By the time I noticed, nearly two months had passed since I woke up. I suddenly checked the calendar because of the date on the documents and was shocked by this fact.
“… This is bad.”
All the things that went through my mind at that moment made me spontaneously mutter this, and Lady Marechan, who was next to me helping me with the documents, dropped the documents that she was holding with a thud.
“Eliza-sama, is there something wrong with those papers? Oh… you won’t sleep…”
“No, that’s not it, please calm down.”
She was supposed to be a tutor in this house, but before I knew it, she had been assigned to support me. Well, her employer was Earl Thelesia, so it didn’t matter to me whether she was a tutor or a secretary. Or rather, I’ve been so busy lately that I haven’t had time to worry about such trivial matters at all.
The defencive battle at Jugfena Fortress that had me bedridden for a month had thrown a wrench in our plans to take in the refugees.
The House of Lord’s meeting was at the end of spring and the defencive battle at Jugfena Fortress was during the upper month and a half of spring, and only about six months had passed between that.
… Incidentally, this reminded me recently that one season was about three months in my past life. However, a season here was when the moon’s phases revolve around four times, and a year is sixteen months. A year here was longer than it is in my previous life, but there was nothing unusual about the growth and aging of a person. In simple terms, humans in this world may be long-lived creatures that have adapted to this world, or, the length of a day may be shorter than it is in my previous life, although I no longer have a sense of this.
Now, let’s return to the topic at hand.
The plan was to take in fifty refugees every month starting in the upper half of summer. We were supposed to take in 2000 refugees, however only 250 were taken in by Kaldia, since the rest had been killed in Jugfena Fortress.
800 refugees were temporarily taken in by Junas fief, but we will gradually take them in, once the constructed village is steady. Considering their feelings, I can’t impose restrictions on them while I take them in, so I’m not considering this, for now, since it was still a long way away.
Next are the Sill Tribe. They have more people than I had expected. At first, I was told that there were forty people in the tribe, and I assumed that the tribes would join together, and the number would be 120, three times what I was told.
However, the tribes that had been hiding in Bandishia Plateau and Amon Nohl seemed to have been prepared for their deaths, and in the end, the number grew to more than 300. It’s no wonder that they had persisted for nearly a month against the 300 pursuers from Densel.
In total, there were less than 600 refugees and members of the Sill Tribe, which is less than half the number of people we were originally going to take in. First, I had to get them to construct the village, but this mostly had to be done from scratch.
The Sill Tribe, which made up half of the refugees, were nomads; their houses were mobile and they lacked building skills. Furthermore, they had no farming skills since they didn’t farm. There were a few tribes that had withdrawn further west from Bandishia Plateau and had changed their lifestyle in Amon Nohl. Those tribes could build splendid houses, but they were unable to use their skills, since we are unable to provide them with the materials that they are used to.
To compensate for this, we tried accepting requests from the citizens to move to the area, but as expected, only a few people applied, so we are still thinking of a solution for this problem.
Furthermore, another problem was who would be in charge of the new settlement. Kamil had been tasked with this role up until now. It was impossible for me to find a new person who could speak Artolas like him and can command the new citizens and easily communicate with us. Therefore, I asked Earl Thelesia to hire a temporary governor for this. However, this increased the amount of paperwork I had to do since I had to prepare documents for the position takeover and write out instructions for them.
The fief army troops who were engaged in the settlement work, once numbered thirty, have now been reduced to just ten. I was prepared for this when we went to Jugfena Fortress, but I can’t allocate extra troops from the army there anymore due to casualties and seriously wounded troops.
In addition, I had a lot of documents I had to deal with since I had been in a coma, at any rate, I had a lot of things to do and didn’t even have time to sleep or have a decent meal.
“… Anyway, get something to eat soon. Claudia-dono will come crashing into your office with her cart again if you don’t go down to the dining hall to eat or drink.”
Lady Marechan urged, and we both got up from our seats to relieve our stiff bodies from doing paperwork. I only have to go to the kitchen and return, but it was much better than not moving at all.
Just two weeks ago, Claudia crashed her tea cart into the office desk and nearly covered my important documents with tea, and perhaps Lady Marechan recalled this nightmare, since her complexion had gotten even worse.
――― It took me twenty minutes to explain what had happened in the past two months to the child that was glaring at me.
The child, who I had left alone since I woke up, sullenly said.
“So, you were so busy that you forgot about me.”
There was definitely something colder in his calm voice than being yelled at. I’d like to think that it’s better than the days when he yelled at me just for visiting him.
“No, I’m telling you that I had a lot of work to get done before I could see you.”
Even now, I’m still sorting through the documents by date until the person who I called to help me will come, because of the lack of manpower. I had to get as much work done as I could while I still had time. I can light candles at night, but it was quite expensive to use them to read and write without any inconvenience.
“Is that what you say to someone who you’ve neglected for six months or more?”
I was a little surprised that it had been that long already since this guy was thrown into the barracks.
This child’s education continued even while I was busy, and his speech was gradually becoming like mine. Even the gesture of him narrowing his reddish-black eyes was similar to mine, and it was a bit amusing.
“… I didn’t neglect you or anything. I didn’t have any business with you.”
I knew that the words that had come out of my mouth made a vein pop out of his forehead.
“Or, did you want me to take care of you even though I’m younger?”
“You want to get your ass kicked?!”
“Oh, spare me the vulgarities, Elise.”
I looked at Radka, aka 『Elise』, whose face had turned red with anger and frustration and couldn’t help but burst into laughter. His straightforward expression was similar to those of the fief army soldiers’.
Radka, who was called Elise, was sullen and pouted. I glanced at him and saw that his eyes were filled with a complicated expression; they looked as if he was complaining, lost, irritated, but also resigned. It was the same glimmer as the one I saw on that night when he woke me up.
… Unlike Kamil, his eyes told a lot. It was emotionally easier to understand what the other person was thinking just by looking at him in the eyes.
“You could have come to me if you needed something instead of waiting for me to call you.”
“Huh… Me? Inside this mansion?”
I put away the documents that I had finished into a leather bag, and finally had a little free time.
I looked up and observed Radka properly for the first time in half a year; his face had become completely healthy and he looked girly. He also had a disbelieving expression on his face.
“… Ah.”
I looked at his face and realised my own slip up. I didn’t realise that this mansion was nothing more than a prison to him.
It was decided that Radka would have his freedom in the mansion when he came back from the barracks, as soon as Elize was exposed, and nearly everyone knew about him. Originally, it was decided that his restrictions would be loosen as soon as the heat from the birthday celebration had cooled down. Frankly, that was a measure to win him over, as well as relieve the stress on the maliced child, and also a way for him to get used to life in the mansion. I didn’t expect that his『education』would go better than I expected or that his murderous intent towards me would fade to this extent.
I can even take back the words the Kamil had once said to me, “She might kill you while you’re sleeping.” He had almost killed me while I was in a coma, but it was strange to me that we could talk carefreely like this. ――― He no longer looked angry. How should I treat him? How did I want to be treated? I wasn’t sure at first, but now I don’t know at all. It’s about you, how could you not know? I mocked myself.
“You’re no longer confined. You can do what you want in the mansion within the bounds of common sense. You’ll be captured straight away if you go on a rampage anyway.”
“I won’t. Ah, hmm, I won’t do that anymore.”
Radka corrected himself, perhaps because he had remembered why he was in this mansion.
“I’ve become a little smarter now, too… I’m sure anyone would if they had to study like that.”
He shrugged his shoulders sarcastically and laughed, and I looked down for a moment… What is cleverness? Is it really foolish to give into death without sticking to your morals?
“But I have a lot of assignments and lectures every day, and I can hardly leave my room at will…”
He frowned and added, “It’s no different from being confined.” I pulled my consciousness out of the sea of thought for a moment and replied coolly.
“Time is something that can be worked out.”
“… Worked out. Didn’t you leave me alone because you couldn’t work that out?”
Opps, did I slip up? He glared at me and I diverted the topic, “Well, I’ll release you from the assignment hell starting from tomorrow.”
“Eh, really!?”
I nodded to Radka, who looked innocently happy. I moved my muscles and showed him a slight show, then he stopped making that expression and his cheeks twitched… This guy has good instincts.
“From tomorrow, you shall be my apprentice maid, apprentice secretary and apprentice guard; unless you want to spend the rest of your life trapped in this mansion. But if you don’t, then do your best to graduate from apprenticeship.”
It was something I had suddenly come up with when I saw the performance of the person who was helping me, but anyway, I don’t have the luxury to choose someone to help me right now, since I’m short on manpower. It wasn’t what I had envisioned I would use him for, but that can’t be helped.
“… Haaaah?!”
I prepared the next documents as Radka screamed and told him to come to this room tomorrow at breakfast.
He was troubled and grunted for a while.
Then, I got Radka to help me with my work and things had finally settled down.
“… What the fuck do you want me to do with this?”
Those words naturally leaked out of my mouth, probably because I was stunned. This is unnecessary, I looked at Earl Thelesia with a clinging gaze.
“You can only play with it, right? Together with Elize-dono.”
But Earl Thelesia’s calm voice crushed my fragile escape route.
I stared at the item in my hand again. It was a doll that was elaborately made into the figure of a beautiful girl with an indescribable smile on her exquisitely deformed face, to make her look less creepy.
She wore an unfathomably expensive and gorgeous outfit and one would be taken aback first, rather than moved, at the excessiveness of its ornaments. It’s not necessary to pile this doll with frills to the point that it looked ghastly…
I’m not sure if it’s because it’s winter when people stay in their homes or not, but this doll was a gift that was sent in the name of Baron Sherstorck, the father of Elise, the girl staying at Golden Hill Mansion. The Baron took the trouble to send two sets of dolls with different designs. In short, I’m sure the meaning to this was what Earl Thelesia had said, “You and Elize play with these.”
Elize came to Kaldia for recuperation, but on paper, she had come here to be my playmate. I also used her as a front to hide information about Radka, but Baron Sherstorck had no way of knowing this.
“A doll…”
A doll is a very orthodox gift for a pre-teen girl, and while I think it’s weird to play with dolls, that would seem like a strange opinion to everyone else.
Among the nobles, a baron is someone who is only granted with the right to own land. Barons rarely show up in high society, so he wouldn’t know that I was already working as a feudal lord and barely had enough time to talk with his daughter. Even if he did know, he wouldn’t think that I, a young girl, wasn’t interested in playing with dolls at all.
Earl Thelesia quickly went back to work as if he didn’t care about my personal preferences. I was left looking at the glistening doll again.
What am I going to do with this? Play with it?
I was troubled and reconsidered, no, wait, wait… In short, Elize will play with this and it’ll be fine if someone plays with her. I don’t have to be the person who plays with her.
I will push this onto Radka… I mean, give it to him and tell him to visit Elize at once tomorrow. I received information that they’ve gotten to know each other pretty well and that he used to sneak out to see Elize several times when he was in the barrack.
Nodding at the good idea that I had come up with, I plucked the first piece of the doll’s layered skirt. The pointlessly elaborate outfit was embroidered even in places that couldn’t be seen. The golden threads that were stitched to make a rose in the topmost cloth flickered in the light.
“… Huh?”
Upon closer inspection, I realised that the embroidery somehow represented a strange pattern. One part of the embroidery, which would normally be repeated, was different from the others.
I unrolled the other piece of cloth and saw that this doll was also embroidered in the same way. What pattern is this? I pondered as I stared at it, and then suddenly realised that this strange pattern were letters. I tried to read the letters in an appropriate spot, but it was hard to read, since there were no spaces in between the letters. It seemed to be a meaningful sentence.
The next day, I solved the mystery of the embroidery and immediately went to Earl Thelesia’s office.
“A secret letter…? Hmm. He’s training her through dolls.”
The Earl muttered as he looked at the paper which had the words scrawled on it.
“I’ve asked Elize-dono about it, and apparently this rose is a cipher. Elize-dono can’t leave her room, so Viscount Stadel had her solve these riddles for fun, and the rose always contained the cipher.”
Her uncle, Viscount Stadel, was exceptionally fond of her since she was sickly and sometimes spent days in bed, unable to get out. I heard from Elize that he had prepared a lot of different toys for her so that she wouldn’t be bored holed up in her room. Viscount Stadel didn’t have a daughter, so maybe that was why he gave all his affection to his niece. The weakness of Elize’s body may have added to the overprotectiveness of those around her. I was impressed that she had grown with such purity and innocence when she was raised in such an environment.
In order to get the key to the cipher, in the end, it was necessary to play with dolls with her. This was probably a plan by the Viscount who participated in last year's House of Lords meeting. If that’s the case, then I’ve been perfectly set up.
“So, do you know what it says?”
“Yes. It’s not difficult to understand as long as I carefully separate the words. It was a warning about the movement of the northern nobles.”
Earl Thelesia’s face twisted with just a bit of annoyance at the word ‘northern nobles’.
“He wrote that there are several radical organisations gathered around the Nordsterm House.”
“Foolish. They’re not going to get back the money that was taken away from them, no matter what they do now…”
The Earl sighed deeply as if he was tired. When we thought things were finally settling down, this happened. I’m grateful to Viscount Stadel for informing us about this, since he knew the northern nobles viewed us as enemies, but I couldn’t welcome trouble. Kaldia fief was short-handed even at the best of times, and both the Earl and I were overwhelmed with work.
I felt just a little gloomy when I recalled the malicious gazes of the northern nobles who I met at the House of Lords. We had to confirm whether the contents of the secret letter were true, but I was convinced that it was.
“We’ll have to work a little during my stay at the royal capital.”
I nodded at the Earl’s words. This year I’ll be heading straight to the royal capital as soon as winter is over, and the sowing is done. There’s a lot of work that needs to be done there.
The Nordsterm House is a great noble line, and the head of the house has the rank of marquis. Three generations ago, a Princess also married into their line, so they have a connection to the royal capital. They have a bad reputation since they maintain their wealth through lending money, and so there aren’t many nobles who can resist them. In addition, most of the nobles who represent the north are branch families of the Nordsterm House, and their influence in the north is said to be greater than that of the royal family.
I sighed in my mind; we’ve been marked by a really troublesome opponent.
The northern lands have been treated as the least important in Arxia since long ago. Amon Nohl lies on the border with the other kingdoms, and the north faces the rough, wavy sea. Their land was cold and infertile. They were also poorly positioned for marine trade. There are other kingdoms to the east, but the north has been largely under the control of Denzel for a long time. Randil might not have the navigational technology needed to pass the northern fiefs yet. They had little to no produce, and the northern fiefs weren’t valued as a national trading ground or a defensive area. Probably because of that, I’ve heard that there are many poor areas that are very lifeless in the north.
For that reason, there was only one family, the Nordsterm House, who ruled over the northern region until the founding of Arxia. Not one noble was dispatched to the north until the very end as a result of prioritising fiefs which needed to be governed in detail. It was impossible for the head of the Nordsterm House to govern the vast land by himself, so the land was divided and given to branch members, and about a hundred and twenty years ago, that system of governance was changed into the feudal system of the royal capital, and has remained that way till today.
The Nordsterm House, which governed these lands, formed a relationship with the royal family simply because of financial factors. It is said that they have financial numerous fiefs around them, and their income from the interest alone was used to fund the management of their fiefs.
I recalled that Earl Thelesia said that the royal family had married a Princess to the Nordsterm House, even though it didn’t benefit the kingdom, as a last resort to bring their fortune back to the centre.
Arxia’s royal family is made up of two families, preventing the succession of the throne from leaving the hands of the royal family. The Nordsterm House put a third of their assets into the treasury in exchange for a woman from the Merliart House, even though they weren’t the royal family.
Earl Thelesia said that he heard this from Marquis Rettalgau who was at the ‘imperial court’ when this was decided, so there was no doubt that this information was correct.
A noble family whose assets had been reduced, but had ties with the royal family, was gathering people and directing their hostility towards me. Give me a break.
They were showing hostility towards us, in the first place, because the House of Lords decided that they would split the defence costs that they had given to the north to Kaldia, Jugfena and Junas. The House of Lords didn’t make the wrong decision when they decided to redirect unspent money to where it would be spent.
However, the northern nobles are currently only marking Kaldia fief, in other words, me. Aren’t they just resenting me for no reason or taking their anger out on me since they’re not targeting Earl Einsbark, the governor of Einsbark royal fief, or Margrave Junas?
I sighed once again as I thought that far. I’ve thought about this many times over the winter, but whenever I had time, I couldn’t help but think about this disturbing omen.
“… Don’t look so gloomy.”
Earl Thelesia, who was seated across from me, snored in the carriage on the way to the royal capital.
“It won’t take long anyway. Junas and Jugfena also need Kaldia to sort the fief out as soon as possible, and officially, the plans to get the fief sorted are made by Earl Thelesia. It wasn’t a good idea for the Nordsterm House to move against the three families, Thelesia, Junas, and Einsbark, as they only had assets and no weapons.”
“I’m sure the Nordsterm House knew that from the beginning. If they are aware of this and are still moving against us, then they must have some backing?”
I’m worried about the powers other than the Nordsterm House.
The Nordsterm House had nothing except for money and the northern nobles. Those alone posed no threat. However, depending on who was helping them, things can be stirred up. It seemed like there was a problem with how the Nordsterms spent their abundant funds.
“Do you think the Nordsterms are connected to something that could upset the dynamics of the kingdom?”
Earl Thelesia raised an eyebrow and confirmed my concerns. The decision to discontinue the excess funds to the north and pay those costs to the southwest fiefs was a decision made by the House of Lords, and that decision was treated as if it had been decided by all the nobles of this kingdom. In short, it was the kingdom’s policy.
By the way, the House of Lords was made up of nobles who have a rank above Viscount and Imperial nobles with the rank of Earl and higher. Nobles of lower status are supposed to be indirectly involved in representing the participating nobles, and the reason why I usually don’t attend the House of Lords was because I can appoint my guardian, Earl Thelesia, as my proxy.
“But if not, then would the conservative northern nobles try to do something that would interfere with the decision made by the House of Lords?”
I replied to his question with a question, but the Earl nodded with a huff. Unlike the nobles in the royal capital, the conservative northern nobles are cautious about the risk of their dwindling influence.
The fact that they were gathering together around the Nordsterm House meant that something was going on. It’s best to be cautious.
It seemed that there was something called a rite of passage in society.
As I knelt for hours in the darkness in the Great Temple of Misorua, the headquarters of the Ar Xia religion, which surrounded the royal palace in the capital, I thought about this while repenting.
Seven years old is a milestone in Arxia.
This is the age when children can begin receiving punishments for breaking the law. It is the age when one makes a full-fledged vow to obey the laws of Xia and are held accountable for breaking them.
The children of commoners are gathered in a nearby chapel to celebrate their birth, then they are made to listen to the Sacred Code, but noble children are different. They contact the Great Temple of Misorua and set a date and time for their ceremony, and after purifying themselves with running water like a wedge, they repent in solitude in this dark room for about half a day. Afterwards, they recite a passage from the Sacred Code and pledged obedience to the law in front of God and the priests.
At the same time, this ritual was also a way to formally enter the Ar Xia Church. Until the age of seven, children entered the religion on a provisional basis. This was because a lot of children died before the age of seven and children under the age of seven couldn’t distinguish between what was right and wrong.
My seventh year awoke memories of the shichi-go-san celebrations[1]. In the corner of my mind, the memory of my past life which had emerged so strongly, whispered to me that all religions were shady and there was no such thing as God. I silenced that voice which was complaining about the stupidity of shutting myself up in the dark for half a day and repenting.
It doesn’t matter if Misorua is real or not. I don’t need any true faith to belong to Ar Xia. What mattered was whether or not I followed the society ordered by that doctrine.
… I kept dreaming about my previous life while I was asleep for nearly a month. I called them ‘memories of my previous life’ for convenience, but they were memories of a woman who lived in another world, which had been in my head since I was born.
The memories which had gradually faded away over the past seven years, leaving only things related to this world, were mostly about the trivial life of the woman who those memories belonged to. Since the origins of that world, and the way people lived their lives there are completely different from here, those memories were something that I had left to be forgotten, since they were unnecessary.
… I was shown those memories endlessly in my dreams, just like a vivid movie. Inevitably, the memories of my previous life, which I had never paid any attention to before, began to haunt me uncomfortably.
I couldn’t accept these memories as something that had happened in my own past, and it felt like I was reading about a heroine in a novel, or the whispers of a ghost.
But because of that, I also felt fear. A person’s personality depended largely on their memories. When I remember that my existence now may be overwritten without me knowing, by that woman from my previous world, I get a chill down my spine.
――― I am Eliza Kaldia, and I live in Arxia Kingdom. I am not the young woman who lived in Japan.
I kneeled in the darkness, a position that criminals were forced to take at the time of their execution, and seriously reflected on my short, sin-stained life, while half bidding farewell to my previous life.
After finishing the ceremony as planned, I looked around the Great Temple’s sanctuary and other buildings for a while since I had to wait for Earl Thelesia.
The Earl is my escort, but he had his own business to attend to. A bishop who can perform Ar Xia rituals was finally coming to my fief. This time, the Earl had to deal with the paperwork and conditions for the transfer of the bishop.
Incidentally, the word ‘bishop’ reminded me of a high-ranking clergyman from my previous life’s memories, but in Ar Xia it meant someone who taught the teachings of Ar Xia. They were literally someone who taught the creed.
Following the guide of a priest, I entered the sanctuary. At that moment, I was dazzled by the attentive details of the structures.
Wherever I looked, the elaborate carved stone statues and wooden frames had unparalleled beauty, and there were two streams of water flowing out from the front platform. The round window opened wide on the ceiling was shaped like a flower, and the stained glass magnificently lit up the sanctuary. The jewels inlaid into the eyes of the stone statues shone with that light and intensified the unrealistic scene inside of the sanctuary.
Further above the platform, was an altar dedicated to the remains of Saint Ahar, and to my surprise, it was a fountain. There were stones around the fountain which caused the water to border around in a circle, and there was a coffin made out of gold enclosed by glass in the centre.
“Isn’t it wonderful?”
The priest who was guiding me said with just a hint of pride.
I could only nod. I didn’t know any other structures that were as beautiful as this even if I searched through the memories of my previous life. I couldn’t take my eyes off the structures, since they were so magnificent, and let my gaze wander around each one that drew my interest for a while. The priest let me look at them until I got bored.
When I was looking at the workmanship from the ceiling to the floor, and from the walls to the platform, a voice suddenly spoke to me from behind.
“Oh, you… aren’t you the Kaldia girl?”
It was a mysterious voice that sounded both old and young, and like a woman’s or a man’s. There was something familiar about this distinctive voice.
I turned around and saw a person dressed in a white priest’s robe.
“Priest Faris―――.”
“I see you’ve done your oath ceremony. You look awful for someone who had just been a wedge and confessed.”
The priest, who had performed the ceremony for my birthday celebration last spring, had an indescribable and thin smile on his face. It was the first time I had seen him in a year, but my cheeks twitched since he didn’t look that much different from what I remembered of him.
“… You sure, well, work a lot for someone so young.”
He must have found it interesting, since he looked at me and muttered in amusement, and my shoulders jumped.
I knew that this mysterious priest was hard to deal with. I couldn’t tell what he was thinking at all, and yet the way he spoke made it seem like he could see right through me, and it made me feel unsettled.
“Chief Priest, please don’t tease Viscountess Kaldia too much…”
The priest who was guiding me warned Priest Faris in a troubled tone. Priest Faris shrugged, then walked straight towards the altar.