TERNLF Vol. 1 Prologue

Full title: The Exiled Reincarnated Noble Lives Freely

Note: If you found any typos/mistakes, pls write them in the comment. Thanks.

Translator: Canon

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◆Prologue◆

I was born and raised by a single mother. My name is Toa Yamazaki.

My dream had always been to become an astronaut, and after years of hard work, I managed to get accepted into a prestigious university renowned for space sciences.

But just six months after my coming-of-age ceremony, tragedy struck.

Perhaps it was the toll of all those years of strain—my mother, who had raised me alone, suddenly passed away.

Losing the only family I had, I dropped out of university and began job hunting.

Unfortunately, it was right when the country was being battered by a severe recession, and no matter how many interviews I attended, I couldn’t secure employment.

By day, I searched for jobs. By night, I scraped by with multiple part-time gigs.

A handful of friends repeatedly warned me that if I kept living like this, I’d destroy both my body and mind. But with no savings and no degree, I had no other choice.

Thankfully, the physical training I had done in pursuit of becoming an astronaut had left me with above-average stamina.

I told myself that once the economy stabilized, I’d find something.

With only that hope keeping me afloat, I worked tirelessly, cutting down on sleep and running myself ragged.

—But it seems I overestimated my limits.

Two years after my mother’s death, on my way home from a construction site shift, a sharp pain pierced my chest, and I collapsed.

Just before I lost consciousness, I realized someone had called an ambulance.

But help didn’t arrive in time. I died shortly after.

I was twenty-two years old.

There were still so many things I wanted to do.

But none of those dreams could come true now.

If I could be reborn, I thought, I’d want a life free of hardship—

—

The next thing I knew, I was lying in a luxurious crib.

Well, to be precise, I only understood what had happened once I was already in the crib.

I couldn’t move my limbs properly.

I couldn’t even form words.

Not knowing what had happened to me, I panicked and began wailing like a newborn.

But after some time, I gradually came to realize—I had died and been reincarnated.

As I calmed down, I started piecing together my current situation.

There wasn’t much else I could do, after all.

Unable to even roll over in my crib, I tried to recall my final memories.

I remembered that my name in my previous life was Toa Yamazaki, and that I had died young.

The memories were hazy, and much of them were shrouded as if in a fog.

The only vivid recollections were the searing pain in my chest and the fading of consciousness.

Still, I could faintly remember the final wish I made right before everything went dark.

“If I could be reborn, I’d want a life free of hardship—”

It seems the gods took pity on my ridiculous wish and decided to grant it.

Even with my blurry vision, I could tell just by glancing around—the family I’d been born into was extremely wealthy.

The room was lined with ornate antique furniture.

The space itself was vast and tall-ceilinged, excessive for a room meant only for a baby.

I did find the furnishings a little too antiquated, but after spending some time in this infantile state, I came to understand why.

It turned out I had been reincarnated in a world that resembled medieval Europe, what people often refer to as a “fantasy world.”

Magic was commonplace, and there were even Adventurer Guilds.

A world of swords and sorcery.

And in this world, I had been born as the heir of a rather affluent noble family.

My name was Toa.

Whether by fate or coincidence, it was pronounced the same as in my past life, albeit written differently.

I thought to myself:

So long as there wasn’t some kind of political upheaval, I could live a life of leisure and stability as a noble’s son.

Surely, there would be challenges unique to noble society—but compared to my past life, those would be nothing.

I balled my tiny hands into fists and gave a triumphant squeeze.

This must be what it means to want to dance with joy.

Well, I was still a baby, so dancing was out of the question.

In my previous life, there was a time when I couldn’t catch the last train home after working overtime and ended up staying the night at a manga café. That was where I first read a comic about reincarnation into another world.

The story followed a protagonist who used a cheat ability granted by a god to become an adventurer, defeat monsters and villains, build a harem, and live happily ever after.

Surely, I must also have been granted some kind of overpowered cheat skill.

But I had no intention of using it to fight. I planned to live slowly, peacefully.

After all, I had never been in a real fight before and had always avoided getting involved in any sort of trouble. Monster hunting was beyond me.

And even if someone were a villain, the idea of taking a life sent a chill down my spine.

I had been blessed with an environment where I could live comfortably without doing anything strenuous.

So instead of becoming an adventurer, I would choose the path of a noble:graceful, refined, and content.

“Ah-bah, ah-bah.”

With all the strength my uncoordinated baby body could muster, I wiggled around and silently vowed:

I will use my reincarnation perk to live a slow, carefree life as a noble’s son.

—

And so, time passed.

By the time I turned three, I was able to walk freely around the house and began exploring everything I could.

Thanks to that, I finally came to understand my current standing.

Apparently, I was the son of the second wife in the noble household of Viscount Kashit in a country known as the Kingdom of Preasole. That made me the family’s second son.

The Kashit family held no territory of its own and belonged to a class known as the court nobility.

Unlike feudal lords who govern lands and collect taxes from their subjects, court nobles serve as bureaucrats and receive salaries from the kingdom—essentially functioning as high-ranking civil servants.

Hearing the term “civil servant” might make them seem distant from what one imagines nobility to be.

However, when you realize that court nobles often receive higher compensation than regional lords do through their landholdings, it becomes clear why they are still considered aristocracy.

And that's not all.

Court nobles work in the nerve center of the kingdom, maintain residences in the noble quarter at the heart of the royal capital, and interact daily with individuals of tremendous influence and power.

As a result, they naturally amass far more authority and backing than most feudal lords could ever hope to.

Among the common folk, there’s even a saying: nobles in the capital are “high-ranking,” while those in the countryside are “low-ranking.”

Of course, there are exceptions—certain great lords command vast territories even in the provinces—but excluding them, the standing of court nobles turned out to be far more formidable than I had expected.

Personally, I didn’t think that number-crunchers and schemers dwelling in the capital deserved to be called “upper class.”

But even in my past life, it wasn’t unusual for cunning types like them to outrank hardworking individuals over time.

And now, having been reincarnated into a position where I could enjoy the benefits of that same aristocratic society, I had no reason not to take advantage of it.

As long as I wasn’t forced into combat, a bureaucratic post would allow me to leverage my knowledge from my past life to great effect.

That was the plan; I believed my life as a carefree noble would be rock-solid.

“Lord Toa, if you keep standing like that, you’ll end up hurting yourself. How many times must I correct you?”

I had assumed that swordsmanship would be unnecessary for someone in a clerical position like a court noble. Yet even my instructor had given up on me…

“You still can’t even perform a basic spell properly. Are you even trying to learn?”

My magic tutor regarded me with the same disappointment one might reserve for a failing student.

In stark contrast, my older brother Glaas—two years my senior and the son of the first wife—had quickly mastered beginner-level magic and was already being praised as a prodigy.

As a result, my competent older brother and my thoroughly mediocre self were constantly compared.

The Kashit family’s disgrace.

It didn’t take long before everyone started calling me that.

Of course, I tried to prove them wrong.

But no matter how hard I worked, I couldn’t catch up to my brother in swordplay or magic.

And honestly, I couldn’t understand why swordsmanship and magic were required for court nobles in the first place.

One day, I asked my instructor about it.

According to him, there were other countries to both the north and south of this kingdom.

Relations with the southern nation had been peaceful for some time, thanks to a lasting truce, but skirmishes with the northern country were ongoing.

Should conflict escalate, it was customary—even for court nobles—to take up arms and lead in battle. That was why training in both swordsmanship and magic was considered essential for noble children.

He added, though, that the likelihood of such a scenario occurring was low.

Still, sword and sorcery remained part of a noble’s expected refinement, and given the yawning gap between my brother’s skills and mine, it was hard to argue with being labeled a failure.

Even if, academically, I was far more gifted than my brother thanks to retained knowledge from my previous life.

That knowledge, however, sometimes worked against me.

The norms of this world were fundamentally different from my old one.

I couldn’t get used to the hierarchical view of nobles versus commoners, and there were situations in which killing someone wasn’t even considered a crime.

In fact, the very purpose of training in swordsmanship and magic was arguably to prepare for such acts. But constrained by the ethical framework of my former life, I simply couldn’t accept the notion of preparing to take another’s life. Just being near a weapon filled me with dread.

“Wasn’t reincarnation supposed to let you live a fun and easy life with some overpowered cheat ability?!”

That outburst of mine would never reach the gods.

True, I was enjoying a life of material comfort. In that sense, my wish had been granted.

So blaming the gods would be misguided.

Besides, I was still a noble’s son. Even a so-called failure like me could be used as a political pawn through arranged marriage.

In the worst case, I could be married off into another household and continue living as a noble.

Fortunately, thanks to the knowledge from my past life, I had earned a reputation as a capable civil servant, even if I was hopeless as a soldier.

In particular, departments requiring strong arithmetic skills had praised me, saying they wished they could hire me immediately. And I was only three.

From the moment I found out I was the second son, I never expected to inherit the Kashit household.

So the plan was to marry into another noble family, serve as a civil official, and live a life free of hardship.

I would only train in swordplay and magic to the bare minimum required and instead focus on mastering the knowledge and skills essential for a bureaucrat, until I became someone the kingdom couldn’t function without.

That, surely, would allow me to live a luxurious and elegant life befitting a noble.

“Swinging a sword sounds like a lot more trouble. I’ll just follow the path that suits me best.”

And so, I reaffirmed my resolve to pursue exactly that kind of life.

—

However, tragedy struck just a few days after I turned five.

The mother who had given birth to me passed away.

She had always been frail, and after my birth, her strength declined further until illness overtook her.

Because of that, we had lived far from the royal capital, in a convalescent estate owned by the Kashit family.

Since I was raised in the capital by a wet nurse, I had barely spent any time with her—but even so, her death came as a shock.

To lose my mother early in life for a second time left me utterly despondent.

And then, as if to drive a dagger deeper into my heart, another nightmare soon followed.

—

On my eighth birthday, the head butler abruptly entered my room and delivered this pronouncement:

“Lord Toa, you will be sent to the frontier fortress for training.”

Located in the northeastern reaches of the kingdom lies a basin known as the “Forest of Malice.”

Encircled by towering mountain ranges, the only route leading from that basin into the kingdom is a narrow valley—precisely where the fortress had been constructed, serving as a barricade.

Its purpose: to protect the people from the powerful magic beasts that emerge from the forest.

Deep within those woods lie numerous dungeons.

And from time to time, these dungeons trigger massive outbreaks of monsters, known as stampedes.

These events have repeatedly inflicted widespread devastation across the southern continent.

To put an end to the cycle of tragedy, the people of that era rallied together and sought aid from the Dwarves and Beastkin—who, despite typically avoiding human affairs, chose to join forces for this cause.

Thanks to human ingenuity, Dwarven craftsmanship, and the raw strength of the Beastkin, a colossal and fortified stronghold was completed, capable of halting even a stampede.

However, no fortress can defend itself unaided.

Thus, elite warriors from each race are stationed there, fighting off the powerful monsters that occasionally pour from the forest.

Even for seasoned veterans, serving at the fortress is a life-threatening assignment.

And now, I—an eight-year-old boy, hardly elite—was being sent to that very place.

Why? No, I already had a fair idea.

This had to be the doing of Sharite, the first wife of the Kashit household.

She despised me to her core, as I was the child of the second wife. Every time she saw me, her expression contorted with disgust before she promptly averted her gaze.

Especially after my mother’s death three years ago, her disdain became overt. She began deliberately creating a stark contrast between me and my older brother in all things within the household.

Because of that, the tutors hired for my education began to resign one after another.

No one wanted to be associated with the child scorned by the lady of the house—branding oneself as the instructor of a so-called failure could irreparably stain one's career.

And so, when the last of what was once a team of ten instructors left the household, it was decided that I would be sent to the frontier fortress.

—

After transferring through several towns by carriage, I finally arrived at the fortress several months after leaving the capital.

Naturally, an eight-year-old couldn’t endure such a long journey alone. I was entrusted with a few soldiers who had been assigned to the frontier.

The official reason was “training and education,” but everyone knew it was simply a matter of casting me off.

During the journey, perhaps sensing the truth of the situation, the soldiers were incredibly kind to me. That, at least, was a small mercy.

But even so, I never found solace—not once.

As I stepped down from the carriage and gazed up at the massive stronghold looming before me—

“I refuse to die in a place like this! I’ll train, get stronger, and one day prove every last one of them wrong!”

That was the vow I made.

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