Chapter 5. 3. Please Respect Privacy
Chirp chirp chirp.
Morning had broken. The sound of birds coming from outside the window was quite noisy. Those who wanted to sleep in frowned and burrowed deeper into their blankets.
However, Lumian didn't need to do that. He hadn't slept.
All night, he had been recalling what happened yesterday, feeling happy, and also regretful.
'Yesterday was really good. My first skinship since being reincarnated.'
'She was pretty, so it was even better. Now that I think about it, she seems to have some aspects better than the ladies from my previous life.'
'If only I had been a bit calmer. When I realized she was a noble and stepped back, I should have suggested having a meal together, saying I'd give her a chance to make up for my rudeness...'
'Why did I tremble so much? I never used to be like that.'
All the world's troubles existed in Lumian's head.
He let out a sigh—hoo—and rose from his bed.
It was certainly different from before.
In the days when he had no expectations or motivation, he could maintain composure no matter what women said or did in front of him. But now, like a teenage boy who had just awakened to sexuality, his heart trembled at the slightest touch.
In truth, he was no different from a teenage boy. For Lumian, who had become 'active' for the first time at age sixty, yesterday's stimulation had been too strong. Currently, he had very little resistance when it came to women.
'It's fine. Let's not be impatient.'
Lumian roughly washed his face with the water in his room. Then he took off his shabby clothes and changed into his knight cadet uniform.
After gathering his belongings and checking that he wasn't leaving anything behind, he opened the door to his room.
He went down to the first floor and quickly glanced around the hall, but the female server was nowhere to be seen. Shaking off even a trace of regret, he left the inn without hesitation.
The warm morning sunlight descended upon Lumian's face.
It felt as if it was blessing his future.
'There's plenty of time, and plenty of opportunities. As experience gradually builds up, I'll be able to do well.'
No one is good at something from the start.
Recalling the thought he had yesterday once more, he walked through the streets with confident strides.
His destination was the Tarajan Royal Academy.
'Classes start tomorrow, so I should go the day before.'
Tarajan Academy was a boarding school, and students could use the dormitories even during breaks.
That was why there had been no need to stay at an inn yesterday either, but he had retained the memory that construction would be done until just before the semester started, so he was only now heading to the dormitory.
"Hum, hum~!"
Lumian hummed a tune.
Since the memories of the body's original owner remained, adapting to the new environment was no problem at all. Originally, there wasn't particularly anything he needed to do. Buy new semester textbooks from the bookstore inside the academy, then go to the dormitory and unpack. That was the end of it. After that was free time.
Then, during that time, what should he do?
'Obviously, looking at women.'
Lumian smiled with satisfaction.
During his days as a eunuch knight, the most ideal romance he had pursued was the love between a knight and a noble young lady that bloomed in the capital.
It wasn't necessarily because he was a knight. This was the most typical romance story that everyone on the continent would commonly think of.
However, the youth romance between young men and women that unfolded at the academy could also be said to be an interesting story no less compelling than that. There was a reason why romance novels with this subject matter were so numerous.
Lumian also quite liked such stories.
One might ask why a sixty-year-old knight's taste was like that, but what was the problem? The current him was a fresh fifteen-year-old knight cadet.
"Hehe."
His atmosphere changed slightly.
His formerly sleepy eyes became half-lidded, and his clear smile turned lecherous. As he got closer to the academy, his laughter became audible to those around him. Passersby stiffened their expressions and kept their distance.
Whether they did or not, Lumian didn't care.
And so he finally arrived at the academy's entrance.
After showing his ID to prove he was a knight cadet, he spoke his ambition in a low voice.
"Graduating from the academy without ever experiencing romance won't do."
Yes, indeed. Nodding at his own words, Lumian hurriedly made his way toward the bookstore. He planned to quickly take care of trivial matters, then go to the garden inside the academy.
This was according to his original plan—to look at women. Not only knight cadets but also students from other departments frequented the area, making it the best place to broaden his experience with women and build up his tolerance.
'Since the academy is mostly attended by noble children, the women should be pretty too.'
Unfortunately, this part of the original owner's memory was hazy. But that was fine. Rather, in terms of heightening anticipation, it was even better.
Lumian imagined the beautiful women who would be walking in the garden and moved his body even faster.
Just then, someone caught his eye and made him stop in his tracks.
A boy around Lumian's age. He had impressive freckles on his face and gave off a slightly cunning impression.
Walking from the opposite direction, he belatedly noticed Lumian and made a startled expression, stopping his steps as well.
A sudden staring contest ensued.
"...."
"...."
After about ten seconds of silence, the two passed each other without a word.
But their subsequent actions differed. Lumian went his way without looking back, while the freckled boy watched Lumian's retreating figure for quite a while.
A murmur slipped from his lips.
"That bastard, seems like he's really changed a bit..."
The freckled boy, who watched Lumian a bit longer, turned around with a puzzled expression.
He would need to tell his friends about this.
***
"Tsk."
Lumian, who had entered his room, threw his bag onto the bed.
Both Lumian Callard and Ryan Promhart had quite neat personalities. Therefore, normally he would have organized his luggage first, but right now was different.
Lumian raised his hand and brought it to his chest.
He could feel his racing heartbeat strongly.
'The body has fear ingrained in it.'
The freckled boy he had met on the way to the bookstore was someone he knew. More precisely, he was a classmate who had persistently bullied him.
One of the main culprits who had made Lumian's already timid personality even darker.
The moment he saw him, cold sweat broke out from his body. He felt angry, but even greater fear surged up, making his body tremble.
"This is a bit of a problem. Hmm."
Muttering to himself, Lumian sat in the chair and fell into thought.
Until meeting the freckled boy, he hadn't thought about the guys who had bullied the original owner at all.
It was natural. When he was busy thinking about women, what reason was there to think about pitch-black male bastards? And even if he had thought of them, he wouldn't have worried much. Disciplining those kids was no problem at all.
But apparently it wasn't something to think about so easily.
The pain and pressure the original owner had felt was much deeper than he had thought. The past memories rising to the surface belatedly tormented Lumian Callard even more.
"Hmph."
Ryan Promhart's soul blew it away with a single snort.
His spirit wasn't weak enough to succumb to something like this. He scratched the back of his head and thought.
'Even if I'm fine now, my body might freeze up again when I meet them.'
That had happened earlier too. He had tensed his neck tightly to avoid showing weakness, and thanks to that, his body had been unnatural.
His expression had stiffened too. He didn't want to show such disgraceful behavior again.
'If I show a frightened appearance, women might look down on me.'
Already being treated like a half-wit, he couldn't afford to make an even worse impression.
Lumian suddenly stood up from his seat. Then he sat on the floor. Quietly closing his eyes, he quickly employed the Xenas aura cultivation technique.
Suuuip.
Huuu.
Drawing in mana through breathing. The absorbed mana transformed into aura with a solid nature through Xenas's characteristic stable method.
A feeling as if a heavy stone was filling the inside. Because of this, the knights of Xenas also called this the 'Rock Cultivation Method.'
'It has weight and is very stable.'
A feeling like pushing a rock forward.
The speed at which it flowed through the aura pathways in his body was slow, but since it moved a large amount of energy at once, the speed of accumulating aura was by no means slow.
However, Lumian wasn't satisfied with this.
He concentrated his mind. Then the energy of the rock, which had been flat on the ground, gradually became rounder and rounder.
Rumble rumble rumble—
Before he knew it, the energy processed into a perfect sphere shape raced through the aura pathways.
A feeling like rolling down a slope and gaining acceleration. The momentum was extremely fierce. If he made even the slightest mistake, it would deviate from the set path and shatter the surrounding landscape.
It was crazy. A normal person, no, even a knight confident in aura manipulation, wouldn't do such a insane thing. The energy that gained more and more speed was like a disaster that could blow up his body with even the most minor control mistake. The moment something went wrong, at minimum he'd be crippled, at maximum dead.
But conversely speaking, it also meant that as long as nothing went wrong, there was no problem at all.
Dududududu—!
One lap, two laps, three laps, ten laps.
Lumian continued circulating the energy and building up aura.
The rock grew like a snowball from the energy absorbed through breathing. He wasn't afraid. Rather, as if his speed had finally picked up, he rolled the energy even more boldly.
Twenty laps, thirty laps, fifty laps.
And one hundred laps.
Only then did Lumian, who had stopped his aura cultivation, slowly opened his eyes.
"Hmm, it's already dawn. Was I doing this for over half a day?"
The atmosphere emanating from him was on a completely different level from before.
Having become an entirely different person in just one day, he dusted off his bottom and stood up. Stuffing a loaf of bread he had thrown on the bed into his mouth, he thought.
'At this level, I shouldn't have to worry about being humiliated in front of women.'
If anyone tries anything, I'll suppress them calmly and maturely.
Lumian nodded and thought.
***
While Lumian was immersed in aura cultivation to shake off his fear.
The freckled boy was telling three other children what he had seen and heard.
"Hmm."
"I'm telling you, it's true. It was definitely Lumian. I heard he knocked down a muscular mercenary nearly 1 meter 90 centimeters tall with his bare hands."
"Hmm."
"His atmosphere changed a lot too. This morning our eyes met, and he stared me down without flinching, you know? Just last year, if I got close, he couldn't even lift his head and..."
"Hey."
"Yeah?"
Thwack.
"Ow!"
The boy who had been listening slapped the freckled boy's head with his palm.
He spoke with a pathetic expression.
"Where did you hear such nonsense and come here saying things that don't make any sense?"