Chapter 32. Sleeping pills and the young lady’s schedule

[Year 412 of the Armored Dragon King calendar, present time.]

[Seraphim's POV.]

After I had Ghislaine scan the sky over Roa with her Demon Eye, we both came back into the manor.

By the time we returned, Eris had already woken up and started banging on the door.

After letting her out, I had enough presence of mind to warn her to not practice fire magic on her own before I secluded myself in my room.

She asked me to guide her in her strength training, but I told her to first recover after fainting; there was still some time in the day.

Being left by myself, I sat down at my desk.

I thought back to everything.

The red orb was not there, the Mana Disaster will probably not happen.

Now that I know this fact, I can make my plans for the future with this in mind.

Even if some kind of other disaster happens, there is at least nothing that would hold me back mentally.

I don't need to worry about making changes that might spread out, majorly influence the future and make me lose my future-knowledge advantage with the perspective of hoping to imitate canon events.

Previously, I have always kept this in mind.

I thought of various things I could do, but I had to balance my actions to not cause unexpected changes down the line which might be detrimental in shape.

It's just a shame. If I knew about this from the start, I could have begun teaching Sylphy magic at least 1 year earlier.

There was also some regret.

It felt like a waste. I felt bad for Sylphy. I could have made her stronger.

But logically I also understood that there's no point in dwelling on it.

It isn't something that I could have foreseen.

Shifting the timing of the Mana Disaster was one thing, but my main concern with meeting Sylphy early was that after seeing her and her talent, Roxy would have pitied her, felt kinship and accepted her as her disciple - and it would make Roxy not reach the Shirone kingdom on schedule.

This would have messed things up even more going forward. Whereas Sylphy having more mana wouldn't have changed or helped much in the grand scheme of things.

Then at 5 years old I came to Roa.

It was a decision that went against what I previously tried to prevent and was a risk, but I eventually felt that it would be too much of a waste if I didn't go, in the case that the orb isn't there.

Or perhaps even if I hasten the Mana Disaster and make things more difficult for myself, it might still be worth it.

'In the end, I'm glad I came,' I thought.

The details could be decided later, but I formed a rough plan for the future.

For the years 5-7 I will stay in Roa and focus on my growth and basic studies, that's for sure.

After that I'll probably try going out to acquire access to various Saint and King rank magic.

But first I should probably register in the Magician's Guild with a higher rank. I'd then buy the Advanced rank Healing magic book, try to get some textbooks on Magic Circles and probably order some books on Summoning magic from the capital.

I still don't know how I reincarnated, but even if I don't know that, my actions wouldn't change.

I might possibly only find out about it in the future or if a ROB decides to pay me a delayed visit.

…

That night I couldn't sleep.

My brain was filled with racing thoughts and I couldn't stop myself from thinking of what I learned that day and the consequences of it.

But I knew that I needed to sleep.

At this moment I was in the middle of testing the effect of healing herbs. Tomorrow I should see the first results.

For reliable results, I needed a full night's sleep each day to give my body a proper chance to recover and grow.

That's when the sleeping pills I snatched from the kidnappers came to my mind.

Eventually, I swallowed one of the pills and fell asleep in a matter of moments.

…

"Ugh!!!"

It hurt, it hurt a lot!

It was so sudden.

I abruptly woke up, feeling a piercing pain in my stomach that made me think that something had drilled a hole in it.

'Who attacked me?! Hitogami?!'

Did he detect me already?

But to have agents even in the Boreas family…

No, I saw my assailant.

Red hair…

It was Eris. She was sitting on top of me, staring down on me.

"Seraphim! It's time for training! Get up already!" She loudly called out.

"Uuuuuuugh…" I let out a pained groan.

I wouldn't mind being woken up by a cute girl on top of me, but this hurt so much…

Why, Eris, why…

"You're late!" Eris said again.

I see.

So it was like that.

I overslept.

As a consequence of taking sleeping pills, I overslept.

To the side, I saw some maids as well, overlooking the scene.

Using some of my willpower, I cast a silent healing spell to rid myself of the pain.

"Good job, young miss! He woke up!"

"Yes, you did great! Thank you!"

The maids praised Eris.

And Eris sent them a self-satisfied grin. "No problem!"

I reduced gravity around me and then got up, pushing Eris off of me.

She was easily pushed off and then tumbled to the ground, clumsily landing on the floor.

"Ouch!"

As I got up, I saw Eris glaring at me.

"Wingardium Leviosa," muttering a dummy chant for show, I used Gravity Magic, making the area around her turn into a Zero Gravity Zone.

"Whaat?! What is this?!" Eris called out in panic as her body entered the state of inertia.

I said, "It's my payback for hitting me."

I controlled the Gravity Magic a bit more, reversing it slightly to make her float up.

Eris began to flap her limbs around in the air in a panic, shouting, "What is this?! Eeeh! Let me go! Release me now!"

The maids covered their mouths in shock at the scene.

"No, I will leave you like that for two hours as punishment."

"What?! No way!!! I only tried to help!... Ghislaine! Ghislaaaaine!!! Help me!"

At Eris's shouts, Ghislaine rushed into the room.

Ghislaine looked around expressionlessly, then told me, "Seraphim, put her down. You were late for training, so Eris Oujo-sama woke you up. You can't be angry at her."

"You tell him Ghislaine!"

Ghislaine continued, "The training has already started. Stop this and hurry up to the square."

Ghislaine looked serious.

I felt it was time to stop my joke.

"Yes, release me!" Eris also shouted.

I said, "Okay."

I deactivated my Gravity Magic and Eris fell down, just as she requested.

Ghislaine rushed over and smoothly caught Eris by kneeling down before she hit the ground.

It isn't like the falling distance was large enough for Eris to get hurt, she would have rather safely landed on her feet. I wouldn't have just released her otherwise, and there's still Healing magic.

Still, it was a funny scene.

But Ghislaine also reacted quickly.

Leaving Ghislaine's arms, Eris got up, taking a pose of legs spread out and hands on her hips, and glared at me. "Hmph!"

"...Sorry," I said a half-hearted apology and slightly smiled at her.

After a while, I saw Eris's anger gradually dissipate. She crossed her arms, saying, "As long as you're sorry!"

…

Truth be told, Eris felt angry and at a loss at that moment. If it was anyone else bullying her, she would have already rushed at them to punch them as a payback. Or perhaps she would have plotted revenge.

But she knew that it wouldn't work on Seraphim.

Not only will he dodge or block her punch, he might even punish her for it later.

Using his magic, he could even instantly kill an Advanced rank swordsman! He was incredibly strong.

Even without magic, she was not his match at all.

Luckily, he apologized.

…

I smiled at Eris.

With all that I knew about her, I could understand her quite well.

I then turned to Ghislaine. "I'm sorry, Ghislaine. I couldn't sleep last night, so I took sleeping pills."

"So it was like that… Now that you woke up, hurry to the square. Eris, come with me first."

"Yes!"

I said, "First, I'll eat breakfast. You can start without me."

First I had to make sure to fulfill my rough protein and calorie goals for the day. Sword training could happen later.

Ghislaine looked at me for a while, then nodded. "Alright."

Eris and Ghilsaine left the room.

It's later that I found out that as the maids failed to wake me up, the head maid was called in to open the door with the master key, but they still failed in waking me up, so someone special was called over in turn.

And that someone special was Eris.

Since shouting didn't work, she jumped onto me and elbowed me in the stomach.

Even if she was a bit too hard-handed, given the circumstances, I wasn't actually angry.

I felt it was a bit amusing.

But it would be no good if I accepted Eris hitting me whenever she wants as perfectly normal, like Rudeus did.

It was actually the first time she hit me (successfully).

This tease was just a small lesson.

Though if she seriously pisses me off one day, maybe I should really make her dangle in the air head down using Telekinesis.

…

Unlike my worries, I wasn't very drowsy during sword training that day.

The sleeping pills didn't have any negative side-effects that you would expect from powerful sleeping drugs back on Earth.

Even back when I was kidnapped by the kidnappers in the middle of the day, I didn't feel very tired once I woke up.

I guess - magic.

Still, I wasn't at my best and was slightly distracted during sparring.

It was because my mind was still focused on the stuff related to the Mana Disaster and my mysterious reincarnation.

Back in my first life I had insomnia and would often be unable to fall asleep due to racing thoughts. For the most part, this has subsided in the new world and I sleep quite soundly here, but it seems I still have a tendency to over worry and overthink things.

If I cannot overcome it myself, I'd have to use sleeping drugs then.

After the morning sword practice finished, Eris and I went to grab something to eat.

Except that we couldn't eat together because of our differing social statuses.

After eating a post-workout meal brought in by the maids, I visited Philip.

Philip wanted my magic lessons to simply happen in the afternoon after Eris's normal studies, but I didn't like the idea.

I asked him about Eris's current lesson schedule and what kind of subjects she studied in total. Since I had a chance, I wanted to set up for her the most efficient schedule.

Philip could only tell me the subjects she studied and a rough lesson plan that Eris currently had, but it was enough.

After passing me this information, he told me to come to the reception room slightly later when it will be lunch break. It was for me to meet with Eris's current home tutor Anastasia.

I guessed that he went with my suggestion here and did not directly reject me because he was curious what I would pull off this time.

Having made my preparations, I came to the reception room where I made some small talk with Philip while waiting for the other guests.

Eventually, the door opened and two people walked inside.

One was a slightly overweight middle-aged woman, and another was a muscular beast woman with strong abdominal muscles that would make any man jealous.

I already knew the latter, so I focused on the former.

The woman that should be the home tutor looked like a chubby middle-aged noblewoman, with a soft and gentle face, and with bound up hair of a somewhat ordinary dark-brown color.

"Lord Philip." The woman did a noble's greeting while speaking in a soft voice.

"Anastasia, I'm glad you're here. How did the arithmetic lesson with the addition of Ghislaine go?"

Anastasia gently smiled. "The lesson went very well. Calculations are certainly the young lady's least favorite subject, but today she was especially motivated to learn thanks to Miss Ghislaine."

"Oh? Is that so?"

"Yes. There were some difficulties at first, but Miss Ghislaine did well to motivate the young lady by talking about her adventures and the difficulties she encountered because she didn't know arithmetics. The idea of including Miss Ghislaine in the lessons was a huge success!" the woman spoke softly, with a gentle happy expression throughout.

"I see. If the lessons are going well, then I'm glad. Thank you for doing this, Ghislaine."

"No need for thanks. I'm glad I can also study," Ghislaine said. "I only hope you can finally make her cut the Miss. Just Ghislaine is enough."

"Haha, you heard her, Anastasia. Anyway, if that's the case, then all is well. I hope you can keep it up. Now, Anastasia, I would like you to meet someone."

As Philip looked at me, I picked up the clue and stood up. Doing the nobles' greeting, I said, "My name is Seraphim, a guest of the Boreas family. It's nice to meet you."

"Oh goodness, how polite. Yes, I already heard about you. So you're the reason the young lady changed so much. My name is Anastasia Meyer. I'm currently the home tutor of the young lady Eris." Anastasia returned the nobles' greeting, more refined than mine, and spoke with an expression of a gentle and kind lady.

I sort of knew already why Philip chose Anastasia as the home tutor.

At first glance, she was very patient, kind and soft-hearted.

And with how she looked, once Eris ran away from the lessons, Anastasia would have probably had no chances of chasing after her when she ran away from lessons, so they shouldn't have had bad blood between them.

Philip said, "Now, please sit down. Let's talk about Eris's schedule. Seraphim will take over the magic lessons for now. I hope you can decide on the timing."

As Anastasia was sitting down, before she had a chance to say something, I spoke up, "I already have an idea."

The three people present looked at me.

"Take a look at this."

I pulled out a piece of paper from my notebook and placed it on the table for everyone to see, but mostly directed it in the direction of Anastasia who sat next to me.

As Anastasia looked at the paper, I said, "I thought of the most optimal schedule for Eris, and it would be like this."

Breakfast -> Magic lessons 5-30 minutes (Seraphim) -> Sword training (Ghislaine) -> Second breakfast -> Studying (Anastasia) -> Lunch -> Studying (Anastasia) -> Snack time -> Physical training ~1-2 hours (Seraphim) -> Dinner -> Studying (Anastasia/Edona) -> Free time (more sword/magic training)

"Oh my. What neat handwriting," Anastasia commended.

In the meantime Philip got up, and walked over to look at the paper from another angle.

I opened my notebook and continued, half-reading from it, "The magic lessons are in the morning after breakfast to give Eris some time to digest her breakfast. Then during sword training she will have enough energy, but not a full stomach and won't puke."

I read another point: "For magic and sword training, it's best to have a fresh mind and body, that's also why I put them as the first subjects in the morning."

"After that it will be Miss Anastasia's two lessons, a small meal, and then I will do physical training with Eris."

"After that it will be one final lesson with Miss Anastasia or an etiquette class with Miss Edona. Afterwards, Eris will have her free time. If she wants to, she will be able to do more sword or magic training."

"Oh!" Philip let out a gasp.

I could see that Anastasia also looked over the paper note with surprise.

After a while, seeing that Philip seemed to have backed down here, Anastasia looked at me and said, "How very thoughtful. You're really a brilliant boy. But wouldn't it be better if all of my three lessons happened one after another? Then the young lady can do that 'physical training' afterwards. After all, I don't live in the manor, so I will need to wait for her to be finished before I can start my next lesson."

I pursed my lips and replied, "This way it's better for Eris."

Anastasia slightly raised her eyebrows, while Philip looked at me with interest.

Pretending I'm more childish than in reality, I looked at my notebook and directly read from it, "Eris should have rest time to recover between each time she trains physically. That's why I spread things like this. If there is one study lesson after the physical training, it allows Eris to have one more sword training lesson afterwards in a much better state."

Basically, I wanted to spread her training sessions apart during the day, and especially separate her cardio (sword training) from her strength training.

"Oh?" Anastasia appeared curious.

I swallowed a bit of saliva and continued reading, "It also won't be bad for Eris to take a break from the boring lessons and get her body moving. In the meantime Miss Anastasia can prepare her future lessons or review things, or simply take a rest."

Philip smiled. "What do you think, Anastasia? I think it's a very thought-through plan. By the way, you don't need to worry about not receiving appropriate compensation."

Anastasia seemed deep in thought for a while, then softly smiled and said, "If even Lord Philip approves it, I also have no problems with it."

Philip said, "I think Seraphim thought well of what's best for Eris, so I'll agree to it for now. We can try doing things like this for as long as he's in the manor. Let's go with this!"

And so, it was decided.

The schedule was supposed to go into action starting with the next day.

Anastasia then looked at my notebook and told me, "You are really well prepared. It's a surprise to see a boy so young being so clever and knowledgeable."

"Hehe…" I chuckled with a bit of a silly childish smile.

…

As Anastasia and Ghislaine left to prepare for the next lessons, Philip asked me to stay behind.

"You are very invested in helping Eris," Philip told me.

"Haha. I'm glad I can help." I smiled.

Philip looked at me silently for a while. It seemed as if he wanted to get a read on me.

I only faintly smiled.

Yes, it's true. I go out of my way a lot to help Eris.

But I knew about Eris's potential, so I didn't view it as a waste. It's an investment.

It isn't only an investment into Eris, but it also earns me the gratitude of Philip and the Boreas family in general.

My help to Eris so far was mostly about using tricks to motivate her rather than spending most of my day teaching her and preparing her lessons like Rudeus.

My own training didn't suffer because of this. I still trained and studied from morning until night each day. 

In general, there were three things that I absolutely needed to do each day: exhausting my mana, completing my assigned training volume at the gym and doing my daily training with the sword.

Apart from that, the rest could be considered an extra. It was extra training which included my magic practice and studies. These were important and I spent most of my time on them, but it was basically my free time.

As long as I did my 'crucial daily training', I think I shouldn't suffer any consequences in the future if I spend a bit of my extra time on something else, even if teaching Eris took more time.

What am I even thinking about? I'm just glad I could help Eris with little effort.

I'm already doing all I can on the path toward the goal in my heart.

Philip smiled and said, "Yes, Paul said that you're a very kind and good kid. Not a single word was a lie. But this schedule is focused on Eris improving her swordsmanship and magic the most, isn't it? Rather than focusing on her other studies."

"Yes. Eris is talented, so it would be a waste if she didn't take her sword training seriously."

Philip proceeded to stare at me silently for a long while, then said, "Personally, I would prefer if her lessons were focused on making her a refined noble lady."

"I think it's a waste," I said.

"A refined noble lady," Philip repeated with a gentle smile.

"It's a waste of time."

"A refined noble lady."

"It's stupid."

"Why do you think it's stupid?" Philip asked, looking right into my eyes.

I looked back at Philip. I thought for a while, then finally patiently replied, "It's because she's talented with the sword, that's all."

Philip stared at me, then said, "...So you think training with the sword is more important than her other lessons?"

After hesitating for a while, I nodded confidently. "Obviously. She should still learn the basics of reading, mathematics and etiquette, but the sword is the most important."

Philip looked at me for a while, as if preparing to rebuke me, then let out a sigh and said, "...If Father had heard you, I think he would praise you. He always values strength in politics. But Eris is my only daughter. I want her to become a noble lady worthy of the Boreas name."

"She can do that… while still focusing on the sword."

"Do you think so? She hated studying before."

"I think Ghislaine can convince her."

"Let's hope so."

I felt like we were treading on thin ice there, but Philip kept his patience, led it to a conclusion and it didn't turn into a heated argument like I thought it might.

I'm glad it didn't turn into an argument, because it was difficult for me to hold back and balance my words while trying to maintain a child's persona. It's too early for me to openly force my views onto others.

I changed the topic and informed Philip that I planned to go out again and register myself as an Advanced rank magician in the Magicians' Guild. I still felt a bit annoyed, but I had my own things to do.

"As an Advanced rank, not as a Saint rank?" Philip asked.

"Yes. I worry that registering as Saint rank would be too much. I'll register as Advanced rank in just one school of magic."

For a 5 year old being able to use Advanced rank magic in just one type of magic is freakishly monstrous already. It was enough to allow me to gain D-rank in the guild and stop being treated like a nobody.

"I see. If it's like that, then it might still be fine… The guild master of Roa's Magicians' Guild is from the Greencrow family, and the Greencrows are a middle-rank noble family with fairly close ties to the Boreas. I'll make sure your information stays secure."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome. After all, we're family. I suppose you would not want to give up on registering yourself, so I can only help," Phili said with a small smile. He then added, "I'll have Gilbert go with you again."

As we chatted some more, Philip warned me against revealing my status as a Saint-rank magician to the public and also against talking about the identity of my father.

I already understood that well, so I concurred.

Once I hit a bottleneck in the learning resources I can acquire, I might reveal my status as a Saint rank, but there was no point in doing that just yet when Advanced rank might suffice.

It was still my early 'growth period', after all. And there were still Hitogami and Philemon out there.