I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin, So I Might as Well Try Mastering Magic: Volume 1 E-Book

Nazuna Miki

• Herausgeber: J-Novel Club
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Serie: I'm a Noble on the Brink of Ruin, So I Might as Well Try Mastering Magic
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Seitenzahl: 283

Beschreibung

What’s a guy to do when his life suddenly changes while innocently enjoying a nice, cold drink after work? And I mean really changes.

This middle-aged commoner now finds himself in the body of Liam Hamilton, the young son of a noble house teetering on the brink of collapse. Between his fervidly desperate father and his utterly apathetic brothers, the only bright side to his new situation is that Liam can finally try learning magic like he’s always wanted. Little does he know his hobby of choice may be about to turn his life upside-down yet again! Will Liam be able to master the craft of magic? And will it be enough to save him from the shadow looming over his family...?

Leseprobe

Table of Contents

Cover

I’m a Noble on the Brink of Ruin, So I Might as Well Try Mastering Magic: Volume 1

If He Were a King...

Afterword

Color Illustrations

About J-Novel Club

Copyright

Landmarks

Table of Contents

.01

“What’s the matter, young master?”

“Huh...?”

Somebody was tugging on my sleeve. I felt like my mind had blanked out for a second, like I was just about to doze off, when my surroundings came into view.

“Huh?”

This “huh” had a completely different meaning from my earlier “huh.”

Why am I here...?

I looked around. This place looked like the main hall of some mansion. There were lots of people gathered for what seemed to be a party—and I was among them, for some reason. I should have just been enjoying a drink after a hard day’s work... Wait.

“HUUUH?!”

Unlike the first two times, I yelled out this third “huh” at the top of my lungs.

I looked down at my own body and stared at my palms.

I’m a kid...?

Patting my face, I realized that my wrinkles were gone—and so was my beard! The little stubble that always remained no matter how thoroughly I shaved was gone without a trace, and my skin was absolutely glowing. Silky smooth, even!

I had been downing my after-work drink just a second ago when suddenly, I turned into a kid. Saying it myself didn’t help it make any more sense. I felt like I was going crazy.

“What’s wrong, Liam?”

I heard a man’s stern voice from afar. That moment, the lively sounds of the banquet died down a little.

As I was looking around in confusion, the woman beside me—a maid—whispered in my ear. “Young master, the master is calling you.”

“Huh?”

I followed her gaze and found a single nobleman seated on the most distinguished seat in this banquet hall. The slight flush in his cheeks gave away how he must have been drinking, and he still seemed to be in a good mood as he stared at me.

“Oh, um... Congratulations?” I didn’t really get what was going on, but it felt like they were celebrating something, so I tried congratulating him.

The nobleman looked satisfied. “Yes. Enjoy the party tonight.”

Seems like I got past that safely, I thought with a sigh of relief.

Then, while making sure not to stand out, I took a quick look around and listened in on some conversations to gather information. Around thirty minutes of that reaped me a few findings.

First, my name—or rather, the name of this child whose body I somehow entered—was Liam Hamilton. He was the fifth son of Count Hamilton.

Second, this party was being held by the current family head, that nobleman who spoke to me earlier, to celebrate the birth of his first daughter after having five sons in a row. It was hosted by him, his legal wife, his concubine who birthed the daughter, and his five sons.

I got all that.

What I didn’t get was... Why in the world have I become Liam Hamilton?

The night had come to an end, but I was still Liam. Thinking I might have been under a dream or illusion or whatnot, I immediately went to sleep after last night’s banquet ended, yet I still woke up as this twelve-year-old boy.

As I gave my face another few pats while on the bed, I began feeling a little bad.

A beard was proof of one’s manhood. As someone who was (originally) baby-faced, whether I had a beard made a big difference on which jobs I could get. I was talking about the good, high-paying jobs—those that actually placed some responsibility on your shoulders. Oftentimes, it would be hard to land those without a proper beard.

My lamentation was cut short when a young maid around twenty years old opened my door with a greeting. “Good morning, Young Master Liam.”

“G-Good morning.”

“What do you wish to wear today?” she asked, bringing along three outfits in a trolley.

“You mean... I can choose?”

The maid looked like she was wondering why I even asked but simply answered, “Yes.”

So I can choose what to wear for the day... I really am a noble now, huh?

Since it was really looking like I wasn’t going back to normal anytime soon, I started indirectly asking the maid a bunch of stuff to gain a better grasp of my situation—starting with the party yesterday.

Nobles could pass their titles down for up to three generations. During that time, they had to achieve something that benefited the country to extend their succession rights; otherwise, they would become commoners from the fourth generation onward.

The current family head and Liam’s father, Charles Hamilton, just so happened to be the third-generation head. If he didn’t achieve something within his generation, then our house would become commoners from the next generation onward. Incidentally, the easiest achievement he could gun for was having his daughter be selected as the emperor’s wife—and gun for it he did, but alas, Charles had nothing but sons five times in a row. Until recently, that is. That seemed to be the reason for yesterday’s grand party: to celebrate having finally given birth to a daughter with his concubine.

Thus, at present, Charles was fixated on only his eldest son and daughter, and nothing else.

“We’re still nobles anyway, so whatever.”

Liam’s older brother and the fourth son of their family, Bruno, laughed bitterly. Considering he was just one year older than me at thirteen, though, even that nihilistic little laugh of his looked kind of endearing. Boys his age did like acting cool for no good reason.

We were currently in our town’s private school. I came here with him after getting changed and eating breakfast this morning. Now that I’d gathered some information from my maid, I next asked Bruno what he thought about our sister, and that was his answer.

“We get to attend this private school and live as we please every day.”

“Do we really, though?”

Bruno scoffed. “Oh, I’m so thankful I could cry,” he said sarcastically. “We go to private school and live without want all for the sake of saving face as nobility. We are the oldest noble family still, even if our house is like this now.”

“The oldest noble family?” I asked.

“All it actually means is we’ve been nobles for many generations. But ’cause of that, maintaining our reputation is all the more important.”

“I see.”

The oldest noble family... This would explain the whole party Charles held for the birth of his daughter, who might just help them extend the family’s succession rights.

An emperor or prince falling in love at first sight with a woman of lowly status, whose family eventually rises in the ranks when she becomes empress—this was a well-worn cliché in stories and plays that even a former commoner like me was familiar with.

I was starting to piece everything together... Well, not quite everything.

Seriously, why did I end up like this? What happened to my original body? When can I go back? And what if I can’t go back and have to stay like this forever...?

“Ho ho ho.”

An old man entered the room with a relaxed laugh. He looked very much like a friendly and good-natured grandpa, to the point that a foulmouthed person might even say he was starting to go senile.

“I see you are both here. In that case, I will begin today’s lesson.”

“Take it easy, gramps. No point in putting your back into it,” Bruno dismissed him with the same nihilistic tone, acting like someone who had his life all figured out.

“Is that so?”

“Yeah. I was born the fourth son of a noble house. I can just call it good here and enjoy the rest of my life.”

The old man and I both fell silent at his statement.

Call it good and enjoy my life... Should I do that too?

“Magic?”

After our unenthusiastic study session, Bruno responded to my question with an incredulous look.

“Yeah. I want to learn.”

“You’ve changed,” he said, stunned.

Of course, I didn’t say this for no reason. Magic was a greater form of knowledge than whatever we were going to learn in private school, and that knowledge was power that the imperial family and nobility almost exclusively monopolized. As a commoner, I knew that magic existed and had seen nobles using it, but not how they used or even learned it.

When I heard Bruno talk about calling it good and enjoying life, I immediately thought about learning magic.

“Am I not allowed?”

“’Course you are,” he immediately refuted. “There’s an archive room in the manor, right?”

“Yeah.”

I hadn’t actually known that, but I nodded anyway because “Liam” would know. I could just ask one of the maids about it later in some roundabout way.

“Then you can just read the grimoires in there. Well, only one in a hundred people have the talent for magic, so you’re just wasting your time, if you ask me.”

Maintaining his nihilistic shtick till the very end, Bruno left the private school.

As for me, I made a beeline for the manor now that I knew about the archive room. There were a bunch of things I wanted to check out in this new town I found myself in, but I returned home without sparing any of it a glance—magic came first for now.

A maid greeted me when I entered the manor. “Welcome back, Young Master Liam.”

“Where’s the archive room?”

“Er...” She frowned in confusion, clearly wondering why I didn’t know.

“Come on, show me!”

Maybe the excitement got to me since Bruno told me I was free to read the grimoires; I didn’t bother beating around the bush and instead straight-up demanded to know where it was. The maid looked at me strangely, but fifth son or not, I was still a “young master” of this noble house. In the end, she meekly guided me through the halls.

Eventually, we arrived in front of a rather grand-looking door. The moment she opened it and entered the room, an odd smell tickled my nose.

“What’s this smell?”

“It is the smell of books,” she answered. “This happens when many books are stored in an enclosed space.”

“I see.”

As a former commoner, it was my first time encountering a room full of books and the smell that came with it. Equipped with that new experience, I entered the archive room and looked through the book spines, scouring the shelves for what I came for.

I soon came across a book titled Beginner Flame Magic. I pulled it out, opened it up, and read from the very first page, which began with a rather long-winded preamble. Starting from an introduction to flame magic, it talked about how raising the temperature was an easier form of magic, meaning one in a hundred people had the talent for it. On the other hand, lowering the temperature with frost magic—which was mentioned here even though it was a book on flame magic—was more difficult. Only one in a thousand had the talent for it.

I skipped all that and flipped right to the page that explained how to actually cast the spell. It said that I should first try creating a small flame on the tip of my finger like a candle. The book outlined the concentration, breathing, and movement techniques I needed in order to pull it off, so I went ahead and tried them out one by one.

Following the book’s instructions, I closed my eyes, focused, and controlled my breathing with the technique I just learned. Then—just as it instructed—I poured power onto the tip of my finger!

“It worked! It’s magic!” I exclaimed with a gasp.

“Wow, congratulations!” The maid who guided me here clapped her hands.

A small candle-like flame flickered right on the tip of my index finger.

Looking at the shelf, there were more magic books—or grimoires, as they were called. I still didn’t quite get what just happened, but I seemed to have learned magic—and I could keep learning it from now on too.

This noble life that I was suddenly tossed into for god-knows-what reason was starting to get me real pumped up.

.02

“U-Ummm...”

Inside his study, Liam’s father, Charles Hamilton, was busy writing something at his grandiose office desk. Even after I entered the room, he never once raised his head and simply continued writing.

“What is it, Liam?” he asked, still looking down.

“Well, about our grimoires...”

“Our grimoires? Did something happen to them?”

“No, I just wanted to ask if I could take them out of the archive room...”

I had just entered this body and suddenly became a noble yesterday. Without any idea of how their etiquette and speech worked, I ended up asking my question rather clumsily.

“Take them out? You want to read them?”

“Yes.”

“Do as you wish.”

“Oh, okay. Thank you very much.”

“Anything else?”

“No, that’s all.”

“Then leave. I’m busy.”

“I-I understand.”

I turned around and left the study. Although I looked back one last time, Charles, in contrast, didn’t tear his eyes away from his paperwork, so I stepped out into the hall and closed the door behind me.

I went in, talked, and left. During that time, Charles never once raised his head; he didn’t even turn me down. He was apathetic till the very end.

“I kinda understand how Bruno feels now.”

I found myself sympathizing just a little bit with the rebellious fourth son who had lost hope in the future and gave up on studying.

Having gained permission, I took Beginner Flame Magic out of the archive room and went to the manor’s garden. The Hamiltons ruled over this territory, so while we called it a manor, it was actually the size of a small castle. Even the woods behind the garden were big enough to contain an entire village.

In fact, when I grabbed a maid before leaving the manor and asked her how far the Hamilton family’s territory spanned, I got a rather crazy answer in response.

“As far as your eye can see.”

Nobles really are amazing, I marveled.

If the next generation took over right now and we became commoners, all this land and even our manor would be confiscated by the country, so I totally got why Charles was so desperate about this.

I walked into the huge woods owned by our family and settled down on the ground after reaching a clearing. There, I opened up the grimoire.

I focused, controlled my breathing, and formed a clear image in my mind. After concentrating for three straight minutes, a faint, elongated flame appeared around one meter in front of me.

This flame blade was one kind of beginner flame magic.

A grimoire was a magic book that served as a guide. You could use magic you hadn’t mastered yet as long as you held the grimoire in your hands; in this way, it provided support for you to learn how to use the magic. However, magic took a long time to master, and until you did, you wouldn’t be able to use the magic without the grimoire. When I actually tried letting go of it, the flame blade that I made disappeared without a trace.

“If you practice every day, the activation time will shorten, and eventually, you’ll even learn how to activate it without the book,” I read aloud from a page on the grimoire.

Basically, it was like a baby walker that toddlers used to learn how to walk. If I kept practicing while holding on to the grimoire, I’d eventually learn how to cast the spell even without it.

I’d always wanted to learn magic, and it turned out to be much simpler than I thought. No wonder nobles kept these grimoires stored away like valuables.

I continued practicing making the flame blade spell, or Flame Cutter, as it was officially known. It wasn’t like I had anything else to do. Before entering this body, I had to go to work every day, but I had no such responsibilities as Liam. Even the fifth son of a noble was still a noble, and nobles looked down on physical labor as unsightly.

Left with no real need to work, I was all too happy to focus on my magic each day given how I’d always admired it. Slowly but surely, the time it took for me to activate my magic while holding the grimoire grew shorter, and I could tell too, which only made me all the more enthusiastic to practice.

Day in and day out, I continued to practice magic.

“Oh, there you are. So you were playing out here.”

“Hm? Bruno?”

Today, I was practicing in the woods as usual when my older brother Bruno came up to me. A month had passed since I first became Liam; I’d grown familiar with the Hamilton house, so I could now comfortably speak with this cynical fourth son as if he really were my older brother.

Bruno let out a huff and strode right over to me. “I heard you were practicing magic.”

“Yeah. Father gave me permission to use our grimoires.”

“’Course he did. I know that,” he said with a roll of his eyes. “That guy has nothing but his marry-Sarah-to-the-emperor plan in that head of his. He doesn’t care ’bout us anymore.”

“Ha ha...”

Bruno was right. That was how father had been when I asked for his permission to use the grimoires a month ago, and that hadn’t changed one bit over the past month. He never looked me in the eye, and even when we talked, he would always be doing something else at the same time.

“So? How much have you learned? Show me.”

“Yeah, so...”

I put the grimoire down on the ground.

By the way, grimoires were apparently treated with a special coating, so they didn’t get damaged or dirty unless hit with an especially powerful attack.

Having set the grimoire down, I closed my eyes, focused, and cast Flame Cutter to make a flame blade.

“I can do this, I guess.”

Bruno stared at me wide-eyed. “Huh?”

“What’s wrong?”

“Y-You can use magic...without a grimoire?”

“Uh?”

“N-No way. It should normally take an entire year to master magic to the point where you can do that... Are you saying you learned it in only a month...?”

Suffice it to say that Bruno was utterly and thoroughly shocked.

.03

“How did you learn magic in such a short time?!”

“How...?”

Overwhelmed by Bruno’s intense gaze, I began to wonder if I‘d done something bad and tried recalling everything I did until now.

“I just followed the grimoire’s instructions every day...”

“So...is that grimoire special somehow?” Bruno held his chin and began mumbling to himself. “Yeah, that might be it. We’re the oldest noble family, so I can imagine we have some crazy things stored in our archives.”

I didn’t feel like interrupting him and all his mumbling, so I just watched for a while until he spoke up again.

“Hey, Liam. Gimme that.”

“O-Okay. Here.”

Overwhelmed by his intense gaze yet again, I handed him the grimoire. He opened it up, pored over the same pages I’d been staring at for the past month, and started practicing as well.

If he’s going to start practicing magic, then I should be off so I don’t get in his way—

“Say, Liam.”

“Hm?”

Just as I was about to leave, Bruno called out to me. I flinched and turned around, only to find that he was still staring at the grimoire, but this time with an expression that spoke volumes of how tedious he found it to be.

With his face scrunched up like that, he asked me, “Are you working so hard ’cause you wanna be the next family head?”

“The head? Why?”

“’Cause you’re the same as pops.”

I frowned in confusion. The same as Charles—as father? How so?

“Don’t tell me you don’t know,” Bruno said ominously, “why pops is so desperate about all this.”

“Is there any particular reason?” I asked slowly.

“Well, it’s normal for nobles to pass their title to their heir after they reach a certain age, right?”

“Oh, really?” I didn’t know that, and Bruno could tell.

“So you really didn’t know. Well, can’t say I’m surprised, what with how easygoing you are,” he said, smoothly dismissing my ignorance. “You see, things get complicated if the heir succeeds the position after the family head dies. It’s much easier to manage all the trouble that comes after if the title is passed while the head’s still alive.”

I hummed in response. I never thought about that. I guess nobles have it hard too.

“There’s less room for arguments that way,” he added, “and that’s also why the rest of us can do whatever we want.”

“Right...”

“But you see, that’s where another problem crops up: the moment pops passes his title down, our family will enter its fourth generation, meaning we’d have to relinquish our nobility and become commoners.”

I blinked. “Oh.”

“It’s normal for family heads to toss all the work to their heirs then enjoy the life of a retired noble with their authority still intact, but pops can’t even do that as things are, which is why he’s oh-so-desperate.”

I see... That’s true. Come to think of it, it was kind of weird for him to be so desperate just because the generation after his would become commoners. Father always looked so cornered, as if he himself were in trouble. So this was why—

“Argh, what a pain in the ass!”

“Huh?”

Bruno suddenly lashed out and threw the grimoire at me, exclaiming, “This is way too boring for me! See ya!” before leaving just as quickly as he came.

I silently stared at him and let out a wry chuckle. It hasn’t even been ten minutes since you started practicing, though.

In any case, the grimoire was back with me now, so I could start practicing again.

A few days later, I went back to the archive room. Now that I learned all the spells from Beginner Flame Magic—the first grimoire that I took out—I borrowed Beginner Frost Magic.

Unable to wait until I got to the woods, I started practicing while walking.

One in a hundred people could use flame magic, but lowering the temperature was more difficult than raising it, so apparently, only one in a thousand could use frost magic. That explanation made sense to me; after all, it was easy to start a fire even without magic, but it was impossible to make ice—you could only wait for winter to do that. Thus, there were very few people who could use this difficult type of magic.

All this just served to make me feel even more excited. I loved magic, and frost magic was especially challenging. Just how fun would it be once I finally learned it?

I continued practicing magic with the grimoire as I walked down the hall.

As was the case for flame magic, I sometimes practiced by casting the magic directly onto the book. Apparently, it was easier for grimoires to assist with magic if it were cast on the book itself, hence why they were treated with a protective coating.

That was why I gave it a try...

“Whoa!”

...but it didn’t go so well, and the grimoire in my hands caught fire.

I tried using frost magic but ended up casting Fireball on it instead. Startled by the burning grimoire, I dropped it to the ground before frantically picking it back up and putting the fire out.

“Who in the world is starting a fire in the—Liam?”

“Father!”

My panic surged even more as I turned toward the voice I’d heard. Father was coming this way while speaking with the butler. He was probably headed somewhere, as he wasn’t even looking me in the eye, as usual.

“Don’t play with fire in the hallway...” He trailed off. “Is that a grimoire?”

“Yes.”

“Beginner Frost Magic... Hm? Was that not fire just now?”

“Yes, my apologies. I struggled with frost magic and ended up casting flame magic on accident.”

“I see... Wait, what?” Father was about to leave when he stopped and turned back around—and for the first time, our eyes met. “You’ve been studying magic?”

I asked for his permission to use the grimoires, but I guess he doesn’t remember...

I hesitated for a moment but ended up just nodding. “Yes.”

He gazed at me for a while. “You must have mastered flame magic, seeing as you can use it without a grimoire. When did you start studying?”

“One month ago.”

“One month ago?!” he echoed in shock. “Are you saying you learned magic in one month?”

“Yes.”

He looked at me in disbelief as he muttered, “You...had talent?”

I recognized that look in his eyes. It reminded me of the first time I woke up as Liam, back during that banquet when he was celebrating the birth of his daughter.

.04

With a serious look on his face, father stared at me for a moment more before finally asking, “Have you learned frost magic already?”

“No, I was just going to start today.”

He hummed. “Show me,” he ordered, then turned around and walked down the hall.

I watched him in a daze until the butler beside him gave me a look that seemed to be telling me to follow, so I hurried after him. We eventually reached a large sitting room with a fireplace. Father had called a maid along the way and ordered her to pull a seat over.

“Go on,” he urged as he sat down.

“O-Okay.”

I was a little confused, but after thinking about it, all I really had to do was what I always did. I’d gotten the hang of things from practicing flame magic, and since I still had to rely on the grimoire, it wasn’t like I could do anything flashy anyway.

Thus, I made the wise decision to start with something simple.

I opened the grimoire up and followed the instructions. What caught me by surprise was that, although I had been expecting frost magic to have instructions opposite to those of flame magic, it seemed like I was completely off the mark. I had assumed beforehand that since I had to gather power for flame magic, then I’d have to be relaxed and calm for frost. But in actuality, it seemed like I needed to gather my power the same way to use frost magic.

I controlled my breathing and gathered my power, imagining it all flowing through my body as I carefully followed all the grimoire’s instructions. I didn’t know how long it took, but I eventually felt the grimoire in my hands faintly frosting over the surface.

“I did it...”

“Goodness! You really froze it...”

Father stood from his seat, walked over to my side, and held the grimoire to check its condition. His eyes grew wide when he felt the crispy layer of ice and the cool air surrounding it.

“This is truly...”

Father’s butler lowered his head. “Congratulations,” he said—but to my father, not to me.

Why him? I wondered, considering I was the one who succeeded in casting the magic.

However, father accepted it with a nod. “Yes! The heavens truly are on my side!” He looked far more pleased than I had ever seen him before. This was the first time I saw him in such a good mood; he wasn’t this happy even back during the banquet.

“Liam,” he called.

“Y-Yes?”

“Do you like magic?”

“Huh? Oh, yes. I like it.”

“Good. Then I will collect more grimoires for you. If there is a particular grimoire you want, then feel free to let me know.”

“Huh? O-Okay.”

I didn’t get why he was in such a good mood, but he was saying he’d gather more of these precious grimoires for me, so I gladly accepted.

“Now, show me more magic,” he ordered.

“All right.”

I tried to focus on magic practice again, but just then, somebody knocked on the door. The butler answered it and listened to the other person, then shut the door and returned to Charles’s side.

“Master, that man has...” He leaned over and whispered in my father’s ear.

“What? You mean to say that he’s fled into my territory?”

“It seems likely.”

Father groaned. In a complete change from his good mood earlier, he scrunched his face up in bitter displeasure. Then, without a single word, he and the butler left me behind in the room.

What was all that about?

The next day, I went to the woods as usual with Beginner Frost Magic in hand. Father said that he’d bring me any grimoire I wanted, but magic wasn’t so simple. Throughout the past month I had spent as a noble, I’d come to learn that it was something I needed to diligently practice one-by-one through repetition every day. Thus, just as I did with flame magic, I decided to learn all the frost magic spells first.

With that in mind, I headed for my usual spot. However...

“Who...?”

Somebody was already there. In the clearing located farther inside the woods, one man sat limply on the ground with his back against a tree.

Hearing my voice, he lifted his head and looked at me. “Those clothes... You’re Hamilton’s kid?”

“Huh? Um, yeah. I’m Liam Hamilton,” I said, introducing myself without much thought.

“Well, I sure screwed this up. They say it’s hardest to see what’s right under your nose, so I never expected you to come here on the very first day.”

I frowned in confusion at this man’s rambling.

“Well, this must be fate,” he went on. “Go on. Do what you must.”

“Um... And that would be what, exactly?”

The man looked at me weirdly. “Didn’t you come to catch me?”

“Why?”

He fell silent and stared at me for a while—observing me, as if he could see right through me, all the way to the deepest recesses of my mind. It was a little unsettling.

His gaze continued to linger until one corner of his lips curled up. “I must’ve been too on edge,” he said with a huff. “If they’d really found me, they wouldn’t have sent this kinda kid my way.”

I was still confused, but it seemed like the misunderstanding—at least, I think it was—had been cleared up.

“Oh? So you’re studying magic?” The man looked at the grimoire in my hands and hummed. “Can I see that?”

“Huh? Oh, sure.”

I handed it over to him—and then realized that I might have messed up. Unlike Bruno or father, this man was a complete stranger. Moreover, nobles considered grimoires as valuable items. It had only been a month since I became a noble myself, so it didn’t occur to me how bad an idea this was until after I passed it to him.

While I was panicking internally, the man said, “Wow, this is amazing.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Are you the last person who used this?”

“Yeah.”

“So this residual mana is yours. It’s not every day you see this kind of talent.” Still seated on the ground, he let out an impressed hum as his gaze flitted between me and the grimoire.

“Er... May I have that back now?”

“Oh, my bad,” he said as he nonchalantly gave it back.

I guess I was just overthinking things. Now I felt a little awkward because I almost suspected him of something bad. In an attempt to brush the thought off, I started practicing frost magic with the grimoire. The man watched me silently for a while but eventually spoke up again.

“Don’t you wanna know a more efficient way to learn that?”

“A more efficient way?” I asked.

“That’s right. Oh, I’m not suggesting anything weird, I assure you,” he added immediately. “That’s beginner magic, right? You’re at the stage where you learn through repetition—that’s not about to change.”

“Right...”

“What I’m talking about...is this.”

Without budging from his spot, the man held his right hand out with his palm facing me. Then, he cast a different type of magic on each finger—fire on his index, ice on his middle, electricity around his ring, and a whirlwind swirling over his pinky. Lastly, his thumb was glowing like a burning metal rod.

“Using multiple magic spells at the same time,” he elaborated. “I know that grimoire too. It teaches Ice Needle, Freeze, Frost Nail, and also a bunch of other spells, right? And you just tried to cast them in succession, yeah? Well, I’m saying that you can save so much more time if you just practice them all at once instead.”

“I-Is that even possible?”

“See for yourself,” the man said as he waved his right hand.

“Th-That’s true... How did you do that?”

“Oh? Nice! I like you, kid. You don’t have that useless sense of pride other nobles have. Any other noble kid would’ve been too prideful to even ask me that.”

“Er...”

Well, I certainly am not a “noble kid,” I thought with a wry smile. I just entered this body for god-knows-what reason. I wasn’t originally a noble, so I didn’t really understand that sense of pride they had.

“Let’s check first,” the man began. “Try drawing on the ground—a circle with your right hand and a square with your left, both at the same time.”

“Okay...”

I had to wonder what exactly he was checking for, but I still listened to him and drew a circle and a square with both my index fingers.

“Oh, nice. Have you done this before?”

“No, only just now.”

“Then you have a good affinity for this, it seems. Since you can do that, there’s no need for any tricks or twists. Now try using any magic you know—one on your left hand and another on your right. I just showed you, so you should still have a feel for it if you try now.”

As instructed, I cast Flame Cutter on my right hand and Fireball on my left. I managed the task with ease.

I nodded in understanding. “I see.”