Aydem found Emine leaning on the crumbling chair in the hall, emitting a pensive aura. She looked deeply depressed and vividly exhausted. However, the moment her eyes met her son's timid looks, that expression changed by the appearance of her usual gentle smile.

He was standing reluctantly beside the staircase, still holding the half-open door to his room.

"Come here, sweetheart," she said.

Hearing that, he moved towards his mother in slow steps. She left the chair and bent down to Aydem's height, caressing his forehead and soft hair. "I'm sorry for what just happened," she said.

"Don't be. It's not mom's fault after all." he said.

Emine broke into tears hearing her son's sympathy, hugging him close to her chest.

"You're my smart boy. I promise to never let anything awful happen to you."

They say don't give promises that you can't fulfill, Aydem thought, but he couldn't actually utter those words to a mother protective of her child.

Emine's talk with that man, Alicio, provided Aydem with every information he needed to assess the situation. Alicio seemed to be a part of nobility, and probably, son of an important figure, who ruled on this region. It would be a suicide to go to war with him.

His father was a low-born peasant, possessing no political power. His mother, despite being a kind, intelligent, and beautiful woman, had no connection with the authorities of the kingdom. In fact, all of those traits invited nothing but female jealousy and male gaze, resulting in nothing but catastrophe for them.

Furthermore, Aydem was only a 3-year-old boy with no influence or royal authority, no trust among the nobles, and no friends among the knights or military figures, which put together, implied one thing: He had no power.

Sure, he was more intelligent than a typical 3-year-old, but intellect is useless without actual power and wisdom behind it, and frankly, it's quite dangerous, for a lot of people, fooled by their knowledge and intelligence, became the permanent residents of graves, while some spent the rest of their lives in dark dungeons as political prisoners.

The worst fate, however, belonged to those who questioned what they were not supposed to question. He remembered the cruel methods of torture during the Middle Ages back on earth, committed by humans on humans in the history. This world, judging by the local beliefs, could as well include such horrific acts. Even the mere thought of it made Aydem shiver in terror.

Although he was reincarnated with the memories of his past life still preserved, Aydem saw Xander and Emine as his parents, feeling a strong emotional connection that he failed to suppress. Recalling Alicio's offer, they only had to forget about Xander and continue a life with him as a father figure. Of course, even thinking about accepting that offer was outrageous, but despite knowing that, it still occurred to Aydem.

Well, there's nothing we can do. We should just accept the deal. There's no other choice, he thought. Perhaps, the part of the offer that involved Alicio teaching him how to become a warrior and an adventurer had a huge influence over those thoughts. It was what 3-year-old Aydem had wished to happen after all.

But no matter how much he tried to make sense of taking the help of Alicio, his conscience couldn't come to agree. It just seemed wrong. But is the other option right? he thought.

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Going into a fight you know you'll lose, which will cost us our lives. Not just Xander, but all three of us together.

Nevertheless, suggesting that to Emine was clearly out of question. She would never think about it, let alone accept it.

"Sweetheart," his mother said, interrupting Aydem's thoughts, "I need to take a nap. Why don't you go play with the toys in your room?"

She once again leaned on the chair, closing her eyes.

Aydem turned back, slowly moving to his room, right to the base of the staircase. Meanwhile, the fire of the fireplace in the hall shone bright behind a narrow dining table, on which sit various treen bowls, cups, and spoons.

There was no carpets to cover the wooden floor as he stepped forth. To his left, the only bathroom in the house was located beside the stairs going to the second floor. An empty space separated the staircase and Aydem's individual room, under which existed a cellar, reachable by a trapdoor.

The only other individual space was built upstairs, being used by Emine most of the time since Xander wouldn't stay home for more than an hour at a time.

Opening the door to his room, he met the bright light of the sun escaping through the window, positioned the farthest from the entrance. The bed, placed at the corner, had an insignificant size relative to the space.

Aydem moved through the puppets and toys laid out on the floor. Xander got him those gifts for his first and second birthday. One could just imagine how hard he had to work in order to buy those.

He rested his back on the bed's squashy sheets, thinking about the current conditions.

What should I do? No, there's nothing I can do in my current state. The better question is, what will Alicio do next? It'd be too suspicious if Emine or I suddenly were to disappear right after his visit, so we're safe for now. I'm still her weakness though, so he will definitely use me to put pressure on her.

Can we afford moving somewhere else out of his domain of control? And even if we could, would he allow us to get out of here safely? That's the question.

Realizing the pointlessness of those thoughts, Aydem decided to finish thinking about Alicio, bending down to bring out a hefty book from under the bed, placing it on the pillows as he lay face down.

The book's heavy cover was light-brownish in color and broad in thickness. A sequence of symbols, appearing curly at the bottom and possessing sharp twists at the top, comprised the upper half of the surface. The bottom half consisted of a palace, drawn magnificently in a very detailed manner.

He found it about a year and half ago in the cellar. When his mother forgot to close the trapdoor and stepped upstairs, Aydem, carrying a lit candle, went down into the place out of curiosity, finding the book among the bottles of drinks and packs of goods.

Opening the book by turning the hardcover over, he started to brush pages after pages until reaching about half of the book. The surface of a few pages here and there would look warped. Some even carried burn marks, yet most of the texts and pictures could be read and clearly seen.

Each phrase or word would come with an image below it to describe the meaning of the phrase, and a series of symbols, which appeared to be in a different alphabet than the word itself, provided the phonetic information.

At the top left of the recto page, where Aydem's eyes kept staring at, there was an image of a human figure in hood, standing upright with the hands in front, like how one would hold onto an orb, with one hand under the bottom and one over the top.

As he carefully examined the phonetics of the word, some memories from the past year came to him.

I recall those people going to the temple that day. What did they say? Something like 'going to pray'. It sounds similar to this one here, but not exactly. They're different a lil bit. It definitely has something to do with praying though.

What is this guy doing? It seems like magic to me. Doing miracles perhaps? How is that praying? I don't understand.

He skipped to learn the next word, failing to realize the meaning of the previous one. That was an inevitable problem of learning how to read with no help. In fact, if the book didn't contain a detailed explanation of the phonetics with pictures and examples at the beginning, he wouldn't even be able to come so far.

After finishing every other word in the spread, Aydem attempted to turn over the page and continue. However, his fingers suddenly stopped, turning the page back, looking for the word he had failed to understand.

Some phrases would also come with an antonym. Apparently, it was one of those. Looking at the antonym, Aydem recognized it immediately.

"M-Magic?" he read the opposite word aloud. "Opposite of magic? I don't get it. Just what is that supposed to mean?"