My feelings toward my father, Aseldorf, are colorless.

Neither affection nor hatred. Nothing at all. Honestly, that was only natural. Aseldorf existed as a father in the setting, tied to me by biological blood and nothing more. Not a single memory remained. Sad as that is.

My real family lies on the other side of a dimension I can never visit again.

Hilda had taken an interest in my family, but every time, I dressed up the truth and lied to her. Sometimes that gave me pangs of guilt. Sharp as she was, Hilda eventually picked up that I didn’t like talking about my family.

So she stopped asking for details. Once in a while, she’d simply wonder aloud, "If they were still alive, how would they react to a son who had risen so high?"

Old Marquis Bertheim seemed to know the truth surrounding my father’s death, but he wouldn’t tell me outright. As if he wanted me to figure it out for myself, the old man only offered hints.

"This knight, Viktor, knows about my father’s death?"

"Go meet him and ask him yourself how your father died."

The only witness who knew of my father’s final moments. That alone was reason enough to meet him. And the part about him being the only witness sat strangely with me. Did that mean if this man died, the truth would be lost forever?

The old man left behind a rough map showing the area where Viktor lived and went on his way. It pointed to a remote spot between Breisburg and a village called Eisten to the northwest. It looked like it fell outside the patrol zone.

If I tracked Viktor down, would I learn the details of how my father died? It felt eerily like opening Pandora’s box. And was that really the only reason the old man had gone out of his way to recommend this knight to me?

He was as inscrutable as ever. With the Manager Scouter I could tell that the old man’s mindset was one of testing me, but the specific details of what was going on inside his head remained a complete mystery.

"What are you thinking about so deeply?"

Hilda’s question shook me out of my thoughts.

Goodness, fretting like this even at home. 𝕗𝐫𝐞𝕖𝕨𝐞𝗯𝚗𝕠𝘃𝐞𝚕.𝐜𝗼𝚖

"I’m always thinking about you, of course."

"Really? Not the order?"

"That comes second. You’re always first."

It wasn’t about the order, but it wasn’t something Hilda would feel good hearing about either, so I deflected smoothly. Even at my sweet talk, Hilda smiled, seeming pleased.

Hilda and I both loved the rose garden dearly. It was like a gift Baron Constance had left for me. Old Marquis Bertheim had taken good care of it so it wouldn’t fall to ruin, which was why we still had the rose garden today.

We always spent time here, and even handled work here.

Sabine, Daniel, and Maria were busy gathering fallen rose petals off to one side of the garden. They’d dry the petals to brew as tea, or grind them into powder to mix into soap.

"How do you plan to raise Maria?"

"Training her as a handmaid is the standard approach, isn’t it? Eventually, I’d like her to be the kind of handmaid our children can rely on."

"That’s fine, but I have something different in mind."

Hilda seemed to have a plan. She kept pestering me to leave it to her, and frankly, the charms of a 17-year-old wife are impossible to resist. In the end, I left Maria’s education entirely up to Hilda.

"Are you still going through that?"

"Of course. It’s our fief’s report."

A few days ago, the report on the fief’s status that August had sent had arrived. From it, I learned the exact population of Feuzen: 62 households, 278 people, and 545 head of livestock.

It was a small village of fewer than 300 people, but with livestock farming producing all sorts of dairy products and wool, it was actually fairly prosperous. The report contained plenty of other detailed information as well.

The moment Hilda got her hands on the report, she was so excited to head to Feuzen that she’d been buzzing with energy for days. But with the formation of the order keeping me busy, I couldn’t head out right away. I’d unintentionally let her down.

So I’d promised her that the moment the order was fully established, the very first place I’d take her would be Feuzen.

Considering the surroundings, Feuzen looked well-suited for a horse ranch. Northwest of the village were mountains and forest, and a small stream ran through the settlement. It was an excellent environment for developing livestock farming.

And in front of it lay open fields wide enough that I’d once fought a pitched battle there against Besançon’s reinforcements. Wasn’t that the perfect terrain for raising horses? If the Constance family hadn’t fallen, the place might have grown even larger.

Now that I was a lord, building a horse ranch was essential if I wanted my own cavalry unit. On top of that, demand for horses was still booming, so becoming a supplier could earn me decent money.

For example, I could capture enemy horses on campaign, breed them, and resell the stock. From the last war alone, I’d captured more than 30 horses. That’s the creative economy right there.

Plus, our family already had two thoroughbreds. We could probably breed quality stock from them. Mont Blanc and Schatten would have to put in some work. As a primary industry that played to my strengths, it sounded just right.

Maybe one day, on the battlefield, I’d be known as a horse hunter.

Honestly, I’d considered using my knowledge of the future to develop the fief, but realistically, that was a tall order. There was no infrastructure, and crucially, my scientific knowledge was woefully lacking. It wasn’t as though the shop sold science books either.

I came from an arts background. Down with STEM. Feuzen counted as a prosperous village, but with fewer than 300 residents, there were limits in many respects. If I were the lord of Rosenheim, that might be a different story.

Launching a major enterprise based on scientific knowledge ran into all sorts of difficulties. So I set my course on starting with small, realistically feasible ventures and growing them step by step. Nothing radical.

As November rolled in, the cold started settling in for real.

The weather was overcast, but no snow or rain fell.

My breath was already misting in the air. I threw a thick surcoat over my plate armor. Hilda had gotten it for me, telling me not to freeze. I’d been showing this fine surcoat off to my men.

"Commander, I think that’s the house."

I followed where my men were looking and saw a single house standing alone out in the fields. A truly picturesque scene. There was a kind of solitary romance to it.

"Anton, go ahead with my crest and let them know why we’re here."

If 15 cavalrymen came barging in unannounced, even I’d be alarmed, so I sent Anton ahead first. The banner he carried fluttered in the wind. The flag bore both the Streit crest and the Gale Knights crest side by side.

One of the men glanced around and said to me,

"I never thought anyone would be living all the way out here."

"He must be confident in his skills, since bandits don’t scare him."

The area around Breisburg saw frequent patrols by duchy troops, so security was decent compared to other regions. But once you stepped outside the patrol range, safety was no longer guaranteed.

So living alone in a place like this took serious courage.

A beautiful landscape, sure, but one where danger was never far away.

A middle-aged man came out of the isolated house.

He had a longsword at his hip.

He didn’t let Anton approach and seemed to be hearing him out from a wary distance. For someone who was supposedly just a retired knight, his guard was unusually high.

In truth, that wariness was the right response. In a world this rough, he had no way of knowing what kind of man I was. Why would he greet a band of cavalrymen with open arms?

I didn’t approach carelessly. I waited until his guard came down a bit.

Anton came back and reported,

"He is indeed Sir Falkenheim, but he says he is just a farmer now."