Achievement
A place from which the entire garden could be taken in at a glance—
the main hall on the third floor of the main residence.
Dressed not in clerical robes but in a sharp suit, pomade worked neatly through his hair, Shiron glanced toward the seat of honor at the great table.
Empty…
The place that had always belonged to Hugo sat conspicuously vacant. Eldrina had come out alone to receive them, so he had half expected it—but it seemed Hugo truly had not yet returned from the expedition.
"He is still out on campaign, I am told."
Eldrina spoke without being asked. Seated across from Shiron, she had caught, if only for an instant, the way his gaze had drifted toward the head of the table.
"When did he set out?"
"Some time ago now. Five months at the least."
"…That long."
A bitter feeling settled in Shiron's chest as he brought a hand to his mouth. He and Hugo had exchanged letters a few times, but Hugo, true to his nature, never filled a page with idle chatter.
Nothing but brief inquiries after Shiron's well-being.
Even so, Shiron had not failed to notice that Hugo was wearing down. At some point the man's handwriting had begun to fray at the edges.
Meaning he has less and less room to spare.
Hugo was no longer a young man. The giant beasts he once dropped in a single stroke now took two exchanges, then three; even the marches to their destinations had grown slower. Like an impregnable fortress worn down by wind and rain, the empire's great shield would one day crack—and Shiron already knew that future.
I need to see Uncle. Whether I go to him first or join the next expedition myself.
Even if Hugo had refused to hear what the future held, Shiron had no intention of leaving him be. He owed the man too much; failing to do right by him would put him in hell the moment he died—that much was certain.
Eldrina offered a wry smile and lifted her utensils.
"We did not gather for such heavy talk. Come, let us eat."
"…Yes."
Shiron nodded and looked at her. Her skin was so unlined that no one would have guessed she had a daughter in her mid-teens—yet the shadows beneath her eyes spoke plainly of exhaustion.
Seeing those dark circles, Shiron turned a smile toward his restless younger sister.
"Siriel."
"Y-yes?"
"How is the Academy treating you?"
"Oh…"
Seated across the table, Siriel gave a little start at the sudden question. The heavy atmosphere had kept her from speaking up, but the moment he addressed her first, a smile found its way to her lips.
"It's a good place. I've made plenty of friends, and I never knew how fun it could be to learn things I didn't know before."
"And you, Lucia?"
"I'm fine too."
As if she had already been waiting for her turn, Lucia answered at once.
"The Academy's a good place, sure. Plenty of books to read. And… I guess you could say my circle's gotten a little wider? Something like that."
"Pretty generous reviews. Seminary was pure hell for me."
He had meant to choose his words more carefully in front of Eldrina, but the mere memory of his seminary days set his teeth on edge.
"Maybe because I enrolled so young? Being little was bad enough—everyone looked down on me for being small."
"…Really?"
"If it had only been scorn, I'd have called myself lucky. Rumors about illegal admission and whatnot never stopped, and for a while the lockers and the bathrooms reeked of spoiled milk."
Those soft little bastards had sharp eyes, I'll give them that.
He had used his storage ability to cheat under the proctors' noses; somehow they had caught on, and for the first weeks of his first year the harassment never let up.
Of course, the moment anyone challenged him to a duel he beat them within an inch of their lives, and even for something as petty as a bumped shoulder in the corridor he swung without caring whether the other party ended up in the infirmary.
"…You never wrote any of that in your letters."
Lucia looked at him with mild surprise. Shiron shrugged.
"Things were already sorted out before I ever sat down to write."
"How did you handle it?"
"I hit them until they behaved."
"…Really?"
"Of course beating them once didn't settle it."
He popped a thick cut of meat into his mouth and went on.
"There were a few half-grown brats with more competitive spirit than sense. Later the upperclassmen started showing up in packs."
"So… what did you do after that?"
"What else?"
Shiron's face broke into a low, wicked grin. It was not a story he could tell with pride, but if Lucia was this interested, there was no reason not to share.
"I went and cried my eyes out in front of someone important."
"…"
"I can still picture Captain Maleus's face. It went white, then suddenly turned red. He marched straight into the seminary and very carefully… rearranged the faces of the professors and the headmaster. A thoroughly intelligent solution, if I do say so myself."
Thump—thump—
He patted his stuffed cheeks and smiled. There was nothing honorable about it, no pride to salvage—yet he felt not the slightest shame in telling it.
When a pack of children who still had milk on their breath came swarming to put a thirteen-year-old in his place, the only answer was to get just as childish.
"So what was I supposed to do? Once their pride got stomped in front of a bunch of wet-behind-the-ears students, they stopped caring whether they were clergy or not."
"…I see."
Lucia fidgeted with her hands and nodded.
"Come to think of it—he sent something addressed to you."
After the meal, as she sipped her tea, Eldrina slid a letter across the table toward Shiron.
"A letter?"
"Yes. He must have worried it might not reach you, so it came to me instead."
"Must be fairly important, then."
Shiron took the letter and opened it.
This isn't Uncle's handwriting.
His brow furrowed. The sender was clearly Hugo Prien—yet instead of the bold, open strokes he knew so well, a thin, trailing script unspooled across the page.
Shiron,
Come to Dawn Castle at once to undergo the Coming-of-Age Ceremony.
Siriel and Lucia are to accompany you without delay.
— Hugo Prien
Lucia stepped up behind him as he skimmed the letter.
"What does it say?"
"…It says to come to Dawn Castle for the Coming-of-Age Ceremony."
Shiron held the letter out to her. It had been addressed to him, but there was nothing in it that would cause trouble if others saw it, so he handed it over without hesitation.
"…Immediately?"
Lucia's eyes went wide as she read. Immediately—such an unkind demand, with no thought at all for the other party's circumstances. Confusion flickered across her face.
"Yes. Not just me—you and Siriel as well. At once."
"But…"
"I'm fine with it."
It was Siriel who answered. She had already drawn up beside Shiron.
"It's a Coming-of-Age Ceremony, so… what will we need? Should we pack armor or weapons separately?"
"Siriel—what about the Academy?"
Lucia voiced her concern, but Siriel only offered a faint smile, as if it were hardly worth fretting over.
"The Academy isn't the important thing, is it? Summer's almost here, so break is right around the corner, and students take leaves of absence for personal reasons all the time. This won't be any different."
A trip with Oppa…
Of course, that was not the whole of her heart. On the scales within her, nothing weighed heavier than Shiron; that her studies should slip into second place was only natural.
"Well. If missing a few days turns into a problem, we can worry about it then, can't we?"
"…Mother, do you agree?"
"What could possibly be wrong with it?"
Eldrina nodded and rose from her seat. A daughter's words that seemed to slight her studies might have invited a rebuke under other circumstances—but they were not wrong, so she saw no need to correct them.
And I already knew about this, besides.
"Don't worry. Go and come back safely."
"…"
What is this?
Lucia was more than a little thrown. In her memory, Academy students fought tooth and nail never to fall short of the required attendance. Even a single late arrival brought a professor's personal scolding; students reshaped their entire lives around the Academy's schedule.
Lucia herself had been one of them.
"You won't need armor. Everything required will already be prepared there. Still, bringing a weapon you're used to might not be a bad idea."
Shiron answered Siriel's muttering in a deliberately offhand tone. Outwardly he looked the calmest person in the room; inside, he was the most stirred of them all.
At last…
He swallowed hard, the Coming-of-Age Ceremony rising in his mind. In Reincarnation Sword God, the ceremony was the first step by which Lucia and Shiron stepped out into the wider world—something close to a departure rite of arms.
The Academy can wait.
If things went well, they might even obtain the Holy Swords—no: the Star Swords, Sirius and Spica.
Sirius.
Spica.
Unlike the sacred Holy Swords that purified demonic power, the Star Swords—blades forged of starlight—were weapons Lucia and Siriel absolutely needed to claim under the present circumstances.
They even showed up in the fairy tales.
And Shiron himself might grow stronger as well. The original Shiron had been able to use mana; with the Coming-of-Age Ceremony about to begin, there might be some special catalyst waiting for him now.
"It's fine, Lucia. If anything goes wrong, I'll take full responsibility."
"…How?"
Lucia looked up at him with a spark of half-daring hope. Responsibility—that was a word that almost never left Shiron's mouth. He patted her back with a couple of firm thumps and told her not to worry.
"Victor's student council president there, right?"
"…Huh? What about him?"
"Big problem or small, we can just ask him for a favor. If that still isn't enough, I'll go talk to him myself."
From old times, the Academy's student council presidency had been a suspiciously powerful post—and this world was no different. Even the seminary Shiron had attended had given its student council an oddly free hand.
Ridiculous, really.
But Victor, unlike that laughable seminary, held more than enough power even without the title. He was a man spoken of as a future emperor; Shiron's expectations were far from empty.
Having one good friend made everything this convenient. Shiron smirked, savoring the warm weight of a hard-earned achievement.