Freshman Welcome Ceremony (2)
"I won't be as easy as my nephew James."
James was the youngest son of Benjamin, the margrave's third son—the same boy who had shown up at Roy's seventh birthday. He was two years older than Roy, which of course meant he was two years older than Daniel as well.
"Ah, well—pardon me, but… I was born into House Greenhilt. What could I possibly do before the blood of a margrave's house?"
"Don't worry. I have no intention of facing you with a sword. I'll take you on with that magic you're supposedly so good at. So prepare yourself."
"I decline."
Roy's croaking, frog-like voice made it painfully clear he wanted no part of this.
"Why? Do you think I'm even less than my own nephew!?"
Hearing this boy call someone two years his senior "nephew" over and over grated on Roy's ears. He had no idea where this sudden scrap of margrave blood had come from, but there was not a single thing about the brat he liked.
"Then what reason do I have to fight Lord Daniel at all?"
"Th-that's…"
"I don't want to fight. I refuse."
"But you and James—"
"That was at my seventh birthday party, when I didn't know anything. I barely remember it now, and as I recall, Lord James deliberately lost because it was my birthday. Rumors do tend to grow in the telling."
"……"
Daniel, who had only just reached the age for the Knight Academy, was no match for Roy in a war of words—not when Roy carried the memories of a previous life. He stood there for a long while, searching for something to say, and came up with nothing.
Once the exchange was over, the children who had been watching from behind surged toward Daniel in a noisy cluster.
As expected of margrave blood. Popular, too.
Roy slipped neatly past Daniel and moved elsewhere. Then he took a slow look around. Groups of every kind had already formed; people who knew one another clustered together and talked. It was the same around Chloe. Today was the entrance ceremony, yes—but a kind of social gathering had taken shape as well.
Starting tomorrow, banquets hosted by the various houses would run every day, open only to the new students who had just entered the Knight Academy. This was the eve of those banquets—a kind of preliminary festival.
Before long, most of the children had filed into the great hall. Noise rose from every direction. Roy made his way to the farthest corner and quietly drew out what he had hidden inside his coat.
Should I put it on now? No. Better to wait until he arrives.
"Roy!"
Someone called to him. A familiar voice—he had heard it only a little while ago.
"Chloe?"
"What are you doing here all by yourself?"
"Huh? Nothing. Why?"
"You were alone, so I wondered. Everyone else is talking."
"I was just observing. Almost no one came looking for me."
"Then you should have gone looking for them."
"Why? Because I'm from a baronial house?"
"What? N-no! Why do you always take it that way?"
"Because it's true."
"Well, yes, but…"
Chloe was trying to look out for him, yet Roy felt nothing much. The reason lay in his past life. Among the nobility, he had already learned to see himself with cold objectivity. He had been reborn as a baron's son and lived that life for years, but he had never forgotten the days when he had been only the son of a low-ranking knight.
"You don't need to worry. I'm fine. It's actually better this way."
"Better? Better how?"
"Right now no one even glances at me. Soon enough they'll all come begging. It wouldn't be any fun if I were wildly popular from the start."
He already held so many things those people would soon be desperate to get their hands on.
"You mean the amulets?"
"Well, those too."
Chloe gazed absently at his profile as he stood quietly smiling, watching the children in the hall. She was certain of it: once word of those charms got out, most of the people here would come running, pleading for just one. When that day came, this boy's popularity might well scrape the sky. A baronial house? That would hardly matter. He alone knew how to make such amulets.
"Then I'd better get in line first, before that happens."
"What?"
"I'm first. Remember that!"
Roy's eyes, which had been scanning the room, shifted to Chloe beside him. Boy and girl stood there for a long moment, simply looking at each other.
Then the noise began to die away. The Crown Prince's attendants poured into the great hall—and soon the Crown Prince himself would appear.
Aron Steelhart.
That was the name of the current Crown Prince.
Steelhart… It's been a long time since I heard that.
Roy knew the name. Of all the countless houses he had heard of in this Steel Kingdom, Steelhart was the only one that had stayed with him. In his past life, during the age of the Empire, heroes had helped the warrior Carl drive back the demons—renowned priests and mages of the Empire, and valiant knights. One of those knights had borne the name Steelhart. The details were hazy, but the family's territory had almost certainly lain in the Empire's east. Their rank had been marquis.
The Steel Kingdom itself sat on the eastern edge of the continent. It seemed that when the Empire fell, they had simply declared a nation on the land they had always held.
So when the Empire collapsed, they became kings? Well—a marquis house could manage that. And they produced a hero who helped slay the Demon King…
That had been Roy's first thought as a child, the day he learned the royal surname.
He watched the Crown Prince cut straight through the center of the great hall where the new students had gathered. The Empire was gone. Some houses had been wiped out; others, like House Steelhart, had seized dominion over a region and begun to play at kingship. No—not play. They had become true kings.
With every step Aron Steelhart took, a path opened down the middle as if the sea itself were parting. Caught between the need to clear the way and the need to show proper respect to the Crown Prince, the faces of the children who had stood at the center went rigid in an instant. Panic was written all over them—especially among the heirs of the great houses who ruled their provinces as overlords. Before the man who would one day sit the throne, they were not lords' children first, but mere subjects.
The royal authority is as strong as I'd heard.
Behind the Crown Prince—who was already well past twenty—came middle-aged knights serving as his escort. A few paces after them, elderly men in matching robes or armor filed in and climbed onto the platform. The professors of the school.
Silence held. Then a white-haired old man—straight white hair and beard, the oldest-looking of those on the dais—raised his voice.
"Welcome, all of you. I am Stolt Tomlinson, headmaster of this Knight Academy and former captain of the royal guard."
The children, who had expected a kindly tone, stiffened under the unexpected edge of the old warrior's voice. This place might wear the name of a school, but a military training ground might suit it better. Like Roy, who had heard as much from Anna, the others would have learned the truth from their families. Even so, the raw severity of the atmosphere was something they had not yet adapted to. Even Roy found it a little more than he had expected.
The headmaster began with the academy's founding purpose and went on to recite a string of facts everyone already knew. Then the Crown Prince was introduced and walked quietly to the center of the platform. Like a general issuing orders in the heart of a battlefield, he spoke in a voice that rang through the hall.
"Welcome. I am Aron, prince of this Steel Kingdom."
At the very back of the children looking up at the dais, Roy drew out what he had hidden the moment the Crown Prince began to speak. One was a newly made pair of spectacles he had named protective goggles. The other was the medal the king had given him on his seventh birthday.
He pinned the medal to his shoulder first, then put on the goggles.
A few days earlier he had found tinted glasses in a general store. He had tracked down the maker, revised the design, and had a new pair made in a hurry. It was not merely that the originals had looked crude; they needed functional changes as well. The store-bought tinted glasses might hide the Golden Eyes from the front, but from the side they would give him away at once. So he had gone to the craftsman and commissioned a pair of his own—lenses widened, the frames covering the whole area around the eyes so that even a glance from beside him would not expose the Golden Eyes. A generous payment in gold had the man set everything else aside and finish them first.
And so these protective goggles had been born. With them on, he could open the Golden Eyes whenever he liked, and no one would notice. They were a little stifling, but he would not be wearing them all day; that was no great problem.
Who knows when I'll get another chance to look at the Crown Prince.
Through Anna, Roy had learned that the Crown Prince attended every entrance ceremony. He had planned this from that moment on.
Behind the goggles, his irises flooded with gold. Not a single person in the hall knew.
"……!?"
The instant the Golden Eyes opened, a crushing pressure slammed into him. Given the bloodlines gathered here, nearly half the students possessed mana equal to his—or greater.
Wh-what in the…
And that was not all. The professors' mana was nothing to dismiss either.
Don't tell me… some of the faculty carry royal blood as well?
And the crowning peak of it all was, of course, the current Crown Prince—Aron Steelhart.