Baptism (1)
The baron returned to the mansion on the fourth day after the incident.
Even that was only possible because he had swapped horses several times at every outpost and major village along the way. Exhausted from the forced march with no proper rest, he was worn down to the bone—physically and mentally. How could any man be at ease after hearing that his son had gone missing and his wife had been injured?
"Welcome home, dear."
"Daddy!"
"......"
Yet when he actually stepped into the mansion, Aena and Anna greeted him in perfect health, and the youngest son he had believed lost stood right before his eyes. It was almost enough to make him wonder whether everyone had conspired to trick him.
After hearing the full account of the incident from Aena and the butler, the baron's feelings remained complicated. He could breathe a sigh of relief that the matter had been resolved without serious harm, yet he could not feel at ease that such a thing had happened while he was away. As lord, he could not simply remain at the mansion forever, guarding only his family.
"Still, it's a tremendous relief."
He forced a smile for the people gathered before him. Deep in his heart, however, lay a heavy weight—the words the Margrave of Biswald had spoken to him before he left Victoria Castle. Carefully, circling around the subject, the baron brought the matter up.
Contrary to his fears, Aena accepted the situation with surprising calm.
"I'm fine. It's not some ordinary family—she's the daughter of a margrave. There's no reason to refuse."
In truth, her reaction had a reason. It came from her father, Baron Bitlif. The man kept no fewer than four wives, and having grown up in such a household, Aena felt no particular displeasure. Of course, that was also thanks to Baron Bitlif's skill in keeping relations between his legal wife and his mistresses amicable.
"I was the one who suggested it first, remember? You were the one who insisted otherwise."
Early in their marriage, Aena had asked the baron several times whether he ought not take a second wife. He had refused firmly, and then two sons had been born in quick succession, so the matter had simply faded away.
"I heard you've only just recovered. I'm sorry to bring you this news so suddenly."
"I truly don't mind at all."
Their eyes met.
"I missed you, Aena. Do you know how worried I was when I heard?"
The baron's rough hand brushed her soft cheek.
"I told you I'm fine..."
Aena lowered her head in embarrassment. But he cupped her chin and forced her face upward until their gazes locked once more. That was how the kiss began. As if in quiet defiance of the margrave, the two shared a bed together for the first time in a very long while.
Clive, lord of Greenhilt, had never so much as glanced at another woman while Aena was his wife. Rumors even circulated in certain circles that the baron preferred the company of men. News that he might take a second wife therefore spread through the city and the entire territory in the blink of an eye. Talk of a third or even a fourth wife began to stir in various quarters—until word got out that the rival was the margrave's own daughter. Those ambitions vanished as if they had never existed. Immediately the whispers turned in another direction.
"So who's going to be the next lord of our territory, then?"
"The eldest son, of course. No matter how fine the margrave's daughter's bloodline is, how long do you think it'll take for her to marry, bear a child, and raise it?"
"Ah, you never know. His Lordship is still in his prime. Look at other territories—some lords rule into their sixties or seventies. He's got another twenty or thirty good years left."
"Then you're saying..."
"Ahem. That's enough. Someone might overhear."
Everywhere, people speculated that the unborn child might one day become the next lord.
"My lord, my sincerest congratulations."
"What a great joy for House Greenhilt! Hahaha!"
In the midst of it all, the baron did take a second wife, and time flowed swiftly onward. Two years vanished in an instant.
Two years had raced by since the attack on the mansion. Roy was now seven years old, and his baptism ceremony was soon to take place.
Many things had happened in the baronial household during those two years. First, the margrave's daughter—now the baron's second wife—had given birth to a child. A boy. She adapted to life in the mansion without difficulty and caused no major problems. Her relationship with Aena remained somewhat delicate, yet outwardly the atmosphere stayed cordial. If anything, the constant gossip about succession seemed to sour both women's moods more than anything else. Of course, no one truly knew what lay in either woman's heart.
The second son, Jerry, had entered the kingdom's Knight Academy. Contrary to every expectation, not a single report of trouble arrived; he was already beginning his third year in the capital. The household servants still could not adjust whenever he returned home once a year looking so refined and well-mannered.
Anna had turned eight. Having completed her own baptism the previous year, she now handled magic with ease and her swordsmanship so far surpassed her peers that talk of her skill was everywhere. Much of it was the fruit of her relentless practice while watching Roy; she had poured everything she had into swordsmanship, determined never to fall behind her younger brother. As for magic, she trained every single day remembering the sight of Roy's back that night two years earlier, standing before the burning hut. Progress had been slow at first, but as she grew year by year the results began to show—enough to leave even her teacher Geren clicking his tongue in astonishment.
The eldest son, Eric, had graduated from the Knight Academy. Following Anna's baptism the year before, Eric had undergone his coming-of-age rites and become a full adult. Like the sons of other noble houses, he immediately formed his own faction. As the son of a great lord he assembled a personal party and began building his reputation by maintaining order within the territory, hunting monsters, and clearing dungeons. Before long he would receive a small fief from Baron Greenhilt and begin learning how to govern land. Yet people whispered that he would never become the next lord of Greenhilt. A boy carrying the margrave's blood had already been born, and the current lord was still young—plenty of time remained before succession. Some even claimed that if Eric ever did become baron, a bloody storm would sweep the territory.
Lastly, Roy—no longer the family's youngest—had spent the entire two years shut inside his room. The business of enchanting daggers and raking in gold coins had made no progress whatsoever. Early on it had seemed he would expand the venture overnight and sweep up every gold coin in the territory; now Marek spent his days staring at the sky like a dog that had chased a chicken onto the roof. Once he had dreamed of becoming a great tycoon. The maids whispered all manner of rumors about the endless sighs that drifted from the servants' quarters every night—that he had fallen for someone hopelessly out of reach, or that he had already confessed and been rejected.
In truth, Roy's plans had gone awry for several reasons. First the hut had burned down, and the second wife who entered the household began using the empty guest annex, eliminating every blind spot inside the mansion. In short, there was no longer a place to work in secret. A new hut had been built and secret work was still theoretically possible, yet upon hearing that the mercenary guild had begun investigating Marek's background, Roy decided to suspend the business indefinitely. After everything that had happened, greater caution was required. He concluded that when he restarted he would do so more secretly and seize the market all at once. He would simply endure a little longer—until he himself could move freely.
And there was another, more urgent reason than gathering money.
I will succeed no matter what.
Roy had no intention of waiting. What he sought was the suspicious spirit with the golden eyes. He was devising every possible method to summon the creature again and bind it to his will as quickly as possible.
First came mana capacity. For two years he had exhausted his mana to the absolute limit every single day in an effort to expand it. Progress proved stubbornly slow. Whether it was simply the nature of nobles who already possessed abundant mana, or whether his still-small child's body could not yet handle the strain, the amount of mana refused to grow. At times he even wondered whether it was a side effect of the Dragon's Breath. Yet when he looked through the eyes he had named Golden Eyes, he could see that his current limit was nowhere near his true potential. Between the mutant trait and the Dragon's Breath he had consumed, he felt at least twice as much room left to grow. The frustration was enough to drive him mad.
If mana won't increase easily, then next I'll try this.
Alongside expanding his mana, another method would help him summon the spirit perfectly: converting part of the incantation into a magic circle so that the mana cost dropped dramatically. Depending on the type, a magic circle could be crafted using mana-concentrated solutions, magic stones found inside monsters, or even blood that contained mana—allowing the spell to activate while barely consuming the caster's own power. That knowledge was the legacy and achievement of the decades Roy had devoted solely to the path of magic in his previous life.
Whenever he had a free moment he locked himself in his room and focused on unraveling the magical formulas contained in the ancient incantation. The maids who cleaned his chambers groaned under the ever-growing piles of paper covered in equations and diagrams. If even a single sheet went missing, Roy's furious orders followed at once.
It's ancient magic, so of course it's ridiculously difficult.
Two full years had passed, yet Roy had not the slightest intention of giving up.