“Well then, please stop by later. I will always welcome you.”

Riley had Nainiae take the gift that Rebethra put forward. At the same time, Riley made a gesture with his hand.

It meant he roughly understood the meaning.

“Well, if I feel like it, I will.”

The attitude Riley had toward Rebethra was very rude. It would have been no surprise if someone saw this and cringed.

Despite that, Rebethra didn’t even flinch an eyebrow. Instead, through his entire stay here in the mansion, he maintained the respectful attitude.

“Please be safe on your way.”

“Young master, I’ll be praying for your well being as well.”

They exchanged farewells in the form of formalities. After seeing the Holy Temple’s carriage leave the mansion, Riley turned around and snorted as he glanced at the gift box that Nainiae received from Rebethra.

“He is making it way too obvious. Too obvious.”

Following Riley, Nainiae also looked below to see the gift box. She asked as she tilted her head to the side,

“What’s so obvious?”

“His official story is that he is here to check up on my mother’s illness, but the actual business is something else. What did you think it was?”

“Ah.”

It seemed Nainiae got what Riley was saying.

Nainiae, who was looking at the gift box, opened her mouth with a blank stare.

“Is it about that thing that Priesia… I mean Priestess Priesia said last time?”

Back in the Temple, Nainiae and Priesia became friends, so she had been calling Priesia by the name without the title. Out of habit, Nainiae casually called her by the name, but she corrected herself and looked at Riley.

“Right. It’s about that.”

Riley nodded and responded.

It was about the divine message.

Riley was thinking about the favor that Priesia asked. It was about slaying a dragon that was going to appear in Solia Castle soon.

“The real reason he came to the mansion yesterday is probably not about checking up on my mother’s illness. He probably came to give me that gift. What I’m saying is that this is a bribe.”

“Bribe…”

“Since you were fed, pay us back by working as much as you had been fed by us. Well, that’s probably what he is thinking.”

Riley was walking with his fingers locked between two hands and having them placed on the back of his head.

Nainiae carefully asked,

“Excuse me, young master, by any chance…”

“Are you insane?”

Riley felt like he knew what she was going to ask, so he cringed. He found the question unpleasant.

“Obviously, I won’t do it. Why would I bother with something that troublesome?”

“As I thought. That would be, right?”

Nainiae smiled awkwardly as she mumbled.

“He dares to think I’m a tool… He must be thinking I could be talked into being taken advantage of if he served up a few bribes. He doesn’t realize I’m a bastard who has seen it all.”

It seemed that the nobilities of this world had a pride of a specific kind.

It was about being sure to return the favor after receiving help.

It appeared that the Temple, hence Rebethra, had a plan to invoke that sense of obligation out of Riley and lead him to act… However, unfortunately, the person they were trying to do it to was Riley.

“Tell them this. Over my dead body. Tell them to gut my stomach.”

Actually, Riley was thinking about taking advantage of the Temple as if it was a tool. He was going to suck the honey right out of it. He cracked a smile and mumbled.

“Gut…stomach?”

It sounded pretty violent. Nainiae was concerned because of it, so she asked as she looked at Riley’s stomach.

“The Lower Solia doesn’t have a phrase like that about gutting stomach?”

“…?”

“It means I don’t care what happens afterwards although I received something.”

“Ah.”

Having heard Riley’s explanation describing it in plain words, Nainiae thought about what he meant as she coughed out a word of exclamation.

It was to make sure she does not forget what it means later and get confused again when Riley uses the phrase again.

“The divine message was definitely about a dragon, right?”

Having finished memorizing the phrase about gutting stomach, she nodded and then mumbled about the dragon.

“It turned out to be something that should not have been asked to you.”

During that day, in the Solia Castle’s bathroom, when Riley was asked by Priesia to do the favor, Riley suddenly started laughing as if he found the favor to be ridiculous. Nainiae felt like she could finally understand why.

“How would you feel if someone asked you out of the blue to slay your friend?”

Nainiae thought about Andal, a dragon who was on an amusement trip by having himself transformed into a human and running a pub in a town. Nainiae had a suppressed laugh.

“I think I would have found it funny.”

Nainiae was in middle of imagining about Sera insisting and begging Nainiae and saying ‘I’m very sorry, but please slay Priestess Priesia.’

“That’s right. It is ridiculous.”

As if she was indicating that she was not going to ask about it anymore, she used the ‘leather bracelet,’ one of Astroa’s belongings, to bring out the dimensional container from thin air. She placed the gift into the container and said,

“Young master, after this, I was thinking we could have the magic lesson until dinner time… What do you think?”

“All right. I think the timing works out well.”

Riley led the way, and Nainiae followed behind him.

***

“She is a Six Circles mage? What nonsense.”

“…”

It was at Ryan’s room.

The fact about Nainiae, her being the Six Circles mage that played a big role in suppressing Solia’s Grand Mage Astroa, became known to everyone in mansion. Lloyd was in a state of panic.

“Gosh. Like I said before, I thought there was something more to her… If this is the case, then what I saw before makes sense too.”

“Lloyd.”

“She used magic! She used magic to obliterate the training dummy in a single strike! She must have used a wind magic to…”

“Lloyd.”

Having heard his name being called for the second time, Lloyd closed his mouth that he was using to yap away. Lloyd looked at his older brother.

“For now, just proceed.”

“…I understand.”

“Annabelle, did you know about this?”

Ryan asked Annabelle who was sitting in front of him.

Annabelle, not being able to refuse to answer, nodded.

Her hand was shivering.  It was indicating that something did happen.

“Still, I didn’t know…that she is a Six Circles mage.”

She wasn’t just any Six Circles mage.

Nainiae was a powerful practitioner of magic that brought down Grand Mage Astroa in a single strike when he was flying in the sky using the fly magic.

“Just how? How did Riley get…”

“It must have something to do with the medal of honor that he received from the Castle.”

Just like his father had, Ryan started to tap the table with his finger.

It looked like it must be a habit of his that came out when he got in a deep thought.

“What are you going to do? We can’t just sit and watch. We need to go achieve a great exploit of our own…”

They had to win the competition for the successorship.

They had to because that was the only way to bring back their mother who was kicked out.

In this situation, the news about Riley having Nainiae, a Six Circles mage who wants to serve him, was not pleasant to hear.

“That’s right! I heard that there is a dark mage that’s wreaking havoc all over the place and causing headaches. How about we go cut off this dark mage’s head?”

Ryan sighed with a clam face.

It wasn’t that he didn’t know how his little brother was feeling. However, it was going to be a difficult one to actually carry out. That was the reason.

“In that case, how about just telling people that the lass named Nainiae is the dark mage? It just so happens that her appearance…”

“That won’t work.”

With his face twitching, Lloyd was giving out his opinion.

Watching him, Annabelle quietly shook her head.

“I personally called for someone from the Magic Tower and asked. Her exploit was officially recognized. Also, she was even considered as the candidate for being the master of the Magic Tower. Because of this… I don’t think your idea would be possible.”

That someone, who she called from the Magic Tower, was the Five Circles mage that Annabelle called to return the favor to Nainiae for having humiliated her. However, the mage, after seeing that it was Nainiae in the mansion, simply said ‘I can’t do anything to that person.’

“Ha!”

Lloyd, acting frustrated, got up from his chair.

He started to grind his teeth and throw fists toward the wall.

He couldn’t think of any other way to handle the situation with Nainiae.

“Damn it…”

“Lloyd. What’s today’s date?”

“Today?”

Having heard his brother’s question, Lloyd, who just slammed the wall, tilted his head to the sides.

Lloyd was not able to answer.

Watching this, Annabelle responded instead,

“To be exact, starting tomorrow, probably, the summer will start. But…why are you asking about that?”

Summer.

Thinking about the season which was about to change soon, Ryan narrowed his eyes.

***

It was at the mansion’s library.

Having finished their dinner, Riley and Nainiae were back in the library to study about magic. There were a few books open on the ground. They were studying about time magic.

“Time magic… It certainly is an interesting area of study. I think the magic could be used in various ways if we researched the time magic.”

Although Nainiae was a Six Circles mage, even Nainiae didn’t know much about time magic. Because of this, Nainiae had to study the area first before she could teach Riley about it.

The book she was reading was not about a mage. Instead, to the very end, it was about a mage swordsman. Because of this, the book had insufficient amount of explanations… However, she didn’t mind it much.

“Things like the traveling speed of a magic is generally fixed. However, looking at it from theoretical perspective, if you utilize this aspect, I think it would be possible to shoot a fireball that would be fast enough to be undetectable to eyes.”

It could be due to the experimental drugs from the Magic Tower, but her memory was pretty good.

She was able to mumble like that because what she read in the books when she was in the Magic Tower still remained in her head.

“I see. It’s intriguing. I like it…”

On the other hand.

Riley was listening to Nainiae’s mumbling through one ear and letting it out through the other ear. His eyes were lacking focus.

“Why do I have to be so bored?”

Riley’s eyes shifted in a three seconds interval.

They shifted toward the slowly falling stream of water on the right side, and then they shifted toward the books that were waiting to be read by him. His eyes moved back and forth like that.

“This is the Two Circles’…what again?”

“It’s the Two Circles’ slow magic.”

Riley asked the question.

Having heard the question, Nainiae responded.

The magic that Riley was practicing at the moment was Slow, a Two Circles time magic.

It was a magic that used mana to make the subject move slower.

“It’s boring me to death to just watch it drop.”

They had a glass container with water in it. The container was tilted to let the water fall by the gravity, and he was practicing the magic on it to make the water fall slower.

“I think it would be more fun to do something that is faster. Can we change the order of doing things?”

For the moment, Nainiae became a teacher instead of a maid. With an apologetic face, Nainiae asked,

“Young master, by any chance, have you ever tried riding a bicycle?”

“A bicycle?”

‘They have bicycles in this world?’

Although Riley never tried it in this world’s life, he had in his past life, so he told her that he had experiences in riding it.

“When learning how to ride a bicycle, we learn how to stop safely first before riding it fast, right? It’s to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

It was to prevent accidents.

The explanation was an obvious one, but it made sense.

Tsk.

Riley clicked his tongue and redirected his gaze back to the glass bottle where water was falling. He started to focus on the glass bottle again.

“It doesn’t feel like I’m using magic at all. It is somehow really boring.”

“Please be patient for a little while longer. At this pace, you will be able to get to the next step very soon.”

“When is the next step?”

“I’ll teach you the next step if you can make the falling water to stay in the air for two seconds.”

“Hm…”

Riley had his chin supported by his palm as he looked at the falling stream of water that was falling slower due to the time magic. Riley mumbled,

“Now that I think about it, it is going to be summer soon.”

“It will be.”

“It will be hot, right?”

“It will be…right?”

Nainiae was studying time magic that she was going to teach Riley. She turned her head and looked at him.

“I hate hot weather.”

Having heard her young master mumbling about how he hates hot weather, Nainiae tightened her fists and said,

“Don’t worry, young master! I can make it cool for you!”

“That means I’ll die from the heat during the morning and afternoon.”

“That is…”

Nainiae blurred the end of sentence as she thought about Ian greeting Riley with a smile and saying ‘Haha! Young master! It’s a great morning again today!’

It was because Nainiae could be next to Riley only during the evening and night.

Ian was the one that served Riley during outside of those time periods.

This was the ‘line in the sand’ that Ian proposed.

“To say it bluntly, Ian’s fanning is the worst.”

Riley made a tight fist with his hand that was open.

The water inside the glass bottle, which was falling slowly, started to fall at its normal speed.

“Ugh… Now that it has come to this, that’s the only answer.”

Riley was mumbling on in a frustrated tone.

Having heard this, Nainiae was feeling sorry for Ian.

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