It was time for a late breakfast. Before the meal began, Manuel scolded me with a stern face.

“You sneaked out last night? Don’t you know it’s rude to do that when you’re a guest in another noble’s home?”

His voice was low, but he had put mana into it so everyone could hear.

To anyone watching, he was the very picture of a young nobleman reprimanding his younger brother. Perhaps that was why the baron’s wives stared at Manuel in surprise, while the baron’s son looked at him with admiration. Of course, I knew Manuel was doing his best to imitate the duke.

Unlike usual, I bowed politely to Manuel. “I’m sorry I caused you concern. I’ll be more careful.”

“R-right. As long as you understand.”

My answer made his voice waver slightly, but he soon collected himself and apologized to the baron. “I apologize on my brother’s behalf for the disturbance last night.”

“Ha ha, it’s quite all right. Nothing happened. I was only worried he might have had an accident.”

I raised my head a little to study the baron and his daughter. Despite his answer, the baron’s expression was rather stiff, while his daughter watched me with an amused look.

That was close. I had nearly met her eyes. I quickly looked away and began eating the food that had just arrived.

As I ate, I heard the baron speak again. “It’s a long journey. Why not stay another day and rest? The children may need more time to prepare, too.”

Just as I’d expected, he was trying to make us stay longer.

“Ah, I’m sorry. I’d like to stay, but there isn’t much time left before the first day of school.”

Oh, Manuel could say exactly what he needed to when he was in noble mode. He certainly had been well educated.

“I see... Then it can’t be helped.”

To my surprise, the baron gave up easily. Curious, I watched his reflection in my knife and saw him look at his daughter as he spoke. It felt as though he still had something up his sleeve. But I’d died once already, and I had no intention of waiting around to see what it was.

The rest of the meal passed without incident. A while later, our party gathered in front of the mansion again. The soldiers and knights who had stayed in the annex were waiting there with the carriage.

The baron’s son and daughter said goodbye to their respective mothers. The son’s farewell was like any other between a mother and child.

“Take care of yourself in the capital, and write if you run into trouble.”

“I’ll be fine, so don’t worry. You take care of yourself too, Mother.”

A worried mother and a confident son.

The daughter’s farewell, though, had a strange air about it.

“I’m going.”

“R-right. Safe travels.”

The baron’s wife stammered her reply, looking almost afraid of her daughter. There was relief in her voice, too.

“Hmph!”

Her daughter scoffed and turned away. The son finished his goodbyes and headed for the carriage as well. Throughout the farewells, the baron said nothing. It seemed he didn’t get along particularly well with the rest of his family either, not just his daughter.

“Thank you for your hospitality. I’ll do everything I can to look after your children while they’re in the capital.”

The baron nodded, looking pleased by Manuel’s farewell. On the surface, it was a departure he could be satisfied with, too.

Manuel and I boarded the carriage. There would be four of us riding in it now, but as befitted a ducal carriage, it had plenty of room.

“Wow, great nobles really are different. It doesn’t look much bigger from outside, but I suppose this is what it means to make good use of the space?”

The baron’s daughter kept exclaiming in admiration as she looked around the interior. His son looked around in wonder too, and Manuel explained this and that to them. Meanwhile, the carriage left the village behind. By dusk, after traveling for quite some time, we had passed beyond the baron’s domain altogether.

“We’ll have to camp tonight.”

Around sunset, a mounted knight rode up to the carriage and spoke to Manuel. Manuel gave his permission, and the carriage and our party stopped. The servants and soldiers traveling with us began setting up camp, and we got out of the carriage. As I watched them prepare dinner, I took my greatsword from the carriage.

“Why did you take out your sword?” Manuel asked.

I grinned. “I’m feeling stiff, so I thought I’d do a little hunting.”

“We have plenty of food for dinner. And I doubt there’s any game around here...” said a soldier preparing the meal nearby.

He was right. There were trees here and there, but we were in the middle of a wide plain. Still, I shook my head.

“It’s for training, like always. If I’m late, go ahead and eat and turn in.”

The soldier and the knight readily accepted that. Even on our journey to and from the marquis’s house, I had sparred with the marquis’s illegitimate son and often gone out at night to train like this. Manuel looked displeased, but perhaps because I’d bowed to him at breakfast, he let it pass.

“It’s our first night traveling together. Please have dinner with us. Won’t you?”

The baron’s daughter clasped her hands as she pleaded with me, but all I felt was a chill.

“I’m sorry. This is something I do often.”

I bowed my head and strode out of camp, picking up speed as it fell farther behind. After running for a good while, I turned around once I was far enough away.

My destination was the baron’s domain, which we had left that morning. I pushed mana into my legs and kicked off the ground.

BOOM!

We’d covered the distance at a leisurely pace over half a day. If I ran flat out, I could make it back in about two hours.

* * *

From the hill where I’d spent the previous night, I looked down at the mansion. Two hours in all—that was how long it had taken me to get here from the campsite. Fortunately, I hadn’t met anyone on the way. Once I got near the village, I had taken a wide route around it to avoid people before coming up this hill.

It wasn’t exact, but I’d run nearly forty kilometers. It felt like a marathon.

“If I’d done that in my previous life, it might have been an Olympic record...”

Without mana, that speed would have been impossible regardless of my age.

Sweat was pouring off me, and I wanted nothing more than to lie down and rest, but I stood still and circulated my mana. As I spread the mana that had been heating my legs through the rest of my body, it seeped into my pounding heart and heaving lungs. Little by little, I felt better.

“Whew...”

A moment later, I drew a deep breath. My body had already returned to normal.

“Good.”

Mana really was unfair. Once I’d checked my condition, I headed down the hill.

It wasn’t late yet, and some rooms still had lights on, but the sky was overcast and the moon was nowhere to be seen. There was enough darkness to hide in. Avoiding the soldiers at the main gate, I climbed over the wall again, crossed the maze garden, and made my way beneath the room where I’d slept instead of going to the front door. There was no chance the door would be open at this hour, and forcing it would certainly cause an uproar.

“Here goes.”

I gathered mana in my hands and climbed the wall. Thanks to all the times I’d done this elsewhere, I reached the window of the room I’d slept in the previous night without difficulty. Then I placed my hand against the window and pulled with mana flowing through it. The window came with my hand.

CREEEAK.

It opened with a faint sound. Fortunately, the latch I’d broken that morning was still broken. I’d damaged it before leaving because I intended to come back, and just as I’d expected, no one had fixed it yet.

The window was unchanged, but the room had been tidied. All that mattered was confirming no one was there. I crossed the room and stepped into the dark corridor, heading for the baron’s chambers.

Before leaving, I’d found out where they were: the innermost rooms, near his daughter’s. Like other nobles, he used them alone. The corridor was quiet.

A day ago—or was it longer than that, since I’d died in between? Anyway, back then I’d heard the faint rustling sounds of people living here with my sharp hearing, even though everyone was asleep. Now the mansion lay under a heavy silence, as if no one lived in it at all. For all my cautious movement, I saw no sign of anyone in the corridor before I reached the baron’s rooms. Surely people weren’t asleep yet...

A moment later, I reached the door to the baron’s bedchamber. I made certain I was ready to flee, then carefully sent mana into the rooms.

‘Damn. Did I come for nothing?’

I sensed no one inside. I’d been told the baron was always in his rooms at this hour... Clicking my tongue softly, I tried the door. Fortunately, it wasn’t locked.

Beyond it was the baron’s study, which also served as his office. Farther in, I could see the half-open bedroom door. The baron wasn’t there either. As I’d sensed from outside, both rooms were empty. Had he changed his routine because his children had left on a journey? I’d been told he was always here at this hour unless something important came up. It seemed all the information I’d gathered had gone to waste.

But I couldn’t search the mansion for him. Officially, I was forty kilometers away, roaming through a forest on a hunt. I’d be in trouble if someone caught me looking for the baron, and a disguise wouldn’t do much good when I was still so young.

Just as I was thinking I might have to go back, something about the empty study struck me as odd. It looked like an ordinary study, but I could sense a difference between it and the duke’s office or the rooms in his mansion.

‘Could it be?’

It was the same feeling I’d had in the marquis’s mansion, where there had been a secret passage.

“A proper noble’s study ought to have at least one secret door.”

I began searching at once.

Some nobles probably had abilities like psychometry that would let them find a secret door or detect traces of a person. Unfortunately, I had no such ability. But mana had given me something else in its place.

Whew.

I drew a deep breath and pushed mana into my ears, eyes, nose, and skin, heightening all five senses.

HUMMMM.

The dim room grew bright, and I picked up a host of smells. Then sounds I hadn’t heard a moment ago reached me: papers lifting slightly in a gentle breeze, a candle flame flickering. I could even feel air brushing past my ear.

Wait. The air was moving? I’d shut the door after coming in, and both the study and bedroom windows were closed. I stood still and tried to feel the airflow, awakening every bit of sensation in my skin and concentrating hard enough to detect the movement of individual air molecules.

It was faint, but I could feel air flowing. It wasn’t flowing out through the door I’d entered by, or toward the closed windows.

The bookcase?

The air was moving toward a bookcase packed with books. I approached it very slowly and carefully. A faint breeze was coming from the gap between the bookcase and the wall.