Later during the same day.
As Mordred had already retreated to his room in the evening, he suddenly heard a commotion in the corridor.
"Let me go, you Beastwoman! I already told you, I was only sending a letter to my family!"
Mordred heard these words clearly while he was focused on his Telekinesis practice to improve Mana control.
"Oooh…"
It seems that he caught a rat! And it wasn't a Greyrat.
Soon after, Ghislaine dragged Thomas into Mordred's room and threw him in by force.
While Thomas glared at her hatefully, Ghislaine bowed before Mordred. "Your Highness… I saw this guy acting all suspicious with a letter in hand. I can't read, so you read this."
She took out a letter that was held by her belt at her waist and gave it to Mordred.
Thomas began making excuses again, but Ghislaine held him down while Mordred ignored him completely, cut open the letter and began to read it.
After a while, a smirk appeared on his lips.
He had once read in a light novel that after not being caught the first few times, spies and people like corrupt politicians often falsely believe that they won't be caught, so they lower their guard.
Perhaps owing to that, Thomas was fortunately not subtle in his spying and didn't use any special code. In the letter, he described in detail all the happenings in the Boreas manor as if he was writing a monthly update.
Mordred had only suspected that this might be the case, but with this there'd be no doubt that Thomas is a spy!
Mordred looked away from the letter, at Ghislaine, and said, "This guy is definitely a spy. Bring him to Lord Sauros!"
"Hmph!" Ghislaine snorted coldly as she looked at Thomas with disdain. "Understood."
"Actually, maybe not Lord Sauros," Mordred corrected himself. "If we interrupted him at night with this kind of news, he might beat up this poor guy to death on the spot."
"... It is not impossible for Lord Sauros to do that," Ghislaine said after consideration.
Mordred chuckled. "Yes, then let's go to Mr. Philip."
He was slightly interested in what information he might learn from that butler, so it was better to bring him to Philip.
And so, Thomas was brought to Philip along with the letter.
Thomas begged Philip for forgiveness on his knees, but Philip still ordered to throw him into a cell.
Afterwards, Philip, Ghislaine and Mordred were together, along with Hector who heard the commotion and joined Mordred earlier on.
Phiilip and Mordred sat on the sofas opposite each other, while the other two stood behind them like their respective bodyguards.
Philip said, "Prince Mordred, I really have to thank you for this. I haven't noticed his suspicious behavior at all, and I was one of the closest people to Thomas. Who knows for how long he has been selling information to enemy factions of the Boreas."
"There is a saying: a person on the spot is baffled, but an outsider sees clearly," Mordred said, using a Chinese proverb from Earth. Or more precisely, it was a Chinese proverb he learned from reading Reverend Insanity.
"A person on the spot is baffled?... So you're saying that as an outsider you could notice his suspicious behavior easily while we saw it as normal? Interesting. It is indeed sometimes like this." Philip smiled.
"Mm. Then since this is over, I'm going to go to sleep," Mordred said as he stood up.
"Yes. You can leave. I'll just thank you again because this had nothing to do with you, but you still helped us." Philip smiled again.
"Then you can thank Ghislaine too. It's her who kept watch and caught Thomas. I hardly did anything." Mordred lightly smiled.
Ghislaine said firmly, "No. It's only because Prince Mordred told me about him that I managed to catch this spy."
Mordred faintly smirked as he looked at Ghislaine. Ghislaine was too good for the Boreas; they were really lucky to get a Sword King like her!
…
Next morning, Mordred once again had Sword God Style training under Ghislaine with Eris.
This being their second session, Eris's attitude toward Mordred was not as antagonistic as before.
However, she was still very stubborn. Even though it was as clear as day that she could never win against Mordred, she never gave up. It was as if the more she was humbled or kicked down, the stronger her fighting spirit got.
During their sparring, Mordred would often use silent Healing Magic on her to help her quickly recover from any small injuries to keep on training.
At one time, he said, "Eris, you haven't learned any Magic, right?"
After hearing this, Eris frowned and crossed her arms, "So what if I didn't?!"
"What I mean to say is that Magic is quite useful, right? If you knew how to do Magic, you wouldn't need me to heal you."
"Nnn…" Eris didn't seem convinced. Although that was true, she didn't like doing things she wasn't good at, and learning Magic seemed like not something pleasant or worth the effort. It was pointless if someone else could do it for her.
Mordred continued, "When traveling from the Kingdragon Kingdom I used Magic to create fresh water for drinking and bathing. And I used Fire Magic to light up a fire to cook our food and to keep us warm at night... I used Earth Magic to make a stone tent to spend the night in too. Magic is very useful while adventuring too."
"Oooh!…" After hearing all this, Eris became much more interested, her eyes suddenly turning round. After waving for a while, she proclaimed, "Ugh… I think… I will learn Magic!"
Mordred lightly smiled. The easy part was out of the way! Now the hard part was left. He said, "That's good. But I heard from your father that at your age you still don't know how to read or write?…"
"So what? Do you think I'm stupid?!" Eris tightened her stance, glaring at him unhappily.
Mordred remained unmoved. "That's not what I think. But do you want other people to think you're stupid?"
In an instant, Eris calmed down a great deal, although she was still frowning. She strongly said, "It's too annoying to learn that stuff! I don't need it!"
"Are you sure? If you don't know how to read or write when you need to, then you'll be in trouble!... Ghislaine, were there times in the past when you experienced problems because you couldn't read?" Mordred looked at Ghislaine, passing the baton to her. While Eris also turned in that direction, he sent Ghislaine three strong winks.
Ghislaine looked at Mordred puzzledly for a while, before she eventually seemed to have realized what he wanted her to say. "Ooooh… Many times, actually. And the last time was with that spy. Although I saw that he was suspicious, I couldn't read his letter, so I had to bring him all the way back to the citadel. I worried I might have messed up…"
"Oh? What spy?" Eris became interested.
"The spy in the manor that I caught yesterday with Prince Mordred," said Ghislaine.
"Oh, really?! Ghislaine is amazing!" proclaimed Eris.
'... And what about me? A background character?' Mordred maintains a plain smile while secretly joking.
Ghislaine continued, "Mmm, so yes. Reading is very useful. I regret that I haven't learned it in the past."
However, Eris still didn't look convinced nor interested in learning how to read in the least.
Mordred took out his second weapon, saying, "I heard that in the Holy Land of the Swords most of the people there can't read or write even as adults. So if you only learned the basics, you would already be better than them. If you became a strong swordsman who could also read and write, you would be amazing!"
"Ah, really? Is this true?" Eris seemed to be intrigued.
"Yeah. Nobles won't think you're stupid and you will be able to look down on weaker swordsmen who can't even read. That's why you must learn to read and write. You'll be even more amazing than Ghislaine!"
"Really?!" Eris looked pretty convinced, but not enough: "... But it's too annoying!"
Mordred said, "It only gets more annoying the older you get. It's easier to learn anything when you're young. You also have a lot of free time now and you'll be busy with adult stuff later. So if you don't learn how to read and write when you're young, you might not have the chance or time later and people will think you're stupid."
Eris appeared to be pondering over what he said.
And so Eris thought. In the future… She will be busy adventuring! Definitely! So she won't have the time to learn how to read. Perhaps she needs to learn it now, after all…
Mordred let her process what he had said while preparing further arguments.
After a long while, Eris said, "Mordred, you can already read and write, right?"
"Yes, I've already learned it."
"Then I'll also learn it!" Eris decided.
Mordred smiled. "Then we can exchange letters after I leave Roa. But you should also learn arithmetics while you're at it."
"Math? No need!!!" Eris shook her head, being even more firm with this one.
"You should at least learn the basics. Otherwise people will still think you're stupid and will be cheating you. Ghislaine… Isn't that true?" Mordred again looked at Ghislaine while sending him an apologetic smile.
"Ah… Yes. I was cheated many times, actually. Because I couldn't count the change, I wasn't even sure if I was cheated or not, and could only suspect it. People looked at me like I'm stupid. Especially merchants who are somewhat educated often look down on adventurers."
However, Eris seemed to be highly allergic to mathematics. She did not look interested in the least.
Mordred added, "Learning to do math also makes a person smarter."
"Oh, does it?" Eris asked.
"Of course! It is difficult to learn, so after you get through this difficulty, you will become smarter. And being smarter makes solving problems easier."
"..." Eris still only seemed half-convinced.
This approach didn't seem to work either.
Mordred let out a sigh internally. He can take it step by step. He said, "Well, start with seriously learning Magic and the language first. You know, most ordinary people actually have no chance to learn how to read or write even if they want to. Do you know why?"
"Ugh… Why?" Eris asked. Were they born super stupid, so it's impossible?
"Because they have no one who could teach her and they have no money to hire a tutor," Mordred explained. "As for the merchants and most nobles who have the money, they would still send their children to public schools instead. In this world, it's a privilege to have a personal tutor that could teach you things."
After hearing this, Eris didn't seem to feel very privileged, but Mordred felt that saying all that wasn't pointless.
Their sword training continued.
After mixed training, Mordred sparred with Ghislaine and practiced his Longsword of Light technique for a good while – this turned out to be a simple endless repetition of swings and nothing more. It was up to him to grasp the intricacies.
While Eris was wrapping up her own training, Mordred told her, "Eris, you know, I'm a King ranked Magician."
Eris frowned. Yes, she already knows this–this jerk is amazing… No need to rub it into her face that she's useless.
"So what I mean is… I'm an amazing Magician. I could be the one to teach you Magic," Mordred teased with a light smile.
"Oh?" Eris became interested.
"I can proudly say that you won't find a better Magic tutor in this world!" he proclaimed.
"... Fine. Then you can teach me!"
"Yeah, I 'can'. But what can you offer me in exchange?"
"What?" Eris was surprised. Initially, she didn't even consider that she needed to give Mordred something. After all, she always received what she wanted. But then she realized that she couldn't make demands from Mordred the same way. She said, "I can pay you!"
"I have no interest in money."
"Nnnnnnnnnn…" Eris through long and hard, before saying: "I can take you with me on my adventures in the future!"
Mordred chuckled. "Why do you think I would be interested?"
Eris frowned. "Then what do you want?!"
"Let's see. I'm not sure and I don't think there's anything that you could offer me, so let's say you'll owe me a favour!"
In this manner, Mordred became Eris's teacher at Magic. He only had to push her in the right direction with other subjects, but he had to be the one to teach her Silent Magic.
In the next few days, he continued motivating Eris for her other studies while beginning to teach her Magic.
Unfortunately, teaching Eris was completely different from teaching someone like Benedicte. She could not grasp Magic on the first day and even struggled in remembering the incantations, forgetting them soon after.
He had to adapt a special and a step-by-step approach with her.
One of those days, Philip approached him with his usual smile. "Your Highness, thank you very much for convincing my daughter to finally begin learning reading and writing. It's really surprising for Eris to be this passionate about studying."
"I'm glad I could help. I like Eris, so I don't want her to waste her early years," Mordred replied with a natural light smile.
"Oh, is that so? I'm glad if that's how you feel. I also know that in exchange for teaching Eris Magic, you asked her for a favour? What kind of favour would that be? You won't ask my daughter for anything excessive, right?" Philip stared at him with an intense and teasing smile.
Mordred was still only eight, so it was still two years too early for him to have any sexual or perverted ideas, but Philip still felt like addressing this point just to tease him.
"Of course," Mordred replied naturally. "I won't ask for anything she won't be too unhappy with."
"Too unhappy with, you say? So she might still be unhappy with it?" Philip looked at him, still smiling.
"... I won't ask for anything excessive. Mr. Philip, what kind of person do you think I am?" Mordred looked at Philip with annoyance.
Philip chuckled. "Haha, alright. Then I will hold you to that!"
"Mmm. Actually, I only asked for a favor from her because I don't think it's good for Eris to think she'll always receive everything she wants for free."
"Oh? Is that the case? How thoughtful of you. I guess, you really seem to like my daughter."
"..." As Philip stated this directly and continued staring at him, Mordred's face eventually turned quite embarrassed, awkward and slightly red.
It was like this because it was the truth!
He had only said that he liked Eris, as a friend. She was just a child, so that was true; they both were.
He just wanted to help her become the best version of herself.
Still, he had a quite stressful and unpleasant childhood, and he would love to re-live his early years – growing up with a pretty girl as they'd help each other and grow to love each other in the future, and fight together… Perhaps in this manner he had not fully grown up yet.
Philip chuckled when he saw Mordred's reaction. "Hahaha! I'm just teasing you! You see, because of my daughter's vicious temper, she failed in making any friends before. While she was in a public school, she would beat up her classmates and was chased away for it."
Mordred heard this and laughed. "Haha, yes… Eris is like that."
"Oh…"
Looking at Mordred, Philip began to think that perhaps the genius prince had some unique tastes. Perhaps, as a genius, he precisely liked girls that were difficult to handle.
As Paul once told him, it is only fun if there is some resistance when trying to conquer a new woman at first… It makes it more rewarding in the end!
After having this thought, Philip discarded it, smiling, 'No, what am I thinking? He's not a Greyrat. I shouldn't compare the poor boy to someone like Paul.'
***
***
***
Name: Eris Boreas Greyrat
Title: Young Miss, Bloody Eris (by all of her, former, classmates)
Age: 8
Personality: Like a fireball with legs.
Doesn't: Say thank you.
Does: Want to be amazing. Without the paperwork.
Reading/writing: Declared war on the alphabet. Currently losing but regrouping.
Math: Still banned in her personal kingdom. Numbers remain enemies of the state.
Etiquette: Knows how to use a fork. Sometimes.
Magic: Aspiring Fireball Specialist; results pending.
Swordsmanship: Sword God Style – Elementary rank (improving quickly; can and will remove your spleen).
People she likes: Grandfather, Ghislaine, Mordred.
People she doesn't like: Mordred (still listens to 75% of what he says).
Current Goal: Become the coolest swordswoman/mage/adventurer/Roa delinquent combo unit ever!
Special Note: Progress steady but volatile. Proceed with caution, bribes and flattery.