With his final farewells, the economist turned and left.
Roy screamed internally. It was a terrible blow to him. Completely ignoring all the girls trying to get his attention, a gloomy voice in his heart muttered, Girls are nothing but a pain in the butt. All they do is crowd around me and jabber on about those inane things in those shrill voices. Around me! I, who must become a wonderful king! Don’t they understand this has repercussions on their happiness as well? From that day on, Roy relegated every young girl to the same category: an utter nuisance.
To prevent any misunderstandings, it must be said that while Roy did think of girls as awful bothers, he never harassed them, treated them maliciously, or attempted to get rid of them in any way. These girls were his subjects too and as such deserved to be protected. It was only that they were nuisances to him on a personal basis, which meant he didn’t feel the need to talk to them or be nice to them one-on-one. Roy began to give all girls the cold shoulder at every subsequent party to the point where he made a princess from the neighboring kingdom cry and was told off by a servant. However, this did nothing to reform his attitude.
Perhaps it was a stroke of misfortune that Roy had no respected older figures to guide him. His uncle probably came closest to fitting the bill, but, since Roy’s grandfather had sent him abroad and Roy’s father had never rescinded this order, Roy and his uncle’s interactions were too few and far between.
Roy’s father’s wasteful habits continued, and even with his once good reputation, uneasy whispers began to break out. The royal treasury was in dire straits, and other consequences grew as the king’s once supported debauchery took its toll on the kingdom. To make matters worse, corruption ran rampant in all levels of the government, and even the people of Wienne found themselves sucked into a world of sin.
The soaring crime rate worried Roy. I can’t just keep studying, he thought. Once I become king, I must take the initiative and crack down on these wrongdoings.
With that in mind, he decided to hone his sword skills and became a pupil of the finest knight in the land. This old knight ran a prestigious school from where he trained many young squires. Roy understood he would not be his teacher’s sole student, and from there, Roy experienced normal life for the first time ever. He also finally met someone he could look up to and respect: Zephas, the most talented of all the pupils and now the captain of the 1st knights and commander of the royal knighthood.
Unfortunately, Zephas could not fix Roy’s now firmly solidified misogyny either. There was an age factor involved as well, as Roy was always perfectly courteous to older women and quite kind to little girls. However, any girl close enough in age to him to be a potential love interest was immediately scorned. This worried Zephas and his childhood sweetheart to no end.
Roy’s father passed away when Roy was thirteen. This was no plot to end the king’s life with an assassin’s poison or blade; rather, since he died while traveling incognito to revel with the commoners in wine, women, and song, it was evident that his decadent lifestyle finally caught up with him. When Roy heard the news, he felt relieved. The kingdom was entering such a state of disgrace that he feared he might have had to stain his hands with the crime of patricide if the king persisted in living very much longer. Still, with his lifelong dedication to walking the path towards good kingship, such a thought did give Roy pause.
The instant he assumed the throne, Roy began launching a series of reforms. The degeneracy had reached even the knights, with the second-in-command working arm in arm with gangsters to overlook crime and even support human trafficking operations. Fortunately, none of the young knights Roy studied with had sullied their hands with this corruption; they were all noble young men to the core. Roy deported the second-in-command and all of his cronies before reorganizing the order with Zephas in charge. There, with a knighthood-centric approach, he organized a crackdown on criminal activities and rebuilt the kingdom’s finances. The people praised Roy for these positive changes, but Roy himself knew it wouldn’t have been possible if not for his brothers in arms.
The squire system also received a slight overhaul. Previously, any commoner with talent could theoretically join the knighthood, but there was still a high barrier of entry. Roy decided to accept a wider pool of applicants so that more of the growing numbers of impoverished children could have healthy opportunities for their futures. Thus, the squire recruitment process became a system where rich or poor alike could join based on their talent. Likewise, squire training became more school-like, partially due to the increased number of squires from poorer backgrounds and partially because Roy didn’t think the old method of knights treating their squires like servants had much of a positive effect.
The reforms that began with the knights made great progress, and Roy and his knights became heroes in the eyes of the people. Everyone loved the knights, and since anyone could become a knight, the kingdom quickly set off in a more positive direction. Once Orstoll got back on its feet, the knights who had worked with Roy applied for retirement, claiming that knights weren’t meant to keep ruling. Civil officials were meant to govern, they argued, while knights were only for keeping the peace. They couldn’t let this nation return to its former state. Roy realized they were right and, leaving only Zephas in charge of the knighthood, began working with officials in place of his former knights.
This did not go especially smoothly. Up until now, Roy had never relied on his ministers due to his knights’ sheer talent in political affairs, but this move made Roy busier than ever, to the point where it was almost a one-man show. Fortunately, after repeatedly begging Zorace to return and help govern, Roy’s uncle finally broke down and came back. He had sworn up and down that he would never become chancellor—no ifs, ands, or buts—yet he ended up taking the position anyway.