The Two Babies Changing the Original Story Chapter 28

“Then Your Highness can learn the sword as well.”

Only now realizing Ellie’s true intention, Madam Laval laughed softly and gave her the answer she wanted.

There was nothing wrong with a king being able to wield a sword.

Starting training young would make the body healthy as well.

“Um… I do want to learn the sword, but…”

She had never seen her older brother use a sword, so she didn’t really understand what was cool about it.

But Rilkea, and Cleus too—everyone carried swords. Ellie wanted to hold a sword too, and swing it with them.

However, even if she started learning now, she doubted she could ever catch up to Cleus.

‘If I’m weaker than Duke Berndt, it’s meaningless!’

To “protect” meant to be stronger.

And the answer Ellie wanted was already set in her mind.

But the adults seemed nowhere near finding that answer.

In the end, Ellie stepped forward herself.

“Magic!”

“Magic… Your Highness?”

Madam Laval blinked in surprise at Ellie’s sudden shout.

“Yeah! Because I’m a magic genius… probably!”

Ellie’s magical genius had already been acknowledged by her brother.

‘You’re really… a genius, you know.’

That was how he evaluated her after teaching her the basics of magic.

Ever since then, whenever she was bored, Ellie would experiment by herself, creating and trying out spells.

Just as Cleus was familiar with the sword, Ellie was familiar with magic.

So if she trained her magic further, she would become strong enough to protect Cleus!

However, magic didn’t seem to be common in this world. That was why Ellie wasn’t confident enough to reveal openly that she could use magic.

“Of course, no matter what Our Princess does, she’ll surely be a genius at it.”

Madam Laval clapped lightly, praising her without hesitation.

No, no… not that kind of unconditional praise.

She wanted someone to actually bring up formal magic education…

“The king cannot become a mage.”

At that moment, Marquis Simon shattered Ellie’s hopes with a heavy statement.

“What?! Why?!”

That was not part of the plan.

She had planned to become a mage with Babian and Jurna and form a mage corps!

“You can only learn magic by entering the Mage Tower.”

“The Mage Tower?”

“Yes. All mages belong to the Tower. To learn magic, you must go there and meet the mages. And while learning, you must live inside the Tower the entire time. So the king cannot become a mage.”

“Oh…”

Ellie’s mouth hung open.

Right—the Mage Tower.

Why had she forgotten about it?

After Princess Ellia was driven from the palace, she wandered and suddenly awakened to magic. But at the time, she didn’t think of the Tower at all.

The Mage Tower was something only those who cared about magic knew about.

To Princess Ellia, who had spent her life focused solely on dresses and parties, the Tower might as well have been something floating in the clouds.

That was why she only met the Tower’s mages near the moment of her death.

The mages came because they sensed her magic—but they had arrived too late.

Ellie, unlike Princess Ellia, knew how to control magic, so she wouldn’t suffer a magical runaway. But she had a different problem.

‘My magic is gone.’

Ever since coming to this world, her mana felt almost nonexistent.

Not completely gone—there was something, like a single droplet. But compared to what she once had, it was tiny.

She believed it would return eventually, but she couldn’t help feeling impatient.

‘I have to get my mana back… And if I want to save the world from destruction, I need more magic training.’

She could train alone. She could create spells on her own.

But training alone would never raise her skills the way they had grown under her brother’s teachings.

She needed a teacher here as well.

Feigning innocence, Ellie continued with another question.

“But Cleus said magic is talent. So if you have the talent, can’t you just learn it by yourself without the Tower?”

“Yes, that’s true. But when we say ‘talent,’ we mean whether your body has mana, and whether you can release it. Learning to control it and use it as strength—that can only be learned at the Tower.”

“What happens if you don’t learn that?”

“Well… I’ve never actually met a mage myself, so I don’t know… but they say it’s no different from breathing. Even if we breathe out, we can’t hurt anyone with it, right?”

Strange. This was different from the magic Ellie knew.

Mana being an innate force, and magic being its method of use—that much was the same.

But the idea that magic could only be learned in the Tower was unfamiliar.

Ellie had come up with new magic on her own before, without anyone teaching her.

“Then, maybe… just maybe, what if someone appears who can use magic without learning it?”

Ellie’s “what if” and “maybe” continued.

But as a non-mage, Marquis Simon had limits to what he could answer.

“Hmm… maybe the mages would capture them? It could be dangerous otherwise. I’m not certain beyond that.”

“……”

So she couldn’t just pretend to be a natural genius mage.

Ellie gave up on becoming a Mage-King.

“If Your Highness is interested in magic, though, it is possible to meet a mage. You might get some advice.”

“Huh?”

Ellie, who had been sinking into gloom, perked up at Marquis Simon’s words.

She could meet a mage?

Then maybe she could find another solution.

“It is common to send an invitation to the Mage Tower for coronation ceremonies. Sometimes they come, sometimes they don’t. It is entirely up to them—but if we are lucky, Your Highness may meet one.”

Among all the answers Marquis Simon had given today, this was the one Ellie liked the most.

“Okay!”

She wanted to start training magic right away, but she could be patient until then.

“Let’s send an invitation first!”

“As you wish.”

“Oh—wait. No, we can’t… The first one has to go to Duke Berndt.”

They understood her sentiment perfectly well, but reality mattered.

Chuckling, Marquis Simon delivered yet another piece of harsh reality.

“The first invitation must go to the state guests, Your Highness.”

 

 

 

****

 

 

 

A few days later, the teachers arrived at the palace.

They were teachers who had come to help Ellie with her studies.

Marundial had gathered them with help from Duke Notman, putting in quite a lot of effort.

The two of them, who could never be satisfied with ordinary noble household tutors, had even contacted the Academy and selected only professor-level instructors.

Just like buying clothes in every color, they gathered teachers for every subject.

“We’re here to discuss Your Highness’s basic assessment and how the classes will be conducted. We won’t be able to stay by Your Highness’s side forever.”

The aesthetics teacher explained kindly with a gentle smile.

“You’re not my teacher…?”

“We’ll be your teachers for the next few days. But none of us can leave the Academy for too long. We’ll choose good teachers who match Your Highness’s level, teach them how your lessons should be run, and then return.”

“Oh…”

Seeing Ellie nodding quietly, the aesthetics teacher smiled kindly again.

The Academy was similar in nature to the Mage Tower.

It did not belong to any nation and was closer to a neutral region—practically an independent city-state.

Because it existed solely for academic research, it was only natural that it had the highest-level instructors.

That was why the powerful people of every nation often invited teachers from the Academy.

The Academy gladly accepted, since such visits were quite a profitable business. However, directly teaching someone was a different story.

Like the Mage Tower, the Academy did not teach anyone who lacked “talent for study.” Except for the emperor of the Empire.

“…Well, they could teach an emperor.”

It would be troublesome if an offended emperor marched an army to the Academy because they refused him.

No matter how pure their purpose, any group becomes practical when their lives are on the line.

In that sense, this tiny little future king was someone the Academy’s professors would never personally teach.

Trying to pour the high-level knowledge inside a professor’s head into a child who had only just begun reading would be pointless—she wouldn’t understand anything.

A child needed education suited for a child, and a teacher suited for that level.

“Well then, shall we begin?”

It started with the aesthetics teacher, who spoke up first.

Ellie nodded lightly, feeling a bit nervous.

“First, we’ll check how much aesthetic sense Your Highness has.”

And the test began.

It didn’t take long for the results of the aesthetics test to come out.

“Your Highness has absolutely no sense of aesthetics.”

“……”