A few moments since the last chapter...

???, ???, The Study

 

Ashton stood from atop the foyer looking down over what appeared to be a banquet hall that was built into the lower floor with a wall made of various panes of glass and a gray hardwood. A large table stood with various dishes that were full enough to feed a family of twenty. He saw meat dishes like roasted duck, ham, and roast beef, as well as salads and various soups. From the top of the stairs, he could smell the delicious food and it was causing his stomach to growl, and even with the various servants picking at it there was more than enough for everyone.

 

“Please, spare my daughter!” A maid with long pointed ears and blonde hair called desperately and kneeled on the ground. 

 

Ashton didn’t even have any time to respond before a dwarf with brown skin and a long dark brown beard threw himself onto the ground near the foot of the stairs. “Please, Lord Grayfield, my family has served your distinguished family for over 50years! Please spare me! I served your father!” 

 

Lord Grayfield? Is that me? He would have to be a complete fool not to notice the fear that everyone was showing to him. If respect is earned then fear is warranted, Ashton had learned these words when he was in college for business. Never do business with someone who is feared if you don’t want a knife in your back. He then looked at his hand and saw a rectangular burn that was starting to welt from touching the hot barrel of the gun in the study he woke up in.

 

Suddenly he recalled the letter that said “To Whom It May Concern” and wondered if it was written for him. He had read much manga and watched various anime where people were put in this very situation. It was referred to by the term isekai and it meant “in another world” in Japanese. They were hit by an evil malevolent truck that took them from their modern paradise into a fantasy hellscape...

 

It must be for me! These thoughts caused him to ignore the people below him, as he turned and went back down the hallway he came from. He passed several doors and heard several people call for him but he ignored it as he went back to the study and closed the door behind him. Seeing a locking latch on the back he turned the key to engage it and lock the door. He walked back to the desk and picked up the letter that was written on heavy parchment and sat on the clean sofa that was to the side.

 

He quickly tore open the envelope and revealed the contents. Written on several sheets of thick parchment in messy handwriting was what appeared to be a letter. He began mumbling as he read it to himself, he was ignoring the sound of knocking he could hear on the door. 

 

“They say that justice is blind, I say it is a damn rope that hangs around your neck and is ready to pull you off your feet at any second… What?” Ashton skimmed the first paragraph, but it was just complaining about organizations like the Hall of Lords and the inquisition. It was mostly complaints and grievances about how they couldn’t mind their business.

 

“Women are the greatest thing in the world, I could spend all day between their legs but I am tired of dealing with everything above it! Fuck... It’s so angry…” Ashton muttered as he read through an entire page of grievances about women but it didn’t name any names, he was starting to get a very sinking suspicion. 

 

Halfway through the note, all he could find were complaints, cursing, and threats, but none of it pertained to him. There was so much anger and grievance in the note that even the handwriting was becoming affected by the anger. The force on the parchment was hard enough at some points that the tip of the writing tool had almost pierced through the parchment. He continued reading it because it was all he had to go on at the moment.

 

“This is just a list of grievances, it just keeps going. He has even mentioned all of the slaves here.” Ashton paused as the third page was just more grievances. He then laid them on the floor in front of him in order before he started reading the last page.

 

“It just stops after it says to bury all of my gold with my cold dead body...” Ashton finished the note and suddenly felt an ominous feeling in his heart. “This isn’t for me! What am I supposed to do with this!?!”

 

The first page was his grievances with the kingdom, especially someone he called “Widdle Diddle” and he even mocked him in the letter. The second page was about the women around him, there seemed to be several of them. The third page was the staff in the mansion, he seemed to have a deep hatred and bigotry for slaves and the common man. Then he recalled that none of the people he had seen in the hall had been human.

 

The final thing that worried him was that this was a suicide letter, that was what he concluded after reading it. The gun in his hand, the meat and bone on the wall, and the blood he woke up in, this was a suicide and he had somehow taken over the body but he had none of the memories of the person’s body he had inhabited.

 

“This guy killed himself because he was under investigation? Did he commit a crime? They called me lord though… I need more information…” Ashton was panicking and could still hear pounding and voices on the other side of the door. “What do I do? What do I do? What do I do?”

 

In a situation where he was a child or a toddler then he could spend his time leisurely absorbing information as he explored his options. Instead, he had people pounding on the door calling his name as he was staring at the pieces of paper in front of him foolishly.

 

“This is fucking useless! How did I get here you asshole?!” Ashton cursed before forcing himself to take several deep breaths to calm down. “Okay, this isn’t going to help me understand my situation.” 

 

Instead, he turned to the walls of books on the shelves and began scanning the books on the shelves as quickly as he could. What he found was that the titles were already sorted based on the type of content that they dealt with. The first few shelves all had names that he had never heard of, but based on the titles he assumed they were about places in the world. Most of the books weren’t of uniform size and the cuts done to the pages were messy and uneven, giving them a rough appearance. 

 

“Even the better books like this religious text are not completely uniform,” Ashton muttered as he found what he assumed was a bible or a lexicon. “Definitely a noble of some sort, most of this is etiquette or about different areas in the world, this will be useful if I have the time to read it at some point.”

 

Ashton moved away from the bookshelves to a large desk and began looking for any shelves, what he discovered was a set of books that didn’t have a title. Walking back to the couch, he sat down and began opening them and scanning through them as quickly as he could. What he discovered were ledgers and record books that possessed the accounting for the mansion. Scanning through the first book, he began to see all kinds of things that shocked him.

 

“This doesn’t add up at all… there are all kinds of missing information and money going in and out that isn’t accounted for…” Ashton was shocked at how bad the records were and quickly opened the next book in the stack. “Wait a minute, this is the same thing… No… this is different... “

 

There were only a few reasons you needed to have two different sets of records for the same accounting work. “These are filled with fraud… Wait, this third book is the same...  Why is there a third set of books for the same accounting?” His business teacher always told him that if you have to have more than one set of books then you are doing something incredibly illegal. And for this many copies of the books to be needed then it meant that he had a reason to hide things from different people.

 

“That must mean none of these are the real accounting books, there must be a safe or something in here where they are stored,” Ashton muttered as he stood up and began walking around the study. 

 

Two of the walls were dominated by bookshelves, with a painting hanging on the wall that depicted a man sitting on a throne-like chair. He had one leg over the armrest and he was lounging back leaning on his arm with a smirk on his face. A gun was in his free hand sitting in his lap as he wore a large fluffy black coat over his ruffled white shirt and black pants, it was exactly like Ashton was wearing. The face of the man was sharp, with long oily black hair and pale skin, but the most distinguishing feature was the man’s hawk-like eyes.

 

“House Lord Ashe Van Grayfield of House Grayfield” was written under the painting that hung above the couch. The man looked like he was looking down on the person who was observing the painting, and the artist spent a lot of time adding details to the painting. There was also a musket and a cavalry saber but the saber was strange in that it was forged straight and not with a curve. He then noticed that the sword blade was designed to allow it to attach to the rifle like a bayonet using a ring and a lug on the rifle.

 

“Is that a black powder rifle? The pistol was also a black powder weapon…” Ashton opened the drawer of the desk and began looking at what was inside of it. “Quill pens, ink in a bottle, parchment, candles, a piece of iron and a flint, tinder, and… another gun?!”

 

This gun was hidden in the desk and required reaching to the top of the desk and feeling against the desktop. Pulling it out it was identical to the pistol he had held earlier with a wolf’s head attached to the grip forming a triangle at the end. The grip was made from a dark ebony piece of wood that was stained to make it even darker, but he found a second one on the other side of the desk that was attached to the bottom. Looking underneath the desk he couldn’t help but be shocked by what he saw.

 

It was a sawn-off blunderbuss that had its barrel and stock snubbed to allow it to be mounted directly to the bottom of the desk and was pointed towards the chair in front of him and the door. He was sure that if he pulled the trigger then everyone in front of the desk would take a lethal shot filled with shrapnel. It reminded him of something that would be used in old western banks to kneecap bank robbers. All of the items reminded him of something he had seen from the 16th to the 17th century on Earth.

 

Ashton walked over to the painting and stood up on the couch as he began trying to check behind it. What he discovered was a hardwood wall without a false panel, he was really worried he would have found a hidden safe. He already had a sinking suspicion that there was hidden storage somewhere in the room where the real accounting books were kept. Looking out the window he could see some of the workers from the dining hall who were desperately working in the garden at a breakneck pace.

 

The knocking had stopped and he could hear frantic cleaning coming from outside the study. Suddenly an idea dawned on him to buy some more time, he had no idea how he had gotten into another world but without more information, he couldn't make an informed choice. Instead, he focused on reading the letter and going through the notes in the accounting book as quickly as he could. Watching the workers in the yard was giving him an idea he could use until he had a better understanding of what was going on.

 

***

A few moments later...

???, House Grayfield, The Dining Hall

 

All of the servants within the Grayfield estate were all slaves bound with a special collar that was formed from a high-grade monster’s magical stone. It was capable of limited thought and could punish the wearer for sharing any of their master’s secrets, trying to harm themselves, or trying to harm others. They were an insidious device that came in various levels and the collars on the slaves in the mansion were the highest grade. This made the Grayfield’s the most secretive of the noble houses as there wasn’t even servant gossip coming from them.

 

The servants in the hall were terrified and working overtime to scrub the imaginary dust and grime off of the immaculately cleaned mansion. Suddenly the door to the study was pushed open and a man walked out in a domineering fashion with a bit of a prideful gait. His black trousers were leather and pressed with the symbol of house Grayfield, the Desert Graywolf. It was hard to tell the size of the man because of the large furry black coat he wore that hung down to his knees, but from within the opening, you could see the club cap(AN: Ornament on a flintlock below the handle. Used to bludgeon people when the gun is empty.) of the flintlocks.

 

The man had a smile on his face that seemed almost devilish and it didn’t reach his piercing eyes that seemed to always look down on you. His black hair hung down past his ears and had an oily shine to it but he was considered one of the most handsome men in the kingdom. It was unfortunate that such a handsome face was attached to such a scummy personality.

 

“I woke up this morning and wondered what my slaves would do if I suddenly died.” Lord Grayfield said with a smirk as he looked around the room. “I am glad to see that they would behave as usual.” 

 

Reaching the foyer, the young house lord looked over the various maids who were standing in the food hall at attention. The table sat in the middle and everything was recooked and placed out immaculately like a feast, the main difference from last time was only a single chair sat at the table. Lord Grayfield walked down the stairs slowly, allowing the wooden heel in his shoe to make an audible click with each step he took. The pressure on the servants in the dining hall was increasing and several of them were starting to lower their heads.

 

“For the next week I will be taking my meals in the study unless it is of the direst importance, I don’t want to be disturbed.” He said as he looked around at the servants with coldness.

 

“But, my Lord… If you don’t throw your scraps on the floor for us, what will we eat?” One of the maids asked.

 

The man smiled as he walked over to the table filled with food and grabbed several items and set them on the plate that was on the table, this was followed by a glass of water. “There, eat it. I don’t want it.”

 

Lord Grayfield turned and walked away leaving the stunned staff surrounding the table. He walked up the stairs carrying his plate and glass of water and didn’t look back once as he turned at the top of the stairs and made his way back to the study. This caused the slaves some panic as they all began looking at one another.

 

“What should we do? Do we eat it?” One of them asked, she looked like an elf with light brown skin and dark brown hair and eyes. She was having to fight the drool from escaping her mouth as she could smell the fragrance from poultry, beef, and various hunted game. 

 

“Are you crazy, Sari?! I think the only reason we are still alive is that it would be troublesome to replace all of us at once.” This was a catkin who looked mostly human except for her black ears and a long tail that contrasted her cream-colored hair. Her eyes were like a cat’s eyes and she had whiskers on her face, her build was lithe and she was short at 5 foot 2 inches(157.5 CM) tall. “I have never seen that smile before on his face! It sent a shiver up my spine!”

 

“You might be right, Natalay. What if this week he is eating in the study is a punishment he has come up with for the servants… What if we are supposed to starve for the entire week and if we take something from the table… he will kill us…” This was uttered by a maid with umber skin and tall white ears like a rabbit and a tuft sticking out the back of her maid uniform. She was tall at 6 foot 4 inches(193CM) and had a very athletic build. 

 

The uniforms worn by the maids were black dresses that came to their ankles with a white apron over the front of them. The sleeves were tight and covered their entire arms, only a few of them wore shorter dresses that fell to their knees but they had thin cloth pants underneath that covered their legs. The frilled headpiece that was common with maids was worn by all of them, but the ones with animal ears had a specialized one that didn’t interfere with their movements. 

 

“He didn’t shoot anyone though, the last time he was angry he tied that poor gardener to a pike in the garden and took shots at him through the window during his meal.” This was said by a woman who looked like a dwarf who was struggling not to cry. She had known the man who had entered the Lord’s room in the middle of the night with coals to warm the bed, no one knows what he had witnessed to cause such a thing to happen to him. “He could have just killed him with a single shot, but he took his time to torture the poor soul… I will go a week without food! I’d rather keep my life!” 

 

Little did they know someone was hiding at the top of the stairs listening to their discussion with horror. Thinking that he might have gone to the middle ages, he decided that having people think he was possessed would be a terrible start. Deciding it would be better to pretend he was Ashe Grayfield until he had a better idea of what was going on, he needed to fool the staff in the mansion. He thought he was being gracious and tried to say as little as possible since he didn’t have much to go on but he now realized he had made a terrible mistake.

 

Holy shit… what kind of man was this… he executed a slave during a meal? What kind of psychotic, sociopathic person would do that?! Ashton was both appalled and horrified by the things he was hearing. I need to figure out what is going on as quickly as possible!

 

Slavery was something that disgusted Ashton to his core, it had a deep history in his country that he wanted no part of. Abolishing it in his home was something he would do the moment he was capable of it. Seeing how extravagant the home was, he was certain he could reduce the quality a bit to pay some workers to do the same jobs. If he had to live in this world, he was going to find a way to do it in a way that felt right to him.

 

I need to figure out everything I can this week and figure out why this guy killed himself! I also can’t afford to make any more mistakes! A week without food because he was careless? That was appalling and disgusting, he needed to remember next time to throw everything onto the floor after he was done. Wait, no! I will make them eat like normal people! 

 

His brief time in the foyer confirmed his suspicions that none of the people in the mansion were human, he wondered if slavery only applied to non-humans. He shook his head to rid himself of these thoughts as he started making his way back to the study. With the cleaning done, the hallway was empty which made him feel relieved to not have to put on a show anymore. Being a good salesman meant he needed to be able to connect with people who he normally wouldn’t, and that meant projecting traits he didn’t have.

 

Stepping back into the study he walked over to the couch and placed the food on the couch and the glass on the floor. He needed to clean the desk and wall before he felt comfortable sitting there but he didn't have time for anything trivial. Stepping up to the bookshelf he began looking at the books on etiquette, but quickly discovered a problem.

 

I have no idea where I am… Is there a map somewhere? Ashton began focusing on looking for a map of the region, there were several scrolls and it didn’t take him long to find several maps of entire countries.

 

Knock! Knock! Knock!

 

“My Lord, Duke Everim is here to see you.” A female called through the closed door.

 

“A duke…” Ashton muttered.