Become a Rebel
After finishing today's library tour, I returned with a light heart.
Not to that house buried in some mountain valley, but to the small, cozy room I'd secured at an inn in the city.
At first, all I'd wanted was to fleece the count as quickly as possible and go home. But when that count dragged me into his conspiracy, the trajectory of my life shifted—quite a lot.
I abandoned the wicked notion of just drawing blueprints in a corner and freeloading through life, and decided instead to adapt to this harsh medieval fantasy world where making a living was brutal.
And the first step of adaptation is always the gathering of information.
I judged that the nearby city of Montpellier was perfect for studying the world, and immediately found lodgings to use while I stayed. Building up enough knowledge to satisfy myself would take quite a long time, after all.
Montpellier boasted a population of over fifty thousand—the largest city in France.
My memories as a twenty-first-century modern person kept making the nickname "Montpellier Town" flicker before my eyes, but even so, it was not a city you could tour completely in a day or two. Just look at the library I'd visited earlier—hundreds, even thousands of books stacked high.
...It had fewer volumes than the school library I'd freeloaded in constantly as a middle schooler, but in an era when books were luxury goods, this was still quite a lot. Books were far thicker than modern ones and the print smaller, so carefully reading dozens a day was out of the question.
Having to read books written in a somewhat different form of grammar, in a different world and a different era from the one I'd known. Half-assed speed-reading would only leave me barely understanding anything and raise the odds of mistakes later. Even if it took time, I had no choice but to do it properly.
That was why I'd taken a room at this humble inn. I would have to stay in this city for about a month from now.
"Hey! I came all the way from Orléans and you're telling me there's no room? What am I supposed to do!?"
"Give me a loaf of bread here! And a bowl of soup while you're at it!"
"Our Dried Turnip Inn has plenty of free rooms! Stop wasting time here and come to ours!"
"Hey! You trying to poach customers in someone else's shop? I'll rip your tongue out!"
"Excuse me. Just passing through for a moment."
I pushed through the crowded reception desk of the inn and entered the corridor leading to the guest rooms. Straight ahead to the end of the hall, I pulled open the door to my room—and a well-kept suite welcomed me.
Space generous enough for two people, a bed with a thick mattress, and even a bathroom with a small tub. Yes. An ultra-luxury suite where you could actually take a bath.
Of course, the "tub" was nothing more than a large basin filled with water, but in this hopeless neighborhood, even that was something. In an environment without advanced medical care, hygiene was a matter of survival. Having been reborn in the fragile body of a young girl with no hope of robust vitality or immunity, keeping clean was essential if I wanted to live. So I spent a bit of money. Specifically, about three silver coins.
Naturally, renting a suite just for this shabby tub was far more expensive than staying in an ordinary room and using a public bathhouse—and the public baths would have been more convenient for washing, too. But as anyone familiar with the period knows, European public bathhouses of this era were half brothels. In an age when fists spoke louder than law, I'd rather quietly splash water on myself in a corner of my room than risk getting tangled in something unsavory by hanging around a place off-limits to minors.
"May I wash you, Saintess?"
"...Please do."
A suite didn't mean I got time alone. If you'd paid good money for a nice room, of course two people were going to share it.
Rebecca appeared with a small bathing sponge and a towel, and began carefully washing my body before I'd even finished giving permission. Being washed naked by a beautiful older girl was an extremely improper situation, yet I felt neither shame nor any lewd desire taking over my mind.
For one thing, this body wasn't mine—it was Asty's. Gender and age were both borrowed from her. I was neither Cheon Si-jun, the twenty-five-year-old Korean man, nor Asty, the eleven-year-old French girl. I was simply a castaway, swept into another world by the occult accident of reincarnation.
When I had sworn to live as Asty, it had only been a resolve to accept the reality that had befallen me and do everything I could to survive. It was not some shameless declaration that I, after living twenty-five years as Cheon Si-jun and then rising in someone else's body, would redefine myself as Asty. So of course I wasn't going to be swayed by shame or desire. When I couldn't even be sure who I myself was, fretting over such trivial emotions was a ridiculous waste of time and mental energy. Better to worry about whether soap development would work out.
My previous self, Cheon Si-jun, had always maintained a detached, desireless attitude anyway. Rebecca was a beautiful girl with a cute face and curves far too violent for her age, but that alone was nowhere near enough to shake me. Her movements were so brisk and efficient that there was hardly any opening for strange thoughts to form, either.
"Is the water temperature all right? Please tell me right away if it's too hot."
"It's fine. The warmth is nice—it's melting the fatigue away."
I sat dazed in the tub and accepted her touch. One of the suite's great advantages was that you could actually use hot water. Of course there was no faucet that transcended the era and produced hot water on demand—you just paid a coin and they heated water and brought it—but being able to use hot water at all was something to be grateful for. We, for our part, were still heating the water ourselves with the lantern to save money.
Honestly. Hot water duplication via a goddess's miracle? A bug exploit. For that alone I was willing to forgive our goddess and sing her praises.
"Thank you. I'll finish up myself."
"Yes."
I sent Rebecca out, lay back in the tub, and sank into thought. The information I'd gained at the library had only presented me with more complicated problems—problems about this world itself.
This world had other races and magic. There were chief gods who observed the earth, and clergy who served them. Yet the Flame of Benevolence, whom humanity had worshipped, had for unknown reasons vacated her seat—and through her sole remaining priest, the Lantern Bearer girl, she had elevated me as Saintess. No divine certification, no ability to use Divine Power; instead she had made an eleven-year-old reincarnator with memories of a past life her proxy.
All right. That much I understood. The goddess's true designs and the origin story of this world were still complete unknowns, but at least I could clearly see that faith and divinity operated here as real, tangible power. Everything else remained unknown.
Take the name of this country, for example. The national name "France" used in this region was taken from the Frankish Kingdom—the country of the Franks. And the Frankish Kingdom had originally been a vassal of Rome, founded by the Merovingian dynasty after the fall of the Western Roman Empire granted them independence. But in this world, which had piled up a history of bloody survival competition against other races instead of Roman glory, there was no way Merovingians or anything like them existed. So why was this place called France?
The philosophy was just as baffling. From the Count of Montpellier's reaction last time, it was clear the monarchs of this world had never escaped the swamp of feudal contracts and the divine right of kings—even though the Goddess Vesta, who supposedly granted them the right to rule, had left the earth forty years ago.
In this world, a god's favor and authority manifested in the straightforward form of Divine Power. That meant even ignorant serfs had logically acknowledged the sacredness of royal authority—and for exactly the same reason, it was possible to deny that sacredness. Faith here sprang not from rigid doctrine or myth, but from visible miracles. If human monarchs had gone around claiming their authority came from the goddess, then when Vesta withdrew her power from the earth, they should have been swept away with it. Fine—say they clung to it because they had no alternative logic to replace the divine right of kings.
Then how do you explain this damned feudal contract?
Medieval feudalism basically ran on providing military force to one's lord in exchange for recognition of land ownership. Lords therefore had no tax obligations, and within the limits of their finances could freely raise private armies and scrape together knights. Of course feudalism wasn't quite so broken as to actively encourage warlordism; various mechanisms—checks on military buildup, restrictions on fortress construction—maintained a balance of power. But the moment you add the fantasy element of mana, the system itself develops a fatal flaw.
A world where some people stand above others and some stand below as a matter of course. A world where Rebecca, wandering around in a loose robe, can thrash ten fully armed knights. In short: there exists a way to massively increase military power without increasing numbers—and unlike other methods, it cannot be checked. The king can't exactly send under-armor inspection squads to sabotage the knights' home training, can he?
In the end, every element composing this system was riddled with defects. A structure that looked utterly incapable of forming under natural conditions. And yet the Kingdom of France—a feudal state based on divine right of kings without Divine Power—existed, and that bizarre system neither improved nor self-destructed; it simply rolled on by inertia.
A truly grotesque world. I couldn't even begin to tell where it had gone wrong, or where I was supposed to start tearing it apart and fixing it. Not that worrying about it now would produce any answers.
I lay down on the soft mattress and tried to sleep, earnestly hoping for the day when these questions would finally be resolved.