A while passed from the megalodon encounter and we are already approaching the capital. We met no trouble at all during this time, or rather, trouble actively avoided us. I detected ships (probably pirates) multiple times but they would never approach us, and unlike the whale, the captains didn't want to waste time chasing pirates.

We can already see the capital, and as expected, the place is enormous. The Queen's castle was built on a higher altitude and seems to watch over the surrounding lands.

As we dock, an older royal knight that's not a chevalier comes to guide us to the castle, he seems to have taught mom and auntie when they were younger, so he must be pretty strong.

"So this is the boy wonder, huh?" He says while looking at me.

I just give him a "Nice to meet you, my name is Lance and i'm four years old."

"... Aside from his mana, he seems pretty normal to me..." When he says that, mom gives me a look as if to say 'do something', so i do the butterfly painting spell to make a picture of the whale hunt i saw on the wall of the carriage. "... Okay, i get it now."

Am i going to have to prove myself often? It's somewhat boring after the second time... Should i try to use more complex spells?

After we arrive at the castle and are showed to our rooms, it seems we can do whatever we want since her majesty is only meeting with us tomorrow.

"I'm going to the training grounds. You better behave." Says mom as she leaves with auntie and Athena. So i'm left alone with Renee (Joey stays somewhere else with the other knights).

"Renee, have you been here before?" I ask.

"N-no, young master, this is my first time in the royal castle." She seems tense.

"Oh well, let's look for a servant to ask where the library is." They must have some exotic books here.

I walk around for a while but i can't find anyone and i'm now completely lost, detection magic doesn't work in this place, also, i have a feeling i'm being watched with all the statues and paintings everywhere. "This place is kinda creepy, huh?" I mutter to myself.

"Isn't that a rude thing to say about the royal castle, young man?" An old, knight-looking man asks as he turns a corner. Damn he scared me.

"I'm sorry, i just can't seem to find anyone. Do you happen to know where i can find the library?" I ask politely.

"The servants use hidden passages to move around, boy." He says with a smile. "But i'm going to the library myself, do follow me." He says as he starts walking. I quickly catch up to him. "So, boy, you have a name don't you?"

Asking someone's name without identifying oneself is rude, but i don't really care. "My name is Lance and i'm four years old."

"Oh, i heard about you. The genius baby right?" I'm not a baby anymore! "My name is Chester."

"Chester? Are you related to the king?" Chester is the name of the king. By the way, they call the queen's husband king here, instead of just prince consort.

"What do you mean related? I'm the king!" He says as he puffs his chest.

I look at him suspiciously. "I thought the king couldn't grow facial hair?" This old man has a big white mustache.

"That's just a rumor started because i always shaved during my youth!" He says.

"I don't know, sir. I've seen a painting of the king once and his skin was smooth, his hair blond and his eyes bright green." This old man's eyes are more brown than green.

"These are the scars of battle and old age! And the green eyes was just artistic freedom! Anyway! There's no way anyone would pretend to be the king while inside the royal castle, would there now, boy?!" He says while huffing and puffing. We already arrived at the library.

"I'm just teasing you, your majesty. Consider it revenge for following me around." "You noticed?!"

"Of course i did, your footsteps aren't very quiet, your majesty." Of course, i can only do this because i'm too young to be punished severely.

The king's eyes narrow. Uh-oh, he wouldn't hurt a kid would he? Let's run away just in case.

But it's too late, the king quickly extended his arm and grabbed me. "You know kid, i heard a lot about you." He says while he enters the library with me under his armpit. "I also heard you have a special fondness for history." NO! "You see, there's this ancient war i'm very fond of..." "NOOOOOO!"

That day i learned that the royal library is hell on earth.

~PoV change~

In the queen's room at night, Catherine III was reading a book before bed when her husband entered.

"So, how is the boy?" She asks.

"Cheeky, is what he is." He answers with a snort.

"I heard about that." She says with a smile. "Maybe now you'll shave that silly mustache? But no, i meant his abilities."

"It's not silly! And his abilities are genuine, i've never had to cast dispel so many consecutive times my whole life. I'm pretty sure he started trying to burn down the library at some point."

"So, will you give him the assignment?"

"I'll try, knowing his kind, if i try to force a duty upon him, he'll probably just slack off. I can only try to give him benefits that outweigh the troubles."

"From the reports, offering forbidden books should work like a charm." Says the queen as if it wasn't a big deal.

"... Cate, are you serious?" Chester asks grimly.

"Don't look at me like that. You've seen the blades he makes, i'm pretty sure he's already near the level of those 100-year-old master smiths, and that's WITHOUT spending months on each sword. Imagine what he can do with a little push from us!" She takes a deep breath. "In short, we'll offer him some forbidden knowledge before the mission together with the suitable training, if he proves trustworthy and reliable during the mission we can think about giving more later."

"... That makes enough sense... Although i still think he's too cheeky."

"Don't be a baby!"

~Back to MC~

We are meeting with the queen right before lunch and then sharing a meal with her right after.

The hall is your stereotypical throne room, with a red carpet that goes through the middle of the place right to the place where we have to kneel, an elevated throne and on the two sides of the room you have a bunch of serious looking people staring at us. Don't they know staring is rude?

We walk to the kneeling place, do the whole 'pay my respects to your majesty' ordeal while introducing ourselves. The queen does the whole 'you've done well protecting our borders' shtick that can be shortened to 'Thank you for your work, keep it up! Your kids seem to be growing well'.

My legs hurt.

After what feels like an eternity it's finally over and we are going to have lunch with the queen, i make sure to be on my best behavior, definitely not because that demon of a king is with us, not at all.

But the moment the door is closed, the queen lets out a sigh and throws her fancy cloak off together with her fancy staff. She even kicks off her shoes and sits down on a sofa while resting her legs on top of the short table.

I look at mom, dad and auntie and they are acting like this is normal, although dad's face is a little cramped. I look at Athena and she is looking at me, i shrug, she shrugs back. We look back to the queen.

"No need to be so stiff, we are all family here, sit down wherever you like, lunch will take a while but we have a few appetizers to snack on." The adults do as she says and us kids follow after some hesitation.

The adults talk for a while with little formalities. By the way, the queen is an old lady with white hair, similar age to the king, but her blue eyes and sharp teeth make it clear she has royal blood.

After talking to Athena a little she finally turns to me. "So Lance, what do you think of the capital?"

I wasn't able to look around much, but from what i see, the place is as expected for a big fantasy city. "Big and orderly, i guess?" I answer.

"Ha! No, silly, i meant to ask if you like it."

"Oh, in that case it's alright, not like i saw much anyway." I answer honestly.

"I see." She nods. "I heard you haven't decided on a line of work as of yet."

Where did that come from? "Yeah, i haven't." i nod.

"What do you think of the inquisition?" I don't think i've ever shown much aptitude for the inquisition, why is she bringing this up?

"They're cool, but the work seems stressful." I answer honestly.

"Indeed, it is, but we make sure the rewards are worth it." I heard. The inquisition is the smallest of the three military organizations, but every single one of them are payed well. But i'm not very interested in gold, land and titles.

"I'm sure you do..." She's not going to push me into the inquisition, right?

Now the king speaks. "You see, we have some trouble on the south isles. Kids have been disappearing a little bit too often, mainly orphans, and our investigations have returned little."

Oh, they want to use me as a spy because i'm a kid! But that seems not only troublesome but dangerous as well... But on the other hand, spies are pretty cool...

The queen continues. "We were thinking of sending you disguised as an orphan to investigate a little bit, but i'm sure just gold wouldn't be enough as a reward for a sorcerer of your caliber... Tell me, Lance, have you heard of... Mind magic?"

"Mind magic... Like in the stories?" Mind control is often used by villains in fictional stories.

"Not quite, but similar." She answers. "You see, mind magic is indeed real, but you don't see it often because it is considered a forbidden school of magic and sorcery." Well, that makes sense, i wouldn't want to have people messing around with my mind. "We were thinking of teaching it to you as a reward and assistance for this job we are offering you, together with some other skills you might need, of course."

"..." Freedom and peace OR Forbidden knowledge and spy work... I look at mom, but she has her face emotionless with a look that says 'your choice'. Dad looks conflicted and Athena looks worried. But auntie has a smile on her face, what's her deal?

Well, let's weigh the pros and cons of accepting it.

PROS:

Probably not boring

Mind magic

She also mentioned 'other skills'...

Favor from the royals

CONS:

Danger

Work (I will have to work sooner or later.)

Outside my zone of comfort

In all honesty, i'm almost accepting just for the 'probably not boring'... "What does 'mind magic' entail and what would i need to do?" The queen's smile widens.

Yeah, no, we all knew i would accept in the end, but you could at least pretend that you didn't.

~small time skip~

"How could you accept that?! You're not even five!" Surprisingly enough, Athena is the one scolding me. "What is her majesty thinking sending a child as a spy?!"

"Calm down, Athena, she said they would only send me after i'm deemed ready. She gains nothing if i just die, only loses a potential sorcerer." Why am i the one defending the queen? Isn't this more mom's style?

I look at mom just as she speaks. "Athena, you know very well your brother isn't a normal child. And he's also a Chevalier, facing danger for her majesty is what we do." There it is. Although i'm not that into the whole duty thing. But Sylvian is my home and it's generally pretty nice in here, for a medieval world anyway. I haven't met any cartoonish villains and that's a big plus in my book for any country in a fantasy world. "... Although i also feel it's too soon..." mom adds after a moment.

"But we haven't even taught him the sword yet! And he may need to kill someone and hesitate because he never did it before!" Argues Athena.

Dad is the one that answers. "He doesn't need the sword, he's good enough with magic to kill most knights and a small army of peasants." That's not a pretty picture. "And about killing... We still have some time." Uh-oh, i don't want to kill people, it's gross.

"Well, that's one concern down." Says mom. "What else?... He can fish, but he still needs hunting and foraging experience." Oh, unlike killing people, that sounds pretty nice. "Did he learn how to use the stars to find out where he is?"

"Yes, i taught him while on the ship." Answers dad. "And matters of disguise and stealth will be taught to him by his future teachers." Why are they talking like i'm not here?

"Wait, if he's going to be disguised as an orphan," Starts Athena. "then doesn't he need to learn how to... you know... do chores?" Why does she say it with more gravity than she says stuff about killing people? Why is everyone's faces so grim?

"... We should just leave those things to her majesty's people..." says dad.

"Yes, we should leave hunting and foraging to them too, so we should just take care of his first kill." Says mom. My family could really use some chill on the murdering department.

Don't get me wrong, even if i like modern earth's morals better, i understand that this is the kind of world where people won't hesitate to kill me, so i better reciprocate with the same mindset. And if i try to just imprison them, i'll need to keep them fed and guarded so they don't escape, but that food and those guards would be of much better use if used on the people who DON'T try to kill me and take my stuff.

But even if i understand that, i'm not in any hurry to do it. But it seems i don't have much of a choice on the matter, mom already left to organize a bandit/pirate hunt with the local military.

Ah damn, maybe i shouldn't have taken the job.

~~

We are currently hunting bandits. The reason we chose bandits rather than pirates was simply because there were recent suspicions of bandits hidden near the capital.

We have 100 knights and 60 sorcerers with us, the number of knights might seem a little low (relatively, since it's from the capital's), but that's just because there's a bunch of Chevaliers here, including sorcerers, so there's not much need for more.

We are a day's ride away from the capital, and we are nearing the hills where the bandits' base should be located. I start casting my long range detection spells.

"What's that spell you're casting, boy?" One of the nearby sorcerers asks, from her eyes, she's a Chevalier, but maybe the blood isn't very thick in her, since her teeth are normal.

"Long range detection, madam." I answer politely, but without taking my concentration away from the spell. "In short, just detection on a two-stage missile." That grabbed the attention of the nearby sorcerers.

"Ho? That's pretty smart, did you come up with it yourself?"

"Yes, madam. I was trying to detect things while on the open sea."

"Haha, no wonder they call you a genius, is it tru-" "Excuse me, for a moment, madam." I interrupt her, i got the results from the spell.

"I detect humans behind the hill on the northwest." I shout while using magic to make sure everyone hears.

"Speed up! Let no one escape!" Shouts mom's teacher who i never got the name for. And speed up we do.

When the bandits enter our sights, and one can tell they are bandits just from a look, i try to count them using the techniques i was taught. I lost count at three hundred. How come there's so many this near the capital?

Later i would learn they were using cave systems to hide and were usually spread out, we caught them bunched up by coincidence.

But for now, it was just like with the barbarians, but in larger scale and with more dismemberment.

Gross.

Half of the knights charged early on, while the rest kept encircling the enemy together with the sorcerers. When the knights finished their hit-and-run, the spells flew. I've never seen so much fire in my entire life.

With that, the enemy's cannon fodder was gone, only the tough guys that were good with body strengthening were left. Then, the knights that were sitting back charged together with some sorcerers and when the first group of knights returned, they charged again with the rest of the sorcerers, and that includes me.

But i wasn't needed anymore, by the time our charge arrived, every enemy was dead, dying or unconscious. Mom picked one of the unconscious ones and the rest were executed and the bodies were looted and burned.

The people on this bandit hunt don't need the loot on bandits, but it's better not to leave it here in case more bandits pass by.

We followed in the direction the bandits came from and found a cave, some of the hunting party went in, but most of us camped outside.

Soon, i found myself in a familiar situation, a ring of fire with a kid and an adult man inside, except this time i was the kid, instead of Athena.

While my opponent is being waken up, freed and armed, i'm thinking of the fastest, cleanest and most painless way to kill a man. Quite the weird thoughts for a four year old.

I was thinking of using a disruption bolt together with a raw telekinesis attack to knock him out and then fry his brain with lightning, but honestly, fuck that. I'd rather be done with this as soon as possible and not give my opponent any chance to dodge or even hope to get close to me.

With my mind made up, i signal the knights to free my opponent.

He picks up a sword on the ground and points it at me.

"Don't-" He tries to speak but i'm already done.

Two raw mana constructs, a cup and a ball, rotating in opposite directions.

No runes, no tricks.

Only "FIRE!"

The ring of fire that surrounds me seems to lower itself as if kneeling.

*KRRRRACK* *BOOM*

A cracking sound from the shaking air. A thunder that follows the shock wave.

And then the light, so much light.

When my eyes adjust to the dark, i notice i'm still awake.

Damn, i was hoping on falling asleep so that no depressing thoughts would come up.

Well, they aren't coming up right now, so it seems i fine... But i'm still a little sleepy.

I ignore the crater and walk up to mom, who hugs me, and i fall asleep.

At least he shouldn't have felt much pain... Shit, there come the depressing thoughts.

I should have used more mana.