On the tournament field, a black mane streamed in the wind.

Iron-shod hooves churned the soft turf, flinging up clods of earth. A knight in a great helm rode a black Nisaean charger bred in Gaul. Mail showed beneath his black surcoat, and only a narrow slit in his visor revealed the eyes within. He thundered toward a straw dummy with a heavy lance of pale ash couched beneath his arm.

The lance was braced against his arm and body at a perfect right angle: the couched position, a charging technique nearly every knight in the known world was expected to master. Its solid shaft was thick at the butt and tapered toward the tip—unwieldy, but popular in tournaments for its weight and the ease with which it broke.

First pass.

The iron point punched through the dummy's chest. The impact lifted the whole straw figure into the air. The knight swept it aside and shook it free.

He cast aside the heavy lance and urged his horse on. As he passed the weapons rack, he snatched up two short spears in one fluid motion.

After wheeling around for another charge, he reversed his grip on the first spear, raised it overhead, and drove it down through a dummy's neck—the weak gap between helm and armor.

His horse swept across the broad field. He drew the second spear, put his whole body behind the throw, and sent it flying.

It missed. The spear buried itself in the mud beside the dummy.

Lothar removed his heavy great helm, revealing a young, striking face. He set the helm on a round table at the edge of the field, lifted an earthenware jug of water, and drank deeply until the heat from his exertion receded.

He studied his status panel, wiped sweat from his temple, and allowed himself a moment of satisfaction. A week of recovery training had raised both his Strength and Stamina by one point.

More importantly, he had fully settled into this body. Years of knightly training had left its mark in the original owner's muscles and reflexes. Heavy and light lances, short spears, shields, bastard swords, even less common weapons such as one-handed hammers, flails, and hand axes—he could use them all with ease.

He was already qualified as a professional fighting knight. Only the formal accolade still eluded him.

Lothar was a transmigrator.

In his previous life, he had owned a game company. One night, while working late with his staff to finish a game, he died from overwork and awoke in this era as Lothar von Habsburg, the second son of a Germanic noble. The original Lothar had fallen from his horse during training, struck his head on a stone, and never regained consciousness.

When Lothar first awoke, he had assumed he had been sent to the Middle Ages recorded in history—the so-called Dark Ages. Only after fully absorbing the original owner's memories did he realize this place bore little resemblance to the medieval world he knew.

For instance, Emperor Heinrich von Hohenstaufen of the Greater Germanic Empire had hired a witch as a royal adviser the previous winter. He had conscripted more than ten thousand serfs and gathered them in Augsburg, Swabia, to build a tower solely for witches and invite witches from across the land to reside there.

That was not even the strangest part. Across the sea in Albion, the famed King Richard the Lionheart had married a witch, who also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer for the entire kingdom.

In the Church-dominated Middle Ages of Lothar's former world, such things would have been impossible. Here, witches and the Church did not seem as hostile to one another—at least not on the surface.

[STATUS PANEL]

**Name:** Lothar von Habsburg

**Title:** None

**Class:** Noble

**Faction:** Greater Germanic Empire, County of Aargau (Lower Burgundy, not the Duchy of Burgundy)

**Retainers:** None

**STR:** 9 (baseline for a healthy adult male: 5)

**AGI:** 7

**STA:** 8

**END:** 8

**SPI:** 10

**Talent:** Two Lives, One Soul — Your fused soul grants you double the spirit of an ordinary man. Spirit cap permanently +5.

**Skills:** None

The System was called the "Yesterday's Great Ship Tower Defense System." It came from the knockoff tower-defense game he had been desperately trying to finish and release before his death, after days without proper sleep.

The game's premise was nothing unusual: draw cards to summon heroes, then defend and strengthen a territory against wave after wave of enemies.

The problem was that the game began with a territory.

Lothar had none. He did not even possess an empty title. Without either, he could not activate the System. To this day, he had not drawn a single card.

After training, Lothar returned to his room in the castle. A maid helped him remove his surcoat and mail, and he changed into a light linen shirt before heading straight for the castle tower.

The castle was called "Habichtsburg"—Hawk's Castle. In the local tongue, the name had contracted into a single word: Habsburg. It was from this fortress that his family drew its name.

In Gaul and Germania, nobles used prefixes such as de and von before their surnames. Both meant "of," marking them as landed nobility.

Hawk's Castle was a formidable mountain fortress, built on treacherous ground. With sufficient stores, even a great army would find it difficult to take.

Lothar ran his fingers over the stone projections of the battlement and stood in the cool mountain wind.

In his former life, even an ordinary salaried worker could live in an air-conditioned home, sleep on a soft mattress, and have running water around the clock. In this age, even nobles lived far from comfortably.

The Germanic nobles were especially warlike. Used to castles rather than country manors, they endured conditions that could only be called miserable.

Damp. Dark.

Rats. Fleas.

Nothing unusual.

A castle's military value far outweighed its value as a residence. Its builders considered strength before comfort, always.

Heavy footsteps rose from below. A soldier in a crested helm and surcoat said quietly, "Young Master Lothar, the Count asks for you. It is time for the midday meal."

"I know."

Lothar nodded and followed him to the castle's great hall.

Hawk's Castle's soldiers were full-time professionals, unlike the peasant levies who farmed in peacetime and were summoned only for war. There were barely more than a hundred of them. In wartime, together with the Count's knights, they formed the core of the army—the equivalent of an eastern general's personal guard.

The most striking sight in the great hall was the gray wall at the far end beneath the stone-vaulted ceiling. A tapestry hung there, flanked by three heraldic shields.

The left shield bore three black lions on gold. The center bore a single-headed black eagle on gold. The right bore a red lion rampant on gold.

The first belonged to the House of Hohenstaufen, the dynasty of Emperor Heinrich VI, whom Lothar's father, Count Werner, served. The center shield represented the Greater Germanic Empire. Only the rightmost belonged to Lothar's own House of Habsburg.

Beneath the shields, serving women had laid dishes across a long trestle table.

Count Werner was already seated with Lothar's elder brother, Otto. Their mother, Lady Ilse, had died of illness a year earlier.

When he saw Lothar, Count Werner gave a slight nod and indicated the open seat with his eyes.

He was not a man who smiled easily. His cheekbones were high, his eyes deep-set; long brown hair and beard framed a face marked by a deep scar across one cheek. By any measure, he was far from handsome.

Yet both his sons—the firstborn Otto and the second son Lothar—were fine-looking young men.

Once Lothar had taken his seat, Count Werner raised a hand and made the sign of the cross, from forehead to chest, then from left shoulder to right.

"We thank the Heavenly Father for the food He has given us, and pray that He grant sustenance to the poor, the troubled, and the hungry. In the Father's name, amen."

When the prayer was finished, Count Werner signaled for his sons to eat.

The meal was fairly generous: goat stewed with carrots and potatoes as the main course, with roast quail, fruit pie, and a basket of white bread made from finely milled wheat flour on the side.

Their tableware was silver, worked with intricate patterns. It was said to be among the spoils Count Werner had brought back from the Crusades in his youth. Without such spoils, Aargau was too poor a backwater to keep a full set of silver tableware for everyday use while also maintaining reserves for banquets.

---

Author's Notes:

1. This novel takes place in an original fantasy world. Some characters, families, and nations draw inspiration from history, but readers should not treat it as historical fiction. Count Werner, for instance, is loosely based on a figure from the early eleventh century, when great helms had not yet appeared and the Holy Roman Emperor belonged to the Salian rather than the Hohenstaufen dynasty. To be clear: this is fantasy, not history.

2. As those familiar with medieval history will know, there were three Burgundies. The Lower Burgundy where House Habsburg resides is not the Burgundy in Gaul, but the region in present-day Switzerland.

3. Most characters in this work omit their Christian names (baptismal names).