So the Medieval Age Has a Split Inheritance System…
Translator: Tsukii
Editor: Derpy
Read at Watashi wa Sugoi Desu!
Prologue
Author’s Note:
I felt like writing a story about transmigration without any cheats.
I was reincarnated as the third son of a medieval, European-style ducal family. As someone who had read such stories in my previous life, it honestly made me feel impressed and happy. But that feeling didn’t last long.
Carling Empire. My father, Bayer Klaus, had a fairly large territory inside the empire and was currently in charge of five counties. Now then, let me introduce a system unique to this nation.
First of all, about the Carling Empire that was our nation, there were titles in the empire that would be passed down from generation to generation. My father, for his service to the Carling Empire, held the title of duke.
The person who succeeded the title of Duke of Klaus would be the eldest son of the family — which is my eldest brother, Wagner Klaus — but direct control of the territories was a different story. This Duke of Klaus was originally a title given to the person who governed five counties within the Klaus Duchy, but at one point, one of the counties was taken by a branch family and wasn’t under our direct control.
Instead, said county became part of the Deal duchy, so a total of four counties in the Klaus duchy was left. These remaining four territories would then be further divided between the ducal children.
…I knew that medieval Europe historically used a split inheritance system. Since inheriting the title still applied to eldest sons, one could see it was still in the process of shifting to the modern system.
Fortunately, my father had no siblings so he had inherited all four counties of the Klaus duchy during his time. Then he also invaded neighboring counties and seized their titles. Because of that, the territory under his direct control was five.
Thanks to the split inheritance system, even I, as the third son, received a share. However, there were five territories. This odd number was indivisible by three naturally, and to forcibly split the existing land into three equal sections was not allowed. Hence, it became that the eldest and second sons, Wagner and Alfred respectively, received two counties, while I got one.1
And so, the eldest son Wagner succeeded the title of duke, while Alfred and I became Wagner’s vassals. Which meant we had a master-servant relationship established through our contract. In exchange for the lord’s protection from other attacking territories, the vassals were to contribute tax and soldiers to their lord.
Wagner also directly served the Carling Empire, but Alfred and I served Wagner, so we technically didn’t serve the Carling Empire directly. And while the lords were obligated to help the vassals when they were being attacked, the vassals didn’t have to participate in the wars of their lord. What the heck is up with this society?
By the way, I have casually mentioned war all this time, but the people are not allowed to declare one without justification. And the easiest opponent to go to war against was the territory that a sibling possessed. Although it justifiably was that of a child wanting to succeed their parents’ territory, the problem was that the other party was their blood-related sibling.
So basically, a county is like a city within a major city, the duchy; and each county has its own towns too. If we compare it to modern Japan, we could consider regional units like Kanto, Kinki, and Shikoku to be duke-level territories. A kingdom had several duke-level territories, but if the total area was extremely large, it became an empire, or something like that. When I think of this, my brothers seem to be out of reach.
On the other end of the hierarchy, there were barons under the count. They took care of the aforementioned towns, like being heads of each city or village in modern Japan. The only area under direct control of the count was the prefectural capital. Everything else was the barons’ territory, and the count couldn’t interfere with them. But the count and barons also had a similar master-servant relationship, like that of a count to a duke, bound through a vassal contract.2
…After explaining this much, I think you can understand my situation already. The territory I succeeded was a county in the Deal duchy. It naturally bordered with the Klaus dukedom, so it also bordered both the territories my siblings would be taking over fully later.
Moreover, this Deal duchy was split in two since each of my older siblings got two counties. Needless to say, the territory I would be receiving was nothing but a sweet meal for them.
What needed to be noted was that although the territory was known as the Deal “duchy”, there was no Duke of Deal. It was a situation where nobody got the title. The two counts were direct vassals of the empire, while I was just a vassal of a vassal. This was totally a recipe for being targeted later.
The final tragedy was the age difference. I was currently 8 years old, while my brother Wagner was 17, and Alfred was 15. Alfred just celebrated his coming-of-age ceremony the other day and was given a county by our father. Wagner had already inherited his two counties and he seemed to be managing his territory well.
If my two elder brothers were stupid, I might have had a chance at survival, but the two happened to be diligent and ambitious. The territories they were given weren’t stagnating but instead developing at considerable speeds, which is really making me have a hard time.
The excellent and capable elderly who often appear in otherworld-themed novels went to eldest son Wagner. And the second son Alfred took all the excellent young maids as he left, so all that remained in the territory were aunties who couldn’t even write. Did anyone want to serve me, you ask? There was no way someone would willingly side with me since I was more likely to lose.
Ah, since it was another world after all, it seemed magic existed. We received an affinity test when we were five years old. Wagner could use the fire, water, and wind attributes up to level III, while Alfred could use the lightning attribute at level IV, and fire and wind at level II. Meanwhile, my pathetic fire attribute was only level II and made me feel sad. What about special skills and abilities, you ask? Such a thing doesn’t exist.
My father is still alive now and I still am not considered an adult, so I hadn’t inherited the territory yet — but he was already 51 years old and looked so frail that it wouldn’t be surprising if he died at any moment. If I don’t do something before that happens, I will likely be attacked by my elder brothers, or other dukes, or other counts, and then die easily.
Tsukii’s Note:
Hello again!
Another story! This time, it doesn’t seem to be a misunderstanding story. Why seems? Because I haven’t read it yet. Then why did I pick this up? Because it’s the prequel to YEET Lady. If I know this prequel, then why don’t I post this first before YEET Lady? Because that’s the order I read it. I only found out of this novel’s existence after I completed reading the YEET lady, on the author’s postscript, to be exact, so here I am.
Well, theme wise, I don’t think it’ll be as interesting as Lydia, but hey, it’s part of the package, so I have to do it, right? Well anyway, enjoy the story.
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