Ch.18Introduction (2)

“Son, now that you’ve come of age, I’ll present you with choices. Will you join His Majesty’s royal army for a period of service, or would you rather take charge of affairs in an undeveloped frontier region?”

“….What?”

As someone born as the heir to a wealthy and powerful noble family in this other world, I’ve lived for all of 15 years.

While I was caught off guard, suddenly forced to choose between voluntary military service and becoming the lord of a frontier village, my father looked me straight in the face and began explaining calmly.

“Camille, you’ve grown up wonderfully. At the young age of fifteen, you’ve already become a formal knight, and your combat skills have developed to rival those of veteran knights in our order.”

“….Yes, I’m listening.”

“Good. But to put it another way, as you are now, you could become a knight but not a lord. Of course, you could become a mediocre third-rate lord since you’re at an intermediate level, but….”

“Are you saying I can’t become a proper lord?”

“That’s right. If you give up there, that will also be your limit as a man. I… want you to be respected by people and praised as a great ruler in the future.”

After my father finished speaking, a solemn atmosphere filled the office for a moment. Understanding why he had said those things to me, I opened my mouth.

“Then… is this heir training? Like you’ve done several times before?”

“You could say that. Whichever path you choose, it will be of great help to you in the future.”

I couldn’t deny what my father had told me. Yes, even with minimal thought, the two paths my father presented would greatly benefit me when I eventually become a lord.

Joining the royal army—that is, the Frankish Kingdom’s army composed of the king, nobles who “voluntarily enlisted” like myself, and their attendants—means building connections and networks with the noble class… and furthermore, gaining experience in commanding troops.

Especially in this quasi-medieval era, violence is the most powerful force. In a world where most actions of the strong are justified as long as they don’t cross certain lines, military leadership skills are extremely attractive.

Even though we belong to the same Frankish Kingdom, internal conflicts called domain wars frequently occur between territories. In such situations, the advantages of a lord being an actual military leader who effectively controls the army are immense.

“Military service experience” not only reduces the possibility of subordinate troops rebelling or disobeying orders, but also allows me to make soldiers and knights who served with me into close aides, thereby increasing my control over the military.

On the other hand, serving as the lord of a frontier village is very useful as a rehearsal for governing a domain.

Since my father wouldn’t just throw an inexperienced person like me out there alone, he would naturally assign assistants, and unlike ordinary frontier villages, he would likely provide sufficient support.

So it’s like completing a tutorial quest in easy mode before entering the main game.

By ruling a village that I can manage according to my will, I can experience mistakes that should be avoided later and gain experiences that would be impossible to obtain otherwise.

While self-help books that encourage not fearing failure and taking challenges are often deceptive tactics of the privileged, from the perspective of someone who can actually afford to fail, experiencing failure isn’t necessarily bad.

After all, someone who has lived a life of constant success has an extremely low probability of handling a crisis well.

Of course, not choosing either option wouldn’t be a major problem.

From the beginning, my father designed this Alzar Barony with a structure that allows the domain to function somehow as long as the lord’s personal qualities meet at least average standards.

Perhaps because we’ve established a “bureaucratic system” transmitted from the Holy Empire to the east in our domain, the actual governance is currently handled by administrators trained in the domain’s “administrative school.”

To put it bluntly, if you just study the bare minimum—being able to read and interpret documents and understand how the bureaucratic organization works—there won’t be major problems with governance itself.

In fact, our domain, where my father personally handles various tasks, is considered unusual by the kingdom’s standards.

Many domains in the Frankish Kingdom often delegate governance to the pantheon or administrators, and even the better lords pass responsibilities to their wives or family members while they go hunting.

Without any exaggeration, a large proportion of lords are essentially just strong thugs who became leaders through good bloodlines, falling short of qualifications no matter how generously one looks at it.

Even lacking experience as a military leader wouldn’t be a significant problem, because I would rarely need to personally command troops anyway.

In small domains with only the lord as a knight, the lord might directly lead dozens of soldiers in domain wars and extortion, but in large domains like the Alzar Barony with dozens of knights under command, how often would the lord need to take direct action?

The qualities required of a lord in a large domain are those of a “monarch,” not a “knight.” While having excellent capabilities as a military leader wouldn’t hurt, lacking them wouldn’t necessarily cause problems either.

“So, have you decided?”

“…Father, could you give me a little more time?”

“Alright. How much more time do you need?”

“I’ll definitely give you my answer by the end of today.”

“Very well then. Rest well.”

Therefore, realizing this wasn’t a matter I could decide on the spot, I requested time from my father to think it over, and was actually granted a postponement for my answer.

I inwardly believed that making such a major decision on the spot would actually be the bigger problem—a fundamental but correct principle.

※ ※ ※

And so, after leaving my father’s office, I returned to my room in the castle to contemplate.

“If you need anything, please let me know immediately, Lord Alzar.”

“Thank you, Corin.”

-Creeak, thud!

After requesting some time alone to think from Sir Corin Lanster, who had been my actual supervising knight when I was my father’s attendant and now works in his original role as my chamberlain (secretary).

Left alone in this not-so-spacious room after Corin departed, I roughly removed my armor, buried myself in the blankets, and began my serious “contemplation,” but….

‘Still, military service doesn’t seem right….’

Despite everything, having inherited memories of what I presume was a modern Korean person from my previous life, I couldn’t help but be reluctant about the very act of enlisting.

Even though I’m clearly a privileged noble, and even though I could beat up superiors I dislike under the pretext of duels in non-combat situations.

Even considering these reasons, which make it relatively less unreasonable and unfair compared to the typical K-military, the military is still the military.

The military operates on hierarchy, irrationality, violence, and coercion. And considering that I would be directly deployed to actual combat, there’s no way to avoid violence.

Of course, honestly speaking, fighting in the military would allow me to meet strong opponents, which would help in acquiring skill or talent-related “factors,” but who would want to enlist just for that reason?

On the other hand, I can also roughly guess what “job” I’m being asked to take in the undeveloped frontier region.

When talking about the undeveloped frontier of the Alzar Barony, that would be the subordinate territory of Colland Barony.

It’s literally an undeveloped region with a high proportion of natural environments like forests and mountain ranges that humans haven’t pioneered, along with monsters that inhabit those areas.

Therefore, currently about 80% or more of the land in Colland Barony is essentially sitting idle as undeveloped territory, and that much space is not only dangerous but also leads to deteriorating security in the domain due to the absence of public authority.

While the environment within the undeveloped areas is certainly dangerous, it’s not completely uninhabitable, so criminals like bandits and cultists often hide there.

Considering this, I suspect the job my father wants to entrust me with is probably that of a frontier village lord… essentially a village chief.

Considering the level of danger, it wouldn’t be strange to assign an intermediate-level person to each frontier village, and that’s actually the case, but there aren’t many intermediate-level individuals with enough flexibility besides someone like me, so it’s an appropriate personnel selection.

Of course, to be honest, this option doesn’t particularly appeal to me either, but wouldn’t being a village chief, even with some hardship, be several times better than enlisting?

And so, after some deliberation, I reached a conclusion that evening.

“Camille, have you decided?”

“Yes. I would like to take charge of affairs in the undeveloped frontier.”

“Very well, I’ll arrange for that. I’ll send you the details through Sir Lanster in a few days.”

“Lanster… Ah, yes. I understand.”

I visited my father’s office and informed him of my decision to take on work in the undeveloped frontier.

It was the moment when my next destination was decided to be the undeveloped frontier of Colland Barony, a subordinate territory of the Alzar Barony.