I shook my head to dispel the mental image of household bleach and resumed analyzing my newfound situation. I still had my memories from the twelve years I’d lived this life, but I now also had decades of memories from a past life flooding my brain. I needed to reconcile what I knew in this world with the norms and customs I now remembered from my past life, or else my family would think I had lost my mind.
In this life, I was the third son of Viscount Rovene, an aristocrat within the Kingdom of Yugria, which itself had stood on this land for over twelve hundred years. My older siblings had all taken on the Royal Academy entrance examinations, only to unfortunately add their names to the long, tearstained list of failures that marked this family’s history. My eldest brother had instead enrolled in the Dragoon Noble College’s bureaucrat course, graduating with excellent marks, while my second-oldest brother had enrolled in the knight’s course at the very same institution, passing with decent grades.
In this kingdom, titles were passed down through the generations according to nomination by the current head of the family—with the consent of the king, of course. Even so, it was still customary for succession of nobility to pass to the eldest child. In my case, there was no internal strife within my family, and it was pretty much a sure thing that my eldest brother, the kind and responsible person that he was, would inherit the title. My other brother, being the second oldest, would take a support role in the management of the Rovene Domain (while, of course, serving as an emergency backup heir). Essentially, there was only a minuscule chance I’d end up involved in any troublesome fights for succession.
One way or another, it was clear I would one day have to leave home and beat my own path in the world; a small noble family like ours had neither the need nor the means to keep a third son in the business of managing the domain. If, by some miracle, I managed to gain admission to the Royal Academy, it was very likely I’d go on to find myself a brilliant career as either a royal knight or a royal bureaucrat. These were roles exclusive to Academy graduates, and those who undertook them served directly under the king.
There were already countless examples of the illustrious careers available to those who managed to graduate from the Royal Academy. One example was the child of a bumpkin baron from farming land who’d gone on to join the Order of the Royal Knights—that graduate had become a war hero and ended up leading a division of over ten thousand men. There was also the royal bureaucrat who’d pioneered a project to develop regional roads, greatly boosting economic power in the kingdom’s outlying areas. If I were to be admitted, I could use my subsequent influence both publicly and behind the scenes to raise my family to great prominence. The pressure on my shoulders would be enormous.
And then there was my older sister, who’d entered the mage course at the same Noble College, graduating from the magical craftsmanship major with the highest grades in her class. She’d been known to be a prodigy since birth, and my family had believed she would be the one to pass the Royal Academy’s exams. Everyone had thought so. Crushingly, the minimum magical aptitude level had been uncommonly high that year, and she’d failed to be selected. For all her relentless effort, there were things even she had no control over. Apparently, the God of Entrance Examinations was cruel in every world.
After graduating from the Noble College, my sister had continued on to the highly selective Special Magical Craftsmanship Research Institute in Runerelia, the capital city, and she was now spending her days busily assembling her graduation thesis.
I hadn’t seen her in quite a while—but then again, when she did come home to visit, she doted on me so obsessively it was almost painful, so maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing. At first, she’d sent me dozens of long-winded letters, and when I couldn’t be bothered to reply to them, it seemed she’d cried to our parents about it. Unfortunately for her, our parents had ruled that her ceaseless letter writing would interfere with both of our respective studies; contrary to her hopes, they had instead limited the exchange of letters to once a month, capped at three sheets of paper each. Any violation of these rules would result in the immediate incineration of the letter before I could even see it, much to my sister’s indignation. After the establishment of that rule, the subsequent letters I’d received had been written in text so small, I’d needed a magnifying glass to read them. Honestly, it was terrifying.
At that moment, Soldo’s eyes met my own.
“Young Master, your mind is elsewhere, is it not? I have watched your every step since birth; there is nothing I cannot tell just by looking into your eyes. Why must you do this to me...?”
Once again, I raised my hand in an attempt to curb the sermon he seemed about to resume. “Relax, Gramps. I’ve been listening—look, I’ve taken notes, see?” I waved three sheets of paper under his nose.
In my past life, I’d spent countless hours every day taking notes on the most boring topics imaginable. Even after I’d joined the workforce, the task of taking the minutes for meetings had somehow always fallen exclusively to me. Even if I was thinking about something else, my hands would take on a life of their own to put together the key points—which was exactly what they’d been doing ever since I’d awakened a bit ago.
Soldo quickly perused the notes. His eyes, initially suspicious, suddenly began to fill with tears; before him were the contents of his lesson, summarized in a concise and easy-to-grasp manner.
“Well, Gramps? Was there anything I missed?” I asked, a smug look on my face. Soldo had flushed red with excitement.
“Finally, after all these years... To think I’ve finally gotten through to you!”
“Yes, yes, you’ve definitely gotten through. Painfully so. So would you please get on with the lesson?” I urged, dismissing the man’s budding emotional outburst.
Soldo had been delivering a lecture on the modern history and geopolitics of the kingdom. Although I’d heard it all before, it left a completely different impression on me now that I’d awakened. Before now, I’d had no particular interest in history in either life, but as Soldo’s lesson continued, I found myself leaning forward, eager to hear more.
I had no idea where this curiosity had come from, but maybe it was similar to the algebra I had studied so extensively in my past life. Just as the sum of “a” and “b” could equal “c,” maybe my two different personalities—the swot and the jock—had combined to create an entirely unique Allen with new passions and interests.
Tearing my mind away from dubious hypothesizing, I focused instead on Soldo’s lecture on the kingdom’s aristocracy from a historical and geopolitical perspective.
The aristocratic hierarchy in Yugria was separated into five ranks—dukes, marquesses, counts, viscounts, and barons, with barons holding the least power. In society as a whole, dukes ranked second only to the royal family in terms of authority, and because they were closely descended from the original royal family, they somewhat served as insurance for the continuation of the official royal bloodline.
While they didn’t hold any territory, dukes wielded considerable authority over areas of infrastructure, such as the roads and waterways, as well as other areas they had taken personal interest in, such as the Merchant’s Guild or the Explorer’s Guild. Apparently, the steadily increasing number of dukes throughout the history of the kingdom had gradually overpowered any authority held by the lower aristocratic ranks, ultimately culminating in a bloody political struggle centuries prior. As a result of that conflict, most of the ducal families had been demoted to lower ranks of nobility, with only three families retaining their status today.
I rested my chin in my hand—a bad habit in my previous life, and now in this one too, it seemed—and posed a question to Soldo. “I understand why having so many ducal families was problematic, but why did they decide on having just three?”