Sweet Reincarnation (LN)

Chapter 1 Good news ? Bad news ?

 

 

September 12, 2022

 

The sound of hoof was heard .
A horse walks on the  harden ground.
On its back rides a well-dressed man.

 

“What do you think, Pastry? Some day you will inherit this territory   in the future.
You've never seen it before, but it's a  vast place.”

 

In front of the man rides a young boy, horse supported by a man .
On either side of them was a field of wheat, with slightly burnt brown color.

 

 

“Father , wheat seems to be in a bad condition.”

 

Can a child like you tell? Yes, the territory is very poor .
It's not  fully  developed , but  we might have to work harder to make up for it.

 

The father chuckles.
His son's innocent remark was all too accurate.

 

'We don't grow anything ,but wheat?'”

 

“Hmm?　We grow only rye  and oats  in the fields.
And some vegetables near our house.
I hope we can make the land more fertile in the future.

 

“What about sugar and fruit?”

 

“We cannot possibly afford to grow any of those things.
Even wheat didn't grow well in the past .
I hear some of these things grow in the south, but they don't around here.”

 

“Well, then, where sweet things can be obtained ?”

 

“The next time when I will visit the capital, I'll buy you some as a gift.

 

The father patting his son on the head and the son following his father's lead.
The boy despairs at the fact that there are no sweets, not even sugar .
His desire to make the best sweets is unmatched to anyone, yet he is strongly shocked by the poverty that even the chance to do so does not exist.

 

The look on his son's face is one of sorrow.
Later, it becomes a look of determination.
Was his dream something so light that he would give it up just because he was poor? No.
Poverty is the bane of a craftsman's .

 

“If that is the case, I will one day make this place a land full of sweets.”

 

It's good that you have a dream.
Yes, I will make this land rich by the time you grow up.

 

This was the first time the boy told his parent about his dream.
He was three years old.

 

◇◇◇◇◇

 

Metal clanging against metal.

 

“Oh, no!”

 

“Not good enough!”

 

The two people were facing each other, both of them holding swords in their hands.

 

The were fighting each other, and one of them was a strong man of middle age.
His physique is so lean and toned that even the outsider can notice it .
The lean muscles, which are not just for show but are more suited for fighting, are impressive even over clothes.
The way he handles the sturdy-looking mass of iron as freely as if it were his own two hands is the height of skill.

 

In contrast, there is another person .
He is too young to be called a full-grown man.
His age is in the single digits.
Even if you take into account individual differences, he is still just barely short of the two-digit mark.
Sweat is pouring from his forehead and all over his body, and he is swinging his sword as hard as he can.
He is still in the process of developing his skills, as he sometimes swings his sword so hard that his body swims with the sword.
Rather than using the sword, he is being controlled by it.

 

“Look, your hold on the sword is getting weaker again.
Grip it tighter.”

 

“Yes, father .”

 

“Yes, good.
Hold it with the thought that you would not let go of it even if your hand were cut into a thousand pieces.
Letting go of the sword on the battlefield is the equivalent to dying.”

 

“Yes, father .”

Two people cross swords.
Casserole and his son, Pastry.
They are in the middle of a daily sword training .

 

This daily training has been done every day since his son, Pastry, turned five years old.
The boy is affectionately called Paice.
It all started because of his own desire, but before he knew it, it became a daily routine.

 

However, it is rare to see someone as young as he is wielding a sword.
Even in this world where bandits occasionally show up, monsters roam the streets, and the winds of war are strong, it is rare for a boy like him to wield a sword at such a young age.
The fact that the boy wields a sword when his body is not yet fully developed is largely due to his father's origins and ideology, as well as his son's special nature.

 

Another bruise on the boy's body appeared .
His legs are tangled and he is knocked down to the ground by a large sword.
In a our world, such training would be considered as child abuse .

 

“Lord ,are you here? Oh, there you are.
I knew you were here.”

 

“What is it, Sheitz? I'm training my son right now.”

 

A man approached them , without caring about it .
The man called Sheitz , who approached them while scratching his curly coffee-brown head, was a friend of Casserole's for 20 years,  and addressed  his son .  head of the private force of the Moltaerne territory.
He has only two subordinates in his private force, however.
After glancing at Paice with a smile on his face, he turns to Casserole .

 

“lord , it's almost time for breakfast.
I have a report to deliver , so please return to the office.”

 

“I see.
Okay, Paice, I think that's enough for today.”

 

Casserole slowly puts the sword into the scabbard.
The moment he put it away, his son collapsed on the ground.

 

” Thanks you for training me “

 

“Well, wipe your sweat off and head to your mother.
If you make her wait, she'll do her regular thing again.

 

“Yes, I'll have to hurry.Then please excuse me.”

 

A boy holding a sword larger than his own body height.
As he rushed off, his father and his best friend both looked at him with the same look and wry smiles.

 

“The boy is improving his skills remarkably .
Kids are learning so fast.””

“I guess.
My son is a quick learner.
He seems to have his own way of thinking, like a person who has mastered a certain skill, and it makes perfect sense.
I am really looking forward to what the future holds for him .”

“Here we go, the parental love child mode .
Don't expect too much.
You know what they say about a five-year-old divine child, ; after fifteen, he'   is turning in average man.”

 

“Paice might have made a name for himself as a swordsman by the time he turned fifteen, though.”

 

Sheitz could only shrug his shoulders at the parental love affair of the man who was both his best friend and the lord he served.
He stopped himself from saying, “Oh my God,”

 

After that, the two men, both of whom were very bitter, went to the office together.
Although calling it the “office,” is perhaps a bit ironic.

 

Originally, the territory of Mortern was a part of the royal territory that was meant to be a buffer zone between the neighboring countries.
The land was poor, wheat did not grow well, and a reddish-brown wasteland spread across the land.
The land was given to a knight who had served with distinction in the previous war, and that knight was Casserole.
He was given the title of noble and took the family name of Moltaerne, which is the name he holds to this day.
There is nothing in the land.
It took three years for crops to grow in a place where not even a tree grew.
It took another three years for less than ten people to become self-sufficient.
After that, the number of people and cultivated land were gradually increased.

 

Even today, the land is not rich, and even the lord's mansion is very modest.
It is a very plain, rustic building, as if it was built by a knight.
To put it simply, it is a shabby house.
In other territories, a farmer with a little bit of income would be living in a house of the same level.

 

Even so, the house has many rooms, as it is supposed to be a nobleman's house.
Among the rooms, the one with a wooden panel that could probably be called a door, a sofa, a reception desk, and an office desk, all furnished in the most luxurious style, is called the office with a hint of ridicule.
Sheitz says that he is more worried about the sofa and desk being burned than he is concerned about thieves stealing his money.

 

The two of them entered the office, a name that contains a hint of self-mockery.
The knight, who literally owns the entire territory, not just this room, and his inner circle.

 

He sat on his chair at his desk, and his servant sat on a box beside his desk.
As soon as he sat down on the appropriate box, Sheitz, the servant, said, “I don't know where to start “.
It is a longstanding breathing habit between the two of them to speak in a light, tone of voice.

 

“Now, I have a good news and a bad news to report.
Which one would you like to hear first?””

 

“Don't give me bad news before I've even had breakfast, but I can't missed it either way.
Let's hear the good news first.”

 

“Well, then, good news.
The good news, , is about the harvest in the bean field.
As was said before the crop is expected to be quite good.
If things continue as they are, it looks like we won't have to worry about the beans over the winter as we did last year.

 

“Oh, really? That's wonderful.

 

The Baron de Mortain is also known as a great lord.
He has cleared and cultivated wasteland to make it inhabitable,Today, he is an independent nobleman with three villages with 40 people.
Today, In recent years, he has been experiencing remarkable growth, and his fame is growing.
The new bean cultivation that he started three years ago is particularly well-known, and his success in surviving last year's nation-wide famine without any deaths from starvation or forced sales has become the talk of the town's social salons.

Surprisingly few people know that many of the ideas behind the his projects are actually ideas of his son.
This is because no one would think that a young boy under the age of ten is capable of coming up with revolutionary ideas that even a adult could not come up with.
Even if Casserole did mention his son's achievements at a public gathering, it would be seen as a show of affection by an idiotic parent.
And since about 90% of the time, it is the parents who are the real idiots, it's just too much to handle.

 

'So, here's the bad news.”

 

I “don't want to know about it.”

 

The mood changes.
The somewhat relaxed and carefree atmosphere that was present until a moment ago, suddenly becomes cold .

 

“I was at Count Ratesh's place.
It seems that he failed to defeat the bandits at his estates.
We received a message that a large number of the bandits had fled in our direction.Well, the message said that they had successfully driven them away, and they were very proud of it.
It's not nice for us to be told off.

 

If they are coming here, how much time can we have to preparing for them?”

 

“If they come straight to our place, it will take about 10 days.
If they come messing around, it'll be more than a month, but less than two.”

 

” How troublesome.”

Among the duties of nobility, there are two major ones that are unspoken and absolutely necessary to follow .

 

The first is the duty of loyalty to the king.
This is a natural duty, since it is the authority and power of the king that ensures the privileged position of the nobility.
If they fail to fulfill this duty, they will be deprived of their noble status by the king, and if they are not careful, they will become criminals.

 

The other is the duty of national defense.
The king gives the nobility lands, privileges, salaries, and income from the right to collect taxes in order to develop a military force in case of emergency.
From the associate knight dukes who provide their own military force, to the dukes who are always ready to mobilize the second largest military force after the king, there are equal duties to be fulfilled.
They must be prepared for emergencies anytime and work to fulfill stability of their position within the limits of their own authority in the place to which they are given .
And, if the worst happens, they will use their preparations sparingly.
Because of this duty, nobles of a territory are allowed to collect taxes, and nobles n are paid a salary.

 

It is also the duty of the nobility to deal with bandits.

 

However, it is not always possible to achieve what can be called success.
In the first place, there is no criterion for success and failure.
When there is a natural disaster, even if you rescue the majority of the victims, and you are proud to say that your disaster relief efforts were a success, if even one person dies, there will be families of the deceased who will consider your work a failure.
This is an example of how difficult it is to draw a line between success and failure in an emergency.

 

From the count's point of view, the contact from the count this time was also a success.
The bandits who were roaming around the territory were driven out of the territory.
If the people of the territory will not be harassed by these bandits in the future, it can be said that this is a great success.
If just to look at the count's territory.

 

On the other hand, those who are responsible for the areas that will be raided by the bandits who were chased away.
From the perspective of the new victims, it would appear to be a clear failure.
It is also a fair point that just replacing the problems from one to another person does not mean that problem was solved From the point of view of the baron Mortern, it is clearly the opposite.
Just the cost estimates of the damage that will be done in the future is enough to give him a headache.

 

“So how big was the group that escaped?”

 

“About 50 people, according to the report.”

 

“If they come to our place, will we be able to handle them?”

 

How can three of us, including myself, fight against fifty men? If you are going to fight them right, it's not going to be a problem.

 

If it is 50 people, it is a very big gang of thieves.
The actual number of people who have been in the business for a long time is usually a lot less than the number of people who have been in the business for a short period of time.
It's hard to agree with that.

 

I don't know if it would be possible to gather the men from the villages and h armed with spears and throwing stones.

 

'Even if we did, it would only be 30 men at the best.
Even if we holed up in the main village of Honzon, where the moat i of people is, If the other two villages are completely wiped out, the damage will be the same as if they were attacked without resistance.
If we can't fight a short battle, it would be a bad idea.

 

Why don't we just stay in and buy ourselves some time, and I''ll go get reinforcements?

 

“I know you can do that, but I think there are a lot of drawbacks.”

 

“Why?”

 

“The Count had a difficult time getting reinforcements because of his reputation.
If they are defeated by us, we will be accused as incompetent.
On the other hand, if we only drive them away with reinforcements, they may return to the count's territory.
It would be a laughable situation if they were to return to the count's territory after being ravaged as much as they could.
The ideal situation for us would be if they failed and the Counts from the Hvarek frontier would lead the troops to defeat them and wipe their asses.
They would put all the responsibility for the failure of the defeat on us.
If we are not careful, they may even try to get in our way.
Other lords might be willing to help us out, but they have similar or even worse armaments to ours, so I don't think they can spare the manpower to send someone to our side.”

 

 

This is the reason why the Baron Mortain judged that as t e Count's ” failure”.
The fact is that there are only small lords around the count's territory.
Of course, the baron's own territory is still poor, and he has only three full-time squires, including Sheitz, who is present at the moment.
It is hard to believe that he could handle a band of thieves that even the Count couldn't handle.

 

“Why don't we go to the royal capital or the grand nobility and ask for reinforcements?”

 

If our place hasn't been attacked yet, I think they would be very reluctant to do so.
If we do so just as Count Ratesh is showing off that he got rid of them, the Count will hate us, right?

 

“I don't mind being hated if it's will protect my family and my territory , but we' re on the frontier and reinforcements are unlikely to be given to us in the first place.
……
Still, it's not a problem that can be left without attention.”

 

“I don't want to die too, so I'll leave it to you “

 

They are best friends, and there is a trust between them in each other's abilities.
Inside the “office” room, the sound of laughter leaked through the thin wooden walls into the room beside it.

 

“So, do you have any good ideas?”

 

Sheitz asked, turning his expression back to a serious one.
Casserole nodded with a smile on his face.

 

“'The worst-case scenario would be for me to go myself.
…..

 

“The last thing we need is the lord go himself.
If he dies, that's end of it.”

 

“Otherwise, the safest thing to do would be to deepen the harbor or give out spare spears to the people.”

 

“It's better than nothing.”

 

Both of them furrowed their brows.
In fact, it is absurd to think that a mere new lord can handle this problem, since even the count was not able to handle it .

 

“I have an idea.”

 

“What is it?”

 

Casserole gives a dubious look at the voice of his subordinate.

 

“How about using the boy as a trump card,?”

 

“What do you mean?”

 

“If he succeeds, he might be  a prove that he can became good  next lord .
My intuition is telling me it would be best to do so.”

 

I can't ignore your intuition.
……”

 

Turning his own son in trump card .
He was a bit puzzled by this.
The first thing is that he don't understand the point of it.
His  son might be talented, but there is no way that a child of age seven has the ability to make a difference in a fight.
There was no way he could do such a miraculous thing.

 

But then Casserole was stuck on the word “magic.
It was because he suddenly thought of what Scheitz wanted to say.
The words he muttered sounded surprisingly clear.

 

“The ritual of consecration.”

 

“You have my permission”.

 

Casserole's decision on this day was the first step in a major world change.

 

T/n     I dunno how to extraction  images fro, epub.
So i can't  add illustrations .
If someone know a way  share it in comments   

 

 

If you want to support us, please download our awesome cultivation game Taoist Immortal!