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Volume 1 Chapter 3 Part 2

「Nothing too absurd, I hope? 」

 

Theo said while shrugging his shoulders.

 

「Since Lord Theo is now a Baron, then we might as well take this opportunity to decide on your family name. 」

 

「My family name? 」

 

「Of course, what else could it be? Ah, don’t tell me that you have not thought about any?! 」

 

Siluca feigned surprise with an exaggerated tone of voice.

 

Only Lords, large landowners, or merchants hailing from rich families were allowed to use their own family name. It is common for commoners to derive their family name from the name of their village or the name of their parents.

 

「Of course not. I am just Theo. 」

 

Theo replied sternly.

 

「I’m relieved to hear that. Then, Lord Theo will start calling himself Cornero from now on. 」

 

Siluca says while putting her hand on her chest.

 

「Cornero? 」

 

Theo expression suddenly changed.

 

「I trust you know about it? 」

 

「And it looks like you have already decided. There’s no one who doesn’t know the Cornero family name among the residents of Sistina. 」

 

「What does that name mean, exactly? 」

 

Lassic asked, not knowing what it was that everybody were talking about.

 

「This is the family name of Jude, the hero of Sistina. About 200 years ago, Jude Cornero unified the entire island under his name and carried out the operation of destroying the monster’s nests in various parts of the island. However, he unfortunately lost his life in the process of doing so. Jude’s will was then passed down through three generations, but in the end, none of his successors managed to achieve the total subjugation of the island’s monsters and the demonic realms they crawled out from. After being betrayed by a subordinate Lord who was dissatisfied with its repeated failed attempts at subjugations, the hero Jude’s clan fell to ruin about 100 years ago. After that, there was a power struggle between the vassals of Jude’s clan, out of which the Rossini family emerged victorious, seizing the factual power over the entire island. But they have all but forgotten their duty of subjugating the island’s monsters and they also abandoned the administration of the frontier regions, focusing solely on extorting taxes from the citizens of the island. 」

 

「So that is how his tyranny became so well known. I seen now. Since you were born on Sistina, I understand where your desire to overthrow Rossini is coming from. You want him to call himself the descendant of a hero to make achieving that goal of his that much easier? 」

 

「I don’t like it. I don’t want to lie like that. 」

 

「You don’t have to lie about anything to anyone, Lord Theo. With your hard work and effort you managed to become a noble across a span of a single generation, and the only thing you are going to be doing is using the family name of the hero of your hometown as inspiration from your own family name, so the only thing you will have to do is to tell anyone who might ask that you and him are not related by blood in any way. 」

 

「Even so, there is no way that Viscount Rossini is not going to take that as an open challenge towards him, right? And when the people will hear about it, they are definitely going to expect the hero of their island to return. 」

 

Moreno looked at Siluca with an exasperated gaze.

 

「It can’t be helped at this point. 」

 

Siluca shrugged her thin shoulders.

 

「You don’t have to worry about it being a lie. 」

 

Lassic let out a sneer.

「Well, it was pretty much the same story with how my family got its name. Back when my father became the Lord and inherited the land, he took the family name of the old Lord of this region and started using it as his new family name. And frankly speaking, he didn’t even know what kind of person the owner of that name was. He just saw it engraved on his tombstone one day and seemed to have taken a liking to it, that’s all. 」

 

「He really didn’t put any kind of thought int it at all, didn’t he? 」

 

Theo rested his elbows on the table and rested his forehead on his crossed hands. And he sighed heavily.

 

「This is the best think that we can choose. After all, it would be a problem for us if Lord Theo’s name could be so easily tarnished. 」

 

Siluca spread her hands wide to the side as if to say that she was not going to change her mind now that she already made it.

 

「I would have preferred if you picked a name that would not cause any unnecessary trouble… 」

 

Theo looked up at Siluca and said dejectedly before he continued…

 

「But I understand where your idea,  is coming from, and I like it. It might be a good idea to challenge Rossini while using that family name, if only so that he could finally realize how much the people od Sistina hate him for everything he has done to them. 」

 

「It’s fine that Theo’s ultimate goal is Sistina, but what about this territory? 」

 

Lassic asked his next question with a straight face.

 

「To be honest, this territory is just a stepping stone for us, so someday we might just go and leave it all for Lord Lassic to rule. 」

 

Siluca answered.

 

「I sure as hell hope so. 」

 

Lassic said, but the look on his face was telling that he was not entirely convinced.

 

「Even though Sistina is a territory goverened by a Viscount, the land itself is quite poor, and the sea around the island is littered with Chaos-infiused whirlpools and vortexes that are going to turn most of the ships whose captains are not careful into yet another addition to the shipwreck graveyards. Even if you do manage to become the Lord of the entire island, you will not be able to expand its territories any further. 」

 

「Just as Siluca said, I want to free the people of Sistina from the control of Rossini’s tyranny and the influence of Chaos. That is the main thing that I want right now. 」

 

Theo smiled at Lasik.

 

「I thought that you would continue to belong to the Fantasia Union and expand my territory as much as possible. 」

 

Theo is currently the soverign Lord to whom Lassic is a subordinate. But if Theo’s ambition goes only so far as to him becoming the Viscount and nothing else, then that means that Lassic’s personal ambitions will not be satisfied with this.

 

 

「I don’t think the Fantasia Union has a chance of winning once the Great War will finally begin. Even if we expand our territory, it will be meaningless if we can’t maintain it when the war ends… 」

 

Siluca said calmly.

 

「That’s why we are eventually going to need to switch our allegiance to The Factory Alliance.

 

After that, we will be able to take the territory of Sistina from the Viscount Rossini’s hands without having to worry about the reactions of the other members of the Alliance. With that approach, I think it will also be possible to fulfill Lord Lassic’s ambition of becoming a ruler of a country, even if it is going to be a small one. And I think it should go without saying, but we will aid you in achieving that goal as much as possible. 」

 

Siluca was serious about that declaration.

 

At first, she thought that it was extremely unlucky for them to have someone like Lassic to be their first opponent, but now that he was on their side, she thought that having someone like him around was definitely reassuring. He is ambitious, but at the same time he is not a manipulative person. His aspirations were martial, and  she thought that his preffered style of gaining fame and recognition was to raise his court rank through military exploits alone.

 

「What do you think about it, Moreno? 」

 

Lassic consulted the matter with his own contracted Mage.

 

「Let me think… As a Lord, Lady Marine is definitely superior to Lord Alexis, and the Factory Alliance has the upper hand over the Fantasia Union when it comes to sheer military power. At present, if you were to ask me which one of the two is more advantageous to be a part of, then I would have to go with the Factory Alliance. 」

 

「Additionally, the leader of the Factory Alliance when it comes to magic affairs is Aubest Meletes, Marine Kreische’s contracted Mage… and my adoptive father. 」

 

「Your adoptive father? 」

 

Theo seemed surprised.

 

「Yes, my adoptive father. 」

 

Siluca nodded.