Reborn (2)
In the end, they agreed the first day would be nothing more than introductions.
Under Roy's relentless barrage of questions, Geren found himself explaining everything he knew about the borders of the kingdoms currently standing on the continent and the tangled interests between them.
The long exchange of questions and answers left Anna wearing a sulky face until she simply fell asleep where she sat. Only Roy looked thoroughly satisfied.
"Fascinating."
What kind of five-year-old is this?
Geren answered the questions while thinking the same thing the entire time—that before long, the suspicious little brat sitting in front of him would be more than he could handle.
He had thought he could earn some easy money for a change, but now he wondered whether he would even last a month.
Of course, he also had confidence that things would change once the real swordsmanship and magic lessons began.
He had always been better with his body than his head, and his mana reserves were generous enough that people around him had once called him a mutant.
"By the way, how often will our lessons be?"
"Ah, you haven't been told yet? Three times a week..."
"Make it seven. I'll speak to the Baron myself. Your pay will increase accordingly, of course."
"Excuse me?"
Geren felt the absurdity wash over him once more.
Does this little brat not plan on resting at all?
The Baron's instructions to Geren had been as follows:
— Roy is an unusual child. It will be difficult, but accommodate him as much as you can. Don't refuse simply because of his age.
— You'll need to manage things so Anna doesn't grow frustrated being compared to her younger brother. But she was born with a strong nature, so there's no need to worry too much.
— Begin magic and swordsmanship with defense—teach them to protect their bodies first.
— Roy wants lessons every day of the week, which is impossible, but six days should be fine. Three days with both Roy and Anna together; the remaining three with Roy alone. If Anna later wants to join those as well, you're free to work her six days straight.
— And finally, keep your mouth shut. Do everything you can to prevent strange rumors from spreading outside.
What kind of household is this?
Hearing the Baron's demands left Geren dumbfounded, but he neither refused nor fled.
As a foreigner in the Steel Kingdom, easy ways to make money were not exactly plentiful.
Granted, with his skill he could have joined monster subjugations or dungeon expeditions without much trouble making a living. If he ever found one of those rare, precious relics that sometimes turned up in dungeons, he could even spend the rest of his life in leisure.
But such work was, of course, extremely dangerous.
Dangerous enough that even two lives would not have been enough.
When lives were on the line, people naturally wanted companions they could trust. Skill was a given—but so was the kind of person you could entrust your back to.
Geren more than qualified in terms of ability, yet not a single person readily trusted a northern tribesman whose very appearance marked him as different.
It wasn't as if opportunities never came. Large-scale expeditions occasionally needed many hands, after all. Empty slots were always available, and anyone willing to fill them was welcome.
If I make a name for myself here, others will start calling for me too.
If he distinguished himself in a large monster subjugation organized by a lord, fame would only be a matter of time. Outstanding skill led to new connections, and through those connections he had managed to overcome much of the discrimination he had faced as an outsider.
The problem was when things went wrong.
When an expedition failed.
When the objective was achieved but the losses were so severe that the damage outweighed the gain.
There were even cases where the expected monster horde vanished without a trace, leaving the party empty-handed.
Commanders seized by the urge to shift blame always found foreigners like Geren the most convenient scapegoats.
Haa...
Geren was a survivor of a noble house from the Frost Kingdom—a realm that had long since fallen and disappeared. Like most survivors of ruined houses, he had done whatever it took to stay alive. Yet the aristocratic air that had seeped into him over long years still clung stubbornly to his bones.
For someone like him, joining expeditions that could get him killed at any moment was something he preferred to avoid unless he was truly about to starve.
By contrast, the job he favored most was serving as a private tutor in a noble household.
The generous pay was one thing; the social standing of a noble family's tutor also let him recall glories of his past that he could never reclaim.
So the risk of those expeditions paid off after all. It's thanks to those connections that I'm here now.
His goal now was to wander from noble house to noble house as a tutor, expanding his network until some mana-hungry aristocrat took notice and took him in as a live-in son-in-law. With the amount of mana he possessed, it was hardly impossible.
But not this house. Their only daughter is just six years old...
Still, he wasn't about to throw away a hard-won position and go hunting for another family. Lessons six days a week meant the already comfortable salary had doubled.
Given the suspicious child, he wondered how long he would last before being thrown out—but he resolved to hold on as long as he could.
Five years had already passed in this small child's body.
At first it had felt like living trapped in a stifling prison. But Roy's thinking had gradually changed.
The period of resenting a god he had never believed in was long behind him. Now he simply wanted to become an adult as quickly as possible.
Not worse than my previous life, at least.
He had originally been a mage. Though his mana capacity had been rock-bottom among rock-bottom, the pure joy of exploring the new and studying the ancient until he made them his own—that had been his true nature.
He had been a mage through and through.
In his previous life, after his mid-thirties, he had buried himself so completely in deciphering ancient runes that he had forgotten the feeling for a long while. Now, after so long, he was tasting once again the pleasure of improving every single day.
If a baronial bloodline is this good, how absurd must the imperial bloodline have been?
In his previous life he had been born into a lowly household of minor knights. Now he had been born into a noble house with a broad domain. It was only a barony—the lowest of the five ranks of nobility—yet the quality of the mana stirring inside him felt entirely different.
A sensation he could never have experienced in his previous life.
The problem is that I'm still far too young.
He had not been able to sense those writhing waves of mana from the beginning. Only after his body grew, after he could walk and run and speak and read on his own, did he begin to feel them faintly.
And sensing them was not the end. He still needed to draw out that potential through proper training and make it fully his own—yet his current body was far too small and frail.
Not only the body, but the mind as well.
Read a book that requires real thought for even a couple of hours and I drop off like a log...
Above all, he still could not control himself. The moment complex thoughts began, his eyelids grew heavy and sleep forced itself upon him. Reading a history book all day required at least three or four naps in between.
Still, after turning five it had improved a little. With time he had gradually come to accept his circumstances. He no longer felt like an old man waiting for the day he would die.
I was reincarnated with the memories of my previous life.
Was that fact alone not blessing enough?
The second lesson began after they had welcomed Geren as their tutor.
Unlike the noisy first session, this one was for Roy and Geren alone—Anna excluded. Roy had been waiting for this time alone.
Because now he could ask everything he wanted to know.
"What?!"
Once again Roy's absurd question left Geren's head spinning.
"I want to hear your story, Teacher. In thorough detail."
"But today's lesson is supposed to cover the overall history of the Steel Kingdom..."
"I've already learned enough of our kingdom's history. What I want to know is the story of how you traveled from a northern kingdom all the way to this kingdom at the southern tip of the continent. Whenever something I don't understand comes up, I'll ask, so please explain as we go."
Roy's goal was to hear stories that did not appear in books. By listening to Geren's experiences, he meant to ask questions on the spot about things he had never known—or things he knew that had changed. Without that, his common sense would remain a thousand years out of date until he grew up and experienced the world himself.
More than anything, the history books he had read were nothing but dry lists: so-and-so cut off an enemy general's head; our side suffered this many losses; after years of war they seized such-and-such province. They were dull and severely limited in the information they could provide.
While Roy openly displayed his anticipation, Geren's mind was in turmoil. He had already realized that the five-year-old boy before him was not simply sparkling with excitement over adventure tales. The request also diverged completely from the direction he had planned for the lessons, leaving him uncertain how to proceed.
And if I invent a false story, he'll probably see through it in no time...
In the end, Geren had no choice but to open up about part of his past. He left out everything he preferred not to speak of, focusing mainly on the monster subjugations he had joined.
To his surprise, Roy became deeply absorbed in those stories. After being asked several times to explain in even greater detail, Geren found himself thinking, Kids really are just kids, aren't they?
I've never met a local boy who didn't love this kind of tale.
"...so I joined a goblin subjugation party right away. I'd just crossed the border and had no money, so I needed any work I could get."
"Civilians hunt monsters?"
A strange question interrupted the story just as it was getting started.
"Of course. If you don't drive out monsters that invade the farmland, everyone starves. Once the fields are ruined, the monsters start showing up in the villages themselves—and then everyone dies."
Roy's brow furrowed. It was not an expression a five-year-old noble child should have worn, and Geren could only click his tongue at the seriousness on young Roy's face. He decided the boy had a rather decent nature after all.
Roy's thoughts, however, were entirely different. In his understanding, commoners with almost no mana hunting monsters was something that simply should not exist.
"What are the lords... what is the kingdom even doing?"