Chapter 1 - Episode 1: A Lovable Territory
"So this is the territory where we'll be living from today. My dreams are expanding. I'm so happy, so happy I could vomit. Right, Matilda?"
"It is exactly as you say, Noein-sama."
Facing a forest that continued deeply, deeply, deeply, deeply, stupidly deep, Noein Arqvist spat out those impressions.
The one showing agreement beside him was Matilda, a beast-person woman of the rabbit variety who was his slave and, for the time being, his only attendant.
"I suppose there's no point in lamenting. Let us take our first step into this lovable piece-of-shit territory, Matilda."
"Yes. I shall serve you forever, Noein-sama."
Despite saying so, in a forest where no human hand had ever intervened, there were not even beast paths.
Therefore, the one taking the actual first step was not Noein, but the Wood Golems he controlled... in other words, wooden dolls.
Two dolls, each over two meters in height and possessing a sturdy strength befitting that size. They stood before him, pulling up thickets, snapping obstructive branches, and walking while trampling the grass.
Noein followed behind them, Matilda followed behind him, and at the very rear, a Wood Golem modeled after a horse followed, pulling a small carriage.
.....
A little over three months prior, in the capital of the Count Kivileft territory located in the southern part of the Lordberg Kingdom, Noein had been confronting Maximilian Kivileft, the current head of the Count Kivileft house and his own biological father.
There was no ease or familiarity between them as parent and child. An oppressive atmosphere, most fittingly described as a "confrontation," drifted between them.
"...It has been a long time, Noein."
"Yes. Father... no, His Excellency Count Kivileft."
"Though you are a bastard born between me and a servant, it has become known to those around us that you are a child who shares my blood. It is truly a nuisance... that is why I fed you until you reached adulthood at fifteen. That ends now. Today is the last time I shall look upon that hateful face of yours."
Facing the nervous-looking man who spoke those words with a bitter expression, Noein maintained a smile to the end.
"...However, since you are, for all intents and purposes, a son who shares my blood, I shall grant you a small exclave territory once bestowed upon our Count house by His Majesty the King, along with the Arqvist Knightly title attached to it. You may do as you please with it, whether it be land reclamation or whatever else."
Maximilian smirked while speaking in a condescending tone.
"An exclave territory and a Knightly title" sounded good, but in reality, he had simply thrown at him a slice of forest on the kingdom's frontier and a curse that bound him to it.
It was land the Count house had found burdensome; they could not leave land granted by the King neglected forever, yet they had no desire to engage in a project like reclaiming an exclave, which was costly and offered little practical benefit.
By giving it to Noein and cutting ties, he could dispose of both a troublesome son and the land at once. That was how Maximilian thought.
Of course, Noein was aware that such twisted circumstances were involved.
"I shall also give you some severance pay... that should be sufficient, yes?"
"Just one more thing... may I take one of the Count house's slaves with me?"
.....
Noein's father was none other than Count Kivileft, who ruled one of the foremost large territories in the southern part of the kingdom, but his mother had been a poor commoner woman.
At the time, his mother, who worked as a servant in the Count house, possessed reasonably excellent looks. Maximilian Kivileft, who was younger and more thoughtless than he is now, had laid hands on the woman as a mere dalliance.
And the male child born from that was Noein.
Normally, even if a child were born from laying hands on a servant, it was common to settle the matter by paying a suitable condolence gift or alimony and cutting ties.
However, Noein's mother was shrewd. The moment she became pregnant with the Count's child, she used every means possible to spread the fact as a rumor within the mansion and throughout the Count's territory, creating a situation where the Count had no choice but to recognize Noein as a bastard.
Having successfully secured the position of a concubine, the mother lived a luxurious life that could be called a great success for a woman of slum origins; on the other hand, she showed absolutely no affection for her own child, Noein, who was nothing more than a "tool to become a great noble's concubine," and eventually died easily of an epidemic when Noein was nine.
The life that awaited Noein after that was one of extreme boredom.
It might be odd for Noein, as the son, to say so, but Count Kivileft was a small man.
Though he found Noein to be a nuisance, he did not have the courage to commit the taboo of "killing his own blood-related child, especially one known to the surroundings as a bastard, with his own hands."
That said, he could not go against the complaints of his legal wife, the Countess, who insisted, "Do not let that concubine's child come near our family."
As a result of his small-mindedness being put into play, Noein was placed under house arrest in a detached building built at the edge of the Count house's grounds, kept like a pet with a small amount of pocket money, and spent the six years until his adulthood without meeting his father, his stepmother, or his half-siblings.
What distracted him from the boredom of these days were books and golems.
Noein would have Matilda, the slave assigned to look after him, run errands to borrow books from the Count house's study, and from those books, he absorbed various knowledge—knowledge that would likely be useful after he reached adulthood and was kicked out of the Count house.
Additionally, as all citizens of the kingdom do, he received the "Rite of Blessing" at the church when he was ten, and learned that he possessed a not-so-pleasing ability called "Talent for Puppet Magic."
Afterward, to make use of his magical talent, he saved the pocket money given to him by his father to buy golems and became immersed in learning how to operate them.
Then, on his fifteenth birthday, his father visited the detached building where Noein lived, and the parent and child faced each other directly for the first time in six years, leading to the previous scene.
.....
Even if it was for twisted reasons, Noein did not entirely lack gratitude toward his father for feeding him until he reached adulthood.
It could be said that his father, at the very least, fulfilled his duties as a parent far better than his mother, who had been consumed by greed and thought only of her own pleasure.
On the other hand, he also harbored resentment toward the father who directed ill will toward him for a reason Noein himself could do nothing about—namely, "because he was the child of a concubine"—and who had robbed him of all his freedom during his boyhood.
Furthermore, he simply despised his father's small-mindedness, which lacked both the dignity and the sense of responsibility expected of the head of a great noble house.
To top it off, upon their parting, the man had the nerve to push a title that served as a chain to a remote region upon him, using a tone as if he were granting a great favor.
Even if there was gratitude for being kept alive and fed, his father was hateful enough that subtracting that from the total would leave a massive amount of change.
Regardless, with this, his ties to that house were severed. He should never have to feel his father's presence again.
About three months had passed since leaving the house, and he had arrived at the northwestern edge of the Lordberg Kingdom, the Viscount Koenitz territory.
Stretching long from north to south as if partitioning the Lordberg Kingdom and the neighboring western country was the Bezel Great Forest.
A slice of that, specifically the part located directly west of the Viscount Koenitz territory, was the land granted to Knight Noein Arqvist.
Having finished his greetings to the current Viscount Koenitz, who would technically be his "neighbor as a noble," he finally headed toward the forest he owned.
While tracing the path the golems had trampled, Noein held a determination akin to stubbornness: "I will lead a life more happy and full of love than that piece-of-shit father of mine."