That day, Harold received a letter. After checking the sender’s name, it turned out to be from Juno.
‘Why would she send me a letter?’ Harold tilted his head, remembering the exchange that took place between them when he informed them he was entering the Knights.
The current management and representation of LP farming was still on track when he left, but they still had to send progress reports to Harold regularly. So far, there didn’t seem to be any problems because he always had the chance to check things in person, but that’s changed ever since he joined the Knights.
Instead, he went with the suggestion of switching to written reports to check on their status. Harold didn’t really like this method, but it was an annoyance that he’d have to accept.
Tasuku was aware that Harold meant to discard his engagement with Erika later on. If this were to be exposed, the Sumeragi House would be put under a lot of scrutinies, so considerations like this were made to keep his engagement with Erika hidden.
The letter with Juno’s name on it probably wasn’t Tasuku’s idea, because this would only confirm the connection between him and the Sumeragi. Well, his engagement with Erika had already been leaked to Cody.
Though this wasn’t Tasuku’s fault, from the beginning it was impossible to perfectly conceal this information, because there was no way his father, Hayden would keep quiet about it.
As he recalled such a father, Harold opened the envelope with a sigh.
The five parchments included inside displayed the profits gained from the LP farming method, all the contents and the numbers, such as business scales were completely written in minute detail. In addition to this, Harold realised that there was one more thing he needed to look out for, comrades.
Unfortunately, the current Harold had no real expertise in management. The anticipation of this fact was another reason why he had ceded his position so early on to Tasuku, this way nobody would come for his opinion on matters he wasn’t sure of.
For now LP farming is ‘being developed’ by the Sumeragi House, but is offering support to the Stokes House. The two houses have a monopoly on the technique, but their revenue in comparison to what they could be earning is average.
That said, one should take care to not become a shallow wit. Watch over what markets begin to develop while keeping track of the timing on how often the techniques were spread to the other nobles, etc. All of these were things Harold was confident in leaving to Tasuku.
Though there was no way he was going to just spoon feed them this advice.
After thinking things through on what kind of stance he wanted to take on this, Harold immediately took up his pen.
As his pen silently ran over the parchment, his roommates tottered to the back of the room wobbly, while leaking out groans akin to zombies.
Every day, since they asked for his guidance, Issac and the others, worked hard in continuous mock battles against Harold. Needless to say, it was Harold’s landslide victory every time. He didn’t even break a sweat clashing swords at close speeds. While on the other hand, Isaac and the others had become ragged on a daily basis. Their suffering didn’t end even after they lost because they were forced to fight until their strength was completely exhausted. Falling down on his bed, Isaac turned his face towards Harold, who was currently sitting at a desk.
“Harold-kun, can you give me a second please?”
“What?”
“I’ve been entrusted with a message from Captain Cody, ‘Tomorrow, after you finish your morning training come to my room.’ he said, and that’s all…”
Once Isaac had finished saying what he needed to, he immediately fell asleep, his breathing steady. There wasn’t even any time to reply.
Tomorrow will probably be when they announce how he passed their test. This was something that one was only supposed to receive after being here for a great deal of time, so when this gets out, along with his already infamous reputation, he’d receive even more scorn than before.
Little did he know it, but the reality that was waiting for Harold was even harsher than what he imagined.
The next morning, he was called out to by Cody and the rest of the squad, so he couldn’t help but feel like something bad was going to happen.
“What a coincidence! Good morning Harold-kun, how’s your mood this fine day?”
“…terrible.”
“Let’s finish this quickly then. Harold-kun, you have been officially assigned to my squad, so let’s get along from now onwards, ‘kay~”
“I’ll be counting on you from now on Harold!”
Shido went ahead and nudged Harold’s shoulder against his own.
Robinson and Irene chimed in unison, both welcoming him.
“It’s encouraging to know that you’ll be in the same squad as us, Harold-kun.”
Before Harold could even begin pondering whether or not there was a way to avoid certain death, things had taken a turn for the worse.
“Also, one week from now certain squads are getting five days off to use as we like, and we’re among the squads chosen.”
“Why now of all times?”
“We’re getting a vacation, shouldn’t you be happy about it?”
“It’s because they expect us to go on an expedition afterwards, and since we were chosen to participate in it, they’re giving us a few days to relax. Well, I wonder how much value they place on our talents to choose us.”
The one that had answered his question wasn’t Cody, but Robinson.
“Isn’t it a bit harsh to just throw us into an expedition all of a sudden?”
“It doesn’t seem like too big of an issue considering the location, some place called the Forest of Beltiz.”
The Forest of Beltiz.
The moment he heard Cody speak those words Harold could feel his entire body go rigid.
◇◇◇
The Forest of Beltiz, an unexplored land where the mysterious Star Aria race, the ‘Stella’ resided.
The skirmish between the Knights and the Star Aria Tribe in the original game is the battle where Cody loses his entire squad, causing him to leave the Knights as a result.
As to why they had to engage in combat, it’s because soldiers of the enemy disguised themselves as knights, launching suprise attacks on both the Knights and the Star Aria Tribe respectively. Seeing how they were allowed to traverse the forest, the mastermind had taken this as an opportunity to break this trust in the worst possible way, leading to a deep fissure in the relationship between the two races for years to come.
The mastermind of this incident wasn’t the one who had attacked and framed betrayal on both sides, but Justus who had incited that person into doing so. His goal was to analyze certain traits unique to the Star Aria Tribe, and capture a number of them for research during the confusion of the battle.
Without any clear reason as to why, Harold’s feet seemed to be walking in the direction of the Sumeragi territory.
“Well what do we have here, Harold-sama. How is your day today? I would love to hear all about your time here.”
“Is it urgent? What does Tasuku want?”
It may be nothing, but he wished that they had given him a warning before sending someone over.
“The master won’t be able to meet you right now, but will visit at nightfall.”
“Tch.”
A kind of bloodlust started to build up inside of him as time past, almost impatiently asking him to just leave already, but after looking around, there didn’t seem to be any valid means of doing so.
The sound of someone appearing on the other side of the sliding door caused Harold to grind his teeth a little.
“Please excuse me.”
It was a cool voice that seemed to calm Harold’s heat tinged head.
It was more than likely that visiting Harold was one of the things that she hated most in the world, so she was probably only here for business.
“…enter.”
“It has been quite a long time, Harold-sama.”
