Chapter 13: (Volume 2) Prologue: People change and they move on.

Two years.That’s how long it’s been since I started training. Sarah had disappeared, no matter how many times I called her, she never came back. After I had lost all my purpose when Varkhaz murdered my village and my family, the duke took me in. And I only had one goal in mind, to make sure that the people would have a place to peacefully live in. I was behind the main mansion with Ryoko ー Master of the Akhet swordsmanship and my teacher. 

 

As the heir to the ducal household, I had to learn swordsmanship, history, arts, language, accountancy, and even Magic. I’ve learnt that, due to my double-vessel, I can use any attribute magic, however it will be inefficient. The fact that I know is only becauseーthe ‘Blue Devil’ーElena told me. She was a master of everything. She was also my etiquette teacher. 

 

After I was done practicing the Akhet swordsmanship, I bowed to Ryoko and went back to my room in the mansion. The room had a big window at the back letting me see the dukedom, and facing towards the door was my table filled with documents I needed to go through and approve. My wardrobe was at the corner of the room. As I was just done with training, I wiped down and decided I should take a bath. I tied the towel and walked out of my room. I slowly walked towards the bathroom situated on the east side of the building.

 

Since my room was on the west side, I had to walk for a bit. But it wasn’t something that was especially inconvenient. The bathroomーas expectedーwas steamy. It seems she didn’t forget today either. I’ll have to thank her later. I untied my towel and got into the water slowly. I stayed there and gathered my thoughts. 

 

Every day had gotten busier, I had no time to rest. Today I had to meet Leon once again. I'll have to ask him about the new education system bill, it was a bill I thought up so that it can be helpful to the people. An education bill that focused on the commoners. By giving them education we can get more resources in the administrative side of our dukedom. Though education for commoners was banned within the central kingdom, we were out of their jurisdiction since we were an autonomous territory that made the wheat that the central kingdom uses.

 

The only way their jurisdiction would apply is if we had bought their products as an entity of the government. Of course this would mean that privatized trading between merchants and merchant entities wouldn’t count, though with that we of course had limits to how much we could buy until the damn trade inspectors determined it to be a case of authority-bypass. 

 

Right now though, I’m gonna take a moment and relax. After I scrubbed myself clean, I got up and wiped myself. I went back to my room and got dressed. Soon I was just sitting in my chair as I waited for Alf. 

 

“Young Master, may I?” A knock at the door. It was Alf.

 

“Come in.” He came in, closed the door behind him and bowed. 

 

“How many times did I tell you not to bow...? Agh, nevermind. Has Leon arrived yet?”

 

“Yes, Sir Leon, is waiting in the lobby.” I’ve already told him that he can come to my room without worrying about courtesy. But he still hasn't come.

 

“Tell him that I summoned him.”

 

“As you say, young master.” He bowed and before he could leave, another person arrived through the door, it was Estrelle, she ran towards me into my abdomen. Her headbutt was quite strong, “Ough!”

 

“Brother!”

 

“Oh boy. Estrelle I told you not to headbutt me...” Though arguably she was cute when she did that, I couldn’t take it anymore. She had already grown to half my height. I patted her on the head and let her sit on my lap while I waited for Leon. 

 

As I had already learned everything I could from Elena, I requested her to teach Estrelle and she reluctantly agreed as she had nothing else to do. Ryoko however would have to depart in about three months, there’s been a summon for him from the empire’s army. He didn’t look like he wanted to go but he told me to keep perfecting my swordsmanship while I can. 

 

The duke however left immediately after I woke up and because of all the preceding events, I basically had to take care of all that had happened. With Varkhaz’s reputation being in the dumps and the dukedom’s reserve food scarce, it was the hardest year. The winter was barely survivable. But because we had the money I, with the help of Elena and Alf, decided to redistribute the funds to the farmers and cut down on taxes from farmers. We raised the tax by a few percent, 3% to be exact, on the guilds and private lands. 

 

Though it was only a small percentage, because it was from people who had a lot of money, we were able to keep them happy while having enough money to run the dukedom. It was only because of this that we even have the capability to think of setting up an education bill that will increase the amount of people who study. The main reason I decided to go forward with this is because I realized how powerful of a tool education was. If the common people were educated and had the dukedom to thank for that, we’d have lots of loyal and intelligent people. Which is exactly what we needed. 

 

But my reputation didn’t improve much even with that, the empire’s ambassadors suggested that we tell the story of how ‘demon worshippers ruined the son of the duke but he won over the temptations!’ or something like that. Though I didn’t like it, they weren’t wrong. The one thing I learned while being the lord is that the people change and they move on. Being stuck in the past will get us nowhere.

 

One curious thing is that though the story of Demon Worshippers was a lie. It wasn’t a lie to say that Varkhaz was cursed. However, it did make me feel bitter. I wonder if what happened could’ve been prevented. Then... they would have...

 

“Brother... Are you sad?” Estrelle asked, lying on my chest. 

 

“No, not at all! Why do you ask?” I put on a smile and told her.

 

“Okay...” It didn’t seem like she was convinced, but she didn’t poke me any further.

 

She continued, “Brother just know that Estrelle’s always there for you!” I ruffled her hair and smiled. Even though I wanted to move on, it seemed so impossible. I decided that it was for the best that I forget what happened that day. 

 

And then a knock at the door, “S-sir... May I come in?”

 

Just by his shyness I knew that it was Leon. He wasn’t particularly old either, he was sixteen. But I’d told him that he should be confident if he wanted to present these things to the council. He was actually the son of Baron Lana. She was the one who personally requested me to help them. In turn I asked her to let me teach her son. She was reluctant at first, but now I’ve gained an ally who is willing to think with me and make administrative decisions when we need to.

 

“Come in and take a seat.”

 

If I were to be honest, the amount of work that we do far surpasses the threshold of just a normal dukedom. I even checked the previous records of the previous lords and saw that our population has almost doubled, however our administrative staff’s numbers have remained the same, maybe even less. The revenue of trades and other lords have increased ten fold yet we tax the citizens who haven’t had that much of an increase in average income. 

 

In truth we were rivaling the central kingdom in terms of population, revenue and trade. But we are under a sort of pseudo jurisdiction of theirs. Nonetheless for now, we’ll do what we can.

 

“S-sir, so I’ve taken a look at the bill and the main issue I see with enacting it is U-uhm...” He held a face of nervousness.

 

“The west and north side barons, right?” They were the main reason this bill could fail. As they’re mainly followers of the Kytallix Church, they don’t exactly believe in the universal education that we want to provide. There isn’t a state religion, but because Kytallix had the largest numbers, they could exercise a large amount of control on us. Not to mention Kytallix was also the Empire’s official religion, which meant that they had the backing of the empire.

 

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“Although... Sir, we could instead make privatized education centers directed by us. Which would mean that the barons couldn’t oppose the bills.”

 

“Okay... That’s good. What about our student candidates?”

 

“They’re currently being selected by Baron Tanykorvus.”

 

“Tanykorvus... Weren’t they the ones who initially suggested the idea?”

 

“Yes sir. I believe it was due to the fact that they couldn’t receive formal education from a scholar due to the high costs.”

 

“Fair enough. After all, they usually didn’t marry into noble families and just kept up with their duties.”

 

“Right sir.”

 

“How about we subsidize all their help efforts within the city. Send the documents to Alf’s office.”

 

“Understood sir. Also sir...”

 

“Leon, just speak.”

 

Reluctantly he agreed, he sighed and said “Lilia requested staff...”

 

“Ah man... I already told her it’s not necessary, all those funds will be wasted here.”

 

“B-but sir! The dignity of the Harqi family is on the line! You need to hire staff, sir!”

 

“Agh fine. I’ll approve the documents.” And surprisingly he gave me a few papers and said, “Here you go sir.”

 

“What the... You were prepared..?”

 

“U-ugh! N-not at all, sir!”

 

And then Lilia opened the door and came in, “No young master, I was the one who put him up to it.” She carried a tray of two tea cups. She gave one to Leon and gave one to me.

 

“God... Lilia, you could’ve just asked.”

 

“Young master... I’ve been asking for almost a year.” I spat a bit of tea out. “W-well, it’s just-”

 

“I’ve had enough young master, you must approve this! We can’t have the other lords look down on us. Especially not with the upcoming council meeting.”

 

“Argh... fair enough.”

 

I reluctantly signed them and then gave it to Leon. 

 

Leon nervously asked “L-lilia, could you please give these to Alf...?”

 

“Sir Leon, please talk freely to me. And yes, I’ll give them to Sir Alf.”

 

And suddenly in front of me something showed up, and before I could even understand what was going on, I automatically stood up. The two of them looked at me in confusion but I was in even further confusion. A square shaped panel showed in front of me:

 

[Mission]

The people of the Central Kingdom have planned to get rid of the dukedom, protect the dukedom and stop the Kytallix’s bishop.

[Rewards]

 

• The Dukedom’s survival.

• 25%+ in Reputation among the people.

• Revival of [Entity : Sarah].

 

In not doing the quest, the system will not be able to help you. You will forever lose the system privileges.

Do you accept?

[Yes] or [No]

 

‘Revival of entity sarah.’ I immediately understood what that meant. Sarah would return. She was the only one who gave me hope after I lost it. Will she... really come back?