Chapter 6 - Weird Family

"What is the meaning of this?" Laiex asked after he approached and took away the magic book from Zaos hands.

At that moment, Lyra finally woke up, and she looked pretty confused and scared. Her husband was really angry for some reason, and someone that big was quite scary when he became angry. After a few moments, she realized that he had grabbed the book from Zaos's hands, was looking at him, and also seemed pretty angry. Since they were father and son, they looked alike, even more, when they were angry.

"I am sorry… my lord," Lyra said. "It seems Zaos took it while I was sleeping. That won't happen again."

"Be careful from now on," Laiex said. "Not only is he too young to try reading this, but if he could, it could have caused a disaster."

"Yes," Lyra said with her head down.

Zaos's frowned when he saw that scene, the relationship between those two was just too odd, and now he heard his mother calling his father by 'my lord.' That was just too weird… only the servants of the house were that polite.

"No," Zaos said. "Give me back the book."

Laiex frowned when he heard that. While it seemed that Zaos was pretty smart, he never heard him speak long sentences. Besides, it looked like a one-year-old clearly understood what was going on, and that was also weird. Regardless, Zaos thought that would make his father even angrier, but much to his surprise, that didn't happen.

"This isn't a toy, Zaos," Laiex said. "You are too young for this and you aren't going to become a mage. You will become a warrior and one day will become the head of the family."

In the end, Zaos was caught off guard, so he didn't know how to answer. For the first time, his father taught him something, and that was certainly known. While he didn't like that someone else was trying to decide his future, it was very likely that was something common in that world. Now that Zaos thought about it, the book his mother read a while ago didn't mention the head of the family being a mage.

"In two weeks, we are going to the castle for the princess' birthday party," Laiex said while he was putting the book on the bookshelf. "The three of us are going together, so make the necessary preparations."

"Yes," Lyra nodded.

Thanks to the fact that Zaos was going to leave the mansion for the first time, he completely forgot what had just happened. Almost a year had passed since he was born in that world, so while he didn't explore the whole mansion yet, he still wanted to check things outside.

"In any case… a princess, huh," Zaos thought. "While the books mother read mentioned some of them and all of them seemed pretty virtuous and strangely well-behaved, I am pretty sure it looks like someday I will work to become the bodyguard of a spoiled brat."

Zaos didn't know what to think of the fact that his ancestors all followed the same path, and it looked like he had the duty to do the same. In any case, he was still young, so he just had to wait and see how things would play out. One week passed quite quickly, and while his mother was doing the preparations to visit the castle, she suddenly stopped and looked at Zaos.

"Tomorrow is your birthday, Zaos," Lyra said with a smile on her face. "Usually, boys only have birthday parties and receive gifts from others when they become big enough to start their sword training and when they join the army, so you are only going to receive a gift from me. What do you want?"

It looked like there were some differences in treatment between boys and girls, not like Zaos could care less about that. He already knew what he wanted, so he asked without hesitation.

"Teach me how to read the magic book," Zaos replied.

As expected, it looked like Zaos went too far this time. His mother showed a look of surprise on her face, and while she knew that Zaos was a smart and good kid, he clearly wanted something that his father forbade it.

"I am sorry, Zaos, but I can't," Lyra said. "Your father will be sad if we do this behind his back. While you can learn some magic in the future, that shouldn't be your focus. It would be a waste if you were to become a mage while you are blessed with such a strong body."

"It is okay, mama," Zaos said. "I will become a mage and a warrior."

"Hahaha, you are such a greedy boy, Zaos," Lyra said while she was poking her son's cheek. "… All right, I will teach you how to read the magic book, but you need to promise that you won't use magic or try to read a magic book without my consent."

"I promise," Zaos said.

"You promised, huh," Lyra frowned and then hugged Zaos. "Did I ever teach you what a promise means? I guess I must have mentioned while I was reading one of the books."

Thanks to that, Zaos noticed that his mother probably was a mage. Having a weak body, she found in magic a way to improve her life in some way. While magic was probably looked down upon by the society of that world, Zaos didn't feel the need to ostracize those who use it even though he belonged to a family that had quite a history with people that had muscles for brains.

From that day onward, Lyra began to teach Zaos how to read the magic books. As expected, they had their own set of rules to be read, but as if that wasn't enough, one had to use mana to understand the meaning of each symbol and then make them work in real life. At least that was what Lyra told Zaos. In any case, at the end of that day, Zaos noticed some changes in his life after he successfully managed to use mana to read the symbols.

Your Sorcery has reached level 01

Health: 04/04

Mana: 14/14

Stamina: 04/04

Strength: 02

Magic: 07

Endurance: 02

Resistance: 07

Focus: 01

Sorcery Lv 01