"Stop!"

Miguel crossed the training ground in an instant and charged at the masked man. Fortunately, the man seemed to consider Miguel a more immediate threat than me.

Miguel's hand moved swiftly. At the same moment, the masked man turned and swung his arm.

CLANG!

A blade rang as it was knocked aside.

"Ugh."

Miguel groaned.

The masked man stood where he had been, but Miguel, who had charged him, had been driven back. Miguel held a longsword issued to the ducal knights; the masked man held a short dagger. A longsword against a dagger. Miguel had attacked, and the masked man had defended without leaving his spot. Yet Miguel was the one who had groaned and been forced back.

*'Damn it. Even a knight can't help?'

The assassin was far too strong.

"People will be here any moment," Miguel said.

"You're weak. I have plenty of time."

With that, the masked man charged Miguel. He moved too fast for Miguel to dodge in his armor.

Miguel swung his sword to block, but the masked man was no longer where the blow fell. He appeared behind Miguel. To my eyes, it looked as though he had teleported. Miguel fared no better: he lost sight of the man for an instant, and in the next...

SLICE!

Miguel's head flew into the air.

*'Oh God!'

I couldn't believe Miguel had gone down so easily. The sight left me stunned. Unfortunately, I didn't have long to be shocked. It was my turn.

"Hhk... Hhk..."

As I groaned in pain, the masked man approached. He stared straight at me, then swung his sword again. At the last moment, I heard someone shouting in the distance, but whoever was coming was already too late.

Darkness fell.

[You have died. Restarting from the autosave point.]

* * *

My vision brightened again. I felt no pain. Instead of the training ground, I was inside the family tomb. The duke stood before me, looking startled.

'I'm back.'

Back to the very day I awakened.

Perhaps because of the pain I'd felt just moments ago, my face tightened into a frown. The duke regarded me curiously, then spoke.

"You've awakened."

Just as before, he announced my awakening immediately.

"What?"

"It can't be."

I heard people groaning in dismay—sounds I hadn't noticed last time.

I looked around once more. Everyone seemed the same as before: shocked, angry, impressed, envious. But I felt differently.

'I drew too much attention.'

Someone wanted me dead, yet I'd gotten carried away with my ability and made myself stand out. I'd promised myself I'd be careful after awakening, too. I wanted to find the culprit at once, but my age and lack of skill held me back. For now, I needed to keep my head down and stay out of sight.

"Well? What ability did you inherit?"

The duke's question gave me pause. I couldn't give him the same answer as last time. I had to escape his notice.

"I think it makes my body stronger, but I'm not really sure."

The duke frowned slightly. He clearly didn't like my vague answer.

"Could it be a physical ability? I believe Hero Carlos had one like that among his abilities."

"Perhaps. We'll know once we test it."

Was it because I'd answered differently? The duke's reaction wasn't the same as before.

The awakening ceremony ended amid the others' snickers. The next day, I found myself at a training ground with Sir Miguel. Knight Commander Alex wasn't there, and we weren't at the Gresia family's training ground in the woods behind the mansion. Miguel was going to test me in one corner of the vast training ground used by the knights. The knights training there and their squires kept glancing my way.

"I'll be testing you on the knight commander's orders, young master. Please give it your best."

Knight Commander Alex hadn't come, but the test was the same as before: running until I collapsed, followed by sword swings.

The people who had sneaked looks at my training gradually lost interest. All that fuss for nothing, perhaps. The young master famed for his intelligence wasn't nearly as impressive as the rumors suggested. He seemed to be working hard for a child his age, but they had done just as much when they were young.

Covered in dust and sweat, I breathed hard.

'Phew. So this is roughly how far I can go before leveling up.'

It hadn't been easy to adjust the pace of my training so carefully that I stopped just short of leveling up. It was only because my young body tired so quickly that I could manage it. If I'd been even a little stronger or older, I was sure I'd have leveled up before I wore myself out.

"Neither his endurance nor his rate of improvement seems to be a particularly distinctive ability. He's quite capable for his age, but..."

Miguel looked a little disappointed too. I'd been worried, but no one seemed to have noticed what I was doing.

"By the way, have you learned swordsmanship somewhere else? Your blade follows a clean path."

My practiced swordwork had given me away, though. The month of training I'd undergone remained in my memory even after I came back to life. But this test was meant to identify the inherited ability I'd gained on my awakening day, so Miguel didn't press me about my swordsmanship.

"You've worked hard. I'll report to the knight commander. Please go back and rest."

Miguel turned away. Neither the knight commander nor the duke had appeared, and Miguel looked disappointed. This time, I might escape the duke's notice. If I did, I might also be a little safer from assassination.

I stopped Flora as she came toward me and swung my sword a little longer. Downward strikes and sweeping cuts. After a dozen or so swings with all my strength, I felt power spread through my limbs. My body grew stronger. It was a level-up.

The power now circulating through my body was the very same power I'd sensed just before the masked man killed me. I drew it out and pushed it into my sword.

HUMMM!

I could feel an invisible layer covering the blade.

SWISH!

I drew a line across the ground. Sand and dust flew up, and a deep gash appeared—one that extended farther than my sword had reached. The layer around the blade had done that.

"Is this mana...?"

I examined the wooden sword. Was it really mana? My inherited ability wasn't supposed to use mana... But as far as I knew, only mana could do something like this. What secret was my inherited ability hiding?

The duke's eyes from my previous life came back to me: the gaze of a predator watching its prey.

* * *

As Miguel's disappointed expression had suggested, I faded from the duke's attention. Neither the knight commander nor Miguel came to see me, and the grueling training stopped. I went back to life as an ordinary six-year-old—though my reputation as a genius made it hard to call me entirely ordinary. I took lessons from the scribes twice a week and spent the rest of my time reading in the enormous study. At last, I had some peace.

I kept as quiet as I could. After the test, I neither trained with a sword nor practiced using the mana I'd sensed as I died. Strangely, the memory of training made me restless, but I held back. I went only between my room and the study and attended my lessons with the scribes.

As I passed the time lying low, the people startled by my awakening returned to their old ways. My eldest brother ignored me as before, and the second young master gradually started teasing me again.

Then there was my sister, whom I met in the corridor.

"Are you all right? You're not sick, are you?"

She looked adorable as she worried about me. The sight of a concerned little seven-year-old lady tilting her head was something I might have seen in a television commercial in my previous life.

"Why? Did someone say I was sick?"

"Other people were saying all sorts of things."

"Lady Elena!"

The maid accompanying her hurriedly called her name.

"Oh, I slipped up. I'm not supposed to say things like that, am I? I'm going to get scolded."

A noble family's daughter had plenty of rules to follow, too. Of course, unlike an illegitimate son like me, she didn't have to put up with being looked down on.

"You're not sick in your body? Then does your heart hurt?"

She stepped closer and placed a hand on my head.

"I'll make your heart feel better."

Before I could tell her that wasn't it, Elena's hand began to glow softly. She had activated her inherited ability.

"Get better soon. Don't hurt anymore. Go away, scary ghosts, and fill his heart with lovely thoughts!"

Her words sounded like something I might have heard at a shamanic ritual in my previous life. A warm sensation seeped into my mind. Her inherited ability, distinct from the priests' divine arts, was called Cure. It could treat people struggling emotionally or suffering a breakdown, as well as people brainwashed by an enemy. She had inherited it from her mother's family.

She wasn't yet capable of undoing brainwashing, but her power was more than enough to ease my mind and warm my heart.

Elena and I got along better than my other siblings and I did partly because she was kind, but also because the inherited ability she'd received wasn't especially important.

"There. Better now?"

"... Yes."

After she'd gone to the trouble of using her ability, I couldn't bring myself to tell her I'd been fine all along.

"Good! That's a relief. Oh, that's right. I showed you my ability, so you have to show me yours. Mother wants to see it too, so come visit soon."

She spoke as though she wanted me to come right away, but that wasn't possible just then.

"We're late. Your teacher is waiting," the maid said.

"Aw. Can't I skip today? Dance practice is hard."

"No, my lady."

She was only seven, and she was already taking dance lessons. Was it preparation to make a duke's daughter with a valuable ability like Cure a more attractive marriage prospect? The thought crossed my mind, but I had something important to do today. I said goodbye and left.

Today marked one month since my awakening day—the day the masked man had killed me in my last life. The time of my death would soon arrive.

I sat in my room and waited for a message to appear before my eyes, one saying the danger had passed and an [Autosave] had been made. But the afternoon passed and the sun set without a word appearing. I kept waiting, late into the night and through the next day. Still, no message came.

*'Then the danger hasn't passed, has it?'

Apparently, the message wouldn't appear until the assassin could no longer kill me. I couldn't help sighing. I'd kept my head as low as possible, and it had hardly helped.

As I sat there sighing, a gentle voice came from right in front of me.

"Alex, what's wrong?"

I came to my senses and found a beautiful noblewoman looking at me. Maria de Gresia, the duke's second wife. Officially, she was my stepmother, though I would never call her Mother.

"Alex is so strange," said Elena, who sat beside Maria. "He's sighing like a grown-up even now."

She had seized the chance to complain about me. I might have been annoyed if an older woman had said it, but a little girl whose feet didn't even reach the floor as she sat in her chair only made me smile.

"See? Even the way he smiles is strange."

Hmm. My attempt at a normal smile had failed. The duchess merely chuckled at her pouting daughter and my awkward expression.

I was visiting the duke's second wife to keep the appointment Elena had made for us on her own yesterday. We were in Maria's private sitting room, an understated, beautiful place that suited her well. She sometimes invited me through Elena, as she had today.

It was an ordinary tea party, with snacks and casual conversation, but her warmth and my young older sister's made it pleasant. Perhaps the duchess simply wanted to watch two children at play. Compared with the first duchess, who wouldn't even look at me, she was practically an angel.

Come to think of it, was this thanks to Elena's inherited ability too? But Cure should have been an active ability she had to use deliberately. Whether it was her ability or her personality, though, I had no complaints. With my mind tangled up over the danger that hadn't gone away, it felt good to enjoy such a cozy atmosphere.

*'What abilities do the duchesses have, anyway?'

My sister and that little brat of a brother had each inherited an ability from their mother's family, but I hadn't heard anything about the duchesses' abilities. I needed to look into it. I'd failed to avoid the danger, so now I had to find out who was trying to kill me.

That evening, I picked up a sword again.