Chapter 5

“You, what happened to your face?”

I was brought to the inner palace the day after I got punched by my own father. When Alfred first saw me, his eyes popped out in surprise. My face had swollen, and a big bandage covered most of the left side of my face.

“You don’t have to mind. This is what they call family affairs.”

Yes, this was not due to an illness nor an accident, this was a family affair. The chamberlains somehow got the hints, so their expressions subtly changed. This was practically how weird rumours about any house’s affairs started circulating. I didn’t even care if that scum father was called a child-abusing-duke.

“Don’t mind me, how is Al’s leg?”1

“A, Al. O, oh it’s Al. That’s nice. Yup, very nice.”

Al was muttering something I could barely catch. Oi~, are you okay?

“My leg is only slightly sprained. Nothing big, it’s all right. Rather than that, let’s continue the duel! Don’t tell me, you thought I lost last time.”

“No, how can I think that you’ve lost, but I never thought the duel is still ongoing.”

“Yeay, let’s continue from yesterday. You know, if you didn’t suddenly dash out like that, I would’ve probably caught up to you in no time. I was supposed to win.2

This time you cannot cheat anymore, I’ll catch you immediately.”

“No, no, no. Wait a moment.”

“Why? You are chickening out?”

I hastily stopped Al who was already wildly snorting there. He was so ready to run at any moment.

“I’m not chickening out. Are you forgetting about your own leg? And also, my face here. How can I run quickly with this face.”

“Hmmm…”

Al frowned.

Oi, what are you thinking playing tag while we are both injured. Quit it, please.

“Then, how about we do a different thing instead. It’s also a duel this time. What do you think?”

“Duel?

That’s, that’s good. No matter what kind of duel, I won’t ever lose to someone like Fania, you know. Even the game of tag yesterday, I didn’t lose, okay.”

“Fufufu, that’s right. So today, how about something we can just sit quietly, like, studying.”

“Huh, studying? Oi, how can that ever be a duel? You think because you can never win against me, so you’re giving up?”

Al didn’t seem to like my idea at all. Well, that was understandable, he was about to run around until just now.

“No, no, it’s not like that. I heard that Al also is very good at studying. That’s exactly why I think I want to have a duel with Al. After all, we always play, but I’ve never seen the scene where Al is studying. I bet you must be really handsome while you’re at it.”

“Urk, Re, really?

Of course I also can study well. My tutor always praises me for that. The scene when I’m studying, is it…. Fa, Fania is the one who said you want to see it, so I don’t mind studying together sometimes.

It’s only because you said it, okay? I don’t really care, but if Fania said that, it’s, it’s okay to study.”

Al kept talking quickly while his face subtly reddened. What’s wrong?

“Then, let’s do that. Which subject do you prefer? We’ll go with the one Al is good at.”

“Really… let’s do mathematics. You know, I already remember all the multiplication tables, I can also do 3 digit calculations. Will this even be a duel?”

“Oh, that’s so great. Then, we’ll go with mathematics.”

The chamberlains prepared tables for us under the tree shades. Apparently there was no math lesson scheduled today, and the tutor was absent. So I had Al bring out the homeworks that the tutor had left for him, and math questions that were meant for self-study at home.

I chose a book from among them.

“Al, how about this one? It starts from easy questions, and gradually the difficulty goes up. If you see the last question, it’s super hard.”

“Ah, whichever is okay.”

“Then, we’ll do this one. Hmm, in one hour, let’s see how much we can do in this question set. The one who does more pages, wins.

Okay, let’s start.”

I put the question set in between the both of us, and started the duel.

After an hour.

Of course, I won. No matter how Al was highly touted as a genius, he was merely 7. There was no way he could win against me, who was already a university student in my past life.

I properly restrained myself by only winning by a page away. Al was now already quivering in anger. Well, this was practically his first loss ever.

“Why, just why!!” Al’s scream echoed in the surrounding.

Like I care.

author’s note:

Fania’s way of speaking is weird, but it’ll improve gradually.

Now, his head is in confusion with the memory from his past life mixing in.

chocolala: I laughed imagining Al’s pleased and smug face here and there…

Footnotes

this might be weird in English to use the person’s name when talking to him, but in Japanese it’s rude to use the word ‘you’ when conversing, instead a name will be called along with the address that person deserves, here Fania calls the nickname Al, different to before when he used Alfred-sama to show respect

so, you yourself admit you lost, lol