06 - I Just Don"t Understand Women

I didn"t think there"s much more I can say in regards to the way the lectures separated men and women, but it still bore mentioning that both the garb I wore and the ruling t.i.tle I"d been bestowed with allowed me to be subjected to lectures and training that would, normally, be reserved for the opposite gender.

Much like last year I was, of course, not playing the escorted but rather the escort.

It didn"t really matter whether this one of Earl Terejia"s lectures - who had incidentally wasted no time in predicting this situation - or whether I was simply interacting with the educational facilities… now that I"d come this far, I was sure that I"d be given an exception and allowed this sort of behaviour, even once I"d reached adulthood. I"d enforced until now and I"d continue to do so.

Oh, well. The disagreement with Lindharl had already been settled anyway. Once I graduated, I would be little more than a regular member of the ruling n.o.bility and would only have to show myself at the royal capital every other summer or so.

There was little room for escorts in the House of Lords, and while Kaldia"s demands for procurement had notably ceased as of late, I very much doubted that there was still some n.o.ble benevolent enough to extend an invitation to some evening party. I was fairly certain that I wouldn"t have to go out of my way to find the sort of clothes appropriate for someone fresh into adulthood or that I"d have to force any befitting conduct.

In any case, the overall useless, more masculine disposition which had only seen use once, namely upon receiving the invitation to the Moldon family"s evening feast, was finally of benefit to me. It was more than effective for playing the a.s.sisting escort to Emilia, who looked rather uncomfortable in her Arxian dress.

"You can use this book here to get an overall understanding of what we covered during our lectures last year. I doubt you"ve had the chance to become particularly familiar with either royal law or sacred doctrines, Lady Emilia, but this should make for a fine introductory manual. Oh, and it"s best if you take this dictionary with you. Even we Arxians have trouble with the more technical terms, learning them can be quite the handful without a lecturer"s guiding hand. I don"t think this is the best subst.i.tute, but it should be enough for the time being."

I pulled Emilia along with me as I chose textbooks practically at my own discretion, h.o.a.rding them all in my free arm. Emilia didn"t seem to have much confidence in her capacity for study, and had come to the conclusion that it would be for the best if she could peruse what we"d discussed in the year prior.

Actually, now that I thought about it, I recalled that there were several bonuses that allowed for one"s stats to be improved upon. Stats like refinement, wisdom, charisma… what else was there? Battle prowess? No, no it was stamina. I vaguely recalled that the special event for the commander-in-chief"s grandson had given plenty of room to level it up.

They weren"t only essential in winning over certain characters, but if memory served, they also allowed for an increase of hidden parameters that affected things like public opinion and even grades. The lower they were, the harder it was to trigger random events, and the more challenging it was to increase the affection of whatever character you had your eye on… I only had the faintest memory of my little sister telling me these things back in my world, but the information was definitely in some distant corner of my mind.

That said, while the setting of this world was most definitely reminiscent of the game, the world itself wasn"t purely built on the loose foundation of gaming mechanics.

If any kind of ability could be increased purely by completing some kind of action, then something so simple it could be expressed as a straightforward numerical value could hardly be called true apt.i.tude. It was just too much to a.s.sume that a culture built entirely on social strata evaluated skills as such, and it was just as ridiculous to presume that one"s good will towards you would be increased simply through continuous interaction.