A room in the manor chosen as a temporary residence.
Since it was extremely common for me to stay up all night making golems, I had gone over my duties as a lord until late into the night and was now lost in thought for a moment.
To be honest, I had never been all that interested in managing a territory.
Cyclops units were now being produced one at a time and would gradually be distributed, the Knight had also been completed, and plans were in place to sell them here and there.
In line with that, the people around me had been giving me a great deal of help and advice as well.
Mina was planning not only the funding, but also how to sell the golems by mobilizing her own merchant company; Erika was acting as a sort of intermediary with the Phoenix County, becoming both a customer and a backer; and Noel had been giving me plenty of advice on territorial management and politics.
Aside from them, many people were helping me, such as Professor Rodelini, who offered a great deal of technical counsel, and Professor Reina, who was making manuals so that the existing armed force—the knights—could gradually become accustomed to golems.
In a way, people had gathered around the golems and helped me, and the world was preparing to change accordingly… I wondered if I could go so far as to say something that arrogant.
To be honest, I had been very satisfied and happy about that, and I had been just about to devote myself even more to it.
That was why his words bothered me a little.
“…I’m not taking the lead in doing anything, huh….”
Mina, Erika, and Noel had all said Daniel’s words were incredibly harsh and rude. Erika, who had recommended Daniel, brought Sir Galed back and apologized again, and Mina even went so far as to say I should simply order him out.
If Noel had not mediated, saying that if he had suffered at the hands of the Avatus family, it was not entirely incomprehensible that he would want to confirm things that way, Mina might have actually dragged over a Caterpillar Golem and tried to flatten him.
And in my case, to be honest, it was a fairly large blind spot and something I needed to reflect on.
“I really was too complacent.”
I remembered that unpleasant conversation with Cardio.
Back then, even though I had not denied that golems were weapons of war, I had said the conclusion I had reached in my own way—that they were power wielded by people. But thinking back on it….
I had only thought about creating such power, and had not acted responsibly.
Of course, for someone who had asked me to hire him, only to turn around and declare that he would test me and ask what I was taking the lead in when I was leaving everything to the women, it was extremely out of line, both in terms of common sense and courtesy.
But if I thought about it calmly for even a moment, it was an important point.
“So it also means I was making them, spreading them around, and then not trying to take responsibility for anything, doesn’t it?”
And if one looked at my current situation in a bad light, that would be exactly Daniel’s perspective.
A lord dragged around by noble young ladies, unable to take the lead in anything.
Of course, one could argue that Mina, Erika, and Noel all asked me how I wanted to make the final decision, so the authority was mine. But if I spoke objectively, weren’t those three the ones moving, while I myself had hardly taken responsibility for anything?
Once I thought that far, rather than anger, I felt the realization that I had been complacent.
And when my thoughts reached that point, one more thing came to mind.
“No matter how many golems I make, if I myself get branded as someone unreliable, no one will acknowledge them.”
It was sad, but being acknowledged meant being caught in the yoke of having to be acknowledged endlessly.
Right now, one might say that everyone acknowledged golems, but the Avatus family was still watching for an opportunity, and there were still many who had not fully accepted golems.
The reason there was even an atmosphere of acknowledgement now could be seen as being because the royal family, and the powerful Phoenix Count’s family, had acknowledged them.
In short, it was the difference in the social trust that had been built up until now.
My own standing, which had only just begun taking its first steps, could not possibly surpass theirs overnight. Even so, if I continued to care only about making things as I had been doing, while turning away from the responsibility of maintaining and spreading them—
The price would surely come back to me in a big way.
“That absolutely can’t happen.”
Frankly, I didn’t care if I was the one who paid the price.
But I could not stand the thought of the golems I had made, wishing for them to inherit great souls, being ignored and buried.
I had to avoid, at all costs, having everything I loved be denied because of my own actions.
‘I can’t keep treating it like something unrelated to me and ignoring it forever.’
Since I was in a place with a class system and had even received a title, I had to think rationally.
For the sake of the things I loved, I had to manage at least that much.
Of course, the road ahead was a bit daunting.
“I don’t know enough to come up with anything grand….”
Naturally, the education necessary for a lord had been given not to me, but to Mark, and since I had risen up on my own strength, I was at quite a disadvantage in that I had never received proper training.
Even as it was, there were differences between the common sense I knew and the common sense here, so wasn’t I often judged to be lacking in common sense?
Since I could at least read and write, there was no problem there. But when it came to other areas, I couldn’t help feeling I had been far too indifferent.
In the end, I had to learn a bit before I could see anything or—
“…Education?”
Something came into view.
****
Late at night.
Noel was certain that Aizen had not yet fallen asleep, and was moving along while levitating a plate with magic.
Floating her own body consumed quite a bit of mana and stamina, but lifting something light was easy.
And if she did not do that, walking would be difficult.
As the night deepened, it was a time when most people had gone to sleep, so the corridor was dark enough that she needed to carry a lantern, and Noel had to use a cane.
“Lord Aizen will be all right, won’t he?”
She had answered confidently to the king, who had hidden his identity, but that had been an expression of her belief that Aizen would be able to do it, not that it would not be difficult for him.
Strictly speaking, Aizen was not the legitimate eldest son of the former Arclight family, but merely someone who had inherited its blood. And while the head of the former Arclight family had accepted him, by now everyone who knew anything knew that only Mark had received proper education.
Because of that, Aizen had never properly learned the knowledge he should have been taught from childhood in order to manage a territory, and there were also fairly large gaps in his common sense.
Until now, it had not been a problem because Aizen had not occupied a high position in society.
But gradually, that would be pointed out as a problem, and people would appear who would use it as political justification or lay traps with it.
“We were complacent.”
While helping with the territory’s work, Noel inwardly regretted that she should have yielded more to Aizen so he could learn as he worked.
She had been considerate because she understood Aizen’s situation, but as Danimus—the person now using the alias Daniel—had pointed out, depending on how one looked at it, they had created a situation where Aizen could be seen as incapable of taking the lead in his own work.
She had forgotten that handling things for Aizen, even going so far as to receive support from her main family, could instead become poison.
Naturally, Noel disliked the idea of anyone looking down on Aizen that way.
“…Lady Mina and Lady Erika also seem to have calmed down somewhat and accepted that it was a necessary criticism….”
The two who had thrown such a fit seemed to have realized, once their heads cooled a little, that it had been a necessary criticism.
Mina, who had been especially angry, was now apparently organizing future matters into document form and proceeding by having Aizen approve them directly.
The two of them might not have known, but things were flowing exactly as Daniel had intended.
Thinking that, by the grace of heaven, they seemed to have avoided an incident where the king hid his identity only to get beaten up by the enraged knights of the Phoenix family, Noel glanced down at the dessert on the plate.
“It was a good thing I asked them to pack this with a preservation magic tool.”
Looking at the cake on the plate, Noel’s expression softened slightly without her realizing it.
It was one of the desserts Noel, who loved sweets very much, had carefully selected and brought while restraining herself as much as possible.
It was a gift for Aizen, who would be working late again today, and at the same time, Noel had resolved to give him whatever advice she could for his sake.
And when Noel finally arrived at the temporary lord’s office in the temporary residence, she knocked carefully.
“Lord Aizen, it’s me. May I come in?”
There was no answer.
But knowing that Aizen sometimes became too focused to answer, or else ended up falling asleep, Noel carefully opened the door.
It was already something she was used to, so there was no hesitation in the hand that opened the door.
“You must have been so focused….”
Noel was about to speak to him with a smile, asking if he had been working this hard.
And then she saw the documents spread out on Aizen’s desk and, for a moment, lost her words.
“…Lord Aizen?”
“Hm? Noel.”
Aizen lifted his head, as though he had been concentrating.
Noel approached carefully and asked,
“Are these, by any chance, all….”
“Yeah. Policies and the like that I can take the lead on.”
Noel immediately studied the documents intently.
There were papers containing a defense plan for the territory, a proposal with some inexplicable but rather frightening word written on it—“catapult”—and documents about sanitation plans and various other matters.
They were clearly plans Aizen had thought up.
‘They’re a bit rough, and a lot of them seem to go too far.’
Considering Aizen’s background, this was probably not because he had grand dreams, but because he had squeezed out every idea he could as earnestly as possible.
Thinking that this was enough for her to praise him for working hard, Noel smiled, and then her gaze suddenly fixed on one document.
“…A basic education plan?”
“Yeah. Well, it’s more or less copying the administration I knew, so if you ask whether this is truly some original plan of my own, I don’t have much to say. But in the end, the education I know was born after countless trials and errors over a vast span of time, so it was the first thing that came to mi—”
Aizen’s face turned as if he had realized he had made a mistake, but Noel did not press him.
To begin with, Aizen’s golems also felt like he was recreating something he already knew as best he could, so she had already understood that he possessed some knowledge she did not know about, and she had deliberately refrained from prying.
And no matter what it was—
Aizen was Aizen.
“So the reason you proposed this plan is….”
“It’s just that I realized I hadn’t learned nearly as much as I thought.”
As if remembering the slip of the tongue that only he understood, Aizen spoke quietly, his attitude cautious.
“I just thought that if we made a plan where people learn various things gradually from childhood, starting with basic reading and writing, it would be a big help in the future.”
His quiet words spread through Aizen’s office.
Noel looked over the plan for a moment, then nodded silently.
“It’s wonderful, Lord Aizen.”
When she responded with a gentle smile, she saw Aizen slightly turn his gaze away.
Then, while looking over the contents, Noel quietly asked,
“However, are things like understanding golem production methods, experiencing factory work, learning how to control golems, experiencing the Colosseum, and training test pilots truly necessary as part of the curriculum?”
“Why? What about it?”
Aizen immediately looked at Noel.
“This is my territory.”
His innocent face spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world.