Bright light suddenly flowed out from the floating TV-Show, like a dam let lose. It soon encompassed his whole vision, and in one fluid motion, he lost consciousness.
“Aghh!” He screamed, his head was pounding and heavy when he woke up. Trying to move, his whole body was aching, and his head didn’t let him do anything, not even open his eyes. His eyes closed; a dim orange light was all he could see.
Slowly but surely, he was able to make out some outlines of the surroundings, he felt the soft place he was laying on and the warmth of the room that was keeping him together. He was about to open them when a stream of information flew into his head.
Information was spreading all around his head, enlightening him. It was the live of a apathetic man that grew up in a cold household – Alaric van Hialis, the third son of an earl in the Gergory Empire, one of the largest and most powerful.
He slowly understood the ‘TV-Shows’ as he called them, his previous self would surely do that. Now, he would call it soul magic that perceives the live of people and their memory, although it was very clearly of lesser quality.
Not sure why, it seemed he reincarnated into the life of the person he watched the longest. He tried to rein himself and flow through the memories to understand anything that happened, connecting the dots between the TV-Show and the real memory, it seemed quite clear that he missed many things, but that wasn’t important.
Slowly, he opened his eyes, the dim light of the candle swishing around. With a bit of concentration, he tried to stand up to sit. Looking around the room, it was truly bare, only his bed and his closet seemed to hold anything of value, everything else was gone.
But that was not true, there was one thing even the past owner of the body wouldn’t dare to sell away, no matter how much he had fallen into gambling and drinking – his father would murder him if he did it after all.
Moving around in the bed a bit, Alaric slowly came to accept his new body, it had been long since he had his senses back, his smell somehow even stronger than previously if he had to guess, but he wasn’t sure, all he smelled was the disgusting stench of alcohol from his mouth.
After a few minutes which felt like hours, Al finally sat up and opened the drawer of his night table. It opened up but was seemingly empty, only a single white handkerchief with an interesting flowery pattern on it, seemingly unfinished.
Al took the handkerchief away and put his hand on the empty drawer, after three seconds a light shone from the drawer below, which Al opened up. He knew that if someone was to open it randomly, it would be empty. But now, he saw several papers and a silk pouch in there.
He took them up one by one and read them, in a language he had never read before, but with the help of his new memory, it wasn’t difficult. Soon, he knew they were just like the one he had seen in his memories: three papers, one that included all his inheritances that he had gotten at the young age of sixteen, the age of adults in this world. On it was a sum of gold coins with a few handfuls of platinum ones, a residency in the capital, which was his current.
The second paper was also white, but it shined naturally, a signature that it was a mana-infused item. It felt like glass to the touch, and on the piece of paper were barely a few words, reduced to only one purpose: it included the deed to get a noble title. Below it was stated that it was the title of ‘Baron’, and a signature of the Earl and the emperor’s sigil could be found.
The body’s father was the earl and he could give away several lower noble titles, and if it was a vassal, then he could even give them a noble title just one rank below them, since Al wasn’t one and he didn’t wish to be, he was given the baron title, just one rank below and he wouldn’t even get an inheritable title.
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He had not used it yet, as together with the title came a deed and the possibility to open a new house with the baron title. If he did so, he would fully step out of his family. It was the last and only present his father had given him. Considering the fact that he was a bastard, it was obvious that the man had liked his mother quite a bit, still, it wasn’t comparable to his half-brothers.
They had gotten gifts and more before they were even of age, and afterwards one got the highest ‘free title deed’ his father had, making his second son a fully fledged count while the first would obtain the earl title in due time.
In truth, this system of nobility was only applicable to the count title, earned simply trough contributions towards the empire. From the count title there was no possibility to climb higher trough normal contributions. It meant that there were quite a few nobles that came and fell throughout the history, only the earls, marquises and dukes were of true nobility.
Being the son of an earl was the only thing the past Alaric could use to keep on gambling, but also because the noble title deeds were, even if they were technically buyable, strictly controlled and not to be given away to any gang boss that led a casino or such.
Al slowly put this back and he looked at the last paper. It was a contract, a slave contract. The empire didn’t indulge in slavery, but with every war came new slaves, and the empire indulged in wars plenty. It didn’t really matter to any place in the empire except the outskirts, but the borders were truly full of blood.
The country has many outposts all around their territory, no enemy would dare to sneak past them before breaching the border, which were heavily defended. There was one universal law in the empire, not matter how corrupt anyone might me: no one was born a slave and every child born in the empire is a citizen of theirs and enjoys all laws.
So, slaves were more like war-resources that would eventually either die or have their children become part of the empire, with the nobility laws and many more, the country was a large mix of people of all origin, only the royal family was a true founding family, even the dukes had switched places throughout the thousands of years of history of the nation.
This slave contract was given to Al when he was very young, his family had the tradition of giving every child a slave contract and make those slaves their attendant, the following children would be most often servants of the family.
The past Al didn’t think much of it, the attendant that was assigned to him had never given him a deeper emotional reaction than apathy and he was educated by his family to behave of standing, so he hadn’t thought of making friendship with the attendant.
Now, Alaric read through the contract, a contract of life, and he could only chuckle. Naturally a medieval magic world would have slaves, and he would enjoy it. Reading the contract a bit longer, he called in the attendant that would be standing outside.
“Illic!” he screamed, just a second later, the attendant knocked at the door “Enter” with the permission, a man maybe two meter tall entered, his skin the colour of almond milk, light blond hair and taupe eyes. He had light white attire with a slight golden touch, his clothes one of the few things the past Al wouldn’t dare to sell.
Looking into the eyes of the beast of a man, stoic eyes that seemed to only be fixated on him with no desire and only the order to fulfil them. Alaric didn’t know why the previous Al didn’t lose himself in the arms of this man, a slave of the Dari Desert, a place that would never be conquered as it stretched too far and lacked resources. He was the child of a bandit and was abducted from home and sold at the young age of 10.
The bandits of the Dari Desert were known for how they hid in the sand and sneaked upon you, murdering whole caravans. Just like his parents, Illic had learned after them and was an expert in two of the desert weapons: the Nimcha which was a thin blade with the range of a short sword, it’s curved blade with a sharp tip offering both slashing and piercing options. The Khanjar had similarities to the Nimcha, but instead of only having one sharp edge, it was double edged. It was shorter and worked well as a hidden weapon, while the combination of a dagger and a short sword seemed confrontational, the curves of the blade offered large variety, like a stab from the back with the Nimcha while the Khanjar pierced the heart.
Even inside the residency, Illic, a name he had gotten after ‘re-education’, had his weapons on him. They weren’t showing, but Al knew they were there. Not from any indicator, not even magic, something he’d like to test out very soon. No, he just knew it, it was a gut feeling.