Chapter 95: A Talk with Father

The air in the study was heavy.

Documents were piled on the desk, and the candle flame set their shadows swaying.

His father, Baron Kaiser Cream, sat beyond the desk with his arms folded, looking at Ren.

There was doubt in that look.

“…I hear you bought a spear from the travelling merchant.”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

Ren thought a moment, then answered honestly.

“…Because I wanted to try using it.”

His father’s eyebrow moved.

“A spear?”

“Yes.”

His father was silent a short while, then said in a low voice,

“You aren’t a holder of the spear arts skill.”

The words were quiet. But they went into Ren’s chest with a weight to them. You aren’t suited to it. There’s no point in it. It was the same as being told that. Ren shut his mouth and lowered his eyes.

His father went on.

“Not swordsmanship. Not spear arts. Not archery.

…Your skill was that thing called ‘Small Box’, was it not.”

Small Box.

That word alone sounded oddly light. Ren still remembered the air in the room when, at seven years old, he had brought out a small, faintly glowing box. His brothers’ bewilderment. His parents’ disappointed faces. Merely remembering it made his chest feel as though it were being squeezed tight.

“…And the money?”

At his father’s question, Ren raised his face and answered.

“By working as an apprentice adventurer…”

His father gave a snort.

“Odd jobs, then.”

Ren didn’t deny it. Organising the guild’s reference room was certainly an odd job. He didn’t think it was the sort of thing to be snorted at, but it was true that an apprentice adventurer couldn’t take on subjugation requests.

He gathered medicinal herbs. He organised reference material.

And not only that.

He hadn’t taken on subjugation requests, but he was hunting magical beasts in the forest and fishing magic fish besides.

“I’ve sold magic stones too…”

“Ah…, the ones I gave you before.”

His father’s words reminded him that his father had sometimes handed him magic stones, like souvenirs, on coming back from magical beast subjugations and the like. It was true that when he first went to the Adventurers’ Guild he had sold those magic stones. Since then he had been hunting and bringing down magical beasts himself.

“I do hunt, and the meat—”

“Hah.”

His father leaned back in his chair and let out a tired breath.

“An apprentice, hunting…. You won’t be bringing down anything of consequence. Getting yourself injured is all it’ll come to.”

“…”

It was true that what Ren hunted were horn rabbits in the grasslands and small magical beasts in the shallow areas of the forest. From his father’s point of view those magical beasts were probably nothing of consequence.

Unable to answer back, Ren pressed his lips tight together.

“…I hear the spear wasn’t worth much. Well, if you sold a few magic stones I suppose you could manage it. I shall not go so far as to tell you to put the money into the household rather than buy something useless. You’ll hardly be earning much from mere odd jobs in any case.”

Ren only stood there.

“Besides, a spear is no simple thing. You don’t have the spear arts skill. In time you’ll realise you can’t handle it.”

His tone was level. He didn’t shout. He didn’t try to take the spear away. He truly didn’t regard it as anything serious. In his mind Ren would swing it about for a while and then give it up — that seemed to be the whole of it.

Ren thought of the spear stowed away in his “small box.” It was far heavier than the simple spear he had made himself. It was longer, too. When he tried to swing it he lost his balance and nearly stumbled. He still couldn’t handle it well. But when he had used the “small box” as a shield, he had thought he wanted a little more reach. That was all it was.

His father was silent for a while, and then said,

“…Being an adventurer is beyond you.”

Ren’s fingertips moved, very slightly.

“It isn’t so easy a thing that one without a combat skill can do it. You’ll do odd jobs and that will be the end of it.”

The words came down over his head. There was no sign in them, Ren felt, of any wish to know what he was actually doing.

“You had better give the spear up as well, before you injure yourself. Don’t run up needless medicine bills by getting hurt.”

His father turned his eyes back to the documents. The talk was evidently over.

Ren lowered his eyes a little, drew in a breath, and raised his face.

(I’ll say it…. I’ll at least say it….)

His heart thudded with nerves. His mouth went dry.

“…I still want to go to the Academy.”

His father’s hand, holding the quill pen, stopped dead. Slowly he raised his face and looked at Ren.

“…I told you before. I won’t pay the fees.”

“I’ll earn it, I’ll earn the fees myself. So—”

“Out of the question.”

His father cut Ren’s words off flatly.

“What can you do, without a combat skill? It’s out of the question.”

“But—”

“The talk is over. Go back to your room.”

Ren started to open his mouth. The wish to ask at least how much the fees would come to, and the resignation that he wouldn’t be answered, ran together in a muddle.

“Go back.”

“…”

Ren’s eyes widened a little, and he looked steadily at his father for a moment; then he made a bow and turned on his heel.

He walked towards the door.

On the way, a thought came to him. If he became a proper adventurer at ten, leaving the house might be a possibility. But at the same time another thought rose up.

The Academy.

The Royal Capital Academy, which noble children attended at twelve.

If he left the house, that possibility would vanish altogether.

The old textbooks from his father’s and his grandfather’s student days that were kept in the study room. While organising the enormous quantity of material in the guild’s reference room, he had come to feel that the quality of what could be had at the guild and what could be had from the Academy’s textbooks wasn’t the same. Magic, in particular, and things like how healing potions were made — he had seen nothing of that at all in the reference room material. If he went to the Academy he would surely be able to learn all sorts of things. That chance would be gone.

Ren pressed his lips together.

Don’t expect anything, he told himself. But he hadn’t been able to give it up entirely.

Quietly he opened the door and left the study.