The arrow sailed cleanly through the air…and landed dead-center in the target. He’d hit the bull’s eye. Everyone except me was stunned.
“The hell…?” whispered one of the more experienced soldiers. “How’s a beginner shoot like that…?”
“B-Beginner’s luck, that’s all! Oi, Millais! Let’s see you do that again, eh?!” shouted another of them.
Millais drew his bow once more, and again, his arrow thudded perfectly into the target’s center. One perfect shot might’ve been a fluke, but two in a row was too much to write off so easily. The nearby soldiers were flabbergasted all over again. Even Millais’s jaw had dropped so far that it was practically touching the ground.
“Millais? Do us all a favor and use a bow from now on.”
“You’ve got the knack for it, man!”
“I hate to break it to you, but you were always lousy with a spear.”
The other soldiers clustered around Millais, and it wasn’t long before he caved in the face of their praise.
“W-Well, I guess being an archer wouldn’t be that bad! What’s a little cowardice on the battlefield if it keeps you breathing, eh? Ha ha ha!”
And just like that, the matter was settled. It was almost shocking how quickly he went from “archers aren’t real men” to “maybe bows are fine after all.” Honestly, he seemed a little too shallow for his own good.
“But anyway, how’d you know, Young Master?” asked one of the soldiers. “What tipped you off that Millais was a born marksman?”
The rest of the soldiers turned to face me as well, looking more than a little curious.
I wonder─if I explain that I have a special power that allows me to see their stats, will they believe me?
There was no telling how that revelation might go over, so in the end, I settled on a simple, one-word answer.
“Instinct!”
○
I was sitting down with my family for a meal the day after my encounter with Millais. My father in this new world, Raven Louvent, sat directly in front of me.
Raven was an exceptionally tall man with a rugged face and a sharp, dangerous glint in his eyes. To be completely honest, I was rather scared of him. This was, after all, a man who had been born at the bottom rung of society, a mere peasant, and yet he’d managed to climb all the way up to a noble title by virtue of his valorous deeds alone. He was a terror on the battlefield, capable of engaging ten average soldiers on his own and emerging from the brawl unscathed.
His stats, incidentally, looked like this:
In short, he had the exceptional leadership and valor required to rally an army of any size and lead them to victory: a natural-born general, through and through. On the other hand, his grasp of political matters was rather tenuous. That was probably why he’d contented himself with his status as the lord of a small, unimportant territory.
After we finished eating, my father looked over at me and said, “Ars. I’ve been told that you discovered Millais has a talent for archery yesterday.”
“Yes, that’s right,” I replied.
“And you did so by ‘instinct,’ was it? It seems those instincts of yours are nothing to scoff at. Polish that skill, Ars. The ability to identify people’s talents is invaluable for a lord.”
Is that really the sort of advice you should be giving to a three-year-old? I guess I’m not exactly acting my age, though, so I should probably cut him some slack.
I was still Raven’s only child, and it occurred to me that I might’ve given him the misapprehension that all kids developed as quickly as I had.
“I’ll take that advice to heart,” I replied.
○
Several months came and went, over the course of which I turned four. As I grew, I learned more and more about the circumstances I’d been thrust into, and, well, let me put it bluntly: my future looked grim.
It might have been more accurate to say that the future of the entire Summerforth Empire looked grim, actually. From what I could tell, the odds of some sort of strife breaking out in the nation in the immediate future were incredibly high.
The empire dominated the entire continent of Summerforth. In other words, it had no external enemies to speak of at all. There were other nations out there, of course, but mounting an invasion of Summerforth would have involved sending their armies on an extended voyage beforehand, making the empire a less-than-attractive target.
The strife I was worried about, then, was internal: a civil war. The upper echelons of the Summerforth Empire’s power structure were so flagrantly corrupt that it was almost laughable. As a result, several peasant uprisings had already broken out all over the nation. My father had been sent to suppress one just recently, in fact.
With each revolt that was put down, though, another sprung up, and the emperor’s hold over the nation was growing weaker and weaker with each passing day. Local lords, in consequence, were growing more autonomous and less inclined to bow to the empire’s word.
Small skirmishes between feuding local lords had already begun to crop up on occasion, and the ruling authorities just didn’t have the power or influence left to do anything about them. In short, the country was a mess, and battles were breaking out all over the place at the drop of a hat. Troubled times indeed.
At the rate things were going, I could easily picture the empire collapsing entirely. Free from the threat of intervention, the lords of each region might escalate their minor skirmishes into all-out wars. Speaking as the first son of a noble family, I was incredibly distressed to realize what sort of era I’d been born into. The odds of me getting sent out into battle over and over were horrifyingly high, and if I’d inherited my father’s title by that point, I’d be commanding our army as well.
Part of me desperately wished that I’d been born into a peaceful era, fated to live out a mundane life pushing papers, but I was in no position to fantasize about what could have been. The last time I was born, I wound up in modern Japan, a nation that was about as peaceful as possible. I didn’t know the first thing about battle! I wasn’t even convinced I’d be able to function on a basic level on a battlefield!
Just how long will I be able to survive in such a turbulent era?
My mind was full of worries, but one thought took precedence above all else.
I don’t want to die.
My last life had ended abruptly at the early age of thirty-five. I had a laundry list of goals I’d left unaccomplished and experiences I’d failed to have. I did not want to let my second shot at life end as early as my first did! I wanted to fade away into the grasp of senility, surrounded by a small army of grandchildren!
What could I do to stay alive, though? I thought as hard as I could, desperate to find something I could do, when suddenly, my father’s words echoed through my mind.
“The ability to identify people’s talents is invaluable for a lord.”
That’s it! People!
I just had to gather up all the most talented and exceptional individuals I could find, make them into my retainers, and let them bolster Lamberg’s power and influence! That would lower my chances of meeting a sudden and violent end for sure! After all, in the sort of turbulent times the empire was rushing toward, the most important resources you could have were power and influence.
That settled it. I’d put my Appraisal ability to work, gathering up all of the most talented subordinates I could get my hands on! I got right to it, too: the moment I set that goal, I left our estate and wandered out into town, looking for my first recruit.
The territory the Louvent family ruled over, Lamberg, was home to a town of the same name. About eighty percent of the region’s population lived in the town of Lamberg, and my family’s estate happened to be located nearby. Even on foot, it only took about five minutes to reach the town.