“Aww, that’s our Elodie.”

As soon as Erica patted Elodie’s bottom affectionately, she asked Eric sternly.

“What about you?”

“I’ll do it later.”

Right, as if he would have done it.

“When is later?”

“When I’m mentally prepared.”

“……”

“I’m not ready to accept it yet.”

Grandma, who had been quietly watching the mother and son, burst into laughter and asked.

“Who does this one take after?”

“Dad.”

“He takes after Mom.”

Erica and Roderick blamed each other and started bickering.

“You’re the one who hates studying, what are you talking about?”

“You’re the one who never loses an argument.”

“……”

It was exactly right. Just looking at usual times, that was true. When arguments started, it was always Roderick’s lot to lose.

“Wait! Then if I lose this argument, it means I’m refuting Roderick’s words, so I win? If I win this argument, it means Roderick’s words are right, so I lose?”

Erica unknowingly stepped into the trap of contradiction that Roderick had dug. The corners of his mouth were slightly raised as he waited for Erica’s next words.

If you can neither win nor lose, what do you do? Run away.

“Are you mentally prepared now?”

Erica turned the arrow toward Eric.

“No.”

“At your pace, you’ll never be prepared in your lifetime, so go get your homework right now.”

Grandma watched with fond eyes as Eric headed home grumbling after his excuses failed, then said to Erica.

“It’s certain he takes after his mother in cunning.”

She couldn’t refute this either.

“Two times five is……”

Eric held onto the parchment and pondered for a moment, then wrote 10 with his ink-stained quill. Then as soon as he moved to the next problem, the pondering began again.

“Three times seven is…… Three times seven is……”

This time the pondering lasted longer. After thinking for a long time but still unable to figure out what three times seven was, Eric scratched his head and glanced up.

When Elodie sitting across from him made eye contact, she glanced sideways at the adults. The adults were all busy with their assigned tasks. Elodie took advantage of this gap to move her lips. Eric’s mouth curved upward.

“Elodie……”

As soon as Elodie’s mouth silently said the number 2, Erica warned in a low voice.

“Mom has eyes in the back of her head too.”

Elodie was startled and shut her mouth tight. In the end, Eric’s math homework, deprived of his homework helper’s assistance, became a festival of wrong answers. After pondering and pondering even the last problem and writing down a wrong answer, Eric sighed deeply and complained.

“Why isn’t there a nine times table?”

“Because you’d write answers by folding your fingers.”

She had taught him for fun that for the nine times table, you could fold fingers one by one and count the remaining fingers, but this kid had no intention of memorizing it at all.

Greta’s face was constantly spread with a big smile as she watched the tug-of-war between the mother who begged him not to use his hands and memorize the nine times table, and the eight-year-old who asked why he had to use his head when he had hands.

‘What a truly ordinary family.’

Shadows began to gradually fall across Greta’s smile. Such an ordinary family, ordinary peace, and ordinary daily life wouldn’t last very long.

“I’m trying to live as normally as possible at home so the children don’t feel we’re at war, as if nothing is happening.”

She suddenly remembered what Erica had said on the way back from the meeting beyond the mountain range. It was truly a lovely sentiment, but how long could Erica protect this ordinary daily life? The children were destined to feel the aftermath of war greatly once the war ended.

‘From the moment Elodie becomes king, it will be difficult to have ordinary family time like today.’

Greta’s affectionate gaze turned to the girl who was laughing brightly while looking at her mother and son.

That child would have to give up an ordinary family to have the home everyone else gets. Because she was born with special blood. It was heartbreaking beyond measure.

* * *

Whiiiiik.

When the sound of cutting through wind was heard, everyone looked up as if entranced. And before long, the source of the sound appeared.

The undead gathered in black masses reached up toward the wyvern passing overhead. The soundless clamor of the undead didn’t last long.

Thud!

The wyvern dropped something and passed by. Not a person riding on top, but just a single stone. No undead paid attention to it. Neither did the mage watching from afar with clairvoyance. Not knowing it was a fatal mistake.

Boom!

As soon as the stone fell among the undead and disappeared from sight, an explosion occurred. The shockwave that spread in all directions swept away all the dead, and after the shockwave subsided, all that remained in that place was empty land with thick dust floating.

So Roderick, the elves, and the holy knights rode nine wyverns and dropped mana bombs from the sky at regular intervals.

At the same time, operations began on the ground throughout the kingdom. The princess faction’s army that had been keeping their doors tightly locked poured out of their safe positions. The soldiers at the front advanced holding shields densely packed like a barrier. Behind them, throwers loaded mana bombs onto slings and shot them far into the middle of undead hordes.

Whoosh, boom!

Wherever a single stone flew and fell, explosive sounds followed in succession. The undead that had only increased in number and never decreased disappeared by half in just one day.

“What? The enemies defeated the undead?”

The royal palace fell into a cauldron of shock upon hearing reports coming up from throughout the kingdom. Hadn’t they been raising toasts just last night, saying the Princess faction would be annihilated within a week at this rate?

“What method did they use? Find out immediately!”

Half a day after Marquis Draven gave the order, a report came in from the battlefield.

“According to eyewitness accounts, soldiers threw these things at the undead, and immediately explosions occurred and all the undead completely disappeared.”

The military commander made his report while placing a fist-sized purple stone on the desk.

“What is this?”

“The magical power has already exploded and disappeared, so it looks like an ordinary stone, but this is a magic stone.”

The smooth stone had squiggly letters and pictures carved on it that the marquis couldn’t read. The marquis called someone who could read it.

“This is……”

As soon as Magnus received the magic stone and read what was carved on it, his eyes showed unprecedented surprise.

“Do you know what it is?”

“It’s a magical tool that uses the inherent mana contained in the magic stone……”

“Who doesn’t know that?”

Magnus was stating the obvious not because he lacked awareness, but because he too didn’t know the answer the marquis wanted.

“I can’t yet tell exactly what this magical tool does, but I’ll quickly analyze it and come up with countermeasures.”

For Magnus right now, this was the least wrong answer he could give.

“Unfortunately, I’ve never seen magic formulas like these before either.”

Magnus’s eyes, turning back to the magic stone, changed to those of someone looking at a precious gem.

“While it’s difficult to interpret all the formulas here and now and define their effects, I can tell these are very novel and sophisticated formulas.”

As such, it was difficult to immediately find their principles and weaknesses to devise methods of nullification.

“This skill isn’t ordinary. Among the existing mages I know, there’s no mage who could devise formulas this sophisticated and complex…… Who on earth developed this?”

While Magnus felt jealousy and humiliation as a mage, Marquis Draven felt fear.

“Is there a mage on their side more amazing than a Grand Mage?”

A mage more amazing than Magnus, who was a Grand Mage. The marquis gave instructions to the military commander.

“Infiltrate spies disguised as territory residents into the Princess faction’s command. We need to find out the identity of whoever made this magical tool.”

Their side was now always guarded by spirits, so sending Sylphs to spy instantly was no longer possible.

“Perhaps……”

Just as he was about to finish his instructions, Magnus, who had been absorbed in the magical tool, suddenly spoke up.

“Could it be that mage we saw at Winterborn’s ruins a few years ago?”

Magnus still clearly remembered the old woman who had fought on the enemy’s side back then. That old woman who had instantly destroyed his defensive barrier. The only mage who had hurt his pride.

“Do you remember her face?”

“Not clearly, but……”

There was no way he could have had the leisure to look at faces closely while fighting frantically. When Magnus roughly described the appearance he remembered, the military commander wrote it down.

“Then I’ll tell them to look for an old woman who can use magic.”

After the military commander left, the marquis this time pressured Magnus and drove him out.

“Hurry back to your laboratory and find a countermeasure!”

Four days passed after that. For the marquis, it was four days that felt like four years.

If even Magnus couldn’t find a way to deal with it, how much more so for ordinary mages? While they wasted time analyzing the magical tools, the mages deployed on the battlefield either wandered around in confusion and were captured by enemies, or abandoned the undead units they had been commanding and fled with their tails between their legs.

They belatedly dispatched human soldiers kept in reserve, but it wasn’t enough to fill the gap left by the disappeared invincible army.

Moreover, when the undead that couldn’t die even when killed had been swarming outside the gates, the internal enemies who had been holding their breath began emerging one by one as the undead disappeared. Territory residents who were outraged at Marquis Draven for turning their beloved family and neighbors into cursed beings rose up in rebellion everywhere. In the past, he would have easily suppressed them, but the marquis no longer had the military strength or financial resources to do so.