I’d enrolled at this school once I started living on my own. The moment my family had pushed me onto my real father, I was no longer allowed at schools attended by the nobility.
“And what about you, Ern?” I asked. “You’ll join a House, I suppose?”
“Yeah. I mean, I have these magical abilities, after all. And the last time, before this one, I didn’t get to do much of anything. In this life, I’m going to do what I want to do, and I’m going to be good to my parents.”
“A bit early to be looking so far down the line, no?”
“Not in the slightest,” said Ern. “As soon as you hit twenty or thirty, life passes you by in the blink of an eye.”
“Yeah, I know that, but look at us. Right now, we’re both young.”
Let me explain: Ern, like me, had been reborn. That said, she wasn’t Japanese, and her life before this one was a far, far cry from the one I’d experienced. In Ern’s case, she’d had children at a young age, spent her days scraping by, then died. She didn’t like talking about it so I wasn’t privy to the details, but one thing was certain—hers were not blessed, fortunate circumstances. I suspected that her past was the very reason she was so diligent about her studies. We’d become friends simply because we got along well together.
“By the will of the Lord, yes, yes, we are. Our worries, too, are but a fleeting thing,” said Ern. “We should enjoy our new lives.”
Ern was committed to her religion. And while her thoughts had changed a little here and there with her current situation, she nonetheless was a devout and ardent believer in God. I’d come here with my Japanese sense of religion, and so I only really believed in gods so far as it was convenient or necessary. Cheating, you say? I won’t hear of it. A mysterious life-form that is all-knowing, with magical powers and the ability to grant any wish? I had more important things to consider.
Namely, the paper right in front of me.
“But where do I want to go?” I murmured.
As long as they paid their student fees, schools did their best to help students in their efforts to find employment. I, too, was hopeful that I’d receive that same support.
But there was a problem. Oh yes, there was a problem.
In short, my options for employment were limited. I had been expelled from a family of middle-class nobility. I was once a Kirsten, and the last thing I wanted was to end up at a workplace with close ties to them, what with all the constant rumors and power struggles. All a prospective employer had to do was dig a little into my past, and I simply wouldn’t hear the end of it.
And while I was the daughter of middle-class nobility, my existence was a stain upon the Kirsten family name. But it’s your mother’s fault, Ern had argued. What did I have to do with the whole sordid affair? Frankly, that was my opinion too. However, that didn’t pass muster as far as noble society was concerned. My relatives staked their lives on their reputations. My mother’s grandparents, in particular, despised my real father. I’d heard that they had exploded with rage, but I hadn’t seen them since I began living alone.
In any case, my current peaceful life was thanks to their good graces. And while money was admittedly tight, I nonetheless lived without much worry. Still, I did wonder how that might change once I graduated school and entered greater society.
“Well,” I muttered, “I guess I’ll just submit my preferred employers.”
My first preference was the position of trade accountant. Second, House secretary. Both offered good salaries. As much as I would have preferred to avoid work at one of the Houses, I’d arrived at it by process of elimination. In any case, my life goal at this point was to work for a time and save money.
“I won’t get anywhere without some capital behind me,” I uttered.
My grand plan, you see, was to leave the country at the age of twenty. I wanted to see the outside world. Given that I didn’t have a particular location in mind, I saw the need to lay a foundation and gain some experience in the workforce. Now, if some benevolent god had bestowed upon me some great task, or if I’d been able to see the status screen in some world with a simple leveling process, then perhaps my goals would have been decided for me. Unfortunately, mine was a more coldhearted and unsympathetic rebirth. But, reincarnation or otherwise, I still had to eat, and that meant I had to work. Besides, it wasn’t like this world boasted the number of evil and exploitative corporations that Japan did.
Three days after I submitted my work preferences, my teacher called me for a meeting. Their eyes were red and puffy, and with each word they spoke, they seemed about to burst into tears.
“My apologies, Karen. I wanted nothing more than to reward you with one of your preferences, but it is simply beyond my control.”
That told me everything I needed to know.
Someone’s been pulling some strings.
My teacher was passionate about their students, and I had no doubt they’d attempted to negotiate on my behalf. I told them that their tears were a more than adequate apology and took the rest of the day off from school.
The city I lived in was filled with a pleasant number of plants and flowers. The wind was quite strong that day, and you could hear it shaking the leaves in the trees. The red and yellow flower petals in the flowerbeds surrounding the school fluttered as I took a seat on a nearby bench.
“Well then, what now?” I muttered.
There was no energy in my utterance. I’d deliberately chosen safe options for potential places of employment, and even then I’d been shut down. As for future options, I either had to prepare myself for family-related bullying and aim higher, or aim considerably lower, or otherwise resort to begging for work. I wasn’t particularly keen on the latter, being that the places that would readily hire a sixteen-year-old couldn’t offer much in the way of a high salary.
A barmaid or a shop clerk, huh...
I don’t want to speak poorly of such jobs, but my dream was to one day leave this place for foreign lands. It was already going to be hard for me to find a good husband, and so I had to consider the worst-case scenario: that I would die alone. But, what if someday I fell ill? That was why I’d gone to school, so I could develop a secure set of skills to fall back on. But now, all of my studying felt as though it had been for nothing. I had thrown away years that I could have spent enjoying my youth, and now I was desperate for those years to mean something.
And don’t you go calling me too much of a pessimistic realist. If money wasn’t an issue, I can assure you my teens would have been a complete and utter joyride.
I crossed my arms and closed my eyes. The wind through the trees, the sound of nearby conversation; these were gentle, calming things, but to me they were little more than static. Then there was the sound of a carriage coming to a halt. The slam of its door. These sounds, by themselves, were fine, but when I heard footsteps approaching, I opened my eyes. This was unusual. A shadow fell across my feet. It belonged to a face I had not seen in some time: long, almond-shaped eyes, a sharp and handsome nose, and neatly combed hair. It was Arno, the eldest son of the Kirsten family.
“What a surprise, brother,” I remarked. “To see you here in a place like this.”
In contrast to my shock, my older half-brother wore something of an inscrutable expression.
“It has been too long, Karen,” he replied, peering down at me.
There was a touch of cold formality in his tone, but things were complicated—we were members of different families now. I should note that I didn’t hold anything against Arno. He had always looked after me, and when he found out that my father intended to expel me from the family, he had opposed the idea until the bitter end.
“It has indeed,” I said. “I would say it’s been at least two years since we last met. You look rather tense. Are you eating properly?”
“All the regular meals, every day,” Arno replied. “I’m happy to see you looking well. Are you eating properly?”
“You don’t have to worry about that. My daily living expenses are covered, so I cook for myself and I’m eating my fair share of meat and vegetables.”
Arno did not appear convinced of my financial security, however.
“I see,” he replied, furrowing his brow.
Behind my brother stood his foster brother. The sword at his waist was a clear indicator that he was Arno’s bodyguard. Like my brother, he’d been good to me growing up, and I waved a hello, but I received only a smile in return.
“Brother, what are you doing here?” I asked. “Surely you didn’t just happen to see me while you were passing by.”
“No, I have a matter to discuss with you.”
“I thought as much. Oh, please don’t take that as a reproach. It’s nothing of the sort.”
The fact of the matter was that Arno wouldn’t have come without a reason. He and my siblings were prohibited from making contact with me, after all. My brother had also been raised and educated to act as the right-hand man of the head family’s young master. As such, he carried the weight of the Kirsten family on his shoulders, and he would not be so rash as to meet me on a whim, no matter how worried he might be. I knew that my siblings were banned from seeing me because my older sister’s servant had told me, back when it was first decided that I was to be expelled. This was why I didn’t hold anything against any of my siblings.