Reincarnation with AI (Unemployment-Free)

Chapter 97 Inferiority Complex

Alice's tenth birthday is coming soon.

In a world without jobs, people celebrate their children's birthdays at the age of five, ten, and fifteen.

Nobles would take this opportunity to hold large banquets and celebrate with great fanfare for their children.

On his birthday, the mansion's main hall and the courtyard leading to it would be open to the public, and nobles from the town would be invited to celebrate.

The nobles would naturally bring gifts, as would those from other parts of the territory who couldn't come.

This is Alice's birthday party, and also a social gathering place for nobles to exchange gifts and favors.

Because Sauros was a military officer who did not follow the rules, he proposed to adopt a casual, self-service style of eating and drinking.

Incidentally, the four regional lords of the Kingdom of Asura—Notos, Boreas, Aiuros, and Zeferos—are all men of great martial virtue.

They all had private armies.

Although both China and Europe were feudal systems in ancient times, their underlying logic was different.

If a prince dares to raise a large army, he will be considered a traitor and will be directly stripped of his fiefdom and beheaded.

But in Europe, without fiefdoms and private armies, one was not considered a nobleman.

Their nobility, in ancient China, was more like an independent vassal state.

This creates a very interesting phenomenon.

In most people's minds, the king is likened to an emperor, who can do whatever he wants.

In reality, however, the king's say was far less than the emperor's.

The emperor was a man of absolute authority. Even if he misspoke and called a deer a horse, then from then on, a deer was a horse, and the names of the two animals would simply be changed.

This is not an exaggeration, but a fact.

After Zhu Yuanzhang mistakenly wrote "衮州" instead of "充州", he refused to admit his mistake and executed the official who pointed out the error.

There are many similar events in history, and they all tell the same story.

In the minds of ancient Chinese people, the emperor was the Son of Heaven, representing Heaven, and no legitimate power could check or balance him.

The emperor is never wrong.

The whole world is wrong.

The king, on the other hand, fared much worse.

If the king wanted to collect more salt tax to enrich himself, he had to share the cake with the nobles so that everyone could eat together.

If you're greedy and say, "These are all mine! I want to keep them all for myself!" then I'm sorry.

The nobles will unite and send the king to the guillotine.

In fact, the Rebellion of the Seven States also occurred in Chinese history.

The emperor reclaimed the private armies of the princes and strengthened central authority in order to prevent "rebellions by the princes".

This is something Rudeus learned slowly about how the world works a year after he arrived in Roa.

Upon receiving the news, Philip persuaded Sauros, citing the need to accommodate the middle-ranking nobles, to change the banquet into a ball.

Lower-ranking nobles might not care about Sauros's arrangements, but middle-ranking nobles would feel uncomfortable.

There's no way around it; people with money just start to act sophisticated.

Calling it pretentious is too harsh; calling it pursuing something better is better—that's just being affected by sophistication!

Thinking this, Rudeus nodded, feeling like a nobleman himself.

When it comes to dances, dancing is an essential part of the event.

As the protagonist of this ball, Alice should set an example by performing the opening dance.

In terms of age, ten years old should be the beginning of aristocrats' entry into social circles.

Many children attend their first banquet at this age, accompanied by their parents.

When Rudeus put himself in Alice's shoes, his first thought was—fear.

Ten years old, which is only the fourth grade of elementary school.

Back then, Rudius didn't even dare to raise his hand in class, and when he stood on the podium, he would immediately go black.

prom?

Hundreds of people were watching me perform the opening dance?

Impossible — It can't be done —

In his previous life, Rudeus was only able to speak in front of others after participating in an annual chorus performance during junior high school.

It was only when he stood on the big stage with the whole class to sing together that he began to overcome his fear.

Of course, once you start working, you could stand on the street and shout, "Everyone look at me, I have an announcement to make!"—but that's a story for another time.

There are limitations at the age of ten.

Even though Alice was born into a noble family, her knowledge and experience were incomparable to that of Rudeus in his previous life.

But she is essentially an insecure person.

After ruling out her violent behavior stemming from a lack of communication skills.

Violent retaliation in school is nothing more than a spike used to protect oneself from harm.

Being called a "monster" and a "beast" will inevitably leave untouchable scars on her psyche.

She has never received recognition from anyone outside her family.

Speaking of which...

In the original work, the Rudeus family is filled with inferiority complexes—three wives plus the male protagonist, and in the end, the eldest daughter leads most of the children astray.

Although Rudius considers himself to be highly educated.

But if we have children in the future, wouldn't it be better to have Paul help take care of them?

After all, his grandfather was an incredibly shameless, sunny young man.

I'm thinking too far ahead.

Recently, aside from ten math problems and basic physical exercises, Alice has stopped all her classes and is focusing on learning dance.

The teacher in charge of instruction is Ms. Edna.

To be honest, Rudius was quite interested in dancing, but the thought of Edna being in charge of teaching him completely killed his interest. Unsurprisingly, Alice ran away two days after they started learning to dance.

He ran over to watch Rudeus taking a swordsmanship lesson.

"Iris?" Rudeus asked, turning his head with his hands still in a sword-wielding stance.

"What's wrong?" Alice shrugged, her eyebrows raised. Although she ran over at an astonishing speed, she wasn't out of breath, but exuded anger.

"Aren't you in a dance class?" Rudeus asked, putting down his sword.

Responding while half-heartedly wielding a sword will only get you a lesson from Gilead; you might as well stop.

"Hmph!" Alice turned her face away from Rudeus and stood to the side with her arms crossed and legs spread apart.

Rudeus shook his head. He knew Alice needed help, but she had to finish this sword lesson first. Rudeus continued swinging his sword.

"Miss Alice!" Edna's shouts came before she could even swing her sword a few times.

Upon hearing the sound, Alice dashed off in the opposite direction like the wind.

"Young Miss!" Edna walked over quickly, still adhering to etiquette, while Alice had already disappeared around the corner.

Edna seemed to sigh, but upon seeing Rudius and Kyrie Irvine, she continued walking towards them.

"Oh dear, Professor Rudeus, Professor Kyrie Irvine—" Edna greeted them with a weak smile and an elegant bow as she approached.

It's rare to see Edna with such an expression.

"Hello, Teacher Edna." Rudeus put down his wooden sword, glanced at the thin layer of sweat on Edna's forehead, and returned a noble greeting with one hand.

"Oh," Kyrie Irvine simply waved casually.

"I'm so sorry to have made you see such an unsightly scene."

"Not at all, it must be quite difficult to teach the young lady to dance," Rudeus replied.

Looking back at Gilead, she seemed to have no intention of speaking and didn't seem to mind the interruption of the lesson.

Edna smiled politely at her, then looked at Rudeus and said, "It's embarrassing to admit, but I haven't been very successful in teaching the young lady to dance. As soon as we start practicing, she runs away immediately."

"Oh dear, that must be very tiring," Rudius replied politely.

"There's less than a month until her birthday. If things continue like this, the young lady will have to pay for her tenth birthday party." Edna deliberately looked at Rudeus and continued, "It's supposed to be a special birthday party, but she'll have to face the guests' ridicule. It's just too pitiful."

"Is that so? It's really pitiful," Rudius agreed.

"That's what I was saying—" Edna paused for a moment, then continued, "Well, I heard that Miss's reading and writing have improved a lot recently. Teacher Rudeus is quite excellent."

"Not at all, it's just that Miss Alice is much more well-behaved than I imagined," Rudeus replied with a smile.

Edna looked visibly taken aback, leaving Xiaoxiao momentarily speechless.

Rudius had originally intended to continue his back-and-forth with her, but she seemed surprised by his praise of Alice.

"Let's stop here then," he said, and asked, "Does Teacher Edna need any help?"

"Ah, it's like this, could you please ask Professor Rudeus to help persuade the young lady to practice dancing?"