Chapter 15
Chapter 15
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 15
Chapter Title: A Traitor's Usefulness
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Sir Walter, pretending to be a mercenary, kept his focus on Beonald, watching his every move.
He'd started to suspect something was off the moment Beonald bought the glass bottles. The young master had gone up to the mansion, then suddenly come back down and headed somewhere carrying something.
‘What is that? Dried herbs? Even if he's mocked for being base-born, he's still the heir of a barony… What on earth is he doing? Tsk, tsk, tsk.’
‘This is perfect! With this many glass bottles, I can make extracts, do syntheses, and run experiments in so many different ways! Yes!’
Completely oblivious to Walter's gaze, Beonald was overjoyed at having acquired alchemical tools. He immediately moved the bottles to his training room, began turning part of it into a proper laboratory, and made a general ruckus as he gathered his tools.
He even ran around buying the tools he was missing from merchants at fair prices, behaving in a manner utterly unbefitting a noble heir.
‘Is he… a laborer? The fact no one stops him suggests this is normal. To treat the heir of a territory—who should be honing his knowledge and martial skills—like some menial hand… Tsk, tsk, tsk… I suppose you can't expect better from a family without proper roots.’
Sir Walter decided there was no need to investigate Beonald any further and resolved to leave the territory as soon as business concluded for the day, along with the merchant.
‘Wait, maybe I should observe a bit more? There is a training room, after all… What is this?’
On a whim, he pretended to move luggage again and secretly followed Beonald to spy on his training room. Inside, weapons, armor, and training tools were properly arranged, but what shocked Walter were the experimental equipment and various medicinal herbs occupying one corner of the room.
‘What? Engaging in such acts… in this sacred place for honing the body and learning the sword?’
Sir Walter was from a proper knightly family.
To him, a training room was akin to a temple for a paladin.
The presence of medicine bottles and herbs drying in such a place—something others might overlook—felt as offensive as setting up a market stall or a toilet in the middle of a temple.
‘There's nothing more to see here. No true knight could ever emerge from such a place!’
Filled with deep disappointment and disgust, Sir Walter abandoned the merchant and immediately left the territory, heading straight for the Delmain Viscountcy where his lord resided.
He reported everything he had seen to Viscount Delmain without omission, heaping scorn on the Dustycloak Barony as a family without proper foundation, let alone capable of producing a knight.
"Not in ten years, not in a hundred, not in a thousand years could a knight emerge from that place!"
"Hmm… Is that so? If you say it, it must be true. Very well."
Viscount Delmain, who trusted Sir Walter as a young and capable knight, believed his report completely and concluded his own suspicions had been groundless. He assumed Count Callermain or Baron Zelkerd had played some trick and decided to refocus on the issue of Sir Geral's territory.
However, Sir Walter should have been more thorough in his investigation of Beonald's actions.
Had he observed how Beonald's parents reacted, he would have completely revised his earlier conclusions.
"…Why is Beonald doing that? He's up to something strange in the training room again……."
"Just let him be. It is an act of… making knowledge his own."
"Still, doing it in the training room is a bit… inappropriate, isn't it?"
"If the child seeks to grow, what does the location matter?"
"If my lady says so, then…"
In truth, his father, Baron Leon, also found Beonald's behavior odd, but his wife skillfully dispelled his doubts and prevented any interference.
Meanwhile, Beonald was happily and skillfully converting part of the training room into a laboratory.
‘That wandering merchant trying to cheat me was infuriating, but his arrival was incredibly lucky! Is this also the Goddess's guidance? Excellent! I love it! I can run so many experiments now. And I have plenty of test subjects for my medicinal concoctions!’
Of course, he believed the formulas and medicines he already knew would be effective, but this was 500 years after his own time.
There might be diseases or ailments he didn't know, people's constitutions could be different, and available materials were limited. He needed to create suitable medicines considering all these factors.
‘In Benofis, I could just gather the finest materials and make them… It's different here. Damn it!’
Materials available in this godforsaken backwater were limited, so creating cheap yet effective medicines required trial, error, and refinement.
The one saving grace was the nature of this territory, where agriculture, hunting, and foraging from the mountains were combined. There were bound to be plenty of scrapes and wounds among the people.
It was a perfect environment to test a medicine's efficacy and side effects under the guise of distributing it for free.
‘A simple medicine like this can drastically reduce population loss. And it'll be useful in the future too~ Let's see… I need to gather other herbs. First, headache medicine, wound treatment, cold medicine. These three are basics that'll always be needed… And I should make some poison too. Could be useful for hunting monsters…….’
Thus, medicine-making was added to Beonald's daily routine. Later, he even turned the room next to the training room into a proper laboratory, dedicating himself to pharmaceutical production. This rapid progress was largely thanks to the support of those who witnessed the efficacy of the medicines he gave away for free.
"Thanks to you, young master, we avoided a real disaster."
"Ah, I thought I was done for when that boar… Thank you so much, young master!"
"Young master! My child is sick, could you possibly take a look?"
The downside was that people started visiting the mansion as if it were a clinic, but given the territory's small population, it wasn't a major issue.
If anything, Beonald was grateful the test subjects came to him on their own.
And so, four years later, at age 14, Beonald had grown to a stature anyone would recognize as that of an adult.
His swordsmanship still hadn't broken through to 'Neumel–10th Form,' which was quite frustrating, but he had boldly grown up in this small territory, practicing his alchemy and mastering new hunting skills.
"Oooh! Wha, what is that? Ah! It's the young master!"
"A bear this time? Amazing! Oooh! It's huge! And he caught the cubs alive too!"
"Good heavens, hunting a bear at 14! Truly the grandson of the former baron!"
Boasting a youthful face atop a lean, muscular physique honed like a beast of prey, Beonald was descending the mountain with a massive bear draped over his shoulders.
He had started hunting various things as part of training his hunting skills, swordsmanship, and practical movement in the mountains. It turned out to be more profitable than expected, and selling the proceeds allowed him to buy better alchemical tools and medicinal ingredients, so Beonald actively took to hunting.
After all, hunting was the main source of income for this small territory, so mingling with hunters wasn't a bad thing.
"Walt, please handle the butchering. Especially the organs and gallbladder—bring them to me the moment they're removed. Tan the hide properly and bring it later. As payment, you can keep all the meat. Minus the fat, of course."
"Th, thank you, young master! By the way, what will you do with the bear cubs?"
"I'll present them to the Count. The cubs of a fierce beast are the most difficult to catch and thus precious, aren't they? Speaking of which, we'll need a cart. I should go have one made."
Leaving the bear's butchering to the old hunter, Beonald headed for the mansion first.
As he walked, he felt gazes upon him from all directions.
"Look. It's the young master. So dashing as always. I heard he hunted that bear alone today?"
"He shares medicine, and he's kind and virtuous too… He's truly too good for this small territory."
"You there! Are you saying you want him to go to another territory? Isn't it better for us if he stays?"
Eyes filled with respect, admiration, and affection. Feeling the results of the standing he had built over the past four years, Beonald smiled with deep satisfaction.
The past four years, since he seriously began alchemy and medicine-making, had made gaining the trust of the territory's people remarkably easy.
‘It's only natural they look up to me.’
While not a master of medical arts, the knowledge gained alongside alchemy was more than enough to treat the illnesses that arose in a small village, barring a large-scale epidemic.
Moreover, his physique strengthened by swordsmanship and mana breathing techniques allowed him to display hunting skills surpassing anyone else in a territory where 'hunting' and 'farming' were the main occupations. The people had no choice but to look up to him.
‘Even if it's just a temporary stop, it is my garden~ I must tend to it.’
Though from the Empire's perspective he was a traitor and a power-hungry minister who privatized authority, Beonald believed in cultivating his own territory to be the most beautiful and grand.
His territory must be strong and beautiful to protect his family, his safety, and his reputation—that was Beonald's value. And of course, the territory's people were included in that.
‘Let's see… When I get back, I'll refine the dried herbs again, then practice swordsmanship, have a meal with my parents, and in the evening pretend to study for Mother's assignments while secretly training swordsmanship. Is this the joy of a second life? Hehe.’
Compared to the brutally intense life he led at 14 in his previous life, this was practically heaven.
Thus, Beonald returned to the mansion, firmly gripping the struggling bear cubs.
As he entered, his mother came out to greet him, holding two small children in her arms.
They were Beonald's younger siblings—boy and girl twins.
"You're back, Beonald. I'm glad you're safe."
"Haha, the kids are more of a concern than me. Are you alright?"
"Alright? They cry at night, cry during the day, wake us up… it's been chaos. Raising you wasn't this hard."
‘That's because I had consciousness from the moment I was born…….’
The twins were born when Beonald was 12. Normally, noble families tried to have many children early on, but initially they were busy raising Beonald, and later, as he grew, there were too many incidents around the territory to have the leisure.
However, after the Sir Geral issue was resolved, they felt secure enough. After trying, they gave birth to the boy-girl twins.
"By the way, what are those two bear cubs in your hand?"
"Count Callermain's birthday is soon, so I'll present them as gifts. The mother bear's hide is being carefully skinned right now. I wish I could have hunted a monster… but there don't seem to be any around here~"
"A bear is impressive enough. More importantly, Beonald? I have an important matter to discuss. Wash up and come to my study."
"Yes, Mother."
Unsure what the important matter was, Beonald first washed and changed, then went straight up to his mother's study.
His mother, having left the young twins with a maid and governess, handed Beonald a letter.
It was an invitation to Count Callermain's birthday banquet, similar to ones he'd seen before. Beonald looked at his mother with a puzzled expression.
"Why give this to me?"
"It seems you'll need to assist your father this time. I should probably stay and look after your siblings. As you know, birthday banquets aren't affairs that end in a day or two, right?"
"That's true. Then I shall go."
Though called a birthday banquet, it was essentially an occasion for Count Callermain to confirm the loyalty of his vassals, receive tributes, and engage in various political struggles.
It was a crucial event where attendees arrived days early to exchange greetings among nobles, confirm factional alliances and hierarchical relationships, and so on.
"I trust you more than most adults, so I'm counting on you."
‘Hmm, I thought my noble society debut would be after coming of age… A year early. But since I'm not an adult, there probably isn't much I can do except gauge the atmosphere? Perfect. I'll finally get to see the Callermain territory.’
Normally, underage males couldn't participate in such events. But in his mother's eyes, Beonald had already grown capable enough to handle an adult's responsibilities and more, so she trusted he would manage better than her and decided to send him.
And Beonald's heart raced at the thought of finally visiting a proper urban center—the Callermain territory—and witnessing the political arena of this era's nobility.