Have I Returned?

“My little brother is going through with the engagement to Grand Duke Baldrova?”

The second son, Huren Rosnova, reacted as if he could scarcely believe his ears.

Gray hair and brown eyes. He was the man who oversaw the Rosnova family’s intellectual affairs and stood next in line to become family head. He had recently gone to the Empire on business as proxy for his father, Erembalt, and was only now returning.

“Yes.”

The butler who had delivered the report nodded.

“Really?”

“It is so.”

“That doesn’t make any sense. Did the brat misunderstand something?”

“He appears to understand exactly what it means.”

“Well, if even our elder brother grasped it, there’s no way that one wouldn’t….”

Huren scratched his chin. His own mind simply refused to accept the situation.

In a position where he either dies or leaves, why choose death?

Some ploy to prove to Father that he was a real man? But the decision had already been made by the Empire. Once accepted rather than refused, it could not be withdrawn. The same held true for Ferda. If he belatedly announced he would simply leave the house, it would be treated as a violation of Imperial law—and his head would part company with his body.

“So what’s the brat doing now?”

“He is scheduled to depart today, so he should be preparing to leave as we speak.”

“Is that so? Then there’s still a little time left for a chat between brothers.”

The butler, hearing those words, wore an inward expression of utter exasperation. The one who had first loathed and ostracized the concubine’s son with his blue eyes had been none other than Huren himself. For that man to speak of brotherhood was almost laughable.

Huren clasped his hands behind his back and strolled down the corridor as though taking a turn through the garden. When he arrived at Ferda’s door, the maids who ought to have been attending him were waiting outside.

“Why are you standing out here instead of attending him?”

The maids startled and bowed their heads as they explained.

“W-well, we offered to help him dress, but he ordered us to wait outside….”

“Absurd. So you’re simply waiting out here?”

“Yes….”

“Pathetic. Does he mean to dress himself? For all his pretensions he’s still a noble—how does he expect to manage that?”

Huren snapped with irritation, yet inside he was crowing with delight.

I knew it! Now that the day has come, he doesn’t want to go through with it.

He cleared his throat and flung the door open.

“Ferda! You haven’t even prepared properly—what do you think you’re—”

The tirade died in Huren’s throat. In his mind’s eye he had pictured Ferda sprawled across the bed, whining that he didn’t want to go. What he actually saw was something else entirely.

He’s dressing himself?

Ferda stood before the mirror, fastening his buttons.

“Entering without knocking is rather rude, isn’t it, Brother?”

In one stroke Ferda had turned the breach of etiquette back upon him.

“I expected to find you barricaded in bed.”

“Hardly. On a day as important as this, how could I possibly dawdle?”

“Then why leave the servants waiting outside?”

“I can manage clothes well enough on my own. And after today I will no longer have maids to rely on.”

His tone was utterly calm. His gaze remained fixed on the mirror as he inspected his own reflection. Huren blinked at him.

Is this really the same Ferda I knew?

What sort of creature had Ferda been? A parasite wearing a human face, smiling abjectly just to survive. And now? He was as composed and collected as a middle-aged man of substance.

A mere Ferda…

For the first time in his life, Huren felt a prickle of tension from Ferda’s presence. He cleared his throat, trying to smooth over the feeling, and changed the subject.

“Ahem. Right. I heard you accepted the engagement to Grand Duke Baldrova.”

“Yes.”

“If you’ve read any books at all, you know what that engagement means.”

“I understand perfectly. It’s the family’s way of saying ‘stop loitering around and get out,’ is it not?”

“What kind of talk is that? Even so, Rosnova wouldn’t send you off without a single coin. We’ll see you have enough to stand on your own.”

Ferda considered.

Money, is it…

Yes, they would give him money. How much? Enough to live for ten years—by commoner standards. To Ferda, raised among nobles, it was a sum he could burn through in three days.

Not that I didn’t hand every last coin to my master anyway.

He hadn’t done so out of generosity. The only magic instructors willing to take on a late-blooming pupil had been the greedy ones. The man hadn’t taught him properly, yet even the chance to access information had been valuable.

That old lecher is probably still chasing gold and women even now.

Recalling those days, Ferda let out a short, contemptuous snort of laughter.

He’s laughing?

No matter how Huren looked at it, Ferda had to be misunderstanding something. Otherwise there was no way he could afford to look so unconcerned.

“I still think you’ve got it wrong. Do you even know why marrying the Violent Dragon means death?”

“How could I not? I know it well. Her first fiancé was torn to pieces, wasn’t he?”

Baldrova’s first betrothed had been the Empire’s Third Prince—uncle to the current Emperor. Brilliant, handsome, and renowned for his popularity, he had even been spoken of as a candidate for the next throne, only to refuse the honor himself. That same Third Prince had been reduced to something worse than three pieces; his remains had been so mangled that the body was barely recognizable. It had happened less than a day after he entered the Grand Duke’s domain.

From that incident the world had drawn its conclusion:

Any human who would be Baldrova’s fiancé must possess abilities exceeding even those of the Third Prince.

Afterward Baldrova had sought a new betrothed, yet no one volunteered. The Third Prince had already been near-perfect; who could possibly fill that place? Still, a candidate had to be chosen each year from among the nobility. Every last one either fled or renounced their family register and left. In time the whole arrangement warped into a convenient pretext for noble houses to cast out unwanted children.

“You believe you can succeed where even the Third Prince failed?”

Could he?

“I don’t know.”

Honestly, he had no confidence. Even Ferda—who had once become the youngest Eighth-Circle Archmage in history and proven his power—could not claim certainty. But Ferda had never been a man who moved only when he was sure.

“Well, I’ll figure it out as I go, won’t I?”

Huren judged him reckless. Looking at Ferda with an expression of pure disgust, he issued his threat.

“Do whatever you like, but do not run.”

“……”

“The moment you flee, the Rosnova family will send men to take your head. Understood?”

In the past Ferda’s face would have been white with terror. Now he simply met Huren’s gaze without the slightest flicker of emotion.

“Brother.”

For an instant Huren was overwhelmed by those eyes.

“What?”

“Keep your lower half under control. Everyone already knows about those filthy looks you give the eldest sister-in-law whenever you see her.”

Huren’s face flushed scarlet.

“Wh-what?! Y-you—what are you—!”

“Please restrain yourself even if you want to hit me. I have a dragon’s maw to walk into, so this younger brother will be taking his leave.”

Ferda clapped Huren lightly on the shoulder as he passed. Huren could only stare stupidly after a Ferda who felt not merely adult but unnervingly at ease.

“It has been an honor to serve you, Young Master.”

The butler who came to see him off on his final road shed tears. Ferda regarded those tears steadily.

Empty words.

If any meaning clung to them at all, it was closer to relief than sorrow. For a servant of a noble house, attending a young master who possessed neither ability nor usefulness had been a humiliation.

Did this one also play tricks with my food?

Back then he had never known. He had assumed the polished floors that made him slip, or the sudden retching halfway through a meal, were simply the fault of his frail body. Who would have imagined the servants themselves were responsible?

Ordinarily the knowledge would have been enough to ignite hatred and a thirst for revenge. The only mercy he might have shown them would have been to kill them so cleanly they never even realized they had died.

But what meaning does any of that hold now?

The present Ferda was perfectly calm. The flames had burned out; only serenity remained. He had already taken his revenge once. He would leave no lingering attachment to this place.

So he patted the butler’s shoulder in encouragement.

“Yes, you’ve worked hard—looking after someone like me all these years.”

“……Pardon?”

The butler, mid-performance of weeping, was so startled that the tears vanished at once.

“I leave the Rosnova household in your care.”

“Ah—yes….”

Ferda turned on his heel. His composure was far too great for a man walking to his death. As he stepped outside the house, a waiting servant bowed.

“I am Hans, the coachman assigned to escort you to your destination, Young Master.”

“Coachman?”

“Yes, sir.”

Ferda tilted his head.

“I’m traveling by carriage?”

“Eh? Ah, yes. A carriage, of course. What else would it be?”

“Hmm. I see.”

“Is something the matter?”

“No, nothing. It just feels… nostalgic.”

“Ah, I see. ……Pardon?”

No matter how he turned the words over, the coachman could not make sense of them.

“Then we depart!”

With a snort and the clatter of hooves, the carriage began to roll.

It’s been a truly long time.

In the final days Ferda remembered, carriages had vanished—or rather, the very concept of a carriage had been relegated to a vague middle-class conveyance.

In their place, mana automobiles took root.

At first the nobles had resisted, claiming tradition was being lost. Before long the superior control and spacious interiors had made the vehicles thoroughly aristocratic. Then sky-carriages appeared, and any number of other marvels.

All of them products of magic engineering.

None of it had mattered to Ferda. A man who had lived only for revenge found little fascination in that branch of magic.

Magic…

He had reached the Ninth Circle—something no one else had ever achieved—and cast Wish Magic. Yet the man sitting in this carriage was no longer a Ninth-Circle Archmage.

Just the frail, undervalued Ferda.

Naturally he was now a long way from magic. He would awaken to it only after leaving home, and the driving force had always been rage and the desire for vengeance. The present Ferda possessed neither seething fury nor a blade-sharp thirst for retribution. Of course nothing had blossomed yet.

I no longer even want it to.

Looking back, the magic he had once wielded was like a drug. Pleasant at first, then requiring ever higher thresholds until it could no longer be controlled. While he was lost in it everything had felt exhilarating; now it was a nightmare he never wished to relive. He preferred the bittersweet calm of the present.

That said, I don’t particularly want to live without magic either…

Without it, life was inconvenient in countless small ways—dressing alone, for instance. At the Third Circle a mage could manage simple garments by magic. At the Fourth, one could analyze the structure of elaborate formal wear and have the magic dress oneself.

If I want to live alone without hardship, I should at least reach the Fourth Circle.

Anyone else hearing him speak of the Fourth Circle as casually as counting house pets would have been astonished. Yet the feeling that filled him now was only a vast emptiness. He had once stood at the Ninth Circle, but the path he had walked then was not the one open to him now.

What would a Ferda without rage or vengeance need in order to awaken magic?

“Y-Young Master…!”

Almost as if answering the unspoken question, the coachman’s frightened voice reached him. That alone was enough to know.

“W-we’ve arrived!”

The carriage had stopped in the middle of a forest. Ahead, where the road opened, a single signboard stood.

This was as far as any carriage could go.

“You’ve done well.”

Ferda stepped down. The coachman unloaded the luggage and waited beside him.

“You may leave now.”

“But I ought to wait for the escort—”

A pointless show of stubbornness. Clearly he had been ordered to make certain Ferda did not flee.

“A dragon will be arriving here shortly.”

“A d-dragon, you say?”

“Not a true dragon, most likely—only a Spawn who has received the blood. To men like you, though, the difference is academic.”

Cold sweat beaded on the coachman’s brow; his Adam’s apple bobbed. Ferda jerked his chin toward the horses.

“Even if you could endure the sight of a dragon, those beasts will not. If the horses bolt and you never make it home, the only one who suffers is you.”

“Ah…!”

“So report that you delivered me safely and go. If you die, the whole effort becomes meaningless, doesn’t it?”

“Y-yes, sir!”

The coachman abandoned further argument. He set down the large, rigid bag he had carried in the carriage.

“Then this humble one takes his leave! Stay healthy, Young Master!”

The man who had sworn to keep watch did not even glance back as he wheeled the carriage around. He drove so hard the rear of the vehicle bounced. Ferda sat on the hard bag as though it were a chair and waited.

“The Grand Duke’s territory….”

A short while later the wind rose without warning. Ferda lifted his gaze toward the shadowed trees. A girl stood there—a young maid with silver hair. One must not be deceived by appearances. She was a Dragon Spawn.

“Are you Lord Ferda Rosnova?”

She inquired with perfect courtesy.

“I am.”

“I shall escort you to the castle. This way.”