Fate have other plan
# Chapter 3
"Huf... huf..."
I kept running, trying to ignore the ache in my legs and the sweat running down my face. It had been a couple of years since my reincarnation, and I was now nine years old. Since I couldn't awaken my mana until thirteen, I had decided to use the time to train my body instead.
The Rosewood Manor stood behind me, surrounded by its gardens and neatly maintained grounds. My training area was a simple patch of packed dirt with a few wooden dummies, a weapons rack, and a bench beneath an old oak tree. Nothing particularly impressive, but it was enough for my needs.
Unfortunately, I wasn't sitting on that bench.
I was running laps around the training ground. Again.
"Huf... huf..."
Four more years.
That was how long I had to wait before I could properly test my mana capacity. Until then, there wasn't much I could do about magic, so I decided to focus on things I could actually improve. Swordsmanship, footwork, balance, endurance, and hand-to-hand combat would all be useful regardless of how much mana I eventually possessed.
At least, that was what I told myself whenever I wanted to quit.
Physical training wouldn't increase my mana capacity. I already knew that. But being a mage didn't mean I could afford to neglect my body, especially in a world where monsters and hostile nobles were genuine threats. If my magical talent turned out to be terrible, I would need every advantage I could get.
Besides, living in a world without the internet was painfully boring. There were only so many books a person could read before wanting to do something else.
I slowed down as I reached the corner of the training ground, taking a moment to catch my breath.
Why does thirteen have to be so far away?
There was another reason I had thrown myself into training.
My hopes of getting some ridiculously overpowered system had been thoroughly disappointed.
Well, technically, I did have a system.
The problem was that it was basically an AI chatbot, and not a particularly impressive one. It couldn't display my status, measure my strength, check my mana capacity, give me quests, or reward me with mysterious points. It couldn't even tell me whether I was secretly the chosen one.
this is what it did.
All it could do was remember information.
And that was pretty much it.
To be fair, a perfect memory was something I would have loved to possess in my previous life. Imagine being able to remember everything you had ever read, every detail of every book, without having to go back and check it again. That alone would have been incredibly useful.
Unfortunately, remembering information and actually putting it to use were two very different things.
I could memorize every swordsmanship manual in existence, but that wouldn't magically turn my nine-year-old body into that of a master swordsman. Likewise, knowing how an electrical generator worked didn't mean I could build one from scratch.
And this world didn't even follow Earth's rules in quite the same way.
Here, electricity wasn't necessarily something people needed to generate through conventional means. It was another possible application of mana, just like fire, wind, light, and thunder. A talented mage could manipulate forces that people on Earth had spent centuries studying, often without understanding the underlying principles.
The funny thing was that some young mages probably couldn't perform basic multiplication, yet they could light a fire with a wave of their hands.
Honestly, that feels unfair.
Once I had learned to speak and read properly, I started spending most of my free time in the manor's library. I wasn't trying to become the greatest mage in history, nor was I particularly interested in spending my childhood buried beneath books.
I was there to train my AI.
Or, more accurately, to feed it information.
The Rosewood library wasn't particularly impressive compared to the grand collections in the royal capital, but it had enough books to keep me occupied. There were records of the kingdom's history, geography, magic theory, noble families, military strategy, monsters, herbal medicine, and even the territories surrounding our own.
Whenever I found something useful, I added it to my system's memory. Bit by bit, I was building a personal database of everything I learned about this world.
It wasn't much, but it was better than nothing.
I already knew a few things about the game's future from my previous life, including information I had picked up from the official guide. However, knowing about those events didn't mean I could do anything about them yet. I was still nine, and there were limits to what my small body could accomplish.
For now, gathering information and preparing myself were the only sensible options.
During these two years, I had also learned more about my family.
Both my parents were C-rank mages, which gave me some hope for my own mana capacity. Genetics played a significant role in determining how much mana a person could hold, although it never guaranteed a particular result. Still, having two C-rank parents was certainly better than coming from a family with little magical talent.
Even if I didn't possess some absurdly powerful ability, there was a reasonable chance I could reach C-rank myself.
At least, I hoped so.
I also had an older brother named Alex Rosewood. He was around fourteen and had inherited the same C-rank mana capacity as our parents. Unfortunately, I rarely saw him. As the next heir of the Rosewood family, he spent most of his time accompanying our father at the northern border.
Our territory wasn't exactly peaceful. Monsters occasionally wandered out of the wilderness, bandits sometimes crossed into our lands, and tensions with neighboring regions meant our soldiers couldn't afford to relax for long.
Most days, it was just me and my mother at the manor.
Thankfully, she occasionally found time to teach me basic magic theory. Our lessons usually took place in the garden, and sometimes she would demonstrate her own wind magic for my entertainment.
She had even figured out how to lift me into the air with a gentle breeze.
The first time she did it, I was terrified. By the third time, I was practically demanding another turn.
"Wow, Leon. You're always so excited whenever you see my magic."
My mother would laugh whenever she saw my reaction.
"I'm sure you're going to become an amazing mage someday. Maybe you'll even surpass all of us."
I always looked forward to those moments.
I'll definitely try.
For someone who remembered being twenty-seven in his previous life, I had to admit that being nine wasn't entirely terrible.
That evening, I was having dinner with my mother in the dining hall. The long table had been made for a much larger family, so sitting there with just the two of us always felt a little ridiculous. Servants moved quietly around us, bringing roasted meat, vegetables, soup, and fresh bread.
I was busy waiting for my mother to finish cutting a piece of meat for me when the dining hall doors suddenly opened.
My father entered, still wearing his dark military coat. Dust clung to his boots, and his clothes looked as though he had spent the better part of the day travelling. Alex followed behind him, looking just as tired.
They had clearly returned from the border only recently.
"Ashton. Alex."
My mother greeted them, setting down her cutlery.
"Mother," Alex replied with a respectful nod before taking the seat beside me.
My father let out a tired sigh and sat at the head of the table. For a little while, we ate without saying much. Then he placed his hand on the table and looked at us, his expression turning serious.
"The Duke of the Frostwolf family will be visiting our territory soon."
My mother stopped eating.
"The Duke himself? Why would someone of his status come all the way here?"
Alex looked up as well. Even I paused with my fork halfway to my mouth.
The Frostwolf family was one of the most powerful noble houses in the Kingdom of Valenor. Their influence extended far beyond their own territory, and their head was an A-rank mage known throughout the kingdom as the Wolf of Frost.
Someone like him wasn't the sort of person a remote territory could casually ignore.
"There have been increased movements near the northern border," my father explained. "Several villages under Frostwolf authority were attacked by unknown forces last month. They suspect another conflict may be starting."
Alex crossed his arms.
"They're taking it seriously. The Duke intends to inspect the bordering territories himself."
My father nodded.
"Including ours."
The three of them continued discussing the situation. My mother asked about the attacks, my father explained what little information they had, and Alex mentioned the condition of the northern roads. They talked about soldiers, border patrols, and the possibility of further trouble.
I barely heard any of it.
Frostwolf.
That name had been bothering me ever since I realized which world I had been reborn into. I knew far too much about what the future held for this family, and the thought of the Duke's visit made me uneasy.
Because this wasn't just another political inspection.
If the Duke was coming here, there was a chance someone else would accompany him.
Someone far more important than any border patrol or political dispute.
My fingers tightened around the edge of my chair as the name surfaced in my mind.
Lilith Frostwolf.
The woman who would eventually destroy the world.
I lowered my eyes, trying to keep my expression from changing.
Please tell me she's not coming here.
I had spent the past two years hoping that, with enough preparation, I might find a way to survive the future. But knowing that the Frostwolf family could soon arrive at our manor made that future feel much closer than I wanted.
And if Lilith really was coming...
I had a very bad feeling that my peaceful childhood was about to end.