Chapter 24: Chapter 23: The heavy mantle of responsibility

Ren Xiyang didn’t ‘give up’ on trying to pronounce spell words by himself. He simply made the executive decision to temporarily put away the magic books and did some more urgent administration instead.

On the next morning, Kel carried breakfast to Ren Xiyang’s suite as usual. On the tray of dishes, there was also a note.

“My Lord, one of Prince Rian’s Royal Guards asked me to pass this message to you,” Kel said, handing the note to Ren Xiyang.

Ren Xiyang opened the note. It was a request for a meeting in the afternoon.

“In this case, prepare the carriage now, I’ll head into Redmond town immediately after breakfast. I need someone familiar with the families of deceased employees so that I may start distributing compensation payments. Are you familiar with them?”

“My Lord, I believe Maria knows all the families in Redmond town.”

“Have her meet us downstairs then.”

“Yes, my Lord.”

After eating, Kel took away his breakfast dishes. Ren Xiyang changed into appropriate Earl Rosewood clothing with the Rosewood emblem and gathered the necessary coins. He had prepared the suitable bereavement payment amounts for the killed servants with known salaries with families in Redmond town—the money that had been lying around the summer manor was more than enough. Many of the gold coins had already been converted to copper and silver at the bank in Redmond town thanks to Kel.

When Ren Xiyang went downstairs carrying a small bag over his shoulder with Kel, Maria was waiting for him.

…And there was also Prince Rian Azure, Count Aegean, and the Royal Guards.

“Good morning, Your Highness, Count Aegean,” Ren Xiyang said, looking at Rian.

Rian smiled ‘innocently’.

Rian had sent one his Royal guards to give a note to a Rosewood servant to deliver to Earl Rosewood, requesting a meeting that afternoon. But then he had noticed the preparations outside, and in particular, the Rosewood carriage being stationed by the front door. After asking a Rosewood servant, he learned that the Earl planned to visit the town today. The action he should take next was obvious.

“Earl Rosewood, I heard you’re visiting Redmond. I haven’t visited myself,” Rian said naturally. His eyes were clearly asking, let me come with you?

Ren Xiyang felt too old for this. “I am running errands, but you may come along if you wish, your Highness.”

“Invitation accepted,” Rian said with a smile.

Count Aegean had the opposite of a smile.

“My Lord, we have prepared this carriage for you,” Kel said tentatively.

“Earl Rosewood can sit in my carriage,” Rian said.

Ren Xiyang couldn’t be bothered to argue. “Kel, Maria, take my carriage. Your Highness, lead the way.”

The prince’s carriage had been the one Count Aegean had sat in on his journey from the Capital to the Rosewood summer manor. It was an opulent thing, with clean white sides, gold details, and with the icy-blue emblem of the Imperial Azure Family.

After the coachman opened the door, Rian offered Ren Xiyang to enter. Ren Xiyang climbed inside without fussing on who should have been first.

Rian turned back. “Count Aegean, you—”

“I am not sitting out with the driver, nor on a horse,” Count Aegean said.

Rian blinked. “Understood. I was going to ask you if you wished to stay here at the manor instead.”

Count Aegean gave Rian an irked look. As if he wasn’t going to supervise the prince!

Rian climbed in second, taking a seat next to Ayden Rosewood, while Count Aegean was last, taking a seat on the opposite side of the carriage. The coachman closed the carriage door and went to the front. Not long after, the horses started forward.

Ren Xiyang was inwardly frowning. While the road was paved and the seats were padded, the wheels didn’t have modern suspension systems. “Do you mind, your Highness?” Ren Xiyang touched one of the closed curtains on his side.

“Go ahead,” Rian said generously.

Ren Xiyang pulled the curtains back. As the carriage pulled away from the Rosewood summer manor, the scenery changed from rose gardens to a combination of wooded lands, Rosewood estate farms, and empty land. The number of people was sparse, and the number of little-heat-sources were many.

Rian asked, “Say, does Earl Rosewood know how to use the sword? We could duel with a sword instead of magic.”

Count Aegean glared at the prince, who ignored him.

Ren Xiyang gave him a blank look. “I don’t, your Highness.” He might have wielded bricks and debris as weapons during the apocalypse, but definitely not a sword.

Rian tilted his head and smiled mischievously. “Why don’t you come to the Imperial Palace? I’ll tell my sword-fighting tutor, Sir Mannering, to teach you.”

“On what favour?” Ren Xiyang raised an eyebrow.

“Well, that can always be discussed afterwards,” Rian replied lightly.

Ren Xiyang gave him a deadpan look.

“By the way, what is your itinerary, Earl Rosewood?” Rian asked, tilting his head like a big puppy dog.

Count Aegean realised he recognised this behaviour—it was what the prince did every time he wanted something from him!

Unlike the Count, Ren Xiyang wasn’t moved by Rian’s antics either way. He touched the bag on his lap. “Bereavement payments, for those in Redmond.”

Rian’s eyes sharpened. So, it turned out that Ayden Rosewood was indeed serious about bereavement payments, as expected. He gave Count Aegean an I-told-you-so look.

Count Aegean’s lips thinned. “Earl Rosewood, if I may give you a suggestion?”

Ren Xiyang looked over. “Yes.”

“Such a task can be done by a servant. It will lower your image as the new Earl to run around personally doing this.” Not to mention he had been unwillingly dragged along!

Ren Xiyang’s eyelids lowered. “Count Aegean, I have not yet vetted all the employees of the Rosewood estate. Embezzlement and corruption is an endemic problem. A few missing silver coins may seem not worth the worry, but for a poor family, it can mean the difference between life and death. I understand that those living in wealth tend to forget such matters.”

Count Aegean bristled. “Be that as it may, you must consider your station as the Earl of Rosewood—”

Ren Xiyang recalled some of Alyssa’s memories. “There is a library-tea-house in Redmond town. Prince Rian can drop me off first, while you two can rest there.”

“Count Aegean, you can stay at this library-tea-house while I continue on with the Earl in the Earl’s carriage,” Rian immediately added.

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Count Aegean frowned.

“—And the Royal Guards will tell you everything afterwards anyway,” Rian persuaded.

“…” Count Aegean didn’t admit anything out loud.

Ren Xiyang turned his head to the window again while the prince and the Count continued to bicker. The scenery outside the carriage was constantly changing.

Only part of the road from the manor to the town was paved. The majority of was dusty dirt, dried from the summer heat. A few houses soon became a few more. Redmond town ‘began’ with the appearance of clustered broken-down hovels.

Ren Xiyang could sense that some people were staying inside of them.

In Alyssa Rosewood’s young life so far, she only stayed in the Rosewood summer manor and the Rosewoods’ main house in the Capital, travelling by carriage on roads that bypassed any small towns and villages like this, stopping to rest at chosen luxurious places. She barely thought about others who were poorer, just like Count Aegean.

In the novel, Cassiopeia Schauss was mostly located in the rich, nobility-laden Imperial Magical Academy in the inner city of the Capital. It was only during the plague that she encountered the commoners and how they lived. The picture painted of the commoners in the novel was one of poverty and lives torn apart by the plague, of infected people dying on the streets, only to be reanimated and go on to infect others in a vicious cycle.

But the plague couldn’t create such deep poverty so quickly unless the initial starting point was already low.

Responsibility was a heavy mantle on Ren Xiyang’s shoulders. Damned himself for being responsible—that was what killed him the first time. But the thought of being like those leaders of the bases during the apocalypse put a horrible taste in his mouth.

So many leaders had used the apocalypse as an excuse to revert to discriminatory and entitled conservatism. —Because anyone who has a period is a woman and every woman has do exactly as we say because you’re all liabilities because if it weren’t for you the zombies wouldn’t find us because why can’t you just stop yourself from bleeding?—And, oh, so many people have been killed, it’s your duty to repopulate the Earth—

Fucking bastards, Ren Xiyang regretted not killing some of them before exiting the world. Sometimes, killing was the best solution.

Ren Xiyang had been lucky, he had already been presenting male and he had been a powerful fire-ability user. In retrospect, he should have tried harder to push against those leaders. In retrospect, he hadn’t been responsible enough. Disappointment in himself was thick in his throat.

People like Count Aegean and Manager Gregory were wrong. Ren Xiyang had no interest in being the kind of leader they wanted.

Rian glanced over the Earl and saw the bitter look on the Earl’s small face and the sharp aura of coldness. His chest tightened. He wondered what the Earl was thinking about.

“—Hah, is that the King’s carriage?!”

“Wow, wow, wow!”

A bunch of kids’ voices broke Ren Xiyang’s thoughts. The air temperature around him returned to normal levels.

A group of children playing on the road at the outskirts of town had spotted them: the sight of an Imperial carriage and a Rosewood carriage flanked by strong looking Royal Guards on large horses was a big oddity! The children ran as fast as they could, trying to peek into the windows.

“Make way for His Highness Prince Rian! Make way for Earl Rosewood! Make way for Count Aegean!” the Royal Guards called out.

More than the kids’ shouting, the Royal Guards’ announcements attracted the attention of others. The streets quickly swelled with curious people.

Rian pulled back the window curtains on his side of the carriage and waved graciously to the citizens.

“What, the prince?!!”

“It’s Prince Rian!”

“What about the Earl?”

“The old Earl was killed! There must be a new Earl!”

“What was his name…Allen?”

“It’s Ayden Rosewood, weren’t you listening?”

Rian noticed that Ayden Rosewood didn’t make a move, neither waving, yet not closing the curtains either. “Earl Rosewood, you should greet your citizens.”

“I will be.”

Ren Xiyang was examining all the people—his citizens. Many of them looked curiously at him, but they didn’t seem to recognise him without the distinctive fire-red Rosewood hair. Maybe they thought he should have been in the Rosewood carriage instead. Most of them looked well enough, better than the faces of the people during the apocalypse. That was good.

With the Royal Guards clearing the way, the Imperial carriage went soon reached the library-tea-house. It was in the most affluent part of town, and the building itself was sufficiently luxurious. All three people in the Imperial carriage disembarked.

Count Aegean wavered. His backside was sore from the trip. He inwardly cursed how these backward fiefs didn’t have nice paved roads like the Capital.

“Are you sure you want to come with us, Count Aegean?” Rian asked, tilted his head. “It’s clear the carriage is too big for many of the roads, so we’ll have to walk,” he mused out loud. “And sitting in the carriage for a long time is uncomfortable.”

“There are many people to see. If we walk fast, we’ll be done at lunch,” Ren Xiyang added.

Lunch? Three, four hours of walking? Count Aegean could feel his feet and back getting sore from the thought of it. Maybe the two young sprightly children could go traipsing around town, but Count Aegean was not suitable! Sitting down comfortably in a teahouse was a much more welcoming prospect.

“Very well. Don’t take long,” Count Aegean grudgingly said.

Earl Rosewood and Prince Rian immediately climbed into the Rosewood carriage and left, giving no time for any change-of-mind.

And suddenly, standing by himself but for a few Royal Guards, Count Aegean felt the opposite of happy again. Dammit, the Prince did this on purpose didn’t he!

 

 

 

 

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Rian Azure: ^_^

Ren Xiyang: “…”

Count Aegean:  >:(

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