Chapter 24 - Harvest Festival

— Leon Greyrat —

"Come on, brother. Let the mana flow through you, enhancing your strength with each strike. Don't control it, just guide it," I lectured.

A wooden sword whistled toward my face, but compared to the Water God, it looked like nothing more than a baby swinging a stick.

Needless to say, I parried it effortlessly, and with my brother leaving his side open, I gave him some punishment for being so vulnerable.

Thwack!

"Ouch!" Rudy exclaimed as he falls onto the ground.

"Haa…That's enough," I said.

As Rudy began to cast healing magic on himself, I silently contemplated what I had noticed lately whenever I sparred with my brother.

With me becoming a Water Saint, I could now sense mana, and by extension, touki as well.

Ghislaine's was sharp and refined, almost to the point where it was hard to see, though that was probably just the difference in our abilities. 

Master did say that at a certain difference in strength, one's touki becomes beyond one's understanding, whatever that meant.

Eris' touki, however, was very… loose. 

Unrefined and amateur, at least compared to me.

But lately, she was starting to use touki with some of her strikes, which meant that she was now an Advanced-rank swordswoman, or at least very close to it.

And Rudy… I couldn't feel his at all.

When one reached the Intermediate rank, like the few knights I saw training in the courtyard from time to time, they should begin having some touki radiate off their body, even if it's uncontrolled.

In fact, even a Beginner-rank swordsman showed flashes of touki here and there.

Rudy, however… seemed to have none at all.

"Dammit… What do you think the problem is, Leon?" he asked me.

"…You said you don't feel anything at all, right?" I asked.

"What? Don't start talking like Father now," he teased. "But no, I don't. Am I doing something wrong?"

I shook my head. "No."

While lacking in power, Rudy's technique was quite good, even being on par with Eris as long as you didn't take the raw combat instincts and talent into account.

And considering that he had been training for so long… yeah, I was pretty confident about this.

"Rudy… I don't think you have any touki. Or at least, if you do, you can't use it," I stated my hypothesis.

"No touki, huh?" he said despondently. "I guess I can't be a swordsman, then."

"I didn't say that," I interjected. "I've noticed Sylphy has the same problem, but it's still good for you two to learn swordsmanship to defend yourself and train combat instincts, even if you can barely reach the Intermediate rank. But perhaps… yeah, I think you should start focusing on the Water God and North God instead. Is that alright, Big Sis?"

Looking over to Ghislaine, she nodded in response. "Mmm. Rudeus is not suited for the Sword God Style."

Ouch.

"And it wouldn't do any good for Eris to only fight against Sword God techniques. Unfortunately, Leon is too far ahead to be her sparring partner, but with Rudeus learning the other styles, it would broaden her abilities as well," she continued.

"Ah… I see. But isn't Eris stronger than me?" Rudy asked.

"…In swordsmanship, yes. But you're still close enough to be good partners," I said.

That was something else I've learned about Rudy.

He underestimated himself. 

Especially in terms of combat strength.

It was probably due to having a very skewed sense of normalcy, as the people he knew were Paul, a genius at all three sword styles; Ghislaine, one of the few people in the world who had reached the rank of Sword King in the world; me, who was extremely talented at both swordsmanship and magic; and then Eris, who, while currently only a bit better than the average swordsman, was a genius in her own right.

Anyway, while he might end up pissing some people off in the future by acting so humble, I'd rather him be like his now than be overconfident and get himself killed, so I think I'll just leave it as is.

Plus, judging from his 'experience' from Eris' birthday, he was doing just fine in terms of self-confidence.

Speaking of that night, Mama was pretty upset when I told her about it, and even more so when I told her where Rudy got his tips from.

Needless to say, there was a long period of time when I didn't have to worry about another little sibling of mine entering the world.

Letting the springtime air that was teeming with the scent of blossoming flowers blow across my face, I started heading toward the stables.

"I'm heading home today, okay? I'll be back by tomorrow around dinnertime," I said.

"Can I come!?" Eris pleaded.

"You know you can't, Eri. I'll take Sylphy on my way back, though. Plus, you still have some reading to catch up on, right?" I said.

"Hmph! It's way too boring!" she whined.

"Eri," I said. "I know you want to be an adventurer."

"Wha-!?" Eris exclaimed.

Was she so surprised that I knew? 

She had always perked up at Ghislaine's adventuring stories, and always made a habit of stopping in at the guild whenever we went into the city.

"And to be an adventurer, you need to know how to read the requests," I continued. "Unless you want to annoy the receptionist."

That seemed to shut her up.

"Mmm," Ghislaine nodded. "That was one of the problems I encountered after our party split. It's a skill you need to be independent."

And with that, a fire was born in Eris' eyes.

Hopefully, with this, she would take my dear brothers' lessons a bit more seriously, at least for the next week before that determination waned.

That was how it usually went, after all.

"Oh, and Rudy, I'll have Sylphy join our spars when she comes. Both swordsmanship and magic," I said as I hopped on the saddle.

Luckily, I was able to shorten the journey to and from Buena Village by an hour by constantly supplying the horse with healing magic, so it wouldn't be too long of a ride.

Though this method would never work for long journeys, if it was just a day, then the mana cost was acceptable, and the horse could sprint for the entire distance.

"Ah, sure. Will we go into the field for our magic spars?" Rudy asked.

"Naturally," I responded.

Yes. 

While Rudy wasn't very gifted in swordsmanship, he was a genius in magic, both in regular applications and in combat.

The magic spars were something I started based on what Roxy told me about the Ranoa University of Magic. 

While I didn't think I needed to go to such a place to increase my abilities, the battle class was an interesting idea, and so, after some advice from her letters, I decided to put it into practice with the three of us.

Anyway, Rudy had yet to win a spar against me in pure magic, but that was only because of my greater combat experience, and the fact that his mana's unique properties didn't help him.

A crazy amount of mana and increased strength of said mana didn't matter much in a short battle where we weren't aiming to kill each other, after all.

I just hoped that the skills he's been growing with me would help him when he ended up getting on a woman's bad side, or multiple women's bad sides, for that matter.

— Information on the Six-Faced World —

The Four Children

Leon Greyrat: An eleven-year-old boy with golden hair and brown eyes, his two favourite activities are entertaining his sisters and training.

Swordsmanship - Sword God: Saint, Water God: Saint, North God: Advanced

Attack Magic - Water: Saint, Fire: Advanced, Wind: Advanced, Earth: Advanced

Healing Magic - Healing: Advanced, Detoxification: Advanced, Protection: Intermediate

Rudeus Greyrat: A nine-year-old boy with brown hair and green eyes, his two favourite activities are practising magic and sniffing used panties.

Swordsmanship - Sword God: Intermediate, Water God: Intermediate, North God: Intermediate

Attack Magic - Water: Saint, Fire: Advanced, Wind: Advanced, Earth: Advanced

Healing Magic - Healing: Intermediate, Detoxification: Intermediate

Eris Boreas Greyrat: An eleven-year-old girl with red hair and red eyes, her favourite activities are practising swordsmanship and visiting the city with Leon.

Swordsmanship - Sword God: Advanced, North God: Beginner

Attack Magic - Water: Beginner, Fire: Beginner

Healing Magic - Healing: Beginner

Sylphiette: An eight-year-old girl with green hair and red eyes, her favourite activities are practising magic and playing with Leon, Eris, and Rudeus.

Swordsmanship - Water God: Beginner

Attack Magic - Water: Intermediate, Fire: Intermediate, Wind: Advanced, Earth: Intermediate

Healing Magic - Healing: Intermediate, Detoxification: Intermediate

— Leon Greyrat —

"Daddy! Mommy! Look!" Norn exclaimed, showing off her barely-legible scribbles. "It's my name!"

"That's wonderful sweetie!" Mama said with a wide smile before turning to me. "Such a good brother you are, teaching them how to write so well."

"Sylphy does it too," I said, averting my gaze.

"Fufu~ Yes, she does, but that doesn't take away your efforts, my little cutie~" she said, pulling me into a hug.

I tried to squirm out of her hold in embarrassment. "Mama! I'm not little anymore!"

"Right, you're a big Water Saint now, aren't you? Ah, but I do miss when Rudy and you were so small," Mama said with a sigh, resting her chin on my shoulder.

Norn then walked up to me, slightly hiding behind her piece of paper.

"D-Did I do good, brother?" she asked.

Getting out of Mama's grasp, I then crouched down in front of her. 

"Of course you did!" I said as I picked her up and placed her onto my shoulders. "Now, how about I take you two to the hill, and I'll show you some magic spells! Maybe Sylphy will come along too."

"Magic? Yippee!" Aisha shouted.

Lilia looked over from the kitchen. "Aisha. Make sure to-"

"Lilia," I said, interrupting her. "She's doing amazing, don't you think? I think Aisha deserves to have some fun, like Norn. They're both kids, after all."

Lilia's lips curled into a frown.

"Remember what we talked about, Lilia," I said as I take Aisha's hand.

"Right…" she said. "I'm sorry. Have fun, you three."

Lately, Lilia had been a bit… difficult to deal with.

I still loved her, of course, and she still loved me, and I knew that she loved her daughter, but ever since Norn and Aisha had started learning some stuff, she had constantly tried to train her daughter in ways a kid shouldn't need to.

Aisha being quite a bit more advanced for her age didn't help things either.

But luckily, Lilia had kept my promise of not grooming her to be a maid, but rather, letting her choose her own path in life.

That didn't mean Lilia was any less strict with her, though.

I didn't necessarily hate the parenting style. 

After all, I was pretty hard on myself in terms of training since… well, ever, really. 

But Aisha was only two, and she was a very excitable girl who loved to play, so as her big brother, what else would I do but keep her entertained? 

Especially since she loved magic so much.

Perhaps I was a little too doting, and perhaps I was what Rudy called a 'sis-con', but I didn't really care.

After all, I discovered something important. 

While seeing Mama happy and seeing Lilia smile was still as amazing as ever, I could say with certainty that watching my sisters' eyes light up with excitement was the greatest feeling in the world.

Ah, but I also liked it whenever Aisha showed that confidence of hers, and Norn with her cute shyness… 

Actually, I just liked seeing my sisters no matter how they were, but could you blame me? 

They were absolutely adorable, differently than Sylphy and Eris were.

"Brother! Can you show us that stormy one?" Aisha asked.

"No can do. For that one, you have to be pretty far away from the village. I can make it rain, though," I said.

I had only shown them Cumulonimbus once, around a month ago, but ever since, Aisha had been begging me to do it again.

She was an excitable girl, after all, and apparently, she found it fun to be in the middle of such a violent storm, as long as I dried her off afterwards.

Unfortunately, unlike Aisha, Norn got scared by all the thunder when I showed her, but she brightened up after I cleared up the sky with a rainbow that she found pretty, so it all ended okay.

"Brother?" Norn asked, poking my cheek.

"Yes, Norn?" I asked.

"Can you… umm… make the kite fly?" she said.

"Of course I can. I'll go pick it up, okay?" I said.

With her holding her bunny close to her face and nodding with a shy smile, I felt my heart race with happiness.

Haa… I didn't really understand how Mama was always so doting on me and Rudy, constantly calling us cute whenever she could, especially when we were so odd, but now… I get it.

"Anything for my cute sisters," I said, tickling her side.

"N-No! S-Stop!" she laughed.

Yeah, being a big brother was pretty damn awesome, and these girls were much cuter than Rudy was.

Sorry, Rudy.

Maybe you would seem cuter if you didn't steal our teacher's panties.

— Leon Greyrat —

It was now nearing the beginning of winter, which meant that the harvest was soon to be collected, and the celebration of said event was about to begin. 

But right now, I was in Rudy's room, where the two of us had just finished our session of studying our knowledge of languages.

Having shared conversations with Ghislaine ever since I started teaching Eris, I was now fluent in the Beast God tongue, and with Rudy learning from Ghislaine and me, he was becoming quite good at it too. 

Rudy had also picked up the Fighting God tongue while I wasn't looking, and with me with the Demon God tongue from Roxy, we both needed to take an hour each week simply to focus on retaining the knowledge.

Ah, and I had also learned all the healing and detoxification spells from the Advanced-rank spell book my family got me, so that was cool too.

Speaking of magic, I had been keeping up with Roxy while I could, though because of the distance between us, it took around half a year for me to send a letter and get a response. 

That kind of sucked.

Anyway, she was extremely impressed that I became a Water Saint, and told me about how she was now able to cast more magic without an incantation, but her progress was very slow. 

Like I had mentioned to her before, it made sense, as she was completely shifting her understanding of magic rather than building it up from a blank slate, like Rudy, Sylphy, and I.

"Look at this, Leon! I finally finished it!" Rudy exclaimed.

Raising my head from my book, I looked over to see Rudy proudly showing off a miniature statue of Ghislaine.

Oh, right, he called them 'figurines', didn't he?

"Looks nice, Rudy. Though her balance is a bit off," I said, pointing to how her stance was set.

"Oh, shut up! You know, I can't understand that stuff. But look at her details… hehe. It took some time to get the tail right, that's for sure," he said.

Right… the tail.

I remember walking in on him feeling up our swordsmanship instructor's bottom, and while I initially felt a little disappointed, seeing Rudy's shock at the muscular behind rather than arousal was so funny that I decided to let it go.

"Yeah, nice job. Though it's quite a peculiar way to practice magic," I said.

When he first showed me his figures, I thought I'd take the same route in practising magic, but unfortunately, it just took way too much time to make them, and I wasn't able to practice my application of spells either.

Plus, I preferred fire and wind magic more than earth magic anyway.

"Huhuhu, young Leon, my dear brother, you don't seem to understand," Rudy said, wagging his finger back and forth. "With such exquisite detail, I can sell this thing for one entire gold coin! Just like the Roxy figure!"

…

"…Right. Sure. Well, keep up the good work, I guess," I said.

Looking out the window, I saw that the sun is slowly making its way toward the horizon, signalling the coming of night.

Hmm… it's about time for that, isn't it?

"Do you want to come to the harvest festival, Rudy?" I asked.

"Hm? Nah. I went last year, but it was pretty boring. All the people did was dance around a fire and sell some food," he said. "I'd rather stay inside and practice my magic."

"If you're sure…" I said, getting up off my chair. "Well, see ya."

Walking over to the front door, I quickly spotted Eris with her arms crossed in her usual stance, feet tapping against the ground in impatience.

"What took you so long?" she asked.

"Sorry, Eri. My brother wanted me to show me his new figure. It's of Ghislaine," I answered.

Her eyebrow raises slightly at that. "Is that so…"

She really liked Ghislaine, didn't she?

"You can always ask for him to sell it to you, you know," I smiled wryly.

"Hmph! I… might just do that!" she harrumphs. "D-Do you think he'd take any requests?"

"Hm? Probably. What, did you want one of yourself or something?" I asked.

Considering it was Rudy we were talking about, he'd probably try to use that as an excuse to touch her, but then again, he knew I would make him regret if he did anything like that, and Eris wouldn't that slide either, so he knew better… probably.

Eris averted her eyes. "N-Not exactly… A-Anyway! Let's go!"

Grabbing my hand, Eris then led me past the manor's gate and down the crowded street, a visible skip in her step the entire way.

I guess the Young Miss was excited, huh?

Usually, a noble would never intermingle with the common folk like this, even for a festival, unless they were the stars of the show, which was why Eris was currently dressed in cheaper clothes than she would normally wear.

They were still of good quality, of course, but it wouldn't make one think the girl was the granddaughter of the liege lord and daughter of the mayor. 

At most, she would look like the child of a successful merchant or something similar.

Even then, this was still quite a weird situation, but with Eris begging her parents and working hard in her lessons, she was eventually granted permission.

Ghislaine would be watching over us on the rooftops, obviously, but with the culprit behind the attempted kidnapping now discovered, Darius would have to be very stupid to try it again, especially considering how protective Sauros was of Eris and how impulsive the man was.

"-eon? Hey, Leon!" Eris exclaimed.

That snapped me out of my thoughts. "Hm? What is it, Eri?"

"There's meat pies! Let's get some!" she said with excitement.

"Sure. Did you bring your money?" I asked.

"Come on, Leon," she said, bringing out her coin purse. "I'm not that stupid." 

Yeah, but I have a feeling she forgot another part of our outdoor lessons.

"Oh yeah? Can I see what's inside of it?" I asked.

"Of course!"

Taking a peek inside the pouch, I saw that it's filled with around ten coins. 

Ten gold coins.

"Haa… Do you remember why I get paid ten silver coins instead of one gold coin, Eris?" I asked.

"Huh? No, I forgot," she said, tilting her head.

"Because not everyone has the coins to exchange for gold coins. Especially not a stall at a festival like this one," I said. "We'll have to use my money."

"…Oh."

Yeah, oh.

"You should start learning these skills soon, Eris," I said, pulling out my coin purse. "I won't always be there to help you out."

Eris turned her head to the side in a pout. "…Why can't you?"

"Huh?"

"N-Nothing! Come on, you have to buy me a meat pie, right?" she said, pulling me along once again.

Truly, such a spoiled noble girl.

But 'why can't you'… I guess I wouldn't mind being her guard for a little longer.

I did have a small want to explore the world a little, and maybe even become an adventurer for a while, but family unconditionally came first.

Maybe, when Aisha and Norn grew up a little, we could move to Roa, or maybe even Sharia if they wanted to go to Ranoa, but then there'd be the problem of Sylphy and Eris… ah, whatever, the future was too complex to predict.

With Eris having happily eaten a meat pie and a half, and sharing the last half of the second one with me, we then slowly wandered around the bustling city.

It wasn't anything interesting, really, but for Eris, who had lived an extremely sheltered life up until now, it was extremely exciting to see such a festive atmosphere. 

The bard's music brought a smile to her face, and the short festival games we played made it even wider, and then, finding ourselves next to the large bonfire that was lit at the city centre, the music changed, and the townsfolk began dancing in celebration.

"Eri? Do you want to dance?" I asked, holding my hand out.

"Erm…" she said anxiously, "I'm, uhh-"

"Look around, Eri. This isn't some formal dance like your birthday party," I interrupted her.

The surrounding dancers were extremely uncoordinated. 

People took each other's hands in pairs or larger groups and simply had fun, enjoying the celebratory atmosphere.

Old, young, man, woman… It didn't matter.

"Let loose, Eri," I pulled her toward the fire. "Just enjoy the moment with me."

And then, we began to dance.

She was still a bit hesitant and nervous at first, but she quickly noticed that there was absolutely no need for etiquette and formalities here. 

She didn't have to be prim and proper. 

She could be loud and rude.

She could mess up her steps and laugh it off with a smile. 

Right here, right now… she could be herself, with nothing holding her back.

And I wasn't embarrassed to say she looked beautiful… at least inwardly.

A happy and free Eris truly was the best Eris.

Eventually, the fire's glow began to weaken and the height of the flames reduced, signalling an end to the festivities, but seeing how happy Eris looked, with a light sheen of sweat perfecting her charming smile, she didn't seem to mind.

"Leon! That was so much fun!" she exclaimed. "You better take me next year!"

"Sure thing. As long as you keep up with your studies," I teased.

"Hmph!"

At the mention of 'studies', she harrumphed and looked away, but that couldn't hide how the corner of her lips remained curled up.

"But yes, I'll be sure to take you next year. Hmm… maybe we should bring Sylphy too," I said.

That girl was nearly as sheltered as Eris, though for a much different reason, so she would probably love to experience such a nice festival.

Instead of agreeing with me, Eris's eyebrows twitched, and I felt an elbow jab into my stomach.

"…Why?" I asked.

Weren't they friends?

She stuck her bottom lip out in a pout, "Nothing."

Hmm… she seemed more conflicted than angry.

"…Okay."

Perhaps she was having some trouble with puberty or something.

"Let's go back home then. And make sure you have a bath," I said.

"A-Are you saying I smell!?" she shouted.

My lips curled into a wide smirk. "Maybe~"

Needless to say, I got another elbow jab in response, though I also got a laugh out of her discreetly sniffing her hair with worry on the way back.