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At the age of 13, you're eligible to enter the Academy. All of the nobility and the commoners have the chance to enter the state-designated academy. Of course, you can't just walk right in though.
The story in the novel begins in the Academy, but it was not particularly exciting. I just needed to move towards my goal. I simply wanted to be an official. Officials in this world have a high salary, and the household that paid officials the highest pensions were the knights. So my goal has been set to serve the Knights of the Imperial Family. I wanted to go to the First Knights Templar and live my life after getting a large pension, but because of the limit of the "glass ceiling", entering the Second Knights Templar was the primary goal now. (T/N: glass ceiling is a metaphor used to represent an invisible barrier that keeps a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.)
By the way, if I enter the academy, there'll be a handful of men getting twisted by Hestia… I won't be able to get into a relationship, but it was inevitable that I needed to attend the Academy. Even if it's not my story, it's a very interesting story.
"Someone appeared."
I woke up early in the morning and went to the training grounds as usual. Among the characters in the book, there was the Crown Prince of the Empire, the King of the Marquis and the Little Prince, plus the son of a rich upper class family. It was something cliche that appeared in every novel. All these characters' families existed since the founding of the Empire. There's a certain family, and even though they don't have a title, they're a top family that spent all their money helping the nation. The conclusion was that the whole house was well fed. One of the love interests is a character that I would love to meet in the future. I really loved them. Was it the Crown Prince….?
"Char!"
While I was walking around the field with magic formula notes in my hand, a man came running towards me.
"I heard the story! You're going to the academy! When are you leaving?"
"Tomorrow."
"What!?"
That someone was my blue-haired brother.
Harun West, with blue hair like the sky and black eyes, he was mentioned with Char West in the novel, and was a character with possessive characteristics. Harun had the same goal as me, so he would always come bother me around this time of the day when I was training. Seeing his blue colored hair drenched in sweat, I guessed it's been a while since I've started training.
"What are you doing! Get out of here!"
My clothes and body were sweaty and stuck together, so I asserted my voice. I grasped him, crushing my notes. The strong smell of sweat came from Harun. If it were someone else, they would have listened to me, but my brother responded just as strongly as I did.
"When you leave, I can't have fun with you anymore. I won't be able to see you sword training every morning."
"You can see me when you enter the Academy someday too."
I didn't like the feeling of his bare skin, so I pushed him away and he had a hurt expression.
"That's just too much! If you passed, you should have told me first! Then I would have given you a bunch of flowers or hosted an event!"
I put on a look of astonishment at his remark.
"Don't. I thought I told you not to."
"Why? Char, do you hate me?"
"Just try. I'll tear it all up."
Harun, who started running around the training grounds, tilted his head.
"Why? Aren't you the only lady of the West family? That's what you should do. Our parents are really preparing hard for you to go there."
"If you're going to spend money on useless things, try to pay it back soon. Oh, and don't call me that."
"Ha-ha, but you're the only one who wants to be an official!"
I'm still worried about what happened eight years ago. This brother of mine still remembered the incident, which marked me as a strange child among the aristocratic wives.
"Don't you just want to see Hestia anyways?"
"As always Char. You're quick to notice!"
I opened my mouth, lightly staring at my brother Harun, who was running ahead.
"Don't ask me to do that. I'm never doing it."
"Eh? Have you ever even thought about connecting me to her?"
Of course I've thought about it, but this brother and and all of the other men around me, are dying to meet Hestia. But even if I thought about it…
"Don't even think about it. Hestia will feel guilty. "
"It's okay. This brother will never ask Char to do such a favor."
Harun said so and smiled like a cheese stick covered in butter. I'm uncomfortable. I think I just got goosebumps.
"Smile that way in front of Hestia."
"Why? Is it attractive?"
"Yes, very much. You're going to get dumped."
When Harun heard me, he raged, saying,
"What's the matter with you?"
But I only huffed in reply.
* * *
After regaining the memories of my previous life, I thought about my future after graduating from the Academy.
Marriage was the best way to solve financial holes in houses, but it wasn't good to think about. That's why I saved up money rapidly to avoid the worst. I often did things anonymously because i couldn't raise money openly as an aristocrat. All the jobs I received were technical. For example, repairing magical vents and repairing magical coolers. These were things that were difficult even for the creators of the magical tools, because it was much more easier to understand the concept of magic rather than actually use magic.
Because of this, I was able to charge a high price for every job. My alias was quickly decided and named 'Charibalen,' which seemed to be getting quite popular recently. The job requests kept coming in. In fact, this was only possible because of my previous lifes' memories. There were many overlapping parts of the science in my past life and the magic here. It was very useful majoring in mechanics and programming in my past life as a student.
I pumped mana into my fingers and pulled out the magic formula drawn on the item, after that, I enlarged it. When I grasped the reason, it seemed that some parts of it had been erased by an external power. With the combination of various magic spells and the recovery magic that I came up with, I returned all the lost parts of the magic telephone tool.
And I never forget to finish things off by casting a protection spell so that they wouldn't leak any information. Once I finished the job, I put all of the finished products into a storage space and stretched.
Today's total is 10 gold, which is a little more than the average living expenses for a commoner, a year. 10 gold earned for dealing with 4 cases. It usually takes about 10 to 20 minutes per case, so it's a pretty good source of income.
I don't think it's necessary to pay attention to this, but the fact is, that having a certain income on the surface has a positive effect on my future credit. Besides, I've already been drilling a hole in my house for how much I've earned, so I don't have to give up my goal of serving the knights. The main reason was that holding the sword was pretty fun. I put the money I received into my pocket. The jingling sounds couldn't be heard because it was in a pocket I made with magic. Having finished my work, I slowly got up to pack up for the academy tomorrow.
Knock, knock, knock.
I raised my head at the knocking sounds. Who could it be? When I questioned that in my head, the door opened.
"Sister Char…"
My other brother, who was two years younger than me, ran to my side. In his hands was a glass filled with warm milk and thick chocolate chip cookies that smelled of smoke.
Karim West is the name of this cute little creature that just ran to me. He had sky-blue hair like Harun's, but his eye color was scarlet like mine. His fluffy hair was like that of a puppy's. I brushed my fingers into his fluffy hair, it smelled like muffins. It looks like he baked a muffin with a maid before coming in. I could see his watery eyes between his lashes. He must have been crying.
"Are you really leaving tomorrow?"
Karim hugged the back of my waist tightly and sniffled. I patted his head and turned to face him. He looked a little more shy after that. He then began to eat the cookies and milk that he had brought over. Wait, didn't he bring that for me? I was a little embarrassed, but I wiped the cookie crumbs off his mouth and told him to eat to his heart's content. He cried while I held him, and ate everything, he then opened his mouth and said
"Will you forget about me when you leave? Can we talk on the phone every day so you don't?"
Karim's voice was shaking. I felt a pang in my heart so I hugged him even tighter. Karim then asked if I could change into Hestia. I tickled his stomach at that statement. Karim began to cry and burst into laughter after I tickled him. He made an excuse that he would listen to the school stories that I didn't tell him, from Hestia.
"Don't be so sad because I'll visit you on my break. If you listen to mother and father, I'll come visit you soon. By the way, do you remember what I asked you to do?"
"Eh, to write down all the household expenses? I didn't forget! I'll write it down! Don't worry!"
Karim continued, and I stroked his hair, delighted.
"Also, Linda replaced father's shirt with a spare one from my wardrobe."
"Ah! I see, but I guess it can't be helped since she's getting too old to see. "
"Good. Then we can say that she's trustworthy."
Due to the recent recession, we had to expel all the maids and employees.
So we only have a few employees left. One of them was Linda, the oldest maid in the family, and her age led to an increasing number of mistakes. But if we fire her now, she'll definitely have nowhere else to go. So for some reason we're trying to cover up her mistakes. Once I enter the academy, I'll be absent for a long time, so I asked Karim for help, and he understood me well. Karim smiled shyly when I kissed him on the cheek a few times. It was because he was so cute.
Karim slept in my room that night. Karim was still young, so he was afraid of sleeping alone. Because of this, he often visited my room. When he came to visit, I always read him a fairy tale book or told him a made up story so that he could sleep comfortably. Tonight, the story I told him was "A thrilling chase between the unemployed and the ring leader who sat in a pile of light." Karim seemed to struggle falling asleep at first when he heard my story, but soon fell asleep soundly.
I tucked Karim into bed. I had to pack myself a wooden sword and a real sword, or I would fall behind in the sword department. After all my preparations, I stood in front of the mirror and meditated with the five magical words, "self-made, landlord, official, land registry certificate and career woman," before lying down beside Karim to sleep. I was doing it every night because the self-help book said it would work, but I was so embarrassed that I wiggled my toes until I fell asleep.