Ball

The day of the ball.

Once Eris had been dressed up in her finery and seated like a princess, Saul loudly declared the ball open.

I stood in a corner of the venue, listening in on his proclamation.

The moment the ball began, Philip and his wife deftly dealt, one by one, with the great crowd of middle- and lower-ranking nobles who had gathered in an attempt to curry favor with the Greyrat family, and time passed like that.

Their conduct could only be called masterful. It seemed no one could find an opening to approach them.

Some people tried to go directly to Saul to ingratiate themselves with him, but they had to face his booming voice and unreasonable, one-sided responses, and in the end they could only flee in a sorry state.

After those people fled, their last hope was Eris, the star of the ball.

Eris had no real authority and did not understand political topics. So, under the attack of "Please be sure to tell your honored father," she became a robot whose only job was to pass messages along.

As originally planned, I would be Eris's first dance partner.

The steps were a simple piece suitable for children. Though I had no talent for dancing, I could at least step into the designated positions at the designated beats.

In short, I just had to do it the way we had in practice.

"Wh-Wh-Wh-What is this...!"

Eris's voice was not loud, but I could feel that she had gone stiff with nerves from head to toe.

At this rate, the issue was no longer whether she could dance well. She was very likely to shout like she had before and run away.

"Eris, don't be nervous. My dancing is way worse than yours."

I said it to Eris in a relaxed, easygoing tone.

Then I began releasing the magic we had used during training. I kept the spell very small, and the cracking sounds could only be heard by Eris and me.

"What's that..."

After she muttered again in a low voice, I could feel that the tension had left her.

After that, although I stepped on Eris's feet several times, we managed not to fall, and somehow finished the dance without incident.

"Good work, Teacher Rudeus."

After it ended, Edna came over and spoke to me.

Apparently, even from far away, it had been obvious that the young lady had relaxed.

My job was done.

So, I began searching for delicious food.

In the year since I had come here, I had always eaten with the servants. Though Eris often brought lunch boxes made by the servants and shared them with me, I had never eaten much more than that.

So I was still a little curious about what nobles truly ate.

"Oh... oh!"

There were pies made with some kind of sweet-and-sour fruit I did not recognize, meat dishes prepared from an entire cow, beautifully decorated cakes, and so on.

I was happily stuffing food into my mouth when my eyes met Ghislaine's, who was in charge of security.

Though her gaze did not seem to be trying to convey anything, drool was dripping from the corner of her mouth.

I did not need to be good at reading people to understand. One glance was enough to tell me that my muscle-brained student badly wanted to eat.

So I called a maid over and had her pack up several portions and send them to my room.

After taking care of that, I suddenly noticed a cute young girl standing in front of me.

She first said, "A pleasure to meet you," before giving her name.

She seemed to be the daughter of a middle-ranking noble family. Her name was too long, so I did not make a point of remembering it.

In any case, she asked whether I would dance a song with her. After thinking about my position, I refused her.

Right after I turned her down, another little girl immediately came over, also inviting me to dance.

Hmm... if someone told me I was popular simply because I looked decent, I definitely would not believe it.

After I refused them one by one, Philip came over and explained it to me.

Since the original goal had been to let the nobles know that Rudeus had become one of the Greyrats, my information had been made public.

That made sense. I had no questions.

After the ball ended, I asked Ghislaine and Eris to come to my room.

Actually, it would have been fine if only Ghislaine had come, since the food I had prepared was originally intended only for her. But since Eris was there too, I brought her along as well.

When she saw the food on the table, Eris's stomach growled.

All right, it seemed the star of the party had not had time to eat either.

I smiled wryly for a moment, then took out a high-grade red wine from the back of the cupboard that I had bought in town before for my collection.

I had originally planned to use it someday in the future to bribe someone.

Well, today... Ghislaine looked as if she had been holding back for ages, and I had not had a drink in a long time either.

In this country, you had to be fifteen before you could drink. Eris made a fuss about wanting some, but I still refused her.

"No! Eris is still too young!"

Like I was issuing a final notice, I rejected Eris's unreasonable demand, completely forgetting that I was a child too, and poured red wine into Ghislaine's cup.

Eris gave up, but she still watched Ghislaine drain it in one gulp.

"What does it taste like?" Eris asked curiously.

"Hmm... Not as good as the fruit wine from my homeland."

"Oh."

Eris looked a little disappointed.

Was she kidding me?! That bottle of wine had cost me eight gold coins!

So I poured myself a glass too and took a sip.

It tasted perfectly good...

"Ah! Rudeus, you drank alcohol! You're even younger than me! That's so sneaky! I want some too!"

Eris shouted, snatched the cup from my hand, and drained it in one gulp.

Fine. Today was her birthday. Doing something bad once in a while was no big deal.

Let us put that aside for now.

"My master once told me that a magic teacher should apparently prepare a staff to give their disciple. Since I didn't know how to make one before, and the materials I needed to buy were a little hard to find, it dragged on for quite a while. Today just happens to be Eris's birthday, so if you two are willing, please accept these."

I took out the staffs and said that to them.

As soon as Ghislaine heard those words, she slowly stood up, then respectfully knelt on one knee.

What was this supposed to be?!

"Yes! Master Rudeus! I humbly accept with respect."

"Mm, you don't have to be so formal."

Seeing how solemn she looked, I handed it over just as respectfully.

Ghislaine looked happily at the staff, her tail swaying lightly.

"Can I call myself a mage from now on too?"

"You can."

Only now did I learn that apparently, a mage needed their master's approval before they could call themselves one...

Roxy never told me that back then.

It seemed my teacher had failed to explain a lot of things to me clearly... How careless.

"Mm... Eris."

"Mm!"

Eris seemed to have been infected by the atmosphere just now too, and looked at me with a respectful expression.

Ah... don't do that.

This made it feel like I was tricking them, because I had not even known this was such a serious matter.

I handed the staff over, and Eris accepted it respectfully.

She seemed to want to say something reverent like Ghislaine had, but she had probably forgotten Ghislaine's lines.

"Th-thank you! Master Rudeus!"

Whoa... Eris called me master for the first time...

This feeling... how should I put it...

I felt like I could understand the people in my previous life who had so much fun playing raising sims on their phones.

"Mm, please take good care of it."

And so, Eris's memorable tenth birthday passed peacefully.

After the banquet for the three of us ended, Eris collapsed groggily onto my bed.

Seeing Eris like that, Ghislaine also said she was going to leave, so she abandoned Eris and returned to her room.

"Hah... She's still a child, all right. Once she eats and drinks her fill, she falls asleep."

Carefree. How nice.

Come to think of it, I probably did not have any worries either.

As long as I taught Eris for another two years, I could go back...

Zenith... Paul... Lilia... my little sisters... and

"Sylphie..."

I missed them a little.

Mm... I also missed the Sylphie in my memories, the one who was still a boy.

"Zzz... zzz..."

Eris was fast asleep.

Forget it. I'd sleep on the floor tonight.

I left the room and had a maid prepare bedding for me.

After laying it out myself, I lay down on it and fell asleep.

When I woke up the next day and opened my eyes, I found Eris staring at me.

Still groggy, I spoke anyway.

"How did you sleep?"

"Mm... I slept great!"

"That's good."

It seemed that after that tenth birthday, she also felt she ought to grow up.

At the very least, she wasn't throwing tantrums whenever she felt like it anymore...

Just as I was thinking that, Ghislaine walked in.

She first looked at me, then at Eris.

"Nothing happened?"

"Uh... what did you think would happen?"

"Because you're Paul's son, I thought something definitely would."

Are you kidding me...? I was only eight...

Fortunately, Eris didn't understand, and she noisily headed outside.

There were no lessons today, so the three of us wandered around outside.

"Ghislaine, what's that tower?"

I pointed at a tower not far from us.

"Mm... I don't know either, but we can go inside."

That was how Ghislaine answered me.

"Rudeus! Why didn't you ask me? I know!"

Eris planted her hands on her hips and said it with great pride.

"Then what is this tower used for?"

"Grandpa uses it to dote on cute beastfolk!"

Eris's answer made my mind crash for quite a while.

In other words... mm.

Saul used it to satisfy his desires? An entire tower for satisfying his desires?

Thinking that Eris was probably just talking nonsense, I went inside with Ghislaine and Eris.

The scene I had imagined did not happen. The tower was completely empty.

When we reached the top floor, I saw a jewel hanging in the distant sky...

What was that...?

A red orb floating in midair.

Maybe it was because of the light, but I somehow felt like something inside it was moving.

"Ghislaine... what is that...?"

Ghislaine looked at it and tilted her head.

Then she took off her eyepatch and stared at it for a long while.

"That's... an orb formed from mana...?"

Mana? That huge? This...

"It's so close to us! Much closer than the stars!"

Eris said it carelessly.

But I felt there was something wrong with that jewel...

Come to think of it, could that eye of Ghislaine's actually see mana?

"Rudeus... is something wrong?"

Maybe she saw how grave my expression was, because Eris asked with some concern.

If that jewel really caused some kind of explosion or danger, there was absolutely no way I could stop it...

"It's nothing... I just thought of something."

"Is that so? Are you really all right?"

"I'm fine. Don't worry."

With the thought that since I couldn't solve it, all I could do was pray that jewel wouldn't cause any harm, we went down the tower and prepared to go have fun in the town.