Click, Click, Click

A clicking, redundant, and irritating sound could be heard reverberating across the room. The noise came from me, more precisely from the fork I was using to stab my dishes.

Only Syrus and I were in the dining room. It was lunchtime-my lunchtime, while Syrus, him, was just standing around the corner, waiting for me to finish.

Under normal circumstances, I should have been able to eat without making such a commotion. But, with my right hand incapacitated, I was left with no other choice but to use my clumsy, remaining hand, causing such a ruckus. Of course, Syrius, being the generous person that he is, offered to feed me. But the mere thought of being fed by a grown man was enough for me to reject his offer. It had nothing to do with Syrius. It's just that my honor and pride were on the line at the time.

After all, in the first week after the accident that paralyzed my right arm, I managed to persuade Sirus to tell me how he ended up in the manor.And quite unexpectedly, his life story turned out to be pretty interesting in comparison to the soporific story I was expecting.

In his youth, Syrius joined the Legion as a legionnaire when he was young. Legion being 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, of course, goes without saying that there was a significant difference between being a legionnaire and being a paladin.

When I asked why he joined the legion, Syrius simply revealed that his sole motivation was money. It is true that there was an unbridgeable chasm between being a paladin and being a legionnaire, but when Syrus joined the legion, the Paladin's Order was fighting a Crusade on the Northward, so they were quite rewarding when it comes to those who willingly joined the crusade.

Back then, Syrius thought that if he joined the legion, he would defeat some monsters here and there and one day return to his hometown with enough money to live the extravagant life he’d always dreamed about. Unfortunately for Syrius, 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 being a legionnaire and made his way back to his hometown, a small village near one of the main cities of the Duchy of Beaumont. But on his way back home, Syrius made a stop at the capital city of Beaumont, Beaufort, where he would temporarily stay for a while.

At the same time, the Aubrechts, the ruling family of the duchy's, were looking for servants for their castle. Syrius, thinking that there would be an opportunity in this job, applied himself to it, still clinging to his dream of a wealthy life, and surprisingly, he 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 Father was two, Syrius's life took another drastic turn: the previous Duke, his excellency Armand Aubrecht, also known as one of the fourteen, paid a visit to the duchy after a ten-year absence.

As previously stated, the church was divided into two distinct organizations: the Clergy and the Paladin Order.

Each of these two branches was 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 the Fourteen Fourteen, and he, who was one of the most powerful and influential figures on the human continent, returned to the Duchy after a ten-year absence to see, my father, his first grandson.

One of the first things he did upon coming back to the Ducal castle was to demote my father's valet. It seems that he esteemed the previous valet to be too old to look after his grandson. And to be fair, he was right in that regard for the man who was said to have been around since my great-grandfather's childhood.

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

After having ascended to the position of valet, everything went very smoothly for Syrus; the nomination was a huge step forward in his career; after all, what is a mere servant or a legionnaire compared to the Duke’s heir’s and Duke-to-be’s 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; but for undisclosed reasons, she left the familial business to become the Duchess' personal maid. When my father was born, she instantly took over for him the position of nanny.

As the years went by and my father became a young man, Maa was eventually appointed as the Ducal castle's Head Governess and Syrus as my father's Head attendant.

By Syrius words, the position of head attendant was a very high and quite comfortable position, for it primarily entailed giving orders he directly received from his master, my father, to his subordinate.

I could tell from the tone with which he narrated his past, especially the part where he became a head attendant, that he was proud and sometimes melancholic of that part of his life.

After all, if he and Maa worked here as butler and governess, it would mean that they had abandoned the status they had earned over the years to follow me here in the middle of nowhere. And no matter how beautiful and sumptuous this manor was, the position they held in the family's castle was bound to always be more important than the one they had here.

Feeling a little guilty about their, let’s call it what it is, "demotion," I internally settled myself to avoid discussions about the time he worked for the castle.

It's been about an hour since I ate and finished my lunch. This time, Syrus and I were in the living room.

While Syrius was lighting the fireplace, I sat on one of the living room sofas with a book on my lap.It was 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 already?" I asked.

"No, I don’t think so."

Throwing a childish but not abused tantrum, I protested, "But it's boring here. There's nothing to do, nothing to read, nothing to —I know! Tell me a story from your time in the legion. " I suggested.

"A story? I don’t think there was anything interesting to narrate about my time as a legionnaire. The young Lord already know everything. "

"Aye come on. How about your first battle against a monster. It is bound to be epic, right? And please don't leave out the bloody details. "

For a moment, Syrius simply looked at me.

"Epic, huh?" Syrus remarked sarcastically."I guess it was epic...My first one-on-one battle against monsters was in my third month of being a legionnaire. The paladins were on the frontline, tasked with exterminating the waves of attacking monsters, while my comrades and I, as Aina-users, were tasked with 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, Syrius, 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 the young Lord seems to know that I was in the legion, right?"

"Yes, but, as I said, you never mentioned being an aina-user."

We both looked at each other in confusion.

"Every single legionnaire in the legion is, without exception, an Aina-user."

"... I’ve never heard of that. I always thought that the legion consisted of commoners. "

It was only after a short while, that Syrius's face lit up as if he had figured out the truth.

"I see, I think I understand now… I think the Young Lord was mistaken about the legion. When I told you about having once been a legionnaire, I was surprised to see that the young Lord was familiar with the organization, so I assumed you'd heard about it from Mathilda, but it appears you've read about it in a book, isn't it right? "

I nodded.

"The book you read is almost certainly out of date. For the past three hundred years, the legion has not recruited a single non-aina user." He explained.

I see. That would explain it. After all, things are bound to change with time. I guess I can no longer blindly trust what is written in those books from now on.

"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-user in 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?" I still asked.

Syrius looked at me with a smile.

I couldn’t be. It can’t be.

"Mathilda."

Oh, come on.

"You’re sure?"

" I’ve seen her using Aina a few times back when we were still working in the castle. So yes, I’m sure. "

Even you, Maa.

"You guys are very different from the idea I was making of what aina-users would look like."

"What did the Young Lord think Aina-users would look like?"

"I'm not sure, but I was expecting the average aina-user to be at least 1 meter 95 tall, with a long beard, a massive two-handed sword, or at least a battle axe 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 Mathilda and I, 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 lost interest in the story about his first encounter with a monster. All I needed right now was guidance and insight from him 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.