Chapter Five
"Achoo!"
"Your Grace! I told you you'd need your coat! You need to take better care of yourself!" Vizen nagged, his malnourished face full of worry as he fussed over the gold-threaded coat—now frayed and worn—while we stood at the manor door, the cold air biting my skin.
"There was no snow till yesterday, Vizen," I tried to defend myself, having thrown a tantrum about not wearing a coat earlier. However, in reality, my breath hitched in the freezing Northern air.
God... When will my mana circuit open?
"It snow-stormed after you passed out during your jogging, Your Grace," Kaelen reminded me with a flat voice that made my eye twitch.
Does he forget who exactly is the knight among us?
I closed my eyes to suppress the humiliation surging through my veins. "I wasn't jogging, Kaelen. I was taking a walk".
[PING!]
["Walking" and "Collapsing Face-First in the Mud" are two different things.]
My eyebrow twitched at the message. If only I could beat this system...
"Are you sure you want to walk to Merchant Hans' tavern, Your Grace?" Kaelen asked, his ruby eyes scanning my trembling, oversized frame with blatant skepticism.
Why is everyone here so mean to me? Can't you all at least pretend to suck up!? I'm a Duke for fucks sake! So irritating...
"Yeah. I want to take a look at the condition of the fief since I don't remember anything". I spoke as I walked ahead first, leaving Kaelen behind.
"I was joking, Your Grace!" Kaelen yelled as he caught up. A ghost smile made its way to my face as Vizen and Kaelen's laughter filled my ears.
Maybe this isn't so bad after all...
---
I take that back.
It's very bad.
As we stepped into the fief, the "dignity" of the Halcrest name vanished. The Northern Duchy wasn't just broke, it was a graveyard of ambition.
Just what has this guy been doing all along? Who gave him a duchy!? He should be executed!
The road was a spine of frozen mud and jagged ice, making every step a gamble for my bloated body. To my left, a row of cottages sat huddled like dying animals, their thatched roofs caved in under the weight of the snow. No smoke rose from the chimneys. Perhaps, there was no wood to burn, or perhaps no food to cook.
Just how much is the tax?
"The tax rate is 80%," Kaelen muttered, his voice cutting through the whistling wind. "People are burning their furniture and tools to stay alive because they can't afford to buy wood and they can't cut trees from forest without your approval. As for food, the sudden, unpredictable blizzards make it impossible to grow crops. And imported crops are too expensive for the people of our fief."
I didn't answer. I couldn't. My lungs were already burning from the exertion, but my mind was busy calculating the sheer loss of productivity. A starving population was a stagnant market. This wasn't just cruel. This was bad business.
All these people... All this labour... Everything wasted for short-term gains.
Just how much money did this guy burn to turn an entire duchy into literal ruins?
"Do we have grains in the estate?" I wheezed as my chest tightened.
"Yes, Your Grace?" Kaelen answered, his ruby eyes narrowing in suspicion.
"Ask Vizen to divide those grains among the registered residents."
Kaelen froze. "But, Your Grace, isn't that the only thing left in the estate? You don't have money. If you distribute the grains, you'll starve."
"Starving is a good way to lose weight," I sighed, looking down at the "liabilities" jiggling with every step. "Besides, an empty stomach is a great motivation to earn money and buy food."
[Ping!]
[Kaelen is really scared about your mental health.]
Suddenly, a small, shivering blur darted from the shadows of a collapsed barn. Before Kaelen could draw his sword, a tiny pair of arms wrapped around my trunk-like leg.
"Please…" a tiny, raspy voice whimpered.
I looked down. A girl, no older than six, was clinging to my trousers. Her face was smudged with soot, and her clothes were nothing more than stitched-together burlap sacks. Her eyes were glazed, unfocused.
"Save… save us…" she whispered, her head lolling against my knee. "The bandits… they're taking our seeds…"
"Hey, kid, let go—" I started, but as my hand brushed her forehead to push her away, I froze.
She was burning. It wasn't just a fever; it was like touching a radiator.
How did she manage to run so far in this cold with those little legs?
"Your Grace, get back!" Kaelen commanded, stepping forward as three ragged men emerged from one of the broken huts. One of them held a rusted pitchfork.
"Hey, look! Isn't that Duke Halcrest?" The man with the rusted pitchfork roared, not waiting for another moment as he lunged in my direction, the jagged metal tines aimed straight for my gut.
"Die, you fat pig!"
"Your Grace!"
Wow... Am I going to die like this?
I flinched, my "liabilities" trembling, but Kaelen was faster than a closing market bell. He didn't even have to draw his sword. He simply stepped into the man's reach.
Thwack!
The sound rang with the cold blow of the wind as Kaelen's boot connected with the man's wrist, sending the pitchfork spinning into a snowbank.
Before the bandit could even scream, Kaelen delivered a precise strike from his sword with the sheath intact to the man's chest. A faint mist of blue frost enveloping the sheath. The bandit flew backward, his breath hitching as the cold forced the air from his lungs, leaving him shivering and immobilized in the slush.
"Your Grace, stay behind me!" Kaelen commanded, his grip tightening on the handle of his sheathed blade. The air around him dropped twenty degrees in a second. He looked like a god of winter.
In my past life, a mere flick of my finger would have turned this man into literal gold dust. It should be Kaelen's honor to protect me, the great Archmage… but as I looked at his tense back, a bitter thought crossed my mind.
Was it really an "honor" for a knight of his caliber to risk his life for this stupid piece of fat? For the very man whose greed and stupidity caused all this misery in the first place?
The other two men, who had been dragging sacks of what looked like shriveled, moldy seeds, stopped dead.
"It's the Silver Reaper..." one whispered, his face turning grey. "Run!"
The other two dropped their sacks and fled into the white void of the storm.
The girl's grip loosened on my trousers as she began to collapse. I caught her which was an awkward, straining feat for my current body as I felt the terrifying heat radiating through her thin clothes.
"Kaelen!"
"It looks like she's got the Winter Blight, Your Grace," Kaelen said, his expression softening into a look of grim pity as he looked at the little girl. "Without medicine, she probably won't last the night."
"Medicine costs money," I muttered, my heart hammering. "Where can we even get it in this barren fief!?"
"What about Merchant Hans, Your Grace?" Kaelen urged, his voice losing its icy edge. "He's a merchant! He must have medicine for Winter Blight!"
[PING!]
[Quest Triggered: The Capitalist's Compassion?]
[Objective: Save the dying asset!]
[Reward: 200 Gacha Points / +10 Likability with Kaelen]
[Would you like to accept the quest?]
[Yes] [No]
I mentally clicked 'Yes'.
Yeah. I'm not doing this because of goodwill. I'm doing this for my profit.
[Ping!]
[Thank you for accepting the quest! We wish host luck!]
"We're going to Hans' tavern. Carry the child, Kaelen."
"Yes, Your Grace!" Kaelen scooped the girl up with a tenderness that didn't match his personality from earlier.
[Ping!]
[Kaelen feels grateful. He's holding back tears.]
Hah... Why do I feel so guilty? It's not like I'm the one who caused this...
Right?