Genius Wizard Conceals His Origins

T/N: Edited 10/27/24.

I returned to the storage room and sat at the desk out of habit. It seemed that devoting myself to language studies for the past two weeks had already become a habit.

I flipped through the play scripts here and there and fluttered through the dictionary.

As expected. The letters weren’t registering in my eyes at all.

“Sigh.”

A sigh escapes.

This duplex house was a warm place until just a moment ago.

The warmth of the bedding and the melancholy of the fluttering snowflakes. The fragrant smell of bread and the sweetness of marmalade. The unexpected warmth that came suddenly.

Without realizing it, my heart melted away.

But.

That gaze.

That freezing cold stare turned everything back.

Come to think of it. How many times have I talked to Dorothy over the past two weeks?

Whether it was related to studying or casual chatting, I exchanged many words with Benjamin. It helped that Benjamin’s study was right next to the storage room.

But Dorothy’s room was on the first floor.

Moreover, unlike the idle Benjamin, she was a soldier who went to work.

There were few opportunities to strike up a conversation with her.

That wasn’t all.

Dorothy seemed to be deliberately avoiding talking to me.

Even when we ate together, she said nothing. Even when we occasionally ran into each other in the house, she would only glance at my eyes, and that was it.

At first, I thought that was Dorothy’s original personality. Being indifferent to everything.

Considering her nicknames, like the Ice Queen or an Automaton, and Benjamin’s testimony that if you take away the “cold” from Dorothy, she’s a corpse, that was the most plausible conclusion.

However. What matters is not the truth.

It’s the gaze.

A moment ago. Dorothy’s eyes, which seemed to look into my bones, reminded me of the fact that I was gradually forgetting.

I am not a member of this family…

…and she is a soldier who can report me at any time.

“……”

For some reason, I feel a sense of futility.

I feel this way, even though I know it’s a meaningless worry.

I opened the book again to shake off the distracting thoughts. It’s a script for a play by a playwright famous in the Federation.

Flip.

The opened page had a simple illustration and lines of text.

Around the time when the Frauvian alphabet and basic vocabulary were starting to become familiar to my eyes.

Thanks to last night’s and this morning’s studying, I could translate the lines of dialogue with just a bit of concentration.

The plot of the play goes like this:

A man and a woman love each other, but their relationship is full of misunderstandings.

The woman is the daughter of an aristocratic family living in a mansion. The man is a lowly coachman.

The two, who don’t even know each other’s names, have a fairy-tale-like love after a fateful encounter.

However, due to the woman approaching the man somewhat recklessly, the man gets entangled in the dirty affairs of aristocratic society. Immediately after, the woman leaves and goes on the run, thinking that the man will detest her.

Realizing this, the man agonizes.

And he sings:

「Oh, nameless one. The one who is so high above. Why do you distance yourself, fearing that foul words will hurt you?」

「But it’s alright. If you close your eyes, I will cry out for you. If you cover your ears, I will embrace your back.」

「If you run away, I will chase you to the ends of the earth. My hooves may be truly filthy, but they are swift enough to catch up to you wherever and whenever you may be.」

「Misunderstand me as many times as you want. I will find you and persuade you, time and time again.」

I slowly recited the coachman’s final declaration clumsily.

I finished the sentence while rolling my tongue and stood up from my seat.

“What are you sitting there moping about, me?”

The worries that had been bothering me until just now suddenly seemed trivial.

The lives of the characters in the play are more dramatic than mine, but they eventually take action.

Can’t I do the same?

I carefully climbed onto the desk and opened the window.

Creak.

It would be troublesome if Benjamin found out. I carefully opened it so that no sound would be heard.

Just then, the snowfall became even heavier. The large snowflakes obscuring my vision fluttered just enough that no one would notice, even if someone crawled out the window.

“Hup.”

I came out through the window.

And.

“[Levitation].”

I took out the grimoire and imagined.

Lightly standing on the roof…

Imagination soon became a reality.

Whoosh.

Thud.

After landing on the roof, I thought. It had been about 15 minutes since Dorothy left.

She couldn’t have gone too far.

I’ll chase after her and ask.

I had to ask what the meaning of that gaze was.

‘Glory to those who act.’ 

I thought so while being hit by the large snowflakes.

“…Oh?”

Wait a minute.

I-I just thought in Frauvian.

It seemed I could surprise Benjamin even more than I expected.

I was able to find Dorothy sooner than I thought.

“There she is.”

I see the familiar back of her uniform.

“[Levitation].” 

In a snowy alley…

Taking advantage of the moment when no one was looking, I came down from the roof and surreptitiously started to follow Dorothy.

“Tailing wasn’t in the plan, but…”

Since I’m going to ask anyway, wouldn’t it be good to find out why she went out while I’m at it?

It absolutely wasn’t because I was hesitating to talk to her when I actually saw her back.

Anyway.

I slowly walked, following Dorothy’s back.

After walking like that for 10 minutes…

“This road is….”

Dorothy, and I, who was following her, had somehow entered the vicinity of the Federal Army’s military camp.

So she was going to work after all?

So much for “went out.” 

My trust in Benjamin’s words rapidly decreased in my heart.

Dorothy turned her steps.

One block before the main gate of the military camp. She turns left on the main road and enters a strangely bustling street.

For me, who didn’t know the geography right in front of the military camp, it was difficult to guess Dorothy’s destination. I had no choice but to follow her.

Trudge. Trudge.

I also changed direction and entered the street.

At that moment, I felt a sense of defeat.

This… This is a place I shouldn’t be in.

Gaze.

Gaze.

Gaze.

When I set foot on the street, I felt many gazes shot towards me.

There were commonalities in the gazes. First, they were all from Frauvians.

Some of those gazes could not even be called welcoming gazes, even in a superficial sense.

Hostility. Or disgust.

Even simple disregard.

Regardless of age or gender, gazes filled with dark emotions were piercing me. It felt really bad, but this was also my fault for not identifying the place.

This was a shopping street.

It was a high-end shopping street where both merchants and consumers were Frauvians.

Realizing that, I could easily understand the meaning of the gazes.

I have a characteristic. 

Even though I have tidied my appearance thanks to the decent clothes Benjamin bought me and being washed clean, there is a characteristic of those from the Empire that cannot be erased.

Ashen gray hair.

It felt like they were saying, ‘Get lost. Imperial.’ with their gazes. 

“Heh.”

A hollow laugh escaped. I didn’t even know there was a shopping street like this here, but I never thought such blatant gazes would fly at me just for setting foot in it.

I moved my feet without paying any mind.

It would be troublesome if I lost sight of Dorothy like this.

The flying gazes became a little sharper, but there was one thing they were overlooking.

Imperial citizens under the rule of the Federal Military do not flinch at such blatant, threatening gazes. What is there to fear about gazes that won’t lead to fistfights?

Soon, the gazes also stopped paying attention to me. I did the same.

Now was the time to focus more on Dorothy’s footsteps.

The first store Dorothy visited was a clothing store. She stared at the showcase for a while, prompting the store manager to talk to her.

“Welcome, officer! Are you looking for a specific item?”

“……”

“Officer?”

“……”

“If you tell me the type of clothing you’re looking for….”

“……”

Dorothy, who remained silent to all the questions, entered the store. A moment later, she came out empty-handed.

The small bag she was carrying also didn’t seem particularly full. Did she just browse?

The next store she visited was also a clothing store, but it was the same this time as well. She went inside the store and stayed for a while but eventually came out empty-handed.

If her expression had changed, I could have inferred something from that. But Dorothy was too busy moving her feet without any change in expression.

After that, she visited several more clothing stores.

She stood blankly for a while at a store that sells canes.

Then, she headed to a bakery.

By then, my body was quite cold. I thought going out in thick indoor clothes would be okay, but it was colder than usual because it was snowing.

Tailing her also yielded little results.

I had followed her too deep into the shopping street.

I was thinking of quickly asking Dorothy the meaning of her gaze and then going back to study.

At that moment…

“Hey. Gray-haired kid.”

Tap.

Someone tapped my head with a cane.

It was sudden.

I turned my head and glared at the owner of the cane.

“……”

“My, my. Those eyes.”

At first glance, he was a middle-aged man who looked gentle.

Next to him were an elderly wife and three siblings around my age huddled together. Were they out on a family outing to see the snowy scenery?

It didn’t really matter. The important thing was that I was suddenly hit on the head.

The intention to humiliate me was too transparent.

I made the most bored expression possible and turned my posture.

At this time, I must never appear rude.

Because that’s exactly what they’re aiming for.

I opened my mouth. In an excessively polite tone for someone who was unexpectedly hit on the head. While using a Frauvian accent, albeit clumsily.

“Is there something you need, sir?”

“……Hm?”

“It doesn’t look very good to raise a cane up to a person’s eye level.”

The middle-aged man showed a noticeable sign of embarrassment.

“Hey, kid. Why are you standing up so straight? Can’t you see your surroundings? Everyone is staring at your mousy gray hair.”

“Please state your point clearly.”

“An Imperial kid talking back! This is a shopping street exclusively for Federal citizens. How dare you enter as you please? Get lost right now!”

The middle-aged man raised his voice.

It was quite a spectacle for him to raise his voice against a 16-year-old.

But what was surprising was that a considerable number of people around him agreed with what he said.

“Yeah. Can’t you leave quickly?”

“The stench of a sewer has been potent since earlier.”

“So low-class. I can’t stand it.”

It was a natural course of action for the middle-aged man’s shoulders to shrug. His wife and three children also became smug.

The children’s eyes were even sparkling.

“……”

I expected it to be something like this.

That man probably wanted to use me to become a cool dad. A charismatic father who impressively drove away the barbaric Imperial guy.

I tried to resist. But in the end, it turned out just as he had schemed.

The family was harmonious.

The people around were united.

“Get lost!”

Except for me.

A deep sigh escaped.

Nothing would change even if I tried to do something here. Now that the meaning of the outing had faded, I was no longer in the mood to listen to the chorus of expulsion orders.

Should I use magic and fly into the sky? While having such absurd thoughts, I lifted my foot.

To be precise, I was about to lift it.

“Eugene.”

A woman wearing a green officer’s uniform spoke to me.

“Are you okay?”

Dorothy Oslo cupped my cheeks with both hands.