[Charlotte's POV.]
Charlotte Carver is a 41-year-old low-ranking noblewoman employed by the royal family of Kingdragon to nurse one of the king's children.
Until recently, she did not work as a nursing mother and began just recently.
Her role was to raise one of the Princes, a boy named Mordred Kingdragon. The boy's mother was apparently a slave who died soon after giving birth in an unfortunate accident.
It was under the circumstances of her husband being dead, her original occupation being an etiquette teacher and her 11 years old son joining the palace as an exemplary knight squire that Charlotte was chosen for the job. The money was good, and she would get to stay closer to her son by living in the palace, so she accepted it.
Time passed, month after month, and the Prince grew up well.
Mordred was a unique child, Charlotte could tell 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 Charlotte 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 the little Prince 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, the boy continued sleeping a lot.
But all this suddenly changed when he learned how to crawl.
He would curiously crawl everywhere, seeming to want to explore the entire palace. Charlotte had to be careful to not leave the doors open, otherwise she felt that the Prince would definitely notice it and sneak out.
The Prince finally began to move around and was a very active child. Seeing it filled her heart with joy and brought back old memories.
But strangely, Mordred's activity only happened in short bursts. He 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.
Prince Mordred 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 Charlotte 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, Charlotte began to teach the Prince how to read.
Over time, Charlotte realized that she had underestimated the boy 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. The Prince was a genius, a super genius!
After discussing this with her acquaintances 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 success in life.
But this belief changed when, one of those days, the Prince had asked Charlotte to bring him to the palace's library.
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.
Charlotte smiled as she followed him. "Your Highness, you're too young to borrow anything from this section."
"I know… But I just want to look at the pictures!"
Hearing this childish reason, Charlotte 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 Charlotte realized that what the Prince was actually reading was an incantation for a spell, right from that book.
Her expression froze.
"No, Prince Mordred!" Charlotte immediately called out in a panic.
"I call a refreshing burbling stream here and now…"
"Don't read it!" Charlotte 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 Charlotte 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.
"Prince… you…" Charlotte was taken aback.
It was Magic!
She did not expect the Prince 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 the Prince 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…"
Charlotte looked down at the boy sympathetically. Who cared about his shoes being wet or him not listening to her at this point?
The Prince was a Magic prodigy!
Charlotte grabbed Mordred's upper arms while looking him in the eyes as an overjoyed smile appeared on her face. "Good job, Mordred! The King will be very happy!"
…
[Mordred's POV.]
After glancing at the librarian who stared at the small wet spot on the carpet, Charlotte 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 Charlotte.
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!
"Prince Mordred?" Charlotte 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?" Charlotte was stunned. Didn't the prince just skip most of the incantation?!
***
***
***
Name: Mordred Kingdragon
Titles: 16th Prince of Kingdragon, Magic prodigy (only by Charlotte so far)
Age: 2
Strength: F | Average human's strength when reinforced (~100 kg).
Endurance: E | Advanced rank; his skin becomes as tough as steel when reinforced and difficult to 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.