Title: ABC Demote Me (Part 1?)
Summary: I am clearly not noble material, so demote me to baronet.
"Sir Bartfort, what in blazes are you doing?" one of the teachers asked angrily.
Looking around, I admired my fields. I did away with the stuffy bushes that produced nothing but allergies. Now they would be productive land. Of course, I did it on school grounds to piss off the staff.
"I'm farming. I plan on growing some vegetables."
"You can't do that! This is Academy grounds!"
"I got the forms signed. I'm allowed to grow what I wrote."
"You wrote exotic sounding plants. We thought it wouldn't be something as uncouth as tomatoes."
"I did write down that I would be planting tomatoes."
"Where on this list of names did you write that?"
"The fourth one on the list. Solanum lycopersicum. That's how the Lost Ones wrote it."
"That is entirely disingenuous. The school shall rescind your permission. You will disassemble your plots and restore the school grounds to its previous state."
I snorted. They got exactly what was coming to them. The fact that they didn't bother to question me what the exotic plants I were going to plant truly was on them.
"That is legal contract the school has signed. The name of the plant was clearly written. You can't back out of this written agreement simply because you lacked a sufficient knowledge base to know what was stated or lacked the wisdom to ask when you didn't know what was written. If you insist on pushing the issue, I shall be taking this up as a legal matter."
The teacher merely snorted before walking away muttering about stupid frontier nobles. I mean he wasn't wrong. It was meant to highlight how unsuited I was for noble life.
Now all I needed to do was bring this up to the King. Once people realized I was stupid enough to bring such a trivial matter up to the King, I was surely to be demoted to the rank of baronet as I should've always been.
I can't believe I successfully sued the school. For whatever reason, the King agreed with my complaint and enforced the contract. As compensation, I was awarded a much larger and more public section of the school to plant my fruits and vegetables.
The man even bought me a female elf to help attend to my project... and whatever my needs may be. The last part he said in a tone that made me question his competency. Though he had good tastes. Yumeria was quite beautiful.
She also had plant growth magic. That was probably the most important part. Thanks to her efforts, we now had fruit trees surrounding every walkway that used to have regular trees. The peaches from the new trees were particularly delicious.
In any case, the staff was less than enthused with my success. The teacher who had scolded me now gave me a dead stare every time we saw each other in the hallways. I saw him draw a line across his throat every time.
In any case, plan A-griculture failed. Plan B-BQ was sure to get me demoted.
As I carefully grilled and seasoned my meat, I obnoxiously fanned the smoke and smell to spread over the area. I could see many of the snobbish nobles (particularly the girls) give me looks of contempt. The general voices I overheard were of discontent and questions of how a lowborn such as myself had the audacity to be such a nuisance.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a familiar member of the staff storming towards me with a look of murder.
"This has a lovely aroma. Might I have a sample?" a boy said next to me as I was distracted by my impending reward.
"Sure," I said without looking.
I should have known it would have been too easy to get demoted when I had a skewer fetishist prince as a classmate. With his words of endorsement and his father's odd appreciation of my trolling, we now had grilling pits and classes for that. I stared out of the window at the grilling pits located in a nice open field near the back of the school (it wouldn't do to show the less glamorous aspect of adventuring to commoners or ruin the air of nobility of the school).
There was at least one benefit to all of this. I looked on at the teacher hauling the food necessary for the class on grilling. It seems like the King found the idea of making my biggest detractor the instructor as funny as I did.
Alas, as amusing as it was, I still needed to find a way to get demoted.
Looking back from the window, I stared at Plan C-offee. The etiquette teacher looked affronted when I had claimed that tea was just hot leaf juice. As an adult, I knew that coffee was the true beverage that real men of taste pursued. I had taken his retort of coffee being hot bean water personally.
Once I cooled down after the class, I realized I could get myself demoted by stamping on the very traditions this godforsaken school stood upon, tea parties. Of course, no one accepted my invitation since these imbeciles never knew the concept of good coffee.
Had they entertained the novelty, they would have been treated to something that tasted quite nice. I was no barista, but who needed skill when Luxion could brew it for me.
"I see your coffee was unsuccessful?" the etiquette teacher said across from me. How did he make his gloating sound so elegant?
"Because the nobility are a bunch of uncultured imbeciles incapable of appreciating the finer things in life."
"Regardless of your incorrect opinion, you missed the deadline to have a lady attend your 'coffee' party. As it stands, this will negatively impact your standing. There is a good chance you will be demoted given your current status. It's a shame. We had such high hopes for you."
Yes! Third time was the charm.
In order to hide my glee, I took a long sip from my coffee. This only earned a look of disgust from the teacher.
"I don't understand how you can tolerate such a bitter taste," he said as he poured himself a cup.
He tentatively took a sip. Then he took another. He quietly took one of the biscuits and continued on. When he poured himself a second cup, I became concerned.
"Professor?" I asked hesitantly.
The word of the archduke saw me formally attain the rank of baron with an upper six court rank. I also had a tentative promotion to viscount contingent on my graduation.
Why was the archduke a teacher?! Didn't he have better things to do?! Because of him, not only did I not get demoted, I got promoted! I even had to start paying taxes since I officially had the rank now!
At least my new coffee business was so successful that I could have Luxion print money without anyone questioning where it was coming from. As far as money was concerned, I was set for life.
If only this promotion and influx of income didn't have the gold digging harpies demand my subservience. They were a constant reminder why I needed to get demoted. I refused to be the cuck in whatever sordid polyamory relationship they had.
Breath, Leon. Focus on the current task. The Redgraves had called me in to assess my potential as a vassal. For plan D-uke to work, I needed to convince Duke Redgrave I was just a lucky idiot too incompetent to truly deserve my position. He should have enough political sway still to bump me back down to baronet.
"Tell me what you think of the prince," he started.
That was an odd topic to start off with. How did my opinion factor into becoming a vassal for the Redgrave's? Maybe he was more concerned about whether I would side with his family or the royal family? It seemed like a reasonable concern considering his daughter was slated to bond the two families. The fact that I seemingly have a good relationship with both the king and prince was an additional thing to consider from that angle.
In any case, it would be easy to be booted from nobility. I had enough miserable memories of the prince's incompetence to honestly and viscerally tear into him. It would be asinine to take on a vassal that would spew vitriol towards the royal family. What's more, such idiocy would have to be accompanied with a demotion. If I were lucky, I might get booted further than baronet and leave the school early.
How much did the Duke hate Julius to not only accept me as a vassal, but also make the effort to make Zola and her children disappear? He just (probably) murdered three people for me. Regardless of his position as a duke, it must have taken a substantial amount of effort to do.
His actions in conjunction with my failing upwards had the effect of instating me as heir to the Bartfort territory. In addition to this, the combination of my formally independent islands and the impoverished barony was enough to promote me to viscount and a tentative future promotion again contingent on my graduation. My court rank also increased from upper six to upper five.
AN:
1) As the title suggests, this would span plans from A-Z of Leon trying and failing to get the demotion. Each would only be a short bit with the letter representing the word of the plan. Each bit would also introduce him to a person of importance that takes a liking to him. Chapters for these would probably be on the shorter side in length.
2) I stopped at D since it fits the title scheme and because trying to write more in one chapter kind of draws out the joke a bit too much. I received that comment when I did the full alphabet in another fiction I wrote (Genius or Insanity).
3) Considering Leon doesn't give a shit about his rank and reputation, I doubt he wouldn't at least have tried to get bumped down to baronet.
4) Leon's current titles: Upper rank five Viscount, Vassal of Redgrave aka Bountiful Adventurer, Seasoned Adventurer, and Coffee Czar.