20 minutes had passed since the start of the exam. The scratching sounds of quills could be heard all around. The sound of quills was very nice. Especially the sloshing noise when the pen was dipped into and pulled out of the ink bottle. The fact that he could hear this sound meant that Raymond wasn’t concentrating on the exam at all.
‘What is mana?’
It was a simple question. Even if you weren’t trying to get into Foreston, it was basic knowledge that the heir of a magic family should have. Moreover, after being possessed by this body, he had read hundreds of books and perfectly grasped all knowledge about this world’s history, culture, noble etiquette, and magic. On top of that, combined with the knowledge from his previous life, he even knew things people of this world were unaware of!
And they brought out something like this for the academy’s exam?
‘Shouldn’t I sue them? Reward my efforts!’
However, before long he realized that the breathtaking question brought out by the academy was not simply seeking the ‘definition of mana’ found in the curriculum.
He briskly held up his paper first. He could feel the student behind him flinching in surprise.
‘Don’t worry, kid. I’m not cheating or anything.’
No matter how many times he looked over the paper, there didn’t seem to be any magic cast on it. Raymond put down the paper and once again thoroughly examined the paper’s material, form, and other things. Yeah, this paper was…
Astonishingly ordinary! He wondered if some kind of magic had been cast on it, but that didn’t seem to be the case at all. Unless he was unable to sense the flow of mana to an astonishing degree. But the latter probably wasn’t the case. If mana was flowing, the other students in the lecture room would certainly be able to feel it.
“Can I leave once I’m done?”
What the.
Purple melon head. The one with his hand raised, that purple punk – I didn’t hear the sound of an ink bottle from his desk.
If I make someone that smart the king, won’t I have to just keep studying?
Someone like that gets a pass for king candidate. Pass. I can’t recreate a second South Korea here.
After Purple Melon left the exam room, Raymond’s gaze returned to the exam paper.
If there was a practical exam in Phase 2, it was obvious this clumsy body of his would screw it up. And if there was no Phase 2, he had to perfectly pass this exam even more desperately. In other words, for Raymond, the end of this exam was his chance to escape death.
Go spin, you smarty pants. Haven’t you realized some things while reading books too?
Ways to emit mana even in small circles, or how suitable mana differs for each person, or even better, quantum mana, or the timeline adjustment hypothesis…
As he was pondering deeply, some students left the lecture hall. Among them was someone with a hat pulled low over his face, completely obscuring it. Why is he all bundled up like that? Isn’t he hot? Or is there a reason he has to hide his identity?
As the student with the peculiar outfit left, Raymond’s eyes naturally turned to the clock. No matter how he calculated it, there wasn’t enough time to fill up this huge piece of paper.
“…What is mana.”
At that moment, Raymond almost shouted out loud in excitement. Eureka!
He had realized something. The answer to the question written on this exam paper was astoundingly simple. And in less than a minute after having this epiphany, Raymond submitted his exam paper and left the lecture hall. Just like that guy who left after submitting the exam paper first with full marks, he didn’t open the ink bottle lid even once.
***
Funnily enough – well, it wasn’t funny – there was no Phase 2 exam. I wonder why I had assumed there would obviously be a Phase 2 exam. From the beginning, Foreston, which selected candidates before the exam, was not the sort of academy that would go through the hassle of having a Phase 2.
As expected, Raymond received a notification that he had passed. Nicole, who had been happily munching away at the Jean’s Berry Berry Cake he had kept refrigerated, framed and put up the notice that he had passed.
“Amazing, Young Master. How did you figure that out?”
Nicole was sincerely admiring Raymond’s insight in unraveling the secret behind the exam question.
“It’s simple. Since mana disposition differs from person to person, asking what mana is means they want you to infuse your own mana into the paper. The reason the paper was so big was to confuse the students.”
“If it were me, I think I would have just written down what I memorized from the books over and over. Haha! Well, I doubt I would have even memorized it in the first place.”
The enrollment condition for Foreston was, ‘Those who can use magic.’
Raymond also had to admit that was the most appropriate and efficient exam submission method matching that condition. Nicole returned to Raymond’s side and offered him the herb chocolate scented tea newly in fashion in the Betelbach Empire, asking,
“In any case, Young Master will be leaving the mansion now. When is the day of enrollment?”
“The second day of the month when the Crimson Goddess builds her home.”
“Early September then, exactly one month from now.”
“You don’t appreciate the beauty of expression.”
“Such expressions are only used by nobility. They don’t really reach commoners like me.”
As Raymond crossed his legs on the sofa and shook his head, Nicole pretended to wipe tears from his eyes with a handkerchief.
“It really is a pity. Now that I think about Young Master leaving this mansion, I feel quite regretful.”
“You’ll be following me there as my servant. What do you have to feel regretful about?”
“Haha, I’m just saying it for show. I have to pretend to feel something.”
Knock knock. As Raymond was listening to Nicole’s nonsense, someone knocked on the door. Since it was the room of the exiled eldest son of the Duke who rarely had guests visiting, Raymond soon realized it must be his younger brother. When he told him to enter, the door slowly opened and his brother revealed himself.
His younger brother, only two years apart, was still short. Peeking out his head from behind the door without fully entering the room, he threw out a question right off the bat.
“Did you pass?”
“I did.”
Then he pricked up his ears like a rabbit and dashed off. Of course I didn’t chase after him. It was too bothersome.
Raymond scooped up a generous spoonful of the soft, fluffy pudding placed on his stomach and stuffed it into his mouth. The light, easily digestible pudding was the optimal snack for reading books. He quite liked the new tea Nicole had brought as well. Looking at the room door his young master had run out of, Nicole asked,
“Aren’t you going after him?”
“Why would I chase that goody-goody brother of mine.”
With an indifferent expression, Raymond turned to the next page of the book he was reading.
***
“He’s doing that again.”
“He must be like that because he’s young.”
It happened this way every time.
Over the past few days, Adrian Spurling, the Spurling family’s adorable second son, had made it a habit to exchange a few words with his elder brother Raymond before dashing off. Raymond had even asked Nicole if my previous self had abused my younger brother or something. However, Nicole shook his head and answered,
—”When did you ever harass or bully him!? Young Master completely ignored Young Master Adrian, don’t you remember?”
—”Ah, I’ve told you. I said I hit my head when I fell out of bed and lost some memories. A-Anyway! Was I…that bad?”
—”You did talk during meals or occasionally. Lady Sasha made an effort, you see. Ignoring, ignoring, and more ignoring! But ever since Young Master changed, and you’ve been responding a bit when he talks to you, maybe that’s why he tries to approach you? Young Master Adrian has always wanted to get close to you. So this time, try being a little friendlier too. You’ll only get to see him during the break in a month anyway.”
I guess Nicole was right for once. Since he’s my one and only brother, should I try treating him more amiably?
Of course, Raymond didn’t dislike his little brother either. Rather, he simply didn’t have the leeway to pay attention to him.
In the first place, since he wasn’t originally from here, just adapting took effort. On top of that, he didn’t have any memories of having a family in his previous life either. In that past life, those who approached him only did so to get something out of him, not out of pure, innocent affection for him.
‘…I need to learn how to get along amiably.’
.
.
.
Adrian kept talking to Raymond, and today he scurried over and poked Raymond’s elbow before scampering away like a squirrel.
“Aren’t you really going after him when he’s being that proactive?”
“How do you know the heart of a 14 year old? When you don’t even know my own heart.”
“…When you say things like this, it does seem like you’re 16.”
“If you’re going to say kid-like things that don’t suit you-.”
“Eek! You have to use nice words!”
What a nuisance. Would it be bad if I just broke one of his arms?
Unable to endure Nicole’s nagging, Raymond finally let out a long sigh and abruptly got up from his seat.
“Young Master, where are you going?!” Nicole shouted, but Raymond softly replied “I’m running away from your nagging” before closing the door and heading to the garden.
‘I don’t know, I don’t get it.’
There was nothing wrong with what Nicole said. Yet Raymond was angry.
When I really don’t know how to treat my younger brother, what am I supposed to do?
Among the advice he’d heard during his Hunter days, there was talk that brothers were meant to fight and hit each other as they grew up… So should I just hit him next time we meet? Maybe I’ll try hitting him when I see him again.
‘That’s way too violent though. I’m only violent when I have a reason.’
As he was lost in thought while walking around the garden, he soon came across a large circular pond.
Raymond approached the vicinity of the pond. Thanks to good maintenance, the water in the pond was clean and tranquil. As Raymond absentmindedly looked down at the fish swimming inside,
‘They look delicious.’
The instant he stood up from staring blankly at the water, three small whirlpools formed in the middle of the pond.
[Foreston Pass Reward distribution will now begin.]
Reward?
The whirlpools in the pond shook violently as if to swallow Raymond up before subsiding once again. Sensing intuitively that he should escape from this place, Raymond promptly stood up from where he was.
At that moment, as if to grab the hem of Raymond’s clothes as he tried to run away, the pond spat something out with a *plop*.
It was a shabby notebook.
And surprisingly, the notebook that had flown out of the pond wasn’t wet at all. Rather than having come out of the water, it was dried out, as if someone had been flipping through the notebook under the sun just before, and it gave off a nice scent. The hardcover notebook was a high-quality one bound in red leather.
Clutching the notebook in one hand, Raymond stuck out his lower lip sulkily, alternately glancing between the notebook and pond, while recalling how the pond’s surface had crudely rippled when his face was reflected in it earlier.
‘It’s trying to tell me something.’
His intuition to escape the place immediately somehow changed into the thought that he had to look through this notebook right this instant. Raymond untied the fabric strap around the closed notebook and checked inside. As he opened the notebook, writings about what had happened on certain dated days, as well as impressions regarding those events, could be seen.
This was someone’s diary.
There were several ways to distinguish one person from another. Faces, fingerprints, things like that. And handwriting was also one of those distinguishing features. From the letters and memos left in his room, Raymond knew who the owner of this handwriting was.
It was Raymond from his past life, the former owner of this diary.
Raymond kept reading through the diary. There were far too many missing contents with blotted out ink. Because of the crushed ink stains, there weren’t many pages he could properly read either. His younger brother Adrian’s name occasionally appeared, along with his own name as well.
+++
‘Stern Year 467, X Month X Day
Adrian still doesn’t talk to me. My younger brother is becoming more and more depressed. How can I become closer to him? It’s too difficult.’
‘X Month X Day
Lately, Adrian has barely been showing up at the academy. He’s more talented at magic than me though. There’s a limit to how much I can hide Adrian’s grades from our parents. But I think I know who Adrian is hanging out with. I wonder who has enthralled my brother.’
+++
It seems the relationship between Raymond and Adrian really wasn’t good.
So far, there was nothing particularly surprising being said. However, when Raymond read the last legible entry at the very end, a corner of his heart started becoming uneasy.
+++
‘X Month X Day
Adrian.
I shouldn’t have had that kind of relationship with you. If I were to…’
+++
The contents that followed were illegible. No matter how much he rubbed the blotched ink with his sleeves, the smudges only became worse without improving readability at all.
Moreover, the date.
‘It’s Stern Year 460 now. That’s a date that hasn’t arrived yet.’
Considering when and where it was discovered, it was too ambiguous to write off as someone’s prank. No, rather than ambiguous, the timing and location were too conveniently coincidental. As if anticipating that he would come here at this exact timing, it was set up like magic.
Raymond thought that once he returned to the mansion, he should check each servant one by one. If he was lucky, wouldn’t he be able to find someone who knew the identity of this diary?
At that moment, as if waking him from a dream, Nicole’s husky voice echoed loudly in his ears.
“Young Master! Young Master! Where are you?! His Excellency the Duke is looking for you! Young! Mas! Ter! Ray! Mond! Young Master!”
“…I’m coming, I’ll go.”
In the end, Raymond concealed the diary against his chest before walking off.
He somehow had a strong premonition that this diary was something he absolutely had to take. Once he returned to his room, Raymond tossed the diary into a drawer with a lock and immediately locked it up.
The moment he arrived, Nicole cleaned Raymond up, changed his outfit, then directly led him to the Duke’s office he had been waiting in. Clutched in Raymond’s hand was the notice of admission to Foreston that Nicole had handed him.
“Father. It’s Raymond.”
“…Come in.”
I wish he had given a word of celebration instead. As Raymond turned the door handle decorated with the ducal goose emblem symbolizing his family and entered his father Terrian’s office, his father was glaring at him with a rigid waist and stiff expression.