The Story of a Middle-Aged Knight Who Tried to Live a Relaxed Slow Life in the Countryside, Only for a Duke's Daughter Whose Engagement Was Broken Off to Move in With Him

PROLOGUE

Your gift will give me the strength to post the next chapter, the next story.

Hellow, welcome everyone. I hope you enjoy this small relaxing title of a romance.

*****

I'm just an ordinary middle-aged guy with no special talents.

By trade, I'm a knight.

Saying that might make me sound like part of the elite, but ever since I was hired, I've been nothing more than an irregular knight—a total wash-out.

This year, I finally turned forty, and the knights order gave me the gentle tap on the shoulder telling me it was time to move on.

Luckily, the order I belonged to had decent benefits. When a knight was forced out due to organizational reasons, even irregulars like me received severance pay and a pension.

Of course, compared to what regular knights got, mine was a drop in the bucket.

Still, if I was just going to live out my days tilling a small plot of land, it wasn't a bad sum at all.

As luck would have it, my superior—a high-and-mighty noble knight—was looking for a village magistrate for a small settlement in his domain.

Apparently, the previous magistrate had just submitted his resignation due to old age.

My boss and I weren't particularly close, but we didn't hate each other either. To put it bluntly, ours was a strictly professional relationship.

We weren't on the kind of terms where I could expect him to pull strings for me, but the timing was just too perfect.

On his end, he probably calculated something like, 'If I don't offer him a job here, how will it look in front of the other irregulars...?' In a curt tone, he asked if I had any interest in becoming a magistrate.

It wasn't a bad offer.

At first, I thought it sounded too good to be true, but it turned out to be a truly tiny village.

It had no local specialties, nor was it a major traffic hub, meaning even running an inn wouldn't be viable there.

It was a bonafide agricultural village where people simply tilled the fields and grew crops.

Because the tax revenue was so low, there wasn't enough money to station a regular, full-time magistrate there.

Yet, as long as it was part of his entrusted domain, he couldn't just leave it unmanaged.

That was why the offer made its way to a retired irregular knight with a modest pension—in other words, someone like me.

「Well, you don't have the guts to plot embezzlement anyway. Not that there's enough tax revenue to embezzle in the first place,」 my boss said, voicing his true thoughts under the guise of a joke.

「Basically, I just need someone to be there. In the autumn, you'll need to collect taxes based on harvest yields, but since it's a small village, you won't have to worry about anyone pulling the wool over your eyes. It's a peaceful farming community, and the villagers are generous and easygoing. I doubt the concept of deceiving people even enters their minds.」

「What about defending the domain?」

「Defending it? Who on earth would attack it?」

My superior, a nobleman born and ten years my junior, snorted with laughter.

「It's not at a crossroads, nor does it have wealth. Public order across the kingdom is excellent, so there's little fear of bandits wandering in.」

「What about monsters? I've heard they tend to appear more often in remote regions.」

Monsters—the 'unblessed beasts.' Evil beasts that occasionally spawn in places shunned by human presence.

Even ordinary wild animals like bears, tigers, or wolves could be dangerous, but the threat monsters posed was in an entirely different league. If a regular wild animal attacked a human, it was either because it was hungry or felt threatened. Besides, humans apparently didn't taste all that good to them. Unless they were terribly starved, they rarely sought out humans to attack. As long as people remained cautious, they wouldn't run into much danger.

But monsters were another story entirely. They didn't attack for endearing reasons like hunger or self-defense. Born vicious and cruel, they were said to slaughter humans purely for entertainment. That was precisely why they were called 'unblessed beasts.'

Even if a territory was peaceful, it would be a different story if monsters were rampant. It would cost a fortune to defend it. And if money were the only issue, that would be one thing, but it would be unbearable if a horde of monsters attacked and wiped out an entire settlement.

At my concern, my superior shook his head.

「I hear there's a dwarf settlement just over the mountain.」

「Aha. So even if there are no humans around, their eyes are keeping watch.」

「Exactly. Unblessed beasts only spawn out of sight of sentient beings. Of course, since it doesn't have as many eyes watching over it as the royal capital, it's not as if none spawn at all. But even if they do, it's apparently just a trickle of exceptionally weak monsters. Around those parts, wild boars are actually more of a common sight. Even with your subpar swordsmanship, surely you won't lose to a boar?」

...My superior always had to add an extra jab. What made it infuriating was that he actually came from a prestigious family and was a skilled swordsman.

「Hah, so it's a peaceful place then.」

「Yes, that's for certain. Though it sounds a bit too dull for my taste.」

「Oh? You've been there?」

As a decent-ranking noble, this superior of mine apparently owned quite a few territories. Among high nobles, plenty of them had never even set eyes on their own domains. To think someone could collect profits from land they would never see in their entire life... The world was definitely crazy.

Though, to be fair...

「I make it a point to tour my territories every few years. Knowing how my domain's subjects live is a lord's duty.」

Sarcastic as he was, my boss possessed a proper sense of noble responsibility. If he hadn't, I don't know if I could have tolerated him until retirement. I can be quite quick-tempered, after all.

「The wild boar hot pot I had during their festival was quite delicious. Simple and rustic, but with a wild flavor you won't find in the refined cuisine of the capital. Digging into a hot pot with a cup of locally brewed unrefined sake in hand... As a commoner, you'd like that sort of thing, wouldn't you?」

「Hooh. Now that sounds nice.」

I far preferred that over the trendy, pretentious food in the royal capital. Still...

(He just loves sticking little needles into his words for no reason.)

Slipping in 'commoner-born' for no reason was his nasty habit. I was completely used to ignoring it without letting it get to me. Dealing with that was just part of the job.

(A wild boar hot pot with a cup of unrefined sake, huh...)

Coming from him, that was a surprisingly tempting proposal.

(No, he's always been pretty good at manipulating people.)

Threatening, coaxing, soothing, dangling rewards. He was a quintessential nobleman, well-versed in the tactics needed to navigate the central political sphere. He apparently maintained good relations with the Commander, our superior, yet he never lorded it over his subordinates either. The fact that he knew my personal tastes showed he paid close attention not just to his land, but to his men as well—including the irregulars, not just the regular knights. If only his tongue wasn't so sharp, he might have been a bit more popular.

「Go take a look for yourself. I'll cover your travel expenses. The outgoing magistrate is still in the village, so hear what he has to say. You can give me your answer after that.」

And so, following my boss's advice, I visited the village.

Just as he had said, it was a simple little village without any striking features. The local folk were easygoing and pleasant.

Situated on a plain at the foot of the mountains, a clear stream flowed nearby. There were no territories belonging to other nobles upstream either. Having someone else's domain upstream often led to disputes over water rights, but this village sat at the very headwaters of the river.

Besides wheat—which was subject to taxation—the villagers used the river water to cultivate paddy rice, a crop from the East, and maintained a modest orchard. The unrefined sake my boss had mentioned was apparently brewed from the rice grown in the village.

(What a great village.)

I felt like here, I could thoroughly heal the fatigue from my long years of service in the knights.

I gave my superior my answer, accepting the magistrate position, and decided to live out my second life right here in Ascot Village.

—Up until this point, it was a completely ordinary story.

Up until this point.

*****

Thank you for reading. If you want to help my hobby, please download and install LDP9 with my link down below. Just click the small yellow LDPlayer Banner.