How About an Investment
I knew rumors traveled faster than words. I just hadn't known they outran a carriage.
The gatekeeper looked at me twice as I stepped through the family gates—once to confirm it was me, and once because he still couldn't believe it after he had.
Already?
Which meant that whatever had happened in the garden had already crossed the front gate and made it all the way into the inner courtyard. Then again, a story about the acting head's bastard picking a fight with—or threatening—the eldest son of another count's house was the kind of merchandise that sold itself. Merchandise that hadn't existed in my last life.
Back then, after the preliminary assembly, I'd ridden the carriage home, eaten dinner, and gone to sleep. That was it. Nothing had happened, so no rumors had spread.
I'd walked in carrying ten years of answer keys, and the first question on the exam had already changed.
Well. This way's still better.
The butler was waiting in the entrance hall. The man who usually just dipped his head when I came in was standing square in front of me today.
"The acting head requests your presence in his study."
"What about dinner?"
"...Pardon?"
"I'm hungry. Can't I eat first?"
The butler's eyes flickered. Probably because I'd never asked for anything in this house.
"...I shall have it prepared."
I walked the hallway without bothering to mute the click of my heels.
Was this hallway always this wide?
I'd walked it for nineteen years, but today was the first time it felt like I was measuring its width. Portraits hung along the walls. The heads of House Lovellon—blonde hair, blue eyes, every last one of them posed with a sword planted and staring straight ahead. Whether the painter was lazy or the family was, the composition hadn't changed in generations.
I measured out a breath at the study door. Two knocks. Three meant it was urgent. One was rude. You pick these things up, living in this house.
I knocked twice and pushed the door open without waiting for an answer.
The acting head. Rupert Lovellon was looking at documents. More precisely, he was pretending to. Not a single page turned in the time it took me to come in, close the door, and walk three steps.
A respectable face, a decent build. And the skill was real—you don't command half the Southern Imperial Knights if it isn't. It's just that his eyes always went dead when he looked at me. I'd been looking at that for half my life, and it had never once changed.
"Sit."
I dragged the chair back, walked around, and dropped into it.
"What did you do to the young lady of House Krause?"
"Nothing much. Just said hello."
"Kaizan."
"Asked if she was feeling all right."
The pen hit the desk. The sound was fairly loud.
"I hear you caused a scene in the garden with the son of House Rauen. Twenty people were watching, they say."
"He shouted first."
"Then you should have held your tongue."
Ah. That line.
I'd heard it for nineteen years, and then for ten more after that. In the barracks, on the ramparts, from a superior's mouth. The words shifted a little; the skeleton stayed the same. Then you should have held your tongue. If you'd just endured it, that would have been enough. Nobody believes you anyway.
So I held my tongue. I filled out twenty-nine years to the last drop. And then they cut my head off.
Hell of a return on that investment. Just outstanding.
"Acting Head."
"...What."
"Do you know why House Krause is taking me?"
Rupert's eyebrow twitched.
"It's a marriage arrangement. You don't need to know more than—"
"Well. They need a body that can take the family curse, I imagine."
The room went quiet.
Of course he knew. He wouldn't have gotten that price if he didn't. I had no idea how House Krause had learned the secret of my birth, but this man wasn't stupid enough to stamp a seal without knowing why they'd suddenly thrown a fortune at a southern count's bastard. If anything, he'd jacked up the price because he knew.
"Where did you hear that."
"It's my body we're talking about. Wouldn't it be strange if I didn't know? One more question, then. Is my body enough as it is?"
"...What are you talking about."
"How long the young lady of House Krause will run Overclock. What kind of body I'd need to withstand it. Have you run those numbers?"
Overclock. The secret technique of House Krause. Use it and your body gets faster, mana circulation kicks into overdrive, and your strength surges.
Rupert's hand, reaching for the pen again, stopped.
I had to keep driving the conversation from here. I shrugged and cut in before he could open his mouth.
"I'm nineteen. I've never properly learned the sword. I'm getting by on the body I inherited, and that's it."
"...And."
"What happens if they call off the engagement?"
The chair creaked.
"I don't know how much you received, but there's interest on a clawback, isn't there? And that's against House Krause."
The room went dead silent. I'd just driven a spike into the Achilles' heel this man worried over every night, clicking his abacus alone. From his side, there was nothing to refute.
"So how about making an investment."
"...An investment?"
"Elixirs. High-grade."
I hadn't even thought to ask for this last time. I'd just entered the academy and started with mana like everyone else, and that was the biggest mistake I ever made. I only found out why it was a mistake ten years later. This time, I reverse the order. Body first.
In the Empire, elixirs are traded by grade. Low-grade you can find at market. Mid-grade needs a family name. High-grade, connections matter more than the price. House Lovellon was a thick-boned marcher house of the Empire's south—two hundred years of grinding it out on the southern border, and they probably hadn't even spent the money they got for selling me.
"...Don't be absurd."
Rupert sat back down. He tapped the desk twice with a fingertip, then looked me dead in the face. Been a while since this man looked me straight in the eye.
"What House Krause wants is a body. Not skill."
"Will feeding you elixirs and putting a sword in your hand make the marriage more secure? Do you truly not understand what they want from you?"
A stud.
He'd dressed it up, but that was the meaning. And it wasn't exactly wrong.
"Then why a live-in son-in-law?"
"...What?"
"If all they need is seed, they can just take the seed. House Krause has the money to do anything, and they're hardly so genteel a house that they couldn't."
The finger tapping the desk stopped.
"But they're giving me a name and bringing me into the family. That means there's a seat they need filled."
House Krause was on the verge of a broken bloodline. The family heads never made it past forty, generation after generation. What would a house like that want from a son-in-law? It wouldn't be sire a child and rot in a corner.
"They didn't call me to make a baby. They called me to stand in someone's place."
"Which means skill is required too. Isn't it?"
Rupert said nothing. After a long wait, this is what came out.
"Does your mother know about this."
The words wouldn't come. Mother doesn't know. She can't know.
...Cheap shot.
No. It was a cheap shot—he used it because it worked. I would have done the same.
I let out a breath.
"She doesn't."
The pen rolled across the desk.
"Then what you're doing right now—"
"Ah, and."
I cut him off. First time I'd ever interrupted this man in this house.
"I'll swear it right here. Beat me to death, put a blade to my throat—I have no interest in the family head's seat."
"A written oath? I'll write one. Witnesses? I'll bring them. A petition to be struck from the line of succession? I'll file that too."
This was the real card.
Publicly, I was this man's son. Which meant that on paper, I was next after Yuzurina. If the Southern Barbarian blood mixed in me ever came out, all of that would vanish anyway—but the moment it came out, this house would collapse first, so nobody was going to reveal it. In other words, this man could not beat me because of the lie he had built himself. There was no way humiliation was the only reason he'd hated me for nineteen years.
"I'm not exactly proud of my bloodline either."
I shrugged.
"But take a look at this frame. Perfect general material, isn't it?"
"Feed me elixirs and throw me anywhere, and I'll go around cutting things down on my own. If I die, that's a clean wrap too. Doesn't look like a losing trade to me."
Rupert said nothing. His face hardened, loosened, then hardened again. Three expressions, all different, and not a one of them good. Something jumped near his temple.
Oh. This is about to blow.
If it blows, it blows.
"How about investing in your youngest son."
And then.
The sound of a chair scraping back. He looked at me, half-risen from his seat. Veins stood out on the back of his hand, his mouth half open—the face of a man who knew, better than anyone, that nothing would come out of it.
What would getting angry accomplish here? If he said I wasn't his son, the lie he'd spent nineteen years building would collapse. If he said I was, he had to grant his son's request. I wasn't the one who'd pinned this name tag on in the first place.
"...Get out."
"And the elixirs?"
"Get out!"
When Father gives an order, a filial son does as he's told. I tossed off a rough bow and walked straight out of the study.
The door closed, and about three steps later something scraped and fell inside. I'd have preferred papers. Probably a cup. Didn't sound like it broke, which was fortunate.
That'll take about three days.
It would come within three days. This man could stand getting angry less than he could stand taking a loss. I'd lived with it in this house my whole life, and after ten more years of knocking around the world, I'd found men like him lying around thick enough to trip over. They shout themselves hoarse, click the abacus at night, and send it quietly in the morning. And he knew that not a single thing I'd said today was wrong. That would piss him off the most.
The smell of dinner hit me in the hallway. So the butler really had it prepared. I started for the dining hall, then my feet stopped.
The far end of the opposite hallway. The door leading to the annex. Where Mother was. What had happened today would reach there by tomorrow. In this house, she had never once been the last to hear the news.
...Should I wash up first.
My clothes still smelled of the garden, my face was probably a mess, and my voice hadn't come down yet. I didn't want her to see any of that.