Winter of the Fourteenth Year
Politics
Systems of politics are indispensable when the main cast assume the positions of important kings or generals. Actions may include listening to the demands of the people, snooping around enemy states, or quelling domestic tensions. In systems like these, the players must determine who their enemy is before engaging in a climactic conclusion, lest their swords fall upon a mistaken target.
If you leave a person on the brink of death for long enough, they’ll get used to living that way.
I’d absorbed that particular lesson in my past life from an old university classmate who’d gone on to work for a pretty terrible company. We’d gone out for drinks every now and again, and every time I’d wondered how he managed to get by waking up at five in the morning and taking the last train home every day without any notion of weekends or holidays.
Where I normally just consoled him and listened to his grievances, one night, we decided to hit up a second bar. After half a bottle of whiskey each, my tongue slipped, and I asked the question: “If things are so bad, why don’t you leave?”
I didn’t want to come off as boastful, but having been classmates, I knew his education and background were solid; on top of that, his commitment to this awful company meant his work history looked clean as well. Among our other close college-era friends were attorneys who’d survived law school, certified tax accountants, and licensed social-insurance consultants. With strong connections on both legal and financial fronts, it seemed likely that he could sue and win compensation for all the wrongful overtime they’d wrung out of him.
He’d known this just as well as I had, but his answer had caught me off guard.
“If you toss a frog in a boiling pot, I think it’ll know it’s gonna die... But even then, I don’t think it can bring itself to make the effort to run. Who knows? Maybe whatever’s beyond the water’s just as bad, or worse.”
I could no longer remember his name, but the feeble sight of his head slumped down on the edge of the bar curiously stuck with me in vivid detail. The bitterness of the memory outstripped any liquor—but enough of that. I had my own godsawful job that I’d gotten used to.
At this point, a mountain of letters was fodder for my Independent Processing; my colleagues—that is, the government mediators sent to help with the madam’s affairs—who had initially eyed me wondering who let a kid into the room now welcomed me when we worked together.
It seemed that people were hardwired to feel some level of sympathy when they witnessed a literal child earnestly working with bags under his eyes. A little bit of intrigue sufficed to uncover the villainy of many of my employer’s enemies, and I had to admit it got to me a bit when swindlers as immoral as them pitied me enough to give me candy.
But my SAN points were oiling the machine nicely. Despite being surrounded by conspirators, pawning off what work I could assign to them still lightened my load. In fact, entrusting them with the madam’s business lulled them into thinking they’d somehow earned our trust; by inviting them to be bolder in their plots, I streamlined the process of catching them later.
This process, put to use over the waning autumn months, had allowed me to all but finish labeling the actors at large in the Ubiorum domain. The broad strokes were that half of them were pretending to be loyal; twenty percent were clearly conspiring with outside powers but had kept their crimes small enough to remain beneath notice; another twenty percent were decent folk putting in their honest share to keep their territories afloat; and the last tenth were loyal vassals of the crown who swore fealty to the greater Empire as opposed to the old masters of the county.
Did I wander into hell?
You have no idea how abhorrent the tax reports we’d received had been. From the looks of things, news that the crown was going to relinquish the region and hand the reins to a new Count Ubiorum had come as just as much of a surprise to its residents as to everyone else. While there had been traces of an attempt to piece together something presentable, the final product had drawn out a peculiar groan from me, perhaps best rendered as, “Ughab?”
The lack of oversight in imperially protected territories and the subsequent laxity of those who exploited it was blatantly apparent. My relationship with economics only went as far as a midlevel Bookkeeping Certificate I’d earned as part of a college course, and even I could find clear falsehoods at every turn.
Liquid tax and population failed to match up as a matter of course, and the story wasn’t any better when the reported earnings were compared to agricultural acreage. After crunching the numbers, I came across several cantons where I wanted to grab the local lords’ collars and ask if they’d somehow managed to let every single one of their residents starve while no one was looking.
Until now, it seemed as though they’d slipped under the radar by fudging the overall numbers and lining the pockets of the bureaucrats sent to hold them accountable. Unfortunately for them, the new count’s financial advisory team reported directly to her—after all, the only two members were Chief Agrippina and Lackey Erich—rendering their trickery useless.
Had this been an empire-building simulation game, we could have immediately cut off our ties and their heads to replace the corrupt magistrates with new ones. The problem with that plan here was that we lacked an infinite gacha that turned money into lords; dispatching new rulers was too much of a hassle to start lopping off heads as we pleased.
As an aside, I think the severity of the issue can be made most apparent by stating that Lady Agrippina, a woman who’d anticipated next to nothing from her new territory, had furrowed her brow at the report.
This was a perfect example of the depths of depravity people could sink to without a watchful eye to stop them. Even a haphazard recalculation of projected earnings proved that the count should have been due at least double the actual sum. I could still muster a dry chuckle because I was just a retainer, but this wouldn’t have been a laughing matter had I been the one in charge. Lady Agrippina’s job was to turn this mess around and bolster the nation’s bottom line; the road ahead was long.
Realistically, her best bet was to hang a few of them to prove she wasn’t messing around. From there, she could whip the unmotivated into shape and replace those truly rotten with new blood. Removing too many troublemakers at once was liable to incite a revolt that would plunge the region into chaos; she would need to take her time and slowly put her people into place.
If all went well, I imagined it would take her, say...a quarter of a century? In mortal terms, that was an entire generation spent just turning a negative into zero; the futility of it all would make anyone bound by a life span lose heart. A business in this situation would just scrap the company and try again elsewhere.
So long as Lady Agrippina cast her lot with the Empire, she would be forced to deal with this hotbed of strife forever. As much as I could sympathize with her suffering, it wasn’t as if my suffering were any less real.
“Are you ready yet?”
“Give me one more moment, please!”
I answered the madam’s lifeless attempt to rush me from outside the room and looked in the mirror to check over my appearance. Despite his deathly expression, the boy staring back at me was dressed in the best money could buy.
Today’s outfit was a black pourpoint. I hid my neck with an ascot tie in lieu of the more fashionable ruff making the rounds these days, and had generally put myself together in outdated styles to emphasize my lower standing. Though nobles liked to dress up their hired help, maintaining at least a one-trend lag in terms of dress remained standard.
“Okay, clothes are good...”
Nothing was wrinkled, my collar was set, and the fabric was clean from tip to toe. I left no room for critique; none could fault me for coming short of the picture-perfect servant.
Now, you may be wondering why I was proactively stuffing myself into one of Lady Leizniz’s gifts, and the answer was simple: work. Obviously, I’d never choose such an overstated fit of my own volition. My preference was simple shirts and pants with enough slack to move around in, particularly with pockets to conceal smaller tools, and comfort while unsheathing my sword in a fluid motion was icing on top. Alas, I couldn’t exactly accompany the madam into the imperial palace looking like that, so I dredged up one of the finer sets of threads I did my best to keep hidden.
After confirming my attire was in order, I moved on to my face. I wasn’t going to nitpick about the structure of my bones or whatever, but I’d made an effort not to look bad. Permanent bags had formed under my eyes, so I’d concealed them with a touch of powder; I resisted the natural outbreak of acne at my age every day with a carefully tailored diet. I’d even taken care not to allow any grime to turn into blackheads.
All right. Having taken a bath yesterday to scrub down whatever might remain on my face, I was looking as ready as could be. The final touch was to comb through my hair, applying a light coat of oil and tying it together near my neck. My bangs were manageable on account of regular trimming, so I swept them to the side and hooked the excess over my ear. Today’s do was a simple one; I didn’t have anything against the northern method of weaving together a bunch of separate braids, but that would take too long for my current schedule.
Despite being at the point where I wanted to cut off at least some of it, my recent attempt to do so had produced a fey protest—featuring alfar I’d never seen before, to boot—so I’d given up. I’d started growing it to earn their favor; it tracked to see that mission through until the end.
Well, if nothing else, I supposed that it was nice to be able to wrap a tuft of hair around the side of my neck in this cold weather. Besides, it was stronger than it looked, and bundled up like this, it served as a bit of protection: I’d heard once that ancient warriors had grown out their manes as a last resort to dull enemy blades.
I did a final pass in the mirror, making sure to check my backside as well. No bedhead, no frayed edges, no shirt sticking out from my slacks—I was relieved to see that I wouldn’t be mocked as unfit to trail behind my master in high society.
“What do you think, Elisa?”
“You look as wonderful as ever, Dear Brother.”
And lastly, I made sure to get a second opinion. The madam’s recent uptick in outings meant I’d begun to leave my dress clothes in a new wardrobe, here in Elisa’s room. While the capital’s roads were mostly paved, there was always the risk of dirt or mud stuck to someone’s horses flicking off in the streets. Getting changed here was the safest bet, and it meant I could return to the atelier to answer an emergency summons without needing to go home and prepare.
As a result, I’d been intruding on Elisa’s massive bed—the one Lady Leizniz had given her, with a canopy and everything—a lot lately, but I needed the sleep, so I asked that she put up with it.
But if I never went home at all, the Ashen Fraulein would sulk. It was getting difficult to fulfill my dual duties as a servant and as an individual: every problem solved teed up a new one elsewhere. I knew this was just the way of the world, but man, did I wish I had a cheat code for it.
Well, worries aside, I had work to do.
“You’re late.”
“My apologies.”
Heading into the workshop proper, I found Lady Agrippina dolled up to breathtaking levels—assuming the hypothetical observer didn’t know her character. She wore an ashen-white gown that accentuated the fairer tone of her skin, and the deep cut into her chest bared as much of it as possible. Counterintuitively, though, the design gave off a certain modesty; her long, flowing hair, gracefully set, paired with it to round off a thoroughly seductive impression.
I’d never seen her wear this sort of style before; perhaps it was indicative of an attempt to further refine her fashion sense. I supposed it only made sense: the grand ball being held in the imperial palace tonight was an occasion fit for the infamous Count Thaumapalatine Ubiorum to take center stage.
Lady Agrippina had already morphed into the main character of domestic politics, so maybe this was her attempt to branch out as the main character of an otome game. Frankly, my employer was the polar opposite of a wide-eyed, innocent heroine, better fit to play the part of a haughty villainess; though I supposed the kind of scoundrel who could fend off the protagonist and her romantic interests all by herself had no business being the antagonist. How in the world was anyone expected to beat her for a happily ever after?
“Make sure not to forget your arms.”
“I am aware, madam.”
I couldn’t help but remain curious whether she’d amass an army of handsome men as her harem or as her opponents in battle, but I chased away the delusions to the back of my mind and slung the tool of the trade around my hip—I was a retainer and bodyguard, after all.
That’s right, I was now Lady Agrippina’s bodyguard. Here was an elite enemy that begged all manner of miracle to fell, and she needed a security detail, at least on the surface. Apparently not wanting to clue her adversaries in to her tremendous might, she refused to call for knights from home and added yet another set of responsibilities to my name with a casual, “You alone will do, won’t you?”
Isn’t that funny? You know, an ordinary count was supposed to be accompanied by a squadron of guards at any given time, but maybe I was misremembering.
At any rate, Lady Leizniz had gone out of her way to gift me a new scabbard—though one a bit too much form over function for my tastes—which I slipped onto my belt, Schutzwolfe and all. To digress for a moment, she’d also offered to prepare a more chic weapon for me despite looking worse for wear than usual, to which I had to politely refuse.
Utility aside, I didn’t want to be saddled with a rapier built aesthetics-first. Not only did it clash with my personal tastes, but my Hybrid Sword Arts training emphasized rough play involving the handle and handguard, and even extended to half swording. If I ever actually had to fulfill my role as a bodyguard, it would be much easier with a familiar weapon than an unfamiliar one; stabbing weapons had separate add-ons from one-handed swords, and my munchkin heart ached at the thought of throttling my damage potential.
“All right,” she said. “Shall we?”
The madam pushed up her hair without a word and I dutifully laid a fluffy white fur coat over her shoulders. Evening gowns were hardly enough to stay warm in winter. While magia like her could shrug off the weather with a barrier, it wouldn’t do to look cold wandering around without outerwear.
As such, I wrapped myself in a mantle of my own, produced as always by Lady Leizniz. The cloth draped only over my left side: it both toned down the threatening nature of the sword hidden underneath and protected my heart. Mystic embroidery lined the inside with enchantments resisting blades, impact, and changes in temperature to make for a wonderful final product. The idiosyncrasies in the formulae evoked memories of the days when the dean had occasionally tutored me in magic; it seemed she’d prepared this for me with her own two hands.
As embarrassing as this design was to wear, I couldn’t get over the practicality of its features and had ultimately failed to refuse it.
“I wish you a safe journey, Master.”
“Mm. Well, I shall return before sunrise if I can. Don’t forget your homework in my absence.”
Elisa saw us off and we put the atelier behind us. That I felt a tinge of loneliness from her willingness to let us go proved that I really was a hopeless doter of a brother.
But even more curious than that was the sensation of carrying a sword on the streets of the city—I still couldn’t get used to it. I steered Castor and Polydeukes over the bridge to the palace from the driver’s seat of the cab. Krahenschanze’s position as one of the four castles guarding the palace made the ride here a short one, but the sensation of being armed really made me feel out of place on days where I had to walk around town. My personal stature had remained the same, and yet the dizzying changes of those in my proximity threatened to disorient me entirely.
The imperial palace knew not of my troubles, and its heavenly white walls rejected the darkness of night as gloriously as ever. Countless spires pierced the skies, the torches within bleeding out from the terraces. The maniacal attention to detail required to ensure the building would maintain its majesty from any angle was such a ludicrous display of artistry that it overwhelmed my critical eye for beauty and left me drooling with a “Duhhh... Pretty.”
Come to think of it, regularly coming and going from the palace was an unbelievable thing as an imperial citizen.
I stopped the carriage by the front parking lot beside countless other fabulous vehicles, helped Lady Agrippina get down, and followed her inside. The guards took one look at our cab’s insignia—the Ubiorum crest of a dual-headed eagle holding a sword and scepter—and let us through. Apparently, the marking had an identification spell woven into it, allowing persons of importance to pass through without hassle.
The main hall was reminiscent of the throne room in that it was lined with spoils of war taken from defeated enemy nations in service of the Empire’s historical grandeur. No matter how many times I saw this imposing scene, the overpowering majesty of it all continued to intimidate me.
Not only had magic been used to artificially expand the ceiling to bewildering heights, but every pillar, every article of furniture, and every inch of the ceiling had been covered in ornate designs. Yet strangely enough, the masterful architects had managed to stop just short of the gaudiness seen in nouveau-riche displays of wealth.
Upon seeing my master to the palace’s waiting room, my job was finished. From here, she would be accompanied by a fellow aristocrat into whatever meeting room or banquet hall the gathering was to be held in.
The Trialist Empire preferred for its nobles to be joined by an escort for formal occasions: the married were brought by their partners as a rule of thumb, and those unwed most often opted for family or friends of equal rank, or superiors with whom they were well acquainted. Seeing as Rhine wasn’t an absolute patriarchy, the tradition could be traced back to the early ages of the Empire, where an introduction from a colleague was proof that one wasn’t a complete outsider.
In those days, the country had still been a coalition of several distinct states, and every gathering was sure to include people completely unacquainted with one another. When suspicions of foreign ties could snowball into accusations of espionage, the tacit declaration that one was here in the good graces of a respected peer had been important enough to live on to the present day.
This custom meant that the palatial waiting room was a popular place to convene for pairs wanting to adhere to the rules of etiquette. Among its users were people averse to the thought of being picked up directly from home, but others like Lady Agrippina simply resided too close for a more personal rendezvous point to make any sense.
Having seen my master off, I started for the servants’ holding room, only to see her pop right back out of the room with an escort in hand. He was a young audhumbla of imposing size and striking vigor; the stability of his gait betrayed a military background as opposed to a bureaucratic one.
The man’s clothing was first rate—I was an expert at judging ensembles at a glance at this point—pointing to remarkable wealth. Still, his outfit was coordinated not to step on the toes of those who might outrank him; he was probably the eldest son of a wealthy, say, baron or thereabouts. Given the confidence he carried himself with, I saw him as a man of considerable pride.
Alas, the poor fellow’s enthusiasm made it clear his intentions with Lady Agrippina were serious. I pitied him: he hadn’t realized that none of the men who’d escorted her thus far had ever been called back for a second opportunity.
On every occasion where the madam visited the palace, she employed a new partner as company. The first had been a sleazy mensch who typified the word “playboy,” and the next had been a methuselah handsome enough to make me envious. Other notable choices included a goblin who’d looked like a child next to her and a siren whose avian heritage had confused me. If my assumptions were correct, this was her way of avoiding any pesky bonds from forming—a move taken straight from the playbook of an experienced hustler at a hostess bar.
As she left the scene, my master glanced my way and flashed me a wicked grin. I saw her off once more and then quickly made my way over to the holding room, making sure to whisper a request to the unwilted rose hidden in my palm as I slipped inside.
The privileged sphere had been a sight to see, but this was quite the exhibit itself: I felt like I’d wandered into a museum of pretty boys and girls. Despite its moniker, the servants’ section was every bit as spacious as the upper crust’s waiting room, and it was crawling with beauty of every form—to the point where I felt awkward placing myself among them.
The wealthy were ever prone to employing winsome people. I wasn’t aware of any particular historical impetus for this cultural tendency, but I suspected the simple answer of human nature sufficed to explain in this case. After all, I’d heard of some who went so far as to retain generation after generation of attractive vassals to cultivate whole clans of thoroughbred servants.
I made my way to the corner of what was basically a full-fledged salon and took a seat on a sofa, contenting myself to hide away with Ursula’s protection as I waited for the madam to be done. The butlers and maids waiting here passed the time in insulated groups, proving the solidity of factional bonds even in this lower caste of high society.
These sorts of connections were probably of great importance: vital political information could very well come from lowly lips. However, I had no mind to familiarize myself with any of them, nor did I want them to come to me.
My master had explicitly warned me not to get too friendly, you see. I had no doubt this was an effort to bolster the legitimacy of her fake persona. Agreeable nobles would see my isolation and take pity, offering to introduce the madam to attendants who would one day take my place; those who were less charitable might have their prejudices about the ignorant foreign lady reinforced.
For my part, I was very grateful for her consideration. By this time next year, I was likely to be leaving this job in the dust.
Around the time of assuming her title as count thaumapalatine, Lady Agrippina had expanded Elisa’s curriculum to formal magical theory. My sister’s recent command of manners had convinced the madam that she had mastered the basics.
Although Elisa had been instructed in simple mana sinks for quite some time, she was beginning to explore more technical knowledge about the construction of spells and cantrips that went right over my head. The arcane talent afforded to me by my blessing was fundamentally an intuitive process; what she was learning was forged in reason and cast in logic. I could theoretically come to understand the material if I invested more experience into magecraft, but the depths of knowledge she was marching into were uncharted territory.
To clarify the chasm between us, I was like a driver who’d passed a normal driving exam, and Elisa was learning the machine’s workings from the inside out. She had to know how every part worked, how they came together, and the techniques a driver could use to affect them, and at the end of it all, she would eventually race in a circuit against other experts to come out on top.
Seeing as my employment would end with Elisa’s enrollment, I had no need to involve myself in political games. In fact, the madam had made an offhand comment that I was probably best off doing everything in my power to avoid them; I was more than happy to oblige.
While I’d already made a few ties with the government agents involved in the Ubiorum succession, they were flimsy enough to cut by never seeing them again. I’d been as happy as I was astounded Lady Agrippina was looking out for me: I didn’t want to catch too many eyes and have to weasel my way out of a job offer I couldn’t refuse after retiring as her retainer. Of course, when I’d let my surprise show on my face, she yanked my ear with an Unseen Hand, but that had proven to be a good memory in hindsight.
Alas, there wasn’t much I could do if someone had already set their sights on me.
At the turn of the season, I’d heeded my master’s advice and invested in an V: Adept Sympathetic Barrier, and I felt something snag on it. Someone had managed to flag me down in spite of my fey guardian and was engaging in a bout of mischief.
Ursula had been lazing about underneath my mantle, but got up with a pout as soon as she noticed. I knew she wasn’t giving it her all for this everyday request, but the svartalf seemed miffed at the thought that someone had challenged her ability to conceal.
Well, I guessed being targeted was a matter of course. My master was the infamous count palatine that the Emperor had welcomed with flourish and fanfare, appearing out of the blue from a foreign land to win Collegiate professorship with a cutting-edge thesis. No method of gathering intel was off the table, and a seemingly inexperienced servant boy made for a particularly juicy target.
Woe was me. I’d steeled myself to be swept up in the madam’s dealings, of course, but how brazenly she’d used me as a decoy highlighted just how miserable my state of employment was.
Then again, mental attacks were far more gentlemanly than being ganked in a dark alleyway, so I supposed I could let it slide. I’d received a rather passionate invitation the other day, you see: I’d been leisurely making my way home from the market when someone suddenly tried to pull me into the backstreets.
I ask that you infer the fate of the culprits by my quietly sitting here in good health.
Hey, come on, I hadn’t killed them. They might struggle in work or daily life henceforth, but I’d let them off with all four limbs still attached; as far as I was concerned, they’d paid their dues with a bit of experience.
To begin with, jumping a literal child with a crew of six grown men was outright immature. I know I was Lady Agrippina’s only servant and all, but it wasn’t like I had any dirt on the woman, anyway. The closest I came was my knowledge that her stunning looks were a gilded veneer hiding a core of concentrated indolence, that she forwent the act of dressing herself when lazing about her abode, and that even when she did wear something, it was often a nightgown that she brazenly let a tit or two spill out of.
Er, actually, that was pretty terrible. My old world had seen slovenly beauty expanded into a popular character archetype, but the people of this world would genuinely recoil with disgust if the truth got out.
While thinking through all this, I’d been ready for a follow-up offensive at any moment...but it never came. I couldn’t sense any approaching shadows or uninvited stares with my Presence Detection; it looked like whoever the offender had been wasn’t keen on repeating their impoliteness.
I whispered to the puffy-cheeked alf, asking her to mask me again with a little more strength. Crossing my legs again, I rested my weight on the armrest. If they weren’t going to bother me further, I would simply kill time with my hobby. Armed with an unexpected payday, I summoned my character sheet to dive into the realm of possibility.
To be perfectly honest, I had a serious issue to tackle: the clock was ticking, and the trait that enabled my whole build was due for recall—my time as a Child Prodigy was almost up.
[Tips] Escorts in the imperial sense traditionally offer their left hand to the escortee, who reciprocates by lightly putting weight on them as the pair walks together. There is no expectation that men are always to be the escort, and indeed, the inverse is often true.
This is an extension of the imperial hesitance to refer to a lady at the helm of a noble house as Countess Such-and-Such as opposed to Count Such-and-Such, or Duchess So-and-So as opposed to Duke So-and-So. Positions within the social hierarchy supersede gender in Rhine.
Toxins concealed by smiles and daggers carried on the softest words painted a gorgeous scene if one looked no further than the surface. Youths unacquainted with the ways of the world aspired to stand at the center of these upper-stratum parties; beggars aching in the throes of poverty were taken by murderous rage at the luxuries fit to feed them for years.
Yet those who knew the truth felt no such appeal. How astonished the uninitiated would be to find that the shimmering decorations of high society did little to allay the thick acid smog that dominated its atmosphere, only permitting abominations resilient enough to swim the murky waters of a heavy-metal ocean to remain.
“This is merely a personal opinion, but I have some difficulty agreeing fully with the new Emperor’s intended course. While I agree that the reorganization of our forces would be most efficient with an accompanying policy of demilitarization...”
A handsome audhumbla navigated a trending topic, making sure to emphasize his military expertise and come across as a capable man. The tragedy of the scene was perhaps at its clearest when observing the stunning woman listening to him: though she made her attraction known without reservation, his opinions failed to draw out even an ounce of interest.
After arriving at the evening ball, Agrippina had given her partner for the night no more than a fraction of her attention at any time. She was beautiful, favored by His Imperial Majesty, and perfectly poised to alter national history as count thaumapalatine; the young man was desperate in his attempt to woo her. Alas, his sincerest attempt came short of arousing her curiosity.
This wasn’t to say that the man was a trivial nobody that Agrippina could afford to neglect entirely. He was the heir to a powerful barony that boasted marital links to an electorate house, and despite his youth, had made a heroic name for himself by putting down ne’er-do-wells in the east. The words that came out of his mouth carried the scent of intelligence: even his criticism of the Emperor was reasonable—if a bit loudly spoken—and could be considered correct from a purely militaristic perspective.
While methuselah ideals of beauty tended to fall in line with mensch standards, it was clear enough for Agrippina to see that the ungulate ladies in attendance were glaring her way with great envy; he must have been quite the looker as well.
Yet none of that mattered. Frankly, he was nothing more to her than a ticket to take part in tonight’s event without incident.
Agrippina had concealed her everyday misanthropy expertly of late. She wove into tea parties and out of ballrooms, riding the waves of the upper crust in a bid for information; as she picked out friend from foe, she took great pains to collect new allies wherever she could. As such, the count could not afford to break the rules of conduct. Every outing called for a partner worthy of accompanying her, and she selected based solely on those criteria.
In this narrow way, the audhumbla gentleman was the perfect escort. He was sufficiently accomplished in war—that is, enough not to be looked down on by their peers—came from a reputable house, was attractive enough to deny that she’d only chosen him for his stature, and had promising prospects for the future.
For now, Agrippina would keep him close, but at arm’s length. She would call upon him again after some time had passed to maintain interest, and he was respectable enough that she might even pull him into her orbit in the long term. But at present, there were more important matters to attend to.
A bespoke divination piped the clamorous conversations that filled the room into her ear, sifting through the rough to uncover diamonds of gossip. The nifty little tools that she employed to slip past the palace’s antithaumaturgic barrier from the inside had been quite the undertaking to procure, but that was proof of how valuable the intel to be gained here was.
Agrippina was keenly aware of her place in the public eye: show up, and she would become the center of conversation. She was bait and hook in one, teasing out fragmented rumors from every corner of the crowd to piece together a greater collage of consensus—meaningless alone, each morsel of information added to the panorama.
For example, a group of wives had taken their place in the corner of the hall; one of them watched Agrippina merrily chat with the young officer and smiled. Though it lasted for but an instant, it was decidedly not a friendly look: the curled corners of her lips had been a sneer to ridicule the newly ennobled count. Beside her, the other women in her entourage put on a show of chastising her. Yet in truth, they, too, were enjoying the mockery.
At a glance, this was an ordinary scene of a group putting down a notorious character out of their reach in the name of self-satisfaction. However, a closer inspection of their identities was key to navigating the tides of the upper crust.
That wasn’t to say Agrippina was keeping a book of names of all those who’d laughed at her. Her sole objective in diving into the intricacies of interpersonal politics was to gather the requisite intelligence to bring down her juiciest marks.
On a personal level, she couldn’t have cared less what they had to say. As much as she couldn’t stand being underestimated by someone she considered her equal, being used to prop up an inferior person’s pride was a different matter—it was less insulting and more pitiful. Glaring back was the act of a charlatan with too much time on her hands; the methuselah was content to let them be and scoff inside at how base they proved to be.
“Ah,” the audhumbla said, “it seems the music has begun.”
“Indeed it has. I wonder what band has been called to play tonight.”
In the blink of an eye, the musicians had switched from quiet background music to an upbeat tune. Thus far the pieces played had been nothing more than white noise to drown out the murmur of the crowd, but this melody invigorated the young ladies and gentlemen present to take to the dance floor.
These sorts of dance songs were thrown in at regular intervals throughout the night, and it was up to the participants to choose whether they wished to dance. But of course, a young man hardly wished to give up the opportunity to take the hand of a woman so lovely.
“What do you say, Count Ubiorum? Will you please have this... Hrm.”
As the audhumbla reached out to invite the dazzling methuselah to join him, he noticed a little dot crawling on the white of her dress. The offender was a simple ladybug, incomparably beneath him, but the audacity it displayed by desecrating a maiden’s body soured his mood. He smoothly reached to flick it away, when a set of slender fingers gently came to stop his own muscled hand.
“Count Ubiorum?”
“An insect’s life is just as precious as our own. The poor thing’s only crime was to wander here unaware; don’t you think it would be sad to crush it for so little?”
“Oh, well, of course.”
“And now that I see it more closely, it’s rather cute. Don’t you agree?” Fair and delicate, Agrippina’s hand offered the ladybug a pathway; the tiny critter quietly crawled on, made its way to the apex of her fingers, and flew away. With a giggle, she added, “It seems we’ve managed to do the world a little good tonight.”
“No, Count Ubiorum, the good done is all yours. I’m sure that ladybug will remember this debt and return to you in some form or another to repay it.”
“My, a reference to the old fairy tale, I take it? How wonderfully nostalgic.”
The innocent smile of a maiden too kind to diminish the weight of an insect’s life cleansed the warrior’s heart, mending scars it had endured being buffeted by the harsh sands of the battlefield. Utterly taken by her apparent sweetness, the audhumbla once again requested a dance, and she graciously accepted.
It was for the best that he didn’t know the truth.
The insignificant beetle he’d just let escape was, in fact, the count’s new toy—one she’d brazenly pestered the Emperor to “loan” her. They were arcane life-forms expressly bred for covert reconnaissance.
These ladybugs were familiars that acted in swarms, and despite their inability to carry complex formulae suited for combat or assassination, they came with one unique renovation. Each individual unit was no different from a natural ladybug, save for its ability to share mystic codes with its master through physical touch; this delivery method leaked zero mana, allowing it to operate in antimagic fields and duck under search spells. More tangibly, their mission was to take the place of eavesdropping magic, instead recording all the sounds they took in and delivering the data to their master at regular intervals.
In a stroke of misfortune, this particular unit had been found by Agrippina’s escort when it came back to report.
Thankfully, the ingenuity of this design was that discovery posed no problems. Aristocrats who encountered a bug were more than likely to avert their eyes or, at most, blow it away with a fan. The only people who’d bother smooshing one were men who felt socially obligated to do so; no one wanted to ruin their handcrafted silk gloves over a mere insect.
They were the perfect spies for the occasion. Minor details—like how ladybugs were known to hide away from the winter weather, making it perfectly natural to see one indoors—proved that their inventor had been a talented intellectual who’d risen to power via skill and not on his family name.
Agrippina put the unfading fruits of her childhood dance lessons to use, whisking the warrior away to a dreamy land of fancy. She had the men looking on weak at the knees, and the women by their sides puffing in frustration; by the end of her stellar performance, she gracefully bowed to the audience.
The next piece started right away. Wanting to relive the euphoria, the young man tried to invite his partner to continue—alas, another man had come to ruin his day. The intruder did not bother reading the room, but it didn’t matter, as he was too eminent for anyone to rebuke him for a breach of etiquette. The audhumbla had no choice but to stand down.
“What a coincidence to see you, Agrippina. To think you’d be at tonight’s ball.”
“My, Marquis Donnersmarck!”
Clad in the finest threads and entering the scene with a comically cheerful smile was one Marquis Donnersmarck. He was wearing this winter’s new hotness: ethnic garb of the desert dwellers that resided along the Eastern Passage. Woven in silk and dandified for imperial tastes, the fusion of foreign and domestic fashion fit him well.
Shrinking at the appearance of a social superior, the audhumbla merely asked, “Are you two close?”
Unfortunately so, Agrippina wished to reply. But of course, one wouldn’t know it from how merrily she celebrated the occasion of meeting a friend as good as Marquis Donnersmarck.
[Tips] Antithaumaturgic barriers impede the use of magecraft within their active range. Their permanent fixture in the imperial palace is the pride of the School of Polar Night. Their work counters nearly all magic, hindering outside attempts at assassination, spying, and wanton violence.
However, many nobles regularly carry mystic items on their person; as a result, most implementations simply prevent formulae from affecting the environment beyond their containers. This is also an artifact of how many arcane tools are used to repair the palace and run the Empire.
I had many traits that were critical for my build, but Child Prodigy was far and away the most important.
To speak broadly, skills and equipment that came with experience modifiers were fairly commonplace in modern video games. The foundation of this design philosophy lay in the framework of fighting enemies of constantly rising levels by perennially staying one step ahead: it was the muscle-headed idea that challenges could be bulldozed through with raw numerical power. Saving time on the grinding aspect of an RPG allowed the player to let their level do the talking, and by my estimate, it was a strategy that most people had tried at some point or another.
However, tabletop games were different: abilities that bumped up experience gain or shrank the cost of leveling were next to nonexistent. When level-boosting skills did show up, they primarily made random stat gains trend toward higher values or added a flat bonus to support growth. There was an unwritten rule at play that dictated that the entire party was to develop at the same pace.
This went without saying, but unlike video games, the mechanics of a TRPG were carried out by warm-blooded—though you might not want to believe it with how coldhearted some of them were—GMs and players. The inherent cooperation required begat a desire for fair play.
Exceptions did exist—important PCs could be propped up on stilts for lore-related reasons—but ultimately, the growth of each character was tuned to be roughly equal with that of their peers. Otherwise, the balance of the scenario was at risk of upheaval, each encounter being fodder for the strongest member of the party to solve on their lonesome. It was precisely to avoid this issue that we drafted our avatars together, played through the story as a group, and generally lacked the option to augment our experience gain.
Of course, that begged the question: What was the deal with my Child Prodigy trait? Personally, I believed it was a bit of flavor to round out the setting. If there were two characters of the same level but far apart in age, a player might ask why an old man only had the same amount of experience as a child—was he just that incompetent? Its existence seemed like an excuse, deliberately inserted to dodge such accusations.
And that was probably why Child Prodigy did exactly what it said on the tin: it only lasted until I came of age at fifteen.
Still, the trait had served me well. Practically speaking, I didn’t have any real limits to my growth, so I would have to be an absolute noob not to take something that padded my lifetime experience gains. If I’d skipped it, I would never have reached Scale IX in my early teens; at this point, I’d be stuck with the modest skill set afforded by two-thirds of my current build.
All this time, I’d been living with this dread...of the day these tall, tall stilts came off. I’d gotten used to this reinforced income, and was sure my ordinary paydays would disappoint me going forward. There were plenty of tales printed in short booklets that talked about how impossible satisfaction seemed after a life-changing level of stimulation...
Oh, dammit. My mind was drifting off in that direction again. Once I was done with this issue, I’d need to find a way to rein in my pubescent body.
Anyway, as a self-proclaimed munchkin, I hadn’t been resting on my laurels without considering how to circumvent the Child Prodigy time limit. While I admit that it had slipped my mind amidst the busyness—let me comment that the lack of a friendly reminder to notify me the end was coming was highly inconsiderate—I’d been scouring my blessing for a good replacement ever since I was a kid.
Thankfully, I had a strong budget to work with. Although serving Lady Agrippina had forced me into a lot of purchases to keep up, the constant, extreme stress of the job paid its costs back with interest.
Ghostwriting for my master had led me to purchase High Palatial Speech at an III: Apprentice level—which, by the way, was worth as much as five tiers of other highly desirable skills—alongside Elegant Penmanship and Speed Writing to enable good work, fast. I also needed to play my part as a retainer properly, so I dipped my toes into the skills I’d taken to play foxes-and-geese for the first time in nearly a decade. Bringing up Stealth and Perception Block to Scale V, I also invested in the Silent Clothing trait to make sure I didn’t produce any undue noise.
Factoring in the miscellaneous knowledge I needed to get by in high society, I’d almost bottomed out my savings. However, the work that followed was as difficult as it was delicate, and my sleepless nights of slogging through it had just barely eked out an overall margin of profit. To tell the truth, the psychological fatigue was so great that this small amount of interest wasn’t enough to pay off the massive debt in the exchange...but I’ll leave that aside for now.
Yet even with enough experience to make a snap purchase, it was hard to decide on what to invest in.
The outset of the issue lay with how Savant—the direct successor to Child Prodigy—was a specialized trait that was incompatible with my goals. Savant’s defining gimmick was that, unlike its predecessor, it only reduced the costs of acquisition for skills and traits within a given field. When dealing in a specific field of study, the discount was steep enough to attain Scale IX mastery at relatively affordable prices. On top of that, while it required me to commit to a single area of expertise, doing so didn’t lock me into that alone. I could theoretically simultaneously become a Swordplay Savant and Magecraft Savant, which was quite the powerful combo.
Had this been where it ended, it would have been a perfectly acceptable replacement despite its high cost to entry; I would have been happy to turn off my brain, pay up front, and ride out a broken build. But note that this was only true if it had actually ended there.
The Savant trait came with one major drawback: once the area of specialization was chosen, all other abilities were subject to a “large increase in cost.” This was a stark refutation of my desire to remain flexible, and a flaw that I couldn’t ignore.
They say that the truly brilliant are oftentimes catastrophic failures in other aspects of life. Despite inventing the theory of general relativity, Einstein had been quite the philanderer in his personal life; Neumann may have invented the digital computer, but he’d been a strange fellow to put it lightly; while the electronic infrastructure built on the back of Tesla’s findings was impressive, the man himself had lived like he’d been receiving cryptic transmissions from outer space.
All this to say that the Savants of the world were, by and large, very “unique” characters outside their fields of interest, and that the skill reflected that. Taking this into account, I evaluated the trait as still being strong, but as unfit to sculpt a finished arcane swordsman who solved all his problems with DEX. While I could’ve sucked it up and gone with Magecraft Savant if my end goal were to become a College professor, my desire to adventure made its benefits far less efficient.
...What was that? Now I felt like I was getting signals from beyond, begging me not to go down that route.
Uh... It’s probably my imagination. With how solidly developed my identity already was, I doubted one new trait would throw my personality out of order; it wasn’t as though my physical growth spurt was being mirrored in my mind. It was a bit too late for me to start living with pigeons and spending every waking moment trying to memorize the phone book front-to-back.
Moving on, the next contender was a trait called Brilliant Mind. This was a replica of Child Prodigy, but strictly worse. Although it bumped experience gains across the board, the bonuses weren’t even worth comparing to Savant’s cost reduction.
A prodigy at ten was talented at fifteen, and by twenty they were just average; living through each step in the adage was a painful experience. I knew learning was a process that grew more difficult with age, but the world’s willingness to conform to the old saying showed just how merciless it was.
Also of note was the interpretation that a Brilliant Mind intent to stay a generalist would never match the feats of a dedicated Savant. The message was that those who found one pursuit to devote their lives to could go a step beyond...but as someone whose career was entrenched in violence, the thought of facing an unbeatable Savant in battle was terrifying.
I knew the GM in charge would never take the time to consider balancing their game—I’d learned that painful lesson early, when I’d been thrown into an unwinnable fight with an overpowered mage to save Elisa. Had Lady Agrippina not strolled along to save us, not an atom of either of us siblings would have remained.
At any rate, my searching had failed to produce any satisfying answers. Every option came with pros and cons, and the system didn’t allow me to mindlessly take everything to shore up the weaknesses introduced by one trait with another.
For example, Forgotten Talent came with bonuses that rivaled that of Child Prodigy, but the wording implied that it came with a serious blow to the unrecorded stat of luck. Much like how I’d looked through necromantic skills in my youth and suspected that they might come with an unwritten inability to live peacefully as a functioning member of society, my blessing refused to enumerate the hazy side effects any ability might come with. I figured this was the game designers’ divine proclamation that I was to think for myself without relying entirely on my blessing.
Other than that, I’d found Brightest Star, which bolstered experience gain in my twenties and significantly hampered it past that point—the poetic root, of course, implying that I was to burn out quickly. Late Bloomer was quite the opposite, only kicking in past thirty, when my mensch body would be out of peak condition.
Gee, the playtesters and QA team sure have done a good job.
I was beginning to think the heroes that had run amok in the Age of Gods might have been the result of living under a system that predated the revisions that fixed these errata. The thought that converting rocks to bread, infinitely duplicating fish, and moving mountains with pure muscle were the result of rules exploits was highly convincing.
In which case, I wondered what edition of the world I was playing on. While the challenge of breaking a polished, up-to-date system wide open spoke to my power-gaming soul, there was something special about letting loose in a ruleset full of holes.
...You know, just sitting here while thinking about the possibilities wasn’t going to get me anywhere. It wasn’t as if I was garnering any attention, so it wouldn’t hurt to look through the rule book for a bit. Besides, immersing myself in a sea of data would be an easy way to pass the time.
Oh, how about this? My eye quickly wandered to Oathsworn: it was a trial wherein I made a pledge to some cause, and was rewarded with experience for seeing it through. It was similar to a Celtic geas, which gave divine protection so long as the oath was kept, but conferred even greater punishment if it was ever broken; in this case, the trait boosted income for relevant activities while paying out at the end of a time limit if the pact was seen through.
This could be it.
What if I swore to uphold the image of an adventurer—to maintain the dignity of a wayfarer who would one day be written into the canon of saga? As conventional as it was, the heroes of epics were gallant, and their paths filled with tribulations. Even if I lost heart and gave up—or worse, died—my failure would mean I wouldn’t have much need for future experience.
Ah, but wait. I knew myself, and I knew that at some point, I would be overcome with the urge to stoop low in the name of efficacy. Creeping up on a sleeping foe and riding off into the sunrise was standard fare for an adventurer; groveling for mercy while looking for an opening was our common sense; I had a criminal record of hoodwinking GMs into killing off their own final bosses in dialogue scenes. There was a real chance I’d accidentally break the contract in the heat of the moment.
It seemed the safest option was to avoid major commitments by investing in a Brilliant Mind, and pivoting into Late Bloomer when the time came to keep my momentum going. I mean, now that I was thinking about it, swearing an oath was just begging to die from a malicious interpretation. I felt like the heroes of Celtic lore were categorically worse for wear because of how their own geasa were used against them.
However, that left my twenties—the peak of my physical form—a little lacking in my eyes... Wait, what’s this? “Limelit?”
Spotting the unfamiliar title at the bottom of my menu, I opened it to find something rather intriguing. Although Limelit was listed alongside other experience-point-modifying traits, it didn’t do anything to bolster rates or discount prices. Instead, it converted the opinions of those around me into experience, regardless of whether their feelings were of trust and praise or of terror and fear.
In simpler terms, I would gain experience that scaled with my fame.
Soon enough, I was going to become an adventurer—someone constantly evaluated by others. The opinions of my companions went without saying, but the contractors who requested my help, contacts at the Adventurer’s Association, and the residents of the lands I worked in would all come to know me. If I managed to pull off an adventure worthy of the books and had it sung by minstrels throughout the land...
This is great! It didn’t come with any drawbacks, and since its bonuses hinged on my putting in effort to sell my name, it was cheap; I could pick up both Limelit and Brilliant Mind for less than any variant of Savant. All in all, the combination of the two seemed like the perfect fit for my situation.
I wasn’t a fan of standing out for the wrong reasons, but I loved being recognized for a job well done. Yes, I won’t hide it: I had ambitions of pulling off a feat of greatness in this lifetime that would be worthy of immortalization in the form of a saga.
All right, that settles that. The traits with trade-offs were just too niche for my liking, and I doubted I’d find anything better than this without giving up some reliability.
Poring over rule books really was a fantastic time. Not only did it bring new discoveries, but it came with wonderful moments where my memory sprang to life to say, “Wait, wouldn’t this synergize insanely well with this other thing?”
Man, what a productive session.
Content with myself, I turned my head up to the ceiling in an attempt to stretch my neck...and locked eyes with someone.
Two amethyst eyes were looking down at me. Her burning orange hair and affectless features were so well put together that they ironically lacked any impression at all. Good-looking yet utterly devoid of emotion, the olive-tanned girl used the many, many legs lining her massive trunk to dexterously cling to the ceiling and stare at me.
Perhaps the most well-known of the noodly kiths would be the lamia indigenous to the inland sea to the south, but she was no lamia. Covered by sensitive extensions of her coat, her lower half was that of a centipede, and one that vastly outsized its natural counterpart at that. Half-mensch and half-bug, she hailed from a demihuman race known as the sepa.
Even in the melting pot that was the imperial capital, they were a rare breed—so much so that this was my first time ever meeting one. Much like arachne, their ancestral origins began near the Southern Sea, but had branched out all over the world; the key difference was that they fared poorly in colder climates, and thus most had settled into the warmer parts of the Empire. I wondered why someone like her was up so far north.
But of course, one look at her immaculate attire left no room for confusion. She was like me: an attendant, here to serve or protect her master here in the palace.
Still, even as someone who was used to dealing with all sorts of demihumans, I nearly yelped in terror. The surprise of seeing someone in a spot that no normal person ought to occupy had stacked on top of the striking impact of her appearance. I wasn’t going to deny that she was pretty, mind you. But the intimidation of a trunk several times larger than her upper body tapering off into an aggressive tail—I later learned they were just her final legs—beneath layers of skirtlike fabric was something else.
“Uh...” I made an ass of myself by freezing for a moment and following up with, “Good evening?”
I know, I know. But let me just ask this: Was there anything I could have said other than this?
“Good evening,” she replied. “A lovely night, isn’t it?”
She dropped down from the ceiling without a single sound, though a quiet slink would have fit perfectly. It was evident that she had clearly perceived me in spite of Ursula’s protection.
I wasn’t sure whether she was using some kind of magic or miracle, or whether she was a scout that was just that attentive. Either way, the important lesson was that I couldn’t let my guard down around her.
“Yes, well, I suppose it is a nice, peaceful night...but may I ask for which noble house you work? I don’t believe we’ve met.”
Seeing as we’d already exchanged greetings, I couldn’t exactly ignore her now. I sat upright on the sofa to address her properly, to which she responded by taking a seat in a chair, deftly wriggling her lower half around so that she sat at roughly the height a mensch would.
“You are correct. This is our first meeting, and I found myself a touch too absorbed in observing an unfamiliar face. I sincerely apologize for my rudeness.”
“No, you have my apologies for the unconcealed surprise. I am but a clumsy farmer’s boy, and I pray that you might have it in you to forgive me.”
“Then let’s say our misconduct was equal and leave it at that.” After a pause, she said, “I am a servant to Marquis Donnersmarck. He and I both should hope to get along with you. May I ask whoever it might be that you serve?”
The girl’s eloquent palatial speech took the structure of a servile variant, and her pronunciation was pitch perfect, but there was one thing that bothered me...
Her mouth wasn’t moving.
Ventriloquism was an art I’d seen even before reincarnating, but I didn’t understand why she was bothering to employ it. However, in spite of my misgivings, I pressed on and introduced myself while entertaining the possibility that a racial quirk necessitated it. With how far the conversation had progressed, I had no choice but to answer honestly; one question posed to someone who knew the truth was enough to peg me as Lady Agrippina’s attendant.
“I am Erich of Konigstuhl, servant to Count Agrippina von Ubiorum.”
“Ah... So you’re from House Ubiorum.”
The utter lack of a reaction hinted to me that she’d approached me knowing my identity from the outset. I felt less like I was being appraised and more like I was being hunted.
After exchanging another two or three rounds of small talk, the door to the room opened, and a palace servant announced Count Ubiorum’s intent to retire for the night. Only a select few individuals could employ communications magic on the premises, giving rise to physical messengers like these.
I glanced at the time and found that it had slipped away from me at a rapid pace. Solving the dilemma of how I would replace Child Prodigy had really bogged me down, it seemed—which then made me wonder: How long had she been watching me from the ceiling?
Thinking that I had no enemies here—or that they’d at least be unable to break the rules of the palace—I’d let myself get too comfortable. Permanent Battlefield was strong, but it wasn’t impervious; it would do to keep my master’s position in society in mind and carry myself accordingly. Even if I died because I lacked the strength to defend myself, I wanted to make sure I went out holding my sword at the ready. Being stabbed in the back was the most shameful way a swordsman could go out.
“If you’ll excuse me, my master is calling.”
“Of course. Apologies again for surprising you. May we meet again.”
Pulling myself together, I stood up and said my farewells, only for her poker face to waver for the first time since meeting. Her lips parted in a faint smile that let a tiny sliver of her mouth peek through, but what flashed through were not teeth...but mandibles, neatly tucked inside.
Ah, I see. She must have been trained to speak without exposing the intimidating presence of her jaw. It seemed likely that a noble might consider it inelegant to allow something so frightening to show.
Oh, this is bad. Things are looking bad, Lady Agrippina. I’d been marked by an obviously talented scout—nay, she better fit the image of an assassin. Our enemies were just raring to get this show on the road...
[Tips] Sepa are a demihuman race that come from the tropical areas near the Southern Sea. While they can be found all over the globe, their presence is a rarity in the North’s icy climate. Their most notable characteristic is their long, segmented trunks, which boast a great number of legs, enabling them to scurry about whether on flat ground or sheer bluffs.
Equipped with a second jaw—known as a mandible—protruding from the insides of their mouths, they can crack incredibly hard shells and carapaces to facilitate their omnivorous diets. Some subgroups can inject venom with this inner bite, which has led certain migrant groups within the Trialist Empire to develop a culture of hiding their fangs whenever possible.
A gorgeous pair moved rhythmically to an elegant melody in triple meter, drawing one another close; yet even in the face of their opposite’s beauty, the couple’s dance was merely the backdrop for their conversation.
“This year’s winter is a cold one indeed. The weather brings hope for a great bounty next spring.”
“Oh, is that so? I was unaware that harsh winters are prone to give way to ample harvests.”
“Yes, for the frigid cold that coats the earth kills a great deal of the vermin who burrow in its shallows. The lack of pests to pick away at produce allows for greater yields.”
At first glance, this was a joyous scene: the young lady, welcomed into noble spheres with red carpets but otherwise lacking in basic knowledge, was receiving a word of sagacious advice from an experienced lord. Alas, the reality of the situation was nothing more than a pair of liars groping for the other’s real intentions.
Agrippina was a voracious reader who powered through any book that came her way; pastoral writing had been a mainstay of her literary diet. The memoirs of career agriculturalists reflecting on their work had left her with more vocational knowledge than the average farmhand getting by without much thought.
On the other hand, Marquis Donnersmarck knew that drawing attention to what a talented actress the count proved to be would be uncouth. Not wanting to paint himself as the villain—it was clear whom the other gentlemen present would choose to defend between a handsome yet dubious man and a dazzlingly beautiful woman—he simply smiled and played along.
A private exchange might offer the opportunity to scope out flaws to be picked at, but they both wore cordial masks when in public. Although they were mutually aware that their attempts to feign innocence failed to work on one another, the need to keep up their airs with everyone else meant the show must go on.
“How lovely—you have me excited for the spring. A bountiful field of wheat cradled by the wind bobbing this way and that is such a wondrous sight.”
“The overflowing vitality of crops reaching up for the skies is a fantastic scene indeed, Agrippina. Wit have a villa back home with quite the view of the plains... What say you come to visit next summer to get away from the heat?”
The marquis wove in an invitation; it signaled their intimacy to those listening in and probed at her schedule without having to ask outright.
Agrippina could have sidestepped the question, escaping into the safety of ambiguity, but she didn’t. No, she deliberately chose to rock the boat; tidying up all her problems in one fell swoop was her key to good fortune. When tasked with waking the lethargic fools cluttering a bedroom, the best course of action was ever to pour cold water on everyone at once.
“My, thank you for the charming invitation. Unfortunately...I will be greatly busy come next spring, and it may prove rather difficult to take time off in the summer.”
The implication of something greater caused the man’s gentle brow to arc ever so slightly. Where most would have missed this cue, Agrippina took it as her opportunity to layer on an even more shocking reveal. Those within the Ubiorum county would find out soon enough anyway; she figured leaking this to him was the best way of stirring up the pot.
“His Majesty has given me strict orders to enrich the territory he has granted me. It won’t do to forgo a personal tour of the region, now will it? I’m sure that the local lords wouldn’t be pleased for an absentee ruler to dole out orders without any personal investment.”
Experienced in backroom dealings, the lady-killer reaffirmed his suspicions: taking her in as a subordinate was a pipe dream. Truth be told, the cleanest, cheapest method of laying claim to the Ubiorum county was to bring Agrippina into his sphere of influence—the odds of that were looking slimmer than ever.
Setting aside her monstrous and indomitable spirit, her proximity to the Emperor made it difficult to string her along with the prospect of profit. He had a loose read on her lack of passion for loyalty, meaning she had taken her position with full intent to use its privileges; it was obvious to see she was competent enough to do so.
But Agrippina wouldn’t be satisfied until she dropped an earth-shattering bomb.
Steeped in the pretext of dance, the pair were the life of the party. Naturally, their eavesdroppers were plentiful. There were no doubt a good number of people utilizing various tricks to duck under the palace’s antimagic field and snoop on their conversation; she made her statement as much for them as for the marquis.
“On top of that, I’ve been entrusted with the honor of being count thaumapalatine. I’m sure an official notice will be sent out soon, but the truth is, a practical demonstration of new aeroship-related technologies is slated to occur in the near future.”
“Oh? Are you sure my ears were meant to hear such news?”
“Many of the regular visitors to the palace are already in the know, and the imperial announcement is not so far off. I’m sure His Majesty would be more than happy to share with someone as neighborly as you, Marquis.”
In awe at just how sly the fox before him was, Gunther’s interest in the young methuselah swelled. He wanted her, and that desire showed no signs of simmering down. If only he could make this girl his own, the possibilities for the future would expand beyond the horizons; better yet, she would surely make these political games all the more entertaining.
“We’ve developed new techniques for surveying land that involve using the vessel’s elevation. By making use of mystic waves to accurately measure the distance from ship to ground, this advanced method will allow us to recalculate agricultural acreage to within a razor-thin margin of error, all from the comfort of the aeroship.”
“That is...quite the technology. An epiphany of the talented minds of the imperial topographical association, Wit take it. Put into practice, it will surely lead to great gains for the Empire at large.”
“You couldn’t be more right. The original idea came from the topographers, and I hear a group of capable Daybreak mathematicians turned it into reality. We hope to use the new arrangement to verify the lay of the lands and adjust any errors that might be present in current official records.”
This is bad. Though his expression remained static, the marquis was too deeply embedded in the wrongdoings of the Ubiorum county to remain calm. He was thankful that no one could see the cold sweat dripping down his back.
The protracted absence of any form of oversight save for the occasional imperial minister that could be led astray with a cut of the profits had reduced the territory’s revenue to a tragic state of affairs. Having been a key figure in creating this haven for tax evasion and corruption, receiving this bombshell at the worst possible time imaginable made Marquis Donnersmarck want to scream.
By the time Agrippina was sworn in in autumn, it had already been too late to fix the numbers: the tax reports she’d received were exactly as fraudulent as the taxes themselves. If she surveyed the land now, the jig would be up.
He couldn’t line the pockets of those working on the aeroship; having been the last Emperor’s pet project, the whole crew was staffed with unshakable imperial loyalists. And of course, destroying the ship was out of the question. There was no way to prevent her from reassessing the county’s arable acreage.
With the count herself involved in the mission, it would be impossible to hide his crimes. He doubted she’d be susceptible to the tricks of psychosorcery that he sometimes used to implant convenient memories in those that vexed him, as well.
As the marquis contemplated the many people who would be backed into corners by this move, the young lady drew herself closer, almost pressing her chest into his own.
Showy beyond words, her smile was so very articulate: Well? Checkmate is nearly at hand—whatever might be your next move?
The woman had been suddenly thrust into an impossible task but had turned it around, crafting a trap inescapable for anyone lacking even a single piece of the puzzle. The man’s avenues of reversal were limited—so limited that he would need to begin considering less than elegant solutions to his problems.
Knowing that the pawns he would need to sacrifice were many, Marquis Donnersmarck readied himself for battle with an unchanging smile. He, too, believed that checkmate was close.
[Tips] Aerial surveying is a cutting-edge process planned to be tested in the near future. Upon discovering that the aeroship is capable of maintaining a fixed altitude and position, imperial topographers surmised that it could be an effective way of making maps or measuring acreage, and immediately put in a request with their contacts at the College. By using magic to accurately measure distance and geometry to rearrange those numbers, they have effectively created a mystic variant of laser surveying.
After preparing the carriage, I went to pick up my employer, whom I found waiting for me alone. A more rabid socialite standing at the center of gossip might have made her triumphant return with a man or two in tow, but it seemed the audhumbla gentleman had unfortunately not been up to snuff.
That said, I was happy for him, personally. I didn’t want to see the promising future generations that would lead our country sucked into the petals of this carnivorous plant. If any of them dared lay a finger on this woman, the enticing hope of nectar would give way to a hell handmade to suck them dry. Her rise as a noble in her own right meant she would probably need to find a spouse before long, but it was going to be a spectacle to see which poor bastard got slam-dunked into the ring of misfortune.
I’d be free from this mess by then, though. That meant I would be able to enjoy the show safely from a seat in the audience.
But tonight, I played my role without a fuss and saw to the madam’s postbanquet arrangements once we reached the atelier. She caught me off guard by giving me a tip—a consolation for making me wait so long, she said—suggesting that tonight’s ball had been a troublesome ordeal. Curious, I asked what had happened, but was met with an answer that made me want to furrow my brow.
“Marquis Donnersmarck came by to disturb me tonight. It seems he still has yet to fold his hand, so I flaunted a rather distressing secret to see if he wanted to continue this farce. With how numerous his conspirators seem to be, I’m sure it’ll come with the added value of drawing out reactions from them too.”
Sure enough, the name of interest came up. I told her about what had happened in the servants’ room, and she rolled her eyes, undoing her hair with a snap. Then, she began listing off unfamiliar family names, bending a finger for each one.
“What exactly are these evidently prestigious names meant to be?” I asked.
“These are the lords of the Ubiorum county who I’ll eventually have relocated to more scenic positions.”
Wowzers, I almost said aloud, breaking every rule in the servant’s handbook. A “more scenic position” was a euphemism for the gallows; reworded, it was an assertion that “hanged, your neck makes for a picturesque scene.”
While I understood why my master was planning out a massacre—collective punishment wasn’t on the table, but many would certainly die, especially seeing as nobles didn’t fare well in vocational changes—I was totally fed up with the sheer volume of her enemies. They weren’t harmless twigs on the forest floor; they were wielders of power who kept detectives and assassins in their back pockets. Just thinking about what was to come made me depressed.
Even now, I hardly wanted for unsavory visitors trying to meddle in my affairs; rather, what I wanted was for them to all go away. We were due for an uptick in desperate rebels whose only alternative was execution or jumpy magistrates whose hopeless situations pushed them to rash action.
“Honestly, the circumstances of a new noble unaligned with a strong political faction are so tiresome. My only company are fools misjudging my worth and those trying to exploit my position—even I find this exhausting. And all this is doubly true as a count of the palace.”
Lady Agrippina’s lackadaisical complaints ran on as she dropped her coat on the floor, kicked off her shoes after they untied themselves, and loosened up her dress. After degrading her fabulous party wear to a disheveled mess, she fell onto the sofa, pulled out her beloved pipe, and curled her lips into a wicked grin.
“But fair is fair. I shall use the cards I’ve been dealt to the fullest degree. The authority that comes with the credentials of a Great Pillar and the Emperor is no affectation. Not only have I wrung out plenty of funding, but I even managed to expedite a new technology slated for next year to be completed now.”
Man, did she look evil. I hadn’t seen her this devilish since the day she’d recognized Elisa as a changeling and invited us to join her. That smile was enough to bring a child to tears.
“Mmkay,” she hummed. “Run along and prepare my bath—ah, and I’m feeling like rose petals today. As for the scented oils...well, I shall leave it to you.”
“As you will, my liege.”
“Oh, and feel free to complete this any time before you leave tonight, but I’d like you to pen letters to all the names on this list. You’re aware of the reason I’m leaving this to you, I’m sure?”
“As an insurance policy to plausibly deny any official commitments on your part—yes, I’m very much aware. You know I haven’t written any concrete names and that I take express care to diverge from your usual handwriting, yes?”
The madam simply puffed a cloud of smoke my way, and I lost any will to argue. Look, if this monster was going to make an effort, then things would probably work out. A lowly kid like me had no business worrying about whatever the hell she had in store.
[Tips] Ghostwritten letters are the product of busy masters entrusting the task of correspondence to their hired help. However, they come with the added benefit of being able to deflect any demands that the statements within be honored by the simple question, “Do you have any proof that I wrote this?” making them a useful tool in wrongdoing.
More official letters will include both a note apologizing for not penning the words personally and a seal to authenticate the contents within. However, even then, the writer will take great care to omit any evidence that might be able to prove the letter’s origins.
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