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“There’s never been a case like this in House Krost before. I truly can’t say for certain.”
“…….”
As always, he answered with unflinching honesty.
My body went rigid with dismay.
So what Knox is saying, translated plainly, is that a lack of early conditioning has cost me what should have been my birthright.
Thump—
I sank to the floor, deflated.
“Don’t lose heart, my lady. I’ll head to the library and look through the relevant texts.”
Knox offered the dryest of consolations.
Although—he looked oddly pleased about it. He had fresh research material, and that clearly agreed with him.
Calypse, watching me crumple from above, added to Knox’s words.
“Please do. Aisha, try not to be too disappointed—Knox is looking into it. And even if you can’t manifest the Ice Affinity, you’re still—”
“Going to say ‘my daughter,’ aren’t you? The tried and true comfort.”
“…….”
He held his tongue for a moment. Then he nodded.
“Yes.”
Haaah.
I exhaled at great length.
That wasn’t the point. It was more that—I don’t know—it felt like something that had always been mine had been taken away.
“I’ll head back to my room.”
“Tell Mai to get you something sweet. A bit of dessert might help.”
“All right.”
I gathered my uncooperative legs beneath me, gave Father a brief bow, and left the sitting room.
Trudge, trudge.
Walking down the corridor, I picked through my memory of the original story. Was there anything useful in there?
I was deep in thought when—
“Lady Aisha!”
Someone called my name and hurried toward me from the opposite direction.
“Mai?”
I had been absorbed in the story, and now here was Mai, appearing directly in front of me.
For some reason, she was dressed in her outdoor clothes.
“Knox told me there’s something troubling you today.”
“Oh? Well, yes, there is something…”
“In that case—might you like to go into town with me for dessert? A change of scenery?”
“Pardon?”
Wait. Was she actually dressed like that for my sake?
My eyes went round with surprise, but Mai smiled calmly and explained.
“A bit of a change might do you good. And the people of the duchy would be absolutely delighted to see you, my lady. Since the news articles about you have been circulating, residents of the estate territory have been quite curious about you.”
My ears perked up at the mention of people being curious about me—involuntarily.
But—
“…There’s a problem I need to work out.”
I couldn’t just keep playing when I still hadn’t found a way to develop my ability.
My smile faded and I turned my lip out stubbornly.
Mai looked at me for a moment with gentle puzzlement, then crouched down to meet my eyes and spoke quietly.
“My lady—when a problem is too difficult to solve, sometimes the best thing to do is to clear your mind completely. That’s when the answer has room to come to you.”
“Oh… is that so…”
No, I shouldn’t give in—
“Yes. Why don’t we get His Grace’s permission and go right away?”
“Ohhhh…”
This isn’t the time for this—
But when I came back to my senses, I was already holding Mai’s hand and asking Father for permission to go out.
And Calypse, watching my expression melt by degrees—
“Since you’re going anyway, don’t come back until some color is back in those cheeks.”
—pressed a heavy pouch of gold coins into Mai’s hand and sent us off without a second’s hesitation.
* * *
And so, a short while later—
Sluurp—
“Ah! This is the life!”
I drew a long sip of warm cocoa through a straw and opened my mouth in a wide, blissful grin.
Hot cocoa in the cold, nose-chilling north. This is happiness. This is what well-being actually means.
“If this was how you were going to enjoy yourself, why were you so miserable a moment ago?”
Mai dabbed the corner of my mouth with a handkerchief and laughed.
The place warming us with its cozy atmosphere was Krost Duchy’s most popular dessert café, ‘Ferreroloche,’ situated in the heart of the estate’s town. Famous in particular as an outdoor café where one could experience the cold, bracing northern air, it was packed with people bundled up and sipping warm drinks at the open-air tables.
I was currently working my way through the café’s number one bestseller: the Bunny Cocoa.
The sweet chocolate sliding into my mouth was already doing something to soothe the knot of worry in my chest.
“Well, the thing is…”
I sat in my high chair and dangled my short legs, taking small, contented sips of cocoa.
Then I leaned toward Mai and murmured low enough that only she could hear.
“It’s been confirmed that I’m Father’s real daughter. But the Ice Affinity still hasn’t manifested.”
“Oh. You’d be an Affinity user, of course!”
Mai’s eyes went wide.
Clearly she hadn’t thought of it either.
“It could simply be manifesting a little later than usual—why not wait calmly and see? Especially given everything that’s happened recently. A bit more rest might be just the thing.”
After a brief moment of thought, she answered with breezy reassurance.
But hold on. Wasn’t this a world in chaos over the scarcity of Affinity users?
Calypse, Knox—and now even Mai. Why was everyone so unconcerned?
I had genuinely worried that telling people my Affinity hadn’t manifested might trigger talk of paternity tests or something similarly alarming.
And now she was also telling me to rest and wait?
“I’ve already rested for an entire month.”
“More rest will only do more good. Especially at your age, my lady.”
Sip.
Mai took a refined sip of her tea and smiled pleasantly.
At my age, in a previous life, I would have been starting English preschool by now.
This was unsettling.
I raised my eyebrows and chewed my lip.
In my previous life and in this one, I had never once truly stopped moving. If I slowed down even slightly, everyone else rushed past me, and no matter how desperately I reached out, the gap only widened. That fear had driven me. The terror of being left behind, of being discarded.
So I ran, and ran, and ran.
But the people in this world aren’t like that. There’s a gentleness here—a certain leniency toward children.
Was it because there were no schools or tutoring centers the way there had been before?
But then—Lucas and Kyle were both working hard. Why was I the only one being left to my own devices?
And after a whole month of rest, surely someone ought to be telling me to get back to it by now?
It wasn’t that this world was lenient toward children. It was that they were being exceptionally lenient toward me.
“Hmm…”
Then again—she tilted her head the other way—maybe it was simply that telling a five-year-old to study was stranger than not.
“My lady. What are you thinking about?”
“…I was going to ask you the same thing…”
“Pardon?”
A tangle of complicated, formless thoughts floated around inside my head. I let out a long sigh and muttered.
“Questions this difficult really call for a philosopher…”
“…A philosopher?”
I was in the middle of saying something thoroughly inconsequential when—
Crash—
“Oh no!”
Someone hit the ground hard, followed by the sharp cry of a small child. The sound brought the outdoor café patrons to their feet one by one.
I stood up too, turning toward the noise—
“My lady. Please stand back.”
The escort knight who had been waiting nearby came running and positioned himself in front of me.
That was definitely a child’s voice.
With his protection, I peeked out from behind his shoulder and fixed my eyes on the alley.
The sound had come from a butcher shop set back from the street. Its door was flung open, and a man who appeared to be the owner came out shouting at the top of his lungs.
“Knights! There’s a creature in here—come take it away!”
“P-please, don’t—my Bibi isn’t a creature like that—!”
Behind him, a boy was dragged out like a fallen leaf, clutching the man’s ankle and sobbing.
…What’s going on?
The boy looked about my age at a glance.
Clumped brown hair that hadn’t been washed in some time. A tear-streaked face. And the same stubby legs as mine, being dragged along the ground.
“…Mai?”
“Yes. Allow me to go have a look.”
Something about the situation didn’t sit right. Mai caught my glance, seemed to reach the same conclusion, and asked the knight to look after me before walking directly toward the commotion.
“Oh—a knight! Over here!”
But the moment the man saw Mai, he caught sight of the rest of our group behind her—and his face lit up.
