Having turned eleven, those enjoyable days had come around again.
"Older Brother, hello!"
"Older Brother, what will you teach us today?"
"Hey, Warner, Fer. I told you not to run."
My cute younger brothers had come to visit me.
"Welcome. Terry, Warner, Fer. You must be tired from walking all the way here. I've prepared drinks, so why don't you rest first?"
The twin brothers' favorite thing to do now was to walk around and play in the Emerald Room where I practiced alchemy, treating it like a theme park. Moreover, my youngest sister the princess was still one year old and required attention, and Her Highness the Consort was busy with public duties as well. The twins, at an age where they wanted to be pampered, were delighted by my presence in attending to them, and of course, I did so willingly, desiring it, and happily.
"Onii-sama, how long can we stay today?"
Seeing Fer ask this, I became a bit envious of Terry being called "Onii-sama."
Hmm, but while I hated to give up on "Onii-sama" as well, being called "Older Brother" was nice too. It had a certain gravitas to it.
Passing through the antechamber of the Blue Room into the spacious inner chamber, I found Nomariola had prepared juice. This place had previously been a room devoid of furniture, where even the built-in shelves stood empty. Now, books obtained through my yearly stipend lined the shelves alongside research papers from Diora, and separate from that stipend, Her Highness the Consort had taken pity on the empty room, furnishing it with various appointments like chairs, desks, carpets, and decorative objects. It had been arranged into a splendid study that wouldn't be embarrassing even with younger brothers present.
"Father is in a meeting, and Mother said she is meeting with the Romulus ambassador's wife, so I don't think anyone will come to get us before sunset," Terry answered thus while checking with the nearby guards.
The guards were becoming familiar faces by now, but when they made eye contact with Ikt, they immediately put their hands behind their backs, signaling that they wouldn't touch their swords. I wondered whether I should take this as them following instructions, or suspect that Ikt had done something. According to Terry's guards, the Main Building was apparently in an uproar due to an emergency meeting. The palace was primarily intended as a residence, but after all, it was a political space, so when nobles came and went and it was busy, it was truly busy. Therefore, it seemed they wanted us to play in this Left Wing rather than the Main Building today. Since we had finished our morning studies, we were told we could take our time.
"Then, shall we try recreating magic using Essence today? It requires careful handling, so Terry, will you do it?"
"Ehh! I can do it!"
"I want to do it too!"
"The condition was that you follow Older Brother's instructions in alchemy, wasn't it?"
Essence was relatively safe, so the twins had touched it before. It was likely an assertion precisely because of that, but Terry displayed his role as older brother and admonished him. Until last year, he had been raised in the position of the eldest son, yet I had appeared out of nowhere as his older brother. Moreover, burdened by the guilt of having picked a huge fight with him at first, he had been awkward and ill at ease, unaccustomed to being treated as a younger brother. Now he had completely gotten used to it, and when I designated him like this, he pretended it was nothing in front of the twins, but had come to look at me with expectant eyes.
"Then, first is a review about Essence."
This was pre-experiment study for the younger brothers who had finished their juice. At my words, Nomariola cleared away the juice, and Wearrel hung diagrams illustrating the effects and characteristics of Essence on the bookshelf to make them easy to see. This too had become quite practiced. Although I had been temporarily uneasy about Nomariola's sudden change in attitude, she maintained a cool, collected maid persona except in front of me, my close associates, and Wald. Once she let loose, she would report various things with a smile, like how my younger sister had developed a stronger interest in scents from peppermint oil and was exploring perfume-making, or how her suffering had subsided and she had become active.
(Well then, it's about time, Sephira Sephirot.)
I still kept this mysterious intelligent entity that I called out to within my heart a secret, as expected even now. From Nomariola, of course, from Wald, and from Father and my younger brothers. If I were told it was an achievement for creating Sephira, I couldn't deceive my way out of it, and ideally, I hoped Fer would become interested in alchemy, grow up, and create and announce an intelligent entity like Sephira. Thinking that he might elucidate things even I didn't understand, and that a day might come when I could openly use Sephira, made me excited.
(Are you back?)
(As Master wished, I have eavesdropped on the meeting.)
(Welcome back. It was about military rebellion, but the disputed territory Herkov mentioned?)
The topic of the emergency meeting was about Romulus, a beastman nation under the Empire's umbrella to the north. It seemed there was a land where beastmen fought each other on the border with the Empire.
(In Romulus, the Bayfar region, near the Fanan Mountains, minor skirmishes between Iskarion-system beastmen and Romulus-system beastmen have worsened. With the respective chiefs appearing, they further intensified, developing into a standoff where neighboring lords, having received requests, deployed troops.)
(Ahh, so the Romulus side lined up troops facing the Empire.)
This essentially meant a declaration of war, but it was merely the arbitrary action of regional chiefs and local lords. Romulus as a nation was likely panicking as well. As the Iskarion Empire, having a subordinate nation point swords at them and remaining silent would be bad for appearances. But that said, seriously intervening in such a local quarrel would make them seem cheap.
(The ideal solution from His Majesty's side would be for Romulus to suppress their own people and publicly apologize to the Empire, I suppose.)
(The Romulus ambassador called to the meeting does not seem to have that intention.)
(Well, it will end with Romulus being underestimated.)
The ambassador likely couldn't make promises lightly in a situation where he didn't understand his own country's movements. And from the country's side, it was a troublesome matter. But from the local people's perspective, it was an outpouring of pent-up frustration; they wouldn't back down easily, and if carelessly provoked, there would be casualties.
(Does His Majesty intend to move immediately?)
(They agreed with the Romulus ambassador that they did not wish for the people of both nations to be hurt.)
If so, after all, it was a political negotiation about which side would take the blame.
"Wa, wa!"
"Ah, don't panic, Terry. If you push slowly just like that, it'll be fine."
Having moved to the Emerald Room, we were now in the middle of an experiment using Essence. What we were doing was an experiment to create static electricity by pressurizing an object made by mixing Essence. It seemed Terry had done the mixing poorly midway, so rather than static electricity, sparks had scattered. Since performing pressurization rapidly while surprised was dangerous, I placed my hand on Terry's to guide him. Then, purple lightning safely crackled with a sound inside the test tube.
"...I couldn't do it as well as Older Brother."
It seemed that because I had demonstrated it once, he had been especially surprised by the different result.
"I can't match Older Brother, in magic or alchemy..."
"That's not true. It's just that I'm older than Terry so I have more experience. When Terry reaches my age, you should be able to do far more than now."
It seemed Terry had set me as his goal, which was the utmost joy for an older brother. But really, I didn't properly do anything besides alchemy, so being overtaken was already a predetermined course. Terry, the next emperor, differed in the number of tutors, and their quality was high as well. As an older brother, I supposed I should stimulate his motivation while following up so he wouldn't break. Even in my previous life, cram school teachers who were good at that maintained students' motivation well, and such teachers were popular and well-liked. I wanted to be liked by my younger brothers too, so I would do my best going forward.
"Look, fire!"
"I made water!"
Unable to use magic yet, so although they were told Essence could only do kindling-level things, Warner and Fer also seemed to be enjoying themselves. The guards watched over this play with Essence that could only produce phenomena minor compared to magic. However, since it would be troublesome if they hit the equipment with swords even now, they waited at the entrance. Ikt had never hit anything once, so he was inside the room, though.
"Pardon the interruption during your pleasant conversation, Your Highness."
"Herkov?"
It was rare, or rather unprecedented, for him to interrupt when I was playing with my younger brothers. I entrusted the room to the guards and temporarily moved to the Golden Room. Herkov was from Romulus, and he had received a letter from his hometown about the movements in the north. Since he had been concerned about that, he had gone out from the Left Wing to gather information.
"According to information from a military acquaintance, the meeting ended just now. And so, you see..."
It seemed some situation had occurred that made Herkov hesitate to speak. I deliberately smiled and nodded, urging him to continue.
"Actually, talk of dispatching imperial princes as a show of authority has come up."
"That... means my younger brothers under ten, doesn't it? That's impossible, right?"
It was an obvious question, but Herkov maintained a severe bear-like expression and nodded heavily.
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Next: Northern Military Disturbance 2