It was already early September, four weeks since he woke up in this new life. Each day started to go into a repetitive blur since the duel.
He would wake up, check on the daily news and the books he needed to read, train with his sword, and train his body. Then he would sometimes manage to ambush Mary for a training spar, where he would always be naturally defeated. Then, he would spend the rest of the day once again reading his notes, transcribing them, and practicing his magic.
Supported by the elixirs that he kept buying, his progress was greatly helped. Of course, they weren’t the best products yet, but it was still a regular nicety. Today, when he woke up, the first thing he checked was the changes in his stats.




Level: 39/70
Tier: I
Attributes:
HP: F (100%)
MP: F (100%)
MR: F
STR: F +
SPD: F +
DEF: F
RES: F




Seems like recovering finally allowed me to reach the Tier I limit for my SPD and STR.
He briefly looked at the wall in his bedroom. He remembered that back on his first day when he punched it, he felt like he had broken his fingers badly. Considering that he went from an STR of F minus to F positive, there should be improvements.
Affected by his more extrusive thoughts, Fritz decided to punch the wall with full force. Not much came out of it, except for a few surface cracks. He looked at his fist—it was unhurt at last.
Heh…that’s nice.
He wanted to test this out later with Mary if he could find and bother her again. Of course, he wouldn’t beat her easily, but he wanted to see if his body could take her strikes a little bit better this time around.
Then, he checked his magical stats.




MAGIC TYPES (1/1):
Shadow Magic I (4/10): You have the affinity to use shadow magic. Spells under shadow magic mainly involve giving debuffs on your opponents. At the moment, most spells you use will be very weak.
SPECIAL SKILLS (3/3):
[ULTRA RARE] Arcane Suppression I (3/6) [SHADOW]: You can channel all of your mana to entangle and disrupt mana around you. Once charged, a jamming pulse will be fired from your body. The effect radius is very low, the disruption time is very short, and the mana usage per charge relative to your capacity is very high.
[COMMON] Great Silence I (3/6) [SHADOW]: With a snap of your fingers, you can remove both the hearing and vision of those around you. The radius of effect is very low, its effects on those around you are very weak, and the mana usage relative to your capacity is very high.
[COMMON] Targeted Depletion I (2/6) [SHADOW]: This skill allows you to deplete your target’s mana. You absorb very little of this mana, and the depletion rate you may inflict is very weak.




Already, he increased their stats to more than nearly half of their maximum for Tier I. That meant they would be slightly improved, especially his control over shadow magic. The low level meant that his spellcasting was still of course, rudimentary, weak, and imprecise, but it was certainly improving slowly.
It took me a month to get to this, and I’m still only halfway through Tier I.
He needed to challenge himself further. For now though, Ludolph, his ‘buddy’ would be arriving at the palace to discuss the continuation of the Decree Bureau. At long last, they would finally start their job.
Fritz went straight to breakfast, eating the bread and milk he prepared quickly, all while reading the newspaper. He enjoyed reading ‘Glantzstadt Gazette’ considerably. They always reported about everything that mattered to Fritz—diplomatic updates, actions of the Orellian Crown, and even economic figures.
Information was the most valuable resource out there. The fact that Cecilia managed to organize something as good as this was something Fritz silently celebrated. He even had a lot of ideas bubbling in his mind about using ‘Glantzstadt Gazette’ one day for more ‘active purposes’.
After all, this thing can shape people’s minds, I imagine. To my benefit.
He rushed through the headlines, before settling at the main one that took his eyes.
‘The Royal Diet refused to raise further taxes on the nobility! Sir Tillman, the Duke of Gronland, once again called for the Queen to revoke the Noble Taxation Decree, calling it a breach of natural privileges.’
To be quite frank, Fritz wasn’t exactly sure about how Cecilia managed to do it and get her nobles to pay a bit of taxes previously. In all countries of their continent, Alta, the nobility had always been in a privileged arrangement with their ruling monarch.
The nobility were the monarch’s vassals, in charge of managing the Kingdom’s land, and the serfs in their respective territories. In exchange, they would support the monarch, and thus, were exempt from taxes.
That was a sacred social contract, bound by blood.
He knew well that she must be dealing with dangerous stuff. That meant he’d have to carefully navigate it as well.
He leaned back in his chair, remembering that name.
Sir Tillman, Duke of Gronland…Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.
He heard that name once in his reports, as apparently, he had been in many spats with that man already, mostly in the case of taxation, the enforcement of serfdom, and even something so little as reforms in the Army of Orellia, which the Duke of Gronland managed.
“I guess I’ll be meeting this guy soon,” he took another bite of his bread, reading through the contents of the newspaper. “I bet he’s an ally of the prince too. Hmm…is he perhaps a useful idiot as well?”
+++
He did in fact meet him.
I have no idea what to say, but whatever.
“Sir Tillman, I’m afraid to say that I’m not going to convince the Queen about the ideas you propose,” Fritz explained, as calmly as he could. “I don’t even understand why you have to ambush me in a coffee house of all things.”
The old man in front of Fritz, who sported a handlebar mustache, didn’t react much. He had light brown hair, and blue eyes, and he wore fairly simple clothing. Enough that he didn’t stand out much in the crowd of Glantzstadt academics, intellectuals, and even businessmen inside the coffee house.
Considering its proximity to the nearby University of Glantzstadt, the coffee house near the school’s entrance was where many of the city’s bright minds gathered around. Fritz frequented the area, as he sought to understand further how this country operated, and what the people thought about the developments in the country.
He didn’t expect to find one of the biggest nobles of the land here.
“So not even that incident would correct your mind?” the man asked. “Trust me, young lad, you have to help Her Majesty correct her thinking by listening to us. She is unpopular with the nobility. I don’t need to explain what might happen to her if this persists.”
“I understand that Sir Tillman, but I am not here to talk about policy. I came here to drink coffee, and listen to the illustrious minds of our academics here,” Fritz pointed at the people who were subtly listening to them using the small pipe that he held. “Nothing more, nothing less.”
“Then why shall you not listen to my ideas? Are my ideas foolish, wrong, or goddess-forbid silly to you? Do they not make any sense?”
“I have no reason to comment on that.”
“Bah, the Royal Messenger, always acting as if he is above the matters of the land, yet so insistent in forcing the Queen’s decrees upon the land,” Tillman leaned back on his chair, disappointed. “It’s a bit inconsistent, don’t you think?”
“I was hired to do my job. I do it, and that’s it,” Fritz replied. “Maybe next time, you should listen to her as well. I mean, she’s Queen, isn’t she?”
“Her word may be law, but that does not mean I cannot advise her about matters of this nation,” Tillman replied, lighting up his pipe as well. Fritz on the other hand took a sip of his coffee. “Ever since she was crowned, she seemed to have ideas incongruent with what her father and teachers have taught her since she was young. It doesn’t make any sense.”
“Quite frankly, I have no idea either. Maybe she hid her true ideals?” Fritz shrugged. “Who knows?”
“You know.”
I don’t really. She’s equally strange to me.
“Sure if you believe that, Sir Tillman,” replied Fritz with a chuckle.
The noble in front of him puffed his smoke.
“So when will you come back to your job, Mr. Rolentz?” Tillman asked. “The Queen’s moves have certainly paled in energy since you were ‘taken down’.”
Fritz snorted.
“It was a fluke, a minor step back,” Fritz shook his head. “I admit, a bit of an embarrassment too, if you’d like.”
“So I’ve heard. But you’ve beaten the prince quite well, haven't you?” Tillman stared at Fritz, still neutral. “Tell me, why did you accept a duel from a noble? From royalty, even worse. Did she order it?”
“Again, no comment on that part,” Fritz replied. “To be frank, we have no business anyway just yet. Except for talking about this coffee. It’s good coffee, no?”
“You prefer talking about coffee?”
“Sure,” he raised his mug and gave it a gentle sniff. “Smells nice. Well-brewed. Unimaginable a few years ago, when everyone only planted low yields of wheat, barley, and potatoes. It’s amazing what we have nowadays in this city.”
“What’s your point?”
“Nothing,” Fritz smiled. “Just good coffee.”
He briefly looked at one of the bags displayed at the counter. It had the logo of the Royal Grain Corporation on it. The duke naturally noticed it. The two looked back at each other. An amused, though annoyed smile appeared on the noble’s face.
“I see,” he drank his cup in one go. “Good coffee indeed, Mr. Rolentz. It was nice talking to you.”
“You too, Sir Tillman,” Fritz replied, emptying his mug. “I’ll be taking my leave if you would allow that.”
“Sure, sure. I’ll be staying here for a while though,” the old man turned to the counter. “One more coffee for me please!”
+++
Talking to a noble is such a pain in the arse.
Fritz grumbled as he left the coffee house. That was certainly the wild impromptu test of his ability to act as Royal Messenger, which was essential, being the representative of the Queen.
He stopped at a deserted lane, taking a while to breathe in and out.
I have no idea how to defend whichever policy she has, except for being a smug bastard while doing it. Fritz laughed briefly. Oh well, I suppose I should ask her more about it. As her Royal Messenger, I am her main representative to her subjects after all.
Unfortunately, outside of magic, and whatnot, Fritz had so far refused to ask anything too personal. He had no concrete idea of his past, nor did he have an idea of why she was doing a lot of the things she was doing, outside of what he could infer from his observations.
Gathering knowledge about a changing land sure is a tricky task. Fritz had been schooled in the art of killing people, that was it. Governing and government policy, he was clueless about that. Maybe someone could ask him to enforce this and that reform, but ask him why, and he'd come out empty. I’m not her assassin or anything, I’m her messenger, yet I’m unable to understand her messages.
Instead, he had so far focused only on getting into the business of killing people again. He only realized now how strange that focus was. He truly needed to use his other ‘soft skills’ about socializing, building ties, and gathering information, even when he believed that he wasn’t strong enough yet to effectively do it.
Alright, I’ll try doing it then. This time, I’m going to ask Mary and Cecilia more about the matters of this Kingdom.
He walked out of the deserted lane, believing himself a changed man with new goals. Someone who would surely march forward with a revised strategy.
“Fritz?!” someone called out from behind, interrupting him from musing further about his new plans. “Fritz, is that you? Brother, you’re alive!”
“Who—?”
He turned back, and standing behind him was a black-haired man of his age. He wore a blue coat, while underneath his coat was what appeared to be the blue-gray military uniform of Orellia’s army.
“Oh, you must be Ludolph Widmer?” Fritz asked, bewildered. “Right?”
The man’s brown eyes widened.
“...You forgot me?”
I guess I also need to learn how to be less insensitive to my ‘friends’. Fritz sighed internally. I have so many things to work on. Also, since this is a guy, I think I feel more confident trying out my new methods on him first.
“No, I didn’t,” Fritz replied, smiling. “So, Ludolph, I need some assistance on catching up about things. Can you help me with that?”