Boyhood (9)
"Follow me."
Leonhardt teaching me personally? Yeah, that's a little terrifying.
No clue what excuse this sister-obsessed maniac is going to use to torment me.
But you know what? I'll take it.
Asagon was a game built on otome-style character raising. Attend a particular lecture enough times, and a higher-tier course would unlock — one that boosted your stats even harder. Usually that meant the instructor's skill or social rank had gone up.
Leonhardt's a talent monster who's going to rank among the top ten knights in the entire Empire someday.
And his status? Second only to the Emperor.
If I'd been stuck training with the regular recruits, the best I could've hoped for was an intermediate lecture. Play this right and I might even hit advanced.
Edwin followed Leonhardt with a spring in his step. The Duchess gathered Serifina along the way.
"Huh?"
Even as her mother tugged her along, Serifina made sure to snag a few more cookies. She still hadn't eaten nearly enough!
"…Mother, why are you coming with us?"
"Serifina is of an age to begin her education as well, is she not?"
"Huk!"
The cookie slipped from Serifina's tiny hands. She looked up at Leonhardt with pure terror in her eyes.
"I have to train too?"
"Mm…"
Leonhardt hummed, torn between sparing his beloved little sister any pain and putting her through the education her future demanded.
"…She's so small. Why start training already? Let her just observe for today."
"Hmm."
The Duchess let out a meaningful little hum. And so the four of them set off for the training grounds.
Is there any way I can get Serifina training with me somehow?
Honestly, if you ranked the pure geniuses in this world, Pinkie and Serifina would be neck and neck for first place.
Continent's strongest knight, mage, priest, tamer — hell, even the Hero.
Raising Serifina would unlock achievements too. Training together is pure upside for me.
More importantly… if Leonhardt's coaching me alone, who knows what he'll pull. Having the Duchess or Serifina around might act as a suppressor.
Scheming all the while, Edwin arrived at the empty training grounds.
"This is the training ground reserved for our family alone. I have specially opened it to an outsider like you — consider it an honor."
"I'm honored. So what do I do now?"
"We'll start by testing your fundamentals. Run twenty laps of the grounds."
Twenty laps, huh.
Grounds are about the size of a school athletic field, so call it two hundred meters a lap… roughly four kilometers total.
Even elementary school sports teams run that much in a day, from what I remember.
I figured he was going to invent some excuse to torture me, but this is actually pretty reasonable?
Edwin stood still for the briefest moment while writing in his diary — a fraction of a second, nothing more. Leonhardt couldn't even wait that long.
"That's shorter than what the trainees run every single morning. Don't tell me you're not up to it?"
"Of course not."
Edwin began loosening up before the run. Leonhardt's brow twitched.
"What are you doing?"
"Warming up. Don't tell me the ducal house skips stretching before training?"
"That's not what I meant."
What petty crap is this guy looking to pick a fight over now.
"A commoner's son knowing how to systematically warm up his body."
Ah.
Edwin winced again. That was the gap between a modern soul steeped in modern habits and the natives of this world, showing up in the dumbest places.
Is this seriously a game world?
Isekai cliché says nobody's supposed to question anything weird.
People being this sharp is kind of a pain, honestly.
But then shamelessness took the wheel.
So what are you gonna do about it?
Dig into this body's background all you want — pure ordinary commoner. I can act as out-of-pocket as I please. What exactly can you do about it?
"It's just something my father used to do before going hunting. I remembered it and pieced together my own version."
"That doesn't make—"
"Wow, wow!"
Serifina's eyes sparkled.
"That looks fun! I wanna do it too!"
"You do?"
Hell yes, thank you.
If this counts as training, I might even get an achievement out of it. And if Serifina just eats and plays without ever moving, she'll end up chubby like in the original — most players in Asagon 2 started by putting her through knight training just to slim her down.
Serifina's teal eyes rolled left and right.
"No!"
"…You just said you wanted to."
"Nuh-uh! I don't wanna get fat!"
Serifina bolted over in a flurry.
"Oppa! I want to train with Edwin too!"
"…"
Leonhardt froze as if hit with a stun effect. The Duchess dabbed at the corners of her eyes, moved beyond words.
"My baby… you've truly grown. You're all grown up now."
"Really? Am I an adult now?"
"Train hard with Edwin, eat your meals without being picky, and listen to Mama, and you'll be a grown-up in no time."
"Edwin! Hurry up and teach me!"
Edwin put Serifina through a few simple stretches. Watching her little body pull and reach, he couldn't hold back — the diary just spilled out of him.
Streeeeetchy stretchy stretch-stretch-stretch
"Stretch! Stretch-stretch!"
She is legitimately, ridiculously cute.
Is it even legal for a living creature to be this adorable?
Edwin wasn't the only one losing his mind. Leonhardt, the Duchess — every last one of them had been utterly captivated by Serifina's cuteness. Edwin was simply the first to snap out of it.
"I'm going to start running now. Want to run with me?"
"Yeah!"
Edwin set off at an easy pace. Serifina bounded after him, full of that particular brand of all-or-nothing energy unique to small children.
She's going to burn out like that. She finally showed interest — if she hits a wall too fast, she'll get sick of it and quit.
Gotta teach her pacing.
"Not like that. I've got a method I picked up hiking mountains — try copying me. First, don't swing your arms so big…"
Between coaching Serifina, their lap around the grounds slowed from a run to something closer to power-walking. For a girl who had never so much as exercised in her life, though, it was the perfect speed.
After the two of them had companionably circled the grounds about three times, Leonhardt and the Duchess watched with something like awe.
"I'm starting to understand why you brought such a suspicious boy into the ducal house. Serifina — who wouldn't lift a finger for anything she didn't feel like doing — is actually running."
"I never expected it to work this well myself."
Even as they spoke, the running didn't stop.
Around five laps and she's starting to flag.
Keeping her interested is what matters, so I should cut it here.
"Serifina, take a break now."
"Why?"
"If you push too hard from the start, it'll just wear you out. You build stamina slowly."
"I'm not tired!"
Classic Serifina pride.
She's gasping for air and still claiming she's fine.
If he trusted the bluff and kept her running, she'd collapse, and a memory of pure misery would make it that much harder to get her moving next time. How to talk her down?
He deployed the hard-won expertise of a full week spent looking after Serifina.
"Think about cake."
"*Slurp.*"
"If you eat too much cake all at once, your tummy hurts, right?"
"Nuh-uh!"
"Really?"
"…Three pieces is fine!"
"We just ran five whole laps of the training ground, right? That means you already ate five pieces of cake!"
"Huk!"
Serifina skidded to a stop and wiggled her little fingers. Three fingers on the left hand, all five on the right. Then she flung both hands up in a full-body cheer and scampered straight to the Duchess.
"Mama, Mama!"
"Yes, yes. Five whole laps of the training ground — you did so well."
"Does that mean starting today I can eat five pieces of cake?"
"Hm?"
Serifina struck a triumphant V-sign.
"I only ate three pieces of cake earlier!"
"You did, didn't you…"
"So I want two more right now!"
"…"
Leonhardt spun on pure reflex.
"Butler. Cake, immediately—"
Edwin, belatedly realizing they had left the butler behind, redirected the request to the Duchess.
"Mother. Would you be so kind as to bring some cake for Serifina?"
"My baby worked so hard — a reward is in order. I'll be right back; look after the children for me."
The moment the Duchess stepped away, Leonhardt fixed Edwin with a glare.
"Now run twenty laps of the grounds."
"Did you not just watch me run five?"
Leonhardt clamped his hands over Serifina's ears.
"You call that running? A slug could've outpaced you. Less talking, more laps."
Petty as hell.
Okay, fair — that barely counted as a warm-up.
In the original game, lectures would fail half the time and the stats wouldn't stick properly. Maybe half-assing it like that is exactly how you get those failure flags?
Guess I actually have to try.
While Edwin settled into a real run, the Duchess returned with a retinue of maids and the butler in tow.
"Only two pieces, understood?"
"Mama is the best in the whole world!"
Whether Leonhardt was reeling from the blow or not, Serifina blissfully demolished her slice of cake. Then, the moment Edwin finished his twentieth lap and came back, she eyed the last of her cake, hesitated for a long beat, and finally speared a bite on her fork to hold out toward him.
"Here!"
"…What's this."
"Edwin worked hard too, so you get a prize!"
She was eating this.
Do I actually have to eat it?
Edwin stole a cautious glance across the way. Leonhardt was radiating so much murderous intent that he gave up on reading the room entirely.
"Eat it!"
Don't eat it and she'll pout. Eat it and Leonhardt will lose his mind.
But Serifina is a hundred times more important than Leonhardt.
In the end, Edwin ate the cake.
"It's good."
The ducal house's pastry chef is honestly cracked, I swear.
"Mhm! It's so good! Later we can eat cake ten… ten…"
Serifina flexed her little fingers open and shut with intense concentration, then announced with absolute confidence:
"Nineteen more pieces!"
That's… a bit much.
Your pancreas would straight-up explode.
As the two children chattered happily, the living embodiment of jealousy cut in.
"Edwin. Training isn't finished yet…"
Wow, look at that clenched jaw.
How jealous can one man get.
Maybe if you spent less time being a full-time sister-con and more time actually being nice to Serifina, you wouldn't be in this mess.
Tsk tsk.