My homeland and territory, the Viscounty of Ferdalos, lay some distance from the imperial capital.
To begin with, the imperial capital and most of the major cities around it were territories under the direct control of the Imperial Family.
The next closest major cities were mostly duchies or counties.
Even by that point, one was already quite far from the imperial capital, and baronies almost inevitably existed around duchies and counties.
After all, nobles of count rank or higher generally had vassal nobles who held the rank of baron.
Only after passing through all those other noble territories in a straight line could one finally reach my homeland, the Viscounty of Ferdalos.
One could say it was at least slightly closer than the margraviates—that is, the marquisates—which defended the outskirts of the Empire against foreign invasion.
But the difference was small, and nearly every margraviate naturally possessed a Warp Gate.
Since they stood at the nation's borders, the Imperial Family had no choice but to support them, which was how that had come about.
Viscounties were not prohibited from installing Warp Gates, but still.
I did not know whether there was a viscounty wealthy enough to install a facility that cost a fortune not only to construct and set up, but also to maintain.
The House of Ferdalos certainly was not.
For that reason, nobles without a Warp Gate in their territory generally traveled by carriage whenever they needed to leave their lands.
That was the awkward nature of being a viscount.
A viscount's power was just strong enough to make serving beneath another house, such as a ducal or marquisate house, an awkward fit.
Yet neither their status nor their capabilities were great enough to defend the Empire's frontier against foreign invasion, so they received almost no support from the Imperial Family.
Complaining about those circumstances would not change reality.
All I could do was board a carriage leaving the Ferdalos territory for the Highgarden Margraviate.
Because that was where the closest Warp Gate leading to the imperial capital could be found.
At least there was one fortunate thing.
The road from the Viscounty of Ferdalos to the Highgarden Margraviate had been maintained well enough for a carriage to travel along it.
It was the fruit of my entire family's efforts before Mother mishandled her magic and collapsed.
Father, who had retired from working as a professional hunter, still earned money by diligently hunting monsters and performing similar work.
Delphina invested those earnings here and there until they grew into a fairly large sum.
Mother then used wind and water magic to prepare the ground so a road could be built more easily.
With the money they had gathered, they hired laborers to compact the ground and open a road through the fields.
Thanks to that, a passable road now connected Ferdalos to the Highgarden Margraviate, wide enough for a carriage to travel along without difficulty.
It gave us a route through which the grain and goods produced in Ferdalos could be taken to the Highgarden Margraviate and sold.
And what had I done while the rest of my family fulfilled their respective roles and built the road?
I had simply become one of the laborers and worked hard with a shovel and pickaxe.
I had still been only a First-Circle mage at the time.
Nor did I possess any talent for business or administration like Delphina.
“I wish I'd reached Third Circle a little sooner.”
Had I done so, there would have been much more I could have contributed while the road was being built.
Or I could have helped Father with his hunting and contributed more to raising the funds.
It was regrettable that it had taken me quite a long time to reach the next stage after manifesting my First Circle at a young age.
Still, the fact that I was now a Third-Circle mage was a major gain in itself, so I supposed I should count myself fortunate.
As I quietly surrendered myself to the rocking of the carriage while thinking about such things,
we crossed the border of the Ferdalos territory and entered another domain.
A modest little territory of reasonable size.
The Barony of Ormund.
It belonged to one of the noble families neighboring Ferdalos, but I could count on one hand the number of times we had directly interacted in the past.
In any case, anyone traveling to the Highgarden Margraviate generally had to pass through the Barony of Ormund.
To be honest, it made little sense that we had never established any meaningful relations with them.
And yet no proper trade had ever taken place between the Barony of Ormund and the Viscounty of Ferdalos.
Even Baron Ormund, the lord of the territory, was a reclusive man who rarely interacted with other nobles.
There was no reason for us to force ourselves to trade with someone like that.
When the carriage had traveled about halfway through Baron Ormund's territory,
I spoke to the coachman and asked him to stop.
“I'll get off here.”
The coachman turned his head toward the rear.
“Are you certain? It will take another three hours to reach Highgarden.”
“Passing through this area made me think I should visit an old acquaintance while I have the chance.
I will pay the full fare to Highgarden, so let me off here.”
“As long as I receive the fare, it makes no difference to me, but....”
He would be carrying one less passenger and one less piece of luggage, so it was hardly a bad arrangement for the coachman.
He would still receive the original fare, leaving him no reason to complain.
And although it was a small settlement, Ormund had both a village and an inn, so it would have been a decent place for him to stop and rest.
“Then I'll be on my way.”
I watched the carriage disappear toward the village after the coachman accepted seven silver coins as the fare.
Instead of heading into Baron Ormund's nearby manor, I turned toward the small mountain beside it.
Unfortunately, I would have to spend the night camping without a safe room or a comfortable bed.
***
About thirty minutes had passed since I sent the carriage away.
I began establishing a base for myself on the small mountain within the Ormund territory.
The most fundamental part of camping was pitching a tent to keep out the rain and wind.
I found a dry, level place without any uneven ground.
After clearing away the stones, digging into the soil, and erecting support poles,
the thin cloth draped over their ends rose into a rounded peak.
The cloth did not actually appear to have been made for use as a tent.
But for now, I at least needed the place to look like a properly established campsite.
It was a makeshift tent created by supporting a piece of unused cloth from the manor's storeroom with suitably sized logs I had cut nearby.
Next, I placed security spells around the campsite.
I gathered a suitable amount of firewood and lit a campfire with fire magic.
Then I pulled out the dried jerky and peanuts I had packed at the bottom of my backpack.
Meals were important.
More precisely, what mattered was the ‘routine’ that kept my mind clear from day to day.
One thing I had learned during the long periods I spent camping in my previous life
was that I had to preserve my familiar way of living no matter where I was.
A cup of coffee immediately after waking. Three meals. At least six hours of sleep.
Turning the many things I needed to do each day into a routine allowed me to conserve the stamina and mental energy they required, making it much harder to burn myself out.
It also helped me immediately recognize what had changed from my usual life.
I chewed through a moderately tough piece of jerky and swallowed it.
Then I tossed a handful of peanuts into my mouth, made fairly palatable after I had asked Tennet to roast them for me.
Just as I finished rinsing the dryness from my mouth with water magic,
‘What've we got today?’
The alarm spell I had placed around the campsite activated, interrupting my routine.
‘Looks like one mage.’
‘A mage? What if he's a noble?’
‘Would a noble be camping in the middle of a mountain? And if he is, that's even better.’
The whispers of my uninvited guests... no, more precisely, the bastards I had invited reached my ears through the security spells.
I picked up the staff I had left leaning against the tent and quietly waited for them to emerge from the darkness.
Before long, three men appeared.
“Whoa, calm down! We're people, not monsters!”
The tallest man in the center waved his hands at me and answered a question I had not asked.
“Th-That's right! We were only wandering around looking for somewhere to camp and ended up here!”
“That tent looks a little too spacious for one person. Let us impose on you for the night!”
The two men who appeared behind him shamelessly chimed in.
The first three wore ordinary clothes without so much as a piece of armor.
In a sense, they looked perfectly natural for ordinary travelers.
Except for the heavy arming swords hanging at their waists.
“What do you want?”
I met the eyes of the man standing in the center of the three.
“You must have some reason for crawling into someone else's campsite.”
“Well, this is going to sound rather strange when we explain it.”
“The weather was nice today, so some of us from the village went out for a walk. But for some reason, the sun set far too early today.”
“We were looking for the road when we happened to spot a light. So we came to ask if we could stay with you!”
They shamelessly offered their excuses as though they had reached this place through pure coincidence.
Pretending to continue the conversation, I quietly gathered mana into my staff.
“Sorry, but I don't have enough food or sleeping space to share with you. Why don't you quietly be on your way?”
“Come now, have a little sympathy. Is letting us stay for one night really so difficult?”
There was no way the words of a man already preparing to grasp the arming sword at his waist could be persuasive.
“I'll at least give you a torch so you can find your way.”
“Why are you so stingy? You've got no warmth in you at all!”
The nonsense they hurled at me grew increasingly brazen.
“I'm not exactly well supplied myself.”
I deliberately raised my staff in a show of force and aimed it at their heads.
“So hurry up and get the hell out of here....”
“Hey, boys!”
The man in the center ignored my words completely and shouted toward the thicket they had emerged from.
“This mage says he'll share his food and shelter with us!”
At his words, four more unwanted guests came bursting out of the brush.
“Big tent, and the fire's nice and warm!”
“Thanks, friend! We'll get some good rest before we leave!”
“We aren't trying anything strange, so don't worry!”
Their bullshit was effectively a declaration that the battle had begun.
I had wondered what gave a mere three men the confidence to confront a mage whose abilities they did not know.
With seven of them, it was understandable that they might feel secure in their numerical advantage.
“I told you to get the hell out and find somewhere else.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I only came because they said you'd share your food and give us a place to sleep!”
“The tent's spacious. Can't you let us stay?”
Their swaggering attitude, bolstered by their superior numbers, naturally did not improve in the slightest.
“Take even one step closer and I'll slit your throats.”
“Oh, really?”
“How terrifying. I can hardly stand it.”
“What can one mage possibly do?”
Apparently still believing they held the advantage, they began snickering at my warning.
The man in the center, who had talked the most, fearlessly took one step forward.
“What? Slit my throat? Have you ever even killed a—”
He never managed to finish his final sentence before falling into an eternal sleep.
The Wind Blade I had prepared long ago swept across his neck.
“......Huh?”
Someone murmured into the silence.
The corpse lost its balance and collapsed to the ground with a wet thud.
It was the sound that signaled the beginning of the fight.