In the early hours of a rainy morning, my childhood friend came to see me.
Seeing Raiden’s tense expression, I asked, “What’s going on?”
With a gloomy face, Raiden abruptly dragged me into the living room and said, “I have something to tell you,” in a serious voice.
He looked like he had caused some trouble.
Did he kill someone?
Where should we bury the body?
Maybe dig 200 meters deep?
These were the thoughts racing through my mind as I took a sedative.
Just as I managed to calm my trembling pupils, Raiden spoke.
“I… I’m pregnant.”
I took a deep breath, and with shaking hands, opened and drank two more bottles of sedatives. At least I knew now that the person to bury was Raiden.
“Who… who did you sleep with?”
“I don’t know.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. Who did you get pregnant?”
Raiden tilted his head.
“I’m telling you, I’m the one who’s pregnant.”
I looked at the vice-captain of the Litton Wyler Royal Knights, the rising star, hope, future, genius, and skilled knight of the Rensher family, with the body of a robust man, a head taller than me, and asked again.
“…Who is pregnant again?”
“I’m pregnant.”
Raiden, trembling but with a gentle smile, lovingly patted his belly.
“Three months. I’m gonna be a Daddy.”
And then, I woke up from the nightmare, gagging.
It was a ridiculous dream.
Dreaming of my male childhood friend getting pregnant.
I was drenched in sweat.
Immediately, I went to the kitchen, drank a lot of water, and took a shower.
It was still dark outside, not even dawn yet, and the clock showed 4 a.m.
It was raining lightly, and it was Monday.
Truly, it couldn’t get any worse.
—
If I tried to go back to sleep, I knew I wouldn’t be able to wake up again. I trusted myself in that regard.
So, with groggy eyes, I went to work.
I wished I could commute from the school. Raiden was of no help at all.
Why didn’t I refuse when the captain of the Litton Wyler Knights came to my office and asked me to take care of him?
I acknowledged that Raiden was an exceptional talent coveted even by other nations and agreed to keep him well-managed, but why they asked me, a doctor with no connection to the knights, was beyond me.
Rubbing my stiff neck, I opened the door to my office in Building 3 and then the door to the adjacent infirmary.
The Amort Royal Knights Academy, although not as grand as the Empire’s, is a prestigious institution recognized internationally.
As the name suggests, it trains high-level knights and dragon riders.
Currently, the most renowned knight orders in Ginger Kibgdom are the Royal Knights, the Litton Wyler Knights where Raiden, an extraordinary knight, serves as vice-captain, and the Heim Wyler Knights, which are integral to national power and handle dragons.
The Amort Royal Knights Academy is famous for producing many knights for these royal orders. Last year, all the knights selected for the Heim Wyler Knights were from Amort, making headlines for their exceptional dragon-riding skills.
Legends say that dragons are the fiercest and most malevolent divine beasts controlling all monsters, but the dragons we use for national security and transportation don’t speak.
Anyway, I’m the doctor handling emergency patients in Building 3 of the Amort Royal Knights Academy, where I teach theoretical and indoor classes.
There aren’t many emergency patients in indoor classes, so unless I’m called to Building 1 where emergencies frequently occur, I spend my time researching herbal medicine.
I initially applied for Building 1, worked there for three months after being accepted, but ended up as the sole doctor in Building 3 due to a vacancy. If I had known how cushy this job was, I would have come here sooner.
I opened all the windows in the infirmary to air out the dampness from the rain and checked the medicines stored in the cabinet overnight.
After verifying the patient list and inspecting the medicines to be delivered today, I did some light cleaning.
Time flew by, and soon I heard the students’ chatter outside. The loudest voices were those of the first-year students who had mostly indoor classes in the morning.
I glanced at the students outside through the window as the rain began, then closed the window.
Patients coming to the infirmary in Building 3 usually have infected wounds from practice, overexert themselves in class with unhealed bodies, or occasionally fake illness. The rare cases are colds and minor ailments.
The student who shows up daily is…
“I’m here!”
Raiden Rensher. The hope of the Ginger Kingdom. The knight Sir Rensher, who is celebrated as the next hero. And unfortunately, this bright hope of the kingdom is my childhood friend.
Raiden smiled and naturally hugged me from behind. He buried his face in my neck and took a deep breath.
Ah, such a nice smell.
Raiden’s warm breath settled on my shoulder. I struggled to push his face away with my palm, trying to detach him.
Because of him, my chances of marriage are ruined. I desperately denied that my path to marriage might have already been blocked for a long time.
The red carpet is still brilliantly laid out, I told myself.
I struggled to erase the image of Lady Rensher, with her graceful smile, moving the lamp that illuminates the red carpet.
Raiden loves the scent I emit. It’s the scent of mana, something that only a few rare mages among humanity possess.
While knights, who surpass human’s limit, usually temporarily envelop objects like swords with mana, mages cause this mana to swirl around their bodies.
This naturally makes their bodies emit a fragrance, and once they can control magic freely, they can also control this scent.
Whether the scent is pleasant or not varies from person to person, and those with pleasant scents often wear it like perfume.
Ultimately, this scent is the scent of a diamond spoon. To me, it is the scent of a hopeless hope.
Even by my mid-twenties, I have not been able to control this fragrance that Raiden describes as the coziest floral scent in the world.
In other words, it means that although I am considered to have the qualities of a mage, I am a nobody among nobodies who has never used magic even once.
Typically, children who emit this scent of mana begin to learn magic and, after about 3 or 4 years, can use a bit of magic and control the scent. This usually happens between the ages of 13 and 15.
In the traditional and historically significant mage family of Gingerbell, in the Ginger Kingdom where I was born and raised, the elders praised me early on, believing I would become an extraordinary genius mage, as I was born emitting a thick scent of mana.
The genius mages, praised by the elders, often create legends such as flying around or breaking walls by the age of two or three (and then they often die young).
As they grow up, they perform miraculous feats that ordinary mages cannot accomplish. The most famous legend in the Ginger Kingdom is the achievement of our ancestor, Gingerbell I.
At the age of fifteen, he successfully performed a two-person teleportation spell for the first time, stopping the Ginger Kingdom’s prince from confessing to the only daughter of the Bellpepper Empire’s emperor at the Imperial Academy.
The ancestor, who saved the kingdom from being crushed like a gingerbread cookie under the empire’s boot, was awarded a new castle by the fifth king of the Ginger Kingdom. (And then he also died young.) The new castle was even named ‘Gingerbell,’ after our kingdom.
Although it seems like a cunning ploy to keep our family in the kingdom forever as lifelong mages, our family loves the achievement of Gingerbell I enough to make a song about it.
Anyway, children like me, who emit the scent of mana from birth, either use magic naturally at a very early age or, after a very, very long time, suddenly use great magic as if a dam has burst.
Usually, the former die young, and the latter become long-lived archmages.
The longest-lived archimage in recorded history lived for 200 years without a single wrinkle, passing away as if falling asleep.
Since the possibility of the former is gone, the elders of my family are hoping for the latter in me. But I am already in my mid-twenties. The oldest recorded age for manifesting magic is twenty, so I am very late.
The elders say it’s because my body is weak and haven’t given up hope on me.
They believe I will become a great mage who will bring glory to the family, and they are eager to make another achievement song. (I guess this accounts for about 50% of the pressure I feel.)
Even now, at twenty-six, the elders have not given up hope. How much more would they have expected when I was younger?
At nineteen, burdened by the heavy weight of the hope I had already given up on, I decided to run away. The escape was successful, and with Raiden’s help, I got into Gigson Medical School and became a doctor.
So now, I am employed as a doctor at the knight academy, enjoying a comfortable life.
I finally managed to detach Raiden, who had clung to me. Raiden spoke with a regretful expression.
“I’m on leave for three days starting today. I haven’t taken a single day off since I joined, so they fined me and forced me to take a break. They said they’d impose a huge fine because we don’t get along well with the finance department.”
Raiden stretched as if he hadn’t moved enough and sat on the bed. Now that I think about it, it’s rare to see him in casual clothes.
.He looks so decent and proper.
I opened the office door slightly and checked the empty corridor before closing the door again.
Raiden took my milk tea.
“It’s okay. There’s only one person in the bathroom on the third floor. Oh, that one person just went down to the second floor.”
“That great ability of yours…”
Using someone’s workplace for personal gain, even if granted permission, is questionable.
As I observe one of the few hero of the sword wasting his talent, I offer my sincere apologies to the aspiring knights who tirelessly praise Sir Rensher and strive to improve their skills.
Sighing, I hurriedly tidied up my research journal and began preparing ingredients to make cold medicine.
Simple remedies like cold medicine are made in the office, which also serves as a laboratory. Raiden followed me into the office and watched as I worked.
