Chapter 3

Chapter 3. I Became a Genius (1)

Fortunately, the alchemist in this region was not some imitation chemist from my previous life trying to turn lead into gold.

The alchemist who came running took some time, but he managed to detect the poison mixed into the baby food.

He boasted at length that it was a lingering poison that was not easy to discover and that it would have been difficult to find if it had not been for him, and inwardly, I admitted that his self-praise was justified.

When I had died before, neither the physician nor the priest had been able to uncover the cause.

It must just be a different field.

In any case, once the alchemist discovered the poison, the manor was thrown into an uproar.

Even if I was an illegitimate son, evidence had emerged that someone had tried to kill a young master of the ducal house.

Not only the maids coming and going from the room, but every servant in the manor was on edge.

And then the duke, my father, who had not shown so much as the tip of his nose all this time, came to my room.

The terrified maids bowed so deeply their heads nearly struck the floor, and my mother also offered him a solemn greeting.

The duke glanced around with an indifferent expression, then spoke to the elderly steward who had followed him in.

"Have you caught the culprit?"

"Yes. We received a confession from one of the cooks."

At the steward's words, the duke nodded.

"Kill the cook who confessed, and drive the family out of the territory with nothing but their lives. Also take measures against the head cook and those responsible."

"Yes. Understood."

A frighteningly cold command.

If a resident of the territory was driven out beyond its borders, they would merely become a wanderer unless they managed to settle in another lord's domain.

Telling a territorial subject to become a wanderer with nothing was no different from telling them to die.

But the duke's orders ended there.

He did not say to interrogate the cook who had confessed, nor did he say to investigate who had ordered the poison to be mixed in.

In the end, he was saying that the matter would be buried here.

No one challenged his words. My mother could not even raise her head, let alone say anything.

If the man calling himself my father is like this, then there really is no answer.

The duke finished speaking and turned to leave the room.

I could not let him walk out like this.

It was infuriating, but I had no choice but to use my ultimate move again.

Staring right at the duke, I put strength into my stomach.

Then I shouted with all my might.

"Papa! Papa!"

Everyone looked at me in shock. The duke was no exception.

He stared at me with startled eyes.

Now! Good idea, good idea!

I curved the corners of my eyes, opened my mouth, and fired off a smile!

"Heehee, Papa!"

It was an expression I had kept practicing alongside my speech.

A smile the maids and Mother had both admitted was adorable after all my practice.

Even the elderly steward standing behind the duke smiled when he saw it.

But the duke's expression did not change.

What an irritating man.

Still, hold on, my facial muscles! Am I going to let all that effort go to waste?

Smile, smile!

Even so, it seemed he was a father in his own way. After staring at me for a long moment, the duke finally spoke.

"From now on, you will personally take charge of this child's protection, Head Steward."

"Ah, yes, sir."

After the head steward's startled reply, the duke continued.

"At the very least, I would prefer there to be no disturbance in this house until the Awakening."

"I will convey that to everyone."

Along with the head steward's reply, I heard my mother let out a long breath.

It sounded like someone setting down a great burden.

She bowed to the duke once more.

"Thank you for your consideration."

The duke nodded at her words, then looked at me again.

They say you give an extra rice cake even to the one you dislike, so go on and enjoy my smile to your heart's content.

I kept looking right back at him. Beaming, beaming. Ah, my jaw is going numb.

Still, this was no longer a forced smile.

I had achieved what I wanted. Why would I have any reason not to smile?

Fortunately, before my jaw started trembling, the duke left the room, and amid the maids' congratulations, my mother shed tears as she looked at me.

I really do think I was born wrong. What kind of terrifying noble life is this?

There are priests here, and magic too, and yet I feel like this is exactly why the infant survival rate drops to the floor.

[The crisis situation has ended. A new 'save point' has been set.]

So I bought myself some time.

I muttered inwardly as I looked at the screen that appeared after the duke left.

It was safety guaranteed by the duke. At the very least, they would not be sending assassins as easily as before.

And the duke's protection turned out to be even stronger than I had expected.

---

Thankfully, a long stretch of dull peace followed.

After the duke made his declaration, the attempts to kill me disappeared.

As expected, it had been someone inside the manor. An insider's doing.

I felt deeply uneasy that I still did not know who the culprit was, but there was nothing I could do yet with a body this young.

All I could do was keep growing, day by day.

And since I had already been acknowledged as a genius from infancy, I decided I might as well accept the misunderstanding.

I worked as hard as I could to learn to speak as quickly as possible and to stand up and walk.

But unlike learning to speak, moving my body was not easy. When it came to physical matters, the memories from my previous life were not much help.

The moment I managed to sit up without falling behind the other children, I immediately threw a fit and demanded that they let me see books.

Fortunately, this world had certain areas that were developed strangely out of proportion to the rest.

Unlike its age, which was close to the Middle Ages, publishing was rather advanced.

From picture books full of illustrations to specialized texts.

It was a privilege enjoyed only by nobles and the wealthy, not something that had spread to ordinary commoners, but for me that was no problem at all.

When I asked for a book, they naturally brought me a picture book at first.

It was a picture book with princesses and princes, and animals drawn in it.

Naturally, I threw another fit and demanded a different kind of book.

"A book. With words!"

Everyone stared at me with dumbfounded expressions, but I shamelessly continued.

"I like words! Pictures are boring! Show me words!"

"Good heavens, where did you even hear such a thing?"

The startled maids went to fetch books, and Mother hurriedly summoned a teacher to teach me letters.

Fortunately, reading was not difficult. It was a phonetic script, and the pronunciation was not very different from the written form.

It seemed the writing system had not been created all that long ago.

While continuing the basic activities needed for growth, I kept studying.

A day, a week, a month, a year...

Time passed.

And as time passed, I too grew quickly.

Sadly, no matter how diligently I moved around, my body remained about the same as that of children my age.

But the knowledge I accumulated as I grew could not be compared to that of other children.

As I grew, the rumors spread farther and farther, and now that I was a full five years old, every servant in the manor was calling me a genius.

---

A study filled with books.

A child sat in a chair leaning against a bookcase, reading a book.

The child looked to be around five or six, sitting in the chair and swinging legs that did not reach the floor.

The maid Flora was leaning against the wall as she watched the child, Alex, the duke's son.

The small child sat in a chair his legs could not reach from, peering into a large book.

Even to her, he looked utterly adorable, with a book as large as his upper body spread open across his lap while he read with complete concentration.

If only the book he is reading were a picture book full of illustrations.

Flora, who had been smiling, looked a little regretful.

The child, Young Master Alex, who was soon to turn six, was not reading a fairy tale suited to his age, but a history book. Worse still, it was a terribly difficult text written in the Ancient Imperial Language.

Even Flora, who unlike ordinary commoners was educated enough to read and write the common tongue, could not read it at all.

It was just like the genius young master everyone in the manor talked about.

Unfortunately, outside the manor, hardly anyone knew of Young Master Alex's brilliance, but within the manor there was no one who did not.

And the young master was not merely clever.

Flora quietly glanced around, then leaned her back more comfortably against the wall.

This is nice...

Letting out a small sigh, she thanked the young master in her heart as he sat reading his book.

For a maid to lean against a wall in front of the duke's family was unthinkable.

Of course, Alex was still a child, but if a child were to say something wrong, she would have no grounds to complain even if she were thrown out on the spot.

But Young Master Alex did not care about such things at all.

Of course, unlike a normal child, he observed his own manners properly, and his consideration toward the servants was better than that of anyone else in the manor.

Young Master Alex had given her permission long ago.

-When it's just the two of us, you can relax.

It was something he had said well over a year ago, and when she had failed to follow it for months afterward, it was something he had told her several more times.

At the time, Young Master Alex had been four years old. Naturally, she could not simply trust the words of a four-year-old and let herself become careless.

But the young master was not an ordinary child then, just as he was not now.

There were the disappearances of the maids, the reason she had entered the young master's service in the first place and the beginning of the rumors, and there were the very first words she herself had seen him speak.

-Num-num hurts.

Thanks to that, the entire manor had been thrown into chaos, and from that moment on, Flora had looked upon the young master with awe.

After that as well, the young master's behavior had remained extraordinary.

He no longer shocked people the way he had when he was a baby, but he continued to display exceptional talent.

He learned to speak quickly, and he learned to read at a terrifying pace.

Not only books written in the common tongue, but even the Ancient Imperial Language he was reading now.

Even now, a child only just about to turn six was reading books that adults who had graduated from the academy would read.

A genius that was impossible to regard as a child.

Flora, who had remained by his side and watched him all this time, had needed some time, but eventually she came to trust his words telling her to relax.

And he had kept that promise. For a whole year, no one else in the manor had learned of her moments of rest.

Thanks to that, she had been able to spend that year in comfort.

There is not much time left now...

As her thoughts continued, Flora looked at Young Master Alex with a sorrowful expression.

There were the rumors circulating through the manor and the poisoning attempt she had seen with her own eyes.

Of course, peaceful days had continued after the poisoning attempt, but even that peace would not last much longer.

The Awakening Day the duke had promised was right around the corner.

Unlike at first, she had grown deeply attached to Young Master Alex, but there was not much a maid could do.

Just then, footsteps sounded from far down the corridor. It was time.

Letting out a small sigh, she pushed herself away from the wall and spoke.

"Young Master, it is time for your lesson."

---

"The nobility of the continent began with the heroes who annihilated the Demon King's army five hundred years ago. Of course, nobles and royal families existed even before then, but they were ordinary people no different from commoners, not nobles who possessed abilities like those of today."

"...The royal family of our Kingdom of Carlos is the legitimate bloodline descended from Sir Carlos the Hero. The ducal House of Gresia, which branched off from the royal family, is naturally descended from the same line. And..."

Lesson time.

At the front, a young scribe was talking away with great enthusiasm.

I had heard he was a capable scribe from a baronial house, but he was much better at making me sleepy than I had expected.

If I had been an ordinary child, I would surely have either fallen asleep on the spot already or thrown a tantrum.

Then again, no ordinary child would have been taking lessons like this in the first place.

Of course, I was sleepy for that reason too, but mostly because I already knew all of this.

I did way too much advanced studying.

I had already devoured every sort of book in the library-like study of the manor for more than three years.

What the teacher standing before me was saying was nothing more than tiresome review.

I sighed inwardly. It could not be helped. Even this was something to be grateful for.

If I had been a legitimate child of the ducal house, they might have brought in some great sage to teach me, but as an illegitimate son, I ought to be thankful even to receive lessons from an official of the territory.

I had only been given these lessons because word had spread through the manor that I was a genius.

Of course, even these lessons amounted to no more than cultural studies and accounting classes from the territorial scribes twice a week.

Today's lesson was full of history as well, but in the end, it was still only a "cultural studies" class.

Even so, the lessons themselves were very substantial.

The way they had arranged proper lessons for me almost made it look as though they intended to turn me into a bureaucrat.