Click, Click, Click

A clicking, redundant, and irritating sound could be heard throughout the room.

The noise came from me, specifically from the fork I was using to stab my dishes.

I and Syrus were in the dining room.

It was lunchtime-my lunchtime.

Syrus was just standing off to the corner, waiting for me to finish.

In a normal situation, I should have been able to eat without making such a fuss. But, because my right hand was incapacitated, I had no choice but to use my clumsy remaining hand.

Of course, Syrus, being the generous person that he is, offered to feed me. But the mere thought of being fed by Syrus was enough for me to reject his offer.

It had nothing to do with Syrus.

It's just that my honor and pride were on the line at the time.

After all, in the first week following my accident that left my right arm paralyzed. I managed to get Sirus to tell me how he ended up in this manor.

Sirus joined the Legion as a legionnaire when he was young. Legion is a branch of the Paladin Order: the church's and, by extension, humanity's armed hand. When a noble joins the Paladin Order, he is given the title paladin; when a commoner does, he is given the title legionnaire and assigned to the Legion: a Paladin's Order sub-division.

It goes without saying that there was a significant difference between being a legionnaire and being a paladin.

When I asked him why he joined the legion, he simply said it was for the money. It was true that there was an unbridgeable chasm between being a paladin and being a legionnaire, but when Syrus was a legionnaire, the Paladin's Order was fighting a Crusade on the North (a war against monsters for the expansion of the human continent), so they were extremely generous when it came to rewarding those who had accomplished a feat on the battlefield.

Back then, he reasoned that if he joined the legion, he would defeat some monsters and one day return to his hometown with enough money to live an extravagant life.

Unfortunately for Syrus, this day never came. All he had accumulated after all those years in the legion were broken bones, dislocated joints, and countless lost comrades. The crusade was not as simple as he had anticipated.

After five years on the battlefield, he resigned as a legionnaire and returned to his hometown, a small village near the main city of the Beaumont Duchy. On his way back home, he stopped in the Duchy's main city for a while.

At the same time, the Aubrecht: the duchy's ruling family was looking for servants. He applied for the job, still clinging to his dream of a wealthy life, and was hired right away.

A few months later, the Duke and his wife welcomed their first child, Luke Aubrecht, who would become my father.

When my father was two, the duchy received a visit from the previous Duke, Lord Armand Aubrecht, also known as one of the fourteen, after ten years.

As I previously stated, the church is divided into two distinct organizations: the clergy and the Paladin Order. Each of these two branches is led by seven representatives: seven Holy Paladins for the Paladin Order and seven ArchBishops for the clergy.

The previous Duke was a Holy Paladin, one of fourteen, and he, who was one of the most powerful and influential figures on the human continent, has returned to the Duchy after a ten-year absence. The reason for his visit was simple: he came to see his first grandson.

He demoted my father's valet's position within a few days of his arrival. It seemed that he esteemed that the previous valet was too old to look after his grandson. And to be fair, he was completely right; the man had been around since my great-grandfather's childhood.

Because the position was vacant, a recruitment campaign was held. Ambitious as he was, Syrus saw in that recruitment session a huge opportunity to realize his long-held dream, so he applied and was once again accepted for the position.

Everything went smoothly from there for Syrus; the nomination was a huge step forward in his career; after all, what is a servant compared to the future Duke valet? It was around this time that he first met Maa. She used to be my father's nanny.

Apparently, Maa came from a prestigious commoner family; for unknown reasons, she left the familial business to become the Duchess' personal maid; when my father was born, she instantly took over the position of my father's nanny.

Maa was eventually appointed as the Ducal castle's governess, and Syrus as my father's head attendant.

Being the head attendant is a very high and comfortable position; it primarily entails giving orders directly from his master to his subordinate.

I could tell he was proud and sometimes melancholic from the tone with which he narrated his past, especially the part where he became a head attendant. After all, if he and Maa worked here as butler and governess, it would mean abandoning the status they had earned over the years to follow me here in the middle of nowhere. No matter how beautiful and sumptuous this manor is, a position in the family's castle will always be more important than one here.

Feeling a little guilty about their demotion, I settled to do my best to avoid any discussions about the time when he was still working on the castle.

***

It's been about an hour since I ate my lunch.

This time Syrus and I were in the living room.

Syrus was lighting the fireplace while I sat on one of the living room sofas with a book on my lap.

This is the same book I used at the time to disguise my fake true accident.

“Say, Syrus, don't you think I'm in good enough shape to be allowed to access the library once again?” ly sluggishly suggested.

“No, I don’t think so.”

“But it's boring here. There's nothing to do, nothing to read, nothing to do…” I protested with a childish tantrum “I know! Tell me a story from your time in the legion.”

“A story? I don’t think there was anything interesting to narrate about my time as a legionnaire.”

“Ai come on. How about your first battle against a monster. It is bound to be epic, right? Please don't leave out the gory details.”

“Epic huh?” said Syrus with a sarcastic tone.“I guess it was epic...My first one on one battle against a monster was in my third month in the legion, the paladins were on the frontline, they were tasked to exterminate the waves of attacking monster, and my comrades and I as Aina-users we were tasked to exter-”

Oi! Oi! what?

“Wait- what did you just say?”

“Euh...we were tasked to-”

“Nah~ before that, you said Aina-users?”

“Yes, I did.”

“You? Are you implying that you, Syrus, are an Aina-user?” I said while pointing at him.

“Euh… yes. I thought that the young Lord already knew that?”

“You never said that you were an aina-user.”

“But Young Lord seems to know that I was in the legion right?”

“Yes, but you never mentioned being an aina-user.”

“I see, I think the Young Lord was mistaken about the legion. Every legionnaire in the legion is without exception Aina-users.”

“But it was never mentioned in any of the books I’ve read about the Legion and the Paladin Order. I always thought that the legion consisted of commoners.”

“I think I finally understand where the young Lord was mistaken. When I told you about my time as a legionnaire, I was surprised to see that the young Lord was familiar with the organization. I assumed you'd heard about it from Mathilda, but it appears you've read about it in a book. The book you read is almost certainly out of date. For the past 100 years, the legion has not recruited a single non-aina user.”

I see, that would explain it.

After all, with time, things are bound to change.

I guess I can no longer blindly trust what is written in those books.

“I see. I guess that makes sense.”

“To avoid further misunderstanding, I ought to tell the Young Lord that I'm not the only aina-users of this household. There is someone else besides me.”

There was only one person who came to mind, but she didn't look like it at all.

“Who?”

It can’t be.

“Mathilda, I’ve seen her using aina a few times back when we were still working in the castle.”

Oh, come on.

Even you Maa.

“You guys are very different from the idea I was making of how aina-users would look like.”

“What did the Young Lord think they would look like?”

“I'm not sure, but I was expecting the average aina-user to be at least 1m95 tall, with a long beard, a massive two-handed sword, or at least a battleax on the back.”

“I certainly know some aina users who would fit the Young Lord description, but as you can see, the majority of us aina users look like normal people.”

“I suppose it was my fault for letting my imagination run wild..”

“Certainly not, it was our fault for not explaining the thing. So shall I resume my story...Where did we leave off?”

To be honest, I couldn't care less about his first encounter with a monster.

All I need right now is his guidance and insight as a fellow aina-user.

But to be polite let’s just let him finish his story and then once he’s done, I will bombard him with questions.