The days following his reincarnation went by smoothly in quick succession, one after the next without much notice as he spent his days eating, sleeping and raising the levels of his language and walking skills.
After falling asleep for several times and encountering that odd screen in the dark space, it became very obvious to him that this thing was neither a dream nor was it only his imagination but in fact some kind of entity.
As to what it was and why he could see it, he did not know, but for now, as a baby with the mind of a twenty eight year old, he gladly indulged in it to alieve his boredom by raising the level of his language skill and also the walking skill that was originally thought to be useless.
Unlike with the language skill where he was able to make quick progress and get quick results, making progress with this walking skill was much more difficult.
It required more than twice the effort that he put into learning language and whenever he woke up he found that the physical exhaustion from training the skill was also present in his physical body which turned out to be a problem.
The only time that the screen appeared was when he falls asleep, as such, he can only level his skills in his sleep but because of the exhaustion that training the walking skill mysteriously put on his body, after waking up he still feels tired, leading to him falling back asleep instantly after, sometimes without even drinking his milk, creating a seemingly endless sleep loop.
For several days he was distressed about this, but he soon found that if he selects the ‘exit’ option once the screen appears, he would be able to fall asleep peacefully and that brought an end to the matter. However, that wasn’t the point.
Progress in training the walking skill was much slower than the language skill which had already progressed to 60/100 although he still couldn’t speak; talking was a matter of physical development and he was, after all, only a baby, though making some basic syllabic sounds to mimic simple words was possible.
In the beginning, he questioned what it was that this skill really did as he couldn’t see any results until one day he rolled over.
You have to understand that he was a baby that had only been born for several days, not even a month old yet, but he was able to roll over. Even he himself couldn’t describe the way he felt when he came to recognize exactly what the ‘walking skill’ was and he thought that it was incorrectly named. Regardless, he began to train it in earnest.
Of course, his early development did not go unnoticed by the people around him, but the only person he saw on a day to day basis was that brown haired woman with hazel eyes whose name was Hannah so nothing exaggerated like being called a genius had occurred yet.
“You’re awake again, Your Highness.” She smiled from her seat next to his cradle where she was reading a book before getting up and coming over. “You sleep an awful lot don’t you? Are you hungry?”
She brought up his bottle that had been standing off to the side but he only looked at her expressionlessly.
Oi, he ate before napping only a short while ago. Was she trying to feed him into a pig?
Seeing him remain expressionless and look at her without movement, Hannah nodded.
“Then would you like to read with me?” She put down the bottle and showed him the cover of the book she was reading, ‘Horses of Stone’ and he quickly raised both his hands above his head and smiled.
Hannah laughed on seeing this and came forward to pick him up before going back to sit on the couch with him in her lap and she read aloud. As she read, Hannah would sometimes stop to explain to him what some words meant and explain certain terms as though she knew that he could understand her and it was for this reason that he enjoyed the times she read to him because he learnt many things.
For example, it was only through reading that he learned this place he had been reborn to was not only foreign, but it wasn’t even the same world and this place had only one large continent as its land which was named the Alveros Continent after the goddess of this world, Alverona.
This was a place that had magic and monsters and the people who lived here were not only humans but also beastmen, elves, dwarves, fairies and all sorts of fantasy beings that couldn’t have possibly existed on Earth.
When Hannah first started reading him these books, he had believed them to be fantasy novels but after she personally demonstrated magic and often said things like ‘the status of the beastman race’s independence is different in every country’, he was able to understand for himself.
When he arrived at the conjecture that this was a cross world reincarnation, in other words ‘transmigration’, he honestly wasn’t too surprised. After all, something like ‘other world reincarnation’ was something people heavily fantasized about in his previous life and even he had thought about it once or twice, but he never believed that it would actually happen to him.
Maybe it was because it was only the two of them during the day, but Hannah spoke to him quite often about a lot of things so although she had never once brought him out of this room, he still came to know a lot of things about this place he lived in.
The building itself was called Ivy Mansion. It was located deep inside of the royal palace and had been gifted to his mother by his father who was the ruler of this Beaumeister Kingdom, King Wendelin Beaumeister.
Apparently, his mother in this life was a woman with a very special identity but due to some crisis she was forced to seek shelter at the royal palace and his father, who had been infatuated with her for a long time then took the opportunity to keep her locked up within this gilded cage.
Hannah, who said she was his mother’s hand maid from since a young age, seemed to be very unhappy with what his father did back then which led to her cursing the man to misfortune on several occasions. It was at times like these when he wondered if Hannah really believed that he could understand her or if she just entertained the idea.
Whenever she started talking about his mother, Lady Sophia, Hannah would go on for long periods of times, bringing up memories from when they were both young and she would speak herself hoarse while staring at nothing in particular as her eyes became swollen from all her crying and at those times, he could only sigh.
From Hannah’s words, his mother seemed to be a very kind, generous and loving woman and in return she was also greatly loved but she was now dead; she had died to give birth to him. Somehow it made him think of his previous life.
His mother from back then was not particularly loving and she was the type of mother who would show her affection with words and presents, spoiling him very much yet not investing any true feelings and leaving him to be raised by others.
He had known that woman for twenty eight years and yet all the feelings from those years put together could not compare to the bit of warmth that he felt whenever he thought that this woman he hadn’t met before had chosen to give up her life so that he could live.
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The days within the mansion went like that and although he could sometimes hear voices beyond the door, he never saw any other people and it was just him and Hannah until one day this routine was suddenly broken.
It came with the sound of trumpets, the banging of drums, the sound of horses and a loud shout.
“Her Royal Majesty the Queen has arrived in company of the Royal Consorts!”
He was in the middle of drinking his milk after a bath and paused. The queen huh?
However, Hannah’s reaction was not as light as a sudden oppressive feeling gushed out from her and her expression turned bad.
“What is she doing here?”
He could sense the tension and extreme dislike in those words and was startled. There was actually someone that Hannah disliked more than his father?
He wondered what kind of person this queen must be but he didn’t have to wonder for long because someone lightly knocked on the door and before Hannah could respond or go over to open it as usual, the door was pushed open and a pale faced young woman wearing a dress similar to Hannah’s came in before quickly making way for a man dressed in a very pompous fashion, full of ruffles and lace with tights and pumpkin pants.
When he saw the man with his face full of white powder and wearing a wig he almost burst out laughing which caused him to choke on his milk. Hannah quickly put down the bottle and began to pat him as the man at the door cried loudly in a shrill voice.
“Presenting Her Royal Majesty the Queen, Queen Elise Liosa Marie, Her Grace Royal Consort Lady Milan, Her Grace Royal Consort Lady Maria Tilly, Her Grace Royal Consort Lady Victoria Collette, Her Grace Royal Consort….”
He shouted a long string of names and graces and for every name that he called, an extravagantly dressed woman wearing a crown of silver and jewels along with two or three maids would come through the door like some sort of procession.
Once he stopped choking, he watched the groups of women enter one after the next, gradually filling up the space of this room which was actually quite large, however it was with a feeling or curiosity toward the reason for their visit. His eyes carried no attentiveness and barely even lingered on any of the women for longer than the three seconds it took for him to commit each of their faces to memory along with their names.
It wasn’t until the man called out, “Her Grace Royal Consort Princess Adelyn Persia Rose!” bringing the procession to an end did he finally feel some kind of interest in the person that walked through the door and that was mainly because the beautiful woman with blonde hair dressed in a delicate pink gown that brightened her rich, milky white skin and brought out the exquisite color of her garnet eyes had a pair of curved, golden horns protruding from her forehead along with a pair of large white wings tipped with similar golden horns hanging from her shoulders.
When she entered the room then turned to walk to the side, he saw very clearly that those wings were not ornaments of any sort that had been strapped on, but were really and truly attached to her skin.
“This humble servant greets Her Majesty the Queen and the Royal Consort ladies. May you reach the point of radiance.”
He wanted to continue looking for a while longer, but the winged lady went to stand in a corner, turning away her back and Hannah stood up and bowed toward the throng of women with him in her arms, covering him within her bosom and he thought that he felt her arms momentarily tighten around him.
“You may rise.”
“Thank you, Your Majesty.”
Standing straight once again, Hannah faced the woman at the head of the group of ladies, Queen Elise.
Looking at her, the queen was a beautiful woman who didn’t look to be a day over thirty with lustrous tumbling golden curls that fell down to her waist and a sparkling pair of bright green eyes that shone like emeralds on a small face.
The dress she wore was fairly simpler in style compared to the dresses of the other women in the room but it left them in the dust if the quality were to be compared, gliding gracefully against her slender figure and the front of her hair was pinned up, adorned with a gold crown.
Her style was simple yet elegant.
“May I be so bold as to inquire the reason for Your Majesty’s visit?”
“Surely you jest, or could it be that Lady Rand has forgotten about the twelfth prince’s enlightening? It’s already been a month.”
Hm? Lady Rand, was that Hannah’s title? And could that ‘twelfth prince’ she mentioned possibly be referring to him?
“Indeed this servant forgot.”
Hearing Hannah say that, the queen showed an understanding look. “You mustn’t blame yourself. Raising a child alone is no easy feat, I know; but you must carry on in place of our dear Sophia.”
All of a sudden, out of nowhere he felt something sharp stick into his leg causing him to cry out, “Uwaah!”
The sound was small, but people always tended to pay more attention to children. The small cry caused everyone in the room who had earlier been paying attention to the conversation between Hannah and the queen to now look at him.
Ugh, he hated this feeling of being on display.
“So, this is the Light Maiden’s son.”
“Yes, Your Majesty, this is the twelfth prince.”
Hannah looked down at him with an apologetic look while replying the queen but he pursed his lips and narrowed his eyes in what he believed to be a glare, refusing to accept her apology. How could she pinch him?! This was child abuse; he wanted to call the authorities.
But more than that, what did the queen just say? Light Maiden? What was that? He was the Light Maiden’s son?
He looked over curiously and found the queen watching him with a measuring gaze before an odd look crossed her eyes and she made a face as though she was disappointed with what she saw.
Hey….
“He doesn’t look like her, he looks more like His Majesty when he was young, especially those eyes.”
“Grey eyes are the distinguished trait of the Beaumeister family, My Prince is lucky to have them.” Hannah giggled while saying so and it caused a chill to run down his spine.
If by now he still couldn’t see that there was something odd with this conversation then he would have to accept being called as an idiot.
While Hannah giggled, the queen laughed and from the outside the atmosphere around them surely seemed harmonious, but as the person caught in the middle of this cold war, his nerves were close to getting frost bite.
“Enough about all this. The reason for coming here today is to celebrate the twelfth prince’s enlightening, he is already a month old. With Sophia no longer here, it is the duty of us sisters to look after…ah!”
In the middle of a moving speech, she suddenly paused then turned to look at Hannah with a slightly embarrassed look. “Look at me getting ahead of myself when I haven’t even asked for the young prince’s name.”
The queen laughed, but he could feel that Hannah’s body had gone rigid and looking up, her complexion had become ghastly white. What was the matter so suddenly?
“Lady Rand, would you please tell us His Highness the twelfth prince’s name, what name did His Majesty give the prince?”
Slowly, a stiff smile spread on Hannah’s face and he could feel her body tremble. She said, “Everyone knows that His Majesty has been deeply embroiled in his grief for the past month. Since the death of My Lady he has not come to the mansion and I am afraid that My Prince is still awaiting a name.”
Eh? Wait, he didn’t have a name?!
Well, this was shocking.
Since arriving in this world, at some point or another he had stopped remembering his name from his previous life, but he believed that it was a side effect of reincarnating. After all, he really shouldn’t have any recollection of his previous life at all.
He himself was aware that Hannah had never called him by his name, but knowing that she was a servant he believed it was due to some kind of rule where she could only address him by his title as a prince. He never thought that the reason she constantly referred to him as ‘My Prince’ was because he didn’t have a name at all!
He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.
“Oh my.” The queen lightly covered her mouth then looked at him with a pitying gaze. “Well, it’s only been a month, there’s still plenty of time. I’m sure His Majesty will come around soon, this is the child of his beloved after all.”
“Thank you for saying so Your Majesty.”
“No need to be so polite. Come, come.” The queen waved to the other women who had been standing like silent decorations in the room. “Present your gifts to the young prince.”
Once she said so, one by one the different royal consorts came forward and had their maids place some pretty boxes with bows on the nearby table, bowing lightly and saying, “May Your Highness reach the point of radiance.” But there wasn’t a nick of sincerity in their actions.
The only one he found to be different was, he believed she was called Lady Victoria Collette. She was a lady whose looks weren’t too outstanding but she had kind and gentle brown eyes. She took the gift box from the hand of her maid behind her then came forward and opened it to reveal a shining silver locket that was shaped like the sun.
“With this light amulet I pray to the Goddess that Your Highness will always see good favor.” She then picked it up from the velvet cushioning by the thin silver chain and leant down to clasp it around his neck, arranging the pendant so that it sat at the center of his chest then she retreated several steps and bowed. “May Your Highness reach the point of radiance.”
“Amu!”
He voiced his thanks and showed her a smile, but it wasn’t the gift he was thanking her for, instead it was for her candor, though he doubted if she understood that.
“The twelfth prince expresses his thanks for Your Grace’s goodwill.”
Ah, in the end it was Hannah that knew him the best.
After Lady Victoria retreated, there was only one person left to present their gift. He stared at her as she walked forward.