Fortunately, the local alchemist wasn’t one of those quack chemists from my previous life who tried to turn lead into gold. It took the alchemist a while after arriving, but he found poison in the baby food. He spent plenty of time praising himself, saying it was a slow-acting poison that was hard to detect and no one else would have found it. I gave him credit for that, at least in my head. When I’d died before, neither the family physician nor the priest had found the cause.

'Different fields of expertise, I guess.'

In any case, the alchemist’s discovery threw the mansion into an uproar. Evidence had surfaced that someone had tried to kill a young master of the ducal house, illegitimate son though I was. The maids who came and went from my room were on edge, as was every other employee in the mansion.

Then the duke—my father, who hadn’t shown his face all this time—came to my room. The terrified maids bowed so low their heads nearly touched the floor, and Mother greeted him solemnly too. The duke glanced around with an indifferent expression and spoke to the old butler who had followed him in.

“Have you caught the culprit?”

“Yes. One of the cooks has confessed.”

The duke nodded.

“Execute the cook who confessed. Drive the cook’s family out of the territory with nothing but their lives. And take measures against the head chef and those responsible as well.”

“Yes, Your Grace. Understood.”

A frightening, cold order. When people were driven out of their territory, they could only become wanderers unless they managed to settle in another. Telling them to wander with nothing to their names was hardly different from telling them to die.

But that was as far as the duke’s instructions went. He said nothing about interrogating the cook who had confessed or investigating who had ordered the poison added. In other words, he wanted the matter buried here. No one objected. Even Mother could neither speak nor raise her head.

'Oh, come on. If this is what my father’s like, I’m really out of luck.'

Having finished speaking, the duke turned to leave. I couldn’t let him walk out like this. It was incredibly annoying, but I had to use my secret weapon one more time. I stared straight at him, tightened my belly, and shouted with all my might.

“Papa! Papa!”

Everyone looked at me in surprise. The duke was no different; he stared at me, startled.

'Now! Happy thoughts, happy thoughts!'

I crinkled my eyes, opened my mouth, and unleashed a smile!

“Ahaha, Papa!”

It was an expression I’d practiced over and over along with the words. Thanks to all that practice, even the maids and Mother had admitted my smile was cute.

The old butler standing behind the duke smiled at the sight of it too. But the duke’s expression didn’t change. What an irritating man.

Still, hold on, facial muscles! Don’t let all that effort go to waste! Smile, smile!

Apparently he was a father after all, for what that was worth. After staring at me for a while, the duke spoke.

“From now on, you will personally oversee this child’s protection, head butler.”

“Ah, yes, Your Grace.”

Despite the head butler’s surprised reply, the duke continued.

“I’d prefer no disturbances in this house, at least until his awakening.”

“I’ll inform everyone.”

As the head butler answered, I heard Mother let out a sigh, as though a great weight had lifted from her shoulders. She bowed to the duke again.

“Thank you for your consideration.”

The duke nodded at her words, then looked at me once more.

'They say to give even someone you dislike a little treat, so feast your eyes on my smile.'

I kept my eyes on him and beamed. Ah, my jaw was aching. Still, the smile wasn’t forced anymore. I’d achieved my goal, so why wouldn’t I smile? Thankfully, the duke left before my jaw started trembling. As the maids congratulated her, Mother looked at me and shed tears.

I really must have been born into the wrong place. What a terrifying life for a noble. There were priests and magic here, yet I had a feeling this was why the infant survival rate was so low.

[The crisis has ended. A new save point has been set.]

'At least I’ve bought some time.'

I muttered to myself as I looked at the message that had appeared after the duke left. My safety had the duke’s guarantee. Surely they wouldn’t send assassins after me as easily as before. And his protection proved even stronger than I’d expected.

* * *

Thankfully, the boring days went on. After the duke’s declaration, the attempts to kill me stopped. Just as I’d thought, it had been someone inside the mansion. Not knowing who was behind it left me deeply uneasy, but there was nothing I could do in this young body. All I could do was keep growing, day by day.

Since I’d already been recognized as a genius while still a baby, I decided to play along with the misunderstanding. I worked to learn to speak and to get up and walk as soon as possible. But unlike learning words, moving my body wasn’t easy. Memories of my previous life weren’t much help with the physical side of things. As soon as I could sit up—only just in time to keep pace with other children—I threw a fit until they let me have books.

Fortunately, one part of this world had developed far beyond the rest. Despite an era that was otherwise closer to the Middle Ages, publishing was fairly advanced. There were books ranging from illustrated fairy tales to specialist texts. Books were a privilege enjoyed by nobles and the wealthy, not something available to ordinary commoners, but that was no obstacle for me.

When I asked for a book, they naturally brought me a picture book first. It had princesses, princes, and animals in it. Naturally, I threw a fit for a different book.

“Book. With. Words!”

Everyone stared at me in bewilderment, but I shamelessly pressed on.

“I like words! Pictures, not so much! Show me words!”

“Goodness, where did you hear something like that?”

The startled maids fetched books, and Mother hurriedly summoned a teacher to teach me to read.

Fortunately, reading wasn’t difficult. The writing system was phonetic, and words were written much as they were pronounced. It seemed the script hadn’t been around very long. I kept studying while continuing the basic activities I needed to grow.

A day, a week, a month, a year...

Time passed, and I grew rapidly along with it. Unfortunately, despite all my efforts to move around, my body was much like any other child’s my age. But the knowledge I accumulated as I grew was beyond comparison with theirs. Rumors spread over the years, and now that I was a full five years old, every employee in the mansion called me a genius.

* * *

A study filled with books. In a chair set against a bookcase sat a child poring over a book. He looked about five or six, and his feet swung above the floor. Flora, a maid, leaned against the wall and watched the child: Alex, the duke’s son. Small as he was, he sat in a chair too high for his feet to reach the floor, studying a huge book. With a book nearly as large as his torso resting on his lap, he looked quite adorable to her.

'It would be even nicer if that were a fairy tale full of pictures.'

Flora’s smile turned a little wistful. What young master Alex, soon to turn six, was reading wasn’t an age-appropriate fairy tale. It was a history book, and an exceptionally difficult one written in the ancient imperial language. Even Flora, an educated woman who could read and write the common language unlike most commoners, couldn’t read it at all. He certainly lived up to his reputation throughout the mansion as a genius. Unfortunately, almost no one outside the mansion knew how gifted young master Alex was, but everyone inside did.

And the young master wasn’t merely clever. Flora glanced around, then rested her back against the wall.

*'This is comfortable...'

She let out a small sigh and silently thanked the young master, who was still reading. For a maid to lean against a wall in front of the duke’s family was unthinkable. Alex might still be young, but if a child let something slip, she could be dismissed on the spot and have no grounds to complain. Young master Alex, however, didn’t care about such things. He observed etiquette himself with a care unusual for a child, and treated the staff more considerately than anyone else in the mansion.

Young master Alex had given her permission long ago.

[“When it’s just the two of us, you can relax.”]

She had first heard him say it well over a year ago. For months afterward, she hadn’t taken him up on it, so he’d repeated it several times. He had been four then. Naturally, she couldn’t take a four-year-old at his word and let her guard down. But he hadn’t been an ordinary child then, just as he wasn’t one now.

There were the missing maids, whose disappearance had started the rumors and led to Flora becoming his maid. And there were the first words she had personally heard him speak.

[“Num-nums hurt.”]

The mansion had been thrown into an uproar because of them, and from then on Flora had regarded the young master with awe. His behavior remained extraordinary afterward. He no longer startled people as he had when he was a baby, but he continued to show remarkable talent. He learned to speak quickly, then learned to read at a rapid pace—not just books written in the common language, but even the ancient imperial language he was reading now. Barely six years old, he was already reading books studied by adults who had graduated from the academy. A genius who was hard to think of as a child at all.

After watching him closely, Flora had gradually come to trust his assurance that she could relax. And he had kept his word. For a whole year, no one else in the mansion had learned about the breaks she took. Thanks to him, she’d spent that year in comfort.

*'Not much time left now...'

Her thoughts continuing down that path, Flora looked at young master Alex with a pained expression.

There were the rumors circulating through the mansion, and the attempt to poison him that she had witnessed herself. Peaceful days had followed that attempt, of course, but now those days were nearly over. The awakening day the duke had promised was just around the corner. Flora had grown very fond of young master Alex, unlike when she had first arrived, but there was little a maid could do.

Just then, footsteps sounded from down the corridor. It was time. She sighed softly, straightened away from the wall, and spoke.

“Young master, it’s time for your lesson.”

* * *

“The continent’s nobility began with the heroes who defeated the Demon King’s army five hundred years ago. Of course, nobles and royal families existed before then, but they were ordinary people, no different from commoners. They were not nobles with the abilities we see today.”

“... The royal family of our Kingdom of Carlos are direct descendants of Sir Carlos, one of those heroes. The ducal house of Gresia, which branched off from the royal family, naturally shares that ancestry. And...”

Lesson time. A young scribe stood in front of me, talking away. I’d heard he was a capable scribe from a baron’s family, but he was far better at putting me to sleep than I’d expected. If I’d been an ordinary child, I would surely have been asleep with my head on the desk or throwing a tantrum by now. Then again, an ordinary child probably wouldn’t be taking lessons like this.

Of course, part of the reason I was sleepy was that I already knew everything he was saying.

'I got way too far ahead in my studies.'

I’d already spent more than three years devouring all kinds of books in the mansion’s library-sized study. What the teacher before me had to say was nothing more than tedious review. I sighed inwardly. It couldn’t be helped; I was lucky to get even this much. A legitimate child of the ducal house might have some great sage brought in as a tutor, but as an illegitimate son, I was grateful just to receive lessons from an official of the territory. I’d only been given these lessons because word had spread around the mansion that I was a genius.

And calling them lessons was generous. All I received were general education and accounting lessons from the territory’s scribes twice a week. Today’s lesson was full of history, but in the end it was only general education. Still, the material was quite substantial. Proper instruction almost made it seem as though they intended to turn me into a civil official.