"Yuri, your marriage has been arranged. Someone will come to fetch you between the second and third bells, so be ready by then. And one more thing. Without a mage's Gift, you have no right to bear the name of the illustrious House Leonidas. Do you understand?"
The cold voice of his father, Albert von Leonidas, rang through the study.
He was like an Orc King enthroned in the deepest reaches of a dungeon.
Summoned early that morning, before his father left for work, Yuri had gone to the study only to find that what awaited him was a declaration of exile disguised as marriage.
"So... this means you want me to leave House Leonidas...?"
Yuri von Leonidas tried desperately to suppress the cold pain spreading through his chest, but his voice trembled faintly, betraying his shock.
"...Yes."
Each time his father's frigid gaze pierced him, his heart sank heavier inside his chest.
Perhaps the only reason he was able to remain even this calm was because he still carried the memories and experience of his previous life.
He had died at thirty-five in that life, a lonely office worker to the end. Taking those lessons to heart, he had thrown himself into study and swordsmanship in the hope of being recognized by others, but life refused to go the way he wanted.
From the moment he failed to receive a magic-skill Gift at the Rite of the Stars, he had told himself that this day would come eventually.
Even so, the instant he heard the word exile, terror welled up from deep inside him—the terror that he was inferior to his younger half-brother, and that his father had cast him aside.
The Rite of the Stars was a ceremony in which the children of nobles received blessings known as Gifts from the gods and star spirits.
There were said to be three kinds of Gift: skills specializing in particular techniques or magic, vocation Gifts that allowed certain talents to develop more easily, and divine blessings that bestowed special protection or favor.
For generations, House Leonidas had inherited Gifts tied to magic skills and produced one exceptional mage after another.
Albert was one of them—a high-ranking mage who possessed Frost Emperor, the highest-tier skill of ice magic, and who, despite his appearance, served as the head of the Ministry of Arcane Affairs.
"I paid dearly to buy the blood of a marquis house, and this is what it produced? A dud Gift..."
He remembered his father's words.
While his younger brother Kevin, born to a consort, had received Flame Emperor, the highest-tier skill of the fire element, Yuri's had been a vocation Gift known as the Cheat Merchant.
During the Rite of the Stars, one's Gift was read from the alignment of the stars upon a celestial globe, but the priest assigned to Yuri must have pitied him so much that he all but whispered the word "Cheat" when he announced it, saying only, "The Gift bestowed upon Lord Yuri is... the Merchant."
To his father, anything other than a magic skill was a dud Gift; he had lamented that at least a divine blessing would have been preferable.
If Albert had known about the "Cheat" part, Yuri might well have been thrown out on the spot, so for that much, he was grateful to the priest.
From that day on, Kevin became House Leonidas's rightful heir, while Yuri came to be treated little better than a servant.
Worse still, in society he became dinner-table gossip—the hapless noble who, despite being born noble, had ended up with a merchant's Gift.
To hear them tell it, a noble was only truly noble if he cultivated discernment of his own; anyone who relied on a Gift was no true noble at all.
I just hope she has a decent personality...
Thinking about the marriage awaiting him, Yuri let out a silent sigh.
Any woman saddled with a failed noble like him would be unfortunate, but she too was surely burdened with some problem of her own as a noble.
As he wondered what sort of woman she might be, his father, as if reading his thoughts, finally told him about her.
"The house you are marrying into is that of the newly appointed Baroness Regnant of Reberk."
"The Reberk Barony? The territory that was returned to the Crown ten years ago after falling into financial ruin?"
"Oh? So you have studied."
Was it only his imagination, or had his father looked sad for the briefest moment?
Behind that cold gaze aimed at Yuri, a flicker of more complicated emotion seemed to show itself.
But it vanished just as quickly, and Albert resumed speaking with the same merciless expression as before.
"Since that is the territory you will soon be going to, I may as well tell you. It contains the estate of the First Hero. The building is unlike anything seen in the Kingdom of Oltania—so they say it resembles the royal seat of the beastfolk kingdom in the south.
The estate is enormous as well, and maintaining it reportedly devours a fortune. The territory's taxes could not hope to cover it, and the debts multiplied like slimes. In the end, even the previous lord raised the white flag and gave up."
"Like slimes...?"
In his previous life, the word slime might have called to mind the cute little monsters that appeared in role-playing games, but in this world, slimes multiplied at a terrifying rate and dissolved anything they touched.
They were fearsome monsters said to leave no means of escape once they latched onto their prey.
"You may not know this, but the previous lord took poison and killed himself to answer for it."
"What...?"
"Do not think this is someone else's problem. If the territory remains in the red for more than five years, collective punishment is not out of the question."
At those words, everything before Yuri's eyes seemed to go dark.
At first glance, being granted a barony sounded like an honor.
In reality, however, it meant having a debt-ridden, impoverished territory forced upon you, only to be executed as an incompetent noble if you failed to produce results.
For the one receiving it, it was hardly something to be grateful for.
The sort of person given a territory like that was either someone with a Gift powerful enough to overturn impossible circumstances, or else a criminal, an exile, or a failure—one way or another, someone being sent from the capital to the hinterlands.
The fact that he was the one being married into the family left little doubt which sort he was.
"So do try not to end up executed. Use that merchant's Gift of yours and manage somehow. That is all. You may go."
With that, Albert rose from his seat and began making ready to leave for work.
Crushed by despair, Yuri staggered toward the door.
"...Thank you for raising me until now."
He turned back at the door and bowed his head.
Even if this was the father who had cast him aside, Yuri still owed him for having raised him this far.
At least for that much, he thought, he should offer his thanks.
"We will never meet again as family, but do find happiness with your new family."
Yuri looked up in surprise, but his father had already turned his back, so he could not see what expression accompanied those words.
"Please take care of yourself as well, Father." And maybe lose a little weight.
With that, Yuri left his father's study and went to make ready for his departure.