The Road Back Home
The Road Back Home
The Royal Academy's winter break was exceptionally long.
That was because the Kingdom was by no means small, and traveling to and from distant estates took a considerable amount of time.
Some students from the farthest reaches of the Kingdom gave up on returning home for the break and decided to stay in the capital.
Among those who chose to remain was the Grand Archduchess from the Duchy.
She seemed to have other reasons besides the distance, but that was of little concern to me, since I wouldn't be staying in the capital over the break.
Aside from students like her who were staying behind, everyone else headed home.
Perhaps because my reputation had improved during the second semester, many of the female students said goodbye to me on the final day.
I also switched on my Etiquette Mode and greeted them politely.
Unlike before, they all waved back at me with satisfied expressions.
The Grand Archduchess's lessons had certainly helped.
The Princess and Katrin, whom I was already close to, wouldn't even let me bring out 'Etiquette Mode Alex'.
They said it made me look like those other nobles, who were nothing but bundles of hypocrisy.
Balea, on the other hand, actually liked 'Etiquette Mode Alex'.
She said it made me easy to tease.
After saying goodbye to the other students, I exchanged farewells with my close acquaintances as well.
The Princess was deeply disappointed that I wasn't staying in the capital. But since she would be staying at the royal palace, I couldn't possibly stay there with her when I wasn't even an official escort knight.
After barely managing to console the Princess, who was far more depressed than I'd expected, and being dragged off by Katrin for a round of sparring, I finally managed to say goodbye to the Grand Archduchess and take my leave.
Afterward, I returned to the capital mansion with Balea.
Balea planned to return to her own home, traveling with us as we headed back to the Duchy.
Surprisingly, Balea didn't seem particularly worried about going home.
Even though her half-brother, who had become the acting baron, would be ruling the territory, she didn't seem concerned at all.
At the mansion, the servants were bustling about, packing our belongings.
It wasn't just Manuel and me; quite a few people had to return to the Duchy with us.
The servants and maids who had accompanied us to the capital, along with a few knights who had stayed behind instead of returning earlier, all had to head back to the Duchy with us.
The knights who would escort us had already arrived, too.
Knight Angel and the soldiers who had brought us here a year ago had arrived in the capital a few days earlier.
Only a year had passed, but it felt as though a very long time had gone by.
No—to me, it had been more than just a year. It had been a truly long time.
Even though only a year had passed, I'd grown much taller. I was no longer considered short among ordinary adults.
I still looked small when sandwiched between the hulking knights, of course.
Though our builds were still vastly different, Knight Angel seemed incredibly surprised when he saw me.
"You've truly changed. You seem much stronger than before, though I can't quite gauge it with my skills."
When we had first come to the capital, Angel had looked down on me immensely. But after seeing me again, he no longer seemed to think that way.
And that was despite the fact that I'd concealed my mana to hide my true strength.
Perhaps it was because I'd grown, changing my outward appearance.
Juan was among the soldiers as well.
He was the soldier who had sworn his loyalty to me after I helped cure his mother's illness.
Only a year had passed, but it felt as though we were meeting again after a very long time.
Well, for me, it really had been a very long time.
It was all because of my ability.
Since time itself had stretched between me and everyone else, I couldn't help feeling as though I'd grown distant from them.
To keep our relationship from actually growing distant, I had no choice but to make an effort.
"It's been a year. Have you been well? Is your mother doing well too, Juan?"
I greeted Juan with a bright smile.
"Yes. My mother is doing well. She prays for your safety every single day, Young Lord."
Juan replied as though he were grumbling, but he wasn't actually dissatisfied.
His face was bright as he welcomed me.
"And please, speak informally to me now. Before, it might have been because you were young, but now it's clear you're fully grown. It feels strange for you to speak so respectfully to a fellow like me."
When I'd first spoken respectfully to him, I'd been nothing more than a barely awakened bastard son.
But now I was a student in the Royal Academy's Knight Faculty, and could even be considered a prospective knight.
Thinking about it, it seemed fine to speak informally now.
"Hmm... Right. I'll do that."
Juan nodded at my words.
"Everyone is waiting for you, Young Lord."
"Surely only my mother is waiting. You mean the Duke or Brother is waiting for me?"
"No, I meant the knights are waiting..."
Ah, I'd only thought of my family.
There was Miguel, who had trained me, Hugo, and even the taciturn Knight Commander Alonso.
And there were the other knights I'd gotten along with reasonably well.
Come to think of it, there were plenty of people I'd see when I returned.
I missed my mother, and the maid Flora, too.
Thinking of them made me look forward to returning to the Duchy even more.
The preparations were quickly finished.
Just as we had on the way there, Manuel, Balea, and I climbed into the carriage.
The butler of the capital mansion and the other servants stood at the gate to see us off.
The butler's expression as he looked at me one last time seemed incredibly complicated.
I was very curious about how he had reported to the Duchess.
The capital mansion's butler was on the side of the first Duchess.
As a properly trained noble butler, he wasn't someone who did dirty work, but he still would have reported everything that happened in the capital to the Duchess.
Reports about Manuel would have been his priority, of course, but there was no way he wouldn't have reported on me as well.
He would have told her about my growth and improving skills, but I wondered how he had reported on the expansion of my personal connections.
I waved to the butler, too, despite his complicated expression.
The butler and the servants bowed to the departing carriage, and we left the capital.
"If you're a student in the Knight Faculty, aren't you a prospective knight? Then what's with your attire?"
After the carriage had left the capital, Manuel, who had been contemplating for a long while, spoke to me.
Manuel and I hadn't been very close during the first semester, and during the second semester, he'd barely spoken to me at all.
Our departments were different, and so were the people we spent time with.
To be honest, I didn't really have much of a crowd to hang out with, either.
On top of that, I'd spent the entire second semester either accompanying the Grand Archduchess or training, so there hadn't been an opportunity to speak with Manuel alone.
Come to think of it, Manuel had been attending the Academy quite diligently in his own way. His grades for the second semester weren't bad, either.
Neither were mine.
Since there had been no special incidents like those in the first semester, I hadn't received any extra points.
Still, perhaps thanks to the etiquette training I'd received from the Grand Archduchess, my liberal arts score had improved. That brought my overall score up to something similar to what I'd earned in the first semester.
I'd ranked in the top ten of the entire first-year class. It was a score well worth boasting about.
The people around me—including the Grand Archduchess and even Senior Havier—found it absurd when they saw my score.
But to me, it was perfectly satisfactory.
Anyway, judging by the atmosphere, it seemed Manuel had brought this up because he wanted to strike up a conversation with me.
We'd treated each other like strangers all this time, so he could have kept ignoring me. But now that we were returning to the Duke's estate, it seemed he intended to reestablish the hierarchy.
But judging by the way he spoke, he didn't seem intent on forcing it through sheer intimidation like before. Even his eyes looked rather tense.
What should I do?
I could make a scene, or I could simply bow my head a little. Either would be fine.
Unlike when we'd first come to the capital, I was capable of doing at least that much now.
Once we returned to the Duke's estate, the Duchess's people might annoy me, but they wouldn't put me in danger like before.
For my mother's sake, I could easily tolerate a little annoyance. It wasn't as though I'd be staying in the territory for very long, anyway.
Fine. I had no intention of making unnecessary trouble, so I'd just give way to him this once.
Just as I was about to open my mouth, having made up my mind—
"Young Lord Manuel is right. If you aim to become a knight, you must always be prepared. You should have the sword given to you by the Academy, yet I don't see it anywhere. Instead, the dagger at your waist is far too small for a knight to carry."
Knight Angel, who was riding beside the carriage, chimed in to support Manuel's words and lecture me.
Like me, knights had excellent hearing.
Perhaps regretting the admiration he'd shown me earlier, Angel's scolding was sharp.
To anyone else, both Manuel's words and Angel's scolding would have seemed perfectly reasonable.
I was riding in the carriage in my Academy uniform, with nothing but a single dagger hanging from my waist.
Just as Angel said, the Academy Standard Sword was nowhere to be seen, as if I'd sold it off somewhere. The greatsword I'd brought with me when I came to the capital was missing, too.
They might have been buried somewhere among the luggage, but a knight—or even a prospective knight—shouldn't be so lax.
Manuel looked awkward at Knight Angel's words. His expression suggested that he felt things had become unnecessarily complicated because of the knight's interference.
On top of that, Balea, who was riding in the carriage with us, watched us with an intrigued expression.
Honestly, this was my fault.
Putting relics in my pocket had become a habit, and that was how both the greatsword and all my other belongings had ended up stuffed into the relic pocket.
But it wasn't as though I could pull a greatsword out of my chest right now to show them.
Since I was in the wrong, I supposed I'd have to put up with a little scolding.
"...Besides, these are highly chaotic times. Look at that broken carriage over there. It was attacked by bandits. Bandits on the capital's border—this is something we wouldn't have seen a year ago."
After lecturing me for a while about a knight's virtues, Angel pointed to the broken carriages pushed to the side of the road.
Just as he'd said, the carriage was covered in marks from swords, spears, and arrows.
They said the King had stopped participating in state affairs, but had things already become this chaotic?
"When we were on our way to the capital, I noticed that security between territories had deteriorated far more than expected. Bandits, monsters, and vagrants. The roads between territories felt like those of a country in the midst of war."
Somehow, his advice to me had shifted into concern about travel and the Kingdom.
Hearing his words brought the Second Prince's words to mind.
"They said the King can't even oversee state affairs. Are the territories slowly preparing for civil war?"
The two princes would no doubt be actively maneuvering for the throne, and by now, other nobles were surely lining up openly behind them.
"Lords are gathering even their patrol forces into their castles to train them, and mercenaries who used to hunt monsters are being recruited as war mercenaries."
For a lord preparing for civil war, this was only natural. But that natural course of action brought hell to the residents of the territories.
"With the monster-hunting mercenaries gone and the patrol forces withdrawn, the number of bandits and monsters increases, making security worse. As security worsens, the number of vagrants rises, and those vagrants turn into bandits... In the end, a vicious cycle has begun."
I could roughly grasp how things were turning out.
As I organized my thoughts aloud, the surroundings fell silent.
Manuel stared at me blankly, and Angel, who had been talking outside the carriage, clamped his mouth shut.
"You were organizing your thoughts out loud again."
At Balea's giggling remark, I realized what I'd done.
It seemed I'd once again reminded Manuel and Knight Angel of the theory that I was a genius.
I wanted to say it was just something I'd heard, but if they asked who I'd heard it from, it would be awkward to answer.
I'd have to use the Princess and the Grand Archduchess as an excuse, but that would only bring up unnecessary details.
In the end, I gave up on changing the atmosphere.
Perhaps finding the heavy silence unbearable, Manuel opened his mouth.
"Fine! If security is that bad, let's make a point of eliminating as many monsters and bandits as we can on our way back!"
"Excuse me? If you suddenly say something like that, how are we supposed to...?"
Angel was startled by Manuel's words.
To Angel, it was no different from being told to invade a dragon's lair right after he'd spent ages warning someone to be careful of dragons.
I was dumbfounded, too, but looking at Manuel's expression, I could somewhat understand what he was thinking.
Since it was difficult to establish the hierarchy with words, he seemed intent on showing off his skills.
I understood his reasoning, but that didn't make it any less absurd.
Still, I didn't stop him.
"That sounds fun. I'm in favor, too."
Just as Balea whispered softly, I wanted to test my skills in real combat as well.