Editor: Poor_Hero, who deserved cookies and milk too. And maybe some faux Chiffon ears headband to stroke.

” ――――…ll-sama, Will-sama. ”

Drifting in the pleasant realm of light sleep, I heard a far-away voice calling me. My consciousness was then pulled back out… By a tremendous force shaking me.

” Uwah….! ”

…Ah, it’s Chiffon……

” Morning, Will-sama. ”

” Morning. ….Chiffon. ”

Such energy in the morning. This person, had just come flying over as she jumped on my bed and was currently sitting on top of my abdomen.

Sigh…. It must be my imagination that something felt like coming out.

Then, as though she sensed it, Chiffon, with the same energy, leapt off the bed and stood by it, her tail wagging furiously.

Her ears, as soft and fluffy as usual, stood up on her head and were pointed towards me.

d.a.m.n it…. So cute!

I could not be angry at her even if I wanted to…

I let out a sigh before gently smiling, beckoning her with my eyes and hands to come over. I lifted up my hands, as if wanting her help to pull me out of bed….

” ……… Gwah!? ”

Once she grasped my hand, I pulled with all of my might. The result of that was her falling on the bed beside me.

…Tch… I missed…… Ah no, I did not say anything. I did not think about anything either!

I immediately got up and moved closer to Onee-san, who was lying face-down on the bed.

Revenge time!

Since it was such a good chance, I was going to touch it.

Broadly grinning, I reached out.

” ….ah! ”

” Fluffy~ ”

I wanted to stroke Chiffon’s tail! I had always wanted to touch it!

In my previous life, I loved animals like cats or dogs. I skillfully ran my hand along the chestnut tail, going along the flow of the direction of the hairs. Her ears, as seen from the back, were twitching. So cute.

Without thinking, I reached my right hand over to her ears as my left hand continued to stroke her tail.

” ….please wake me up gently next time okay, Chiffon? ”

I lowered my voice, leaned close to her ears and chided her. I knew she was just playing but I could not yield on this.

Because for a moment there I felt like my life was in danger.

” I am sorrrryyyyyy! ”

Jumping up forcefully, Chiffon avoided my eyes and turned red as she apologized.

….Was touching her tail that embarra.s.sing…?

I shall restrain myself next time.

Eh? Why was I not stopping?

I could not. Once you had a taste of the addictive Tail-sama you could never stop!

Beside Chiffon, who jumped from the bed and stood back facing me, I peeled myself from the bed and began changing.

I thought you knew who Chiffon was by now.

One of the ‘Shadows’, the Onee-san.

I had asked Father and we took her back from the orphanage in the Capital. And now, by her own request, she was understudying as my private maid.

Although there were people in Elzmu who looked down on Beastmen, there was none in our house so Chiffon was definitely not being feared or looked down upon here.

….And, Mary-san was treating her as her own daughter… guiding her along strictly.

Onee-san’s name ―― Chiffon, was actually named by me. As wished by Onee-san. Because she was dejected about not having one. So I thought really hard.

The sweet, fluffy, chestnutty her was like a chiffon cake to me so I named her as such. Straightforward, right? I acknowledged that I did not have much naming sense. But I really tried my best. It was a name given with loads of love so please pardon me for it.

Maa, to me, it was the most fitting and cute name. But Onee-san sure was brave, asking a 4 year old kid to name her.

I quickly changed, called Chiffon and we went to the dining area together. And it was the first for me. When she wanted to hold my hand, I stubbornly refused. Mary-san was still fine as she was around my mother’s age but Chiffon was still young. A young maiden.

Nostopitsoembarra.s.sing.

So recently, I walked, finally steadily, on my own as Chiffon, the young maiden, followed behind me.

….. She was really cute.

Just like a dog.

” And so, let us study magic today. ”

Sensei, his eyes sparkling, was seated across me with the table in between us.

It was our first lesson after a long time. Because John-sensei had to run around, dealing with problems that popped up from the aftermath of the incident.

The problems.

To put it simply, Veltor. Because of the series of incident, Jin and Jean were, of course, arrested and thoroughly stripped of their n.o.bility but John-sensei did nothing illegal. He was actually the victim. No, you could say he was one of the people who solved the incident.

Even though he had abandoned his name, he was still a Veltor. As a Viscount, the land of Veltor Household was as big as the position. In simpler terms, the land was too small for the court to place its direct control on it, plus it was a little too far from the capital.

So in this case, it was given as a reward to people who helped in the incident. Even without this problem, the land, together with the position of the head of Veltor House, was still likely to be forced upon John-sensei.

But John-sensei, who used to be a royal court scholar, was working as a Home Tutor for Williams Beryl. Plus he himself had said that he didn’t need it. I had always thought John-sensei would rather spend his time on research rather than to govern a territory but to know that it was really true was…. John-sensei was too amazing.

Because of that, and in a sense that he kinda brought it upon himself, he was busy running here and there to deal with it. In the end, the management of Veltor’s land was given to the Beryl, acting as the representative.

Mah, Father had said ” Veltor’s citizen have been coming over anyway so there is not much of a difference. ” so there should not be a problem. Instead, this kind of situation reconfirmed the fact that Father was amazing. Who was he, really? Working as the governor of his territory, working behind-the-scenes such as this case, working as the captain of the knights… et cetera, et cetera. The work load was so huge that you could not help but wonder how many of him there was to handle it. No matter how fast he could do his work, it must still be hard.

…. The least I could do was to help..

Although I could never say it out loud cause it was embarra.s.sing.

And so, today’s lesson was the first day in ages that I finally had the chance to speak with John-sensei.

” Yes! What exactly would we be doing today? ”

John-sensei looked at me with a ‘Oh..’, and an amused look appeared on his face.

” You changed your way of speaking. ”

” ….. ”

[TN: Explanation time. Will used to speak in hiragana, which is a pain-in-the-a.r.s.e to read. Now he apparently changed to kanji, which is loads easier. Children in j.a.pan usually starts learning kanji when they are of a certain age so I guess the author is trying to convey that.]

Please don’t retort, sensei.

…I only managed to speak this clearly after loads of practice, to get rid of the lisping that came with me being at my age. …This was embarra.s.sing so just stop… I was already very embarra.s.sed after being seen by Sensei when I was with Chiffon, now he just said it in a way that sounded like I lisped on purpose…

” … Because I am about to turn 5 years old. ”

I managed to answer. Sensei looked shocked.

…Tch, how terrible. Don’t tell me he forgot about my age? I meant, people did not usually easily forget about these things.

” That’s right… Will is already 5 years old. ”

Not yet, but I did not feel like retorting him. John-sensei, who was completely shocked, had his maliciousness mocking aura taken from him.

” …Sigh… Turning 5. ”

” Unbelievable, right? ”

Time pa.s.sed. It was unbelievable that it had already been 2 years since I first met Sensei. Just as I was submerged in emotions like Sensei, he opened his mouth, having suddenly thought of something.

” In that case… It is about time to think about schooling. ”

” …. Schooling? ”

” Yes. In Elzmu, going to school had become an obligation. ”

Became an obligation?

Wow. Even till the extent of compulsory education. You really could not make light of this country.

Still slightly shocked, John-sensei had begun to explain all about schooling.

It was as my previous world. Even though the ages were slightly different, the period of compulsory education and the education system was about the same.

Except for 1 thing.

You were allowed to skip grades. The previous me who were envious of America was happy about this point.

To put things simply, the lowest Academy would be like a primary school, with children of 10~12 years old studying for 3 years.

Mid Academy would be 13~15 years old, as like a secondary school.

High Academy was for 16~18 years old, you might think that it was an equivalent to High school but it was only attended by people who were exceedingly good at magic or were very clever and wished to work as a researcher so it would be closer to a university. By the way, John-sensei attended High Academy as a means to escape from his family. From that reason, being able to become a scholar was a feat in itself. After graduating from High Academy, most would work for the court as a knight, magician or scholar. Or return to their territory as the head of the family. It was just like how university graduates would become a civil servant or to work in a large company.

” How long is the compulsory education? ”

” As Will is a n.o.ble, till Middle Academy. ”

” There is a difference for a commoner? ”

” Yes. The knowledge for their daily life is till Primary Academy. ”

Sensei nodded and absentmindedly murmured to himself.

” Even so, it should be made compulsory for n.o.bles to attend till High Academy. If not, they would be made light of. ”

If I were to guess, in high society events where n.o.bles gather, they would go “Did you not go to High Academy? How cretinous.” and be made fun of. These kind of stuff happened in my previous life as well. All in all, these events only existed to show off.

” ―――― skipping of grades… ”

The reason I wanted to study was to be able to lend a helping hand to Father as soon as possible. In n.o.ble’s society, it was a settled deal for one to attend High Academy for things to go smooth and I wished to reach my aim as soon as I could. The best choice was, to skip grades. Unintentionally, I said what I was thinking out loud.

But even so, the level for this country was ridiculously high. If the studies I was doing now were aimed for kids, then this level was already in the same level as high school from my previous world. I started to worry if I was able to do it or not.

” You do not have to worry that much. ”

What I was thinking seemed to have been written on my face. I was praised by Sensei. When I was about to say thanks to Sensei, he continued, stunning me into silence.

” We had already studied the materials for High Academy. ”

Oi oi, please tell me you are joking…

I took a few minutes to recover from that unfathomable joke.

It seemed that I was neither praised nor was Sensei making a joke. n.o.body would be angry at me for feeling a sudden surge of anger.

…Return back my exhausting effort and all the time I spent… I honestly felt like crying.

Even if I was not in a child’s body, I felt like crying. Sensei just went along with the flow of things and proceeded on. To h.e.l.l with ‘just’! Why would you even give a child High Academy’s materials to study, you b.a.s.t.a.r.d!

I looked up at Sensei with reproachful eyes but thinking of the punishment that might come, I forgave him. It was true that thanks to him I could reach my goal sooner. As an educator, he certainly did his job.

But.

I meant, there was something called being prepared for it. Wasn’t it fine to inform me in advance about it? Wasn’t it too Spartan? He was definitely a Sparta ‘S’… Next time onward I would call him Spartacus. In my heart, Sensei’s nickname had changed from ‘S’ b.a.s.t.a.r.d to Spartacus. [TN: I think that’s an improvement though..]

John-sensei averted his eyes from me and coughed.

” And so, please explain the magic from this incident, Will. ”

” Sigh.. ”

This time I did not even bother hiding my sigh.

◆◆◆

AN: It was needlessly to say Will explained, mixed in with sighing, his incantation / magic to Sensei in the end.

Next is Academy chapter….! Maybe.

TN: Maybe.