Behind the von Graad mansion, there is an courtyard with a lot of open space that is used as a training area by the guards of the Manor, but currently there is almost no one training due to their shift not having come to an end yet and they still being out on patrol.
There can only be found three people, one is an youth with tired and unfocused black eyes and short black hair that has dropped to the ground and is staring at the sky, the other is an middle aged man with blond hair and lion ears atop his head wearing an armor that resembles an medieval plate armor but with a futuristic appearance holding a training sword resting on his shoulder and finally an young girl that is standing farther away observing the two while holding a bottle of water and a towel.
The day is hot, although it isn't anything uncommon to anyone that lives in Arcadia. It would certainly be stranger if it wasn't, but at the current moment the arid air and scorching sun are particularly unforgiving.
"Come on little Al, you will have to build more endurance if you are to continue your father's legacy, and laying on the ground will not help you with that."
My name Alabaster von Graad, 8 years old and I'm currently sprawled on the ground with my whole body aching, while the spartan teacher who is also my uncle Leon that is responsible my pitiful state, is currently trying to revive my spirit.
"Thanks for the input, its not like you are the one that has been beating me senseless this entire morning." I say bitterly, I am not opposed to some hard training but just getting whacked to the ground isn't very fun.
"You're welcome, and a bit of pain will be good for you, after I took to train a few knights personally this method made them improve much faster." He responds, leaving me wondering if he missed the sarcasm or just chose to ignore it.
Then finally the person who was watching decides to approach the two.
"Master, you shouldn't push yourself too hard, taking a few breaks is necessary and you also could use a little bit more liquid to avoid dehydration." And coming to my aid as aways is Beatrice my attendant, who brought with her a towel and a bottle of water.
She is 10 years old and has grown a lot, having her hair that has grown to reach her back in a ponytail and her bangs covering her left eye leaving only her right amber eye visible. She has been working as my attendant for four years and in this time she has improved her confidence, gotten a better posture, no longer avoiding my gaze or stuttering while also advancing her training and being taught everything from combat to other academics that she needs to know.
Despite this, she is still very easy to be embarrassed after a bit of teasing.
In this four years, we have spent a large portion of our days with each other and we have started to grow closers as a result. She also told me about her past: She was born in an planet in the border of our territory where she lived with her family a peaceful life, but it didn't last long as pirates attacked and overwhelmed the defenders, and after taking control of the planet they robbed everyone that lived there of everything they owned, but her family was poor and even after giving everything except the clothes on their bodies bodies the pirates where still dissatisfied so they took her as well, in the pirate fleet she worked as a cook until his father defeated the fleet and rescued her.
Even after being freed she had nowhere to go since her home planet had been attacked by another group of pirates after she was kidnapped and most of the inhabitants were dead leaving her orphaned but because his father took pity on her and felt guilty that this was allowed to occur in his territory, instead of being sent to an orphanage she was hired to work at the lords residence that's when his mother made her an proposal to become his attendant and she who had nothing but gratitude towards his family accepted immediately.
Despite all of that heavy baggage in her past she is still very reliable.
And concerning the reason for my current state, most noble children my age have already started their lessons in full force to prepare them for their responsibilities and I'm no exception, but since I have such a peculiar model to look up to, my training is a bit different.
Most noble houses will give an education to their heir that includes: history, geography, astrology, government, diplomacy and military strategy as the essential subjects, and additional ones being xenobiology, natural science and xenolinguistics while also teaching them etiquette and politics in order to be able to mingle with other nobles.
Meanwhile Military families and knight households have an education more geared to preparing their offspring to the battlefield with subjects such as: space navigation, hand-to-hand combat, marksmanship, survival and mech piloting.
He as an noble was to receive an noble education, witch he already learned them all except etiquette a long time ago. That left him having to go thought an military education thanks to his father's persistence since he himself went to the military and wishes that he follows he's footsteps.
I have been following a hellish training regimen for a few months now. Initially my parents, specially my mother, were against the start of my training since they feared it was too soon and it would affect my growth, so at the start it was much a lighter exercise, but when they saw me completing the training and doing some extra on my own, they decided to increase my regimen so that at least this way they can keep me from harming myself with unsupervised training.
The new training regimen is all encompassing, being much more effective than the one in the first month, allowing me to acquire skill and expertise that other children would not recieve until they were a bit older.
The new routine consists of: after waking up and having breakfast, the day starts with some light exercise followed by my hand to hand, swordsmanship and marksmanship training, then after lunch I have lessons in the afternoon, and after them I spend some time with Beatrice, dine with my family and spent the rest of the night before sleeping reading books.
On average in an 36h day I spend 22h between training and lessons and the other 14h between sleeping, eating, reading and spending some time with Beatrice.
Which leads back to me being unable to move a muscle, even though I already basically finished my complete academical curriculum, it doesn't help at all with the physical training i am being put trough.
The worst by far is hand to hand combat, that has become much less about me learning new moves as to me being repeatedly beaten to the ground and only then being told what i am doing wrong.
And who is in charge of my training is my uncle Leon, the head knight of the territory, in the last few years the territory is becoming gradually safer thanks to all the pirate hunts and so Leon is using his newfound free time to oversee my training.
But before my condition gets worse, Beatrice quickly brings the training to anend by reminding of the next item on my schedule.
"I think master's training can come to an end. Otherwise he will miss his lunch and the lessons with the head butler." With that Leon has no choice but to stop the training. But before leaving he gives an advice:
"Your training has proceeded smoothly, and you're ahead of people your age, but don't become arrogant! Your talent, strategy and wits can only take you so far, I have seen many geniuses lose their lives because they underestimated their opponent and think they don't need to work hard." He says very seriously, showing a different side from his usual laid back one.
Bearing this in mind I hurriedly go wash myself before going to the table have lunch, then I go directly to where Jonathan is waiting for me.
Reaching the room, i knock on the door and wait for an response.
"Ah, you have finally come! I was starting to think you were going to skip your lessons but is good to know that you still value them as you should." Jonathan says while I make my way to an seat to listen to his lessons.
"Is it really necessary? We have already gone through the entire learning material of both the essential and non-essential subjects." I say in a tired tone showing how sick of having the same lessons I currently am.
"I know that must be hard to sit through lessons that you already had, but it is important that we revise the material after all this knowledge may one day save your life." Since I can't go against my parents arrangements I can only mentally complain and prepare myself for a few long and boring hours.
"Today's topic is about the history and current political scene of our current empire. The empire was formed by an merging of several noble houses in the year... ."
Ignoring this unending an overly detailed explanation, the history of all human hegemonies is quite simple and repetitive.
To Summarize it all: the first human empire, or the old galactic empire has started when the humans leaved their solar system and started to explore other stars, and after an millennium of exploration, colonization and conflict with other species the humans claimed the uncontested spot for the rulers of the galaxy. From then on they would conquer all other races and their empire with their advanced technology would prosper for tens of thousands of years.
But then roughly five thousand years ago the empire that was seemingly unbeatable with all their technology suddenly collapsed with most of the planets that made its core being reduced to wasteland, all surviving humans being those that inhabited far away worlds in the galactic periphery, and all their technology for the most part being destroyed leaving only a few relics, bringing the technology level to extreme low levels. This has led the historians to call the years that came after: 'the dark ages of galactic human civilization'.
And with the fall of those in power comes opportunity, and all the alien races that were previously subjugated used it to free themselves from their shackles and stand against the now weakened humans.
Some of them after the collapse have decided to cooperate with each other and form what the humans now refers as the horde, currently standing as the greatest threat to what remains of humanity. While others choose to return to their planet of origin and isolate themselves from the conflicts of the wider universe and there's even some that integrated themselves with humans, but this time as citizens rather than slaves.
The history from then on becomes very predictable and uninteresting. At some point, various lords unite to combat an external threat that is too powerful for one lord to deal with and end up becoming an empire, rule for a few decades and inevitably crumble due to internal strife until the next overwhelming external threat emerges rince and repeat over and over for thousands of years until this very day.
Of course there are other clans and dynasties that are not part of the empire, but the empire is generally considered the strongest human hegemony.
About the political structure of empire, it's actually very simple. The power is exclusively held by lords and a few corporations, and their rule follow a feudal model with lords having almost complete freedom within their territory and the imperial house being nothing more than the strongest and most influential lord in any given time. They receive tributes of all lords beneath them and in exchange they manage the imperial army that consists of the forces that each territory has to lend, and they also act as an mediator for any internal conflicts among lords.
While within the lords territory, the management structure is separated into, from the bottom upwards: the city governors, the planet administrator, the solar council made from the planet administrators from a solar system, the sector governors or vassals and then finally there is the lords overseeing the whole territory.
Among the lords there is an hierarchy, that is decided by the nobility titles, being the following: the Knights who that have no territory and work in other nobles territory as protectors and vassals, the baron, the count from 1st to 3rd grade, the viscount, marquis, Duke, Archduke that are dukes related to royalty and finally the royals.
The very boring lessons seemed to finally come to an end, leaving me free to spend my time with something much more productive.
For the rest of the day I alternate between various training regimen that encompass: hand to hand combat, swordsmanship and my personal favorite marksmanship. Many people, my father and uncle included, seem to value close combat far too much, saying that is more 'honorable' or is 'the true way of a warrior' but, to me, there is nothing better than being able to eliminate your enemies with a sniper rifle while they are completely unable to retaliate.
I simply train in swordsmanship because of how much they insisted, but such a barbaric way of fighting simply doesn't resonate with me.
Sniper rifles are much more my style.
Finishing my training, I clean up and head back inside.
Then I spend the afternoon with Beatrice. We usually use this time to chat, I answer some questions she has about a certain discipline, mostly chemistry and I also use the time to tease her a bit.
To finish the day I dine with my family and read some books before going to bed.
I continue with this routine for the days to come.
Until a few days later my father interrupts my training to invite me to go hunting with him.
It's one of the few activities that we do together and it would be a nice break from my monotonous days.
So I accept and we head out to the heavily forested planet nearest to ours on our solar system: Goianium
I tried to cadence as much information as possible into the prologue so that I don't have to worry about it later. Let me know if you don't mind an single info dump or that I give information in an more gradual manner.
