Prologue – Blocked Path and New Future
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T/N: Second replacement series for Allrounders!! Also stocking up at the moment. 🙂
I finished my life as 『Nagiri Kotaro』 at an age of 32 in an accident. Right now I’m existing on the world of Worthrune as fifteen-years-old priest with the name 『Albert』. The people of the Alexa Kingdom, my current place of living, also refer to me as 『Crown Jewel of Wisdom』.
What I perceived next after dying as 『Nagiri Kotaro』 was me having been abandoned as a baby in front of the orphanage next to the Temple of Wisdom in Alexa. As soon as I grew up to the level where I could talk, I displayed my knowledge of simple calculations which were more than easy for me as I still retained all my memories, succeeding in earning myself a high evaluation in the temple.
Thanks to that, the temple allowed me to study at the Great Library of Wisdom which was also situated on the temple’s compound. And then, because of my ceaseless pursuit of Worthrune’s knowledge and the existence of my knowledge of modern Japan, I was appointed as youngest Priest of Knowledge.
After becoming a priest, I gave advice on how to resolve difficult issues of national politics, resulting in the king also holding me in high esteem. I was told that my appointment as court noble――what you can basically call a bureaucrat――was right around the corner.
By the way, it was discovered at an age of twelve when I was appointed to become a Priest of Knowledge, but I was apparently gifted with a cheat power called 『Ability to See through Other’s Limits in Talent』. I guessed that the numbers I could see had to be the maximum values of the target’s talents because the values of many people didn’t change even a bit during my observations across three years since having been granted that power.
This world of Worthrune has no magic, and although demihumans exist, I couldn’t confirm the existence of any people having cheat powers such as skills, so I always considered cheats to be non-existent.
Given that I was curious about it, I looked up the power dwelling inside me at the Great Library. There I found records of a great man called Episode having lived in another country in the past. He seemed to be a reincarnator and had been gifted with a mysterious power.
Because of that, I surmised that the power given to me was probably something limited to reincarnators. My power displayed the stats (maximum talent values) of the person I used it on. Stats such as valor, leadership, intelligence, domestic affairs, or charm――basically everything you’d also find in games――were revealed as numbers. On top of that, it had the neat feature of displaying the three sizes of women.
However, it was necessary for me to stare at a person from a fairly close distance for my power to work.
Because of the king’s trust given to me as 『Crown Jewel of Wisdom』 and my usage of my cheat power, I kept running up the ladder of success. I increased my connections with people who had talents in all sorts of fields and whom I expected to make a career in the future. You could say that my life after reincarnating was going pretty damn well.
However, even my second life, which had been anticipated to follow such a track, apparently came to an end at this point.
After having been summoned, my superiors and senior priests lined up in front of me and hurled insults at me with bright red faces.
“We didn’t expect you, who exhibited such an excellence, to be that much of a fool, but it looks like we made a grave mistake there. For you to do something so stupid that even a baby would know not to do is just unbelievable!”
“Displeasing royalty; you’re truly unfit to be a priest!”
“Moreover, secretly advising the king about the behavior of royalty during a banquet hosted by the royal family is the height of stupidity!”
“What do you plan to do if the evaluation of the Priests of Wisdoms plummets, preventing us from being appointed as bureaucrats, because His Highness Orgus complained about us to the king!? Will you be able to take responsibility for that!?”
Ever since I was a little child I thought that this country was rotten, but it seems like the corruption has reached far deeper than I expected.
Normally, priests would serve their respective god, but the Alexa Kingdom used its priests, the intelligentsia, as bureaucrats to run the kingdom. For this reason, sons of nobles and merchants, who couldn’t inherit their families because of them being being born as third sons and or later, gathered at the temple, aiming to become bureaucrats who were seen as court nobles.
I had also demonstrated my outstanding talent to safely survive in this other world and believed that I had no choice but to serve the kingdom as a court noble. But, just when I thought I could finally become a bureaucrat myself, this uproar occurred.
The incident which led to this uproar happened half a year ago. It concerned an unrelated young, pretty woman whom I saved out on the streets of the royal capital. That woman was targeted by delinquents and I saved her just when they were about to kidnap her.
You can’t say that I didn’t have an ulterior motive with this. After looking at her through my power, I was charmed by the talents she possessed and judged that I should save her.
Well, if things had ended at that point, it wouldn’t have been much of a problem. However, what made the whole situation worse was the fact of these delinquents being goons of First Prince Orgus, who got them recently appointed to higher posts to make it even easier to use them as tools.
Those goons had changed the country they were serving many times. They were the sons of the lords of Sura, Zaysan, and Benia. These territories all lay at Alexa’s border and their lords were known for being corrupt and crooked to no end. Just the circumstance of their sons becoming the goons of Orgus, who was the first in line of the crown succession, was already strange by itself.
When I tried to investigate it since I found it slightly odd, I discovered that those young nobles had been hunting for good-looking, young women in the capital, dragged them into brothels, and made a good amount of money from forcing those women to sell their bodies. Later they would give that money to Orgus.
As those guys were paying him, Orgus naturally knew of their business and since it brought him nice cash on the side, he made sure that their little scheme wouldn’t be discovered by the guards while also covering up all the frauds carried out by their families.
Hence it’s no wonder that Orgus is being scorned as 『Idiot Prince』 by the kingdom’s citizens behind his back.
When I greeted him during the banquet held by the king, I used my power on him. This is the result:
- Name: Orgus Daidalos
- Age: 28
- Gender: Male
- Race: Human
- Valor: 12
- Leadership: 14
- Intelligence: 21
- Domestic Affairs: 5
- Charm: 3
- Status: Prince of Alexa Kingdom, First in the Line of Crown Succession
I finished checking the maximum values of his talents. Basically, one needs to know that the limit of abilities is capped, no matter how hard you train. And just as he reputation went, Orgus was an idiot.
Having said that, he’s going to be the lord I’ll serve in the future. It’s one thing if he’s just dumb, but I’d be extremely troubled if he turns out to be a tyrant.
Therefore I whispered into the ear of the king in a deserted place of the venue, informing him that his first son supports his goons’ crooked business and that he covers up the evil deeds of their families. I suggested the king to remonstrate his son.
When I did, people immediately found out that I was the source of the ensuing uproar. To be very blunt, Orgus was such an idiot that he surpassed even my wildest imaginations.
“Forgive me… It was my blunder to have offered the king a rash suggestion without considering the other royals.”
Just like in modern Japan, I was made out to be the evil one here by him abusing his power. In Japan things would be over with me losing my social position, but in this world you’d easily lose your life if a powerful person had an eye on you.
Seeing how this had caused problems for one in power, I’d have no choice but to keep my head down, which I didn’t want to do, and stay under the radar until Orgus’s mood had changed.
But, if I think like that, it’s equal to my second life having ended then and there.
“His Highness Orgus has asked how the temple intends to punish you! Since the other party is royalty, a harsh punishment will be waiting for you!” The head priest, the highest authority of the temple, shouted, foam flying from his mouth and his head bright red.
It looks like my career path has been closed off for the sake of the temple getting on the prince’s good side again…
The last days of a priest shunned by nobles and royalty consisted of either missionary work in the sticks or being an errand boy in the temple. Something like becoming a bureaucrat is now out of reach. My dreams of forging unshakable personal connections inside Alexa as soon as I advanced to being a court noble, possessing loads of wives in this world where polygamy is allowed, and living in ease and comfort has been shattered like a fleeting thing due to my own mistake.
“Very well. I shall stay under house arrest at my own place until my punishment has been decided by the temple.”
“Yeah, do that! How dare you cause us such troubles after we raised you as an orphan and even promoted you to priesthood, you ungrateful bastard!”
“Please forgive me.”
After bowing to the head priest and the senior priests, I quickly left the temple located in the outskirts of the capital and went back to the place I had been renting in a corner of the capital ever since I became a priest.
When I entered the house, a young woman with an extremely nice figure, brown eyes and short-cut, light-brown hair was in the middle of cheerfully doing the housework.
Her name is Lichere and her abilities are as follows:
- Name: Lichere
- Age: 17
- Gender: Female
- Race: Human
- Valor: 22
- Leadership: 18
- Intelligence: 69
- Domestic Affairs: 23
- Charm: 74
- Three Sizes: B94 (H-Cup) W56 H88
- Status: Commoner of Alexa Kingdom
She’s the girl I rescued just when she was about to be dragged off into the brothel run by Orgus’s goons. I wasn’t only charmed by her looks, but also her abilities. I have her handle various tasks for me while also entrusting the housekeeping to her.
“Albert-sama, welcome back. I had expected you to come back later today.”
“Lichere, things have developed beyond my plans. It looks like it has become impossible to succeed in this country. I’m under house arrest until my punishment has been decided.”
“I…see.”
Without being perturbed by my words, Lichere started to brew tea for me in a practiced manner.
“So, what do you intend to do?”
“What do you think would be the best?”
“I feel like you are always telling me to not answer a question with a question, Albert-sama. At any rate, now that you have lost your chance to make a career in Alexa, you are going to implement your second plan, aren’t you?”
Lichere held the cup with piping-hot tea out to me without a change in her expression. As I took a sip of the tea, I cut my lingering attachments towards Alexa where I lived for fifteen years.
A country, which has rot spreading at various places of its foundation, will very likely vanish altogether after the dumb prince causes a collapse of internal affairs. And even if you have worked your way through the ranks in such a country, nobles will become nothing more than common people once the country ceases to exist.
If possible I wanted to make a career as bureaucrat, gain the king’s trust, reform the rotten country while suppressing the dumb prince, and make sure that it won’t be destroyed by another country. Of course, all of this would have been for the sake of securing my own livelihood, but definitely not for the sake of the kingdom.
But, now that this path has been closed off, I must enact the second plan which I had secretly prepared in advance. My knowledge and abilities won’t be of any use, if my future lord doesn’t listen to my advice, no matter how smart or dumb they might be.
“Yeah, that’s right. My advice, which I had secretly provided to the king, was leaked somewhere, resulting in Orgus now targeting me. As such, a career in this country has become impossible. That’s why we’ll carry out the second plan.”
“I understand. In accordance with the plan of action decided by you, I will also inform our business partners about us enacting the second plan.”
The other task I have entrusted to Lichere besides housework is to supervise the intelligence agency that I planned to use when I became a bureaucrat. It’s a company trading in grain which I basically own. I’ve asked her, who possesses high values in Intelligence and Charm, to manage the various information about Alexa gathered for us by our trade partners.
“Yeah, please do that. Also, I’m sorry Lichere, but I’d like you to promote me to Malida of the Erwin Mercenary Band who’s rumored to have an extreme weakness for pretty women. If she were to welcome me, who is Alexa’s Crown Jewel of Wisdom, she will be able to go back to her home where she had been banished, and I’ll be able to build an army for her which will be more than capable to freely fight any battles she wishes to fight.”
According to the intelligence I received from Lichere, former Baroness Malida von Erwin of the Elancia Empire was exiled from her home country after causing some sort of problem. There were talks about her wandering the lands of Alexa while leading a mercenary band.
『Bloody Oni』 Malida. 1
In spite of being a young woman, she’s the strongest warrior of the Elancia Empire, a demihuman country. It’s said mountains of corpses adorn her path whenever she steps onto a battlefield. She’s a female commander whose name is known wide and far in the neighboring countries.
Moreover, the soldiers led by her belong to the same race as her, the 『Oni』. When it comes to personal combat, they’re the world’s strongest race. It’s said one oni soldier can defeat 100 ordinary human soldiers. They can also draw their bows so far back that they can shoot down a commander-in-chief who’s situated far in the rear, and they wrap up duels in one bout.
That battle group consisting of the strongest race is the 『Erwin Mercenary Band』. I heard Alexa is deeply troubled with them as well as they can’t subjugate that mercenary band which has been looting various places within its territory.
“Let me confirm once more: Albert-sama, you truly intend to serve Malida von Erwin.”
“Yea, I plan to make it possible for her to return to her homeland while at the same time also making a career myself. I wish to serve a lord who holds the possibility that they take my opinion into account.”
If a beauty such as Lichere visits her as messenger, Malida should at least listen to our story. Besides, I’ve also heard that various problems have cropped up for her after having loitered around in an enemy nation for close to two years.
Therefore, she should desire my knowledge, if my predictions aren’t completely off.
“I understand. I shall offer my body for the sake of my lifesaver’s ambition,” she said with moist eyes.
I placed a hand on Lichere’s shoulder, “I leave my life in your hands, Lichere.”
“I will go to Malida-sama right away and promote your wisdom so much that she will inevitably desire you to work for her!”
“Alright, I’m counting on you.”
Lichere swiftly finished all preparations and headed to the town believed to be currently occupied by the Erwin Mercenary Band. Ten days after Lichere had left, a messenger from the temple visited my home, telling me that the temple had decided on my punishment.
After getting dressed, I went to the temple together with the messenger.
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