You Can Do It! You Can Do It!

Uros was no fool.

He wanted no part in the quiet power struggle between the count’s sons — but if he had to pick a side, the obvious choice was the eldest.

The youngest? Rigen Librata was a known idiot, wasn’t he?

But the moment he watched that spar, every last one of those assumptions was blown to pieces.

Rigen had been flawless.

The footwork, the sharp eye reading his opponent’s movements, the timing of the charge right after throwing the sword, the downward finish — all of it.

To Uros, who had climbed all the way to knight-captain with a blade in hand, there had been nothing to criticize. Not a single thing.

The realm of a sword master!

Rigen had never once held a sword in his life…… which meant this was simply a heaven-sent genius, wasn’t it?

If he could properly train this boy, surely he would become the greatest knight in all the empire!

And Uros would be the master who had raised the empire’s greatest knight!

Uros had completely forgotten the eldest’s request.

In the face of Rigen’s overwhelming talent, some petty sibling squabble simply didn’t matter!

Uros looked at Rigen with blazing eyes.

He believed without a shadow of doubt that this delicate-faced young man would one day stand at the very top of the empire.

I clicked my tongue at Uros’s burning stare.

This man had it completely backwards.

I was the emperor of a previous life — the strongest in the empire. Why on earth would I take swordsmanship lessons from some backwater knight?

What a waste of time.

I’d brush him off with some excuse and make my exit.

Oblivious to my thoughts, knight-captain Uros pressed on with passionate enthusiasm.

“Young Master, you are a genius with the sword! Truly a talent that appears once in a hundred years — a thousand, even!”

“Hey, feinting with a two-sword stance and then throwing one to break your opponent’s guard is basic. Entry-level. Plus, your men had already written me off as an idiot and dropped their guard. With all those conditions in my favor, it would’ve been stranger if I’d lost.”

“Here, take this.”

Suddenly Uros drew his sword, flipped it around, and held it out hilt-first.

A warrior offering his own weapon was no small thing — I took it on reflex.

Uros practically snorted with admiration.

“Your grip is perfect too. You were simply born with it!”

“Ah, this is……”

Even with magical power and stamina at rock bottom, habits didn’t change.

I’d spent a lifetime swinging a sword. Holding one felt natural.

But to someone who didn’t know that, it would look like nothing but innate genius.

“What, aren’t you going to flatter me some more? Tell me the angle of the throw and the timing of the rush were also the work of a prodigy?”

“Of course they were! Every bit of it! Do you think I’d recommend just anyone based on a single glance? I’m not a man who hands out praise easily!”

Uros was nearly spitting with excitement.

“Throwing your weapon to break an opponent’s stance before closing in — yes, that’s practical. But a young master with no calluses on his hands pulled it off with absolute perfection. The breathing, the form, the follow-through — not one flaw anywhere!”

“All right, you’re hurting my ears. Calm down.”

I held the sword back out to him. Uros shook his head.

“Try swinging it around a bit. I want to see.”

“No. I don’t want to. Take it.”

“……Mmmmm.”

Uros accepted the sword back with the wounded expression of a man genuinely hurt by the rejection.

“It was your first proper bout, so you must be tired. My apologies. Shall we begin training tomorrow then?”

“I won’t be training with you in the future either.”

“……Pardon?”

Uros looked at me like an abandoned puppy.

A half-bald middle-aged man making that face was…… honestly a little alarming.

“Young Master, you have extraordinary talent — and you’re saying you won’t train it? You’d let a treasure go to waste?”

“I’m going to do physical conditioning. I will do that, but……”

“Any man of strength ought to become a knight! Don’t tell me you’re planning to enlist in the Imperial Army? That is absolutely out of the question. A complete waste of talent!”

I’d only come here to work out and now this man had latched onto me like a barnacle.

How to shake him off?

There was no way I’d be taking lessons from him. I was in a completely different league.

But shutting him down flat would hurt his feelings, and he clearly wasn’t the type to give up easily.

I thought it over and said,

“I’m not sure you’ve earned the right to be my teacher.”

“Granted, I don’t measure up to the great knights of this age. But the Librata knights have existed since before the empire — our sword style passed down through generations is no ordinary thing. If you were to carry it forward as my disciple, you’d grow far beyond what any training alone could achieve. A knight who stands on equal footing even against the non-human warriors!”

“That’s not what I mean……”

I looked around the gymnasium and pointed at the barbell.

“I only take instruction from people stronger than me.”

“Pardon?”

“Deadlift that — push it hard — and I might consider learning from you. And naturally, no magic. Show me your strength and your grit, and if it genuinely impresses me, I’ll call you my teacher.”

“Ha, how hard can it be to lift that thing once?”

Uros scoffed and planted himself in front of the barbell.

“Hey, don’t just grab it. Get your form right first.”

Uros was a big man, well-muscled — but he had a considerable gut as well.

This was not a body built through systematic training.

“So then — what weight are we going for? The heavier it is, the heavier my respect for you.”

“Ha, how about this to start?”

Uros loaded the bar to 100kg with confident hands, and I clicked my tongue.

“Come on. For your size? You’re embarrassing yourself.”

“……Right. Haha.”

“My teacher? I wouldn’t be impressed if you lifted 400kg.”

The current world record on Earth had cleared 500kg, hadn’t it?

As I kept adding weight, Uros’s expression grew increasingly strained.

300kg.

Even an experienced knight would hesitate to attempt that.

And Uros didn’t even know the proper form.

“……Mmmm. Let’s try this.”

“Really? You’re comfortable with this being the size of my respect?”

I smiled as I said it, and Uros set his jaw and added another 20kg.

320kg.

I said it plainly.

“All right. Drive through your hips and pull it all the way up. If you can’t, just give up.”

“Nnngh. Nnnnngh!”

Uros gripped the bar and strained — it didn’t budge.

Well — the bar shook a little. But it wasn’t going anywhere.

Not enough muscle. No technique.

“Nnngh! Nnnngh!”

“You can do it! You’ve got this!”

I clapped my hands and cheered him on.

Something about watching someone push themselves made me want to root for them.

I used to do this all the time as emperor…… and for some reason everyone always looked like they were dying.

“Krrrgh! Nnnnnngh!”

“Give up if it’s too much.”

“I — I can——”

Uros looked straight at me and wrung every last drop of strength from his body.

Trembling.

His arms shaking, the bar rising — just barely, a little at a time.

In that moment, through my inner sight, I saw Uros’s aura.

Blue.

Goodwill.

Setting his sights on taking me as his disciple had opened something in him toward me.

I absorbed it immediately.

I spread my hand and drew in Uros’s aura.

A clear, bright sensation moved through my body.

My psychic abilities grew stronger.

“That should be enough for……”

Basic telekinesis ought to be workable now.

I was checking my own state when Uros, still forcing the bar upward, let out a scream.

“Ahhh — ahhhhhh!”

Crack-crack!

CRASH!

Uros dropped the barbell and staggered backward.

His body swayed, then he went down hard — sitting flat on the floor, gasping for breath.

“Hey, you all right? Can you stand?”

“My, my back……”

Looked like he’d pushed too hard and hurt himself.

“Hey! Is anyone out there!”

“H-Hah — Young Master, I can still — I can still do it!”

I called out for help and Uros insisted, still fighting it.

I said it gently.

“I understand what you’re trying to say. Uros.”

“Young Master, then will you allow me to teach……”

“Next time, try 350kg. That’s exactly how heavy my respect is.”

I appreciate the spirit, but I had no intention of becoming anyone’s disciple at this point in my life.

Uros drooped his head, the light going out of his eyes as he looked at me.

I left him in the care of the other knights and did some light cardio before heading back to my room.

Late afternoon.

“No treadmill, so I suppose running laps around the training yard is the only option…… Maybe build up cardio first and then move to strength training?”

Back in my emperor days, I’d managed to recreate most of Earth’s training equipment — but a few things had been beyond reach.

Karakas’s civilization lagged behind twenty-first century Earth in many ways.

I’d designed and built what I could as emperor…… but they’d only just gotten railroads laid down.

The magic lamp lighting my room right now ran on magical power, not electricity.

“Electricity really is what we need. If I could just invent it, rapid modernization would——”

I was tapping the magic lamp and thinking when I caught myself.

Why was I agonizing over Karakas’s civilization development?

“Someone else will figure it out! Absolutely they will!”

I’d worked myself to death and reincarnated — and I was going to work again?

My plan was simple: this body was too feeble, so I’d build up my physical conditioning, magical ability, and psychic powers until I was a functional human being.

After that — rest, leisure, do nothing.

“Swordsmanship training at this point in my life. Please.”

I — Sirik Karakas — had been humanity’s strongest during my lifetime.

I was curious whether anyone stronger had emerged in the past hundred years, but……

“For now, psychic abilities first.”

I reached out toward the book propped up on the bed.

“Nnngh.”

It didn’t come right away, but I pushed — and the book rose slowly into the air.

Control. Control.

Telekinesis was foundational to psychic ability, but fine control was the hard part.

Gravity was the problem.

An absolute force pulling everything downward.

Telekinesis was the act of overcoming that absolute pull and moving objects with the mind.

As I focused harder, the book bobbed gently up and down — and drifted toward me.

“Just a little more…… nnnnngh!”

Slap!

Got it!

I was pleased with myself when the door burst open and someone rushed in.

“Young Master!”

It was Amelia.

She was visibly startled — her silver-gray wolf ears stood bolt upright, and her tail had escaped from her maid uniform and was standing stiff and straight.

“You do realize knocking is customary? Drop something at that age and there are consequences, you know.”

I played it casual, but Amelia spoke urgently.

“I heard what happened. They’re saying the knight-captain had a terrible run-in with you?”

“What?”

Amelia looked me over from head to toe, and her expression eased slightly.

The yellow aura of shock and alarm was shifting toward green.

“……You don’t seem to be injured, at least.”

“It was just some exercising. What exactly did you hear?”

“Well…… they said you and the knight-captain got into a confrontation. That the knight-captain sustained a serious back injury.”

Amelia seemed embarrassed about having overreacted — she quickly smoothed her expression back to neutral.

The wolf ears and tail gradually settled.

“I thought you might have been badly hurt as well.”

“The knight-captain and I didn’t fight. We just worked out together.”

“……”

Amelia looked at me with an expression she couldn’t quite sort out.

The knight-captain was seriously injured, and yet the frail young master was perfectly fine — nothing about that added up.

“The knight-captain and I weren’t fighting. He pushed himself too hard during our workout and threw out his back.”

“……Is that so?”

“That’s what happened. You should be careful too. Exercise has to be done with a plan.”

Amelia placed a hand over her chest and gave a quiet nod.

Her usual neutral expression restored, she informed me,

“Young Master, the lord has requested your presence at dinner this evening.”

“I’ve been declining every time until now, haven’t I?”

“……He wasn’t inviting you before, to be accurate.”

The count had changed his tune after watching me read Elven script without faltering, and had been extending invitations ever since. I’d been declining on the grounds that I still wasn’t feeling well.

Amelia said carefully,

“If you’d rather not, I’ll decline on your behalf again.”

“What excuse would you use?”

“I’ll say you’re exhausted from exercising with the knight-captain.”

“You’re relentlessly honest.”

I smiled wryly.

A family sitting down to eat together.

Come to think of it, it had been a long time since I’d had something like that.

Did emperors eat alone?

One way and another, I had distanced myself from the empresses, and somehow that had become my life.

“Does the eldest dislike me?”

“May I speak plainly?”

“You always do.”

“I believe there is no one in this household who is fond of you, Young Master.”

“What, Amelia doesn’t like me either? Sob, sob.”

I made a show of crying. Amelia pressed her lips together.

She was working to keep her face composed, but the flustered look peeked through.

“I have never disliked you, Young Master. When I’ve scolded you, it has always been because you were doing something you shouldn’t……”

“Waaah. Sniff sniff. Amelia said she doesn’t like me. I’m going to cry. I’m really going to cry!”

“……Young Master, please maintain some decorum.”

I’d heard that plenty of times as emperor. I’d ignored it then too.

I kept it up, and Amelia looked genuinely at a loss.

“……At the very least, you’ve seemed different lately.”

“Don’t worry. I’ll cry about it today, and by the day after tomorrow I’ll be back to sneaking out and chasing someone’s girlfriend and getting beaten black and blue.”

“……”

“I’m joking — don’t look at me like that. Does a place like this have mana potions?”

I changed the subject, and Amelia asked,

“Mana potions…… do you mean the elixir that awakens magical power in a person?”

“That’s the one.”

Long ago, humans had been a race with no access to magic at all.

But humans who drank a mana potion and awakened magic within themselves passed that gift to their children, who were born with it from the start.

Through generation after generation of that inheritance, the number of magic-capable humans gradually grew.

And those whose magic passed cleanly and strongly down through bloodlines — that was what a noble house was.

Every noble had magical ability.

And yet this Rigen Librata — a son of an count — had not a single drop of it.

It had puzzled me at first, but I was starting to have a suspicion.

Amelia thought it over and said,

“The butler would know for certain, but…… I believe there’s stock on hand. However, mana potions are precious goods — they can’t be taken out without the lord’s permission.”

“I’m not planning to steal it. I’m going to ask.”

“Ah, Young Master — if I may say so……”

“Amelia always speaks her mind. Go ahead and stab away.”

I smiled, and Amelia said hesitantly,

“The first young master will oppose it. Mana potions are precious, and……”

“He doesn’t want a valuable elixir handed over to the useless youngest? Something like that?”

Amelia gave a small, silent nod.

I smiled.

“All right, then I’ll rest today — and let the count know I’ll come to dinner tomorrow.”

“Pardon?”

“Father will be at a family dinner. The eldest will be too, won’t he?”

I smiled as I said it.

“I’ll just ask there.”

Might as well start spending some of the family fortune.