I straightened out the sheets of my bed for one final time, admiring the now smooth surface of my rather primitive bed. It wasn’t the greatest bed out there, the one in the estate soothes my back more, not to mention Carine’s canopy bed being my back’s eternal companion… But it was still my bed, and I never imagined I would miss sleeping on it, but here we are.

With all my stuff all sorted out, I took another look at my room. Despite how long I had left for the capital, there was barely any dust in the room. Mom took care of the room very well, which warms my heart.

Stepping out of the room, I spotted Mom and Dad exactly where I left them. Mom was still cleaning the table while Dad was sitting on a chair near the window, while… carving wood? He held a small knife, tracing it carefully onto a small carved cylindrical wood. There was a small sack beneath to prevent the wood shavings from falling onto the floor.

Apparently, it was a hobby he picked up recently.

"All settled?" Mom asked, pausing her cleaning.

I gave a nod. “Yep, just need to sort out my clothes…”

"Good, good.” Dad cleared his throat, shifting in his chair. He placed his tools on the windowsill. “While you're here, son… We wanted to talk about that letter. The one you sent a few months back?"

Mom nodded, coming over to stand beside Dad. "The part about the Talent Scroll, Feyt. The Duke... did he really just... gave you one? A full, proper, genuine Talent Scroll?"

Ah. That. I’d scribbled it almost as an afterthought, buried between updates on training drills and the capital's weather. Guess it stood out more than I realized.

"Yeah," I said, trying to match their surprise without overselling it. "After... well, after things settled down from the incident. He told me to think of it as… an investment."

"Feyt, I don’t think you know just how expensive that scroll is!” Dad said, his eyebrows rising.

I think I know the price well enough.

Having heard the price directly—technically, at least—I didn’t want to think about that number again.

“We nearly skimmed over that line in your letter, you wrote it so casually! 'Oh, by the way, the Duke gave me a Talent Scroll.' You wrote it like you just got a pair of new pants!"

Those weren’t my exact wording… but yeah, I did phrase it somewhat like that. The reason why was something… troublesome.

“You see, hon.” Mom said. “We’ve been saving up for you to buy you a Talent Scroll someday. And we were starting to get pretty close thanks to Fray’s job. Another season, maybe two, and we'd have scraped together enough to buy you a Scroll ourselves.”

Dad nodded along, crossing his arms. “We were even planning on giving it to ya on your birthday.”

Was that what they were planning all along? After hearing the price of the scroll, I had a feeling it would take a few more years for my family to afford one. Didn’t think Mom and Dad would actually be able to save up this much.

How much had they sacrificed? How many meals have they skimped out of? Asking those questions to myself felt… wrong. By receiving Father’s “investment,”... had I denied Mom and Dad’s sacrifice?

As if sensing my inner conflict, Dad suddenly coughed, snapping me out of my thoughts.

“Hey! Don’t get the wrong idea here. We’re not disappointed or anything, in fact, this is great! You saved us a fortune, you know?” He laxed his arms as he leaned forward. “Just wanted to tell ya, that if we hadn’t realized that you wrote about having your Talents appraised, we would’ve bought one already.”

That would be an unfortunate timing…

But yeah, all this conversation amounted to was a lecture about me needing to be clearer with my letters… Got it.

I scratched the back of my head, offering an awkward laugh. “S-sorry… I’ll try to be clearer next time.”

Dad nodded.

Mother clasped her hands with a wide smile. “So? Spill it! What'd the Scroll say?”

And that… was the reason I tried keeping the whole Talent Scroll thing discreet.

I avoided their eyes, focusing on the gaps in the wooden floorboard. "The Duke told me to keep the specifics quiet. For now, at least.”

Dad stared at me for a long moment. Then, a slow, wide grin spread across his face. He sat back with a satisfied thump, crossing his arms. "Oh, I get itt!" He nudged Mom.

The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.

G-Get what?

“Your Talents, they must be something incredible! Something that'd make those fancy-pants jealous if they knew a village lad had it!" He gave a proud nod at me. "It’s good to keep your cards close and drop them jaws when the time comes. Just like I did when I first started hunting. Shocked them with my throwing axe, I did!"

R-Right…

Dad was a lot more optimistic than I remembered. Maybe it was a way to cheer or hype me up? Well, nobody knows but him. Since I didn’t even know my Talents, there was a chance that Dad’s theory of my Talent being something great was true.

As we continued our conversation, my eyes landed on the white field beyond the window. It was buried in snow, undoubtedly unusable at the moment. "Speaking of... how are you guys managing with the snow and no crops?"

Mom waved a dismissive hand. "Oh, don't you worry about that! We’ve got enough to buy food, fuel, and even drinks! And we hadn't even touched the scroll fund yet.”

Dad chuckled. “We had Fray to thank for that. It seems every time she returns from her trip, she brings back more coins day by day. She’s been keeping our shelves full and your mother’s needs fulfilled.”

I didn’t know her errand-running business was that profitable. Could the rising profits come from the changing seasons? More clients? Or could she be extorting money from poor passers-by? Jokes aside, I was impressed by how well she’d been working for the family.

At the moment, I was hearing her snoring in her deep sleep in her room. If she were here, hearing Dad praising her like this, she would’ve rubbed that in my face somehow.

Well, to future-proof that, I could only hope that once I became Carine’s bodyguard, the pay would be generous.

—

The Royal Knights Academy

The Board of Directors Room

Late Noon

The atmosphere inside the room was tense. Several men and women sat there with their faces solemn. They were the directors in charge of the academy’s operations as well as adopting any orders coming from the Royal Family.

They hadn’t spoken a word since they sat in this room a few minutes ago, their sharp gaze directed at the one sitting at the far end of the stretched table, who had just arrived.

The Third Prince of Setus, Julient.

He sat with his gloved hands holding several sheets of paper, the same copies distributed to each and every one of the directors’ side of the table.

“Greetings, oh wise directors of the Royal Knights Academy,” Julient said with a slight bow of his head. His smile never wavered. “First, I would like to thank you for coming to meet me in such a weather. I greatly appreciate your commitment to this academy.”

The room remained silent. But this didn’t deter Julient, who continued his speech.

He adjusted the paper in his hands, its sound unnaturally loud in the small, isolated room.

“As you are no doubt aware, the Royal Knights Academy stands as the paramount institution for nurturing Setus’s greatest martial and strategic individuals, from which it depends for its future.”

A low murmur rippled through the directors. Was it an agreement? Or were they impatient? It was impossible to tell beneath their practiced masks of authority. But that didn’t matter to Julient.

"However," Julient's tone shifted lower subtly. He lifted one of the papers slightly, but his eyes never left the faces of the directors. "Recent observations suggest a potential… flaw… in its system.”

Julient let the sentence hang as he watched the sea of faces react. A few of them narrowed their eyes, a few groaned under their breath. But one raised her voice.

“Flaw?” asked Director Mayarre, a middle-aged high-nobility woman with dark red hair styled into elegant braids. Her voice was cold and slightly nasally. “Your Highness, forgive me for asking, but what such a flaw have you observed?”

“Thank you for your question, Director.” Julient offered a warm smile at Mayarre’s question. “The flaw that I had seen was, beyond a certain doubt, is its selection of commoner students.”

In an instant, the room went from professional mumblings to a tired cacophony of groans. The directors seemed to know what Julient was doing, and he didn’t doubt that.

The commoner students in the Royal Knights Academy are, admittedly, rare. There was never more than one class of commoner students, and even then, never once did they ever hit the maximum capacity for a class.

Thus, their class schedules had always been irregular. They were isolated. They had little to no connection. Many still held on and became great knights, but their potential was, in Julient’s eyes at least, hampered greatly.

The reason for this lack of commoner students was clear. The entrance exam’s fees were exorbitant, at least for those not of aristocratic birth. The exam itself was deliberately made tough. Even if Julient had a hand in its annual design, his proposals would be rejected if there was even a hint of showing mercy.

But today, in this room, Julient wished to change it all.

“Your Highness, if I may…” said Director Mayarre. Unlike the others, she kept a neutral face of professionalism. “I believe I speak for all of us by suggesting that, if the ‘flaw’ you observed was about our low acceptance rate for commoners, then I’m afraid we cannot consider easing the criteria.”

“Yes, I agree with Mayarre.” One other director nodded, a balding man, also high-nobility. “Our academy prides itself on its knights. We cannot allow those who are incompetent to join out of sheer pity. I’m sure, as the Scholar Prince, you would understand that fact, yes?”

Julient blinked for a few seconds, acting confused. He chuckled for a moment before continuing, “I… believe there has been a misunderstanding… If you would please take a look at the papers I have prepared for you,” he said as he gestured to the papers. “You would find my… true purpose with this proposal.”

They all narrowed their eyes, skeptical. Reluctantly, each of them picked up the papers and began reading through them carefully. Then, their eyes widened in surprise. Their mumbles began to grow again, pushing out the tense silence once more.

“This…This is?” Director Mayarre blinked, perhaps believing she misread something.

Julient clasped his hand with a resounding clap, catching everyone’s attention from the papers. “As you can see, I have seen a flaw in the selection of the students through these tests.”

The directors' eyes were locked onto Julient, now undoubtedly curious on what he was planning.

"Through these tests, can we truly see who is worthy of attending our prestigious Royal Knights Academy? Can we truly see who is capable of becoming our kingdom's future? After a thorough inspection, I can wholeheartedly say that the answer... is no."

"That is why..." Julient slowly lowered his arms onto the table as he lowered his tone. “For the commoners—Ah, forgive me. I mean, the standardized tests. I propose we intensify the exam.”

image [https://i.imgur.com/ftefrrv.png]