As the Marquess sat musing in his chair, Knox’s unhurried voice drifted through the hall.
“The Krost succession trial will proceed in two parts. First: capture a Winter Wolf within ten minutes. Second: hold a pack of Winter Wolves at bay from a designated line for five minutes.”
The qualities expected of a Krost heir were these.
First: the ability to regularly suppress Creatures.
And second: while the ice wall at the world’s edge held the Creatures back, the heir themselves needed to be capable of independently preventing a Creature incursion to some degree.
“Our first candidate, Lillis Tex, will now take the floor.”
At the sound of his name, Tex walked into the training ground with a confident grin.
“Father. I’ll be back in a moment.”
“Just do what you’ve always done.”
“Right!”
The wall on the opposite end opened, and a Winter Wolf entered on a chain.
A Winter Wolf was nothing like an ordinary wolf.
Twice the length of a grown man. A vicious temperament and savage claws. And those characteristic violet eyes that marked every Creature as something other.
Huff. Huff.
Having been caged for several hours, the enraged Creature made a low, guttural sound in its chest.
“The trial will now begin.”
The moment the whistle blew, the chain was released. The Winter Wolf locked onto its target and launched itself forward.
The sheer scale of it was greater than Tex had anticipated, and his expression faltered —
“D-die!”
But Tex was an Ice Affinity user.
Even without formal training, he possessed a Creature-suppression capability that far surpassed any ordinary person.
Crackle —
With his eyes squeezed tightly shut and his face a mask of barely controlled fear, he stamped one foot against the ground — and sharp icicles began to rise around him in quick succession.
The Winter Wolf, startled by the sudden eruption, lost its footing for just a moment —
“Die, I said die!”
Unable to even look at the Creature, Tex turned his head away and stomped the floor again and again.
Icicles fired off in every direction — chaotic but relentless — driving through the gaps between the great jaws and all four legs, pinning the Winter Wolf’s movement until it could no longer advance.
“Capture complete.”
A second whistle blast. A lukewarm announcement.
But Tex, still paralyzed with fear, couldn’t bring himself to open his eyes.
“Tex — my son. You won! You won!”
It wasn’t until the Marquess shouted himself hoarse that Tex finally opened his eyes, and his whole face lit up.
“Did — did I do it? I won, right?”
Tex bounded around the training ground with unrestrained delight.
“That was nothing! Father, look at me! Who else but me could be the heir of House Krost?”
He was so overcome that he started kicking the wall — thump, thump — just for somewhere to put his excitement.
The second trial passed without issue as well.
Tex’s icicles were messy and scattered, but he had managed to keep five Winter Wolves from crossing the red line.
The watching crowd was impressed.
Or rather — they murmured.
“Affinity users really are in a different class from ordinary people.”
“…To think that terrified boy just subdued a Winter Wolf.”
“With an Affinity like that, even a toddler could defeat a Creature.”
What sounded like praise was laced beneath with a kind of hollow bewilderment — wonder not at the boy, but at the sheer nature of the power itself.
“Now, our second candidate — Aisha Krost. Please take the floor.”
“Yes!”
Regardless, the trial moved on.
As the small child came toddling in, the crowd’s muttering shifted to a chorus of worried sounds.
“From one mountain to the next — and now a five-year-old.”
“If things get dangerous, they’ll stop the match, I assume?”
“Tex was at least manageable, but I want to shield Young Lady Aisha myself — she’s just so small.”
Beneath those countless watching eyes —
A lesser child would have been shrinking. But Aisha walked in with a face of absolute resolve, took her position, and settled into a ready stance.
Was she copying the knights? Because that stance looked anything but amateur.
Even if all she had was a hand that looked about as imposing as a hamster’s paw — the contrast with Tex, who had stood there with his eyes clamped shut, was immediately, strikingly clear.
With just her bare hands?
And in her other hand — not a greatsword, but a short dagger, sized to fit a child.
“Your Grace, I suggest you be ready to stop the match at any moment!”
The Marquess, unable to contain it anymore, let out a laugh.
“The trial will now begin.”
Bweet.
The Winter Wolf launched itself at the child.
In front of Aisha — so impossibly small compared to Tex — the Winter Wolf opened its great jaws —
“I can’t watch.”
One of the vassals screwed his eyes shut.
But then.
“Wh — she’s —”
Just before his eyes closed —
“……?”
A small, improbable shadow swept over the heads of the crowd.
Those who looked up in confusion —
“Aisha?!”
“Young Lady!”
Without a running start or a springboard, the young lady had simply jumped.
She had cleared the air entirely.
The frog-leap technique — the same move she used at home to launch herself onto Calypse like a cicada clinging to a tree — but today, there was something different about it.
Her blue eyes gazed down at the wolf from above.
Thunk —
She had released the short dagger in her hand, and it buried itself in the Winter Wolf’s left thigh.
Groooarr —
The Winter Wolf dropped, collapsing under the single strike, whimpering as it hit the ground.
It wanted to rise again — that was clear — but its hindquarters refused to cooperate. It could only thrash.
Aisha confirmed the result with a satisfied expression and landed cleanly.
“…….”
Those little hands, peeking from beneath her sleeves — people had thought of them as hamster paws.
But the ones now rubbing their eyes in disbelief were beginning to understand.
Those hands were not hamster paws.
________________________________________
Small, yes — but on closer inspection, they were as precise and sharp as the claw of a finely honed baby crab.
Situational awareness. Skill. Nerve.
Everything was perfect — save for the absence of an Affinity.
Knox watched, let out a quiet laugh, and leaned toward Calypse.
“Your instincts for people have always been extraordinary.”
“That they have.”
Calypse didn’t let it show, but his effort to keep his mouth from curling upward had pulled his lips into an involuntary zigzag.
“I called her a golden seed, but it turns out she’s a diamond.”
“I couldn’t agree more.”
While those two exchanged their warm, private commentary —
“That’s cheating!”
Tex had been turning red for the past several minutes, and now he shot to his feet.
“My Winter Wolf was clearly bigger than hers! And look at that! Look at it!”
Tex.
The Marquess tried to interject, but Tex was already pointing.
“You’re telling me a single dagger did all that?! The one she fought — that’s a weakened specimen, isn’t it?!”
Inside the stark training ground, every head was swiveling between Tex and Aisha.
The child who had captured a Winter Wolf with a single dagger turned her head without a flicker of reaction.
“Wh — what?!”
Aisha’s eyes met Tex’s, and he flinched involuntarily.
The small young lady blinked her blue eyes slowly and asked:
“You don’t know anything about Winter Wolves, do you?”
“…So what?! They’re Creatures — you just destroy them, isn’t that enough?!”
“Winter Wolves are a special-type Creature. On the night of the full moon, they transform into a humanoid form.”
Pop —
The hand that pulled the dagger free from the matted fur was practiced and deliberate.
It was just that she had to work somewhat harder than an ordinary adult — bracing and pulling with an oof, like drawing a vegetable from the ground.
Aisha held both hands over the wound to stem the bleeding as she continued.
“Because of the physical strain of shifting between forms, Winter Wolves carry a disproportionate amount of thick, dense muscle in their hind legs.”
The faces of the vassals who had gone wide-eyed at the child’s words gradually grew serious.
All except Tex.
“So what?! What does that have to do with anything?!”
“That’s the weak point. One dagger to the hind leg, and a Winter Wolf can’t use its strength — there’s no need to fire a hundred icicles.”
At that, the room broke into noise.
“She’s five years old? To read a Creature’s characteristics first and engage accordingly — that isn’t something a child that age thinks to do…”
“And that knife technique from earlier — that was not the movement of an amateur.”
Aisha heard the murmuring around her and stiffened slightly.
Oops. Was that too much? But at times like this, I just have to act like a genius.
Aisha planted her fists on her hips and puffed out her chest with pride.
“This is the minimum standard for getting adopted into House Krost! Ha ha ha!”
“…….”
At the child’s declaration, the assembled vassals looked over at Calypse with expressions that seemed to ask whether that was actually true.
Calypse felt mildly embarrassed, but he turned his head and pretended not to notice.
“Now that the explanation has been given — Aisha Krost, you have passed the first trial.”
Knox, leaning against the wall and waiting for the exchange to conclude, smiled faintly and announced the result.
“…Damn it.”
Tex was red all the way up his neck with indignation, but —
“She’s clearly intelligent.”
“Creature suppression takes time and money. Knowing the information in advance the way Young Lady Aisha does means fewer injuries and faster results.”
The inexplicable praise coming from the vassals wouldn’t stop, and Tex couldn’t even get a proper outburst in.
At this rate, that little brat might actually win.
A sudden wave of fear crept over him.
________________________________________
