Fake Children

Despite Ciel's protests, his wheelchair was not modified back. But since Ciel's motto was to enjoy something as much as he could if he couldn't change it, he gave up complaining and told Erin to push him over to wherever Jadiel was. He had already stayed in bed for a month so it was fine for him to be moved around as long as he didn't stand on his own two legs.

As the maker of the creation, Ivan lifted him into the wheelchair.

"Thanks." Ciel smiled, "I'll cook you grilled fruit fish later when I'm healed."

Glancing over at Erin, he added, "I'll give something to you later too."

Erin shook his head, "Call me older brother and you won't need to give me anything else."

Ciel laughed, "Nope."

If he called this kid older brother, his actual older brother in his past world would be deeply disappointed.

Erin tched, making Ciel take another look at him.

'Looks like I am influencing him, he didn't do this before.'

Thinking of this, Ciel remembered something and turned back to Lilian.

"Ah wait, I forgot to ask, so how long do I have to stay in the wheelchair?"

"Your neck wound will take one more week to heal and your leg injuries will take one more month. Until then, come every day for bandage changes."

"A month? I recently became a peak apprentice mage, why is it still taking this long?" Ciel frowned. Because of his frequent visits to the almost illegal areas and the illegal areas, he had gotten into plenty of fights, letting him advance his mana manipulation. He was just a step away from becoming a core mage, the level the protagonist had started at when she was summoned to this world.

—It had to be said that when the protagonist broke her arms while she was a beginner core mage, she had instantly healed it. Although his attributes were different from the protagonist, shouldn't his body have at least similar mage rank benefits?

Lilian nodded, "The higher a mage is ranked, the higher their mana reserve is along with their purity, this gives them a stronger self healing ability because mana is one of the core pillars supporting this world. Looks like you don't lack much general knowledge. However, with the way you treat your body, you think you'll still have such high vitality?"

Hearing his words, Ciel was calm, trying not to look at his fingers. He had been wondering why they had been wrapped up. So this was why Lilian had seemed so lenient earlier.

'I blame my big mouth. He might have not remembered if I hadn't said anything.'

Smiling gently, Ciel tried to change the topic.

"My dearest, most competent doctor–"

"You and the others were kidnapped easily by several low ranked combatants. The others have an excuse; Erin is a newly formed eve, the crown prince only recently awakened his attributes, while Norama's heir hasn't awakened yet. But you're already a peak ranked apprentice mage when most of your peers with mana have only started to awaken their attributes. You weren't careless, you also possessed enough strength to defeat them, you lost because your body was too physically weak to react in time."

Lilian's tone reminded Ciel of his past professor's tone whenever he did something wrong.

Ciel sighed, not actually irritated from being scolded, just a bit bored with the repetitive talk.

"I won't secretly practice blood magic again, ok?"

"You said that last time when we first met. Then you said it again when you fainted from anemia. This is the third time now."

"They say the third time's the charm."

"You'll burn yourself out one day."

"I'm sorry for being such a troublesome patient. Don't frown, it'll give you wrinkles." Ciel grinned.

That was the last straw for Lilian. Still, Ciel looked amused as Lilian was angered until his veins started bulging.

"You think I'm irritated like this because you're a disobedient patient?"

Ciel nodded. "I don't understand why you're so worked up. I know you care about your patients a lot. But after I'm healed, what I do has nothing to do with you right?"

Lilian paused as Ciel continued, "Did Jadiel tell you that like Erin, I was going to be a part of this… family?"

Just a look at Lilian, Erin, and Ivan's expressions gave Ciel the answer.

Ciel narrowed his eyes,

"Although I am a child, I am perfectly capable of taking care of myself. Other than our coworker relationship, we have nothing to do with each other. You all are crossing the boundaries by interfering with my private life. I am well aware of the fact that Fatalite is in a situation where none of us can be careless, so I won't let my condition affect Fatalite again. Ok?"

In the first place, Ciel was a fake child. An adult with a child's body. He was well aware of how turbulent the world of 'The First Saintess' was going to be. If he wanted to get involved in all the interesting events in the future, he had to get stronger. It was nice to have an organization like Fatalite as his backing, but he didn't like it when he was restricted from his goals.

Even in his past life, there were only two people he would listen to.

The room's atmosphere tensed up.

Obviously, Ciel had clear blue eyes, but at that moment, Ciel's eyes were covered in shadow, each like a watery vortex so murky that no light could enter.

The illusion was broken when Ciel tied his blindfold over his eyes. In an instant, he became a fragile doll-like child.

"Erin. Let's go."

Erin silently wheeled him out of the room.

Once out of earshot from Lilian, Ciel leaned back into the wheelchair, facing up towards Erin.

"Hey. I'm telling you now, but I'm a really heartless guy. You still want to be my big brother?"

Knowing that Ciel could, in fact, 'see' with a blindfold on, Erin nodded silently.

Ciel found him funny. "Is that your instincts telling you so or do you actually want to be my family?"

Erin was confused, "Is there a difference?"

Ciel sensed genuine confusion in his voice. But for the sake of his pretty eyes, Ciel decided to give Erin a chance.

"How about this, our physical ages are both 9 right now. I can give you a trial period of being my brother for five years. Five years later, if you still want to be my brother, we can be sworn brothers. But I have to be the older one."

"Is there really a need for a trial period?" A voice sounded out and startled Erin while Ciel calmly moved his head to face the newcomer he had sensed a long time ago with his mana senses.

It was Jadiel.

Ciel's expression expressed innocence, but his words were sharp and callous.

"No, I just don't want connections that'll drag me down when I cause trouble."

"Why are you so sure he will change his mind?"

"Five years should be enough for him to mature. Ah, Erin, I've changed my mind. Take me to my room. Chief, you can tell me about what his highness gave me later."

Ciel smiled as he reached up and tugged on Erin's long hair.

This child had too good of a personality. He didn't even react when he was being discussed right in front of his face and when Ciel kept treating him badly. Ciel was this careless to everyone, but Erin was the only one he freely ordered around. Even so, the child never resisted. That enough demonstrated his personality. Erin was a good kid, a very good kid, he was just a bit too stubborn about attaching himself to Ciel.

In this aspect, he really was too similar to the brother-sister pair who later on became his only family.

'If they saw me like this, they'll probably accuse me of holding onto the past.'

Ciel laughed inwardly as Erin bid goodbye to Jadiel and rolled him away.

'I don't know why I remember memories from my past life, but I shouldn't get too attached to anyone in this life. Last time was troublesome enough.'

Glancing back at Jadiel, who was standing still in the corridor, Ciel suddenly thought of the possibility of being fired.

'Maybe I should utilize that debt from that green-eyed young man soon.'

***

After escorting Ciel to his room, Erin was driven out. Looking blankly at the closed door, he sighed as he walked to Jadiel's office.

"Chief."

Jadiel looked up, "Erin. How is Ciel?"

"He's the same as always."

"As always huh? Since he's fine, let's move onto you, why are you persistent? I know firsthand how imprinting works but for natural eves, imprinting should have very little effect."

Eves born from other eves or sentient lifeforms were different from natural eves who gained wisdom by themselves. These days, natural eves were rare as most eves had older generations to guide them. Lanae hadn't told Ciel everything about eves and with how Ciel was normally like, he wouldn't ask unless he gained an interest in it, which he hadn't.

Naturally, he wouldn't know about imprinting, nor the fact that natural eves such as Erin didn't lose their memories as animals when they became humanoid, the memories were simply incorporated as instincts into their physical body.

Although they couldn't exactly recall their memories as beings with hazy sentience, they would have them as instincts. If they employed special methods, they would have a possibility of remembering their memories with clarity.

Ciel couldn't be blamed for his ignorance though, 'The First Saintess' really hadn't focused much on world building.

Imprinting was when the first thing a newborn eve saw became important to them. However, imprinting only had large effects on guided eves. Natural eves spent a long time gathering their own consciousness from the world around them and therefore wouldn't be very attached to something they might or might not have already seen in their previous form. Thanks to this, while guided new eves were actually like newborn human babies, natural eves only spent a few months with a child-like mentality before tidbits of memories from before started coming back to them. The stronger a natural eve was, the faster they matured.

Erin was already starting to act more like an adult. But because of his perpetually expressionless face, not many people had noticed it. Only Jadiel had noticed that Erin's actions were becoming less clumsy, and his personality had become mildly like Ciel's—too mature for a child his age.

"A guided eve like you wouldn't understand." Erin shrugged.

Jadiel could feel another headache emerging: "Hah… This is why I wanted to give you an innocent childhood phase, now you're acting like Ciel. Stop being enigmatic and go back to that small cutie from before."

Erin patted Jadiel's shoulder with a bit of sympathy.

"Blame yourself for being too soft-hearted to kick us out. We'll be troubling you for the next few years, Jadiel."

In response, Jadiel grumpily ruffled Erin's head.