It’s been about a year since Baron Luckel Fautash, in other words, I have been standing in the arena.
In the empire, there are various types of aristocrats, the first being the robes of aristocrats who do not have territory but hold positions in the imperial capital and manage government affairs.
The income of a nobleman in vestment is a noble pension according to his rank and an allowance according to the position he holds, and enviably, he is a nobleman who can lead a stable life unrelated to the management of his territory.
Of course, they are busy with daily work and court politics, but the fact that they have a stable income is something to be envied.
The second type is the dispatched consuls who govern territories that the empire has gained through victory in wars, especially areas that have come under the direct control of the emperor.
Although they receive support from the empire and govern their territories, they have the right to command their own armies and have the right to keep a few percent of tax revenue for themselves.
Even though it was a borrowed territory, and even though he had great discretion, he could still rely on support from the mainland of the Empire in case of an emergency, which was also an enviable position.
The third and final group are the so-called feudal lords and aristocrats, who have their own fiefdoms that have been passed down from generation to generation, and have belonged to the empire since ancient times and have continued to support them by paying taxes, but they cannot receive help when they are in trouble.
Although I understand that it is a sufficient advantage to have a territory in the mainland of the empire, I still have a certain feeling about it compared to the treatment of the former two.
Incidentally, there are many aristocratic families who choose to transfer their territory to great aristocrats, receive compensation from the great aristocrats, and serve them like the nobles investments even though they are feudal lord aristocrats.
Managing your own territory is that strict and difficult.
And well, as you can probably tell from the above, Baron Fautash is a very old nobleman, the head of a fiefdom that covers five villages.
Even though they are nobles, they are not very rich because their fiefdoms are all country villages, but the Baron Fautash family has maintained their fiefdoms for many years with solid management.
However, the reason for the decline of their business was due to the cold weather that hit the Empire.
Snow fell even in the middle of summer, and crops were ruined for three years in a row.
The reason for this was that the frost giants, who were said to live in the northern mountains, had awakened in the summer.
This is a truly troublesome story.
The frost giants may have had their own reasons that humans cannot even fathom, but there was no need to keep the summer cool for three consecutive years.
If it hadn’t been for the control of the southern territories, the empire itself might have fallen into disarray in those three years.
Cold weather is a rare thing when it only lasts a year.
We could have resigned ourselves to the fact that what had happened was inevitable.
If it had lasted two years, they would have groaned in agony, but they would have looked up and tried to harvest the next year.
But three years was impossible.
The Baron Fautash family itself could survive by discharging the wealth passed down through the family, but there was no way for the people to survive the next year except to sell their family members as slaves.
In fact, many other noble families survived the second and third years of the cold war in this way.
However, the Baron Fautash family couldn’t abandon the people with whom they had shared their hardships over the years, so they endured that year by distributing food brought in from the south, which they had borrowed money to buy.
Even so, my father, the previous Baron Fautash, had a plan to return the money.
After all, Baron Fautash’s family is a noble family with a long lineage.
The Fautash, who had followed the first Emperor since before the founding of the country and became nobles through their merits, had a certain amount of legacy.
If my father was still alive and well, he should have been able to repay his debts sooner or later, even if it took some time.
Yes, he should have.
Whether it was heartache, or whether my mother, who died after giving birth to my younger brother due to a breakdown, or an unrelated illness, but my father, the previous Baron Fautash, felt pain in his chest and got sick on the first winter day.
Fortunately…… or unfortunately, my father survived, but he never regained consciousness. He swallowed everything in his mouth like a doll, but when he vomited it out, it turned into a dripping lump of meat.
If I put it this way, will he think I’m being too rude to him?
But at least when I asked, “How are you going to repay your debt?” If you had just told me how to do it instead of saying, “It’s not something you need to worry about.” things wouldn’t have become so complicated.
That’s probably why I hate my father a little.
And so, at the age of 16, I took over the Baron Fautash family.
Baron Fautash’s family was left with nothing but debts, and the only way to do something about it was to marry my talented sister to a wealthy man.
But as an older brother, that is a path that I simply cannot choose.
It’s not that commoners are bad.
If it’s someone my sister wants and chooses, I wouldn’t mind even if it’s a commoner, and it doesn’t matter if it’s that vassal she’s spent time with since she was a little girl.
As I struggled to figure out what to do, I remembered that when I was really young, my grandfather took me to a big city to see gladiators in an amphitheater. It was a match.
It was more than ten years ago, but this was the event that led me to start seriously devoting myself to swordsmanship.
According to what I was told at that time, one of the showmen involved in the arena was a former citizen of Baron Fautash’s family, and my grandfather apparently invested a certain amount of money when he became a showman.
…… I thought this was the only option.
Fortunately, I can’t say that I can beat anyone when it comes to sword skills, but I do have a level of confidence that comes close to that.
My father had once invited a famous swordsman to our house and learned from him, and I had many experiences exterminating bandits that had appeared in our territory.
If my father and grandfather were alive and well, they would never have allowed it, but the dead do not complain.
Instead, my younger sister and other vassals opposed me, but that didn’t mean they had an alternative opinion.
There was an opinion that if we wanted to make money with a sword, I should lead my man to the battlefield in the south, but the fate of my family was such a bad bet…… and I couldn’t bet on my sister’s status either.
The only way to go to war is to have enough money to prepare for it, and even being good with a sword doesn’t necessarily mean you can survive on the battlefield.
If I die, my sister will be sold to some rich man and only my younger brother will be left.
And as much as I went to the battlefield, I didn’t want to participate normally as a gladiator.
Even if I am dishonored, I must survive and earn enough money to repay my debt.
Therefore, relying on my memory, I found an entertainer who had a connection with my grandfather, and I continue to play the role as the villain in the arena, receiving an unusually high salary for a low-class gladiator while tarnishing my name as a nobleman.
