KDPCD 25

Meldor, who had been listening to us, tilted his head from side to side as he paced around.

Whenever our eyes met, he would raise his eyes sharply, looking like some tiny animal desperately trying to puff itself up to appear bigger.

“Curious?”

“Just give me the letter!”

Then, noticing Sir Brooks’s expression, he quickly corrected himself.

“No, please give it to me!”

Sir Brooks looked at his student with complicated emotions before gently patting Meldor on the shoulder.

“You’ve worked hard, Lord Meldor.”

“Huh?”

“We’ll end today’s training here. We’ll calmly rearrange your lesson schedule later.”

“Whaaat?”

“Thank you for your hard work, Sir Brooks. I’ll talk to Meldor, so you can leave now.”

“Yes, Lady Bellady. Then I shall take my leave.”

Sir Brooks patted Meldor’s shoulder once more as if to reassure him before heading out of the training grounds.

Meldor seemed bewildered by his usually strict teacher’s unusually gentle behavior.

“What’s going on?”

“You worked hard, Meldor. From now on, you won’t have to train so excessively.”

“…What did you say?”

“Here. Read it yourself.”

I handed the letter to Meldor.

He snatched it from me and quickly scanned the contents.

Bellady,

I received your letter.

I was also aware that Meldor’s training was excessive compared to that of his peers.

That child, Meldor, probably knows nothing of the circumstances and simply trusts and follows his parents’ words.

…As you said, what matters most is Meldor’s feelings.

Perhaps it was not Meldor, but Dohemia and I who were clinging too desperately to the sword.

From now on, I suppose we must open more paths for Meldor.

Tell Sir Brooks to reduce Meldor’s swordsmanship training.

As for adjusting his other lessons, I leave that to you.

Meldor kept his head lowered, staring only at the letter.

It wasn’t even that long. So why was he completely silent?

I casually shrugged and spoke.

“Meldor. I want you to reduce your swordsmanship lessons and study magic more seriously instead… Wait. Are you crying?”

“Sniff!”

Meldor hurriedly rubbed his eyes with his forearm.

“I’m not! I’m not crying!”

“Why hide it like crying is something embarrassing? You cried in front of me just a few days ago, too.”

At my words, Meldor abruptly raised his head and became indignant.

“That was because you made me cry!”

“What? You?”

“Y-You made me cry, Sister!”

“Made you cry? I was simply giving you the discipline your parents failed to provide.”

“What kind of discipline was that?! Aren’t you ashamed of treating your little brother like that just because you’re his older sister?!”

Meldor was now sobbing openly without even trying to hide it.

And yet, even while crying like that, he had enough energy to yell at the top of his lungs. What a vigorous little brat.

I answered nonchalantly.

“I’m not ashamed at all. It would have been more embarrassing to simply leave you alone when you were constantly looking down on me.”

“I-I never looked down on you!”

“Do I need to discipline your lack of conscience as well?”

At my words, Meldor hurriedly shut his mouth.

I slowly tilted my head as I watched him cautiously observe my expression.

There was no denying that I had put Meldor through excessive training under the pretext of discipline.

But from the beginning, I had never intended to discipline Meldor.

That was something a father who genuinely wanted to guide his son down the right path would do.

I had merely used it as an excuse to punish the brat who had repeatedly ignored me and treated me like an emotional trash can.

Rather, I think I deserve some praise for trying to talk things out with him in the first place.

The truth was, Meldor was practically a stranger to me.

Even so, the reason I had decided to give Meldor a carrot was because he was still young.

What happens from here depends entirely on you. Whether we return to being a family or become complete strangers.

I watched Meldor and gave him a meaningless smile.

Unable to know what I was thinking, Meldor relaxed his guard slightly and asked,

“Why did you send a letter like this?”

“What?”

“Why are you doing something good for me? You—no, Sister, you hate me.”

The innocence characteristic of Meldor was clearly visible in his eyes as he asked the question.

Including those eyes, Meldor really did resemble our mother.

Perhaps that was why Father was even more helplessly soft toward him.

I tilted my head.

“Well, maybe because I’m actually quite affectionate?”

My answer only made Meldor look even more confused.

It was a rare glimpse of my genuine feelings, but unfortunately, Meldor seemed unable to understand it.

Watching the bewildered Meldor was rather amusing, but my business here was finished.

“Discuss the lesson schedule with your teachers and report it to me. I’ll respect your opinion completely.”

Having said everything I needed to say, I left the training grounds.

I could still feel Meldor’s gaze following me from behind, but I continued walking without looking back.

A few days later.

Meldor’s lessons were adjusted so that swordsmanship took up a much smaller portion of his schedule, while magic was given considerably more weight.

Once his schedule was properly rearranged, Meldor’s hysterics noticeably decreased.

Then Sir Brooks came to see me privately.

—I want to thank you for helping me persuade the Duke.

He had come to express his gratitude.

It seemed that he, too, had realized that the reason Meldor’s personality had been getting worse was the stress caused by swordsmanship.

Truly, he’s a real teacher.

It wasn’t that I disliked Zeplin, but I thought I might have enjoyed taking lessons from Sir Brooks as well.

As I imagined Zeplin hearing that and dropping to his knees in despair, I was checking the estate’s winter budget when a maid approached me.

“Lady Bellady.”

“What is it?”

“The Imperial Family has sent an invitation.”

“The Imperial Family?”

I opened the luxurious invitation envelope the maid handed me.

Inside was an invitation to a banquet being held by the Imperial Family to commemorate the first snow of the winter.

After reading it, I looked out the window.

The garden, covered in soft snow that had fallen overnight, looked peaceful and beautiful.

“Looks like it’s about time for the winter banquet season.”

Winter was the worst season.

Countless commoners suffered from the cold and food shortages, while wealthy nobles fled to the warm southern regions.

The northern region, where the roots of House Alton lay, was particularly harsh.

Well, all of that belonged to the past now.

Because one great emperor had completely changed the fate of the Empire.

Grillica Kennewb Deckerdil.

The former emperor who had founded Kennewb School.

***

When I regained my memories from my previous life, I realized one thing.

This place is ultimately a world of its own.

Whenever I learned about history and background information that had never appeared in the original novel, I couldn’t help but realize that this, too, was a place where people lived their lives.

Of course, unlike Earth, this world had something called magic.

According to history, the continent had always been plagued by wars.

And magic had been the ultimate means of both attack and defense, capable of allowing one person to stand against a hundred.

It had been an age when bloodshed was constant.

However, 200 years ago, beings known as spirits appeared in the world and intervened in human wars.

[Do not disturb the world by repeatedly engaging in meaningless battles.]

Through the spirits’ intervention, every nation on the continent was forced to sign a Peace Treaty.

The treaty became an inviolable rule through the spirits’ ancient magic, making it impossible to break.

And so, the continent entered an unprecedented era of great peace.

An era perfectly suited to a romance-fantasy world filled with dreams, love, and hope.

Of course, there were still monsters and beings from other continents, so the nations couldn’t afford to neglect their military forces.

Still, the age of turmoil was over.

Naturally, magic, which had once been the ultimate weapon of attack, gradually transformed into an academic discipline.

Amid this change, mages established their own independent research institutions.

That was the origin of the Magic Tower that existed today.

The mages of the Magic Tower occasionally accepted requests from outside, but for the most part, they devoted themselves to their own research.

Magic had always had a high barrier to entry, and as time passed, it increasingly became something exclusively possessed by the mages themselves.

Then, one day, a person with ideas completely different from those of the existing mages appeared.

—Magic is a power capable of enriching the lives of countless people!

Until then, magic had been primarily focused on flashy and powerful offensive spells.

But she broke away from that tradition and developed highly practical magical technologies.

Then she combined them with science, which had only just begun to emerge.

Creating magical technology rather than merely magical formulas, and combining it with science, proved to be an extraordinary choice.

Thanks to this, magic that had previously only been able to be engraved into gemstones could be transformed into various forms and used to produce different effects.

The first historic invention born from the combination of magical technology and science.

That was the electric lamp currently illuminating my study.

And thus, “magical engineering” was born—the field that raised the miserable conditions of the novel’s world, which had been comparable to the Middle Ages, to something closer to the modern era.

And the person who founded magical engineering and came to be called the most revolutionary mage in history was none other than the former emperor, Grillica.

When magical engineering first appeared, the existing mages treated it as heresy.

But that treatment did not last long.

Grillica was not an ordinary mage.

She was a noble member of the Imperial Family.

Furthermore, many of the elders leading the Magic Tower were former battle mages who had once sworn loyalty to the Imperial Family.

Because of that, opposition from the mages was quickly suppressed.

Rather, some of them recognized the potential of magical engineering and actively cooperated with Princess Grillica.

And so, magical engineering blossomed and countless inventions were successfully created.

Among those inventions, the most successful and widely used were the water supply and heating systems.

Thanks to the new water supply and heating systems, the people of the Empire could use water conveniently and spend the harshest season of the year, winter, in comfort.

At the time, Grillica, who was still a princess, extended the water supply and heating systems to even the areas inhabited by the poor as part of her relief efforts.

As a result, people no longer froze to death, and sanitation also improved.

Diseases and epidemics decreased dramatically as well.

The princess’s popularity among the common people soared to the heavens.

Princess Grillica had previously been pushed away from the center of power and had little presence.

But she did not let this newfound popularity slip away.

Instead, she steadily expanded her influence.

She even went one step further and set her sights on the throne.

However, there were already three princes above her in the line of succession.

As a result, many factions opposed her.

Nevertheless, the tide gradually began turning in the princess’s favor.

It was only natural.

At first, the princess had allowed anyone to purchase the inventions she created.

But once she entered the political struggle for power, she restricted sales to members of her own faction.

Because of this, the daily lives of nobles belonging to the princess’s faction and those who did not gradually began to diverge.

The opposing nobles voiced enormous dissatisfaction with the princess’s monopoly.

But the princess dismissed all their complaints with a single statement.