Unwillingly
The celebration banquet had come to an end. At that very moment, Aura, the ducal daughter of House Aust, stood before the door of her father's study in the family estate.
She drew a long breath, hesitating again and again before she could bring herself to open it. At last, resolve settled in her eyes. She knocked, announcing that she had come.
"It's me, Father."
"Come in."
At the Duke's permission from within, Aura took hold of the doorknob and stepped carefully inside.
"Well? What is it?"
"I came because I have something to say."
"......I see."
The Duke already knew. This would be a continuation of the conversation they had had before.
Aura drew another deep breath, opened her closed eyes, and spoke with a look of firm, unflinching resolve.
"Father...! I still prefer the sword. I'll choose the blade, not magic. So please, don't tell me to give up the sword anymore—"
"Hmm? Wait. What did you just say?"
"Pardon?"
Mid-sentence, Duke Aust caught something odd in her words and cut her off.
"What do you mean, 'what did I just say'...?"
As Aura looked puzzled, the Duke narrowed his eyes and sank into thought for a moment. And then...
Surely not...
"Aura. I'm asking just to be certain. When I told you to learn magic, did you take that to mean you should set the sword down entirely and abandon it?"
"What? Was that not what you meant?"
"......"
A long sigh escaped the Duke as he took in her answer and the look on her face.
"...It seems we've been talking past each other. I never told you to give up the sword. I never said anything of the sort, not once. Given the times we live in, I merely suggested you learn magic as well — as a supporting skill."
"......Huh?"
It was Aura who was most startled by those words.
"W-wait a moment. Then does that mean..."
Only then did both father and daughter realize, standing there in that room, that a vast misunderstanding had taken root between them.
"......"
"......"
Conflicts of this sort were, in truth, far more common in the world than one might expect. Just as a single syllable — spoken one way or another — can change the entire meaning of a sentence.
"Then, if you'll excuse me."
Click. Aura closed the study door behind her and stepped into the corridor. For a long while she stood there, still gripping the doorknob with one hand, her head hanging low.
And then—
Aaaah...! It was a misunderstanding! This is so embarrassing...!
Mortified, she sank to her knees on the spot, covering her flushed face with both hands.
She sat like that for several seconds. Then she sprang to her feet and turned toward the window she had been facing away from.
The sunlight greeted her far too brightly. Dazzlingly so.
"Ah... of course. Father would never have told me to give up the sword. He's the one who used to boast to anyone who would listen that I might become the first female knight to inherit the house..."
Only now did Aura remember that anew. The affairs of the past, stored away in memory, had a way of fading entirely with time.
Why didn't I try to talk it through more calmly? How foolish. How stupid...
Sometimes, when emotions ran too high to be contained, conversations went astray. That was a lesson the young ducal daughter of House Aust had learned, painfully, only today.
...Wait. Then that young lord — he heard me talk about Father for just a moment, and figured out the truth all on his own?
Now that she knew everything, looking back on that day, Aura suddenly realized that Free, the fourth son of House Phoenix, was not quite ordinary.
It made a certain kind of sense. He was the same age as her — a child of barely ten. Unlike herself, a ducal daughter who had been taught composure and proper etiquette from an early age, he should have been an ordinary boy of his years. Most other boys, even noble sons, would have done what she had seen in the ballroom that night: stare blankly, faces flushed, losing themselves in her looks. It was not vanity to say so. People with hair of pure white were exceedingly rare even in the Empire, and Aura herself was well aware of the attention her appearance drew. It would have been stranger if she had not noticed.
And yet, thinking back, he had not reacted the way those other boys had — not even when she first appeared in the ballroom with her father, the Duke. She had nearly let it slip past without a second thought. The boy had simply stood quietly off to one side of the hall, almost without presence at all.
At the time it had seemed like nothing, something she had dismissed without a second glance. But looking back now, even then there had been something about him that set him apart from the rest. Free, the fourth son of House Phoenix...
"......Just what kind of person was he? As the fourth son of a count's house, he shouldn't have received any real attention from the family, nor any proper early education..."
Aura had received an advanced education from the moment she could walk, and so she knew something of the world of nobility — its customs, its habits, the way things flowed. That was precisely why the young lord named Free made even less sense to her.
"......The next time I see him, I really ought to talk with him more. And thank him properly, too..."
For reasons she could not quite name, the ducal daughter of House Aust found herself unusually curious about that fourth son.
"Hahh..."
Having returned to House Phoenix, Free had just stepped out of the family head's study — much as Aura had done. The family head had said he would grant a reward of sorts, in recognition of Free's efforts this time.
What Free had asked for was the whereabouts of the Must-Read Book on Multi-Casting, Volume II. If possible, he had requested to receive it.
But the family head had merely asked, "Oh? Don't tell me you found that secret text from the family archives?"
After a moment's hesitation, Free had nodded honestly that yes, he had. The reply that came back was this:
He had given no answer.
In other words: you are merely the fourth son. Abandon any lingering attachment to the succession from the outset, take no interest in it, and live quietly.
...Well. I never thought I could inherit the house in the first place. I had no interest in it. But hearing those words directly from the family head, to my face... it lands differently.
The most urgent matter, he felt, was to build a foundation and the ability to stand on his own as quickly as possible.
But I'm still young. Until I reach fifteen — the legal age of a quasi-adult — I have no choice but to remain here quietly.
He had a few routes in mind for making money. He could, drawing on his previous life as a war mage, obtain an adventurer's license and earn a living on the road. Or he could join a mercenary guild and live as a mercenary — that was another of the paths he had considered. He had also given some thought to producing magic scrolls, items that would let anyone cast a spell so long as they supplied a certain amount of mana. But honestly, he had no experience crafting them, and with the mana he currently possessed, it would be a stretch.
That was why he needed to find, as soon as possible, a method that would let even a child his age earn real money — and from now, while he was still as young as possible, lay the groundwork and draw up a plan.
......There's nothing to be done about it at present. The time simply isn't right yet. There's no need to get impatient this early. If anything, a situation like this is when I need to think more calmly and more coldly.
Realistically, he was still young, and a great many grimoires remained unread in the archives. But once he was old enough, once he had secured some means of earning money, and once he had finished reading and mastering every magic book the archives had to offer...
He would, true to his name, spread the wings of freedom and leave this place behind. Taking his mother and his little sister Reina with him.
That was the plan.
And yet—
Several years passed.
After he had fully mastered the Must-Read Book on Multi-Casting, Volume II that the family head had personally handed him, he was summoned once more to the family head's study.
And the words he heard, spoken to his face, were these:
He was thirteen by the calendar, fourteen by traditional count, when he was told to enroll in a middle academy in a foreign empire.
Free von Betelgeuse. Currently fourteen years old.
With barely a year remaining until he reached fifteen — the legal age of a quasi-adult — it was decided that he would go abroad as a student, to enroll in a middle academy in another empire entirely.