Ch 166

“Eh, Reka will remain here? Why……”

“Claudia and Bellway are coming to give me a report on the current state of Kaldia, and they’ll attend Grays’ birthday party with me. Athrun, Reka, and Ratoka will take a day off to rest on that day. Tira will be with me as my maid. I’ll give her an extra vacation day later.”

I was making preparations for the archduke family’s evening party in three days, chatting with Athrun and Tira. When I told them that everyone but Tira would be resting, Tira appeared confused. She’s probably feeling uneasy about having to attend an evening party without her childhood friends.

“……Vacation?”

Athrun tilted his head. ……Ahh, come to think of it, there’s no concept of vacation in this world. Regardless of your social status, working is considered a part of life, and there’s no such thing as taking extended breaks.

“I mean that you won’t have any work to do and you can use your time freely as you please. If you want, you can take a walk outside the school, or just relax in the dorms. Just, please tell me what you intend to do by tomorrow.”

Well, it’s not like they’ll have no work whatsoever…… and honestly, I wanted to take Reka along with me. The evening party at the archduke’s family residence will be huge, and most students at noble school will be attending. Of course, this includes Innefort who was responsible causing the incident with Reka.

Although Reka wasn’t injured seriously, the memory of many people surrounding and beating him still hasn’t healed.

“Understood. I’ll let Reka and Ratoka know.”

I didn’t directly say out loud that it would be safer for the three of them to be together, but they seem to have realized this as they nodded. Especially if they want to go out and explore the royal capital, I definitely hope none of them goes alone.

“As Tira is a maid, I think that she’ll be going outside of noble school for various things more often than Reka and Athrun in the future. I hope that she can get used to it with this opportunity.”

“Eh, but…… Isn’t it unusual for nobles to bring servants along when going to a party for nobles?”

“Well, it’s expected for those that become earls. Earl Terejia did that as well. Even if I haven’t been an earl for even a year yet, the ranking still trumps over the fact that I’m still a student and not an adult. And Claudia and Bellway are adults that come from noble families, so there shouldn’t be a problem.”

Tira nodded in understanding. She’s a Shiru girl, which already was a position of authority in her old Artolas Kingdom, but it’s still difficult for her to get accustomed to the Arxian nobles that just won’t shut up about noble ranking.

As I am a girl, after I become an adult, I’ll no longer be required to wear this type of ceremonial male clothing, and I’ll be expected to wear dresses. When that happens, I can already guess at the shower of criticism that me and my servants will be receiving when I don’t change my clothing style.

Men are the only ones in this society that are supposed to do jobs like bodyguards and combat positions, and noble girls are supposed to have female servants, with noble boys having male servants. That’s why, Tira’s education as a maid is more important than Reka’s. I don’t know how much longer I’ll be able to use Ratoka as my maid “Elise,” he might grow to look less feminine one day in the future.

Although, in noble school, I need to attend many almost exclusively male classes, that teach you how to be a proper domain lord, so Reka’s needed there, but…… I can’t expect Tira whose work is to be my maid to do things like prepare my weapons or lead my horse for me. Although, Tira herself is superbly skilled at handling horses. I still have to consider appearances and what people will think to some extent.

The archduke’s residence is on the corner of the royal palace grounds. It’s adjacent to Arktoria castle which is used for administrative purposes and the House of Lords. It’s less than half of Arktoria castle’s size, and is known as Dovadain castle…… it was originally used as a place for visiting foreign royalty to rest at, but after the construction of Arktoria castle which could also serve that purpose, and the fact that Arxia stopped having diplomatic relationships with most other countries according to its isolationist policy, it’s a castle that was repurposed for the archduke’s family.

Eric’s birthday is in autumn, while Grays’ is in spring. This is actually the first time that I’m visiting Dovadain castle, since I’m usually absent from the royal capital for my domain’s harvesting season, and I’ve been busy with the Rindarl war lately.

Lebrecht, the third son of the Dovadain family, is Grays’ younger brother, but because Eric is older, Lebrecht is treated as the third son instead of the second. It’s clear to see that being close to the crown prince has its benefits for Eric, there are rumors in the House of Lords already that Lebrecht is highly likely to go abroad from Arxia in the future.

Since Eric was already a part of the crown prince’s retinue even before entering noble school, it’s likely that he can become a king’s aide in the future, but Lebrecht doesn’t have that option. Although Eric is treated the same as a legitimate child, the chances of him inheriting the archduke family’s power are quite low. Even his cousin, the Crown Prince Alfred, is higher in the succession order than he is. And Lebrecht is second in the line of succession after Grays, so Lebrecht is basically treated as a backup in case anything happens to Grays, and everybody knows this.

“Lebrecht-sama goes out in public even less than Eric-sama does, and this will be the first time that all three brothers will be appearing in public at the same venue.”

“Have Grays and Eric appeared together in public before they became teenagers?”

“Yes. At the ceremony for the Royal Army last year, the two of them attended together with the crown prince.”

I nodded and said “I see” to Bellway, and thought a bit about Lebrecht. No matter how much I dug into my memories, I couldn’t recall hearing his name before from anywhere.

According to my memories from the otome game, I only knew about “two sons” from the archduke’s family and didn’t see Lebrecht’s name. In the game, the only people from the archduke’s family that appeared were the archduke, Grays, and Eric, just these three people. If I take into consideration the game’s timeframe which is supposed to begin next year…… it means that next year, Lebrecht should have become a noble school student together with us, but he wasn’t in the game.

I can’t remember the details like what was in the game’s conversations or the names of all the characters, but…… I’m certain that there wasn’t a character like Lebrecht in the game.

Of course, I’ve met many important and influential people that weren’t mentioned in the game before, but Lebrecht is a special exception I need to pay attention to. He’s the younger brother of two of the main characters, Grays and Eric, and he’s someone who should be attending noble school soon, but for some disconcerting reason, he never went to school in the game.

……I can’t stop myself from thinking about the game scenario even though my memories are hazy after so many years have passed, maybe I’m just an idiot.