Field forced a brilliant smile onto his face and waited for his father — Count Cott — to pass sentence.
His real name was Qin Hao, from Huaguo on Blue Star. He'd been in this world a grand total of three days.
Good news: he was a count's son.
Bad news: nobody could stand him.
"Field, you've come of age — like a lion in his prime, it's time you went out and carved your own path." The richly dressed, middle-aged man laced his words with stirring phrases, but the old count's voice was thin and listless, his face slack, and the whole speech came off like a joke.
Every eye in the hall glittered with mockery.
The count trailed off, his focus slipping; by the time he came back to himself, he'd forgotten where he was in his own speech.
The original Field had been a deeply kind soul. He'd given up the elixir that would have awakened his battle qi so his younger brother could have it, surrendered his place at the Mage Academy to his younger sister, and treated even the lowliest servant with warmth. By rights, a man that good should have been respected. Unfortunately, he was a noble — and from a noble's view, the original was a spineless, useless waste.
The mature woman seated beside the old count was Field's stepmother.
A voluptuous, ravishing young matron, she sat in the lord's secondary seat, lifted her teacup with elegance and kissed the rim, then set it down. Her phoenix eyes — the kind that could melt a man — slid toward Field. Sunlight carved ochre shadows that sharpened the high bridge of her nose. She tilted her exquisite head up haughtily, all but pointing her chin at him. "The Nightfall Territory, in the vast North, will be your barony. Plenty of room to stretch your wings."
So even bending over backwards to please everyone still couldn't spare him from exile.
A faint dizziness washed over him. The original had been bullied to a sickbed and died there, leaving Field to inherit the mess. He bit down hard on his lip and barely steadied himself.
Then Field sneered inwardly. The original really had been a fool, thinking kindness would let him survive among nobles.
The stepmother's gaze drifted lazily downward, looking at him as if from a great height. "Something to say?"
"Hahh~"
Field crushed the sullen knot in his chest, smoothed the smile off his face, and answered in a flat tone. "As you wish, Father."
His good-for-nothing father had long since been wrung dry by the stepmother; the man did whatever his wife arranged.
"Pfft~ Idiot!"
Some relative or other snorted out a laugh, threaded with a sour, vicious insult.
The North was home to two great races, humans and beastmen — a land steeped in blood, violence, and savagery. Ten years ago, the Holy Griffin Empire had used the corruption miasma to slaughter an army of three hundred thousand beastmen, and by now the place was surely crawling with filthy goblins and trolls.
Of course, the North was far worse off now.
That three-hundred-thousand-strong beastman army, along with every human and animal in the North, had all been twisted into corrupted creatures, hiding year after year within the death miasma — the place had become a byword for hell on earth. The royal house had launched three campaigns to retake the lost lands; all three ended in total annihilation.
The fiefs of the North, great and small, were land that existed in name only. Not even a dog would go there.
Most of the time, no one even mentioned it.
It was a cursed land — worse than cursed. Even runaway serfs and criminals wouldn't choose to flee toward the Nightfall Territory.
It's fine. I've still got my cheat.
Field consoled himself in silence. A flick of his thoughts, and a translucent map sprang up before him — and on that map, a single green dot crept slowly along.
"Go and make your preparations." The count looked exhausted, his face ghastly pale.
Beside him, the stepmother helped him to his feet; her near-transparent silk nightgown seemed to lend the count's withered body a flicker of motivation to move.
Field pressed his lips together. His elder brother and his sisters had all received rich, fertile fiefs — and now this old goat thought a couple of toothless platitudes would be enough to send him packing? Not a chance. He stated his demand on the spot. "Father, I'll need your support. Opening up the Nightfall Territory is no easy task."
The stepmother's soft flesh pressed against the count's arm, and she narrowed her eyes seductively.
"Greed is no virtue in a noble, Field. You've already been given quite enough," the count said, without the slightest hesitation.
The family members nearby threw him looks of open contempt as well.
"Going out there with black hair and black eyes — it's a disgrace to House Rose."
"Just a mongrel!"
Black hair, black eyes. Ever since the eastern nomads had poured in by the masses and the ancient realms of the Inner Sea had collapsed, such features were no longer the mark of the old nobility.
Field's mood soured, anger flashing in his eyes.
The original's very birth had been the count's own sin to bear — so why take it out on him?
His mother had been a castle maid, brought from the far East, sold to the castle as a rare and exotic slave by nomadic merchants. After one drunken night, the count had sired the original.
Low birth, no power behind his mother's family, and her looks half-stamped onto his own face besides — that was the other big reason Field had been shunned and scorned.
"Five hundred gold coins. And you may take your personal servants. I treat all my children alike." The count left those words behind and, supported by the stepmother, hurried off to the bedroom.
Field was thoroughly fed up. Five hundred gold sounded like a lot, but poured into a fief it was a toothpick stirring a vat — barely a splash.
Still, better than nothing.
"Hey! Field, the Nightfall Territory's a fine place — never sees the sun all year round, a pitch-black, rotting stinkhole. It suits those demon eyes of yours perfectly." Field's half-brother sidled up, grinning, his tone wildly overblown. "My fief isn't nearly so nice. Poor little Fulan City — famous for nothing but beer and goats."
Field felt a blaze of fury roar up in his chest, hot enough to sear his heart and leave it sizzling. A lousy fief, fine — he was a transmigrator; he'd find a way. But mocking his looks straight to his face made him want to dig up the brat's ancestors, eighteen generations of them.
(ノ=Д=)ノ┻━┻
And on top of that, this little punk only had his battle qi at all thanks to the original's soft heart! Back when the brother's talent had been abysmal and he'd huddled in a corner sobbing while everyone laughed at him, it was the original who'd reached out a hand.
"Get lost!" Field gave him nothing.
"Remember that flax-haired girl?" The brother didn't care about Field's expression. A twisted smile crept across his face as he leaned in close to Field's ear.
Field narrowed his eyes. A smiling face surfaced in his mind — the girl the original had loved. Later her naked corpse had turned up in the back alley behind a tavern; the original, half-mad with grief and rage, had fallen gravely ill and died — which was how Field had come to cross over into this world in the first place.
The brother licked the corner of his mouth. "That was me. Her struggling — you've no idea how exciting it was."
Field's pupils contracted to pinpoints, and an emotion called shock clamped down on his heart.
A brother only just come of age, the same as him — and he'd done something so beastly. True, as a transmigrator, that girl was a stranger to Field. But the casual trampling of another person's life into the dirt filled him with a revulsion he'd never felt before.