After becoming lord of the domain, I was busy for a while with various duties. First, because of the change of ruler, I had to send letters of territorial protection to my vassals and various institutions in the domain, such as temples. Since the promises of protection were all in the name of the previous lord, my brother, I had to reissue them all in my own. Really, I only had to check their contents, so it didn’t require much thought. But meeting with others inevitably takes time and energy. All manner of people came to pay respects to the new lord, so I had to receive them. I couldn’t make everyone match their schedule to mine, and thoughtlessly sending an envoy would be rude. Additionally, Laviala was always by my side as an adviser, so she was as exhausted as I was. “Ah, my neck is so stiff… Lord Alsrod…” She was constantly holding her neck. When we were alone, she was herself a bit more. Incidentally, I hadn’t made Laviala my official wife. Because of my status, it was crucial that I have a political marriage, so it would be a bad idea to openly hold a ceremony with her. Also, sadly, since Laviala was half-elven, if I announced her as my wife, some people would say it wasn’t appropriate for someone of my status. Still, no one would criticize a ruler for having several mistresses. Rather, since I was already eighteen years old, I couldn’t afford to be childless for long. I wanted to have a child with Laviala as soon as possible. “What other choice do we have? Boring work like this is a lord’s job, too.” “I thought perhaps we’d live a bit more luxuriously than this now that you’re a viscount, but I suppose it wasn’t to be… Ah, I never thought my neck would be this stiff before I was twenty…” “Let me massage it, then. It’s just the two of us here, so I don’t have to act like a viscount.” “Have you massage me, Lord Alsrod?! I couldn’t!” She blushed and waved her hand. In a sense, she was my wife, but she never went beyond her place as my subject. “Why act all shy if I’m offering? C’mon, lemme try.” A bit forcibly, I put my hands on her shoulders. She was stiffer than I’d imagined. “How tense have you been, helping me with my work…?” “We can never be sure some miscreants aren’t lurking around to kill you… Ah, that’s it, riiight there…!” Laviala’s shoulders loosened, and she seemed to relax significantly. I decided to mess around a bit and blew into those distinctive half-elven ears—not as pointy as elves’, but definitely still pointy. “Ffff.” “Ah, please stop… N-not my ears, not there…” Laviala sank to the floor as her legs gave out under her. That was more effective than I’d imagined. “Sorry. I didn’t think that would happen…” “D-don’t do that sort of thing right now… W-w-wait until it’s nighttime…,” she said, blushing, which started to make me feel embarrassed, too. “All right… Till nighttime…” Having this sort of relationship with Laviala reminded me how quickly time went by. Up until a few years prior, we’d studied and practiced fighting with swords and bows together. Just then, one of my vassals stopped by to say someone had arrived to meet with me. “The priest of the First Temple has come to pay his respects!” The name First Temple referred to the temple designated by the local lord as the most important in their domain. Since there were many temples in a county, we had a ranking system for their regulation. Even now many of them (such as the biggest in a prefecture) had power like that of the nobility; however, at the county level, they all needed their lord’s protection. Incidentally, this temple was the one where I’d received my profession. “All right. Let him in.” The priest who came to pay his respects was the same one who’d granted me the Oda Nobunaga profession. He sported a thick white beard. “It is good to see you again, my lord. I am the priest Elnarta. I never would have imagined you would rise all the way to viscount.” “Well, my brother fell ill, as you know. Nothing more than a twist of fate.” The official story was that my brother had died of illness, and I didn’t plan to go out of my way to be known for fratricide. Chances were that he, too, would prefer that than for future generations to know he was killed trying to murder his brother, even if he only wished for it from the afterlife. “Is the Oda Nobunaga profession serving you well? As the oracle, I had my concerns.” “There was no need to worry. In fact, I ought to thank you.” I essentially had my profession to thank for becoming ruler. “You are most welcome, Lord Alsrod. If I could have just a moment of your time, I would like to perform a phonetic evaluation of the words Oda Nobunaga.” A phonetic evaluation was a type of divination performed using the sounds a name made. Ha, what a joke. If divination truly worked, no one would ever lose a battle. All the warlords in my day had their own superstitions when they went into the fray. My inner voice was complaining. He had a point, though. Generally in war, lords everywhere thought about luck when deciding which day or time to go to battle. If they could win by doing that, then nobody would ever lose. Certainly no one would ever give their child an obviously inauspicious name, either; by that logic, no one would ever be unhappy. But in reality, countless people had fallen in war or died young from disease. Nevertheless, I was genuinely curious what sort of result I’d get about this Oda Nobunaga. “All right, see what you can do. It’s not like it’s going to take hours or anything.” “Yes, my lord.” The priest Elnarta spread out a cloth on the floor and sprinkled sand on top of it into the form of a magic square. He then wrote the name Oda Nobunaga in the center. “I wonder what the result will be,” Laviala said, also watching with great curiosity. She was always more interested in me than she was in herself. “Oh my…,” mumbled Elnarta. “Incredible…” “What is it?” I asked. “Was the answer that unusual?” “The sound that Oda Nobunaga makes essentially means the Demon King…” “Demon King? The one who’s supposed to lead monsters to world domination—that Demon King?” In this world, just as there were minority races like elves and dwarves, there were also evil beings like goblins and orcs. But a Demon King who commanded monsters was nothing more than a legend. “Yes… In terms of a profession name like Fighter or Wizard, Demon King would be the most fitting name, I think… I apologize for any offense, Lord Alsrod…” Demon King, eh? A priest worth his salt, I see! Indeed, I did once call myself a Demon King just for fun! My inner voice laughed. Without thinking, I laughed, too. “Pardon me, my lord, but why are you laughing…?” the priest asked. “Oh, no, it’s just such good news.” Laviala seemed to understand how I felt. “A Demon King is still a king. You are aiming for the throne, not just Nayvil. This is the perfect profession for you!” “Exactly. Of course, as king, I’ll do my best to avoid being seen as a demon.” Oda Nobunaga really was a special profession after all. Laviala was spot-on: A Demon King was still a king. It was unheard of to receive a profession that included the word king. In a world with a more powerful dynasty, I might have been punished for irreverence. “Um… No matter how much they have declined in recent years, the royal family still exists… Please try not to say anything too brash,” Elnarta admonished me; perhaps he was just meek. Of course, if he’d tried to be agreeable by ensuring me I could be king, I would’ve lost trust in him. He probably didn’t quite understand what kind of profession Oda Nobunaga was. “Don’t worry. If I get the chance to support the royal family, that’s exactly what I’ll do. But I’m still just a county-level ruler, so I’m a long way off from that.” Claiming you were protecting a failing dynasty—only to go on taking power yourself—was an old trick for usurping a kingdom. But then I had an idea. “Say, Laviala, you still haven’t received your profession, right?” “I keep putting it off, yes… I just can’t find the free time to do it.” It was true that Laviala, as my attendant, had trouble setting aside time, what with the sudden changes in my position. “We have a priest right here. If it’s all right to use the castle chapel, you should have your profession-bestowal ceremony there.” “If the chapel is in order, then the size makes no difference,” Elnarta agreed. Of course it didn’t; most peasants got their professions from a small village chapel, after all. “All right. I hope it’s something good…” Thus, we made our way to the chapel. I wondered whether she’d also get some bizarre profession like Oda Nobunaga. Surely twice in a row was too much… And it would be especially awkward if hers was the name of one of his enemy lords. The ceremony proceeded as it had for me. I call it a ceremony, but Laviala simply knelt while the priest relayed the words of the gods. “Your profession is…Archer.” “Aw, that’s more normal than I thought it would be,” Laviala said candidly. “Actually, Archer is a fairly rare profession…,” Elnarta replied. “It’s far more normal than Oda Nobunaga,” she replied. I mean, I’m probably the only one in the world with that one. Since Laviala had long made good use of her archery skills, it was a respectable profession for her. “It is said that Archer raises your bow attack power by thirty percent in battle, and on top of that, it greatly raises your accuracy. Essentially, it will be impossible for you to miss your mark.” “I see. I’d love to try it out on a target right away.” Wanting to strike while the iron was hot, Laviala decided to shoot targets at an archery range we set up in the courtyard. Maybe it was my imagination, but I saw what looked like a golden aura from her body as she readied her bow. “This is amazing. I’m perfectly calm, and yet I feel a sense of focus gently washing over me… I’m certain I’ve never felt this way before.” Then she fired an arrow. Fwthoooom! The sound was unlike any normal arrow I’d heard. Sure enough, it had struck the center of the target, leaving cracks and fissures where it hit. The power behind it would have been impossible for any normal arrow. “Damn… Looks like one hit would be enough to kill a person…” Such power was more frightening than it was amazing. “I don’t fully understand it yet, either…,” Laviala said. “With Archer, it is said that if you have both the focus and the technique, sometimes magic from your body gets added to the arrow, and damage is tripled… This only happens with the best Archers, so I have never seen it before, either…” Even the priest was shaken. Laviala was already a top-tier archer, and with the help of her profession, she was nearing divine status. “I’ll try it out a bit more.” Laviala shot at a different target this time. Fwbaaaaaam! As soon as the arrow struck it, the target blew into smithereens. “Whoa, it’s as if you used an explosion spell on it!” I exclaimed. There was obviously more power in that strike than what an ordinary arrow could produce. “I’ve never used attack magic, but I did get the same feeling as when I use healing spells… I suppose it did have magic…” Her shoulders were heaving a little as she breathed; maybe she’d strained herself. Still, her power was almost obscene. Laviala had been trained with a bow and arrow from childhood, and since she had waited to receive her profession, she’d had to polish her skills enough to fight in battle without any such bonus. As a result, the sudden boost had made her that much stronger. “Laviala, this is amazing! You’ll be a terror on the battlefield now!” “Yes, sir! I’ll keep on fighting by your side and shoot any enemy we cross!” Even with the priest there, I stroked Laviala’s head. I might’ve found myself the best markswoman in the world. “I’m glad I managed to get such an amazing profession.” “You’re strong enough now to lead all the elves and half-elves in the domain; don’t worry. You can hold your head high—or even be cocky.” We now had a helpful new fighting ability, too. While seeing to official business, I hadn’t forgotten about territorial expansion. Now we should be able to crush the lords near us whose domains were close in size, one by one. Precisely. First you should take care of your enemies close to home, one at a time. Oda Nobunaga agreed, so I couldn’t be wrong. Whether Demon King or Conqueror King, I was going to be king. “Laviala, practice your archery every day. You’ll be using it for real before long.” “You mean…?” “I plan to have the largest territory of any Viscount of Nayvil in history.” I mustered my troops and advanced east. The Viscount of Nayvil (in other words, I, Alsrod Nayvil) held Nayvil County—home of the county capital, Nayvil—and half of the neighboring Hidge County. The rest of Hidge County and Kinaseh County right next to it were held by the Viscount of Marle. Since his capital was in the rural Marle region, he’d taken that as his name. There had been tensions between our clans for generations, since neighboring lords generally got into territorial disputes. It would have been weird if we’d had long-term friendly relations. So I was going to eliminate him first. It didn’t matter what excuse I used to attack, but I said it was insulting he hadn’t come to pay respects to the new ruler. I went with four hundred troops. I could have gone with more, but this many was actually better. With these numbers, the surrounding lords would assume it was just a small skirmish between neighboring countries. (They weren’t countries by name, but in this age, all domains were as independent as countries.) Our troops clashed on a flat plain within the Marle region of Hidge County. “Kivik and Laviala, I’m giving you each a hundred men. Go and crush our foes at once. This isn’t enough to necessitate my involvement—yet.” “Yes, sir! Compared to the hellish days of Fort Nagraad, this’ll be a piece of cake!” “It’ll be a bit lonesome not being by your side… But I’ll destroy the enemy and come right back!” They were both eager for a fight, and that eagerness saw results.
Chapter 9
13 min read