Reading dictionaries is my hobby.
Whenever I say that, people usually laugh at me.
Even so, discovering words I didn't know and realizing my own misconceptions was, for me, a kind of enjoyable reading.
It was also because that was the only entertainment that could easily satisfy my intellectual curiosity.
Those memories returned to me when I heard the bell tolling, heavy and deafening.
"Ah, why is it that Lady Asha is not even allowed to approach the chapel when the Blessing Bell is ringing?"
The one sighing on my behalf is Harti, my wet nurse and the younger sister of my deceased mother.
She is still twenty years old, with long dark blue hair.
And Asha—that's me.
Three years old this year.
But at the same time, I also recalled memories from when I was a completely different person.
It seems I died—the me who was born and raised in 21st century Japan, on Earth.
My memories contain my thirtieth birthday, but I have no recollection of celebrating my thirty-first.
I don't remember how I died, but since I have a feeling I encountered some kind of disaster, it was probably a death that was no one's fault.
"To leave young Lady Asha behind like this, how heartless His Majesty is."
"Harti-dono, you mustn't say any more than that. He is Lady Asha's father, after all."
The tall young man with green hair who appears slightly older, calming the tearful Harti.
What stands out most of all are the triangular ears atop his head covered in green body hair, and the bushy tail growing from below his waist.
Yes, it seems I have undergone what is called an otherworld reincarnation.
At the very least, my memories as a Japanese person contain neither such hair colors nor beastmen.
More than anything, I have hazy memories of the three years I spent being raised properly as Asha.
"This bell—what blessing is it for?"
When I opened the window to hear the sound better and asked, Harti and the beast-eared scholar Wearrel averted their eyes.
It seems this was something I shouldn't have asked about.
I felt disgusted with myself for trying to read their expressions.
I was like this in my previous life too.
Born into a family without financial worries, blessed with good looks, capable of doing most things if they were explained to me—such was my previous life.
But the reality was days spent merely reading the room to act as my parents wished, being told I was an only child who was doted upon, and indeed I suppose I was.
But I found my previous life terribly suffocating.
"What's with the gloomy faces? You lot are troubling His Highness. Can't have that."
The owner of the voice is also tall, his face that of a red-haired bear—a beastman.
Wearrel is a half-[breed] and looks human, but this Helkov is a pure-blooded beastman.
He walks on two legs like a human, but his face is that of a bear.
I recall hearing that Helkov is a former soldier.
He is the oldest among the adults around me, but I can't tell how old he is from his bear face.
"Your Highness Asha, this bell is the Blessing Bell for performing the baptism of your younger brother."
The one who taught me this was Ikt of the sea-folk race, with his bluish skin.
He has smooth features like an Easterner, but his hair is coral orange—a color that certainly didn't exist in my previous life.
Wait, was I so absorbed in comparing things to my previous life that I missed something important?
"…Younger brother? A brother was born to me?"
My face relaxed in a strange elation.
In my previous life, I was an only child with no one I could call a childhood friend, and my friends grew distant as I aged.
Perhaps because my relationship with my parents was poor beneath the surface, I had always felt envious whenever I heard others talk about their siblings.
Fights and complaints are things that can only happen between equals standing on the same level—I had wanted such a presence for myself.
"Are you happy that your younger brother was born?"
Harti asked with concern.
"Of course!"
Because I won't be alone anymore; I'll have a connection that can never be severed.
How joyful that is.
In other words, I will become an older brother.
The me who was treated as the youngest in my previous life's family will now be in a position to protect someone.
"When can I meet my brother?"
When I asked with anticipation, Harti faltered.
Could it be that mother's condition is poor?
Baptisms are usually done within days of birth.
It's customary to receive a baptismal name and report one's birth to God.
So the younger brother should be fine, I think.
Wearrel placed a hand on Harti's shoulder.
"This one has also become the child of an Emperor, even if not born of the Empress."
"I think it would be better to teach him the proper order before someone interferes carelessly."
Helkov also offered Harti some advice.
"No one is around right now. The guards have all gone to the chapel as well."
Ikt, who said this, is also a member of the palace guard; he's wearing a uniform and carrying a sword.
My comprehension of the current situation, gained during my three years with barely any thinking capacity, is not very high.
Here is an empire, with an emperor at the top, and countless countries on the continent are unified under this empire's emperor.
Among the countless countries are beastmen like Helkov and sea-folk like Ikt, and Wearrel looks human but is apparently a half-elf.
Harti and I are human.
The castle of the human empire has mostly humans—that's the extent of my knowledge.
"How much you will understand I do not know, but Lady Asha, you were born because you were wished for. Please never doubt that."
My wet nurse Harti conveyed this with a seriousness like prayer, like clinging to something.
First, the source of my current problem is my father.
And my father's father, the previous emperor, my grandfather.
To put it simply, my father was something like a hidden child of the previous emperor.
I say "like" because he was acknowledged as legitimate, but apparently became treated as a child of the count's family when his mother, my grandmother, remarried into a count's family as a second wife.
"It's complicated. He was acknowledged as the emperor's child, but treated as a count's family?"
"Yes, that's right. Bloodline and status are separate things here."
According to Harti, that seems to be common sense here.
So, my father was raised as the third son of the count's family, married my mother—a viscount's daughter—and I was born.
In other words, I too was a member of the count's family immediately after birth.
However, the situation changed when the numerous imperial princes died one after another.
Various causes—falling from horses, long illness, accidents while traveling.
In the end, the only legitimate son remaining of the previous emperor was apparently my father.
Therefore, my father was suddenly elevated to crown prince.
When I was one year old, my mother died, and the previous emperor was already on his deathbed.
By the time I was two, he underwent crash training to be crown prince, and my father remarried a duchess.
And now, at three years old, my father has become the new emperor, and my stepmother is the empress.
"What about me?"
"You are His Majesty's eldest son, the Imperial Prince. …However, as you are not the Empress's child, your right of succession has been, as it were, ceded to your younger brother."
Though Harti told me this as if it were difficult to say, I laughed.
From the bottom of my heart.
Honestly, being called an imperial prince is too heavy a burden for me, a commoner in my previous life.
But I have a younger brother with impeccable bloodlines.
If that's the case, I'll raise both hands in support; wouldn't it be nice to be an older brother who supports such a brother?
"Thank you for telling me."
Contrary to my smiling self, those around me looked at me with pity.
Posting two chapters today and tomorrow (next update at 18:00)
Next: The Emperor's Eldest Son 2