A Man Who's Done It Before Does It Better

Illiteracy.

In modern Korea, on Earth, reading and writing were simply things everyone could do.

But Karakas was a harsh world.

When scraping together enough to eat was already a struggle, who had the time to learn letters?

On top of that, every race used its own completely different script — and they rarely taught it to outsiders.

Even after I promulgated a common script, it had stubbornly refused to take root.

In any case — a direct confrontation with the count.

I picked up the book and read aloud.

“Beneath the tree, only gasping moans echo through the air. A midday tryst beneath the spirit tree at the center of the village, with her skirt hiked up — Ailen shuddered even as she realized, to her shock, that she had grown hot and wet. Shameful and improper as it was, in a place like this……”

“What do you think you’re doing!”

The count erupted. I stepped back smartly.

Good thing I’d kept my distance in case he tried to hit me again.

“You told me to read. So I’m reading.”

“You little……”

“It’s genuine, I’m telling you.”

I closed the book and held it up.

“This is an erotic novel. Elves have desires too — they need an outlet, don’t they?”

“……What?”

“It’s quite popular among elves, actually — sells very well. The author is famously slow. This is the latest volume, the sixth, and it came out fifty years ago.”

I turned the book in my hand as I spoke.

“Why is it in the manor library? Because nobody realized it was erotica. Why was I reading it? Because for a man, a little titillation does wonders for motivation.”

“……”

“The fastest way to learn a foreign language is to sleep with a native speaker — that’s a universal truth, you know?”

The count stared at me with an expression that had gone well past exasperation — the look of a man staring not at his son but at his personal nemesis.

“The audacity to mock your own father……”

“My lord. The secretary has arrived.”

The library door opened and Amelia slipped back inside.

Behind her came a man wearing spectacles.

She’d stepped out only briefly — and had the good sense to return with an impartial witness.

The count turned away from me and looked at him.

“Melkon! Read that book the boy is holding!”

“Pardon? Yes, of course.”

Melkon approached me with a puzzled look, took the book, and spent a long moment studying the page in careful silence before speaking.

“Oh, this is…… ‘Beneath the tree’…… no, ‘near the thicket’?”

“Mynf in general use means ‘thicket,’ but with the definite article it becomes ‘tree.'”

“Ah, so — ‘beneath the tree, something intertwined’…… no, wait, a sound. A moaning sound……”

Melkon was laboring through it. His command of the language was clearly limited.

“……’A moan that spreads.’ No — ‘that reverberates’?”

“‘That echoes and reverberates.’ There are two diacritical marks — they need to be read together as a compound.”

Melkon nodded at my correction and pressed on.

The count’s expression shifted as he listened — something complicated moving across his face.

“……Is this real? He can actually read it? You haven’t bribed Melkon?”

“My, you’ve seen it with your own eyes and still won’t believe it — that’s rather cruel, Father.”

The man apparently preferred to suspect a bribed secretary over the possibility that his troublemaking son had suddenly become literate.

The original owner of this body, Rigen, had clearly enjoyed a remarkable level of trust.

“Haah…… ‘beneath the…… spirit tree’……”

“Enough, that’ll do. Melkon, you may go.”

“Y-yes.”

I took the book back and smiled.

The count looked at me as though he still couldn’t quite believe his own eyes.

“……You genuinely learned to read? Elven script, at that?”

“It came together once I put my mind to it.”

“……”

The count made a low, pained sound.

Then he gave a slow, deliberate nod.

“……Very well. A promise is a promise. Tell me what you want.”

“The apology first, if you don’t mind.”

“Agreed.”

The count closed his eyes and bowed his head — with genuine formality.

“I struck you in a moment of poor judgment. I will take care that it does not happen again.”

“……No, it’s all right.”

Ah. Receiving a sincere apology like this felt oddly uncomfortable.

Now that fault had been clearly established, the fact that this man could lower his head before his own child — that was no ordinary character.

The sudden awkwardness made me add something of my own.

“I’ve caused a great deal of trouble too. I’m sorry for that.”

“Let it go. What’s past is past. Now — what is it you want from me?”

“I need a personal escort. I’d like to choose someone from among the knights myself. With your permission.”

“A guard?”

The count looked thrown off.

“If that’s what you want……”

“I know the knights want nothing to do with escorting me, given how I’ve been conducting myself. I know you assigned one originally and eventually just stopped bothering.”

And that was why the previous Rigen had kept getting caught, beaten, and nearly dying.

I smiled.

“I’ll handle the selection myself — just pass word to the knights.”

“……I’ll let the knight-captain know. But are you certain that’s truly all you want?”

“It’s more than enough.”

The emotion radiating from the count was amber.

Better to let it accumulate and absorb it all at once later.

The count studied me with lingering puzzlement, then nodded.

“……Understood. I’ll speak to the knight-captain separately.”

“Thank you.”

“Right, then……”

The count started to turn away — then stopped, and looked back at me.

“……I’m sorry for hitting you, Rigen.”

Before I could respond, he was already walking out at a quick pace.

Watching his retreating back, a strange feeling washed over me.

Not a bad feeling.

“Is your face all right?”

Amelia came over with a worried look.

I smiled and touched my cheek.

“Why? Feeling guilty for telling on me to Father?”

“……”

“I’m joking. If anything, I’m grateful you had the sense to go fetch the secretary.”

By my own assessment, the original owner of this body had been genuinely hopeless.

The kind of person you never knew would cause trouble next.

Amelia had been his warden — and yet she’d worried about him anyway.

I stretched my arms above my head.

“All right, shall we call it here for today? Need to wash up, eat dinner, and rest.”

“Ah, about that……”

“Hm?”

I turned around, and Amelia hesitated before speaking.

“I think you might be ready to join the family for dinner now, Young Master. Shall I speak to the lord about it?”

Since reincarnating, I’d been eating alone in my room.

Officially it was a recovery period — but that wasn’t the whole of it.

Not being called to the family dinner table was a quiet form of exclusion.

“No, not yet. I’d only be walking into insults if I showed up now.”

“……”

“Hm — you’re not denying it.”

I laughed. Amelia’s face went faintly red.

This maid who had raised the count’s children didn’t deal in empty reassurances.

I stretched and shook out my limbs.

“Eating together can wait until I’ve sorted myself out a bit. First, I’ll visit the knights’ training grounds tomorrow.”

“Ah, if you don’t mind my saying……”

“The knights will look down on me too — something like that?”

Amelia hesitated, then gave a small nod.

The knights in the count’s service despised Rigen — the scandalous, dissolute youngest son.

“Well, their feelings aren’t hard to understand, but…… the thing is, I’m not actually going to pick a guard.”

“Pardon?”

I raised my arm and flexed my bicep with great ceremony.

Not that anything impressive was happening on this scrawny arm.

“I’m going to get built.”

“……”

“The training grounds have equipment, don’t they?”

Building a systematic training facility had been one of my achievements as emperor.

A gymnasium, in simpler terms.

Time to reverse this muscle loss.

“……Young Master, you’re flexing and nothing is happening.”

“Give it three months.”

At my bold declaration, Amelia’s face did something complicated.

She was clearly fighting back laughter.

When she caught my eye, she immediately composed herself into perfect solemnity — visibly worried I might take it as mockery.

I didn’t take it that way.

The aura flowing from her was green.

Goodwill.

“……Then shall I have dinner brought to your room again, as yesterday?”

“Something good, please.”

“I am not the head chef.”

As Amelia turned to leave, I extended my hand toward her back.

I focused — and the green light she’d been radiating flowed into my palm.

“Ahhh……”

A full, warm sensation moving through my body.

Like taking a breath of fresh air.

Amelia walked out without the faintest idea what had happened, and the door clicked shut behind her.

“That’s definitely the better approach.”

My psychic ability grew by absorbing the mental energy of those who had opened themselves to me.

Negative emotions could be absorbed too, but the efficiency was poor.

Absorbing goodwill — the energy of someone who respected and cared for me — was far more potent.

And this time Amelia hadn’t fainted, unlike before.

“Right, then……”

I settled into the plank and looked down at the book.

The strained position made my legs tremble and my breath come short.

But I held firm, and visualized the energy rising from deep in my core — pulled up along my spine and out through the top of my head.

Flap.

The corner of the page fluttered.

Just a little more. A little more……

The next chapter’s supposed to get even better!

“Ngggggh——!”

Flip-flip-flip-flip-WHOMP!

I forced everything I had — and the pages flew over in a wild rush, flipping the book completely upside down.

Thud!

“Hah— haaah— haaah——”

I’d squeezed my mind dry pushing to the edge of my body’s limit, and now I was completely spent.

I lay there gasping and stared at the ceiling.

Just turning a page — but telekinesis had been used.

Psychic ability: on track for now. Next: the body and magic.

“Right. Tomorrow I go get myself into shape.”

In a room of the Librata manor.

A handsome young man stared in disbelief.

“Rigen read Elven script?”

“Y-yes. The grammar was precise, too. Far beyond what I could manage.”

The one bowing before him was the secretary, Melkon.

The young man clicked his tongue.

“Could it be a trick? The elves don’t share their script freely — you know that. The elven books we have are just for display. No one in our family has ever learned Elven script. When could he possibly have studied it?”

“I don’t know the circumstances, but…… I’m certain of what I heard.”

Melkon added,

“The lord said he read it without a single pause. I still find it hard to believe. If that’s accurate, he’d take top honors in the linguistics department at the Academy.”

“Father was pleased by this?”

The young man’s brow furrowed.

“What exactly did Father say? Be specific.”

“Well…… he seemed quite satisfied. He also said he would assign a knight to the young master.”

“A knight? Who?”

“The young master said he’d choose one himself.”

The young man rested his chin in his hand, thinking.

“……So he’s making his moves.”

“Is there cause for concern? The knights don’t particularly like the youngest, after all.”

“No, this isn’t something to brush aside.”

The young man’s voice took on a harder edge.

“Our family has ties with the elves. I tried to learn their script myself and gave up — it’s too difficult. If word spreads that the youngest has mastered Elven script, what does that do to my standing as the eldest?”

“Hmm……”

“I never imagined he’d try something like this. Is he planning to curry favor with the elves?”

“It’s true that humans who can read Elven script fluently are rare. The elves might look at him differently.”

The young man said quietly,

“Is he actually planning to use the elves’ support to get ahead of me?”

“……Honestly, it’s not impossible. House Librata has elven patronage. If they were to back the youngest, things could become complicated.”

“……”

The young man considered this, then spoke sharply.

“Tell the knight-captain I want a private word with him.”

“Pardon?”

“He needs to be reminded of his place.”

The eldest son of House Librata.

Roderic Librata had made up his mind.