I’d fallen asleep in the chair out in the hallway, and now I was in an unfamiliar room meeting my ancestors.
How had it come to this? I didn’t get it myself.
“More to the point…”
The center of the room held a large round table. We were seated around it. The chairs were big — the backrests rose higher than my head.
They suited the high-class look of the room, but the whole thing felt unreal. Blue, spherical gems were set into the walls and ceiling as decoration.
A glowing blue gem sat in the middle of the table too.
“YOU were the one who screwed up the education!”
“It wasn’t me! For one thing, House Walt’s a male line, and Lyle was formally settled as the heir! It was absolutely not my fault! If I’d been there, I would’ve smacked my son into the wall!”
The barbarian-styled man and my grandfather had each other by the collar, fighting.
At first glance the barbarian was winning, but the others around the table looked completely uninterested. They left those two to it and turned the conversation back to me.
The hunter-looking one prompted me to keep explaining.
“Let’s just leave these two loud ones to it. So — Lyle was set to be the ninth head, but he lost to his sister and got tossed out of the family. There are already a lot of problems just with that, but for now, let’s accept it.”
He tried to move on. The barbarian — the man who, as the First of House Walt’s country-noble branch, had led the pioneer band — [The First, Basil Walt] — cut in.
“It’s NOT fine! The next head loses to a younger girl?! Don’t joke with me!”
“You savage! Don’t you say that about my grandson!”
Grandfather slugged the First. The others remained completely unmoved.
The hunter-style man — [The Second, Cracell Walt] — waved it off coolly.
“That’s not the issue. Both of you, sit. …Anyway, our standard opinion is that you don’t pass the headship to a daughter. At minimum, no matter how talented she was, I wouldn’t have done it, and I never taught my son to do it either.”
The man next to him — [The Third, Slay Walt] — agreed.
He wore the kind of clothes a lower-rank noble would wear, and gave off a slightly flippant air.
“True. I became head, and my son [Marx] became head — even with a daughter.”
The Third, Slay, was the first in House Walt to die in battle. But the image passed down was the loyal general who’d held the rear so that the king could withdraw — a soldier said to have held back ten thousand men alone.
You couldn’t get that image from the man in front of me at all.
“You died before passing the headship on, you know! Do you have any idea how much trouble I went through because of it?!”
He too wore clothes a noble would wear. But like the Second, he gave off an exhausted-veteran air.
[The Fourth, Marx Walt] — head of the family when House Walt was raised to a baron’s rank.
The Fifth, beside him, sighed.
[The Fifth, Fredricks Walt] was House Walt’s biggest womanizer. In addition to his wife, he reportedly had four mistresses.
Despite the reputation, he didn’t seem flippant at all.
“Honestly, everyone has it hard. I had it hard too.”
The wild-looking redheaded Sixth nodded. [The Sixth, Fines Walt] was the head who had taken some… questionable steps to get House Walt raised to count’s rank.
My father complained that the Sixth’s reputation still cost the family today.
“True. But the reason was a sword duel to make a girl the head? Broad, you really didn’t fail at the education?”
[The Seventh, Broad Walt] — my grandfather.
“Even with a parent’s bias, my son was bright. And as far as I remember, Lyle was the heir. Ceres was being raised as a girl of House Walt, just as you’d expect…”
My ancestors, arguing about me. Just the situation itself was incomprehensible.
The Second listened to me and called it.
“To put it bluntly… this isn’t a thing that happens, is it?”
The others nodded.
“Right.”
“Yeah.”
“My idiot son… I’ll smack him out of his shoes.”
The discussion turned back to me. The Fourth — wearing glasses, with that same put-upon air as the Second — asked:
“That’s the part I want to understand. Even granting that Lyle lost, we don’t actually know his ability. This Ceres — was she that overflowing with talent?”
Asked about Ceres, I looked down. I didn’t want to remember, but I had to explain.
(If I’m going to explain it, may as well get it over with here.)
So I did. My younger sister, two years my junior, who could do anything. Skills I’d needed hundreds of hours to learn, she’d pick up in a few.
And the most important thing —
“My sister is perfect. Studying, yes — but more than that, an aura, I guess —”
“Aura? And what’s ‘perfect’? A girl head is already a serious disadvantage. Was there something to make up for that?”
The First — squatting cross-legged on top of the table, in his barbarian gear — latched onto the topic.
”…Everyone gets drawn to her. Even my parents — at first they were watching me. But after I turned about ten, the atmosphere changed. The whole manor started rotating around Ceres.”
The First went quiet, thinking.
The Fourth took control of the conversation.
“So — Lyle’s surroundings recognized she had more talent than he did? What do you make of that, seventh head Broad-kun?”
My grandfather tilted his head.
“True, I doted on my grandson. But I wouldn’t have said her talent was at that level. …No, this really doesn’t happen.”
Grandfather denied it. I agreed. When my grandfather was alive, the manor’s atmosphere had been normal. I hadn’t been on bad terms with my sister either.
Then the Fifth spoke.
“The atmosphere changed around seven or eight years old, right? Maybe a Skill manifested. It wouldn’t be that strange to develop one that early.”
The Third disagreed.
“Hmm. Many people don’t notice when one manifests. Even if it does, it’s usually around age ten before it can actually be used. Time-wise, that’s tight. Lyle himself has manifested one and he doesn’t know it.”
[Skill] — a divine gift given to the people of this world, distinct from magic.
The rule was one per person. Humanity polished their personal Skill and fought with it.
Of course, technology could replicate Skills. The very gem I’d been given stored the Skills of past family heads —
(Wait a second. The voices started when I was being looked after in Zel’s shed. They became clear when… when I got the gem.)
I looked up. The Third — seeing I’d finally figured it out — confirmed it: I’d manifested a Skill of my own.
“It hasn’t formed yet, but the gem reacted and is storing it. That’s why we — the ones recorded in the gem — could respond.”
The Third was unexpectedly knowledgeable. I asked him what my Skill was.
“What — what’s my Skill?”
“That, I can’t tell. But the blue gem produces [Support-system] Skills, so it’s probably a support one.”
Skills divided roughly into three families.
[Vanguard-system] Skills — close-combat focused — came from red gems.
[Rearguard-system] Skills came from yellow gems.
Blue gems produced support Skills.
In the past, the gems determined the direction of a person’s Skill to a degree.
The reason House Walt had always produced support-system Skills was that they had the blue gem.
”…Then I’m also support-system?”
“You don’t sound happy about it. In my era, support was the most popular kind.”
The Third had picked up on my disappointed expression.
These days, the trend was for high-firepower rearguard Skills.
But —
“In my era, the popular ones were vanguard and support. Rearguard was unpopular.”
When Grandfather said that, the Second tilted his head too.
“In my era, support-system was unpopular. Does it shift by era?”
The Fourth brought the conversation back.
“Anyway. The line that Ceres manifested some Skill, and House Walt misjudged because of that, is unlikely. Which means — Lyle truly didn’t have the vessel to be the head.”
I had no comeback. I’d worked hard, but working hard didn’t equal fitness to lead.
If House Walt — now a count’s house — needed a head with talent I didn’t have, that was that.
But —
“It’s also too unnatural. Listening to him, he isn’t that bad. The house has solid retainers now too. Even a so-so male heir should normally have been picked. And even if this Ceres was overflowing with talent, making her head has too many disadvantages.”
The Fifth said it flatly: a girl as head was a major disadvantage. There were houses with female heads. But the reasons were usually proxy-rule or house tradition. Female-lineage houses appointing male heirs wasn’t rare. The reverse — male-line houses skipping their son for a daughter — almost never happened.
After all, the head might go to war. Few houses sent their daughter to that.
“Broad, what about the retainers? Any houses propping up Ceres to take over?”
The Sixth asked. Grandfather thought.
“I won’t say there are none, but the retainers are below the family in rank. Marrying in and taking over isn’t realistic. The highest-ranked vassal house is House Fuchs — a baron’s house — and they’ve never gone in for that kind of thing…”
The Second reacted.
“Eh? Fuchs is a vassal house? Wait — WHAT?!”
The First, who’d been deep in thought, also leapt to his feet in a panic.
“Fuchs — you mean the Fuchs from the next territory over?! That’s the Old Man’s house!”
“Old Man”? I had no idea what was happening.
For as long as anyone could remember, House Fuchs had been a House Walt vassal — what was called a sub-retainer. They held a baron’s title but had been given a fief inside House Walt’s territory.
The Fourth was also in a flap.
But the Fifth —
“What’s the problem? When the house was promoted in rank, we received the surrounding territories. House Fuchs was reluctant to move, so we gave them a fief — which makes them vassals. Isn’t that the natural flow?”
The Second shouted.
“You’re joking! Do you have any idea how much my brother’s family — those Fuchs — looked after us?! If House Fuchs hadn’t been in the next territory, none of us would be here!”
He raged about how much help the Fuchs had given them. The Fourth, in shock, asked the Fifth:
“What is this? I told you — they helped us so much, you must treasure that relationship!”
The Fifth answered flatly.
“Yes, so I told Fines to handle the promotion paperwork. Didn’t you?”
He confirmed with the Sixth.
“Yeah, I did.”
Listening to this, I thought:
(This is incredibly tangled. And the voices are getting distant…)
A voice that wasn’t in the room reached me.
“Lord Lyle?”
“Lord Lyle, I’m done.”
“Hm… yeah.”
I opened my eyes. I’d fallen asleep in the wobbly chair. I must’ve been exhausted to sleep that deeply.
Novem stood there, hair and body washed.
“You were tired. I rinsed the underwear in the hot water and put it out to dry. It should be dry by morning.”
“Ah, sorry.”
I stood, and my legs wavered. Novem held me up and walked me back to the room.
(So — was that all a dream?)
The First’s voice cut in.
“Wait a second — what’s this girl’s family name? It’s been bugging me. Something about the air—”
Grandfather’s voice replied.
“She’s grown so much. That’s the second daughter of House Fuchs. I wouldn’t have expected her to be Lyle’s fiancée — the ranks don’t match.”
“NOOOOOOO?!”
The First’s scream was huge, but Novem didn’t hear it.
”…So it wasn’t a dream.”
Novem tilted her head.
“What’s wrong, Lord Lyle?”
I was more exhausted than before, walking was a chore. I hadn’t realized I was this drained.
She walked me to the bed; I lay down and dropped almost immediately into sleep. The last thing I heard was her gentle voice.
She tucked the blanket around me.
“Good night, Lord Lyle.”