Financiers and Eggnog Mid-Lesson (1)
To be perfectly honest, he had let his guard down.
In his previous life, he had come from a quasi-dystopian surveillance state where CCTV cameras covered every block and every citizen’s data sat registered on electronic servers—one of the safest places on Earth, ranked among the very best for public order.
After reincarnating, though, safety had been the furthest thing from his daily reality.
Beyond the cities and villages lay wild lands where a single misstep could cost you your life. Yet if he wanted to avoid starving, he had no choice but to take those risks. Even after a minimum of twelve grueling hours of labor.
Thanks to that, Karem had faced mortal danger more than once out in the forests and fields. Mostly low-tier monsters like goblins—but to a half-starved child who wasn’t even a grown adult, they had been a very real threat.
That hard-earned survival instinct had dulled in just a few short months of civilized abundance that even his previous self would have envied. And this was Winterhome, right in the heart of a ducal castle. Expecting danger here would have been the stranger thing.
(Sure, failed experiments blew the place up on the regular, but still.)
Which was why, when several metal cubes suddenly came flying at him, Karem froze on the spot like an animal caught in headlights. In the past he would have dodged on pure reflex. Now he simply locked up—potentially fatal if the blocks had hit true.
But Karem was no longer alone.
“Ups-a-daisy.”
Mary was already in front of him. She smashed the lead metal block with a clean punch. Clang! A perfect fist imprint bloomed across its surface as it dropped to the floor.
“I’d almost forgotten how good this feels.”
Catherine murmured with a nostalgic smile and flicked her hand. The remaining blocks trailing behind exploded in a shower of metal shards against the barrier she raised, scattering with a thunderous crack.
“Is this really something to get nostalgic over?”
“Mage Basics One. Before you ever cast a spell, you must first control your own mana. You learn to sense it, then practice moving objects with it over and over.”
“Oh—the telekinesis you mentioned before?”
“Mm. To an outsider it might look the same. But just because the result is similar doesn’t mean the process is identical.”
“How long do you have to keep practicing that?”
“Until you can regulate your mana with real skill, of course!”
The answer came not from Catherine but from the center of another room. The metal blocks that had been stacked like barricades flew swiftly into a neat pyramid under Olivier’s casual gesture as he sat across from Young Master Robin.
Only then could Karem finally take in Olivier’s chambers. Unlike Catherine’s room—which turned into pure chaos of materials, parchment, and books within a single day no matter how often Mary cleaned—this place was tidy and almost serene.
“Still, unlike that ungrateful scrap of a disciple over there, your progress itself is quick, so no need to worry, Young Master Robin.”
“Listen here, you dried-up fossil. Did your brain wrinkles go as white as that beard? I finished this in three days.”
“And in the process you reduced my laboratory to powder without leaving a single speck behind, you little brat! Do you have any idea how much that alchemy cauldron you punched a hole through was worth—”
“There is a far more important problem.”
Mary abruptly inserted herself between the two archmages just as they wound up for a proper argument.
“Dust layered between the bookshelves. Lint tangled with fur on the floor. Thin, stratified films of dust. Clearly neither of you has so much as opened a window for three days. I will begin cleaning.”
“R-right this moment?”
Olivier could not help but look flustered at Mary’s sudden declaration. But the house-elf’s eyes had already flipped the second she saw the (to anyone else perfectly acceptable) “filthy” room. Karem had known this was coming from the start. Catherine silently agreed.
“There are people in here right now. Won’t the dust just fly everywhere?”
“Young Master Robin. Cleaning must never be postponed. Please gather inside a purification barrier or something similar to keep the air clear.”
Committing the unthinkable discourtesy of ordering around a direct blood relative of the ducal house, Mary strode straight to the windows and flung them wide.
“Karem, right?”
“Young Master Robin. This is the first time we’ve met properly.”
“Is she always that oblivious over there?”
“No. Mary simply chooses not to read the room.”
“Our usual servants and maids are usually pretty careful around my family…”
“Maybe the work right in front of her just matters more.”
Karem and Robin followed Catherine into the purification barrier Olivier had already raised, just as Mary had instructed. Once the barrier stabilized, Olivier jerked his chin toward Catherine.
“So, Kitty. What brings you to my room? Aside from dumping work on me, you usually break out in hives just looking at my face.”
“The kid was curious what you’d been locked away doing for three days. I was bored, so I tagged along.”
“Bored? What about all the approval documents that piled up while—”
“Pwahahaha! You know better than anyone how fast I clear my desk, old man.”
“Urgh…”
Even if she dumped the work on Olivier while she was out, final confirmation and signature still belonged to the one with command authority—Catherine. Of course documents accumulated. But Catherine had already annihilated every last scrap the day they returned to the castle. Olivier knew her capabilities perfectly well, so all he could manage was a pained groan.
“Conveniently there’s a show to watch. Perfect timing, kid.”
“Yes, ma’am. You called?”
“We’re having today’s snack right here.”
“Wooow…”
Karem shot Catherine a look of pure disbelief. She intended to lounge and enjoy a pleasant rest right in front of Olivier, who still had work left (namely tutoring Young Master Robin). In other words, she was going to teabag him in real time.
Even Olivier found that hard to swallow. He flicked his fingers. An impromptu formula drank in mana and shot toward Catherine in the shape of a fireball.
“Ha. So you want to do this.”
Catherine snorted and caught the fireball; it froze solid on contact and shattered into countless shards that streaked straight back at Olivier.
Robin—who had barely been learning magic for a week—stared blankly, completely unable to process the sudden miniature war between two archmages. Karem, transcending rank in pure fellow-feeling, absently patted the boy’s shoulder.
“You’ll get used to it soon enough, Young Master.”
“Wait—you can get used to this?”
“Once you see it every few days, you adapt whether you want to or not. I’ll be back in a little while.”
Karem gave Robin a polite bow.
“Huh? Where are you going?”
“Just like Lady Athanitas said. To prepare the snacks.”
And with that Karem made a swift exit before any more sparks could fly. Mary, who had already finished cleaning the entire room, trailed after the boy.
In the end the two archmages’ long-overdue skirmish only stopped when Robin, unable to watch any longer, declared a ceasefire on the excuse that the lesson was not yet finished. Catherine knew perfectly well she had barged into the middle of a class, and she could not simply ignore Robin’s words, so she dismissed her magic first and stepped back from the lesson.
“No way, how did it—ah!?”
Whoooosh—crash!
Of course Robin’s mistakes continued.
“Lady Athanitas!”
“Don’t worry about that freeloader, Young Master. If she couldn’t block something that weak she would’ve quit being a sage ages ago.”
Olivier dropped into a chair with the air of a man dealing with unnecessary fretting. True to his word, Catherine simply uncrossed her arms from where she sat and waved a hand as if to say don’t mind me.
“Now then, let’s review the cause of failure. As always, the problem is singular, Young Master.”
“But the blocks are too heavy, and mana is way too hard to control!”
“Settle that impatient heart of yours. Just a few days ago those blocks wouldn’t even twitch.”
Olivier was right—Robin was being impatient. Yet he could hardly help it.
Born frail, Robin had always found chairs more familiar than the outdoors, and beds more familiar still than chairs. Of course he envied his free-roaming brothers and sisters—especially Alicia, who wandered Winterhome exactly as she pleased.
Then his mana had violently gone berserk, been calmed, and he had begun learning magic. Everything changed. A body that once gasped for breath after a few steps now felt so healthy he could barely keep still—and on top of that he could actually use magic, something he had never dared hope for.
For a boy who had spent his life lying down, the present felt like a dream. And he wanted to master the magic—the mana—that had made it all possible even more.
“In that case, quiet your breath and your mind. Close your eyes again and focus on the mana.”
“Okay. I’ll try once.”
“That is not it!”
The sudden denial made Robin whip his head around in surprise. Olivier tapped the ice sphere hanging from a cord against Robin’s chest—Skadi’s holy relic that Karem had lent him—and drove the point home.
“‘I’ll try.’ There is no such thing. You either do it, or you don’t. Or you cannot. ‘Trying’ means nothing. And in this old man’s eyes, Young Master, you are more than capable.”
Olivier’s words sent ripples through Robin’s chest. He was right. Until now Robin had never been able to do a single thing he wanted—no, he had been unable. All because of his weak body.
But in mere days the entire situation had flipped. A body that once weighed a thousand pounds now felt light as down, and the breath that had always rasped now came smooth. Everything was as new as the first time.
Olivier was absolutely correct. Robin had no reason at all to rush. He was still very young, and time was the one thing overflowing from his body.
I think I can do it this time.
The thought lightened his heart at once. Robin reached toward the metal blocks again. The task itself was simple: just lower the stair-stacked blocks one by one to the floor. He focused, moved the surrounding mana, and seized a block.
Bang—
“Lady Athanitas. The snacks you were waiting for have arrived.”
“Oh, finally. I was just starting to get bored.”
Crash-crash-crash-crash!
The sudden noise shattered his concentration. Excess mana slammed into the blocks; they flew outward as if to bombard the room—only to be caught by Catherine’s casual telekinesis and restacked into neat stairs.
He had been so sure it would work this time!
Robin glared at Karem and Mary with eyes full of fury, but the hot emotion melted away like snow under sunlight.
“Dessert cake? It’s smaller than I expected.”
“A result that came from testing several desserts, Contract-Holder. Junior Karem helped.”
“They’re called financiers.”
While plates and cups from the tray settled neatly onto the table, Robin’s gaze locked onto the small gold-bar-shaped pound cakes in the center, releasing a sweet aroma.
Convex like little ingots, they glowed a bright yellow-brown. The faded-gold cakes came in four varieties—some studded with seeds tinier than eye gunk, almonds, or berries, others left plain—stacked together like a miniature building mock-up.
And surrounding the table were five large cups crowned with cloud-like whipped cream dusted with cinnamon snow, each giving off its own rich, sweet fragrance.
“Studying hard is wonderful, of course, but since it’s snack time, how about we eat first?”
At Karem’s question Robin nodded without thinking. So this was why that pig Alicia kept coming around to brag every single day!
While his mind reeled in shock, his body sat itself at the table as if possessed by a ghost.