“So, lad, why are you really here?” Garth Alavant said. “Frankly, I never thought you’d take any interest in these matters. You’d never any interest in studying the blade.”

  It was more than a fair question.

  Frankly, he’d had two motives.

  Archmund had come to the Dungeon because he’d seen in town that the current wages paid were distorting the labor market, which risked making the economy unsustainable given how Dungeons seemed to have limited lifetimes.

  He’d also wanted to assess how dangerous the Dungeon was. In his past life, there was the concept of a “black swan event”.

  To understand the black swan event, one had to understand the rarity of actual physical black swans. Black swans weren’t rare in nature, yet when asked to think of a swan, most people thought of white swans. And so by analogy a black swan event was an event that was common but that people thought of as rare.

  He wanted to know whether Monsters breaking out of a Dungeon and killing everything in their path fell within that category and how to prevent it if so, and he’d learned that he had created the conditions under which that could happen.

  All of this was in service of making sure the Harvest Festival would go well.

  In his head, the good execution of the Harvest Festival was a proxy for the general welfare of Granavale County. Whether that belief was well-founded was up in the air, but not fundamentally false.

  And a well-to-do Granavale County meant he could spend the rest of his life relaxing in relative comfort instead of needing to fight off Monster attacks every waking moment.

  In theory that was the case. But he couldn’t help but wonder if he was missing something obvious.

  In his previous life, this would have been the concept of “having passive income” in his era. In a previous era, it would have been called “being independently wealthy”.

  If he said any of this, he’d either sound like a genius or completely insane.

  He decided to trust Garth, because his questions needed an adult who had his boots on the ground. He laid out his case and his dual motives: the longterm economic sustainability of Granavale County, and the risk posed by the presence of the Dungeon.

  “You really have changed, lad,” Garth said, stroking his beard. “I thought all your questions were pretense, but you really do care about all this boring adult talk.”

  “I don’t know why you insist on judging me for what I did when I was a sickly six year old.”

  Garth chuckled. “More than fair, Heir Granavale. You hear all sorts of things about how nobles are blessed beings, smarter and stronger than us mortal commoners who never touch Gem, so it’s easy to think of you as miniature adults.”

  Archmund felt oddly guilty at hearing that. Ever since his memories of a previous life had returned he had felt like a miniature adult. Especially since he was now thinking long-term about politics.

  “But honestly, lad? I’m not sure I can help you much here,” Garth said. “I don’t think your vanity program to get the layabouts and lazy bums building houses and roads will be anything more than a waste of money, and I can’t imagine any travelers would have any love for this place more than the houses you give them.”

  Garth was a xenophobe, but this was a more primitive world than his prior life and even then xenophobia had existed, so Archmund tried not to judge this very helpful man who had been a friend of his family for a very long time and was also very good with the sword.

  “I value your opinion, Garth,” he said diplomatically. “Do you have any other concerns?”

  “The fortunes of the lesser gentry come from their lands, but are swept away by whims of Empire,” Garth said.

  There was an old poem in his old world, and a famous line from it went “the best laid plans of mice and men so often go awry.” It had been adapted as a title of a book about traveling workers who had plans to eventually make a little house and settle down, but couldn’t because one of them accidentally killed a woman so the other one had to put them down. It was a very tragic story and it was a pity he didn’t remember most of it because he was sure it could be very popular here.

  The point was, the lesser gentry were in a privileged position, but their power and standing could be swept out from under them at any given turn. The mere opening of a Dungeon, for example, was enough to justify extensive Omnio intervention, integrating Omnio-aligned interests so extensively with existing local bureaucracy that any semblance of independence was lost. Any local militias would be subsumed by the adventurer’s guilds, and then without a strong local tradition of home defense they would remain forever dependent on the guilds.

  But that was just the one example. A bad harvest could justify asking the Imperial authorities for help, and they could provide it, but never out of the goodness of their own hearts. They’d give the grain as a loan, or expect payment for it out of the noble’s coffers upfront, but either way payment would be due. And if payment was impossible? Well, they might seize assets and put them to use — farmland, hunting grounds, mines and quarries. Just like the IMF.

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  Once a noble lost their value-generating assets — that was a term from his past life, not this one, but he was sure the concept translated — they would be caught in a trap with no escape.

  But they could still live comfortably.

  Not on their own power, but on the charity and goodwill of others.

  In this world, nobles always had the safety net of other nobles to lean on. If they were clever, funny, or wise, they could easily join another household of a trusted friend as a retainer. The loss of status would hurt, but the quality-of-life would remain the same.

  But that required having other nobles as friends.

  If he wanted a safety net, a guarantee of a comfortable life even if all else went wrong, he really was going to have to go to school again, wasn’t he?

  He wasn’t looking forward to that in the slightest.

  “I suppose there’s one more thing I can help you with before you head back to the manor,” Garth said as they pushed out of the tent. While a number of soldiers were standing dutifully on guard, most were lazing about, relaxing in the sun.

  “What is it?” Archmund said. He didn’t begrudge them their relaxation. The issue, of course, was whether they’d done anything at all that day.

  “That sword on your back,” Garth said, nodding to it. “It sings to me. Gem?”

  Archmund drew his blade. It caught the late afternoon sunlight, and the streaks of crimson deep within it glowed like blood or fire.

  Garth drew his own blade from his waist. “Well, lad? Show me what you can do—”

  “I’m not sure that’s—”

  “You can’t hurt me,” Garth said with a chuckle. “Not how you are. Draw a single drop of blood and I’ll take it into account if you want future lessons.”

  Archmund had been a lazy bum who’d never studied the blade properly, before he’d been reincarnated. He knew nothing of form or etiquette, only the killing instinct of the crystalline dead.

  He raised his Gemstone blade and let his magic flow into it.

  The circuit is, as Raehel described:

  The magic flows from the soul, which exists in Numen-space, attached yet not to the human body.

  The magic is shaped in the crystal matrix of the Gem, imbuing it with characteristic power. The Gem comes to life, expending the magic. What remains flows into the body, forever changed.

  The body informs the shape of the soul.

  Bloodlust. Frenzy. Rage.

  One foot before the other. Forward with no regard for defense. Not running, falling — throwing his feet, catching himself before he could hit the ground

  Sword in his hand, light throbbing in the blade like a blood-red artery. Full offense - He was open. Garth moved to strike him, his own Gemstone blade glistening the color of the cloudless blue sky.

  Archmund struck. Blood pounded through his ears, urging his sword forward, straight at Garth’s exposed flank. He heard his conscience screaming that this was a terrible idea, that trying to kill one of his own political appointees was begging for trouble, but he couldn’t stop his flying arms.

  He was going to win this.

  His blade clashed against Garth’s. Garth had feinted, and with inhuman celerity blocked Archmund’s blade, crystal screaming against crystal as both Gem and magic clashed.

  Archmund jumped back. Yet though he thought of himself as tactical, he soon charged forth again with reckless abandon. This time, he aimed for the soft of Garth’s belly, to twist the blade and turn his entrails out.

  Again, Garth rebuffed him, Gem against Gem, and dodged back himself, far daintier than a man of his age and stature, as if he was skating upon the dirt.

  Archmund couldn’t stop. His arms moved as if possessed, and he swung forward, aiming straight for Garth’s neck, and Garth didn’t move to defend or stop, and his magic, thrust through the crystal matrix of the blade, roared with triumph even as a voice in his innermost self highly suggested that stopping was wise, and to stop, and—

  And his blade hit Garth’s flesh, and yet Garth didn’t scream or shirk in pain.

  Archmund broke the flow of his magic, and the rage abated, and only adrenaline and the emptiness that follows all unjust anger remained.

  But Garth simply pushed his blade away, and it slid off like water on oil.

  His skin was unbroken: Not a single drop of blood.

  “You’re far below my level, lad,” Garth said. “A good showing, but you’ve got quite a ways to go.”

  He grabbed Archmund’s sword by the blade and pulled it out of his hands, before opening his palms to reveal they were uncut.

  “How?” Archmund said. “What was that?”

  “This is my Skill, honed through years of training. This is Bodily Barrier.”

  When he got a chance, he checked his stats:

  Archmund’s Journal: