Prologue
“LORD WEISS? LORD WEISS, ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?! Please, you must wake up! If you die, I’d…”
“Jeez, I can’t believe he got himself stabbed by one of his subjects. I guess it’s his fault this place is so unsafe, though. After raising the taxes so high, he got what was coming to him…”
I could hear two women speaking. One of them was clearly worried, while the other seemed to believe that whoever she was talking about got what he deserved. Hell, from what I was hearing, this guy was an awful lord.
The bigger problem was whether I was in Japan. Who the heck was Weiss? Sounded like a foreign name to me. And what was all of this about a lord? It all reminded me a lot of this one video game…
“Meg! Can you not see that your master is suffering from his wounds? How could you say something like that? I will watch over him, so you hurry and get more painkiller potions and bandages, please.”
“I swear, you’re too nice for your own good, being his personal maid even after he beat you. Ugh.”
“Enough chatting! Fetch me what I asked for, on the double!”
“Fine, fine. I’ll never understand what you see in this guy…”
The sound of a door opening marked that this person had left the room. But none of that particularly mattered at the moment. Meg? Rosalia? Weiss? Surprised by the familiar names I was hearing, I tried to move my body, only to be overcome by sharp pain in my abdomen.
OOOOW! What the hell?!
According to the two girls’ conversation, their lord was stabbed…and my abdomen was in pain…plus there was the name Weiss.
In the end, I was led to a single conclusion.
“Hell yeah! I’ve been reincarnated!” My eyes shot open as I sat up. “Someone get me a mirror!”
When I lurched upward, I smacked my forehead against the girl with pale-blue hair who was keeping watch over me. The clunking of our heads caused another sharp pain to run through mine.
She shrieked, while I shouted.
“Grah! My head’s gonna explode!”
“Lord Weiss, a-are you all right? I have a mirror if you require one,” the maid—Rosalia—said, holding her head as she brought me a mirror.
From both her words and her actions earlier, it was clear that this girl was tremendously loyal. Realizing that, I was nearly overcome with emotion just thinking about how she ended up in-game, but I did my best to fight off those feelings for now.
“Ah, thank you, Rosalia.”
“Huh?”
I expressed my gratitude and took the mirror out of her hands, causing her to freeze up in astonishment.
What’s wrong? Did I say something wrong?
“Did Lord Weiss say thank you…?”
I had forgotten that during this time of his life, Weiss was, let’s say, difficult. The fact that Rosalia acted like this after receiving a thank-you said everything it needed to.
I examined myself in the mirror and quickly confirmed that my earlier conclusion was the correct one. I had short, refined black hair and a face that should have been quite handsome but instead had sickly, sunken cheeks. Compared to the character as he was in the game proper, he was much younger, but he was nonetheless the same Weiss that I knew.
✦ ✦ ✦
If this is the same world as the game, then I should be able to do this…
I snapped my fingers and spoke the words aloud.
“Open Status.”
Weiss Hamilton
Occupation: Lord
Alias: Incompetent Corrupt Lord
Populace Loyalty: 10
Strength: 40 (38)
Magic Power: 40
Craft: 20
Skills:
Dark Magic Lv 1
Sword Skills Lv 1
Negative Status Effects:
Light Alcoholism: Focus goes down if alcohol is not regularly consumed. Decreases magic strength.
Malnutrition: As a result of eating poorly and drinking too much, your health has worsened. Two points are deducted from overall strength.
Otherworldly Being: As a visitor from another world, you are unfamiliar with the customs unique to this place. Decreases ability to understand things like magic.
Unique Skills:
Blind Belief in Your Fave (Leap of Faith): Effects Unknown
Argh, nothing but bad status effects. I mean, since Weiss is technically a villain character, it makes sense his stats are mostly over 30 and above the main character’s starting stats, but this is still pretty awful.
Just to clarify, “strength” in this situation referred to close-range combat strength, while “magic power” had an effect on the power of a magic spell, and “craft” had an effect on acquiring skills and raising their success rate.
Either way, now I was certain.
This was the very same world as, or at least based on the one in, the strategy role-playing game, or SRPG, Valhalla Tactics. Weiss, the person I was inhabiting, was the villain of the first arc of the game.
The protagonist would defeat him and save the subjects who were suffering under his tyrannical rule, and that would lead the hero down his own path to greatness. In other words, Weiss was just a stepping stone within the bigger narrative.
Upon defeating Weiss, the citizens of the land would shed tears and express their gratitude to the protagonist before swearing loyalty to him. On the other hand, Weiss would manage to flee from the hero’s party, but in the end, he would be found and lynched by his own subjects. A sad, pathetic end for the man.
I didn’t know why I’d reincarnated into Weiss, a man who was on the fast track to a spectacular death, but if there was a God, I would say…
“Thank you for reincarnating me as my fave!”
If I didn’t start making moves, I was going to be lynched in a few years, but none of that really mattered. After all, I was never going to allow that to happen! I could feel my heart lit aflame; I was finally being given the chance to save my fave.
I’d read so many fanworks where he was saved! Thought about what I personally would do to save him! I went out of my way to buy all of the production materials, which gave me insight into how he ended up the way he did. As it happened, we shared similar circumstances, and the more I looked into him, the more I fell in love with his character. I kept thinking about how if he had been within reach, I could have saved him.
“Heh heh heh! Ha ha ha ha!” I was so thrilled that I forgot about the pain in my abdomen. Instead, I sniffed myself, looked in the mirror, and only grew more excited. “This is what Weiss smells like! This is his face! I am a Gund—I mean, Weiss!”
Now this is what a true nobleman looks like! He may be unhealthy, but he’s still a hunk!
I then proceeded to take Rosalia’s hand while she looked on with a stiff smile.
“Rosalia, I am so sorry for all the hardship I put you through. Let us save Weiss together!”
I flashed her a joyful smile, only to have her cry out with what seemed like disgust.
Crap, right. I’m Weiss right now. Of course she’d be weirded out after watching me snap my fingers, say “Open Status,” start cackling, and say all sorts of weird stuff.
“Help, someone! Lord Weiss is acting strange! Well, he was always strange, but still!”
“Isn’t that kind of cruel?! Just, hold on a second and listen to meeee—urgh!”
I tried to stop Rosalia before she could leave the room, but the agony in my abdomen set in again, and all I could do was squirm on the bed. Through the pain, I thought I heard someone say something to me.
“What do you think you can do? Anybody in my shitty position would…”
But before I could think about it any further, everything went black.