3
“…!”
Dolores’s startled eyes met mine.
It looked like it would hurt if it stung me, so I had no choice but to dodge.
Creak, creak.
Would you look at that? Even now, the scorpion tail was twisting itself into knots in anger.
Just when I naturally expected her to get angry or for me to be scolded—
Smile.
She was smiling?
I had the impression that the corners of her lips were... lifting in a strangely alluring way.
Why was she smiling? Was she sneering because she was too angry?
As I briefly pondered while analyzing her expression—
"You insolent little brat...!"
The instructor, who had been standing beside Dolores with his head bowed, charged at me first.
"How dare you behave so disrespectfully before the Duchess!"
As he approached me, he raised his hand.
A downward, diagonal swing aimed squarely at my left cheek.
The trajectory was perfect. There was no way I could avoid it.
I squeezed my eyes shut.
But—
Grab.
That hand never reached my cheek.
"You must have been very startled, huh? I’m sorry...."
Holding the instructor’s arm as he tried to strike me, Dolores gave me an elegant smile.
It seemed she had spared me once. I hurriedly lowered my head.
Because Eric’s expression behind her was no joke. He looked as though he had seen a ghost.
"I’m sorry."
"No, no. You’re in an unfamiliar place, so it’s understandable. Of course you’d be startled."
After reassuring me, Dolores turned to the instructor.
The instructor, whose arm she still held, went pale and bowed his head.
"G-Gasp, Duchess...."
"I think the child was startled. It’s his first time experiencing this, isn’t it? Please don’t scold him."
"Ah... but, still...!"
"...Please don’t?"
Dolores asked sweetly once more, her eyes smiling.
"Y-Yes... as you command...."
The instructor promptly ducked his head.
Dolores stepped closer and bent her knees, meeting my eyes.
Was she going to pet me again? It hadn’t been bad, really.
"I’m only asking because I’m curious, child."
She gently laid a hand on my shoulder and whispered.
"...I’m even more curious now."
Creeeak. Creak.
This time, the tail began slowly—very slowly—approaching behind my right ear.
Since I had already dodged it once—
I subtly pulled my head to the left.
Whoosh. Creeeak....
The tail immediately swung to the other side.
I slowly nudged my head back to the right.
Whoosh.
The tail came right again.
"......"
Was she messing with me?
Dolores watched the entire process without saying a word.
The hand on my shoulder remained where it was.
Her expression was still inscrutable.
No, it might have deepened a little compared to earlier.
Okay.
...So this would only end if I stayed still.
Fine. I’d just think of it as taking one sting.
I finally gave up and squeezed my eyes shut. Then I slowly exposed the nape of my neck toward the source of that skin-crawling sound.
"Mm, I understand."
Dolores murmured quietly, seemingly satisfied.
Slide.
The ticklish sensation at my nape vanished.
Dolores slowly removed her hand and stood up.
"Magic."
Then she turned her head so everyone could hear.
"Lionel, you have a talent for magic."
She added clearly.
"A considerable talent, at that."
Apparently, I had a talent for magic.
2.
All the other children in the class returned to the stables.
Except for me.
The expression Eric wore before he was dragged away lingered in my mind.
He might have seemed a little depressed. Had he grown attached to me already?
Or was it simply because he hadn’t gotten to eat?
"Hahaha! You’re the first person the Duchess has ever singled out like this herself!"
The instructor, who had glared at me as if he wanted to kill me when I kept turning my head to avoid the tail, now beamed as though none of that had happened.
"She has something to discuss with you, so shall we get you washed up?"
I had already washed.
Apparently, I still didn’t smell very good to Dolores.
Thanks to that, I ended up entering the adults’ shower room alone.
Splaash....
"...Ah."
As I poured a scoop of water over my head, I thought.
I had no idea.
I definitely hadn’t been stung by the tail.
Yet she said I had a talent for magic.
All the kids before me had been stung before being assessed.
If laying a hand on them was the aptitude test, then it should have been over after the first attempt in the first place.
And there was one thing making me very uneasy right now.
"Did I catch her attention?"
If my ten years of experience as a web-novel reader had taught me anything, it was that catching the eye of an obviously powerful authority figure early on rarely ended well.
If I were the protagonist, maybe. But I didn’t even know whether I was the protagonist.
It would be one thing if I definitely had exceptional ability, but I wasn’t sure about that.
[Hey, your heart is beating way too fast. It’s up 23% from normal.]
[Don’t tell me you got flustered because she’s pretty?]
"Shut up."
[Aah!! You’re not answering!? You really did get flustered!!!]
"Be quiet and go find out some information."
Ruuush....
I picked up the scoop again.
First, get clean. I could think afterward.
When I came out of the bathhouse, a set of clothes completely different from what I had worn earlier was neatly folded there.
I thought they might even apply perfume, but apparently not that far.
"There. Go into that cottage."
The instructor pointed me toward a pretty little building.
"Just say yes, yes, understand? Never, ever offend the Duchess."
"Yes."
He kept emphasizing it.
Worry was written all over his face.
I didn’t know whether it was for my sake or his own.
"But I have a question. Do all the children in the magic class go to cottages like this?"
I wondered if I was just overreacting.
The instructor hesitated for a moment.
"...This is the first time I’ve seen a private audience."
"Ah."
I nodded appropriately and headed toward the annex.
The first time, huh.
This was driving me crazy.
Creak.
The first thing that enveloped my nose when I opened the lovely door and entered was a fragrant scent.
Since the odors I had smelled until just now had been rather inappropriate, perhaps the contrast made it seem even better.
It was enough to leave my head slightly dazed.
The interior was fairly spacious.
It was like a wealthy family’s vacation home.
Except medieval in style.
Three teacups sat on the table in the center.
And across from them—
"You’re here."
Dolores was seated there.
The short-haired girl who had been following her around the entire time stood beside her.
"Hello."
I gave a small bow.
"Have a seat, won’t you?"
Without a word, I pulled out the chair across from her and sat down. Dolores set down her teacup and gave me a smile.
"What did the instructor tell you?"
"...That it was a good opportunity."
"Mm. What else?"
"That he’d never seen anyone have a private audience...."
"Mm, and? What else?"
Ah, what was this? There was only one thing left.
Just to say yes, yes, and not upset her.
I tried to brush past it, but—
The expression on Dolores’s face as she rested her chin on her hand and looked at me was unusual.
You know the type, right? Someone who deliberately asks a question when they already know the answer.
I felt like saying there was nothing else would make things troublesome.
Let’s just be honest.
"He just told me to say yes, yes."
"Are you going to do that?"
"Of course not. I’ll give only truthful answers."
"Pfft. That’s not an answer a child would give."
She hit the nail on the head.
Dolores covered her mouth with the back of her hand and chuckled softly.
"Don’t lie to me from now on. All right?"
"Yes."
"You told me honestly. Good job."
Dolores held out a candy wrapped in silver paper to me.
As expected, she had known everything and was just testing me.
I accepted the candy in relief, but—
The little girl standing at an angle beside us opened her eyes wide and reached out.
"......!"
My candy was confiscated.
She unwrapped it and popped it straight into her mouth.
"...Sorry. That was the last one."
Dolores looked at the child with a slight furrow between her brows.
"You have plenty at home."
Without answering, the little girl sharply turned her head and began crunching away.
I didn’t particularly care. That was just how kids her age were.
Crazy for candy. Little brats.
Clap.
"Then shall we get to the point?"
Dolores brought her hands together and looked at me.
"Earlier, I said that you have a talent for magic. Why do you think I said that?"
"......"
Why ask me that?
"I’m not sure."
"It didn’t touch you, did it?"
"...No."
I had never been stung.
At those words, Dolores smiled brightly.
"That’s why."
"Pardon?"
"Ordinary people—"
She continued slowly.
"They can’t tell. Because they don’t know."
"......"
"They can’t tell whether it touched them or not. They can’t see it, after all."
I went over the meaning of her words.
So—
The reason the children standing before me earlier had been stung without batting an eye wasn’t because they weren’t afraid.
It was because they couldn’t see anything from the beginning?
And she had been startled because I kept dodging as though I could see it?
"...You mean they can’t see it?"
That terrifying-looking tail?
"Mm-hm."
Dolores nodded and lifted her teacup.
Whoosh!
At the same time, a scorpion tail shot out from her left hand.
I reflexively pushed my chair back.
The tail twisted in the air before stopping right in front of my nose.
"...You’re afraid. Why do you think that is?"
"Because it looks scary."
"...Really? What does it look like?"
"Uh... a scorpion tail."
"...!"
At my answer—
The face of the short-haired girl, who had been expressionless all along, twisted.
"Oh my."
Dolores covered her mouth and glanced sideways at the girl.
"Ruby, he says it’s a scorpion tail."
Dolores teased the girl as if she found it amusing.
"It seems he can even see exactly what it looks like."
She called the little girl Ruby.
"And our Ruby still can’t~"
Huff, huff.
Ruby bit her lip as if she were furious about something.
Stomp, stomp, stomp.
Without a word, she marched heavily over to Dolores.
"Is that really what it said? Is it really a tail?"
Her voice had risen a little.
"It is."
Dolores answered calmly with a smile.
Ruby’s face instantly turned red.
Stomp, stomp, stomp!
She stomped out of the room.
The door slammed shut with a bang.
"......"
I watched her leave, then—
"...Ah, I’m sorry. I think I did something wrong."
I apologized.
"No, not at all."
Dolores spoke nonchalantly as she lifted her teacup.
"Pardon?"
"Ruby didn’t know what it looked like."
Dolores continued her explanation with a smile.
"She can see its shape, but she doesn’t know exactly what it looks like. She’d been trying hard to see it... but I suppose she got upset because you saw it first."
Ah.
So she was frustrated because I saw something she couldn’t see, something she was still trying to see.
Apparently, seeing the tail’s exact form wasn’t easy.
Then what was I?
Going by the circumstances, that girl was probably exceptionally gifted in magic. Dolores took her everywhere personally, after all.
But I could see something that she couldn’t, some random boy covered in shit-water. I could see why she would be upset.
Honestly, I had no idea what was going on.
"By the way, how strange. How did you know what a scorpion looks like? This is ranching country... you’d only know if you went as far as a desert region...."
I was in trouble.
What scorpions looked like wasn’t common knowledge here.
"I think I saw one in a book."
"......"
Hearing my answer, Dolores gently raised the corners of her lips.
She didn’t look like she believed me.
"Well... that isn’t what’s important."
After a brief silence—
"...What will happen to me now?"
...This was what I really wanted to know.
"You...."
Dolores set down her teacup and looked at me.
"...What do you want to do?"
3.
"...What a peculiar hobby."
I was on my way back to the barracks after leaving the cottage. I went over the conversation we had just had.
"I don’t lock up children who truly have talent. I let them do what they want."
"What about the children in the magic class?"
"...Not everyone can climb the Tower."
After hesitating briefly, she had continued.
"But the territory needs workers. Children who will first learn a system of discipline and receive basic training."
In other words, the magic class had never been created with the intention of raising mages.
It gathered children capable of working in the territory and taught them a basic system of discipline.
If talent happened to bloom in the process, great. If not, well.
It didn’t seem like a bad system. Better than becoming surplus labor.
Like me, for instance.
"So, what do you want to do?"
My answer was to return to the barracks.
But—
"Could I... not have to do the job of cleaning up shit?"
"...Are you serious?"
I got nervous for a moment, but in the end, she told me I didn’t have to do it.
It seemed she had never intended to make me do it in the first place.
There were two reasons I didn’t go to the magic class.
First, as Dolores said, there was no value in it.
Second, the way they had looked at me earlier was unsettling.
I didn’t want to force myself into their group just to do that ridiculous thing.
In the end, I was able to rest for a while.
Pat, pat, pat!
"Good work!"
The instructor patted me on the back and encouraged me.
He had gone into the building to see Dolores for a moment, and afterward, he was in an extremely good mood.
"Was it next week? Rest well until then! No, wait... don’t just rest. Do what you need to do, too!"
I was led to a room utterly unlike the stable from that morning.
"Tell us if you need anything at all! The Duchess told us to see to your comfort."
After patting my back a few more times, the instructor left.
Before opening the door to my room—
I recalled what Dolores had told me once again.
"......"
"What I want from you isn’t anything else."
"Show me something interesting next week. Try everything you want to do. That’s what magic is."
"We’ll be staying in the annex for a week."
She hadn’t given me a single hint.
I wondered if this was how one cultivated talent, but whatever.
If I truly had talent, something would work out somehow....
Anyway, I had become unemployed for a week.
Not having to work... was something I was deeply grateful for.
I opened the barracks door.
A single room.
This was overwhelming. I’d never even had one in the military.
The other lodgings I glimpsed in passing looked harsher than a special-forces training camp.
The bed was wooden, but—
I was simply grateful.
"......"
I sat on the edge of the bed and looked out the window.
The night breeze drifted in, carrying the distinctly unendearing smell of cow dung.
Ugh.
"Wow...."
It was finally sinking in.
I really had come to another world.
The body I possessed was that of a little kid.
I had no idea what this supposed talent of mine even was.
The only thing in my hands was my crazy little-sister AI... No, was she really in my hands?
Ah, right. She was.
"Hey, are you there?"
I called out into empty air.
Then—
[Crawling complete.]
"What?"
I sprang to my feet.
There were only two cases where that brat corrected her manner of speaking to normal.
When I had ordered her to do something.
Or when she had actually accomplished something.
"Uh, so... I mean."
I asked her.
"Show me everything right now."
As if she had been waiting, she immediately began rattling off an explanation.
[First, I successfully analyzed the nearest network node.]
[Crawling target: Inner Tower Community forum.]
[I forcibly created an account for access. Don’t ask about the process.]
"...Inner Tower forum?"
Something suddenly came to mind.
The voice I had heard on the training ground earlier.
"The absolute ruler of the fifth floor! The Duchess...!"
The fifth floor. The Tower.
The Tower?
Was this perhaps a world where people climbed a Tower?
Normally, an AI that had crawled a community possessed an ocean of information.
And the site she had analyzed was clearly from this world, too.
If so—
"...What kind of place is this?"
[Before I explain, there are a lot of things that are impossible to understand through common sense, you know?]
[So I decided to neatly omit those parts!]
As expected of my two-hundred-dollar little sister who could think for herself!!
So she had deleted things she couldn’t understand, like being transported to another world.
That was far better than clutching her head and screaming because she couldn’t understand.
[Below: summary of the current world’s basic structure.]
[Focusing on analysis of data concerning the current situation.]
[This world is a fantasy world structured around climbing the Tower.]
"......"
The Tower. Climbing.
[There is the Inner Tower Community, which only those qualified to climb the Tower can join, and the Outer Tower Community for ordinary people.]
[I judged the Inner Tower Community’s data quality to be overwhelmingly higher, including its wiki.]
[Using that site as the basis, I have completed all analyses, including the wiki.]
"A wiki?!"
I rose from my seat.
A wiki. She just said wiki.
If it was the kind of wiki I knew... surely not....
[At present, I am in a state where I can bring you nearly any information you want....]
She paused for a moment before continuing.
[That’s what I am, hehe.]
[😏]
She was back to the irritating yet competent self I knew.
[Tell me what you want to know first.]
[Dolores? Pretty big sister?]
[No, that won’t do. I’ll just recommend something.]
[1. The Tower’s basic structure and an overview of each floor.]
[2. Principles of mana manipulation.]
[3. Dolores’s wiki information.]
[Pick quickly!]
This.
"...Dolores first."
I got the feeling this might be more manageable than I had expected.
I smiled.
[Hng, I knew you’d say that....]
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