A "peaceful" dinner

"Welcome back, young master, and you too Julia, how is the first day going?"

Albert comes out of the mansion and greets both of them.

"I had failed a lot of tasks, mister Albert…."

Julia admits her failure.

"Good, I expect nothing less, I love your honesty, and I'm sure master Ark does too."

Albert smiles and turns his head to Ark.

"Do you have any dinner plans, master Ark?"

"No, is there anything I need to do?"

"Yes, Master August wanted to meet you at dinner."

"Father wants to meet me?"

Ark feels surprised, this is the first time his father ever called him, not even when he first uses magic can make his father interested.

'There something smells fishy about this…'

Ark didn't know much about his father, except for his height.

While walking inside the manor, Ark looks up at the 12ft door and looks down to find very large black leather shores on the doorstep.

'He is home.'

"Then, I will clean your clothes and your room, please wait for me, young master~!"

Julia felt free after getting inside, she happily announced her job and then left immediately to do it.

'What should I do….'

Ark looks around and wonders.

He has a ton of free time because he is only 5 so he doesn't have much business to be done, unlike in his past life, he doesn't have any free time, it was either war or training, even when he sleeps, he needs to keep an eye open for intruders.

"Well, that's a payoff, isn't it? I got the time but not the task to do…"

Ark has already done his training in the morning, so, from the evening to nighttime, he needs to find something.

Normally, he will be reading books in the library, but after spending so many years reading, he finished them all.

'Can't I just speed time and age up to adult already! I want to travel around the world now!'

Ark can immediately leave this house and go on his adventure, but his morality keeps him still a good little boy for this household.

They gave birth to me and give me a lot of care, so abandoning them is not something a righteous human such as him can do.

"Maybe it's time to pick up a weapon again, I guess."

Compared to his god-killing levels of magic, his combat skill is still at the level of master.

After deciding what he will spend his time on, he goes to his backyard and picks up some sticks, and uses earth-type magic to construct an earth sword from dirt.

Earth magic property is "construct". The effects are permanent, even after the caster dies the shape of the earth magic will not fall apart if built properly.

"When was the last time I used a weapon against an enemy…."

Ark looks at the dirt blade in hand and revisits his memory.

He uses the sword and shields a lot at the beginning of his path to glory, but after knowing the limitation of physical damage, he abandons them entirely and focuses on magical combat.

"Let's see If I still have it in me."

Ark creates a dirt dummy with a sword from the ground and makes it attack him at lunacy speed.

He did not forget to also create a thin layer of dirt armor covering him to check if the blade hit.

The speed of the sword creates screaming wind around it and makes surrounding leaves fly like crazy.

Sip Sip

Not even a minute passes when the two collide, and blade wounds appear around Ark's body armor.

'Do I be strong or weak if my dummy is too fast and I can't block it?'

Ark stops the dummy and takes a break after knowing he can't block its sword, his body can't keep up with the speed of his magic!

"It looks like I need to work with sword skills from the ground up…"

Ark returns the dirt dummy and armor and creates a rock dummy instead.

"1 2 3 4…."

Over and over, Ark hit the rock dummy with his dirt sword.

His body strength is that of a 5-year-old, but if he starts now, by the time he is fully grown, his body will be ready for all adversaries.

Also, it can be an alternative for playing with the children at school.

Time flies from evening to night.

"Young master, dinner is ready."

After Albert watched Ark for a while, he reminded him of the meeting with his father.

"Yes."

Ark now covers in sweat, controls all of his sweat out, and tosses the ball of sweat to the nearby bush.

"Impressive control, young master, you should show this to master sometime, I'm sure he will be very pleased."

"I wonder if it would help with his problem…"

Ark knows the absence of his father didn't come from him directly, but it was what his mother had done.

'They both are very alike. Ah, will they even reconcile?'

Albert shakes his head and wishes someday that this family can see face to face, but it is up to his mistress when the day will come.

In the dining room decorated with a magic crystal chandelier, there is a big table filled with delicious food.

And at the end of the table, appears a giant muscular man eating exquisitely, opposing his body size and intimidating aura.

"Good afternoon, father"

Ark greets the giant man politely and sits down at the opposite side of the table.

His father is a very big man, and he means it. Standing at the height of 9ft tall with an arm as big as a tree trunk, accompanied by a bald head and battle-worn face, he looks like a war elephant in human form.

August Anderson, Member of parliament, or well-known "The Invincible wall of Landon".

He once defended Landon single-handedly from an army of rebels for 7 days and nights, hence the nickname.

"How was the school?"

The moment Ark sat down, August opened his mouth in a cold voice.

"Ok, there is a problem here and there, but everything is alright."

Ark politely answers his father and glances at Julia who is standing with trembling legs.

'Look like something happened…'

"I already had a chat with your maid, good work defeated the royal house."

There is tension between parliament and royal blood, that is why his father felt pleased as a member.

"But you should be considerate before making an enemy that influential, do you have any plan? Remember you still need to study there with him for at least another 10 years."

August reminded him of reality, the conflict already started, but does his son have a plan to deal with it?

"To tell the truth, I don't care much what he will do, on the contrary, I planned to teach him myself."

"Oh, you plan to be a teacher?"

His father stops eating and looks up at him in question.

"No, I just want to teach him because he has potential, he got 9 spheres, after all."

Ark pulls up the steak and starts eating.

"Bold of you to claim you can teach him, with a score of 5 spheres."

"…."

"You don't look surprised I knew your score."

"I saw you there, father. Who can miss someone as big as you?"

Hearing the answer, August laughed in satisfaction.

"Haha! As expected of MY son. But it looks like your mother did not, sadly."

Ark can see how sad and disappointed August was when talking about his mother.

"Maybe she is worried about me and the situation is very serious."

His mother must focus on how to fix the situation and miss his father attending.

But in her defense, his father is hiding behind the church pillar in an obscure area while most people focus on the altar.

"Yes, it is very serious indeed, I have to pay a lot of fees to shut the pastor's mouth."

August uses wind magic to send the pastor a secret message to let them go, then he goes in and "negotiates".

"I'm very sorry for that, for I'm the one who breaks it."

Ark bows his head for an apology, he is the one to blame.

"Really?"

"Yes, I overloaded the mechanism in secret, because I hate that it forces pressure on kids."

"If that is the case, I can agree with it, I also hate that sphere system."

August looks very pleased with Ark's reason, it makes Albert in the corner secretly smile.

'If only the mistress is here too, it would be perfect!'

Velvet is still on her job, so she isn't home yet.

"Father, there is something I want to discuss."

Because his father looks happy now, Ark decided to ask for something.

"What is it?"

August, wait to hear.

"My allowance is too low to feed both me and Julia."

"Yes, that was intentional, and what did you do about it?"

After hearing it, August asks his son with curiosity.

"…luckily, a senior saw it and came in for help, she gave us free food."

Ark chose not to speak about Lexie because she is the leader of the green deer faction, opposing sites of the red lion sponsored by his dad's workplace, the parliament.

"And you accept it? You are a noble, not a beggar, I remind you."

"Well, free food still is free food, and she gave me no choice so I took it."

The steak was already paid for, he can't do anything about it so why not eat rather than let it go to waste.

"Ok, so how much do you want to increase your allowance?"

"14 silver"

Two mashed potatoes and a spare to buy a ride home.

"Do you know how hard it is for other common people to work to get 14 silvers?"

"No… But I got the idea."

"The idea is far from reality, Ark. They have to endure coal dust and melting temperatures to scrap by even 1 silver. Do you expect to get it for free that much because you are my son?"

"… Father, please."

Ark did not want to talk about this.

"But lucky you were born a noble, so I would give you an offer worth a noble's time. If you can be class president, I will give you the 14 silvers, if you are vice-class president, I will give you 12 silvers, but if you are just a regular member, I give you a choice."

"Fired Julia, and attend school alone, I know you don't need her or any company."

By observing and listening to Ark's behavior, he knows his son is very mature for his age, so it will be no problem to leave him alone in the school with the highest protection.

So, Julia is only just a burden for him to carry around school.

"I-I will think about it. Julia, follow me."

Ark quickly eats his meal and goes up the stairs.

"*Sign*…. Master August, the young master is only 5 years old, don't you think this is too much?"

Albert shakes his head, this dinner almost goes perfectly.

"Yes, I do think this is too much for him, but if he really is my son, I want him to prepare for the fall as soon as possible."

August wants to strengthen his son as much as he can before he could no longer be with him.

"Is the situation that bad?"

Albert loosens his tie to breathe more air.

"Yes…, The duke may live only for 5 years, after that, the house of Anderson will fall."