soon as I reached home, even skipping dinner.
I was still wearing the dirty traveling clothes I had arrived in, cloak and all.
Even as a noble from a remote border territory, I had to maintain a minimum level of decorum. A quick wash and a change of clothes before breakfast were essential.
Ferdalos manor was a place frequented not only by my family, but also by servants and other residents of the territory.
I could not maintain the suffocating performance of a noble lady every waking moment like Delphina did.
But at the very least, within a manor full of people who knew me as Conrad Ferdalos, I had to keep myself groomed like a noble.
I removed my cloak and upper garments and hung them near the bed.
Then I used water magic in my private bathroom to take a cold shower.
After washing every speck of dust from my body with the cool water that cleared my head, I returned to the bedroom.
An uninvited guest I did not recognize had entered the room.
“Ah, Young Master! Breakfast will begin soon, so the Head Butler instructed me to escort you—”
The newly hired maid had entered my room without the owner’s permission and was calmly greeting me while organizing my clothes.
“E-Eek! Young Master?!”
The instant she saw me just after I had finished showering, she let out a girlish shriek.
...Come to think of it, this was around the time Rine began working as a servant at the manor.
“Are you a newly hired maid?”
“Y-Yes, Young Master!”
“Next time, do not enter until you have received permission from inside the room. Especially when it belongs to a male member of the household.”
Even if the room’s owner were the same sex, a servant should have been taught that asking permission before entering was basic courtesy.
No matter how certain she had been that I was absent, her behavior was beyond common sense.
No wonder she had remained a trainee maid even after seven years in my previous life.
“I-I am sorry!”
“If you understand, hurry and leave. Tell them I will be down in the dining room shortly.”
“P-Please excuse meee!!”
I silently watched Rine rush out with the laundry in her arms.
Would she manage to shed her trainee maid status this time?
***
After breakfast, I took a brief walk through the manor grounds.
My fatigue had altered the order of my schedule somewhat, but I could not skip the exercise I performed every morning and evening.
I planned to train my stamina by running around the grounds.
Training my body with Stella every morning and evening at the academy had long since become part of my ‘routine.’
These days, if I went even a single day without exercise, my body would feel stiff the next morning.
In my previous life, I would have spent more time training my mana sensitivity to advance my Magic Circle or researching magic.
But now that I already knew how to advance my Magic Circle and understood nearly every ordinary form of magic, there was no need to spend time on such things.
I simply trained what I most clearly lacked and needed.
Fortunately, several months of physical training and the guild expeditions I had joined almost every day seemed to have helped considerably.
My current body was far more energetic than it had been at this point in my previous life.
If I maintained this condition, then even after graduating from the academy and joining the Kardia Subjugation Party, none of my party members would criticize me for lacking stamina.
As an aside, I advised Maria, the Head Maid, to retrain the maid who had been disrespectful to me that morning.
In my previous life, I had felt sorry for Rine because she was young and prone to making mistakes, so I had generally let her mistakes toward me slide.
Perhaps because of that, Rine had never advanced beyond trainee maid during the seven years she worked at Ferdalos manor.
For her own sake, somewhat strict discipline would be necessary.
I could not leave her earning only half a gold coin per month forever.
I was running while considering whether to look around the Viscounty of Ferdalos, which Mother was managing, that afternoon.
‘WHOOSH, WHOOSH.’
The sound of a spearhead cutting through the air from one side of the grounds naturally drew my gaze.
Wondering whether Delphina might be training, I subtly turned my attention toward the sound.
Unexpectedly, the person training was not my younger sister, but Father.
“........”
Although it was a familiar sight, a sense of awkwardness crossed my mind.
I soon realized the cause of that strange feeling.
In my previous life, Father had sunk into grief the moment Mother passed away and spent every day drowning in alcohol.
As a result, he even abandoned the spearmanship he had practiced his entire life and wasted his days doing nothing.
Naturally, seeing Father still diligently training with the spear in a future where Mother remained alive could not help but feel deeply unfamiliar.
I stopped running for a moment and silently watched him wield his weapon.
His movements looked simple, yet if one focused on them, it was easy to understand how his skill with the spear alone had raised him from commoner to noble.
Mother’s magic was equally remarkable, but there was a sincerity in Father’s spearmanship that went beyond what could be seen.
If every spear form established by Dmitri Ferdalos were compiled, they would easily fill an entire book.
I waited until Father stopped moving, spear aura naturally leaking from even his smallest swings.
When he paused to rest, I greeted him.
“Are you training, Father?”
“Yes. The body rots when left idle.”
The moment our very brief exchange ended, Father silently began swinging his spear through the air again.
This was usually what conversations between fathers and sons amounted to.
The phrase ‘father-son relationship’ was simply another way of saying ‘a relationship that becomes awkward when the two are alone.’
It might have been different with another family member present, or with alcohol.
But when there was nothing else between us, this was probably a normal conversation.
Sincerity could still be conveyed through an exchange that seemed this dry.
After convincing myself of that, I watched Father repeatedly swing and thrust his spear through the air.
Then a good idea suddenly came to mind.
I immediately called out to Father again as he continued training.
“Father.”
“Yes.”
“Would you spar with me once?”
Father stopped swinging his spear and turned his gaze toward me.
Then he stared at me as though asking, ‘Is this child truly the Conrad I know?’
“You are not Delphina. What has gotten into you?”
“I want to know how much I have grown.
“And aside from when I was very young, I have never shown you my abilities.”
The corners of Father’s mouth rose for a moment after hearing my resolve, but he soon gave me a tactful refusal.
“Do you understand what a spar between a spearman and a mage entails? Even your mother has never defeated me in a proper one-on-one duel.”
“Then if I defeat you today, it will mean I have grown stronger than Mother.”
“Delphina said your letters showed that only your talent for boasting had grown. It seems she was not entirely wrong.”
Father moved toward a broad section of the grounds and pointed to the opposite side with his spear.
“Two hundred meters. Stand that far away.”
It was a distance that granted a mage a slight advantage in a battle against a close-combat class.
It also meant Father had formally accepted my challenge.
“Thank you, Father.”
I walked to the spot his spear indicated, then secretly gripped the Broadsword beneath my cloak in a reverse grip.
I had never had an opportunity to properly spar with him in my previous life, so my heart beat a little faster at this new experience.
Most importantly, he did not yet know about my beloved sword, whose handling had become completely familiar after I had already swung it hundreds of times since returning to the past.
If I could use that unexpected variable just once, I thought I might be able to defeat the war hero Dmitri Ferdalos.
“How far have you opened your Magic Circle?”
“Up to the Fourth Circle.”
“...You are not lying?”
“If you find it difficult to believe, you may confirm it yourself.”
“...Very well. I will yield the first attack.”
“Thank you.”
Gratefully accepting Father’s final consideration, I began casting the most powerful fourth-tier spell available to me.
I needed to bind Dmitri Ferdalos so thoroughly that he would have no blind spot at all.
I added two more spells to the first and began casting a total of three mid-tier spells simultaneously.
Father might have been an extraordinarily powerful man, but if even one of the three struck him properly, he would undoubtedly be left unable to think straight.
...There had once been a time when I believed that.
“Well fought, Conrad.”
“...Well fought, Father.”
Thirty minutes after the spar began.
I lay completely battered on the ground, staring into the sky as I reflected.
Even after twenty years of retirement, the title of war hero was not given to just anyone.