“Bedo, how’s the situation on getting rid of Theresa and Bert?” I ask in a rather annoyed tone.

I haven’t interacted with them much, but even so, I’m getting annoyed with two of the candidates for being my ‘caretakers’. Bert, he has this depressing aura around him that makes me not want to go near him, and Theresa, since a few days ago, started asking me to let her become my caretaker in literally the exact same way, almost word for word. She’s not coming up with something different at all.

I know some people think that way, but if you keep asking someone to do something in the exact same way, word for word, day after day, unless you make them break down and just give you what you want by sheer annoyance, nothing’s going to happen!

“Apologies, Master Takabi, but our intelligent networks aren’t more developed than the basic level… it’s not realistic to expect our agents to be able to find information on equally ranked members of nobility in such a short timespan.” Bedo explains

“Take as much money as necessary to make our network capable of at least beating the average count. Information is an extremely important thing.” I order Bedo as he nods his head.

The Akashi house seems to have previously been of the mindset, ‘money is power’.

While that’s very true, spies and the information network are also very important. The Akashi are only really good at seeing the flow of prices in the kingdom, and aren’t particularly good at seeing the flow of politics.

Investing in information is good.

The Akashi house has enough funds that funding more isn’t much of an issue.

“Yes, Master Takabi.” Bedo replies

Great.

Hopefully I get information on that soon… I don’t want to deal with those two.

“How about operation cleaning?” I ask

“Around a half of the knight households have enough information dug up to execute them.” Bedo tells me

“Begin to leak information and put the main efforts of the information gatherers on getting rid of Theresa and Bedo,” I order

Half of the information necessary is fine. The rest can be left up to the knight households to dig up on their own.

All I have to do is start the chaos… and let the traitors, trash, and radicals take care of themselves.

“As for the upfront part of the operation, construction has started in most of the towns in the territory.” Bedo tells me

That’s good.

I send Bedo out after that. It’s very late at night, after all.

Then I head off to bed. Tomorrow I’m supposed to go outside…

I step into the carriage.

Today I’m supposed to do three things.

The first is to go to the church of light or the church of earth that are in this city. Either one is fine and it’s best to mix it up. I have to go to at least one of them monthly though.

The second is to take a look at the situation in town in order to take note of some things that might be good to add to the territory.

And the third is to try to enjoy myself. Go to a restaurant or something. I don’t go out to town often, so it’ll be good to take a look at some of the amenities.

Betha, Saith, and Rosalie enter the carriage as well.

Betha so she can carry me places, and Saith and Rosalie to try to get to know them a little better. I know only one side of them at the moment.

Saith as a diligent person who constantly trains his skills in weaponry, and Rosalie as a kind person who’s incredibly smart.

…ah, I guess I have four goals, not three.

The driver starts the carriage.

Past the magical barrier, the stink of the town hits us.

It’s not unbearable, but it’s still bad…

The carriage stops in front of the church of light. It’s the more popular church, and it’s also the most official one, so if there isn’t a church that’s specifically for your deity, it’s normal to pray here instead. It’s not like the other deity’s don’t have representation in the church of light. They’re just off to the side and are smaller.

That’s why I’ve brought them here rather than the church of Earth.

An escort leads the way into the church.

Anne and Lars, as usual, are watching over the praying people. They come over to greet us.

“Little deity favored, welcome. I’m glad to see you remain devoted even in times like these.” Lars greets with a smile as he looks at Saith.

Oh… oh no.

Right. Politics.

… Curses.

Trying to tie me closer to the church faction, huh?

“I’m happy to see you’ve brought guests as well.” Lars grins “We’ll show them around. Anne, would you care to show Young Lady Answorth around? I’ll guide Young Lord Rillin.”

Anne gives a light glare to Lars, but accepts, beginning to show Rosalie around the church.

Lars brings Saith under one of the farthest statues in the room.

It’s obvious that Saith and Lars are exchanging information, no?

I sigh before heading to the goddess of light’s statue and getting in a position to make it look like I’m praying.

Rather than pray though, I just end up spacing out.

I’m not actually religious, even if I acknowledge that gods and goddesses exist in this world. I’ll fake-pray unless there’s something I want that I think they could possibly give me.

My spacing-out begins.

I open one of my eyes to glance at the clock after a while.

It’s been an hour and a half, huh?

I’m getting better at spacing out.

I stand up.

Rosalie and Betha are standing towards the back of the church talking in hushed voices about something while Saith is praying in front of the statue of the goddess of Nature.

It’s time to leave, I think. We don’t have all day.

All of the escorts stand up in usion.

I head over to one of them and tell her “Let the others know we’re leaving.”

She nods her head “As you wish little master Akashi.” before going to Saith to tell him that we’re leaving.

Another escort heads over to Betha and Rosalie.

We gather up before leaving.

The carriage takes us through town.

It’s full of people working, and children playing.

Most people bow down as we pass.

The huge gap in social status is something I don’t think I’ll get used to.

It makes me really uncomfortable…

I sigh.

Even if it greatly annoys me, I don’t believe I’d abolish nobility even if I had the power to do so without repercussions.

After all, I’m a person benefiting from nobility.

However I’d greatly lessen the gap if I could. That way some benefits could be obtained without any great annoyances.

I would probably do something like making nobility something that is a pretty empty role. Something that’s pretty powerless, though not completely powerless, but with next to no negatives.

We pass by a bowing merchant with slaves, who are identified by the collars around their necks. Two of the prettier ones have a necklace around their necks, which in this world, is very different in meaning compared to Earth’s necklaces. It essentially marks someone as a slave whom is greatly valued by the owner. It’s jewelry for valued slaves.

I harden my eyes at the sight of the merchant. I’d get rid of the slavery system if I could. Something like that disgusts me. I can’t actually do that though. The people of the Akashi territory have more slaves than the average territory, and it would cause major outrage if i were to ban them.

…wait, did my father keep slaves?

I haven’t been down to the basement floors since I was reborn, and I don’t even know how many servants in the household there are.

Guilt seeps through me.

If there are slaves in the basement…

I think it might’ve been something my father could have done, from what I’ve heard of him.

I kinda want to go back and fix the problem now, but that’s not really an option socially.

I have things I need to do today.

Well, taking note of things to improve in the territory is one of those things.

I need to think of how to quickly get rid of the slavery system without angering the people…

I start making a list in my mind of things to fix.

1, Get rid of the slavery system.

I keep an eye out on the nearby buildings as the carriage takes us through the territory.

Checking the streets and surface level things is first, and after that we’ll be walking around going from building to building to make inspections. Though we’ll eat lunch somewhere in-between, if we have time. If I specifically want to take a look at a certain establishment right away though I’ll do that.

I’m getting kinda hungry…maybe we’ll grab a muffin or two and eat it in the carriage?

Ah, right. I have to try to enjoy myself…

Also I should probably stop eating so many muffins. I don’t know quite how my body works in this world, so I might get fat.

In my last life I was very underweight and skinny, part due to genetics, and part because I decided to keep myself underweight by simply foregoing from eating sweets often, and skipping out on meals around half the time.

…maybe it was just the skipping meals part actually.

Food here isn’t great though… there’s not even any rice.

I miss eating rice.

We reach one of the town gates.

A merchant’s carriage is being checked. It looks like there’s plenty of sugar in it.

The town’s the trade hub of the Akashi territory, being pretty close to the middle, and with the river leading right up to it, and the lake that it comes from being connected to lots of rivers that span the territory.

The town is where lots of pastry making occurs, with lots of pastries then being imported out of the town, and apprentices to the craft

Another merchant stops behind the merchant being checked. Her luggage seems to be lots of food.

Most of the town’s food is actually imported.

I was previously mistaken about the bread of the Akashi territory being bad. It’s actually quite good comparatively.

The wheat in this region just flat out sucks. It’s an inferior tasting species compared to anything modern.

The carriage moves on.