NOVEL WEB Chapter 3: Chapter 3. Prince's mother
[Erika's POV.]
Erika was a half-elf, a mixed blood of an elf and a human.
She lived an ordinary life in a human town until she was kidnapped by slave traders when she was just 16 years old.
Following that, she was purchased by the King of the Kingdragon Kingdom because of her outstanding appearance, long elven ears and surprisingly well-developed bust given her heritage.
With her strength and status she could naturally not resist the king and became his plaything. Secretly, it even felt slightly exciting – being noticed by the king himself!
However, after she participated in the King's orgies a few times, she quickly understood that the King had no feelings for her apart from wanting to use her for sexual relief, which he did with many other women while paying minimal attention to them otherwise. She realized she had to forget about ever experiencing something like 'love' in her life.
Even so, she was forced to admit that her situation was still far better than that of many other slaves and even ordinary people of the world because she lived in relative luxury and safety of the royal palace. She saw it many times how envied she was for being the King's servant in bed by the many maids who had to do physical labour instead.
That being the case, knowing that to the king she was merely a sex slave, she strongly wished for the freedom of the outside world. Perhaps it was her elven blood or just human nature.
This thought had changed when Erika became pregnant with the King's child.
Because of her pregnancy, she was temporarily forgotten by the King. Her days became filled with nothing but being locked up somewhere, awaiting delivery.
Several months later, she gave birth to a cute baby boy. The boy was named Mordred Kingdragon.
Unlike her, he had human ears despite being ¼ elf, which was not unreasonable. Golden hair was something that the boy shared with both his father and her, but his green eyes did not come from either of them. It was curious.
But of course, no one doubted whether the boy was the King's child just because of his eye-color.
After giving birth, Erika was fortunately put in charge of raising her own son, which was in truth not a certainty for someone with her status.
In the midst of taking care of Mordred, she also began being taught the skills of a maid.
Time passed, month after month and her son grew up well.
Mordred was a very special child, Erika could tell from the beginning.
Starting from the beginning, he would never cry for no apparent reason. He almost only cried when his diaper was full or when he was hungry.
As he grew a few months old, he still never threw tantrums, and she sometimes had a feeling as if she saw signs of unusual wisdom in his eyes.
It was a little strange, but that's when Erika thought that the name Mordred was quite fitting for the Prince after she learned that it embodied the concept of self-control and restraint.
As a newborn, Mordred would also sleep a lot. He would be asleep for the great majority of the day.
It is true for all newborn children that they sleep a lot, but her son took this to another level. After waking up for a brief moment to be breast-fed or have his diapers changed, he would always immediately go back to sleep without fail.
As a few months passed, her baby continued sleeping a lot.
But all this suddenly changed when the boy learned how to crawl.
He would curiously crawl everywhere, seeming to want to explore the entire palace. Erika had to be careful to not leave the doors open, otherwise she felt that her son would definitely notice it and sneak out.
Her boy finally began to move around and even was a very active child .Seeing this filled her heart with joy.
But strangely, Mordred's activity only happened in short bursts. The boy would wake up, move around like an overly curious child, tire himself out and then quickly go back to sleep.
…
Eventually, a full year passed.
Erika's son turned 1 year old.
Around this time the boy seemed to have become bored with the exploration of the outside world as he returned to spending most of the time sleeping in his lair.
However, at one point one thing managed to arouse baby Mordred's interest more than sleep. It was a picture book fairytale that Erika had once brought with her.
She originally only wanted to show the pictures to Mordred as he began learning the language, but she did not expect that the boy would actually repeat her words and fixate his eyes on the text as if wanting to understand it!
From that moment onwards, amazed, Erika began to teach her son how to read. Reading was one thing that she had an opportunity to fortunately learn back in her hometown.
Over time, Erika realized that she had underestimated her baby by believing that he was a clever child. It was far more than that! After just a year Mordred already learned how to speak fluently, and most importantly he even seemed to have learned how to read simple sentences!
A 2-year-old being able to read? It was something mind boggling. Her son was a genius, a super genius!
After discussing this with the other maids in the palace, they all expected Mordred to become a high-ranking official or a famous scholar in the future. This was also the limit of the boy's birth. If he became someone like the Prime Minister, that would truly be called ultimate success in life.
But this belief changed when, one of those days, the Prince had asked Erika to bring him to the palace's library.
Over time, Erika earned more and more freedom in the palace.
And although Mordred was young, he was still the son of the King, so there were no problems in him visiting the public royal library if he wanted to.
Right after they came into the library, the boy quickly noticed a section with the label of 'Magic' and rushed there.
Erika smiled as she followed him, saying, "You're too young to take anything from this section."
"I know, mom… But I just want to look at the pictures!"
Hearing this childish reason, Erika smiled again and felt that there would be no problem with just taking a look.
Mordred began to browse through the early section before finally settling on a book. He pulled it out and opened it.
It was a book that seemed to have multiple copies, a tome titled 'Guide to Magic'.
After shuffling the pages, the boy soon settled his sight. After a while, he spoke up, "Let the great protection of water be on the place thou seekest…"
It was at that moment that Erika realized that what her son was actually reading was an incantation for a spell, right from that book.
Her expression froze.
"No, Mordred!" Erika immediately called out in a panic.
"I call a refreshing burbling stream here and now…"
"Don't read it!" Erika snatched the book from the boy's hands.
The reason Magic tutors exist is because learning magic by oneself can be dangerous, or at least that's how Erika understood it. Mordred trying to read an incantation of a spell could have disastrous consequences if the spell backfired!
But it was too late.
"-Water Ball."
As the boy voiced the last words of the incantation, water began to rapidly gather in front of his hand, forming a fist-sized sphere of water.
After staying in the air for a few moments, it fell down and splashed against the stone floor of the library.
"Mordred… you…" Erika was speechless.
It was Magic!
She did not expect her son to actually succeed!
As far as she knew, noble children would usually not even begin learning Magic until they're 5 years old, and most often it wouldn't be until much later for safety concerns. And even then, not all of them would succeed.
But Mordred succeeded at 2 years old, and at his first try! What could her son be if not a Magic genius?!
"Ups…" The boy looked at his shoes, which were now slightly wet. He then looked up at his nanny. He said in an apologetic tone, "I'm sorry… You said to stop, but I really wanted to try it. And it was too late…"
Erika looked down at the boy sympathetically. Who cared about his shoes being wet or him not listening to her at this point?
Her son was a Magic prodigy!
Erika grabbed Mordred's upper arms while looking him in the eyes as an overjoyed smile appeared on her face. "Good job, Mordred!!!"
…
[Mordred's POV.]
After glancing at the librarian who stared at the small wet spot on the carpet, Erika ignored her and looked back at Mordred. She leaned down to meet his eyes and said, "Can you do that again?"
"Mm, again?" Mordred looked at his mother, then nodded his head like a good boy. "Okay..."
He extended his right hand.
"Wait a moment, I'll give you the book," said Erika.
But Mordred ignored her as he already closed his eyes.
'Repeat the feeling from before… The feeling from before…'
He concentrated and attempted to cast the Water Ball spell silently.
He gathered his Mana in the same way as before.
But after that he remained stuck as he simply couldn't replicate the same feeling!
'Water… gather… To form a Water Ball…' Mordred ruminated inside his mind but with no success.
With each passing moment, he was feeling increasingly depressed. What if he's incapable of doing Silent Magic of this world because he has the body and Magic Circuits from another world?! It would just be such a shame!
Although the sword alone should be enough for him to become powerful, he also wanted to be able to perform this world's magic. He wanted to freely cast all kinds of Magic silently like Rudeus!
"Mordred?" Erika called out with concern.
Mordred kept his eyes shut, concentrating. Soon enough, he spoke up out of desperation, "Water Ball!"
These words seemed to serve as a trigger. The Mana that was just gathered previously suddenly found the right way to flow and gushed out of his hand, transforming into a fist-sized sphere of water.
"... What?" Erika was stunned. Didn't her son just skip most of the incantation?!
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Name: Mordred Kingdragon
Titles: 16th Prince of Kingdragon, Magic prodigy (only by his mother so far)
Age: 2
Strength: F | Average human's strength when reinforced (~100 kg).
Endurance: E* | Peak Advanced rank; his skin becomes tougher than steel when reinforced and cannot be harmed by a knife.
Agility: E* (F*) | Peak Advanced rank reflexes, surpassing trained athlete's running speed (Intermediate rank).
Mana: D- | Early Saint rank.
…
Water Magic: Elementary rank (chanted).
None.