"Hi, Ronandt."

As I made my way to my seat at the dining table for breakfast, I was greeted by Jofferey, Jeff, and Rebecca, who were already seated in their respective seats.

"Good morning, everyone," I greeted, then glancing at the man seated at the head of the table, I individually said, "Good morning, Lord Paul."

He didn’t answer me. Instead, with just a nod, he silently looked at me to take a seat at the table.

Maybe sensing the awkward mood seeping in, Rebecca intervened: "You're late for breakfast, Ronandt. That's rare for you. Are you still recovering from yesterday’s party?"

Feeling that there was no better excuse than that one, I simply answered yes, but Lord Paul’s next statement immediately made me regret taking the easiest path.

"Weren't you one of the first to have taken leave from the party?"

"Yeah, Grandpa is right. You left even before me," Rebecca realized.

"I was… I have to admit, I'm not used to this kind of gathering, so... I know this is no excuse, but I’ll make sure to not repeat it next time."

"Yes, for my next birthday, I'll hope to at least stay to the very end of the party."

"Rebecca, I don’t think Ronandt was talking about your next birthday when he said, "next time"."

Since Lord Paul didn’t pursue, I assumed he was either satisfied with my lame and poorly recycled excuse or bored of this talk already. In either case, I was more than satisfied with the fact that this topic was dropped, as I didn’t want to have to explain why exactly I wanted to take my leave earlier than anyone else.

That being said, there was still one thing going on that was still strongly bothering me. Lord Paul was staring perceptibly from his seat, casually eating his breakfast, as if I was waiting for me to take a wrong step or make a wrong move.

This time, Joffery, in turn, wanting to boot up a discussion amidst our deathly silent breakfast, asked, "So everyone, what do you plan to do for the day?"

"I have geography courses."

"Me too, I have courses."

Rebecca's and her response didn't surprise me much, as if there were one thing I'd learned after living with them for a while: contrary to what one might expect of children of such wealthy lineage, these two don't have much time to laze around like I do.

Regardless of how casual they are about it, they have courses from the moment they finish breakfast until lunch, at which they take a short break, to then resume until dinner, at the end of which they immediately head to bed.

Having lived for so long away from people might have somewhat messed with my overall vision of things, but still, with my current lethargic lifestyle, I find this rhythm of life quite tedious. In other words, I had grown too unfit, if not straight up too lazy, for these kinds of activities.

"Oh, courses. I missed that,... I too, at your age, had courses—a whole lot of them."

"You can still attend my course with me if you want, Father."

"Hahaha, that’s very kind of you to invite me. But Papa will be a little busy today. Too busy, in fact."

"It’s today that you’re leaving for Felicity, father?"

"Yes. It is time for me to recall the majority of our knights from Felicity."

"Can’t you just ask them to return by themselves?" asked Rebecca, clearly not wanting her father to leave.

"Our men have suffered through the freezing weather of Felicity for an entire six months; they have deserved to be taken home by the one that sent them there in the first place. I’m afraid that your poor father has no other choice but to take this matter personally, for that is my duty." While speaking these words, Joffery looked at his father, with whom he shared a nod.

"I see. Another time, then."

"Yes, another time," turning my way, Joffery asked, "And you, Ronandt, what will you be doing today?" attracting everyone at the table’s attention to me.

That question came at a very horrible timing.

"What am I going to do for the day?"

"Yes."

Well, I suppose I’m going to laze around like usual.

The awkward position this question put me in made me realize that maybe I got a little bit too comfortable in my complacency.

"I don’t know yet," I more or less honestly answered.

"I see." I was expecting them to make a comment, but apparently that answer came across as typical of me, maybe, as Joffery nonchalantly proceeded, "And you, Father? What will you be doing for the day?"

It came across obvious from the way Joffery delivered that question to his father that he was a little bit teasy, but his father, with an unphased tone, pursued, "I will be leaving for the royal palace after to voice out my thanks for the princess's kind visit, but before that, I think I’ll have a little talk with Ronandt. I suppose that won’t bother his plan, as he earlier said he didn’t have any. It won’t bother you, won’t it?" He asked.

"No, it won’t."

"Fine."

With these words, he casually went back to his breakfast, finally freeing me of his plastering and inquisitive stare.

Knowing—or, more accurately, not knowing what was in store for me, I decided to eat my breakfast thoroughly in order to gather my strength, as I had the feeling that something might be on its way to shake me out of my complacency.

***

After breakfast, while everyone went to attend their own personal business, I was for a moment left on my own, before Dallas, who was the name of Lord Paul’s personal butler, the man who yesterday, beside Lord Paul, rang the speech announcement, came to take me to Paul’s bureau.

"Monsieur, Lord Ronandt is there."

From his chair, behind his desk, "Come. Take a seat, boy," Paul invited.

I obliged.

After taking a seat, the first thing I noticed was the duo portrait of two men behind Lord Paul's seat. One was dressed in knightly garb, while the other was dressed in more refined and noblemanly garb.

The hound-carved sigil both emblazoned on the armor and the insignia worn by the other man's suit made it clear that they were of the Douglas family. And based on their fairly similar facial features, they were, without a doubt, brothers, if not twins.

I was tempted to ask who these fine gentlemen could be, but I chose to not venture that question and keep it for another time.

I was expecting Lord Paul to immediately engage in a particular topic, which I believed he brought me here to discuss, but instead he just looked at me silently, as he expecting some kind of reaction from my part.

"So you’re Ronandt, Barbara’s son, and Mathilda’s beloved young Lord."

"Hum… yes." I instinctively replied, to later venture, "Lord Paul,... wasn’t there anything you wanted to discuss with me?"

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"Yes, I did."

"I see…"

He stood up from his chair, approached me, and a hand on my shoulder revealed, "I have called you here today to personally extend my gratitude."

"To thank me? I’m sorry, but for what exactly?" I asked because, as of now, I could not think of anything worth expressing gratitude for.

"As I suspected, you didn't notice. What exactly did Mathilda tell you when she sent you here?"

"That you required assistance for what they asked of you. And that I was the best fit for that task."

"Is that all?"

"Yes."

"And you came here with just these vague instructions?"

"Well, to be fair, those instructions aren’t so vague when they and I know best what I’m good for. You heard of what happened in Lilith and in the northeast fortress, Lord Paul, didn’t you?"

"I did hear about them."

"Those are my lines of work. I heard there was a Holy Paladin here, so I thought,..."

"You thought that it was to deal with him that I called you here?"

I nodded and asked, "Am I wrong?"

"That is an answer I cannot give you yet, but regardless of its answer, I think you’ve gotten too used to these enforcing activities," he said, nudging a light tap on my shoulder before returning to his seat.

"… Maybe Lord Paul is right."

"You can call me Paul, and yes, I’m right. But the truthful reason I summoned you from the Aristocracy was because I needed you to protect my family until my return for my month-long errand." At a sign from his master, Dallas came, lighting his master’s cigar, asking, "Do you mind if I smoke?"

Before I could give an answer, he had already lit and proceeded to smoke the thing.

"To protect them from what, Lord—Paul? I don’t think I’ve ever protected them from anything."

"As much as I didn’t want to, that errand I ran across the kingdom that I did was a necessary one, but I had the feeling—no, I was certain that something bad would happen to them the moment I left their side. The reason you didn’t protect them from anything was because you didn’t have to. And that, despite your obliviousness to it, was something of your doing."

"Something of my doing?"

"You are the infamous Faceless One, and while you believe you only have raw, brute strength, with that moniker comes something else, something nobles must, in their century-long complacency, have forgotten: fear."

"Fear…"

I'm not sure if I like that. But since it has helped, perhaps it isn't all that bad.

"With what you pulled off in the northeast fortress, you made your existence public to those who weren’t aware of it yet. Your nickname, "the faceless one," is now attached to the deaths of two archbishops and a holy Paladin, which is something never heard before across the continent and across the many years of humanity’s existence.

"So if I get it right, I’ve avoided an attack on Lor-Rebecca and the others just by living with them?"

"Yes, it is exactly that."

"So if I still get it right, I’ve achieved what I was needed here for, right?"

"What’s with that? Still done being our Douglas family guest already?"

"Well, it’s not really that; it’s just that I’m not really in my element here, of cou–"

"And yet, I hear you are using that boy’s precious teleportation magic to get your girlfriend to your room almost each night."

"That's—You knew about that?"

"This is my castle; of course I know what’s going on."

"Hahaha…"

"If you thought about doing it behind my back, at least put in a little effort to hide it. Anyway, to answer your earlier question of whether you’re done with what I summoned you for, the answer is yes. But that is not all. After all, you were sent here to assist me, weren’t you?"

I nodded.

"Sadly for you, I still have work for you, so until then you’ll have to overwork that little teleporter’s magic boy for those nightly activities of yours."

Now that I think of it, I really need to properly say thanks and apologize to Aryan for all the bother.

"Anyway, back to more serious matters, to what I need your assistance with. But before I tell you about it, I would like to make sure of one thing. Do you know why our Douglas family is living without impunity as nobles among them, as though two years ago one of ours didn’t declare war against the continent’s most powerful organization, whose roots and branches run rampant in the four corners of the world."

For a moment after my arrival at the ducal castle, I asked myself the same question.

With what Maa pulled out two years ago, I assumed that before making her announcement, she had removed every member of her family from all public noble business, just as she had done for herself.

But upon clarification, I realized I was wrong; only she and her closest friends withdrew themselves from the nobility to take shelter in the aristocracy’s fortress, and that most members of her family still remained with the nobility, living as though nothing had happened.

"Though I’m certain there is most likely a more distinct factor, the only answers I can come up with now are your wealth and influence."

"Indeed, those are two highly relevant factors, but if it were just wealth and influence, our family assets would have, here in the kingdom, met the same fate as they did in the theocracy and the empire."

It was when he made mention of the theocracy and the empire that I remembered what happened to the Douglas wealth in both of these countries.

As you mentioned, there is one more distinct factor that permits this to be possible, and that thing is "greed."

"Greed?"

"Yes, greed. Did you know that according to the teachings of the church, especially those of Huye’s authority, greed is considered one of mankind's most primordial sins? Ironic, given that authority's well-known relentless pursuit of financial wealth over millennials."

"In the theocracy, Douglas' assets and possessions were, like a cadaver to rodents and vultures, scavenged upon by the church," he said after finishing his cigar. "In the empire, the moment Mathilda's speech was made, the empress seized all that carried our name and carried our crest. It is only here in the kingdom that things went differently for us, Douglas, and that was thanks to "greed.".

"It was to satiate the hunger of this kingdom's leaders that, consequently, my family was kept alive and given immunity by the crown against the church’s death decree, as they knew that, alive, I would sustain the crown and the kingdom more profitably than dead."

"That is the only reason I still keep my head atop my shoulders as of today. In other words, my family and I are, in their royal and noble eyes, cows to be milked, and ultimately, upon exhaustion, butchered for meat. What you unknowingly did these last few weeks was to prevent my family from being slaughtered behind my back. This is also why I previously expressed my gratitude to you."

"Well, you're welcome, I suppose, and if there's anything else I can do, I'm all for it," I declared, ready to hear what else he had for me.

"I’ll take you at your word then," Lord Paul announced before motioning for the butler to come and deposit a fancy, sealed scroll in front of me.

"Lord Paul, what is this?" I asked, recognizing the emblem; the scroll was sealed in.

"Read it."

"This is…"

"This came to me earlier this morning, after breakfast, thus the wait I put you through; I just didn’t expect it to come so fast."

"This is a royal invitation." I mumbled.

"Yes, for both of you and me. Upon my arrival, I had planned to forward an audience query to the crown, but the fact that a royal was present during my granddaughter's birthday made the whole thing more practical and more smoothly processed. This saved us months of administrative hiatus."

"Is it really that complicated... for the Douglas family to get a royal audience?"

"At my family's prime, not so much, but now, it’s another affair. You’ve made things a lot easier."

"Me?"

"Yes, you. You're oblivious to a lot of things, aren’t you. Didn’t Mathilda teach you anything?"

"She did teach me things, but it all stopped when I was about nine, so now I reckon even Rebecca is far more knowledgeable than I am now."

As though coming to a realization, he took a pause before proceeding: "I see, she did tell me about that part, and I forgot about it. I apologize.

"It was hardly anything. Besides, that was just a convenient excuse for me to hide behind my ignorant self. "

"Is that so?"

I nodded.

"Anyway, to summarize for you, aside from the "fear" you unknowingly induce, you also unknowingly wield something no one from the royal family would dare ignore, something that prompted them to immediately respond to my request for a Royal Audience, that is, your blood, ducal blood, which in essence is one of a monarch, royal blood."

"My blood? Royal blood…"

Not that I didn’t know what meaning it carried, but rather because I couldn’t see what, besides the fact that I was the son of a Duke, it could possibly be implying.

It was even more perplexing to me as I didn't claim the heritage and name that naturally come with that blood—blood that I only had half of flowing through my veins.

"You don’t seem convinced. Are you underestimating the worth of your blood that much?"

"Well, it’s not that I really underestimate it; it’s just that I can’t really wrap my head around it,... I mean, if the blood of a monarch is worth that much, I think Maa, Luke, and others, putting aside the fact that I was the faceless one, would have no reason to keep me hidden. If my blood isn't enough to consider me, then why—"

It was mid sentence that I realized what it was all about.

"Do you finally get it?"

I nodded.

"The circumstances between you from back then and now are vastly different, back then, with who you were and the circumstances regarding your birth, the value of your blood was put on the background, for both your sake and to allow yourself, your true self, to shine, to prove your worth. To have you join the church, that was what was expected of you, wasn’t it?

"Yes," I nodded, remembering how it was once a serious possibility for me.

I couldn't help but laugh at the irony of the mere prospect.

"Now you no longer have to prove your worth. The way you've achieved it might have been overly destructive, but you did it. You've proved your worth. One that the crown can't help but see and realize that they need you at their side. So stand proud and upright. Prepare yourself. In three days, we have a royal audience with the King."

He looked at me up and down, then commented, "But as of now, your manners are obviously lacking. In the high hope that this can be fixed, you can have Allas assist you. For now that would be all for us today, Ronandt.

Thus, my social etiquette and graces lessons were revamped.