We departed back home the next morning, since there really was nothing else for us to do here. Not to mention that Father was unwilling to leave his post for long. He’s the kind of honest guy that would never like getting paid to do a job he didn’t do well.

Unfortunately, Marina couldn’t see us depart, as she had a morning class that day. It’s fine though. She already said her goodbyes last night.

In the end, I didn’t get a chance to give that hobbit a little talk, which was quite unfortunate. But I was sure that Marina could handle him just fine. She’s Marina after all, my smart and wise and now oddly beautiful big sister. Now, don't get me wrong. She's always been cute ever since she's little. But only now that I realize she has blossomed into a good-looking young woman. Even though she's only 14 years old, soon to turn 15, there's just something about her that made her look more mature than her actual age. It's always been like that since we were little. 

Or maybe it's just my little brotherly instinct speaking.

It was another two weeks trip back home, making it around a month of us gone from our house, with only Mary living there as our caretaker.

And thus, one more month until my tenth birthday.

-------------

I resumed my magic training like usual once I returned. Or, to be more exact, magic experimenting, as I was still developing my Master-level Wind spell. I could feel it. I was so close to be able to perform it properly. I just needed to stabilize my mana shape more and maybe adjust my calculations a little.

I still kept up my physical exercises as well, though I would combine it with my Wind Walk for some fancy acrobatics, just so I could dodge and move even better. I had one problem though. The more I grew older, the heavier I became. That meant I would have to expend more mana for stronger Wind Bursts.

I imagine one of the small races could be really good with this technique. They barely weigh anything after all. Uh, maybe not the dwarves though. They tend to be pretty stocky after all.

This way of training wouldn’t really develop my hand muscles though. Aah, I want to be good at the sword too but I really don’t have the talent for Father’s fighting style. I don’t have that aggressive personality needed for it. I prefer to dodge and evade before striking back, exactly the opposite way Father uses his sword.

There are two major sword schools in this world by the way, and they supposedly came from the disciples of the Legendary Hero himself. Let’s see… what’s their name again? Ah, right, Lancelot and Galahad. Arthur, Lancelot, and Galahad. How convenient that those names all came from the King Arthur myth. 

Well, this world could be seen as some form of an alternate medieval Europe, only with a lot more fantasy stuff, so it wouldn’t be that odd for them to have their own version of that classic European heroic myth.

Anyway, Lancelot inherited his offensive form, while Galahad inherited his defensive form. And each disciple ended up founding their own schools, and even now, there was apparently still some form of rivalry between them. Quite ironic, since the Hero himself mastered both, though apparently no one else could reach the peak of swordsmanship that he stood on. As expected from the Legendary Hero, I suppose.

Father’s style certainly belonged to Lancelot’s, but he never actually got a formal education by his school. He just swung his sword faster and stronger as he grew stronger, and with sheer instinct, he could become the swordsman that he was now. That’s why his teaching capability wasn’t the best. You couldn’t teach something you only learned out of instinct after all.

Sherry was the same way, at least according to him. She just let out that anger and aggressiveness inside her to become a stronger swordswoman. Maybe it’s somehow related to her Izurd heritage?

As for me, ha, I don’t have the instinctual talent that they possessed. If I were to learn Galahad-style swordsmanship, I would need a proper instructor. And I would need to spend many hours into it, hours that I couldn’t spend to develop my magic growth instead. Not to mention that good Galahad-style instructors usually are only available to those wanting to become knights, as it’s the preferred style for them. Their swords are to protect their Lord instead to kill others. Especially important if you’re going to be some important higher-ups bodyguard, like a princess. You might kill nine enemies in a single swing, but if the remaining one manages to sneak a blade or an arrow to the princess’ heart, it’s all over.

And so my peaceful days continued, but not before a certain incident happened.

-----------

It was bedtime, and I was relaxing in my room with my treasure box beside me.

That night, I suddenly got assaulted by the feeling of loneliness—the feeling of me missing Sherry’s presence.

She was always in the back of my head. I would wonder what she was doing at this time. Was she getting ready to sleep, just like I am right now? Was she already sleeping, perhaps tired from a full day of training she no doubt would be doing? Or was she still training, pushing herself even harder than she should? 

I sighed. Working hard is good, but there's a thing called working too hard, you know. I wish I can tell her that.

Thinking about her, however, made me think of my treasure box, and how her panties from years ago were still there.

I took them out (sorry Marina, but I just met you so your pair can just stay inside) and then spread them out above me as I laid down on my bed.

Aah, still as cute as always…

I brought them down and began smelling them, taking in the sweet scent of the girl who hopefully would really become my future wife.

I know this is completely 100% a perverted thing to do, but if she's consenting, then who am I to go against her will?

I then rubbed the fabric against my cheek, enjoying the soft cotton texture as I closed my eyes.

Hmm, I really could sleep with them, but that would be too risky. What if I overslept and Mother or Mary woke me up, only to find me holding a girl's panties in my hands?

----------

Erika

W-wha…

What is Big Brother's doing?!

Those are… those are a girl's panties, aren't they? Why is he… why is he sniffing them like that?

And now he's rubbing them to his cheeks, while mumbling Big Sis Sherry's name. Are those her panties?

I… I have to tell Mother!

Unbeknownst to Hugo, his little sister was watching everything that was happening through his door, which he had forgotten to close off completely, leaving just enough space for her to peek in. And it just so happened to be one of the nights where she wanted to snuggle up and sleep with him.

The poor girl’s eyes went wide as she watched him in the act.

I felt as if I just discovered something terrible! But Big Bro can do no wrong, can he?

And why is he saying Sherry's name like that? Why can't he say my name instead? I've been a good girl, haven’t I?

She left the slightly ajar door as silently as she could. As she walked over to Alan and Renee’s room however, she saw Mary walking by, who was also preparing for her good night’s sleep. She had her own room in the house, though she usually would return at the weekends to sleep with her family instead back in the village.

Oh right, I should ask her instead! If it's really a bad thing, I don't want to get Big Bro in trouble!

"Mary?" She walked up to her.

"Oh, Young Miss! What's the matter? It's not like you to still be awake at this hour."

"I wanna ask something. But you have to keep it a secret from everyone."

"Oh dear, did you hide your wet bedsheets again?" She giggled. The three-year old girl still had the occasional problems of keeping her bed dry, something that Mary knew all too well as the housemaid.

"No, it's not that, dummy! It's… I wanna ask… is it a bad thing if a man sniffs a woman's undergarments and rubs it to his cheek?"

"That's…” The maid paused, tilting her head. “Why, that's very bad, Miss. That man is a complete pervert then. I wouldn't be close to such a man if I were you."

"I-I see… G-good night then, Mary!"

She immediately ran off, leaving Mary completely confused on what that conversation was about.

Oh dear, don’t tell me that she caught Master Alan doing that to Mistress Renee’s panties! 

Well, if he really does it, then he deserves whatever hell Mistress Renee would give him once little Erika brought it up to him! Really, a man shouldn’t be doing something sneaky like that! If you want to pleasure yourself, then pleasure your wife as well!

Mary was raised quite conservatively, you see, believing that the only proper relationship between a husband and wife is an intercourse in bed. It didn’t even cross her mind that Alan might be doing it after Renee gave him her permission, let alone Hugo being the actual culprit.

------

Uwaaaa, Big Bro is a pervert! Big Bro is a pervert!

Erika ran straight into her room with tears running down her cheeks. Only after she buried herself in her bed that she sobbed and cried into her pillow.

In the end, she decided not to tell of this discovery to anyone, not even confronting the culprit himself. She still had great love and respect for her brother, and she believed that just one flaw wouldn’t make him a bad person. That’s what Renee taught her after all, that no one was perfectly good in this world. And now, she knew the imperfectness of her perfect Big Bro.

And Hugo, either from his natural denseness or the fact that he’s too focused on his magic training, didn’t notice the slight change in her behaviour in the slightest.

----------

Hugo

I-I did it!

I actually did it!

I stood in pure disbelief—my mind still reeling in on what I just did.

In front of me was a series of dead, fallen trees—trees that I just obliterated with my spell.

My brand new Master-level Wind spell, Boom Cannon.

And the best part? My stubbornness actually paid off. I could do it without a chant right away.

Let’s start from the very beginning, when I started trying my hands on learning Master-level magic.

After I finished mastering the hybrid Advanced-level spells, I declared that it was time for me to go on to the next step, to reach the heights that Marina had already reached.

I decided on trying to learn Thunderstorm first, a Master-level Thunder spell that’s basically multiple Thunder Strikes cast at once, creating a rain of lightning from above. I decided to learn it by the book, doing the whole chant and everything.

At first, I thought it would be easy. It’s basically just myself doing multiple Thunder Strikes at the same time. The image I needed to have inside my head and the way I shaped my mana would be the same, only multiplied.

Only to find out that my mana control was nowhere near enough to be able to cast it.

The stronger the spell was, the more complex the shape you would need to form your mana into. The best analogy I could come up with was like you shaping a balloon into various animal shapes for a birthday party. As you fumble around with the fragility of a balloon, taking care of not pressing too hard or else you would make it explode, you still need to put enough force so that its surface and volume would bend the way you want it to. It’s that kind of a balancing act that I find to be beyond my ability.

No wonder the book has a whole long chapter filled with many pages just dedicated to the spell. But magic isn’t like math or physics. It’s really closer to art more than anything. The explanations given there just confuse me more instead of giving me the clarity I need.

I wasted many months on it too, trying to follow the instructions given there. I couldn’t try it as many times as I’d like too, as I would expend my mana in the process, as if I actually cast the spell.

Supposedly, the chant should help with the visualization and shaping, but I don’t feel that way if I were to be honest.

And then, Marina gave her advice, saying that maybe I should focus more on Wind instead. Her reasoning was sound. I was already so used to manipulating the wind for my movements, so my mastery of the element should be better than Thunder, which I rarely used.

However, instead of going by the books again, I decided on something that would either be very smart or very foolish.

I would not look at any books. I would invent the spell on my own.

I came up with an idea immediately. So far, Wind spells have been mostly about pushing wind around, right? Just generating a huge gust to a direction or spinning it around to form a cyclone. But you can use wind in other ways too. And by that, I mean wind pressure. Or, to be more exact, air, or atmospheric pressure. None of the magic books I’ve read ever referred to that, even though it's basic middle-school science knowledge back in my world.

So what if I try playing with that instead? What if I try to create a vacuum-based wind spell? How cool would that be?

And so my concept for my Boom Cannon was born.

This is how the spell works. I would form a bubble of air around the size of a basketball (it’s the size I’m most comfortable with, not too big nor too small) and then divide it into two sections. The first section, the forward one, would have zero pressure in it, meaning it’s a perfect vacuum, or at least, the closest I can get to one. The other section, the one at the back—I fill it with as much air as I could, forming a high pressure air section. 

Now, what’s the main rule of air pressure difference again? Right. High pressure air would always rush into a lower pressure one to equalize the gap. The more the pressure difference is, the stronger the rushing force would be.

I am making what they would call a vacuum cannon.

Of course, it’s not that easy. First of all, the outer shell—I have to make sure that it’s strong enough to not break apart right away, or else the whole spell won’t be able to work in the first place. It will also add to the toughness of the cannonball, so that it will have higher destructive power. And then, there’s the separating membrane between the two compartments in my air cannonball. This is the most difficult part of the spell by the way. It took many months until I could get it just right. I had to design it so that it would be elastic, in a way that allowed it to carry the full force of the high-pressurized air and spread it to the entire cannonball, making it fly forward with high speed. But it had to be tough enough to withstand the force as well, but without actually diminishing it, just redirecting it to forward velocity.

This is my own custom spell, made by using my own modern era knowledge that no one else has. 

...No, this isn’t even modern science. I’m pretty sure theories regarding air pressure were discovered by Renaissance-era scientists or something, if I remembered correctly. I was never that good in physics in the first place, unfortunately.

And now, today, I finally could cast it for the very first time successfully. And if I were to be honest, I was quite taken aback by the power the spell just demonstrated.

I tried it in the nearby forest, aiming a row of trees to test just how destructive it could be.

And the result? It tore through what must be at least a dozen of trees, breaking through them like they were nothing. Only the thickest could survive, with holes on their large trunks. The others fell down one by one as the spell blasted through them.

This is it. This has to be a Master-level spell. The sheer power generated is beyond any Advanced-level spell that I know of! Not to mention that the speed of the cannonball surpasses the sound barrier, producing that loud boom that occurs whenever I cast it!

Ooh, I can’t wait to tell this to Marina! I know she would be amazed! Thanks to me inventing this on my own, I don’t have to bother with any chants! I’m ahead of her in that department!

And to think that I could do it right on my birthday as well! I’ll take this as my birthday present to be sure!

Finally, I’m starting to catch up to you at last, Sis!

Alright! I’m going to cast it over and over until I’m out of mana, just to make sure that I really understand how to do it!

-----------

When I returned home, the sun was already going down. All sweaty from my casting, it’s time for me to take my bath as usual.

Only to immediately feel that something had gone wrong, the moment I entered the house.

Father, Mother, and Mary were all in the dining room, sitting on the chairs around the dining table. The former two were looking down with a troubled expression, with Mother’s hands actively shaking as she held a piece of paper in front of her. Mary, on the other hand, was actively sobbing, wiping her tears with her handkerchief as she produced new ones.

Erika was also there, looking terribly confused and out of place, not really understanding what was going on.

“Father, Mother, what’s the matter?” I asked as I came in. There really must be something wrong going on!

Mother didn’t say anything. She simply pushed the piece of paper to my side of the table.

And what I read turned me as pale as a sheet.