Chapter 7: Third Birthday

Day 26th, the 12th month of the Vermillion Calendar, year 1008

The third birthday of Leon and his stepbrother William.

Three years had gone by in a flash for them. The count did not return even after three years. He sent letters and gifts from a distance, his council aided in running his affairs.

It turned out that the war that had taken place was far deeper than they had imagined, and it was taking long to deal with. From the letters, Leon learned that humans were doing fine in the war and would succeed at the end.

That was not the only thing that Leon learned, though. At the age of one, Leon could not fully read and actually form good and coherent speech. It came as a massive stunner to his mother, who did not expect it at all. He was immediately allowed into the library with the aid of his two personal maids, Mary and Tesha.

The two maids loved Leon deeply, but they were always exhausted because Leon had basically become eccentric, dragging them from corner to corner of the massive library.

Leon discovered something a few years ago that sank his stomach. He was not born into the times of the happenings of the story, but rather, he was born almost a hundred and fifty years later.

He was born in a time where the war was almost forgotten and humanity had known peace for so long. With this realization, he needed to find out what happened in the past, and he was sure that he was really on Larek.

He found a history book and eagerly read it, ready to find the history of the archmage that saved humanity, but what he saw stunned him. The archmage, the very man that had given his own life to save humanity, Archmage Crimson, was now referred to as the destroyer of humanity.

All the records showed that he aided the demons in their final attack after betraying humanity, nearly pushing them to their doom, and it was a hero, a mage, now known as the honored one, who saved humanity with his might and destroyed Crimson.

Leon read all of this and knew that it was baloney. Something was wrong, and it was terribly wrong. The past had been tampered with heavily, and the true hero was being turned into a villain forever.

Leon did not know the reason why he was sent into this world or why the book chose him to come here and have the system, but he knew one thing for sure. Crimson was a hero, and he would not allow someone to walk over the memory of the hero that he so much loved in the story.

This was no longer a story but rather his new reality, and in this reality, someone he dearly respected was getting turned into a villain. Leon swore to himself that he would do all it took to ensure that he found out the truth and fixed history.

This promise led him to start reading like a maniac, gathering knowledge all around like he was addicted. It also caused him to practice magic even more. He was now good with it. A dozen or more spells lay in his arsenal that he had mastered.

He thought about hiding the fact that he could do magic until he was probably older, but he wanted to get ahead, so when he turned two, he showed his mother some cool, simple magic tricks, like the flowing water that he had seen from Ash. He wanted her to believe that he had the talent for it, but he was not good with it yet. It was a very important sweet spot that he needed to find.

That discovery almost sent his mum to the moon. She could not believe what she saw. Her boy was special. In this disgusting world that only sought to destroy, she had birthed a gem that could stand the test of time. He did not even have to wait till he was 5 to start using magic at all.

She had Ash begin to slowly teach him some spells, and in weeks, Leon mastered them, though he already had long before, and he could do those weak spells with his eyes closed.

Those spells were rankless spells that anyone with a decent level of mana control could handle. He wanted to get into the one-star spells at least, but he knew that she was not going to teach him those as he could harm himself.

[...]

"It’s been three years already?" Leon muttered as he walked through the hallway with Mary and Tesha following behind him. He was dressed head to toe like a proper noble with a dark red jacket and clean black pants.

"Tesha, why do I have to head to the sitting room?" He stopped and asked.

"I’m sorry, young master Leon, we cannot tell you why exactly. Your mother asked for you to come," Tesha explained with a bow.

"Hmm, so a surprise party," he responded. She heard that, and she almost blew a fuse in her head. They had not even said anything at all, and somehow he had figured it out.

"Young master, can you please try to act surprised when you get down? Your mother and the lady of the house did their best to make a wonderful birthday for you and young master William," Mary said.

"Yeah, yeah, I’ll try, but I’d rather be reading now or practicing magic at least. This is a waste of time. A birthday is not that important, just a reminder that I am getting older and time is running out," he said and started walking.

The two maids stood there dumbfounded, wondering what sort of mind was packed into the head of this little boy. They rushed over to him.

"But young master, you get cake, presents, and a whole lot more," Tesha said.

"Yeah, I’m the son of a count. I get pretty much what I want when I want. If I needed something, I could ask. Father had a fund created for each of his children.

Tch, that’s the only way he knows how to grow kids, with money. As for cake, it will be actually nice to have some, so I guess that’s good."