For the next hour, I let my tears stream down my cheeks, and finally, I was able to calm myself down. I blew my nose into Carlos’s suit and quietly stepped away.
“Carlos, you reek of cigarettes,” I complained. “You’re in the middle of work.”
“Yes, indeed,” Carlos said. “Just five minutes ago, my shift had started.”
He took out his pocket watch and showed it to me. A little past five in the morning. I realized that I’d been crying since the early hours of the morning, before Carlos’s shift had even begun.
“So you noticed your master’s predicament and came in here even before you were on the clock?” I asked. “Your loyalty is admirable.”
“What in the world happened, my lord?” he asked. “Your panache is one of your few good points, but I’ve never seen you so distraught and in shambles. The other staff of the manor are quite shocked as well.”
He glanced at the door. I saw several maids standing outside, worriedly peering in. Were they here the whole time? Were they just watching me cry?
“What are you dawdling for?!” I roared. “Get back to work!”
The maids hastily scurried away, and I was left wondering if my sobs had echoed throughout this manor. Thank goodness father and mother are in separate houses.
“My lord...” Carlos muttered.
“Hmph, I just had a rather vivid nightmare, that’s all,” I huffed.
I tried my best to put on a tough front, but I knew that my eyes were nervously darting around. And that really was a lifelike dream. I can’t just look back and laugh about it. It was so brutal and traumatic that I just couldn’t shrug it off as a dream.
I’d had my body torn to shreds and my name dragged through the mud for what had felt like thousands upon thousands of hours. Ugh, the mere memory brings tears to my eyes again...
Carlos, perhaps noticing the tears in my eyes, swiftly took out a letter.
“We should go for a change of pace,” he said. “Why don’t you take a look at this letter, my lord?”
“What’s that?” I asked.
“An invitation to a party.”
“A party? From which household?”
Hm... Well, it doesn’t sound too bad. And having some fun might help me change my mood. Still, it was vital to know who the host was; if I joined a party of a low-ranking noble, it would affect the dignity of my household. At the very least, the host had to be a count, though the higher the better. I tried to gauge the invitee’s rank.
“This invitation is from the house of a duke!” Carlos replied confidently.
“Oh? A duke, you say?” I asked.
Splendid! I have high hopes for this!
“This invitation is from the house of Duke Galleon!” Carlos added.
“Wonderful!” I cried, but then faltered. “Duke...Galleon?”
House Galleon dominated the western region of our nation and was one of the most prominent nobles of the kingdom. But in my nightmare, where I was killed over and over again... If memory serves, in the first arc, the leader of the bullies was a cruel man who had unmatched ambition and charisma. I think his name was...Raymond Rois Nodens Galleon, the eldest son of Duke Galleon. And he’s invited me to a—
“Blurgh...” I gagged.
“My lord?!” Carlos cried.
I vomited all over the floor.
The story in my dream started when the main character entered the academy. Since his first day there, he was mocked relentlessly by Raymond and was called a peon. Raymond took his four friends along to mock the main character, and I think I was among that bullying group. If Raymond had already had his group then, it means that I might’ve known him before the main character entered the academy.
So this invitation... Could this party kick off my relationship with Raymond? If the duke is the host of the party, it’s not hard to imagine that it’ll be quite the large affair. House Galleon and House Lightless aren’t exactly close. And yet, if I received an invitation, it means that House Galleon probably invited many people, including his followers and myself, a future member of the Elite Four. Will my nightmare become a reality? Will I be mercilessly tortured and killed?
No! No no no! I knew that couldn’t happen. As the future heir of House Lightless, I wasn’t allowed to suffer such a grisly, pathetic death. It was the one fate that I was intent on avoiding. What if my dream is a prediction? What if it will all become reality? If so, then I was determined to use every fiber of my being to bend fate with my very hands. I could never allow that infuriating main character, who killed me countless times, to become king. As tears continued to stream down my cheeks, I made that solemn oath.
✶✶✶
The party hosted by House Galleon was scheduled for three months from now. I ought to do what I can until then, I thought. My first question was why I was killed in that story. Did I become an enemy of humanity who threatened everyone’s lives? Was it because I became the Elite Four who served Raymond, the second Demon Lord?
While all of these were indeed factors that led to my death, they didn’t hit the crux of the problem. At its core, the main character and his faction hated me. In the first arc, I mocked the main character for being a commoner and bullied him, and I could prove that his anger was personal. Though the Elite Four was effectively crushed, not everyone died; one was spared. He was the strongest of the Elite Four, and the last one to join the battle: Warm, the Dragon Rider. He was a dragon knight who soared through the skies on his trusty beast, and even within the story, his spear mastery was unrivaled.
He was frightfully talented with the spear, and Raymond had provided him with his beloved dragon, Flugel. This beast allowed Warm to cut through the air at supersonic speed, and his powerful lightning magic put him at the top of the Elite Four. While the rest of us became Raymond’s underlings due to our noble birth and abilities, Warm was the sole exception to this rule.
He was the only one who had no rank. The son of a knight on the frontier, his family had been knights for generations and served the nobles of the kingdom. He was by no means a commoner, but there was a wide and deep gap between him and nobles like us. Yet a mere knight like him was granted a place at Raymond’s side because of his overwhelming power. Warm didn’t have any noble bloodline; he was the only one who was accepted into our group because of his raw power and might alone.
Precisely because of his seemingly low social rank, within the first arc of my dream, Warm was the only one who was rather passive when Raymond and his followers bullied the main character for being a commoner. Not once did he instigate any bullying of his own accord, and he only got involved under Raymond’s orders. In fact, Warm seemed to admire the main character for being so strong despite his social status. Warm’s combat prowess was terrifying to say the least, and during the Elite Four’s battle against the main character’s forces, Warm flew in of his own accord and single-handedly decimated his foes. If memory served, he only admitted defeat when his beloved dragon was shot down.
Following this loss, Raymond, the second Demon Lord, was swiftly bested by the main character’s forces, and Warm committed suicide—a sorrowful end to his life. But of course, nothing is more tragic than my own end. I was killed tens of thousands of times. In a nutshell, the main character and his troops were willing to let enemies escape, so long as there was no blatant animosity between them. It was a rather naive way of thinking. But that means, even if I attend this party and become Raymond’s underling, as long as I don’t bully the main character in the first arc, my life might be spared. Wait, maybe that won’t be enough. In my dream, I was unreasonably blamed for heavy taxation. Even if I don’t bully the main character, the tax issue might be used against me, and I could be killed for that.
It struck me as a false accusation, but I wasn’t confident that the main character would think that far. He seems willing to kill anyone he deems a bad guy. If I leave so much as a bad impression, I’ll probably be on the chopping block. The truth didn’t seem all that important to them.
In other words, before the second arc of the story, I had to do something about our land’s taxes. But how could I, a mere child, butt into the affairs of governing the land? If I don’t tread carefully, I’ll only anger my father. Good grief, what a headache...
“So, Carlos, I want you to look into any place within our land that appears to suffer from heavy taxation,” I ordered.
“That’s...quite a sudden request,” he muttered.
In the early hours of the morning, my butler gave me a cup of black coffee as usual, and I sipped on my drink as I watched him grimace.
“It seems like we’re taxing some people quite heavily,” I remarked.
“And from where, pray tell, did you get that information?” Carlos asked.
“My dream.”
My butler gave a deep sigh. Hey, stop looking at me with pity!