“Come on, you know this already! Any mage lousy enough to get sent out as a stationed mage is one of the kingdom’s castoffs. They don’t even get treated like bugs back there!”

Well, that was true.

And apparently quite a few stationed mages across the continent thought the same way Asha did. Some of them went back, but most stayed here.

“The Mage King probably won’t bother burning through magic to control nobodies like us. If anything, he’d just kill us all at once...”

“Hey, why would you say something so scary...?”

“Because it’s scary and true... Besides, the kingdom’s in hiding right now anyway.”

Asha grabbed my hand and, for once, spoke with crisp conviction.

“This might actually be an opportunity! So let’s use this time to seriously think about how to destroy the kingdom!”

She was right.

Crisis could just be another word for opportunity.

Who would gather strength first, and strike first?

That might be the real key.

Anyway, separate from all that—

that was when the Babilon Emperor moved fast.

He persuaded the stationed mages scattered across the continent—the ones who refused to return to the kingdom—to come over to Babilon instead.

That’s why Babilon suddenly had so many more stationed mages. Thanks to that, the supply of essential magic tools stopped being a problem...

In other words, magic-tool self-sufficiency.

And of course I handled materials through Dad.

“Duke, this really does look like a profitable business. How about selling Asha’s magic-tool blueprints to the Imperial Palace along with the magic stones? Rubian-approved, of course.”

“Make sure the profit margin is fat.”

“Yes, sir.”

Thanks to that, our magic stone shop succeeded in landing the Imperial Palace as a massive client, and our sales were shooting straight up.

One of the employees was thrilled. They said business was even better than when we used to supply magic stones to the Magic Kingdom.

Dad hated the Magic Kingdom so much now that he’d cut off trade with them completely, and that side had gone dead.

Heh heh... I’ll bring it back to life properly.

I smiled to myself, imagining my personal vault filling up little by little.

“Brrr, it’s freezing.”

Well, that was that.

“Let’s go inside! My snot feels like it’s about to freeze!”

Snff. I stamped my feet and sucked in a cold breath, and Boyd and Khalid—who had been in the middle of a fierce snowball fight nearby—immediately came running over.

“Brother Liam!”

I called Liam over too, wherever in the world he’d wandered off to.

“Whew... what a long, arduous adventure.”

“You did actually ride the sled, right?”

“We were supposed to be riding sleds?”

“Then what exactly were you doing?”

The usual bickering.

Noisy and a little strange, just like always—our family.

When you really think about it, nothing’s actually been resolved.

But what I had to do never changed.

Do what I can right now, and enjoy myself while I’m at it!

*****

I’d just shrugged off my snow-dusted coat and was heading for the drawing room on the second floor when I ran smack into Grandpa in the hallway.

“What’s this? A bunch of wet little runts?”

“Grandpa!”

“Oh dear, would you look at that. A fluffball’s rolling right at me.”

Grandpa swooped me up in an instant and spun me around.

“Come on, I’m not at the age where people should be lifting me up and swinging me around anymore...”

I was almost twelve, after all.

I felt a little embarrassed.

“Not at the age? Is there an age limit on hugging a little runt? How old are you, then?”

“Umm. About... ten?”

I spread both hands wide as I said it, and Grandpa gave a huge snort.

“Ohhh, is that so? Since you’re already eleven, does that mean you can’t be held in your grandpa’s arms anymore~?”

“Ugh, why are you teasing me?!”

How annoying!

I smacked his completely immovable shoulder, as always, and Grandpa burst into a thoroughly obnoxious laugh. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

“When you turn into a little runt that’s about a hundred years old, I’ll listen to that nonsense!”

“To the drawing room!”

The giant old man stomped down the hall.

Honestly, Grandpa looked healthier by the day, like he was getting younger in reverse, so I had a feeling he’d still be carrying me around like this no matter how old I got.

“Even so, I don’t want to be a hundred-year-old little runt...”

“Hm?”

That would be disgusting...

“Then sit still and dry out till you’re nice and crisp!”

“Okaaay.”

Grandpa set me down right in front of the fireplace in the drawing room, then headed back to the annex. Apparently some new sword design had come in for Khalid or something like that.

The boy sitting next to # Nоvеlight # me, meanwhile, didn’t look remotely interested.

“So warm.”

I sat on the plush carpet below the sofa with my knees tucked in, zoning out at the fire.

As punishment for having way too much fun playing outside in the dead of winter, we weren’t allowed to leave until our body heat came back up.

“Come closer. It’s warmer here.”

Khalid patted the space beside him. I shuffled over and pressed close.

Sure enough...

with another person’s body heat added in, it really was warmer.

“Ah! I want to go do sword training!”

Boyd grumbled, waving the wooden sword he’d apparently brought in with him through the air.

“It’s snowing again outside, though. If we’d stayed out even a little longer, we would’ve turned into snowmen.”

The sky that had cleared earlier was darkening again, and big flakes were piling up softly, swallowing every sound in the world.

“Tch. I guess I’ll just swing my wooden sword in here.”

Boyd snapped the curtain aside and turned back.

“If Grandpa catches you, you’ll get scolded.”

I tossed that out halfheartedly and sipped my cocoa.

It’s peaceful.

The air was warm, the carpet was soft, and the cocoa was sweet.

I was just about to lie flat on my stomach on the floor when something I needed to do came back to me. It was because I spotted Liam, as always, with his nose buried in a book on a sofa a little farther away.

Right. I should look at this too.

Rustle, rustle. I dug through my pocket and pulled out a scrap of parchment.

It was the magic formula Dad had brought back from Casalia last time.

Hmm... Is this climate-related magic?

Asha had copied it down for me, but she wasn’t exactly familiar with this sort of high-level magic formula, so there were holes here and there. My job was to infer those gaps and complete it.

It’s not the formula for the mark-breaking circle, but...

I’d never seen magic like this before.

Bit by bit.

It felt like knowledge was piling up like snow.

Not borrowed knowledge from Wigeria.

My real knowledge.

At this rate, maybe someday I won’t need Wigeria anymore.

The thought made me snicker to myself.

“What are you doing?”

Khalid, beside me, turned his head slightly and asked. I mumbled around the pen I had between my lips.

“I’m looking at a magic formula.”

“...”

“...”

And just like that, silence fell.

Huh? What was that?

The mood had turned strange. I looked up—and found Liam and Boyd staring at me.

...Oh. Right.

My brothers had only just found out I was a mage.

It hadn’t even been a month yet.

It was after we came to the North and things around us had settled down a little.

The two of them had looked utterly stunned when they heard everything. But that was all.

...They’re all like that.

Butler Adolf and Hazel too.

It was obvious they were shocked, obvious they were forcing themselves to swallow it all down.

Because they’re afraid I’ll get hurt, or start watching myself around them...

Thanks to that, things could stay the way they used to be.

Still, silences like this were a little embarrassing, so I gave an awkward laugh and lowered my head back over the scrap of parchment.

“H-ha, haha... It’s p-pretty unfamiliar, right...?”

That was when—

“Whoa.”

“Let me see, dumpling fairy.”

Liam slid off the sofa and dropped onto the floor beside me, leaning in to look at the parchment too.

“Tell me what you don’t know. I’ll teach you everything. Hurry up and whine about how you don’t understand.”

“No, but this is a magic formula...”

“Then show off what you do know and act smug a thousand times.”

“Huh?”

The way he pushed up his glasses was as cold as ever.

Just then Boyd wedged himself in beside Khalid and plastered himself to my other side.

“Move overrrr... Ruby! Do you need ink? Want me to turn the paper? Are you taking notes?”

“...Weren’t you about to go swing your wooden sword?”

“This is exactly the kind of thing you’re supposed to watch next to your big brothers!”

Really? Magic formulas?

Next to two little knight brats?

That’s the first I’m hearing of it...

And yet, somehow, it felt reassuring.

“All right. I’ll show you what I can do!”

I grinned playfully and flopped down on my stomach across a cushion. Liam and Boyd stuck close on either side of me.

Khalid got pushed out a little...

but he still stayed nearby with his arms folded, watching.

“There are a lot of weird little snail shapes in there. Explain them already, fairy.”

“All right, look. This one is...”

Crackle, pop.

With the sound of the fireplace embers as background music, I, the mage, showed off a little.

*****

“Hey, if you cling to me like this, I can’t see anything!”

In the end, Rubian exploded.

“Our tiny, adorable little sister.”

Liam wrapped both arms around the Rubian sprawled beside him.

“I’m twelve!”

Tightly.

“You’re not the only one getting older, you know?”

Boyd refused to lose either.

“Ugh, you’re both such a pain! Look at this! The magic formula! You said you were curious!”

In truth, the brothers had no interest in magic formulas at all.

“Ruby was... what?”

How was he supposed to describe what he had felt then?

“...She was really on a battlefield.”

For the first time, Liam understood what people meant when they said rage could make your blood run cold.