I Became a Genius (2)
I Became a Genius (2)
After the tedious explanation came to an end, the scribe—no, the liberal arts teacher—turned to me and asked.
"Do you have any questions?"
His expression was half disappointed, half condescending.
It made me acutely aware of how precarious my position was.
And I did have a question.
"As you said, Scribe, almost all the nobles on the continent currently obtain inherited abilities through awakening. And our Gracia Ducal House also inherits the abilities of the hero, Knight Carlos."
"That is correct."
The scribe nodded, looking slightly satisfied.
"But how has an ability passed down for 500 years been inherited continuously? Even if we estimate a single generation at 30 years, that's already 30 generations, which means there must have been at least 30 marriages. Wouldn't that make the probability of manifesting the same ability as Knight Carlos fall to nearly one in tens of thousands?"
Even if both parents were nobles, the probability of inheriting one specific side's ability was only one-half.
Even with multiple overlapping marriages along the way, after 30 consecutive marriages, the probability would ultimately dwindle to one in hundreds or thousands.
"Furthermore, siblings could manifest their abilities at the same time, or some might inherit only the other side's ability—namely, their mother's. How could it have been passed down continuously like this?"
Did they practice incest generation after generation? None of them seemed insane, though.
The scribe's eyes widened. His condescending expression vanished completely, replaced by one of sheer embarrassment.
"Ahem. It seems it is not yet time for you to learn that. You will likely hear about it separately after your awakening."
His words hinted at some secret, but his expression made it glaringly obvious that he knew absolutely nothing!
Were Mendel's laws of inheritance still too advanced for the people of this world?
Still, with my Awakening Day just around the corner, this was an incredibly crucial matter for me.
Until a thousand years ago, this world was not much different from medieval Europe back on Earth, my previous world.
There was no magic capable of burning the world, nor were there knights who could cleave stone and shatter castle walls.
Priests couldn't use holy magic, and alchemists were nothing more than con artists.
But after the Great Cataclysm a thousand years ago, this world became completely different from the Earth of my past life.
A thousand years ago, black gates were created all over the continent, and monsters crossed over from a world called the Demon Realm. Ordinary animals mutated into monsters, and a being called the Demon King even appeared to lead them.
As the world teetered on the brink of destruction, humans with extraordinary powers, those called heroes, began to emerge.
People who could cleave the sky with swords and scorch the seas with magical fire.
They saved humanity from the brink of extinction, drove out the Demon King, and sealed the gates of the Demon Realm.
Thanks to them, humanity survived, but the world was never the same again.
The beasts, now called monsters, remained scattered across the continent, and the heroes' abilities were passed down to their children, forming a new ruling class: the nobles of today.
And the day these nobles inherited the heroes' abilities was called 'Awakening Day'.
It fell on the sixth birthday, and it was just two days away.
After class ended, I followed Flora out into the hallway.
Although I could get around perfectly well on my own, there was no way they would let me—an illegitimate child, but still a Duke's son—wander around unattended.
Fortunately, I had worked hard to win over the maids, so walking around with them wasn't too uncomfortable.
Sometimes, having them around actually came in handy, just like now.
"Hey, mongrel."
I ran into a group of people in the hallway.
Two boys walked down the corridor accompanied by their servants.
The younger of the two picked a fight with me the moment he saw me.
He pointed at me arrogantly, standing about a head taller than I was.
The older boy beside him glanced briefly at me, then walked past with an expressionless face, leaving the younger one behind to pick a fight.
Though they didn't seem to consider me a brother at all, they were indeed my half-brothers.
Simon De Gracia and Manuel De Gracia, the two sons of the Duke's first wife.
Unlike me, an illegitimate child, they were the proper, legitimate heirs of the Gracia Ducal House.
The eight-year-old brat sneered at me haughtily.
"Your awakening is in a few days, right? But can you even awaken?"
It was a taunt I heard every time we met, but this time, the words stung quite a bit.
The brat was right.
Both of them had already passed their Awakening Days, and both had successfully awakened.
The little brat Manuel kept teasing me as sparks crackled between his fingers.
Unlike the eldest, Simon, who watched from a distance, the second son, Manuel, had awakened the ability of his mother's family, the first Duchess.
A magic-type ability.
Because of this, he had taken a step back from inheriting the ducal house, though it might help him secure the backing of the Duchess's faction.
My mother, however, was a commoner with no abilities.
Though she came from a fairly prosperous merchant family, that meant nothing to the nobility as long as she had no inherited ability.
According to the thorough research I'd done in the library, the genes responsible for passing down inherited abilities behaved like recessive genes, difficult to manifest.
In the end, having a commoner for a mother meant my chances of awakening were a mere one in four.
'As expected, was my ability to regress to the past upon death not a form of awakening?'
Or perhaps my memories of my past life were the awakening itself.
Well, despite what I thought, I actually had quite a lot.
My thanks, once again, to the nameless god.
'Well, it's not as if my resurrection ability awakened on Awakening Day anyway...'
In fact, it would be highly problematic if the ability I currently possessed was my inherited ability.
Since I would have no further abilities to gain, I wouldn't obtain any power on Awakening Day.
Once Awakening Day passed, I would be demoted to a commoner, and at best, I might have to live as a scribe or an administrative clerk in some remote corner of the territory.
'Wait...'
As my thoughts reached that point, my mouth fell wide open.
"Not awakening might not be so bad, actually?"
"What?"
At my slip of the tongue, the little brat Manuel looked utterly bewildered.
"Hmm, that seems like it would be much better for survival..."
Since gaining the Duke's protection, life hadn't been too bad, but before that, I'd lost count of how many times I'd died and started my life over.
If not for my ability to resurrect, I would surely have become a corpse as a baby long ago.
"What the hell are you talking about!"
Manuel shouted right in front of me, but I didn't hear him at all. I was too busy weighing the pros and cons of awakening versus failing to do so.
'Maybe I've been looking at this from only one angle all this time.'
Because I constantly faced the threat of death, I was always craving the power to avoid it.
In this world, the only power I could obtain was through awakening. Because of that, my thinking seemed to have become completely narrow-minded.
But if I looked at it from another angle, it might actually be better not to awaken.
In any case, the Duke's protection would last only until Awakening Day. Once that day passed, I would undoubtedly face threats to my life again.
But if I failed to awaken, I could live free from the danger of death. I might be able to spend my entire life peacefully as a quiet civil official.
"Thanks, Brother!"
I suddenly grabbed the brat's hand.
Zap!
A sharp static shock shot through my hand.
Though his ability was still undeveloped and weak, my entire hand stung.
Yet even that small pain in my hand made me happy.
"What do you think you're doing all of a sudden!"
Manuel flew into a rage, but all he did was throw a verbal tantrum.
Both Simon and Manuel were well-educated children of the Gracia Ducal House.
And the servants, including Flora, were watching us in the hallway.
It wasn't easy for a Duke's son to resort to physical violence right in front of the servants.
I waved to Manuel and Simon, who was watching from a distance, then walked in the opposite direction.
Manuel's face was flushed with anger, while Simon stared at me with furrowed brows.
But I had no intention of bickering with ten- and eight-year-old brats.
"To brush off the second young master's words like that, Young Lord is truly amazing."
Flora's sudden exclamation of admiration came from behind me, but I was simply overjoyed that my worries about awakening had eased.
Awakening Day arrived in no time.
That morning, after dressing me in splendid clothes, my mother hugged me tightly as I prepared to leave the room.
"It's all right even if you don't awaken. There's no need to worry at all. You are my truly lovely son."
My heart warmed at my mother's voice.
Because my body had grown younger, it seemed my heart had inevitably grown softer as well. Moreover, unlike the Duke, my mother truly loved me.
Even if I remembered my past life, my mother was still my mother.
"Yes. I love you."
At the words I uttered for the first time, the arms around me stiffened.
She squeezed me even tighter, and my face turned blue from lack of air.
Dangerous. I almost died.
A moment later, as I walked down the hallway with my mother and the maids, I continued to reflect on the past few days.
Indeed, if I failed to awaken, my mother would be the one I had to worry about.
A child without an inherited ability could not become a noble, and my mother, having borne a child useless to the Gracia Ducal House, might be cast out of the estate.
'Well, it's not as if my maternal family is poor. If worst comes to worst, I can simply support her and live with her.'
Though she would be separated from my father, leaving this house, where life was so precarious, would probably be better for her as well.
'Besides, it's not as if I know nothing about economics and commerce.'
With the experience of my past life, working at my maternal family's merchant house didn't seem like a bad option, either.
In any case, nothing had been decided yet. The Awakening Ceremony would reach its conclusion soon enough; I could worry about it then.
I gathered my thoughts and followed my mother.
Taking brisk steps, we arrived at the family sepulcher in the rear garden of the mansion.
An underground stone chamber where the sarcophagi of the direct lineage—from the first Duke, who rose to the rank of Duke as the King's brother, to my grandfather—were enshrined.
The deepest part of the family sepulcher was a secret place belonging to the Gracia family, accessible only to the Duke, and it sparked all kinds of rumors among the mansion's servants.
But I was in the outermost stone chamber, where various ceremonies were held.
The sarcophagi in the family sepulcher were concealed from view by stone walls hung with banners and decorations.
In this stone chamber, aside from the banners and decorations hanging on the walls, there was only a massive pattern drawn on the floor.
People had already gathered inside the stone chamber.
On one side stood the two brothers who had picked a fight with me a few days earlier, along with the Duchess, Brivia De Gracia.
She was the eldest daughter of Marquis Lansarot, whose house still wielded immense influence, and the principal wife of the Duke.
She gazed ahead with her usual calm expression.
She was beautiful and incredibly young. An elegant aura surrounded her, making it clear at a glance that she was a noble of high standing.
'She and the expressionless Duke look like a match made in heaven...'
'Is she really the culprit who killed me?'
She was the likeliest culprit, with both the position and the power to have me killed.
She could easily block the Duke's attempts to track down the culprit, and she could also make the maids who had tried to kill me disappear without a trace.
'But since there's no evidence...'
Well, judging by the Duke's behavior, even if there were evidence, it would likely be meaningless. Besides, it might not have been her directly, but rather the nobles who followed her.
She would only need to turn a blind eye; my death was nothing more than a trivial matter to them.