Chapter 21

"Hey, it's you, baldy. Did you come to sell your catch again today?"

"Yes."

"Try your best and make a good profit."

It had been three years since I started coming in and out of the commercial city of Braitburg, located within the territory of the Brait Border Baron. I had finally turned eleven, but there had been no significant changes in my life over the past three years.

At home, I was treated as a peculiar child due to my magic, so after waking up in the morning, I would finish my early morning sword practice and breakfast, and then immediately head into the depths of the forest to use my teleportation magic to travel.

My destinations were either somewhere in the undeveloped southern regions, the coastal areas beyond the forest of monsters, or an uninhabited island a bit further south along the sea.

There, I would train in magic, try out various alchemy experiments using ores from the mines, hunt, gather, and fish, and use the results to make various foods and dishes.

Thanks to this, my magic bag was filled with a vast amount of food, ingredients, metals, and successful alchemy items.

Because it was magic training, I tended to make things in large quantities, and since the food wouldn't spoil when stored in the magic bag, I ended up making a lot and repeatedly pretending that I hadn't put them in the bag.

However, what was I planning to do with ten thousand jars of salt I had refined and stored, each containing ten kilograms?

Still, if I wanted to increase my still-growing magical power, I needed to use a lot of magic to consume my magic power, given that my magic power had already become enormous from daily training.

Using high-level attack magic excessively was barbaric, so it might have been inevitable to repeatedly use special magic that consumed a relatively large amount of magic power.

Similarly, the number of jars of sugar, miso, and soy sauce had easily exceeded fifty thousand, and I had already made enough for a lifetime.

The most abundant was the sugar I refined from sugarcane that grew naturally on the uninhabited island in the south. I also made miso and soy sauce whenever I had free time because the main ingredient, soybeans, became available for purchase in Braitburg. The more I made, the better the quality became, so I got absorbed in production without even considering the necessary amounts.

Additionally, the amount of ingots of iron, copper, gold, silver, and platinum had become terrifying.

Since these resources were supposed to be developed only a few hundred years later, I had only borrowed a little, but many mines had already been depleted and abandoned.

Moreover, since no one other than me was aware of the existence of these mines, the other people didn't even realize they had become abandoned.

Furthermore, I lacked the talent to be an alchemist or a magic item craftsman. I simply stored all the crude ingots in my magic bag. The purity was top-notch due to the increased precision of my magic.

After spending about three days in undeveloped areas, I would head to Braitburg. I would participate in the bazaar as a filial son who sold the game I hunted to support my family, bringing along rabbits, weasels, badgers, minks, and holoholo birds I had caught, and use the money from the sales to buy rice, soybeans, and other daily necessities.

Rice, in particular, was a must-have item. Being Japanese, I couldn't help but want to eat it at least once a day if I knew it was available.

In this world, there were many varieties of rice, including red and black rice, known as ancient rice, and long-grain, semi-long-grain, and medium-grain varieties, which were common in Southeast Asia in my previous life. There was also the short-grain variety, which was common in Japan. All of these had been the result of continuous breeding efforts since the ancient magic civilization era.

However, breeding efforts had not progressed much recently. During the ancient magic civilization era, people who could use the "growth promotion" magic on plants to efficiently breed new varieties existed, but they were rare now. That's how it was.

I couldn't use it either, and even if someone could, the effect was limited to the range of their vision, with weak magic power being continuously released from morning to night, halving the time to harvest. It made sense that breeding couldn't be done easily without setting up something like an agricultural research station from my previous life.

To get back to the topic, short-grain rice was the most expensive, but I mainly bought it. Occasionally, I would buy ancient rice out of curiosity or long-grain rice for fried rice and pilaf.

There was also glutinous rice, which I bought to make mochi by steaming and pounding it. I could also make kinako from the soybeans I bought for miso, and make anko by boiling azuki beans. With sugar available, I regularly made things like Anbe River mochi, zenzai, and ohagi.

Being able to cook for myself in my previous life was a good thing. While I couldn't do it every day, I used to make elaborate dishes as a hobby on holidays. I learned how to make miso from my grandmother, and it was thanks to her that I could make Japanese sweets. I wondered if she was doing well; it was the only thing that worried me.

Additionally, my experience in purchasing food domestically and internationally for a second-rate trading company was also helpful.

For example, successfully recreating curry required knowing the types and proportions of spices used, which would otherwise take a terrifying amount of time to figure out.

Some might say that it didn't matter since I was alone and had plenty of time, but that was beside the point.

I also bought lunch and desserts in the city.

There was a library in the city. For the price of one copper coin, I could stay all day, so I read as many books as I could.

I had already read all the books in my family's study, and this library had many more valuable and useful books.

I didn't have much interaction with others, but I couldn't reveal my true identity, so being alone was inevitable. I was busy with magic training and efforts to improve my life, including food, so I didn't feel much inconvenience.

Still, I received a letter from my brother Ehrlich every few months, and I always wrote back. After that, Ehrlich passed the lower-level official examination in the capital and was now favored by his direct superior.

As proof, he was introduced to the daughter of his superior and was dating her with marriage in mind. Ehrlich, being intelligent and handsome, was walking the path of a successful social life.

In contrast, I was immersed in magic and alone.

Moreover, his future wife was the only daughter of a lower-level noble, so he would inherit her family. He was definitely a winner.

After all, in this world, many children of noble families lost their status in the end.

Additionally, my other two brothers were doing well as members of the capital's guard. They weren't married yet, but it was likely they were aiming to marry into knight families with only one daughter, as books mentioned that it was common for second sons and younger of noble families to leave home, work as lower-level officials or soldiers for the royal family, and aim to marry into such families to inherit titles.

Second sons and younger of noble families were technically part of the noble family, but if they couldn't inherit the title, their children wouldn't be treated as nobles and had to earn their own living.

They might receive a pension if they had a fief or an inheritable title, but otherwise, they had to earn their own living, similar to the treatment of samurai and nobles in my previous world.

It didn't matter to me, who had no attachment to nobility and planned to live as an adventurer in the future.

"Just one more year. Just one more year, and..."

In one more year, I would turn twelve. Although I wasn't considered an adult yet, I had found a way to become independent earlier. It was to enter the adventurer preparatory school run by the city's adventurer guild.

The adventurer preparatory school was a school established to teach necessary skills to those who wanted to become adventurers, who could only start at fifteen.

The admission requirement was a minimum age of twelve, and anyone under twenty could enroll. However, it would take at least a year to learn the necessary skills.

Training was generally not conducted in areas inhabited by monsters. However, after a year, top students could participate in practical training in areas with relatively low-level monsters, accompanied by professional adventurers, a few times a year.

"Sounds good. I definitely want to participate in that."

Moreover, if you performed well on the entrance exam, tuition would be waived. I could afford it, but I hadn't told my family about the contents of my magic bag, so I planned to persuade them by saying, "I'll work hard to have the tuition waived, and if I succeed, I'll cover the tuition and living expenses with my hunting."

Since my family didn't want to expose me to the public, and I could cover the tuition and living expenses myself, they wouldn't oppose it.

Indeed, when I told my father about it at home, he didn't object. The condition was that I would cover the tuition and living expenses myself, but that was no problem, and I was eager for the year to pass.

Still, there was nothing special I needed to do before entering the preparatory school. I planned to continue my martial arts and magic training as usual.

With my future decided, I entered the forest as usual, intending to use teleportation. However, today, I had to cancel it for the first time.

Because, while I usually used detection magic to avoid being seen using teleportation, today it reacted for the first time.

"Six human presences from the southwest?"

It was an unprecedented number of human reactions. Especially since this forest was exclusively owned by the Baumeyer family, no one else should have been able to enter. Moreover, the villagers had plenty of other forests for hunting and gathering.

This also meant there were many undeveloped areas, but the Baumeyer family allowed entry into any forest other than this one as long as taxes were paid.

Therefore, the villagers had never complained about this.

"Then, why?"

I was already within their sight. They were too close for me to escape using magic, so I decided to intimidate them first.

I didn't like their sneaky attitude of searching for people.

"Who are you!"

I shouted in the direction of the human reactions, and six people emerged from the shadows of the trees. Upon closer inspection, they were familiar faces.

Laila, my father's concubine, her father Claus, the village headman, and their children: my half-brother Walter, eighteen, my half-brother Karl, seventeen, my half-sister Agnes, fifteen, and my half-sister Corona, fourteen, making a total of six people.

We were acquainted, but I had only spoken to them once, at the weddings and subsequent parties of my half-brothers Kurt and Herman.

Despite being half-siblings, our treatment was different because my mother was of noble birth, while they were children of a village headman, a commoner.

First, if the main wife had no children, no inheritance rights would be granted, and even daughters couldn't be used as political marriage tools without the father's approval.

Most illegitimate children either became adopted children or sons-in-law in vassal families or succeeded the headman or village chief's position.

Because of this, my father, while treating his own children differently, hardly spoke to them. It was clear he was being cautious around me and my mother, the main wife Johanna. In fact, my mother also treated Laila and her family coldly due to the status difference.

On my part, I rarely spoke even to my real family, so I had hardly spoken to these people, whom I had only met twice and who lived separately.

Yet, they were clearly here for a reason, standing before me now.

"Please forgive our sudden rudeness, Wendelin-sama."

Claus, the village headman, representing the six, greeted me. He was in his sixties, considered an old man in this world, but looked over ten years younger. He was born into a family that had managed the nearby villages for generations and was trusted by the farmers, as well as by his grandfather and father.

Unlike the Baumeyer family, who were knights but couldn't even read or calculate taxes, Claus was proficient in reading, writing, and arithmetic, tax collection, bookkeeping, and accounting, including financial matters.

He had also served as a squire for the Baumeyer family in his youth and participated in a small-scale battle over the border between the Brait Border Baron and the neighboring Ainsbach Viscount, at the request of the previous Brait Border Baron, a few decades ago.

Indeed, he still had a face that couldn't be underestimated.

Moreover, despite being the eighth son at eleven, he addressed me, the son of my father and main wife, with no mistakes in his speech. If he were stupid or uneducated, he might have spoken rudely to me, who had no real power just because of my bloodline.

To me, it didn't matter, but the status difference between nobles and commoners in this world was significant.

As long as I hadn't left the noble registry, Claus's respectful tone was correct.

Indeed, Laila and the other siblings behind him remained silent, not saying a word. Even though Laila wasn't my birth mother and the other four were my half-siblings, the fact that they didn't speak to me casually was proof of the significant status difference in this world.

Especially in the central region near the capital, commoners could be executed for speaking rudely to nobles, not out of arrogance, but to maintain the order that contributed to the stability of the Helmut Kingdom and the neighboring Arkart Holy Empire.

While executions were rare, most cases ended with floggings.

"Alright, but what is it? I was about to go hunting."

"Please forgive our sudden appearance. Actually, we came to ask a favor of you, Wendelin-sama."

"A favor?"

"Let me be straightforward. We want you to succeed the Baumeyer family."

"Huh?"

I was so surprised by the sudden request that I blinked in confusion.