CH 52

52 Alias is Black History?

After that, we began the appraisal part of the ceremony to find out our attributes. Of course, as the crown prince, Elliot was the first person who got appraised.

It was at this time that I noticed that there were seven doors, each of which were located right below the statues of the Six Gods and the Saint, and Elliot was guided toward the door below the Saint’s statue.

After some time, Elliot left with a beaming smile on his face.

It seems that his result is good. I thought as he sent a triumphant look to me before he returned to his seat.

After him, Katrina entered. And just like Elliot, she too entered the door beneath the Saint’s statue. However, a while later, she left with a pale face.

Eh? What happened there?

“Is there something wrong, Katrina? Is it something you can’t tell others?” Even Elliot, who had never concerned himself with Katrina, couldn’t help but ask when he saw the look on his fiancee’s face.

“No, it’s okay. Thank you very much for your concern, Your Highness. I just feel a bit uncomfortable since my body isn’t used to the magical power. Besides, even if there’s something I’m worrying about, it’s something trivial that should not concern Your Highness.”

“Take a rest then. Notify the priest immediately.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” Katrina replied as Black (Rex) and Blue (Simeon) called the nearby priest to look at Katrina’s condition. However, as they still hadn’t gone through appraisal themselves, they told the priest to take care of Katrina for the time being.

And honestly, Katrina’s complexion truly looked bad. As such, I couldn’t help but to ask her too. “Are you really alright?”

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“Yeah, don’t worry about me. My apologies for the disturbance, everyone.” Katrina said, expression wan.

Looking at her, even the magical girl’s squad – including Muriel – looked increasingly worried as they shifted restlessly in their seats, asking about her condition. But then Katrina’s attendant came to the stone stage and took her along with the priest toward the Lilac Couple’s direction. Both of whom were looking at their daughter with a worried expression on their face as they left the venue together.

She is really okay, right?

There was a bit of trouble there, but it seemed there was no problem with her aptitude. Anyway, after Elliot and Katrina, the rest were being called one by one to enter one of the seven doors beneath the seven statues.

And my name was called after Rex.

◇

The one waiting for me behind the door was Bishop Cobalt and two other priests. Aside from them, my father and mother were also there.

“Father… Mother?”

“It’s your parent’s privilege to know.” Bishop Cobalt said, amusement danced in his eyes.

From his words, I could guess that the parents seemed to be guided to the rooms from a separate path from the audience seat, away from our sight. Well, then again, I supposed it was only natural that this was done. After all, for parents to know about their children was only proper and right.

Nodding inwardly, I went towards my parent’s side and sat between them. We faced Bishop Cobalt with a desk separating the two parties, just like how a parent-teacher meeting in my past life was like.

Yeah, this was how it was supposed to be like. It was a heart-throbbing event after all.

“Well then, let us start. Now, place your hand on this board.”

I followed his instructions and placed my hand on top of the black disk. Upon which tiny lights began to spark inside the disk.

“Just like that. Now, close your eyes and feel the flow of your magical power. Slowly guide it to gather in your hand…” Bishop Cobalt said with a calm, serene voice.

Feel your magical power? How do I do that? I was confused. Nevertheless, I followed his instructions and just tried to feel my blood flow.

At that moment, I felt something was moving along with my blood circulation. This should be the thing they referred to as magical power, right?

With that guess in mind, I tried to picture it moving towards the tip of my fingers.

Slowly. Steadily. Bit by bit.

Without noticing it, I became immersed in the feeling. Though, for some reason, the image that was transmitted to my mind was something akin to yellow aura. This must be the color of my magical power. It isn’t the only color though. There are other colors such as red, blue, and green. The green aura is slightly weaker, though. Oh, wait, there’s a tiny, white one too.

Anyway, as instructed, I gathered my magical power to my fingertips. And the yellow aura that had gathered in my fingertips suddenly formed a figure.

Incidentally, aside from the yellow, I also tried to gather the red, blue, and green aura too. As for the tiny white aura? Well, since it seemed to be too hard to move from its position, I told it to stay where they are.

And though I could feel its dissatisfaction, I had no other choice since I couldn’t move it. Despite that though, I felt bad, so I tried to soothe it by telling that little fella that I’d do my best to let it out. Fortunately, that fella seemed to understand my intention, so it didn’t make a fuss.

However, it wasn’t the case with the yellow aura. The yellow one wanted to give it all to go out en masse, but I suppressed it a little bit to give the other three colors a way out.

I tried giving them the same sized road to get out, but it didn’t happen. The red aura ended up with the biggest road, followed by the blue aura. Meanwhile, the green aura came last with a road that was only as big as half of the red aura’s road.

At first, I thought that there would be dissatisfaction between the auras, but it seemed that I was thinking too much as everyone seemed to be pleased to be able to go out… Ah, wait, let’s correct that.

The yellow aura did grumble a little as the red aura managed to leave twice. Sensing this, I sighed. Please be patient, okay? You have to give a way for the green aura too.

And thus it went on. But when I felt my magical power coming out from my fingertips…

“Good, now open your eyes.”

I heard Bishop Cobalt’s calm and serene voice washing over me.

When I opened my eyes, I saw that on top of the black disk, there was a golden, ruby, sapphire, and emerald colored gem. The golden gem was as big as a marble while the ruby gem’s size was around half of it. Next was the sapphire gem and emerald gem. The sapphire one was a bit smaller than the ruby gems, and the emerald one was half of the ruby’s size – in other words, it was only around a quarter of the golden gem – perhaps around the size of the tip of my nail.

After seeing the gems, I turned to look at Bishop Cobalt, trying to ask him about the meaning of the gems.

“No way, four attributes, eh…” Bishop Cobalt muttered, shock and disappointment mingling together. However, if I had to say which one was more prominent, then I’d say disappointment.

“Any problem with your physical condition, Theodore?”

“No problem. I’m all fired up.”

My mother still had a worried expression on her face, but really, I am alright.

“That’s great then. Normally, people will feel weak after the appraisal ceremony, but it’s good that you don’t feel anything wrong with your body. Anyhow, it’s really great that you have four attributes!”

Upon hearing Bishop Cobalt’s words, my mother finally heaved a sigh of relief. Meanwhile, my father… I looked in my father’s direction and was shocked… Why did he look at me… with that scary look on his face?

“Bishop Cobalt, my apologies for the rude question, but about His Highness the Crown Prince–”

“I cannot tell you that… not because I don’t want to tell you, but… Well, I suppose I can tell you the fact that he also has several attributes just like your son here. It seems that we’re going to face a lot of problems in the future. However, that’s as far as I could tell you. Please do understand that the matter of an individual’s attribute is something that I can’t possibly reveal to outsiders. It’s an absolute secret as you know.”

“I understand.”

Seeing that my father did not pursue the matter anymore, Bishop Cobalt smiled then opened his mouth again.

“His Highness and Blackcurrant both have five attributes. Meanwhile, Duke Lilac’s daughter has as many as six attributes, while your son has four attributes. So you really don’t have to worry about this.”

“Thank you very much.” My father said, finally heaving a sigh of relief when he heard that confirmation.

… Yup, as expected. It seems Father was worrying about me standing out too much in case I have more attributes than the Crown Prince. Anyway, no wonder Elliot had that triumphant look on his face just now. Oh well, let’s just do our best to not get glared at by him now.

I had to pay attention in this regard since I often forgot myself.

But still… I wonder if Katrina will be alright…? Is the reason why she felt unwell because she was worrying about the fact that her attributes had surpassed Elliot’s? Hmm, it’s probably… anyway, maybe I’ll go to pay her a visit with Muriel. She did visit me when I was sick after all.

“Dear me, this might be good news instead of bad one considering that there are people with multiple attributes. Although, I have never expected that they appeared at once, still… This is truly wonderful. Now, I am really looking forward to the future of this kingdom.”

“Yeah, me too.”

My father and Bishop Cobalt both laughed together after they said that. It felt like they… really meant what they said…

Anyhow, since it looked like my turn was about to come to an end, I opened my mouth and asked a question I had to ask Bishop Cobalt. “Excuse me, Bishop Cobalt-sama, I understand the matter of four attributes. However, what about these gems? Are they the representatives of my attributes? In that case, which one is my real main attribute?”

My father might understand without him explaining further, but the same couldn’t be said about me. At the very least, please tell me about my main attribute before you go on to other topics.

“Oh, do forgive me for skipping the explanation. The matter of people having multiple attributes makes me forget about this. Now, let me explain.”

Originally, attributes existed in sorcery.

【Fire】, 【Water】, 【Wind】, and 【Earth】were the four common attributes,  and with【Light】as well as 【Darkness】 attributes, they made up the six basic attributes in sorcery.

And according to Bishop Cobalt, the gem appeared due to my magical power―― erm, to make Bishop’s explanation short, the biggest gem – the golden one – was the【Earth】 attribute, my main attribute.

Following that were my secondary attributes, red for 【Fire】, blue for 【Water】, and green for 【Wind】. And the size of the gems seemed to be indicating the degree of affinity I had with the elements. In short, my main attribute was earth, followed by fire, water, and lastly wind – of which I had the least affinity for.

I see… this looks like a game for some reason. However, this certainly makes things easier to understand, so I am not complaining here.

“Most members of Goldberg House’s attributes are aligned to that of earth. I guess it has something to do with our bloodline. Owen in the old day is hailed as 『Steel Smile』 even.”

“The same goes for you, Morris. Do not forget that you, as an expert of water attribute, are hailed as 『Young Noble of Ice』 back then.”

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The two were smiling when they spoke, as if they were revealing secret information about their past. Wait, this bloodline they were speaking of, did that mean that bloodline had something to do with the attribute of each house?

Anyhow, while my mind was on a tangent, I noticed that the temperature around us dropped for some mysterious reason. Erm… I guess the matter of their nickname in the past is black history?

… Yeah, that must be it. They’re probably embarrassed by it after arriving at their age. I nodded inwardly, vowing to not mention their nickname in front of them in the future. It wasn’t like I was a coward either, but just look at those assistant priests. They all looked scared, you know? Hence, this wasn’t me being a coward, this is just a human’s self-preservation instinct at the finest. Yup. Definitely.

“Fufufu, Owen and Morris-sama’s relationship is as good as ever. Back in their school era, the two of them, along with Count Crimson – Dexter-sama who was hailed as 『Blazing Magic Swordsman』 – were the object of longing of every girls.”

My mother suddenly entered the conversation from the side, unintentionally adding fuel into the fire with her remark.

M-Mama. Read the mood, please. Look at the scary faces those two are making. I sweated inwardly, worried while simultaneously wondering what happened to them in the past. Well, curiosity was well and all, but let’s not delve further into it since it was most likely filled with landmines.

“Please stop telling the boy about our embarrassing youth.”

“Oh my. My deepest apologies, Morris-sama. I just suddenly missed those times.”

My father finally stopped making that scary face as he stopped my mother from going too far, a tired look on his face. Meanwhile, my mother just showed Father an impish smile— wait a minute, was that deliberate instead of spontaneous coincidence?

“Well, I guess I understand your sentiment. Anyhow, congratulations for awakening four attributes, Theodore-dono.”

“Thank you very much.”

After thanking Bishop Cobalt, we left the room; with me returning back to the stone stage while my parents went back to the audience’s seat.

And since Bishop Cobalt said I’m allowed to bring back the gems created from my magical power, I brought it back with me.

◇

Thus, the ceremony ended without a hitch.

By the way, according to the hearsay I heard later on, the people with multiple attributes didn’t end with me. They kept appearing until the number of people that had multiple attributes numbered to twelve people. In short, every member of the ranger and magical girl squad were all multi-attributes users.

It seemed all of us were told that every member of our circle could use multiple attributes. However, as for what attributes we possessed, well, it was kept as everyone’s personal secret. Which was very good. After all, it was better to avoid trouble~.

Still, I heard that the temple seemed to be in an uproar because of this event – seeing so many multi-attributes users appearing all at once. From what I heard, a person having one attribute was the norm here, and while multi-attributes users didn’t seem to be rare either, the fact that so many appeared at the same time was a problem.

Well, that was beside the point, I was more concerned with another thing. All of us had a huge magical power reserve, but why was Katrina, who was also a multi-attributes user like us, said that she was under the weather after the attribute ceremony?

I meant, only the people outside our group said that they felt under the weather after the appraisal – though this seemed to be caused by the majority pouring every bit of their magical power during the appraisal ceremony instead of controlling the output, so nothing to be surprised over – ergo, her claim was confusing.

Anyway, I also overheard that Bishop Cobalt said 『Success』 at the end. So, it seemed that the matter of him muttering 「 It’s boring when none of them feels under weather like this」 wasn’t just my imagination.

Perhaps this was the reason why he warned us before the ceremony? In any case, he was indeed a black-bellied person.