Chapter 1
Someone once told me.
You should write your will ahead of time. You never know when or how you'll suddenly kick the bucket, so you should at least jot something down.
I didn't think that would ever happen to me, but I wrote one just to try it out.
You know, the usual stuff about what to do with my inheritance if I died~
But I never thought that will would actually come in handy.
-HOOOONK!!
Not until some crazy bastard ran me over with a car.
…
-Waaah! Waaah!
-It's a girl! My dear, it's a girl!
-Baby…!
…My vision is bright. No, is it dark?
The sensations in my body are strange. It's strangely sensitive, yet strangely dull.
What kind of sensation is this?
Once I became aware of it, breathing suddenly felt difficult.
When I tried to open my mouth wide and somehow breathe, all I could hear was a loud baby's wail.
…A baby?
“Haha! That kid's got some lungs! She'll grow up to be a great warrior!”
“Dear. Calling our daughter a warrior... …Just grow up healthy, sweetheart.”
“My dear, just look at her cry. I don't think we need to worry—she'll grow up strong!”
“Hehe. That's true.”
When I came to, there were a man and a woman beside me.
Calling it beside me feels a little strange. The woman was holding me, and the man was looking at me with the happiest smile in the world.
“A name. My dear, have you thought of one?”
“That's right… A name.”
They were going to give me a name? …No way.
“Flia. I think Flia would be lovely.”
“Flia Jegen Whitewolf. That's a fine name.”
That was my oldest memory in this life.
…
Five years passed.
Apparently, this world was the setting of a game I'd played called [Gaia Academy].
Well, isn't that a common story? The game you played turns out to be a real world, and you transmigrate into the protagonist and beat up the enemies.
The only problem was that this world was set after the ending.
The Demon King died the year I was born. The hero, the game's protagonist, defeated him.
For reference, my father, Flien Jegen Whitewolf, was a major character you could recruit as an ally in the game.
I'd heard he already had two children and then had another after the ending, but who would've thought that child would be me?
Anyway, most of what I knew was useless now.
According to Flien, the hero had already snatched up most of the great opportunities, and all the important quests had been completed, too.
So the only useful thing I knew was basic information about this world.
It was enough to get people calling me a genius, but… it still felt kind of empty.
My lucky encounters got NTR'd!
“Flia? Are you here?”
As I was lost in thought, a girl who looked about like a third grader called out to me.
“There you are!”
This girl was Plon Jegen Whitewolf. She was my older sister.
…Well, she's my big sister now. Anyway.
“Come on! Let's go eat breakfast!”
“Yes, Sis.”
Plon cheerfully invited me to breakfast. As a pathetic shut-in loner, I did prefer eating alone, but I wasn't the kind of person who'd turn down a family meal.
…Honestly, I prefer eating together to eating alone.
When I followed Plon to the dining room, the rest of the family was already there.
At the head of the table sat my father, Flien Jegen Whitewolf. Beside him was my mother, Loren Jegen Whitewolf. And…
“Flia! Come over and sit down. You too, Plon.”
The eldest son of the Whitewolf family and my older brother, Flijen Jegen Whitewolf.
“Hi! Big Brother Flijen!”
“Good morning, Brother Flijen.”
…Honestly, calling him elder brother is so cringey.
But as an antisocial, pathetic shut-in loner, I couldn't keep up a warm conversation, so I called him that.
Calling him Big Brother felt like too big a hurdle, too. It sounded way too close. Yeah.
“Aw, you can just call me whatever you like.”
I could see the corners of his mouth curling right up as he said that.
“Haha! My daughter is so mature, and it makes her father proud. But I keep telling you, you can relax when you're with family. You don't have to be so formal.”
“Hehe. Exactly. I might even prefer it if you were a little more relaxed.”
“I… I'll try.”
Flien and Loren said that, but I couldn't help it.
Don't expect me to act all comfortable around you!
“Well, if you don't want to, there's nothing we can do. Let's all eat.”
“Let's eat!”
Plon answered energetically and started wolfing down her food. She looked like she was going to spill it everywhere… Ah. She had some sauce on her mouth.
“Sis. You've got some sauce on the corner of your mouth.”
“Really? Where?”
Then Plon somehow managed to rub only the spots where there wasn't any sauce.
At that rate, she'd never get it off.
“Hold still for a moment, Sis.”
When I wiped Plon's mouth with the handkerchief Loren had told me to always carry, Plon suddenly stopped moving.
…Did she not like that? Did she not want me touching her without asking?
Of course, my worries were unfounded.
“Thanks, Flia!”
“Mmph?!”
Because Plon suddenly wrapped me in a fierce hug.
Of course, I was still a little kid, so I wasn't in danger of suffocating, but it was still hard to breathe when she squeezed me that tightly…
“W-Wait… Let go of me!”
“No~! If I don't hug you like this, Flia never comes over to me!”
What the hell are you talking about, Plon-Plon?
When I finally escaped Plon's clutches, I saw my parents smiling fondly… and Flijen with sauce on his mouth?
“Ahem…”
Making a point of showing me the sauce on his mouth was basically the same as openly saying, ‘Wipe mine too.’
But if I didn't wipe it off, he'd definitely sulk. That guy could stay sulky for a surprisingly long time.
…Sigh. I guess I have no choice.
“…Brother. You've got some on your mouth.”
“Really?”
Look at him rubbing only the spots without sauce. Siscon bastard.
“…Sigh.”
When I went over and wiped it off, Flijen smiled as if he was finally satisfied. They say you can't spit on a smiling face, and with such a ridiculously handsome smile, I couldn't even bring myself to complain.
“Ahem. Flijen, you shouldn't be so careless and get food all over yourself.”
“That's right. Be more careful next time.”
…You two have sauce on your mouths, too!
…
After our eventful breakfast, I had all sorts of lessons with my tutor.
Of course, they weren't lessons a five-year-old would normally take, but I'd signed up for them myself.
Since this was a world set after the ending, most of what I knew was useless. If I couldn't use future knowledge, I had to make the most of the present.
Fortunately, my new body came with a genius-level mind and plenty of perseverance. Since I'd graduated from a fairly prestigious university in my previous life, I could keep up with the lessons pretty easily.
If anything, Plon seemed to have a harder time, so I even ended up reviewing everything with her once more after class.
Of course, that didn't mean Plon was stupid. No, if we're talking about simple memorization, she might even be better than me.
I was just better at applying what I'd learned, and I understood things more easily because I had a lot of basic knowledge from my previous life.
As a result, rumors were going around that I was a huge genius.
Hmm… I feel kinda weird.
I mean, I'm happy to be praised. But it feels like I'm cheating and getting praised for it…
Anyway, I finished my lessons with that weird feeling and had a light lunch of the sandwich a maid brought me.
At first, I was moved to see a maid, but then disappointed when she wasn't the kind of maid I had in mind.
Of course, it made sense that she was different, since the maids I'd seen were Japanese-style… Still, I couldn't help feeling a little disappointed.
After lunch came free time. I usually spent it training my body.
You might wonder what a five-year-old could possibly do to train, but I kept running with the boundless energy unique to children, and I could feel my stamina steadily improving.
Once I ran out of stamina, I'd go watch the knights train.
There wasn't much else to do for fun, so I watched the knights' training methods and tried to steal a few moves with my eyes.
You might think a modern person wouldn't know anything just by looking at swords, but for some reason, I could see something.
How should I put it… I could see the path the sword traced as it swung, or something like that.
Absorbed in this sensation I couldn't quite identify, I watched the knights train and found myself wanting to swing a sword like that, too.
When I mentioned it to Flien, he refused, saying I was still too young.
…Maybe I could get him to agree if I acted cute?
…
As usual, I was watching the knights when something caught my eye.
A wooden sword that was noticeably shorter than the others.
It seemed to be used as a secondary weapon, like a dagger, but it was just the right size for me.
…I can't pass this up.
“Excuse me.”
“Yes, young lady!”
“Could I borrow this sword for a little while?”
“…You mean the sword?”
“Yeah.”
Seeing how rigidly disciplined the knight was made me feel a little guilty, but my curiosity mattered more than that.
But when I asked to borrow the sword, the knight's expression turned complicated.
He probably thought some little noble kid was getting carried away and wanted to swing a sword for the sake of appearances.
…Honestly, he wasn't entirely wrong.
Anyway, when I took the sword from the knight with the complicated expression, I felt the people around me turn their attention toward me.
Their gazes were about half concern and half curiosity.
It made sense they'd be worried; if I got hurt, the knights would be the ones in trouble. And they were probably curious to see a child swing a sword, too.
Anyway, I couldn't ignore the knights' gazes… and feeling pretty self-conscious, I picked up the sword.
As soon as I held it, I saw all sorts of lines in front of me.
I wondered what they were, but for some reason, all I wanted to do just then was choose the line I liked best and swing along it.
-Whooosh!
I swung the sword on instinct. I hadn't learned swordsmanship or anything, so I had no idea if I'd swung it properly.
But the swish sounded so clean that I figured I couldn't have done it wrong.
And more than anything, swinging the sword gave me an incredible sense of freedom.
Like breathing fresh air on a quiet mountain in the countryside after being cooped up in a stuffy city?
Whatever it was, it felt good, so I kept swinging the sword to enjoy the sensation.
…
‘What… am I looking at right now?’
John, an ordinary knight of House Whitewolf, was more than bewildered. He was stunned.
-Shaaak!
How could a beginner make such a clean sound of cutting through the air with nothing but a wooden sword?
Even most apprentice knights couldn't make a sound like that with a wooden sword.
No, in some low-caliber knight orders, even ordinary knights probably couldn't make a sound like that.
That was just how incredible the young lady's talent with the sword was.
She'd only watched the knights train and was clumsily imitating them, yet she was already at that level. And she was only five!
John couldn't even begin to imagine what level she'd reach if she received proper instruction.
One thing was certain: she'd surpass an ordinary knight like John in less than a year.
How many hours had John spent watching, utterly entranced? A massive presence entered the training grounds.
A man with black hair and red eyes, fit for the position of Grand Duke of the North.
The rightful master of House Whitewolf. It was Lord Flien Jegen Whitewolf.