AWDC Chapter 88

I have one of the few close nobles, Baron Starfen. He owns territory midway between Toriholi and Milona in the south, and since we are close in age, we have a friendly relationship. Another reason we became close was that he asked me for agricultural guidance. When he inherited the family estate about 13 years ago, the farmland in his territory was depleted, and he couldn’t expect a good harvest. Unlike Toriholi, which is in the remote frontier, the Starfen territory has good transportation access, with a decent number of merchants and craftsmen. Although not exactly wealthy, it has enough economic power to maintain the appearance of a noble. However, in this era, agriculture is the foundation of the economy, and the inability to expect a good harvest of crops was a major headache for him.

So, when he came to Toriholi and observed the state of the Datar development project, he was surprised by the excellent quality of the crops being grown in the village. He pleaded with the lord to teach him the secrets of agriculture, which is how he and I got acquainted. He was thinking of doing something to help the struggling farmers. I sympathized with his attitude and guided him around to the main farms.

“This farmer is one of the first families to start farmland reform eight years ago. When the land becomes fertile, the crops grow well.”

“This lush wheat field is wonderful,” he said with admiration.

“I’m glad you say that. The climate isn’t that different in this region, so I think you can do the same in your territory.”

“I wish I had come to see this sooner. Please teach my people the basics of agriculture.”

He was not one to be bound by the dignity of a noble. In his father’s time, Toriholi was ridiculed by everyone as a place where only potatoes could grow, and no one paid any attention to it. Naturally, no one would come to Toriholi to learn agriculture. However, he even lowered his head to me, who was also a retainer of a noble, and asked me to teach him. Naturally, I started visiting his territory and teaching the farmers there.

Since then, we have had a family-to-family relationship. We were both newly married, and our wives and children were close in age. More than anything, our economic circumstances were similar. Toriholi Village was finally starting to get paper production on track, but the development of the Datar Plateau had just begun, and it was still poor. His territory had also been continuously cultivated for a long time, and the crops were not growing well, so the economic situations were similar. The fact that we were both struggling with territorial management strengthened our trust.

As the development of the Datar Plateau progressed smoothly, the harvest of crops was also increasing at the farms in his territory.

“It’s growing well,” I said, giving my impressions while touring the farms that had received my agricultural guidance.

“It’s all thanks to you. When I inherited this land from my father, I was worried about how I was going to manage it. I never thought it would turn out this well just by imitating Toriholi’s methods.”

In his territory, the farmers became wealthier, and commerce was also flourishing along with it.

On the other hand, other nobles didn’t seem to think much of it. For nobles, status and honor are the most important things. That’s why many nobles live in the capital, where they take high-ranking positions and try to gain honor. To that end, they thought that selling themselves in noble society was the most important thing. It was when I was enthusiastically providing agricultural guidance in the capital that the Toriholi farming method spread in the southern region. In the suburbs of the capital, I was reforming agriculture under my authority, but in the southern region, farmers independently began to imitate the methods of Toriholi and Starfen. The southern nobles knew that I was providing agricultural guidance in the capital, and even when the harvest started to increase, they didn’t think to spread it to the farmers in their territories. They couldn’t change their nature of valuing noble appearances.

Starfen, in that respect, could be said to have a mindset unlike that of an ordinary noble. He was quite an oddball, having given up on the competition for success in the capital early on and started living in the countryside.

As an aside, Elliot and Richter had already spread the Toriholi farming method in their territories. There was no way those shrewd men wouldn’t recommend something that was working well in Toriholi in their own territories. They spread the Toriholi farming method in a manner almost like a lord’s command. They even called me to their territories and asked for improvements and advice. Moreover, they didn’t pay me a single Zeni for the guidance.

“You and I are friends, isn’t it natural to teach for free?” was written all over their faces.

Anyway, Starfen and I deepened our friendship. After I started living in the capital, I always stopped by to greet him whenever I returned to the village.

I thought that even if our positions changed, our unwavering trust would continue.

Even when I was driven out of the capital by the coup and stopped by with my family, he greeted me with the same smile as always.

We were planning to discuss the situation in the capital and future measures.

He led me into the reception room, and as I was about to sit down on the sofa, he held a knife in his hand, and his arm stretched out toward my chest.

I was completely off guard. I couldn’t dodge the knife, and its tip pierced my clothes on my chest.

It was supposed to pierce my heart.

The knife had pierced my jacket, but it couldn’t penetrate the chainmail underneath and didn’t reach my heart.

The chest area had a thin iron plate, like a modern bulletproof vest. And Starfen, although he had received military training more than a commoner, was an amateur.

If it had been a thrust from a strong soldier, it might have pierced the iron plate, but his skill wasn’t that high.

It was fortunate that I had been wearing chainmail close to my body for safety since being driven out of the capital by the coup.

When Starfen failed to stab me to death, he raised the knife and slashed at me. His face was not in its right mind, his pupils narrowed to a point and his eyebrows raised.

“What are you doing?” I said, and struck his neck with a knife-hand strike.

“Eek!” Turning around, his wife was standing near the door with tea. It must have been a secret meeting, so his wife herself had brought the tea.

“Don’t worry, Starfen is safe,” I said, reassuring her, who was pale, as he collapsed. He had only lost consciousness.

“Keep this a secret from everyone. Can you tell me if something has happened to him?”

“My husband was the same as always,” she said in a trembling voice.

I felt that his sudden change was being manipulated by someone.

“By any chance, has he met with Bishop Hofer recently?” I asked, thinking it was unlikely.

“My husband was summoned to the capital by Hofer a month ago. He just returned three days ago.”

I was right. Hofer had ordered Starfen to do something.

“I won’t do anything bad to him. I’ll examine his condition for a while. Don’t let anyone approach this room. Keep it a secret from my family too.”

“I understand,” she replied firmly, still pale, but behaving like a noble’s wife.

Fortunately, my children had gone out to play with the children here, and Margarita was watching over them. The servants here hadn’t noticed this either.

Starfen regained consciousness after a while. His hands and feet were tied to a chair to prevent him from moving. He seemed confused, not knowing what had happened to him. In front of him, I slowly swung a round paperweight hanging from a string. The paperweight was borrowed from his desk, where it was well-polished and shiny. He showed interest in it, and his pupils moved from side to side, staring at it as if chasing it.

I had taken psychiatry classes in my student days and had also imitated hypnosis out of curiosity. At that time, I was also taught how to release those who had been hypnotized.

Although I wasn’t an expert, that experience was helpful.

Perhaps because we were close friends and he wasn’t wary of me, he entered a hypnotic state quickly.

“You are getting sleepy.” He fell into a deep sleep while sitting in the chair.

“You are now meeting with Bishop Hofer. You can hear the bishop’s voice. What is he saying?”

“When you are alone with Misaki, stab him to death!”

The trigger was sitting facing me in the chair. The moment he saw that, he remembered what he had been ordered to do.

He told me everything that the bishop had told him.

As I thought, Hofer had tried to kill me by using a technique called post-hypnotic suggestion to put Starfen under a spell.

Post-hypnotic suggestion is an extremely advanced form of suggestion in which the subject is made to remember and carry out an order after a certain trigger.

Moral behavior is easier to manipulate people with suggestion. If the hypnotist tells you to decorate the room with beautiful flowers, you will obey obediently. Conversely, immoral acts are rejected. Murder is a very conscientious act, and the hurdle is high to get someone to carry it out.

Normally, you can’t order someone to “kill someone” using hypnosis.

Starfen was inwardly jealous of my success in the capital. Hofer skillfully took advantage of this.

“The reason you can’t succeed is because Misaki is in the way. Misaki is after your life and your property. To prevent this, you must kill Misaki.” He incited his desire to kill me with lies.

But even if Starfen harbored jealousy toward me, Hofer’s cunning and terrifying skill was in taking advantage of it so well.

Also, the fact that even the so high-minded Starfen had dark thoughts about me made me realize the depth of darkness in the human heart.