CH 40

T/N: Now the story’s political aspect really gets going. I always enjoy these parts of the story, due to the comedic contrast between Flora’s motivations and what everyone thinks of her actions from an outsider’s perspective.

Yesterday’s social debut was quite a lot of trouble, but there were also good encounters. It may be like that for knights without hereditary rights being in a place where high-ranking nobles gather.

If I think about it normally, even if I am the lowest ranking knight and without hereditary rights yet, I think my knighthood makes me higher ranked than the children of high-ranking nobles who don’t have peerages or titles of their own…

Maybe that’s just the way things work in the Kingdom of Ploiss but maybe reality is just different. Just because a person’s status is guaranteed by law or a system does not necessarily mean that it is strictly enforced. It is conceivable that if a parent is arrogant toward a lower-ranked House, the children will naturally think it’s normal and behave accordingly.

Well, I was surprised that I had grape juice poured on my head, but when I returned to the party after that, there weren’t any girls who harassed me, so I’m fine with that. Though honestly, it’s not a good thing at all… it’s good that there were no harassing kids but there were no kids I could befriend, either. Alexandra was the only one in my generation who could be my friend because everyone, regardless of gender, was just looking at me from afar.

And, speaking of Alexandra… fufu! That girl is funny. I don’t know who she is yet, but she’s got me kind of curious.

… I wonder if this might become a repeat. Even though it hasn’t been long since I broke up with Claudia, maybe I’m already starting to worry about other girls.

Katharina, Louisa, Claudia… I haven’t gotten over anyone yet. I can still say that I love them all. But you can’t drag the past with you forever. Alexandra will be appalled if I kept brooding in front of her, her new friend.

No… that girl might actually just worry about me. She looks like a perfect arrogant young lady, but when I think about that girl who is probably kind at heart, I can’t help but smile.

That’s it! I’ll make a wig for Alexandra! A blonde wig with drill curls should look good on her!

Wigs were also used in some parts of medieval Europe. However, as I mentioned earlier, when you think of European royalty and aristocrats, both men and women have curly perms and flashy wigs, but that’s mostly made-up stories in the modern era.

Oh, and before that, most of the royals and aristocrats with flashy hairstyles seen in paintings are actually wigs and props. There is no way to have that sort of curly hair naturally.

Even in this country, wigs themselves exist, but they’re plain, and flashy wigs aren’t popular among the nobility. In addition, it seems that there is also a perm technique, but there is a high possibility that it’s in its infancy. I’ll have to see if I can make the perfect drill curl wig I’m imagining. Time to go consult with Kruck Trading Firm.

While thinking about such things, I went through my usual work and training in a pleasant mood.

Today, Father called me and I’m heading to his office. I don’t want to go too ahead of myself because this incident seems to be a harbinger of something that can’t be good. Father has never called me to his office for anything good.

But even so, I couldn’t help but come to his office and was supposed to go calmly. After knocking and calling out to him, he urged me to enter the room, so I opened the door and said my greetings. I looked around as I did, but there was no one else in the room. It seems like the worst scenario ever. It was usually not a good thing when Father called me and did not have any servants around.

“Since we have reached an agreement with His Majesty the King, I will also inform you of the results, Flora,” Father said.

“Huh?” I went.

No, no, this explanation is not enough. I have no idea what he means by discussing with the King, to begin with. I didn’t even hear about what they were discussing, so what’s the point if they say they’ve come to an agreement?

“Sir Floto von Caan, on your 10th birthday, I will cede to you a fiefdom from the Margraviate of Carruthers,” Father said.

“…… Yes?” I said.

…… What? Territory for the Knight of Caan? Why would you? This is a knighthood with no hereditary rights. If you give me a territory and I die, the land will be lordless and empty.

What’s more, I don’t understand why the royal family is giving me a territory, but even more so I don’t understand why they are giving me a part of House Carruthers’s territory. If it’s the royal family’s territory, the royal family should regain the territory after I die. Compared to that, if it was the territory of House Carruthers, what would happen to the rights after I married Ludwig or after I died? Isn’t that just going to complicate things?

No, wait… maybe that’s what they’re aiming for? If I marry Ludwig, Ludwig will have some influence over my territory, albeit indirectly. If the royal family manipulates me through Ludwig, there will be a path that allows the royal family to interfere in our territory, even if it is officially under the ownership of House Carruthers.

If I neglect the territory ceded to me, I will be punished for dereliction of duty as its lord. On the other hand, if I devote myself to developing the lands and making it a thriving settlement after I lose the rights to the territory, or rather after I die, won’t there be a dispute over the ownership of said territory?

House Carruthers will try to reclaim their ceded lands. The royal family may try to seize the territory by claiming a familial relationship through Ludwig. Why did you make such a decision when you knew that problems would arise at first sight? It may be that the royal family is driving a wedge into the rise of House Carruthers.

If House Carruthers obediently obeys, the royal family can reduce their power, and if they oppose it, they also can take various other measures from that justification. I thought my father didn’t like my engagement to Ludwig and my future marriage to the royal family but was it because he knew it would turn out like this?

“The territory to be ceded to the Knight of Caan will be an undeveloped area in the Northern Forest, and the Knight of Caan will be based there from now on. Those were the terms discussed with His Majesty.”

The Northern Forest? A forest even further north, north of the town with my farms and ranches? It must be somewhere around the forest where the mad horned bear that messed up my right arm came from. I don’t have many good memories and I don’t want to go near that area, but that would be a convenient territory to give me.

At first, I thought it would be nice to have ranches and farms bordering the northern forest, but after the monster attack incident, I thought that location might be dangerous. I was told that monsters seldom appear and that soldiers patrolling around would keep out beasts, but that wasn’t the case at all.

But if I develop the northern forest and open up the surrounding area, it will become the front line in the north and the ranch and farm will be a little safer behind it.

And that business is effectively my business under my name now. It’s a location that fits perfectly with the town of Carruzan, but it’s not a business of House Carruthers. In that case, if I expand the area just north of it and use it as my territory to refine beet sugar and process dairy products, I might be able to reduce the risk of leaking the secrets of new products, even just by a bit. I started to feel this wasn’t all bad for me.

“So what is the range of this territory?” I asked.

“All the areas developed from here to here will become the territory of the Knight of Caan,” Father said.

He traces on a map that you couldn’t even call a low-precision map. The area he marked out is huge…

“Um… is it all the undeveloped land from the north to the northwest, by any chance?” I asked.

“That’s right,” Father said. “Anything newly developed in this uncultivated land is supposed to belong to the Knight of Caan.”

Carruzan is surrounded by forests on three sides except in the east. From the north to northwest to west to all the way over at Carruzan, the border is just forest. This is saying that the entire area from the north to the northwest of the forest up to the borders of the Kingdom of Ploiss will belong to the Knight of Caan.

Even though it’s an undeveloped forest, it’s absurdly vast in terms of range. Maybe it’s because I thought there was no way I could develop something like this, but if I developed all of this and it became my territory, it would be as large as the peerages of the other noble families around here…?

Even though there are forests to the west, there are roads that connect to the neighboring kingdom of Frasia, and there is some trade there. I’m not allowed to go west. If you go all the way to the north, it seems that you will reach the sea. The land continues to the northwest. It is not specified whether it is like a peninsula or whether the land continues even further beyond.

It seems that there lies the Country of Demons, we’ve warred with them repeatedly, and there is no information about what would happen in the future.

“His Majesty has said that if you, Flora, no, Sir Floto, develops this uncultivated land, you will be treated as a permanent noble with hereditary rights,” Father said. “In short, the fate of this land depends on your efforts.”

“Understood……” I said.

I don’t want to understand…. in other words, my father is telling me to do my best to develop the land and protect the territory by making Knight of Caan into House Caan without giving the royal family any room to interfere in this territory. If the rights to such a vast territory were to float in the air without hereditary rights, it might become a seed of conflict between the royal family and House Carruthers in the worst-case scenario.

Ugh…my stomach is starting to hurt… even in my previous life, I was just an office worker, after all. In my previous life, I was an immature young man. In this life, even though I have some knowledge that this world doesn’t have, I have no ability or experience in territory management. Just thinking about it makes me dizzy.

“You may leave now,” Father said.

“Yes… please excuse me,” I said, doing just that.

In the end, it wasn’t a good story for me. What I need to do now is develop this uncultivated land and make House Caan independent, without giving the royal family a chance to interfere and prevent any further meddling.

I have to consider a lot of things… and if I’m busy with this, I don’t have time to have fun with other girls… at least if we had a cute girl among the pioneers…

With all that looming over my head, I was desperately trying to figure out what to do next.

Albert felt a slight chill as he saw off his daughter, who had just been granted a vast territory and entrusted with the vital work of developing it. He can’t help but wonder how brave she is, even though she was his daughter.

A normal child might be innocently happy that they had just been given a territory because they didn’t understand the seriousness of the situation. But Flora is different. She has a brain that far surpasses that of adults, and ever rational since she was young, there’s little chance she doesn’t understand the consequences.

Even so, the fact that she is so confident maybe because she has considerable knowledge about pioneering. It even seems as if she was already thinking about clearing the forest. If you have been planning and preparing until now in anticipation of everything that will happen, how far can she see into the future? Above all, it means that even Albert and His Majesty Wilhelm are being forced to dance in the hand of Albert’s 10-year-old daughter. He can’t even imagine just how much wisdom and sophistication is in that mind of hers.

He wondered if she had been thinking of developing her territory since she opened a ranch and a farm in the northern territory, allegedly to start a business. Or maybe it was because she had been thinking about it before even that ranch and farm.

Ranches and farms are not just producing agricultural and animal husbandry products, either. She made many inventions that Albert had never seen before, and now the dining table of House Carruthers has changed astonishingly. Sugar, oil, cream, butter… it is now unthinkable to imagine a table without them. Furthermore, she says she’s still working on countless things.

Now it seems that she’s trying to improve the cheese that was present in other regions. Albert saw the cheese itself, but he didn’t want to go near it because it stinks. He can’t even imagine being able to eat that, but with Flora, he feels like he shouldn’t be at all surprised when he finally can.

Cultivating the forest from the north to the northwest. And then the royal family gets involved because of her engagement with Prince Ludwig. The northwest territory, undeveloped and on the border of 3 states, the Country of Demons, Kingdom of Frasia, and the Kingdom of Ploiss, was a heavy burden for the House Carruthers. If they can involve the royal family here, nothing could have been better for border security.

There is no problem even if the royal family interferes somewhat, such as forests that were originally undeveloped and had no use. Protecting and strengthening the border is more important than that, and if the royal family can get involved there, it’s all good for House Carruthers.

Even Albert was surprised by Flora’s ability to think about using it to get the royal family involved in border security, even though he was surprised that she had ever become engaged to Ludwig, to begin with.

How did she court His Majesty’s favor? Even though they only went to the royal capital and met a few times, that girl had a mysterious charm, and this time she even won over adult royalty. He was surprised when King Wilhelm asked if he could cede part of his fief as House Carruthers to Flora.

The king recommends that the next queen and Ludwig’s wife, Flora, should have a territory on the border. That is equivalent to declaring that the royal family will bear the burden of protecting it. How did she persuade the royal family, who has not intervened directly in such matters as much as possible until now, not only on this border but also on every other border of Ploiss’s sovereignty?

As he looked out the window and at the deep forest stretching beyond it, Albert watched with a bit of boyish excitement as he wondered how it would change in the future.

T/N: The weather has been extremely poor in my part of the world recently. New updates may be delayed for fears of electricity and power lines going down, among other potential natural disasters.