The Neighbor's Child

Waking from sleep once again and looking at the star chart painted on the ceiling, Manus stretched contentedly.

Turning his head to look out the window, Cokeworth was predictably still drifting with snowflakes just after Christmas, and besides the peeling wall paint under the eaves and scattered tree branches, there was hardly any color other than white outside the window.

To be honest, anyone seeing such a view outside would not want to go out, fortunately he did not need to go out at all.

Such a peaceful and cozy life, for Manus who had just escaped from high-pressure living, came second only to those years he spent holed up in his newly built Mage Tower.

Then that world-disrupting transmigrator came...

Putting aside those painful pasts, four years had passed since he came to this world.

He was born into a family where both parents were wizards.

Wizard, this was what spellcasters were called in this world, which meant he could get in touch with this world's magical knowledge relatively easily, and Manus was very satisfied with this.

Although until now, aside from seeing his parents occasionally use magic on ordinary days, he had not come into contact with any magical knowledge, Manus was not in a hurry.

The power of magic was fascinating yet extremely dangerous, indeed unsuitable to teach to children who had not yet fully developed and lacked mature minds.

Therefore, Manus did not privately seek ways to get in touch with magic, but merely maintained meditation every day to exercise his mental power, while trying to piece together the golden-finger fragments he had ripped off from the transmigrator.

Four years passed, and this super puzzle spanning multiple dimensions had finally been pieced together to the very end, and next was to verify how many of its original functions this thing still retained...

Of course, before that, he still needed to test its safety first.

Also, he had to eat breakfast first.

Just as Manus was planning to go downstairs, finish today's breakfast, and start executing this lazy winter's schedule, his mother Aivina's voice came from downstairs:

"Manu, are you up? Severus came to find you to play!"

"...Huh?"

Manus reconfirmed the weather outside the window, then drew in a cold breath, got out of bed to push open his bedroom door, and looked down at the stairway landing.

Sure enough, a somewhat thin and small boy was standing at the doorway, being pulled by Aivina to brush off the snow falling on his hair and shoulders.

Hearing the collision of slippers and the floor, the other person raised his head to look upstairs, revealing a smile toward Manus:

"Good morning, Manus."

Severus was the child of his neighbor, no, calling them neighbors was actually a bit far-fetched.

Although both of their families were in Cokeworth, their family was in the center while Severus's family was in the suburbs, with almost half a town separating them in the middle.

Logically speaking, this distance already exceeded a child's normal social range, but Severus's mother and his mother were classmates during their student days, so his acquaintance with Severus did not seem abrupt.

Because of his family environment, the Severus of their first meeting looked gloomy and silent, far from as open as he was now.

His mother was reticent and vague about this, but Manus summarized those occasional mentions into roughly an old-fashioned story of a young noble miss making a poor choice in partner and eloping for so-called true love.

Just like the realistic endings of those stories, without the blinding veil of romance, the collision of two souls unsuited for each other grew increasingly sharp, and Severus became the only innocent victim in this story.

With the other person braving such heavy snow today to cross half a town to come to his house, it was estimated that his family was arguing intensely again.

"Good morning, Prince!"

Noticing that the other person's smile was mixed with some unusual emotions, Manus blinked at him.

Sure enough, Severus's pale face from the cold flushed red all at once, and a pair of eyes widened roundly.

Although Severus's formal surname was Snape, his mother's surname was Prince, so calling him Prince as a private nickname really had nothing wrong with it.

It was worth mentioning that Prince could also be translated as a royal prince, while Manus's surname was King.

Hearing this, Aivina glared at Manus and whispered something in Severus's ear; Severus hesitated and shook his head, but was forcefully pulled by Aivina to sit down at the dining table.

Having finished doing all this, Aivina spoke toward upstairs:

"Hurry up and wash up, come down to eat!"

"Okay!"

Such weather truly made one unable to muster any interest in taking a bath; after brushing his teeth, washing his face, and changing his clothes, Manus came downstairs, where Aivina and Severus had already started eating.

Sitting down in his seat, Manus took a deep breath:

"Mmm, it smells really good."

Toast with crisped edges and bottoms was drizzled with richly aromatic stew, topped with a perfectly shaped fried egg, while the edge of the plate held sliced smoked sausage and roasted potato wedges simply sprinkled with a few grains of coarse salt.

A piping hot, nutritious, and superbly flavored breakfast—nothing could make one feel more cozy than using this to start a winter day.

Severus was even eating with his head down, yet his storm-like eating speed didn't make a single sound, and it was hard to tell whether his table manners were too good or his family environment was too bad.

According to the sporadic pieces of information he had overheard, Aunt Eileen's family seemed to have a rather good background before she eloped?

This world seemed to have a specific word to describe such families that produced spellcasters generation after generation, called pure-blood, and the Prince family seemed to be pure-blood, just as the King family his father belonged to appeared to be.

It was entirely understandable for such families that could produce spellcasters generation after generation to have a sense of superiority, as this represented the accumulation of knowledge and power.

Yet this world seemed somewhat special; not only did spellcasters constantly take care not to be discovered by people without spellcasting abilities, but they also seemed to be natural enemies among themselves, and even some kind of hostile concept existed between pure-bloods and non-pure-bloods.

To the extent that his parents had never mentioned these pure-blood matters to him at all, and he had pieced them together entirely through details overheard on the side.

As the knife and fork entered his hands, Manus cast these matters aside and devoted himself fully to the food in front of him.

Manus, whose background at the start before transmigrating was not well off, cherished food exceptionally, so much so that he did not change this habit even after becoming a mage and making the true meaning of magic his lifelong pursuit.

There was even a dedicated magical kitchen inside Manus's Mage Tower.

In this world, only fine food and magic could make him temporarily cast aside everything else and throw himself into them wholeheartedly.

After a perfect breakfast, putting the tableware into the sink, Manus brought Severus back with him to the second-floor bedroom.

On such a cold day, he had no interest in accompanying Severus outside, so playing chess and reading books at home would do.