The acting lord of Friedel domain, Giselle von Lennart, had a very early morning.

She understood very well that her position was essentially that of a “rolling stone”, and thought that she shouldn’t show any lazy or careless behavior to gain the respect and loyalty of her vassals and people.

Washing her body, tidying her hair, arranging her clothes.

Since there would be morning training later anyway, she kept it simple without excessive preparation or adornment.

Unlike ordinary nobles, finishing preparations by herself without the help of servants was one of the small trends that could be called a culture among the young people of the main family.

The Lion Duke’s bloodline members, born with overwhelmingly superior physical conditions, also needed less sleep time to relieve fatigue.

In other words, they could repeatedly go to sleep later and wake up earlier than others every day without any particular health problems.

But the servants weren’t like that.

Even normally, it was basic for noble family servants to wake up before their masters and go to sleep later, but if they tried to match the lifestyle habits of the Lion Duke’s bloodline, it would be too much for their bodies a hundred times out of a hundred.

The ancestors solved this by dividing the servants into morning and night shifts, but the trend started when some young people thought, “Rather than making such a fuss, isn’t it more efficient to just do what you can do alone by yourself?”

Of course, not everyone was like that.

There were many who followed tradition, saying there was no need to change the way things had been done, and some who hated such behavior of taking care of oneself alone as commoner-like.

The reason Giselle joined the trend was simple.

It increased the time she could utilize, even if only by a few minutes.

If one could secure 10 minutes of spare time a day, in ten days one gained 100 minutes of spare time.

It was more than enough reason for Giselle, who constantly built up specs and experience, and tried to climb to higher places by outpacing other competitors.

After training her body by swinging a sword in the yard, she had a second grooming session with the help of servants who were initially flustered by the new acting lord’s lifestyle habits, but now moved quite naturally.

Finishing the prepared meal, and having a light tea time for efficiency improvement before diving into full-fledged paperwork.

There was truly a perfect life that could be called a model of a planned person.

However, the eyes of Giselle, who was actually carrying out all these tasks, were strangely dull.

Specifically, they reminded one of dead fish.

She stared endlessly at the clear and bright sky through the window, and inwardly muttered a word she couldn’t bring herself to say out loud.

Life…

When she first received the proposal for work related to Friedel domain, she thought her chance had finally come.

Although Giselle had competent military power, what she really considered her specialty was administrative work.

It would have been good to be appointed as an instructor at one of the dojos like her senior and role model René von Lennart and show off achievements through reforms, but she was also confident in taking charge of and operating a territory like this.

She later learned that it was the elder faction, not the family head, who chose her, and the reason was that they chose someone who didn’t know much about the background of this incident so they could be under their influence while avoiding the Duke’s suspicious eyes, but the past Giselle was just excited about the career opportunity that had come before her.

And the Friedel she saw with her own eyes was… much more of a mess than she had expected.

The former lord of Friedel was a stubborn and diligent knight, but it was difficult to call him an excellent manager even as a polite lie.

To be more precise, he maximized the morality and skills of the knights and soldiers, and used that military power and reliability to make up for other lacking areas.

Public order? It was overflowing just with the presence of soldiers with integrity and skill who didn’t line their own pockets.

Money? They earned it by beating up nearby bandit groups or lending military power to other territories in exchange for compensation.

Mediating disputes among the people? There were no special institutional devices or legal standards, but the lord just resolved things haphazardly each time.

Primary industries including agriculture, diplomacy with nearby domains, logistics movement using merchants visiting the domain.

Anyway, everything else was all handled with just “competent and moral military power”.

They say if one’s body was good one didn’t have to trouble one’s head, and it felt like that was directly applied to domain management.

Of course, considering that there were numerous domain in history that collapsed because they couldn’t even properly do that one-trick pony of military power, it could be evaluated as fairly decent that they somehow managed the domain with just one thing they were good at, rather than messing with areas they weren’t good at and failing.

But if it was a one-trick pony of military power, they should have left at least some capacity in the domain in preparation for contingencies, but the lord of Friedel threw all the military power, which could be called the core of the domain, into one mission.

All that was left was a domain full of holes with only weaknesses and no strengths.

After finishing her analysis of Friedel domain, Giselle felt incredulous inwardly, but at the same time thought it wasn’t bad.

There were that many areas for her to put her hand in, and many parts where she could demonstrate her abilities by showing achievements.

She was a bit surprised when the family’s youngest lady left her hands, but when that girl who she thought would die in vain abroad or return sheepishly started steadily building up fame, she was quite surprised, but still, Giselle was confident.

The vassals and people who at first only regarded her as a “person from the Lennart main family” gradually directed their respect and loyalty towards Giselle as an individual, and cheered for the appearance of the domain she had revitalized.

The heir girl.

Even if Adelaide von Lennart’s military power and fame were somewhat excellent, she thought her own achievements and abilities as a lord were far superior.

Indeed, she thought she could cover “somewhat excellent”.

That was, to a reasonable extent.

But the reality?

What? Friedel’s tragedy? The main family’s self-made drama? Bringing down the Tower of Control and beating the Tower Master to death?

Even this much was enough to make her head spin, but the news that followed was even more outrageous.

The Ducal family’s treason. The hero who suppressed the treason.

A girl who received certification as the “representative of the Lion Duke’s bloodline” from the Guardian Duke, Lennart Duke, who could be called an opponent in the clouds for Giselle, and even received loyalty oaths from bloodline members of the same rank as Giselle.

Ha, hahahaha.

On the surface, Giselle’s face looked extremely calm and intellectually lost in thought, but inwardly, she had reached the point where she couldn’t help but laugh after her spirits had been completely crushed.

Whether it was a fight, a confrontation, or a competition, it should be done with someone in a somewhat matching weight class, but what could one do when one was waiting for a challenger in the ring with gloves on, and the challenger came to trample not just the ring but the entire stadium itself while causing a stampede with an elephant corps?

…Adelaide. When she returns, that will be the end.

Not only would the competition for the next lord end, but there was a high possibility that Giselle’s own life would end as well.

After all, Giselle was a person belonging to the elder faction, and it was an indisputable fact that the elder faction and Adelaide were close to enemies.

Even if Giselle herself didn’t know about the conspiracy related to Friedel domain, it was questionable whether Adelaide would believe that.

No, even if that wasn’t the case, there were plenty of reasons for Adelaide to hold a grudge against her.

Right away, Giselle herself clearly remembered spitting out all sorts of harsh words towards Adelaide like, “You did unnecessary things when I told you to wait quietly,” and “You were incompetently kidnapped by mere bandits”.

Even if it was just spitting out the facts as they happened, it was all too obvious that it would have been unpleasant from the listener’s perspective.

Just looking at how she deliberately used William Heming, the Marquis who could be called a core power holder of the kingdom, to divert her mother and close associates, it was clear that Adelaide was directing a negative gaze towards Giselle.

As a clearly negative future awaited, she should run away, but Giselle had nowhere else to run.

The main base she should return to had exploded, and the unique appearance of the Lion Duke’s bloodline was too conspicuous to live as a wild person.

If Adelaide, who would soon gain new power as the next head of the main family, was determined to find her, it wouldn’t be too difficult to find Giselle.

Above all, Giselle herself had no motivation to run away.

With her lifelong goal of advancement in the family and empire completely crumbled, she wasn’t good enough at improvising to set new goals and devote herself to them at this point.

Rather than dying or being forgotten as a miserable fugitive, there was even a self-deprecating expectation that if she died as an antagonist of the next Lennart family head, her name might be written in at least one line in the history books.

After the tea time ended, Giselle thought blankly while habitually processing work.

Why am I continuing to do this?

At a point where execution or exile was scheduled anyway, there was no reason for Giselle to continue working as the acting lord.

Nevertheless, Giselle trained her body as usual, did paperwork, inspected the domain, and mediated conflicts among residents.

Her mind was in a state of despair, wondering what use all this was, but her body, which had been busy running all her life as a workaholic, simply couldn’t stay still.

Like oiling and maintaining a sword that had finished being used, Giselle put her body that had finished its daily routine into the maintenance work called sleep.

The next morning.

She faced Friedel’s heir waiting for her in the office.

***

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