Here's your tea.

　Meldy, in her maid's uniform, served tea and sweets to me, Tina, Rifa, and my brother Cain.

　Their manners are becoming quite good.

　It's all thanks to Tina's guidance.

"Thanks, Meldi.

Yes.

　Meldy walked out of the parlor with her tail pinned up.

'A maid of the beastmen race?　........I knew it was wrong here.

　Cain muttered while following Meldy's figure out of the room with his eyes.

''No, the beastmen and high-level spirits are still fine. The problem is the nine-tailed fox. It's a level demon race that requires all the country's knightly members to defeat it. If they go out of control here.......will they really be okay?

It's okay. I'm a good steward and I won't let him do anything bad.

　We can't let them take down our precious, fluffy employee Yoko.

"Yoko-san is a great kid. It won't be like what you're worried about, Cain-sama.

　Tina also defends Yoko.

'If Tina says so, do you believe her? In the meantime, she says I should just leave my intuition to Hurt, too.

　Hey, brother.

　Why is it that you don't trust my words, or even your own instincts, but you readily believe Tina's words?

　Well, for now, it was good that Cain no longer considered Yoko dangerous.

　As I was thinking about this, there was a knock on the door of the reception room and Meldy came in.

''There's a man here who wants to see Hurt.

Oh, is that the one with dark hair and blue eyes like me and Hurt?

　Cain asks Meldy.

　'If it's a guy with those features, I have an idea.

'Yeah,'

Right. Thanks. You made it.

Is my brother Leo here?

Yeah. I'm going to Hurt's with His Majesty, and I invited him to join us. He said he was busy with his knightly duties and would come later, but he made it before I left.

'Yeah. Merdi, can you bring that person in?

Okay.

　The visitor seemed to be my other brother, Leon.

　A few moments later, Meldy came into the reception room with my brother.


'Halt!　Long time no see!

　Leon, who is a little smaller than Cain, but has a stocky build, comes up to me and pats me on the head.

"Brother Leo, good to see you.

'How are you doing?　You're not eating enough food?　You're still dusty as ever. Eat more food and do some proper muscle training, okay?

　He said a lot of things very quickly.

　Leon is generally always like this.

　He says he's thin, but if he's my age, he should have an average body shape.

''Leon-sama, Halt-sama is thin, but he also has decent muscle tone.

　Tina followed up.

'Huh, so Tina is checking out Hurt's body very closely, right?　That's Hurt's wife,

What?　I don't mean to...

　Tina's ears turn a little red as Leon teases her.

'Leon, leave it at that. You're here to congratulate Hurt and the others today, aren't you?

'Haha. Tina, I'm sorry.

　Cain was a little pissed at me and Leon apologized to Tina for his apology.


'I heard you were going to marry both of them, is this the other one?'

　Leon asked, looking at Rifa, who was right next to me.

'Yes,'

Nice to meet you. My name is Rifa.

　Rifa bows politely.

'Nice to meet you, I'm Hurt's brother, Leon. Congratulations on your wedding. Take care of my brother for me.

Yes!

　Rifa replied vigorously as she glanced at me.

''By the way, Rifa-chan, are you the royalty of Alheimers or something?''

　What? No way....

Yes, but..... Excuse me, but have we ever met?

　Rifa didn't seem to remember meeting Leon.

'No, I don't think so. Rifa-chan's bowing and stuff looked like what the royalty of the elven lands do, so I thought maybe.

Very well, you're well informed. But I'm sure it's not much different than the common greeting in Alheim.

　I couldn't tell the difference.

　According to Rifa, there is a subtle gesture that only royalty can understand.

　This gesture allows them to tell only a certain number of people that they are Alheimian royalty.

　Leon noticed that difference, which is usually unnoticeable.

　Does Leon, after all, have some special skills like Cain and Charles?

　Like, say, observational skills?

'Leon doesn't have the skills, you know. It was simply Leon's skill that made the minor difference.

What?

　Cain, who has super intuitive skills, guessed exactly what I was thinking and answered me even though I hadn't heard anything.

''Oh, Hurt, did you think I used my skills to find out who Rifa-chan is?　I'm sorry, I was good at it.

　No, if it wasn't a skill, wouldn't it be awesome in reverse?

''I don't want you to compare me to Brother Kai and other people like Charles who were born with cheat skills. Well, you can't win against Brother Kai even with his skills off.

　My sister, Charles, has a skill called mind-reading that allows her to read what the other person is thinking.

　She said she only told her parents about it.

　However, Leon seems to be aware that Charles has the skill.

　How does he know if he has the skill just because he has good insight?

　I'm sure you understand.

　It's just that they're aware of things that only the Alheimian royalty should know.

　That means they know that I've been reincarnated.

　It's obvious that I acted differently before and after I turned 5 years old.


'To be frank, my family all noticed that Hurt became like a different person from about five years old. That's when you were (re)reincarnated, right?

What...

　Cain told me the shocking truth.

We're family. I'd know if I didn't have any skills. But I've never said anything before because someone didn't take over my brother Hurt, he was just Hurt, and he was just Hurt.

　I was reincarnated into the body of a five year old in this world, but I wasn't reincarnated to take over that body.

　I was reincarnated in the form of Haruto who lived in this world with the experiences and memories of Haruto who lived in his original world for seventeen years.

　So I'm all me up to the age of five, and I'm all me now.

　However, I still felt guilty about telling my family that I was a reincarnated person.

　I didn't want them to think of me as their real son or brother - that's what I thought at times.


'Does it make you feel a little better to know that you don't have to hide anything?'

　Cain has a point.

　That's right.

　The idea of hiding things from my family is something that inevitably stuck with me.


'We all decided that when Hurt was getting married, we would tell him that we knew he was actually a reincarnation. And, of course, if Hurt would confide in us before then, we would accept it.

Yeah. I'm sorry I haven't been able to tell you for a while.

Don't worry about it. We knew and pretended we didn't know, too. You'll always be our brother when we get married and leave home.

　Hearing Cain's words, the fuzziness in the back of my mind was now cleaned away.