After writing down my plans for the foreseeable future I read a few books on acting, ate dinner and went to bed. The dining hall was enormous, feeling far too empty for its size. I almost wished that I had company, the original Alice seemed like she’d have been an interesting conversation partner.
Today, when I got out of bed my, or Alice’s, handmaidens insisted on dressing me, it felt unnecessary but I agreed. If that was what’s normal then I would comply. For some reason they looked at me strangely, what had I done wrong? They asked me which dress I would like to wear, and after a good night's rest I managed to casually answer.
“My favourite one please”, the handmaidens froze when I said this. I don’t know why. After seemingly recovering they took a dark blue dress from the cupboard, covered in white frills. I internally cringed away from it. I know that I had asked for her favourite dress, but I guess that my impression of her was of somebody, more, tom-boyish. From her diary entries, it seemed like she hated all things lady-like, like she was the sort of girl to slip on some pants and a shirt before going to climb a tree.
Oh.
That answers one question. Why I have been receiving confused glances all morning, I’ve been too perfect.
But how do I balance these acts, I must act like Alice but enough not like her that I don’t succumb to the same fate? Which is more important. Being outed by the few staff who knew her, or, being, disposed of by the duke. I think that's pretty obvious.
I allowed the handmaidens to finish dressing me before I went downstairs for breakfast. It was quite a long walk, but then again, I had nowhere important to be any time soon. I had been woken up early in an attempt to make plenty of time for me to get ready. Why did they think I needed an entire hour to get ready?
To my surprise the dining room wasn’t empty when I arrived, in front of me sat my new father. He looked up at me before continuing to eat, ignoring me. I had read a basic book etiquette while in my room last night. I now knew the proper greetings for a noble in the morning, night and afternoon, as well as how to meet dukes and duchesses of different kingdoms. Each with their own excruciatingly boring greetings. I knew how one was supposed to bow depending on the rank of recipient, and I knew exactly how to greet the duke this morning.
“Father, it is a pleasure to see you well on this auspicious day.”
I think I pulled that off nicely, my new ability to remember is quite advanced. I haven’t forgotten a single that I’ve read in this lifetime. Although this greeting was fairly simple, one of the most casual in the book, I think that I did that well.
In my last life my memory had been good, above average by quite a bit, but this memory, it was amazing. How easy would learning be now? The duke, my father, was dumbfounded as I took a seat before he finally blurted out his own greeting.
“The Goddess Fatoruma must be smiling down upon us to have weaved the threads of fate together, resulting in our fateful meeting on this day”.
I internally grinned, almost laughing out loud. The duke had messed up his greeting. I was given the greeting for the duke and duchess of the Dukedom of Gustallis, who worshipped the Goddess Fatoruma.
I watched to see what he would do after his blunder, but he simply continued to eat! Had he not noticed? Or was he just a good actor like I was? I found it nigh impossible to get through the meal without cracking a smile, however my face managed to remain perfectly composed, he probably didn’t even know that I had picked up on his little botch of a greeting.
Well that certainly went well.
Looking back up at the duke while a plate of eggs and bacon was placed in front of me, I heard him muse “Perhaps this one will do after all”.
Not waiting for him to change his mind about me, I quickly but elegantly ate my breakfast, cutting everything into small pieces before stabbing multiple into the same mouthful. It allowed me to eat quickly but not messily and hopefully, it made the duke think that I had some table manners, I would need to research them in more detail once I had some free time. But now, I needed to go to my first lesson and meet my new tutors.
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After indirectly questioning my personnel, I gathered that Alice was originally taught by a single, semi-qualified teacher in all of her subjects. Apparently they didn’t know why she suddenly had multiple tutors for her subjects. But I was pretty sure that it was to help me catch up for lost time.
Regardless, I went to go meet my first tutor, his name was Alden and I wasn’t required to call him professor or anything as I outranked him. As it turned out, I outranked everybody in this duchy except for my father. Entering the spare room in our home, I found Alden sitting at his desk already. After giving the proper greetings I sat down in my seat. He had been hired to teach me mathematics until I went to the Royal Academy, he explained after greeting me.
I had a rudimentary understanding of the royal academy from the book, so I didn’t ponder it. I was more interested in the current state of mathematics in this world. I doubted that it would be very complicated. Besides, back on Earth, I had taken advanced mathematics at only twelve years old, I was considered a ‘genius’. Although I didn’t exactly believe in geniuses, I still took pride in that title. It turned out that I was correct. This world's math was quite easy in comparison to what I had been learning only 8 years ago. After Alden handed me a test to judge my abilities and it turned out that this world’s mathematics was in fact quite rudimentary, I decided to get about thirty percent of the questions wrong. I didn’t want to stand out, as that would make finding a new home somewhere else much harder because people might recognise me.
After sorting through the questions, and choosing to get only the hardest ones wrong, I handed up my test before taking a seat once again. Our tables were arranged so that his desk was right by the door while mine was a few metres in front of it. Speaking of which, what was this world’s metric system? I had filled out a few measurement related questions, but I had never stopped to think about it. It was like how this world had a different language, but I could still understand everybody without going through the trouble of learning it. Perhaps when I wrote measurements they were also automatically converted to this world's language and version of measurement, just like my writing seemed to be.
Unless I purposefully tried to write in English, like when writing in Alice’s diary, everything I wrote would come out in Galandrish, the language of this continent. Not unlike on Earth and in Australia, where our planet was called, well, Earth, and our language was called English, here on Argon and in Galandriel we spoke Galandrish. It seemed that all duchies on this continent spoke the same language. I definitely had some research to do once I returned to my room.
As Alden passed me my test, I was unsurprised that I had gotten only seventy percent of the questions correct, it was exactly what I had aimed for, Although I missed the happiness of getting a perfect score on a test I reassured myself that once I began school elsewhere that I wouldn’t have to hold back. When I looked up at Alden he began to say, “Well done, I see that you are considerably skilled in your mathematics, I assume that you have been studying it with your previous tutor?”
That’s considered good?
I smiled sweetly, “yes I have. How did you know?” I responded.
“Well you see, the questions on that test were for the most advanced third year class at the Royal Academy, I merely wished to see how you performed, however, you far surpassed my expectations. You should be hailed as a genius.”
I, not wanting to draw any attention at the moment, did my best to backtrack.
“Oh, as much as I do appreciate your praise, I actually guessed for over half of the test, I’m quite surprised that I achieved such a remarkable score. However, I cannot accept this as an accurate test of my skills, it was simply luck. I would be greatly appreciative if you were not to share these results with any colleagues of yours, as such an act as me basically lying about my proficiency in mathematics would not reflect well on the proud Dukal house of Lambourg. I do hope that you can understand.”
The line about disgracing the dukal house seemed to sell the suggestion to Alden, as he replied “I suppose so, it is a shame, however it is unavoidable.”
Sighing a breath of relief I calmed down, that was a close call.
“I feel confident that you will grow up nicely, your modesty proves that in more ways than one.”
Noticing his gaze stop on me once again, I replied with a simple smile, unsure what I should say in this situation. Would it be better to agree, or disagree?
The smile should be enough, hopefully he doesn’t realize that I’m not being modest, just trying to cover my tracks. I need to be more careful, that was close.
After this… complication, I waited in the spare room for my next teacher to arrive. I believe that I will be learning economics next? The same process repeated for all my tutors, they would give me a test and I would calculate the right amount of questions to get wrong. To avoid suspicion, I got forty percent wrong in economics, thirty in management and of course, in history, geography and etiquette I actually tried. These subjects were the ones I didn’t know, as they differ from earth’s lessons.
When I returned to my room, I read some books on basic knowledge, before going upstairs to write down my plans and what I could remember from the novel. In the end I sorted through my thoughts and created a plan.
It seemed that Catherine –the villainess in the story– had been jealous of my engagement with the marquess’s son. She had organized a scheme to murder me, using her family’s resources while her father was out of town. It sounded preposterous! A 15 year old girl, jealous over the fiance of a seven year old girl! Catherine had been borderline obsessed with the marquess’s son for as long as anybody could remember, but the son didn’t reciprocate her feelings so they didn’t get an engagement.
It’d have been tragic if she wasn’t planning to kill me! Also, how did a baron have so many skilled mages? They must have been doing something illegal. I bet that the heroine discovered it at the end of the story.
At the behest of my favourite maid, I went downstairs for dinner. Today, to my relief, the duke wasn’t there. So I ate alone before going back upstairs to continue my planning.