Ciel woke up in the dark, feeling like he was in his warm bed, wrapped up in his blanket.
'Where am I? Am I finally dead?' He wondered.
If so, death was pretty peaceful.
However, as he adjusted to the darkness, he could see that he was in a room. Not his own, but it felt familiar and unfamiliar at the same time.
Standing against the wall of a dark room, a faintly glowing grandfather clock was still in the middle of chiming, its sounds weren't quiet, but normally, Ciel would've been able to sleep right through the noise.
Both hands pointed at the number 12, signaling the start of a new day.
Just as Ciel was looking at this clock that shouldn't have been in his room, a sharp pain ran through his head as images and sounds started pouring in.
["Wait.. Wait… Let me hold my son…"
A woman being princess-carried by a man.
She was punching his shoulders, but her fists seemed to have no strength in them, not even making a sound when they hit the man's body.
With fluffy white hair and blue eyes, she was definitely an ethereal beauty. Only her dark circles showed her exhaustion.
The man gently coaxed her. His looks weren't bad either, with curly dark purple hair and golden eyes that shined in the light.
"Shhh, you're too weak after giving birth. Rest first ok? Take care of your body."
With his words, the woman finally gave up and was obediently carried out.
Maids poured into the room as soon as the couple left.
Ciel felt like he was watching a broken fast-forwarded film as fragmented images and videos came and went. When the scenery was finally stable, the surroundings had already changed to a desolate-looking tower—a far cry from the previous residence.
After a few more blurry images quickly passed through his head, the dizziness soon passed, leaving Ciel confused.
Images meshed together and slowly organized themselves in his mind. His past memories merged with his present memories.
'I am the abandoned second prince…No, I'm Ciel. Rather, I'm the abandoned prince who regained his memories of being Ciel.'
Ciel quickly and expertly cleared his head. He remembered that in the reverse harem novel he had thrown away, Theodore, the second harem member to join the heroine, had a little brother.
Theodore's mother had died after childbirth when she had Theodore's younger brother. Because of this, Theodore's father, the emperor, neglected and hated the younger brother so much that the said younger brother never even got a proper name.
'In the novel, 'The First Saintess', the no-name second prince was neglected by the imperial family until age 14. At age 14, all children are recommended to go to Ouroboros academy. Because his existence wasn't exactly a secret, the emperor was obligated to send him there. The second prince went there, fell in love with the protagonist, and became an obsessive and twisted stalker. His ending was being thrown into a horde of demons and torn to pieces.''
Ciel tapped his chin thoughtfully.
'That would've been my ending if I hadn't regained my memories.'
From his previous memories as a child, he was around 90% sure that he was in the novel he had only read because of boredom.
He sighed.
'It is what it is. Since I'm already here, why not enjoy my stay? I don't plan on being cooped up in a tower before being cooped up in an academy and then dying just like that. I'll just leave before I turn 14.'
The novel's world's background had a typical medieval background. The main protagonist had been summoned to the world of Aeon with her childhood friend to defeat the demon king. She was the saintess, and he was the hero.
It had been rare for a female protagonist to be in a isekai themed novel along with a fellow friend from another world, and that was why Ciel had picked up that novel in the first place.
This was a semi-medieval world with magic. Mana was everywhere in the environment. Every living being that had a consciousness would gain a natural affinity to an attribute or attributes, which was essentially any part of the world.
The attribute could be anything, whether it was an animal, item, natural element, etc. There was also non-attribute magic everyone could use—though most people stopped using non-attribute magic when they could use their own attributes efficiently.
When someone utilized mana, it would be converted into the magic of their attribute. The soul and body's various aspects have affinities with various attributes and the stronger the soul, the more affinities a person would be able to use in their magic and the more mana one can gather and harness. However, not everyone could use magic even if they had an affinity. Their body had to have open mana veins to sense mana, otherwise, they would have no way of using magic.
Fortunately, royal family members were one of the families whose children were born with open mana veins. Because one's affinity would mostly depend on their soul, Ciel knew that he wouldn't have the same dual shadow and ice affinities the no-name prince in the novel owned.
But all that wasn't important right now. The first step to escaping was getting stronger. Thinking this, Ciel emptied out his mind and tried to sense the mana around him. If he wanted to leave, he would have to get stronger.
…
A few hours later, Ciel gave up. He couldn't feel anything at all, and he was getting hungry. He clumsily got up, if his memories were accurate, he had just turned five years old today.
'The nanny is late today.'
The tower had no windows so Ciel couldn't see the sun, and he only had some dull lamps as a source of light. But the nanny usually arrived by the time he was hungry, and she still hadn't appeared while his stomach felt incredibly empty.
Going down the long flight of stairs in the tower, Ciel accidentally kicked over a basket of bread while feeling his way to the entrance.
'Food!' His eyes immediately lit up as his belly reminded him of its existence again. He immediately grabbed the bread from the ground and dusted it off, resisting the urge to gulp it all down and upset his stomach. However, his eating movements were still quick. The room downstairs was not as pitch black as his room above. There was a single oil lamp illuminating the dark room.
Finishing his meal, Ciel eyed the doorknob, it was too high for his current small body. He bent down, examining the flap the food was delivered through. He pushed it before squinting at it in confusion.
'What the heck?' He moved his hand forward again. It was blocked halfway by something he couldn't see.
'A magic barrier?'
He moved in several different directions in the room, his hands were always blocked by something halfway.
"Ish that guy a f*cking thycho? Who useshes barriersh on a five-year-old child?" He swore aloud, before quickly covering his mouth.
'..Was that sweet and sticky baby-ish voice that couldn't pronounce anything mine?'
Cautiously, he tried testing the waters.
"My name ish thiel."
The baby-ish voice that couldn't pronounce anything was his.
'F*ck. Thank goodness no one's here right now.'
Secretly deciding to practice his pronunciation later, Ciel ran upstairs, tripping several times in the dark before taking the lamp with him. The tower he lived in had only two rooms, the top part was his bedroom and the bottom part was the kitchen and dining room, with only stairs in between them. He confirmed his hypothesis as he tried to touch the walls of his bedroom, there was a barrier covering the entirety of the tower.
'How did I never notice this before? Ah right, I only had the mentality of a five year old child.' Ciel frowned before slapping his head.
'How am I supposed to escape now? That psycho father of mine clearly doesn't want to keep me, but he won't even let me escape! An invisible barrier is an incredibly high-level non-attribute magic and it'll alert the user if it's broken!'
Back in the kitchen, Ciel angrily stomped on the ground, his mental state temporarily influenced by his childish body.
'!'
Something clicked in his mind. Ciel looked down. The ground was covered in carpet, but he could clearly hear some echoes exclusive to the hollow ground beneath him. He went to the kitchen area to grab a knife. After some prying and digging, he could see a metal trapdoor underneath the rug.
'Alright! Three, two, one, lift!' His thin arms strained to lift the handle of the door.
Ciel quickly gave up. It was a pipe dream to lift up a heavy metal door as a weak five-year-old anyway. Hands in his pocket, he walked back to his room.
'It's fine, I'm not in a hurry. I'll try again when I'm stronger.'
Anyway, he still had around eight to nine years before he was shipped off to Ouroborus. Although he was somewhat interested in seeing the plot of the story unfold before him, he disliked school. He had already graduated a few years ago in his past life and wasn't interested in attending school again, even in a fantasy world.
At any rate, the story wasn't confined in a school setting, the school arc only took a few parts of the novel. He could watch the plot outside of school.
He then paused before extinguishing the lamp. His earlier investigations showed that there was only this one lamp in the tower; if it ran out of fuel, he really would be completely trapped in darkness. That old clock barely even illuminated its numbers, and couldn't be counted on as a source of light.
'I hope fuel is delivered along with food next time.'