Chapter 21: Nobility Hierarchy

For the next few weeks, Andrew would take Nina to the previous doctor once a week to try a treatment for her situation.

The doctor who had checked her condition in Saltstar City felt that her situation was not promising and that the sequelae were practically irreversible. However, he suggested treatment to at least reduce the severity of what would happen to her in the future.

This was not something that would solve the problem. Yet, it could be the difference between her having difficulty walking and not walking at all.

As for her relative chances of waking up, only heaven could tell if that would change to any degree.

In those weeks, Lauren would spend most of her time in her siblings' room, turning to get to know her own limits.

Walking in the dark was not easy. Getting used to the evolution of her other senses wasn't either!

As for Vicente, he had still been accompanying his father in negotiations, slowly gaining more space with his old man to participate and even lead.

Even though he was only 10, children already took on responsibilities around this age in this society.

Children were learning their parents' functions from the age of 5, and many were working by the time they were 10.

It was not strange to see children involved in non-physical work, so Vicente had not encountered any problems.

His father and some of this man's acquaintances saw his participation as positive, especially when they noticed that this young man was neither dumb nor slow.

...

"Father, I'm coming," Vincent said before opening the door to his father's room and entering.

He smelled something terrible when he entered there but didn't find it strange. Lately, his old man was not so bothered about his own appearance or hygiene.

When he found him lying on the bed, Vicente saw the drink bottles on the floor and an ashtray full of ashes beside one of the headboards.

Andrew was only in his underwear, lying on his stomach.

"Father... Father, wake up..." Vicente tried to wake his old man, as this man made some typical noises of someone waking up from a bad night's sleep.

"Hell, Vicente, why are you waking me up?" Andrew asked as he yawned.

"We have a meeting now in the morning. Aren't you going?"

"What meeting?"

"With the Murray family. Won't you come?"

"Why don't you represent me, son? I'm sure you can handle this." Andrew said, without even looking at his son, getting ready to go back to sleep.

Vicente heard this and sighed.

He had no problem taking on his father's responsibilities. What worried him was the psychological situation of this man!

'Father is in a very bad way... After we arrived in this city, he had been drinking more and more.

It seems he is dealing with his loss by becoming sloppy and drinking.' He stood beside his father for a few moments, looking at this room's messy and fetid surroundings.

Unfortunately, there was nothing he could do to help. He had already tried to talk to his old man, but life for all of them was pretty depressing. Every day Lauren's blindness and Nina's deafness reminded them of everything that had happened.

As much as Vicente disapproved of his father's way of acting, he understood this man's difficulties. Nnew n0vel chapters are published on n0v/e(lb)i(n.)co/m

Hell, he had gone through the reincarnation experience and had the experience of two lives, but still, he was troubled by it all... So imagine what Andrew shouldn't be going through?

It was understandable that he had no mind to go out and work, that he was devastated.

Vicente disapproved but felt he had to give his old man a break.

"It's okay, father. I'll take care of it, so stay here and get some rest." He said before leaving, leaving one guard to look after his family and departing alongside the other.

...

A few minutes later, Vicente arrived in front of an estate not far from the resort where his family members were.

In front of this place were several palm trees, a silver fence that extended for over 100 meters, and a beautiful lawn.

At the back was a large estate, which one could easily say belonged to financially wealthy people.

Upon identifying himself at the gate of this property, Vicente quickly got permission to enter and made his way to the front of the property.

When he arrived, a man dressed in a black suit was waiting for him in front of the entrance door.

"Young Fuller, didn't your father come with you? Is there a problem?" The butler of the Murray family asked while smiling.

"Good morning, butler Mason. My father is not feeling well. So I am here to represent him. I hope Baron Murray doesn't mind having to deal with me." Vicente said politely.

"Not at all. Please come with me." That man nodded to Vicente soon after leading the way.

The Seidel Kingdom had a well-defined hierarchy for nobility.

At the bottom of the local hierarchical pyramid, the least prestigious nobles were those members of families with Barons as heads. Above them came those with patriarchs as Viscounts, then Counts, Marquises, and finally, the most important, Dukes.

Dukes were the closest to the king and served as rulers of the provinces. Some of the most important of them were distantly related to the royal family.

Barons, on the other hand, as was the case of the person with whom Vicente's father would do business today, were loyal subjects of the king, usually wealthy people.

Generally, upon reaching some social requirements, these men exchanged their loyalty in exchange for small territories, the size of farms, to rule over.

There was no private property outside the kingdom's cities, towns, and villages, so to administer any land, one had to be part of the nobility.

This gave the nobles advantages over all the other wealthy people in the kingdom, which is why many free men had a common interest in becoming nobles.

This is why a Baron was so rich that he had an estate almost as large as the resort where Vicente and his family were staying and had dozens of people working for them.

Vicent noticed this as he walked through the halls of that estate while butler Mason directed him to Baron Murray's office.

'There are so many maids and workers here...' He discreetly looked at the surroundings.

Vicente knew noble families in the Seidel Kingdom were very different from those in fiction stories he had read on Earth.

These families did not have hundreds of members, armies, and so on. Usually, the noble families of the kingdom had 2 to 3 generations, parents, children, and grandchildren, that is, only close relatives of the nobleman.

Only the leader of the family received the title of nobility, and only the eldest son could inherit it.

With this, there were usually not many members in noble families, usually only the sons of the nobleman, his siblings, and parents, as well as the sons of his heirs.

Besides that it was not considered as part of the family, but distant relatives, who naturally did not have any privileges.

At the same time, only the royal family could have a personal army, so noble powers in this place did not have military forces with dozens of members or more. At most, high-ranking nobles would have a few guards and small groups to protect their main properties.

Hence, everything Vicente saw in this place belonged to a tiny group that couldn't have more than 20 people.

This naturally opened his eyes to the difference in wealth from the lowest title of nobility to an ordinary man like his father.

'Interesting...'

Chapter end