Through his slumber, Victor heard voices, his consciousness seemed to "drift," as if he were in water with nothing to hold on to. The voices became clearer and closer to him.
After some time, he opened his eyes and looked at the ceiling, but the ceiling was completely unfamiliar to him; it was some sort of canopy above a bed.
Victor turned his head to the left and saw a girl sitting on a chair by the wall.
The girl was dressed in old-fashioned chambermaid attire, and it was difficult to judge her by her appearance, but one could even call her cute. She had fair skin and delicate facial features, and that was it.
Victor tried to say something, but only hoarse sounds came out.
The girl jumped up from the chair, rushed to him, and immediately started babbling through tears.
"Is this some kind of cosplay? Is she playing a role?" he thought to himself.
In the next second, an enormous stream of information flooded Victor's mind. It was as if he was watching a video at an insane speed, accompanied by various uncontrollable emotions. In the same second, he felt like grieving, being joyful, crying, laughing, and getting angry.
After some time, it all ceased, and the information began to organize itself.
It began to dawn on him: this was no longer planet Earth; this world was called Limea – the place he was in. It was the home of Count Alexander Shermanin, one of the six counts of the Kingdom of Lantaris.
It was a world full of magic, magical creatures, and even entire magical civilizations.
Victor found himself in the body of his son, Victor Shermanin, the heir, and also his disgrace.
In this world, there was not just aristocracy, but magic too. It was a world of swords and sorcery, and Victor had been unfortunate enough to be born without magic.
In a world where even commoners possessed, albeit weak, magic, Victor stood out for his lack of it.
After being tested for magical potential at the age of six, his father sent him to an estate outside the city, promptly "forgetting" about him. Throughout all that time, servants looked after him, especially a little maid named Lulu, who had been with him since childhood.
Victor looked at the crying Lulu and, at some point, realized what this girl was saying.
"Young master, you've finally woken up. Woo-hoo!" she sobbed, her tears flowing from her large green eyes.
"She thinks I'm her master? Maybe I should play along. If I start talking about coming from another world, they might burn me at the stake for that. What do I have to lose? I was nobody on Earth. I finished vocational school, didn't have money to go to a proper college. My mom died of coronavirus simply because I couldn't afford to have her transferred to a better clinic, and she was being treated in a shabby hospital without the necessary equipment!" Victor thought about his previous miserable life, where nothing was left.
"Here, I may not be a great mage, but I'm a son of a count. At the very least, I won't go hungry, and I have servants. I could live my whole life like this," Victor thought and smiled.
"Lulu, what happened?" he asked, taking a sip of the water from the cup the maid had brought.
"Young master, you lost consciousness a month ago. No one knows why," the maid informed him, and started crying again.
Victor reached out and stroked her head, which made her cry even harder. After calming down a bit, she ran off and returned fifteen minutes later with a man. He appeared to be around fifty, with gray hair and sharp facial features. He was lean and approximately 180 cm tall, dressed in a black coat. He stood as straight as an arrow.
In Victor's memory, the old man immediately came to mind—his name was Jin, the steward of the Shermanin family.
The old man approached the bed and slightly bowed to Victor.
"Young master, I'm delighted to see that you've awakened," this Jin said with glistening eyes, a few tears welled up.
In Victor's memory, this old man had always treated the owner of this body kindly, always looking out for him.
"Thank you, Jin. I'm feeling much better now," Victor calmly replied. "Has anything happened while I was unconscious?"
"Young master, nothing of note has happened," the old man replied.
"Please prepare some food for me. I'm very hungry," Victor ordered after a moment of thought.
Receiving such a command, Lulu immediately rushed out of the room under Jin's disapproving gaze.
"This girl will never learn her manners, sir," the old man commented, shaking his head.
"It's not a big deal. We don't need to worry about manners here," Victor replied.
The girl returned half an hour later with a cart on which dishes were covered with metal lids.
They seated Victor in the bed, placed a bedside table, and started setting the dishes right in front of him. Such service was hard to come by, even in the best hotels on Earth. Victor took utensils in his hands and started cutting the steak under the watchful eyes of Lulu and Jin.
The taste was exquisite. On Earth, Victor rarely had the chance to eat meat, let alone steaks like this.
Unfortunately, he couldn't eat properly. Weakness in his body prevented him from even holding a fork properly.
He relaxed and, asking them to remove the food, decided to get some rest.
When he woke up, it was already dark outside, and another chambermaid was sitting on a chair. Judging by her attire, she was also a chambermaid.
Victor didn't wake her up and began to contemplate the situation he found himself in.
"In this world, I am the son of a count, and if aristocracy here is similar to Earth's aristocracy, they are unlikely to reject me. Perhaps they will keep me out of sight, but their status won't allow them to treat me like an ordinary person. Aristocrats value blood – it's proof of their exceptionalism compared to commoners.
Blood, education, etiquette – all of it is just to prevent commoners from realizing that they are not different from them.
So, I'll be able to live here without a care, and I can always find something to do. The maids here are beautiful, no doubt about it, so entertainment in a pinch won't be a problem."
He tried to move his hands, but it was difficult. The previous owner of the body wasn't very physically developed, and after the coma, it became even worse.
Victor was running through his head everything he obtained from the previous owner's memories and tried to replicate his manner of speech, movements, and even habits.
After a few hours of such exercises, he grew weak and fell asleep again.
When he opened his eyes, he saw Lulu standing next to his bed, gazing at him while he was asleep.
"What are you doing, Lulu?" Victor asked, barely opening his eyes.
"I was listening to your breathing. I was afraid you wouldn't wake up again," the girl said with a smile.
"No need to worry; it's unlikely to happen again," he mumbled.
The girl immediately brought food on a cart and arranged everything before him. This time, he was able to eat everything properly, and he even got out of bed with Lulu's help, taking a stroll around the room afterward.
The following two weeks passed like a rehabilitation center: he ate, slept, exercised, and repeated the cycle day after day.
On one of those monotonous days, the steward knocked on his door, bringing a letter from his father, who demanded his presence at the ancestral estate in seven days.
Victor tried to guess why, after thirteen years of exile, he was needed again, and, upon reflection, it didn't seem to bode well.
Victor informed the steward about the upcoming trip, and he immediately started preparing. Considering that the journey would take three days and an additional day to rest upon arrival at the mansion before meeting his father, they needed provisions for four days. Everything in this world had its rules, and if not for the previous owner's memories, it would have been even more challenging.
Early in the morning, he was dressed in travel clothes, which, despite their name, looked somewhat pompous, just like the carriage he was placed in.
In Victor's opinion, it was all a bit much: clothing adorned with ruffles and ribbons. He was made to wear patent leather shoes with high heels, and the trousers resembled something like shorts tucked into knee-high socks. The frock was stitched with patterns of golden threads, and to complete the look, there was a hat with triangular brims.
He felt like a clown in this attire, as if he were getting ready for a circus performance. In contrast, the steward's attire looked much better.
Jin was dressed in long straight trousers, black shoes, and a tuxedo with a bow tie.
Cursing internally, he sat in the carriage, and under the guard of six soldiers and a knight, they set off towards his father's estate.
During the journey, they made stops in small towns, where he regularly received letters from the local nobility inviting him to banquets or tea parties, and even some who came personally.
Of course, he didn't personally interest anyone. The interest in him was solely because of his father, and it was simply an attempt by lower nobility to establish contact with a higher level of nobility.
In this world, rules were very strict. If a count like Shermanin invited you to his banquet, you couldn't speak with him unless he initiated the conversation. Even if you were standing just a meter away from him, you could only respond if he was the first to address you.
In this world, the lower nobility included viscounts and below, while the upper nobility consisted of counts, marquises, dukes, and, of course, the royal family.
The complexity came from the fact that, for example, a duke and a duchess ranked higher than a marquis, but the eldest son of a duke would be lower in the hierarchy than a marquis. This applied to a marquis as well. He was higher than a count, but his son was lower than a count.
This confusion was further compounded by the fact that no count would allow himself to treat a duke's eldest son as lower in status, especially since, in this world of magic, that son might turn out to be a much stronger person than his father.
In this scenario, connections and relationships came into play. How you were introduced, who introduced you, what impression your family made, and the merits you had were all part of this. It was a pile of intricacies, which often left even the aristocrats themselves puzzled, let alone the commoners who had no idea about such matters.
At the same time, the royal family was the highest level of nobility, but they didn't possess anything special. Typically, they had moved to more fertile lands in the past, built a stronger army than others, established close family ties with the right families, and thus earned the right to lead everyone.
However, since they themselves were only nobility with a unique status, they were simultaneously equal to everyone within this category. On the other hand, only a member of their family could become a King. Unless the entire line was broken, leading to turmoil in the state. In such a situation, everyone would fight to become the next King.
The royal status primarily gave them more wealth and peace for their territories because no other noble dared to attack royal land. In contrast to other nobles who endlessly fought for every piece of fertile land.
Thinking about all this, Victor traveled in the carriage. It wasn't equipped with any suspension, and it wasn't any different from a commoner's cart, except for the luxury added to it.
Everything inside was piled with feather pillows, and Victor sat on them while contemplating what he would do in this world, how he would live.
Suddenly, his thoughts were interrupted.
"Attack, protect the lord!" came the cries of a knight.
"We're under attack? Am I going to die again, right after leaving the boundaries of my estate? Damn, I should've pretended I was still sick and declined," Victor furiously considered as he listened to the sounds of battle outside, the clashing of swords.
At one moment, the carriage door swung open, and a man with a mask covering the lower half of his face and a short sword appeared in the doorway. Seeing him, Victor leaped from his seat and, opening the door from the opposite side, "spilled" outside.
Glancing back and not noticing the man following him, he began to look around. There were about twelve bandits around, and seven more lay dead, including three of his men. Only the knight and the remaining soldiers were still fighting.
The soldiers were budding contact mages, referred to as "novices," while the knight had already reached the highest level of bronze.
In this world, knights were ranked by levels, from novices to legendary, and even one more level called "Eternal Radiance," but such ranks were only heard of in legends.
Each rank had four levels: low, medium, high, and peak.
There were also true mages who had similar divisions, but unlike the knights, they fought with long-range spells.
As the seemingly useless son of a count, the best knight he had was only a bronze knight at the highest level, but even he looked like a hero from legends to Victor right now. That's because he was fighting four opponents at once while managing to reduce their numbers.
Victor got to his feet and, passing behind his soldiers, attempted to lift a two-handed sword from the ground, but it was so heavy that he couldn't hold it.
Abandoning that idea, he tried to find a place to hide and, seeing the carriage in which the servants were traveling, he rushed towards it. But just in front of him, a bandit appeared, already swinging a sword at him. All Victor could do was instinctively cover himself with his hands, closing his eyes. In the next moment, there was a sound of metal striking metal instead of pain. When he opened his eyes, he saw a huge shield attached to his arm.
He gazed at the shield in his hand, which was at least one and a half meters long and seventy centimeters wide, entirely covered in glowing patterns. Although it appeared heavy, it felt weightless.
Victor, upon seeing the attacker's bewildered expression, attempted to stand up. He realized he was holding a massive two-handed hammer in his right hand. While the shield appeared heavy at first glance, this hammer should have been outright unmanageable. Yet, he effortlessly held it in his hand.
Swiftly pushing all thoughts from his mind, he decided to try. With an ordinary swing, he attacked the enemy in front of him who, recovering from the shock, tried to block the gigantic hammer with his sword. However, the way the blow was delivered and how the hammer appeared provided entirely different visual sensations.
Visually, the hammer weighed exactly half a ton, but the impact was as gentle as tapping a tree branch. In the next moment, the hammer "fell" onto the bandit's hands, immediately smashing them, and then encountered his head... and then the rest of his body. In the end, two disjointed halves of a man lay on the ground.
"What the hell was that?" Victor exclaimed loudly.
He quickly turned around and saw that the knight was standing on his feet alongside the last soldier. They were both covered in blood and looked exhausted. Unfortunately, besides them, there were still around eight bandits standing.
Without much thought, Victor rushed towards them. The newfound strength and the armor that had appeared on him filled him with confidence that he was here for a reason, and perhaps fate had not been so cruel to him after all.