Yune, Now 16
Yune, Now 16
After that, my days passed in perfect tranquility.
I'd wake up in the morning and eat. Take magic lessons from the professors Flare invited. Study etiquette and general knowledge with Sir Max. In the evenings, I'd talk about the world with Nibuer while handling merchant company affairs.
I taught Kir to dance when she visited. I played with Chloe and let her pet me whenever I had free time. I went to bother my sisters whenever they seemed idle. I let Mother pet me while she worked in the Head of House's office, so she wouldn't feel lonely.
I was living exactly like some pampered greenhouse flower.
But if I had one complaint amid these peaceful days—
"Mother, Nibuer told me they're holding a competition in the Imperial Capital to select a patissier exclusively for the Imperial Household. Could I perhaps go and...."
"No. If you want cookies, I'll have the winning entry brought to you. Stay put."
"Tch."
Whenever I tried to catch even a breath of outside air, Mother or the people around me would shut me down like a blade.
...The older I got, the more Mother's overprotectiveness seemed to be turning into something closer to obsession. Maybe I was imagining it.
Nope. I wasn't imagining it. Back when I took a walk in the garden, the escort knights following me numbered four or five at most. Now a whole squad of at least ten comes clanking along.
"I kind of feel bad, since you're all stuck with me."
"Oh, not at all, sir! Guarding a handsome young master like Lord Yune is the highest honor a knight can—guhk!?"
"Rookie, quiet. In any case, we are merely following the orders of Knight Commander Margarete. Please don't let it trouble you."
"...Got it."
Mar had steadily improved her swordsmanship and, with the full support of the knight order, had inherited the position of Knight Commander.
Thanks to my sister's orders, the knights now thoroughly protected—no, surveilled—me. I couldn't even take a peaceful stroll in the garden anymore.
So I grew up locked inside the estate, doted on and fawned over.
An ordinary person would've been tamed by now. Turned into something more "gentlemanly," I suppose.
But who was I? A manly man who carried Ryu Si-u's will—Yune.
And a mark of a manly man: he knows how to wait for his moment.
I acted like I was quietly staying put inside the estate, but inside I was counting down the days. Hurry up and let me turn sixteen, so I could enroll at the Academy.
The moment I got there, I'd scoop up every fortuitous encounter, become an archmage, gain power so immense no one could harm me, and then become an adventurer.
* * * * * *
The waiting time trickled by. Five more Founding Festivals passed.
"Fufufu."
"Yune, what are you smiling about?"
"Hm? Oh, nothing. Just thinking about how soon academy enrollment is. I'm excited."
"...I see. It feels like just yesterday you were bedridden. And now so much time has flown."
—Before I knew it, I'd turned sixteen.
* * * * * *
The Northern Grand Duchess, Erengard, looked down at Yune, who was hugging her with a dazed smile, and sighed.
'A place every imperial noble must go. I know that. But... I truly don't want to send him.'
The reason for her sighing was that Yune would have to enter the Academy come spring.
The thought of Yune leaving for somewhere she couldn't guard him at her side filled her with unease.
She stroked Yune's head as he pressed his face into her chest and grinned, sinking into contemplation.
'I thought he'd be a bit more grown-up at sixteen. I never expected he wouldn't grow at all.'
Yune was sixteen. By Erengard's standards, an age where treating him as an adult would be perfectly acceptable—and yet physically, he'd barely grown.
Yune himself would deny it furiously, flailing about: 'What?! I've grown a ton! And I'm gonna grow more!! Mark of a manly man: late bloomer!!' But since his height had completely stopped increasing after he turned fifteen, there really didn't seem to be much hope of further growth.
The secondary sexual characteristics that normally arrive for men had mostly passed Yune by. His body stayed downy-soft, his skin carried a powdery scent, and his voice remained high and sharp like a child's.
Not that puberty had entirely skipped him. Yune had undergone some changes: bones becoming more prominent at his joints, an Adam's apple just barely peeking out at his throat.
And a distinct masculinity, entirely unlike that woman's, had turned Yune into the most adorable handsome boy anyone could imagine.
But Yune, as if he had no idea what an attractive young male he was, kept clinging to Erengard and acting coy.
With Yune settling onto her lap and pressing close, the manliness she could feel radiating from his frame made her heave another deep sigh.
"Haa...."
"Huh? Mom? What's wrong?"
"It's nothing."
Erengard forced her tangled emotions down and began to collect her thoughts.
The biggest problem with Yune, as she saw it: setting aside his appearance, his inner self had barely grown at all.
Why hadn't Yune managed any inner growth? Why did Yune, even inhabited by the soul of the fourteen-year-old Ryu Si-u, still act so childlike even now?
The root cause lay in what had happened back when Ryu Si-u's soul had first settled into Yune while he was still wasting away in his sickbed.
Ryu Si-u had been starved for familial love and affection.
Yune had desperately craved a healthy body free of illness.
The two souls, as if by a miracle, had fused together and filled in each other's missing pieces.
After that, Yune had never really formed a value system of his own—he'd spent every day bedridden—so Ryu Si-u's values had taken root in its place.
Ryu Si-u's sickened heart—born an orphan, abused in the orphanage, shattered by endless disappointment—had transformed into Yune's unblemished, innocent child's mind.
Two souls locked tight, as if soothing each other's wounds and missing pieces.
But two souls merging seamlessly wasn't purely a good thing. Because values and a temperament locked solidly into place won't easily change or grow, no matter how much you educate them.
That was why, despite all the education he'd received over the years, Yune still held Ryu Si-u's sense of gender values, and he still possessed the pure innocence of an eight-year-old boy who'd done nothing but read picture books in bed.
Those two factors synergized, and to Erengard's eyes, Yune looked like his inner self hadn't grown a day—matching his outward appearance perfectly.
'Watching him learn magic, his mind clearly works fine. I just don't understand why he acts like such a maiden. ...Well, he's adorable enough, so I suppose it's fine.'
Of course, she still loved him.
Normally, a sixteen-year-old young lord would balk at even holding his mother's hand, yet Yune would smile sunny-bright and hug her, happy about it. What mother could dislike a son this cute?
That was exactly why she wanted to protect him even more. No—she wanted to keep him right at her side and look after him for life.
The fact that she had to send that boy off to the Academy loomed over Erengard as an immense anxiety.
"...Must you really go to the Academy? What you'd learn there, I can teach you perfectly well at home."
"Honestly. This again? The Academy is somewhere every imperial noble has to go."
"I'm uneasy about it. The thought of a fragile young man like you having to live there all alone...."
Erengard kept trying to talk him into staying, hoping to change his mind and keep him at the estate.
But these were words Yune had heard so many times his ears were calloused. He slipped out of her embrace, threw his arms wide, and stretched them out.
"I'm a manly man, okay? And... mark of a manly man! Super strong!!"
Yune began asserting to Erengard with a furrowed brow and absolute confidence that he was 'definitely not fragile.'
Then he started to move his lips...
"Double casting. Fire. Ice."
-Crackle. Fwoosh.
Yune demonstrated the magic he'd learned right before her eyes. Magic whose potency had been considerably boosted thanks to all the elixirs he'd consumed over the years.
"See! I can even cast two spells at once like this! Bet there's no kid my age better at magic than me! I'm not fragile at all. Takes after you, Mom!"
The double casting he showed off—it genuinely was a skill only decently skilled mages could pull off, but...
The magic of a mere sixteen-year-old boy was never going to look threatening to the mightiest in the empire. On the contrary, it came across as an endearing little trick.
'...Adorable.'
"G-gah! I can do it stronger!"
Yune saw the expression on Erengard's face—the look of someone watching an adorable cat. He growled "gah!" as if insulted and concentrated even more mana into his hands.
Drawing out his mana and focusing it into his hands made the flame and ice energy intensify.
However—
-Stagger, wobble.
"U-uaaah!?"
Double casting was extremely difficult to control, so as more mana poured in, Yune's magic began shaking violently.
The instant Erengard sensed the destabilized mana, she deployed a barrier. She was confident she'd remain unharmed no matter what—so the barrier was for Yune.
And then—
-Flash!
"Ahh!!"
The two spells in Yune's hands ended up interfering with each other and triggering an elemental reaction.
With their stabilization broken, ice crystals shattered and scattered everywhere. The crystals melted against Yune's flames and turned into lukewarm droplets of water...
-Splaaaaash....
The water droplets sprayed across the Head of House's office in all directions.
Yune himself was unharmed thanks to the barrier Erengard had thrown up, but—
"...I'm thoroughly soaked."
"Ah."
Erengard, who had been sitting in front of him, had taken the full brunt of the splash.
She was drenched. And Yune, the moment he realized the mistake he'd made, turned pale.
"I-I'm sorry, Mom! I'll dry you off!"
"...."
Yune pulled a crumpled handkerchief from his pocket and started wiping Erengard's soaked body in a frantic, flustered rush.
"...Yune. I really think you shouldn't go to the Academy after all. Your magic is so weak it's on the verge of hurting yourself."
"I-I was just pushing it a little to show you! It's way better when I use a staff, okay...."
While Yune wiped every inch of her body with that handkerchief, Erengard resumed her persuasion.
Knowing he'd messed up, Yune just mumbled weak excuses and kept wiping her wet body with the handkerchief.
The reason she, who could dry the moisture instantly using the profound mysteries of Samadhi True Fire, sat there and let Yune wipe every inch of her body with that tiny handkerchief instead of a proper towel—well, it was because she was too distracted trying to talk him out of leaving.
...Probably.