We are already back on the capital city. My family hasn't gone back home yet, but they are busy meeting their acquaintances in the capital. Right now i'm going to meet my future teachers.

As i enter the room, i see a scary woman with lot's of scars and... auntie?

As if to answer my doubts, she speaks. "I used to be a spy before i became a teacher, you know?" She gives me a smile. No, i did not know that.

"... You won't teach me about wars, right?" I ask cautiously.

Auntie sighs. "No, i'll be teaching you about disguises, acting, and the more social part of a spy's work."

The scary lady speaks after auntie. "And i'll teach you how to not die. My name is Eleanor." Her voice isn't as scary as her looks.

She looks to be a little younger than grandma. From the fact that her height is as around one of those basketball pros, i'd wager she has the so called giant's magic bloodline. They are one of the few bloodlines that are more common to find all around the world because they didn't form a noble house or anything of the sort. As one may guess, they are good with self-enhancement.

Eleanor has dirty blonde hair she keeps in braids and blue eyes. Like i said before, she has multiple scars on her face, neck and arms (that's all the skin she is showing).

"For today, you'll just show me what you can do in terms of stealth and combat." She continues.

At the end of the day, she wasn't very impressed. "Your stealth is as expected for someone without proper training in the field, and while your magic and spells are at a high level, the way you use them is too static, like an army or navy sorcerer who fights while protected at all times... For now, just take this feather and keep it floating near you at all times with telekinesis." That shouldn't be too hard.

It seems the first half of the training will be more auntie focused, while Eleanor will only have me doing some basic exercises. While on the second half, Eleanor will be taking me on trips to hunt monsters or to use a military fort of some kind as practice grounds.

Only after i'm done with these two is that i'll learn mind magic from someone else entirely, even though auntie seems to know mind magic... Did she ever use it on me?

~~

On the next day, auntie is the one teaching me now.

"Since you are new at spy work, your first disguise shouldn't be too different from your real identity in order for you to get used to it faster, however, it shouldn't be similar enough that your persona reminds others of the real you, thus allowing them to make the connection easily."

"Is it even worth it to make the persona similar to my real self?" I ask.

"Yes, very much so. The spy's act can fall apart from the smallest of slip-ups, by making the persona similar to the real self, we essentially decrease the number of possible slip-ups." She says. "Think of it like this, how hard would it be to pretend to be the same person you are now, except with a different name?"

Quite easy. "Quite easy, right?" Was that mind magic? "Now if we add something else, like, let's say the persona should love eating sea products. That would make it slightly harder, but not by much. But if we add that he is left-handed or completely blind, the difficulty jumps up to another level entirely, and so does the dissociation with the real identity."

I see, i guess that makes sense.

"On my last spy job, the target already knew how i looked like and kept an eye out for me. So i pretended to be a man scarred by battles." She says as she puffs her chest out with pride. How did she hide those? *smack* "Don't you know it's rude to ogle a lady's body?" She says after lightly smacking me. You were practically shoving them on my face! I haven't even hit puberty yet!

"I was wondering, how did you make yourself look like a man?" I ask while hiding my grievances.

"Magic, of course! But you'll learn how to change your appearance later." Good to know. "But for now, we need to discuss your persona..."

~~

Several days later, my family will soon head back home without me.

"-that's the trick to it. And never let the enemy take the initiative, force them to react to you instead. And-" Athena is currently teaching me something, but she's speaking too fast and my mind can't process it all.

"Athena, that's enough. He already has a teacher." Interrupts mom. "But son, why do you have pebbles floating around you?"

Eleanor took the difficulty of the exercise up a notch, so i'm now floating multiple pebbles instead of a feather. "Training." I answer.

"I still can't believe my son will learn forbidden magic." Says dad. "Listen son, don't become an evil sorcerer. They never live good or long lives."

I look at him like he said something dumb. "I know, dad. Do i look that stupid in your eyes?" History speaks for itself when it comes to people who get drunk on power and sow too much enmity, no matter the world. Even if my magic is great, everyone runs out of mana at some point.

"No, but you do look reckless." ... Point taken.

Their ship will soon depart and now it's time to say goodbye.

I hug each of them. "Don't die.", "It's okay to fail, it's only your first mission.", "Good luck.". That was in the order of Athena, mom and dad.

And there they go. Renee and Joey are also going.

Feels lonely...

Let's go annoy auntie, asking her age should work.

~~

"32?"

"NO!"

"34 then?"

"NO! And stop increasing!"

"Oh... Then 40?!"

"It's none of your business, is what it is!"

She's casting a spell, time to run.

~~

During the next few months, my training progressed greatly. My persona is going to be an orphan called Leonardo (nickname Leo), and the backstory is that my father was in the navy and my mother was a whore, they both died and my father's family refused to take me in, so the town guards took me to the orphanage.

My persona's appearance was inspired by Eleanor, with dirty blonde hair and blue eyes, but without the scars of course, only the normal scars for a child like scratched knees and stuff like that. The curly hair stays, but obviously the vertical pupils and sharp teeth need to go.

The appearance is held up by something that is like an invisible magic tattoo, i can turn it on and off at will, pretty cool.

Talking about magic, we decided it was too much to hide the fact i can use magic (since i need to rely on it in any case of danger), so we decided to just hide how much i know. I was even taught how to make magics and spells seem badly executed, it's harder than you'd expect.

After a while, auntie had me go play with some street kids in the capital as Leo. It was pretty awkward at first, but after i taught them some games and how to make some primitive stuff, like a sling (just a string with a place to put the rock), they opened up and taught me their own games and places you can go to do an errand to get some pocket money.

How twisted has my life become when doing normal kid stuff becomes training?... At least i'm not bored.

One day auntie had to show me around a brothel so i wouldn't be too unaccustomed to one just in case.

"Aren't you ashamed of taking a little boy to a brothel?" I tease auntie.

"Aren't you ashamed of knowing what going to a brothel entails?" She shoots back.

"... Did you read my mind?"

"I don't have to, you just confirmed it." Damn, she caught me. "But that makes this easier, you do know where babies come from then?" I nod. "Good."

The brothel she shows me is the stereotypical style, with the front as a bar where the waitresses are a little too friendly and their clothes a little too short. This is too much stimuli for little old me.

The place seems to also be a gambling den. Pretty smart. The clients gamble and if they lose, the house wins, if they win, they probably drink and hire a working girl to celebrate, so the house always wins.

The madam of this house seems to be an informant for the inquisition, classic character archetype.

"Who's the mother of the kid?" asks the madam.

"No one, i'm just showing him around." Answers auntie, since i'm currently disguised as Leo.

They only talk shortly and we are gone again.

"Did you learn anything new?" auntie asks.

"I learned that the queen should make a law for every brothel to need a healer capable of healing diseases." I answer honestly.

"... I guess that's reasonable." You bet it is.

Auntie also taught me how to make reports and stuff like that.

~~

When it comes to Eleanor, unlike her appearance suggests, turns out she's really kind and gentle. Or at least, she is to me. I once saw her give a soldier a glare that could kill the faint of heart when he complained about us using the training grounds.

About the training, for combat training i'm either using magic while running through obstacles or using magic while dodging the wooden stick she swings at me, i'm pretty sure she's holding back, but that thing still hurts when it hits me.

I would complain, but she always does that "pain, pain, go away" thing while blowing on the bruise, so i can't bring myself to do it.

Aside from that, i'm told to keep things floating or to keep a candle lit or keep a flower from wilting, or something similar, all throughout the day (aside from when i'm outside disguised as Leo and a few other exceptions). She says it's to make using magic feel natural and second nature.

For stealth training, it's not only about being unseen and unheard, but also... 'unfelt'? Is that even a word?

Anyway, even one's mana circulation can grab the attention of anyone with enough training, nevermind magics and spells.

The trick to staying hidden is all about control, an easy way to understand it is to think that sudden movements of mana make 'noise' and to avoid making noise one needs to keep their mana, magics and spells moving gently and slowly, in this case, the less mana one uses the better.

Before learning this i never noticed, but i can only barely feel Eleanor's mana, so i'm pretty sure it works. I wonder if i'm able to sense her at all if she tries to hide?

~~

It's already a few months since i became five years old and i'm starting the second phase of the training.

During this whole time i had little free time to spend making things, but from time to time the queen would ask me to make some stuff for her, mainly carriages and enchantments, so i still managed to avoid having my skills rust. For some reason, i've been getting the urge to make a stained glass window, must be the royal castle's architecture inspiring me or something.

Right now i'm traveling by foot with Eleanor and auntie, we are going to the monster territory closest to the capital. Unlike the monster territory to the northwest of the country, this one is relatively small and safe.

During the journey, i have to act like a wanted man and hide from any passerby, avoid all villages and hunt or forage my own food. Killing rabbits feels more gross than fish.

We only arrive after what feels like an eternity. And here i felt horses were too slow.

Our main targets are gnolls, they are like animal people. No, not like cat girls. More like animals that started walking on two legs and wielding sharp sticks and stones.

Are there even cat girls in this world? I mean, when considering magic bloodlines... Wait, don't get distracted. Where was i? Right, gnolls.

Gnolls have senses similar to their animal counterparts, and they are rarely alone, so they should serve well as stealth practice as well as combat.

There are other monsters in this place too, but they are mostly animal variants.

With a single detection spell and i already found potential targets, though i don't know what they are, at least i know they aren't humans.

When we are closer we become more careful, i use a more detailed detection spell very slowly and gently.

Jackpot, five gnolls.

I signal five targets to the other two and start slowly skulking ahead while gently enhancing my sight, hearing and smell.

I finally spot them, they are skulking around as well, but they focus their attention on the ground, probably hunting rabbits or similar rodents. They are wolf gnolls and have good sense of smell, good thing i checked the wind.

I get into a position where i have a clear sight to all five heads and very slowly start casting five force bullets (sped up force spike). Normally it would take me only about half a second to cast these five, but since i'm going for stealth, I slow down the casting. I finish casting without being detected and fire away.

I can see that the gnolls noticed me the moment i fired the spells by the fact that they seemed to jolt upright. But it's already too late, they all have holes in their heads.

I confirm their deaths with a diagnostic spell, cast a detection spell to check the surroundings and use enhanced senses to do one final scan. Aside from a huge rabbit inside a hole, there's nothing.

So i signal my two teachers with a small whistle. And while they come out of their hiding spots i kill the rabbit and start butchering it quickly using magic. Since it's a monster rabbit, the critter is simply huge for a rabbit and a single one should be enough for us three even considering how much Eleanor eats...

When the two are done looking around i speak. "I got dinner." and point to the rabbit. "Should i burn their bodies?" I point to the gnolls.

But Eleanor picks me up and hugs me. "It's alright, we'll take care of it. You did well." She's treating me like a kid again... Yes i know my age, but- you know what? Whatever. It's been a long day with lots of walking, i should let myself be spoiled a little.

After eating the food auntie prepared, i sleep straight away inside my bedroll.

Monster hunting should be more fun.

~PoV change~

Eleanor and Alexandra watch the five-year-old boy disguised as Leonardo sleeping peacefully.

Eleanor is the first one to speak. "Is this really alright?"

Alexandra only looks at her and raises her brow as if to tell her to explain.

"Training a child this young to kill. Is it really okay? Shouldn't he spend his time just playing around like others his age?... He may seem mature sometimes, but you've seen him playing with the other kids, he was having fun just like the others, that wasn't acting..." She finishes with a sigh.

Alexandra just stayed quiet for a while before answering.

"If it was anyone else... I wouldn't agree with this whole assignment, but... With him it doesn't feel like a big deal... Like this whole thing is just another of his hobbies and he'll soon jump onto something else..."

The Chevalier and the giantess stayed silent for the rest of the night even as they switched places for keeping watch.

~Back to MC~

I spent the next two weeks hunting monsters. I even came across a Gnoll mage, but the poor guy could only shoot a little bit of fire.

Sometimes auntie would even have me get as close as i can without getting detected. Being near an enemy, even a weak one, feels very disconcerting. I have a newfound respect for melee fighters.

Right now we are already back in the capital and i was given a few free days for resting. Eleanor and auntie suggested i go to play with the kids again, but no thank you! I'm making a stained glass window! That is, as long as the queen cooperates, of course.

"How is our little genius doing today?" She says as i'm finally alowed to meet her.

"I want to make a big stained glass window for the castle." I don't beat around the bush.

"A stained glass window?" Does she not know what that is? I find that hard to believe.

"Yes, it's like a painting but made using colored glass instead of ink. The way the light interacts with the colors often give it an ethereal beauty." I explain.

"No, Lance, i know what it is. What i don't know is why you suddenly want to make one and why you are so excited."

"I don't know either, but i have a feeling the throne room is perfect for it. Not one, but two stained glass windows together with a chandelier each, i just need to choose the image, i was thinkingoneofthe paintings of the founder slayingabeast, but i'mnotsureforthesecondone, i shouldtake anotherlookatthecastle'spainting-" "Stop! Stop!" Huh, what?

"I don't need to know all that, but i won't confirm or deny i'll use the window either... Will this make the throne room less safe?"

"Not really, rather, with those big windows already there, it'll probably become safer than now after i'm done enchanting the metallic parts."

"Good, i'll give you the resources you need and if the end result is good enough, i'll use it. Is that all?"

"I haven't thought of what images to use yet, any suggestions?"

"Just go talk to the crown princess, she's more into this art stuff than me."

Good, it's decided, i'm making the best stained glass window this world has ever seen.