Reborn as a Hated Noble Family, We Start an Industrial Revolution-Chapter 58: Raphael’s Small Army

Royal Academy Library – East Wing. One Week After Orientation.

The Royal Academy Library was a place of silence, dust, and—for the majority of high-born students—utter boredom. The children of Dukes and Counts usually spent their afternoons at the equestrian fields, the fencing halls, or the prestigious tea salons of the capital. To them, books were merely decorative items used to prop up their family’s intellectual reputation.

However, there was a specific breed of student that inhabited this labyrinth of parchment and oak: the Scholarship Students.

They were either commoner geniuses who had clawed their way in through sheer intellect, or children of the lower nobility—bankrupt Barons and impoverished Knights—who had to study to the point of exhaustion just to avoid being expelled. In the rigid caste system of the Academy, they were the lowest of the low. They were the "Intellectual Errand Boys" for the wealthy seniors, tasked with doing the homework of those who spent their nights drinking and their days preening.

Raphael Sudrath sat in a secluded corner of the East Wing, hidden behind a towering rack of Military History and Tactics.

He wasn’t reading. He was observing.

In his hands was a small, leather-bound notebook. His sharp eyes, a mirror of Riven’s predatory gaze, scanned the room like a tactical radar. He was looking for assets, not friends.

"Target 1: Table Number 4," Raphael noted internally.

Sitting there was a scrawny youth with thick, round spectacles and chronically disheveled hair. His name was Vance. He was the son of a textile merchant whose business had been crushed by the Iron Empire’s trade embargo years ago.

Vance was currently working on five separate stacks of assignments. But a quick glance at the names on the parchment revealed they weren’t his.

"Hey, Bookworm!"

A portly noble student with a greasy complexion threw a rolled-up parchment at the back of Vance’s head. "My Astrology essay needs to be finished by dawn. If the grade is anything lower than an ’A,’ I’m going to snap those glasses of yours and make sure you spend a week in the infirmary."

Vance bowed his head, his shoulders trembling with suppressed fear. "B-But, My Lord... I still have my own Advanced Calculus assignment to finish..."

"Shut it. Do it or I’ll report your scholarship for ’moral misconduct’ and have it revoked. You know my father sits on the board."

The noble swaggered away, laughing with his sycophants. Vance let out a long, shaky sigh, holding back tears of frustration before picking up his pen. His hand was trembling so much he could barely form a letter.

Raphael closed his notebook.

Intelligent, hardworking, but oppressed. A high-value potential asset.

Raphael stood up, straightening his black uniform jacket—the one Rumina had reminded him cost more than a commoner’s house. He walked toward Vance’s table with the steady, quiet footfalls of a hunter.

"Busy evening?" Raphael asked, his voice calm and steady.

Vance jumped, nearly knocking over his inkwell. He looked up and saw the shimmering Gold Lion crest on Raphael’s chest. The air of the North seemed to radiate from the boy.

"Y-Young Master Sudrath! My apologies, was I blocking your path? I’ll move immediately—"

Raphael pulled out a chair and sat opposite Vance, his presence filling the small space. "Vance, right? Ranked 1st in the entrance exam for Strategic Theory and Logistics?"

"I... I am, My Lord."

Raphael pointed at the mountain of assignments on the table. "Are you doing the Fat Baron’s work for free?"

Vance looked down, his eyes hollow. "I... I don’t have a choice. They have the power. I’m just a scholarship student. If I lose this spot, my family has nothing left."

Raphael reached into his pocket and pulled out a sleek, obsidian-black pen. It was a mechanical fountain pen—another of Rianor’s inventions—that used pressurized mana-ink. It never smudged and never ran dry. He twirled it between his fingers with practiced ease.

"My brother, Roland, once told me: ’If you’re good at something, never do it for free. To do so is to devalue your own soul.’"

Raphael placed the pen on top of Vance’s stack of work.

"Vance, I need your brain. I’ll be honest—I’m a fighter. I find Ancient History theory tedious, and I need someone who can organize my schedule with maximum efficiency."

"Does My Lord mean... I am to be your academic proxy as well?" Vance asked, his voice flat with disappointment. He thought Raphael was just another bully, only richer.

"No," Raphael offered a thin, sharp smile. "I’m looking for a Partner. I need a Chief of Staff. A strategist."

Raphael reached into his inner pocket and pulled out a matte-black card with a gold-etched lion. It was a Sudrath Black Card, a symbol of the Northreach Central Bank’s unlimited credit. He placed it on the table.

"I will pay off your entire tuition for the next four years in a single transaction. I will guarantee your physical safety from the ’Fat Baron’ and anyone else who thinks they can touch you. And I will provide you with a monthly salary equivalent to that of a Royal Officer."

Vance’s eyes nearly popped out of his head behind his glasses. "Y-You... you must be joking, My Lord..."

"In exchange," Raphael’s gaze turned cold and focused, "you work for me. You become my eyes and ears in this grade. You analyze the weaknesses of my enemies—specifically Prince Caelus and his inner circle—and you draft the long-term academic and social plans for our... group."

"Group...?"

"It doesn’t have a name yet. But the objective is simple: We are going to take over this Academy. Not just with muscle, but with absolute intellectual and social dominance."

Vance looked at the black card, then into Raphael’s eyes. He didn’t see the arrogance of the other nobles. He saw ambition. He saw a man who was building a kingdom, not just a clique. And for the first time in his life, Vance felt valued for what was inside his head, not just what his hands could do for others.

Vance took the Fat Baron’s assignment, crumpled it into a ball, and tossed it into the nearby wastebasket.

"I’m in, My Lord," Vance said, his voice finally steady.

The Back Canteen – Commoners’ Quarter.

An hour later, Raphael and Vance were sitting at a secluded corner table in the secondary canteen—the place where the noise was louder and the food was cheaper.

Sitting across from them was a small girl with short-cropped hair and a face dusted with sun-freckles. She was chewing on a piece of yesterday’s hard bread, her eyes darting around the room like a nervous bird’s. Her name was Lily. She was the daughter of a palace maid, here on a special service-scholarship.

In the shadows of the Academy, she was known as "The Mouse’s Ear." She knew everything. Who was sleeping with whom, who was cheating on their alchemy exams, and which noble son had secret debts in the city’s gambling dens.

"Lily," Raphael greeted.

Lily looked up, her mouth full of bread. "Mmph? A Duke’s son? What are you doing here? The VIP lounge is three buildings over, Fancy-Pants."

"I heard you know Prince Caelus’s secrets," Raphael said, cutting straight to the point.

Lily swallowed the bread with difficulty, her eyes wide. "Shh! Keep your voice down! Do you want us both to end up in the dungeons?"

"I want to buy your information," Raphael said, placing a heavy velvet bag of gold coins on the table. It landed with a satisfying, metallic THUD. "And I want an exclusive contract. Every piece of intel you gather comes to me first."

Lily stared at the bag. It contained more gold than her father earned in a decade of hard labor.

"You... you’re serious? You want to spy on the Seventh Prince?"

"I need an Intelligence Network," Raphael explained. "I need his schedule, his associates’ backgrounds, his daily habits, and most importantly, his fears."

Lily offered a wide, toothy grin. The gold had bought her loyalty instantly. "Prince Caelus? He acts tough, but he’s terrified of cats—ever since a palace lynx scratched him as a toddler. He’s also severely allergic to peanuts. And..." she leaned in, her voice a conspiratorial whisper, "...he secretly writes incredibly bad romantic poetry in a red leather diary he hides under his mattress."

Raphael and Vance exchanged a glance.

Jackpot.

"Welcome to the team, Lily," Raphael smiled with satisfaction.

"The Sapphire" Luxury Restaurant – Outside the Academy. Night.

Raphael took his two new recruits out for dinner.

Not in the school canteen, but at the finest steakhouse in the Capital. The Sapphire was a place of crystal chandeliers and silk-draped walls, where a single meal cost more than a commoner’s yearly income.

Vance and Lily sat awkwardly in their plush chairs. They looked like outcasts in their slightly frayed uniforms amidst the opulence. They had never seen so many forks and spoons in their lives.

"Order whatever you want," Raphael said casually, leaning back. "Wagyu steak, lobster, the finest vintage juice—it doesn’t matter. It’s on the Sudrath tab."

"Young Master Raphael," Vance asked hesitantly as he struggled to cut his steak correctly. "Why are you doing this? You are the son of a Duke. You could easily befriend any of the high nobility. You don’t need... us."

Raphael set down his glass. His expression shifted, becoming older, more somber. He looked like Riven for a moment—a leader of men.

"The other nobles are fake, Vance. They would ’befriend’ me out of fear of my father, or because they want to leech off my family’s wealth."

Raphael looked at his two new companions, his gaze intense.

"You two are different. You have Hunger. A hunger for opportunity. A hunger to change your fate. My family was exactly like you just a few years ago—impoverished, mocked, and pushed to the brink. We rose because we were hungry enough to take what was ours."

Raphael raised his glass of sparkling cider.

"I don’t need lackeys. I need a Team. Our enemy is a Prince of the Realm. If we want to win against him, we can’t play by the ’noble’ rules. We play dirty, and we play smart."

"Vance, you are the Tactical Mind. You see the board."

"Lily, you are the Information Network. You see the shadows."

"And I..." Raphael smirked, a predatory glit in his eye. "...I am the Shield and the Sword that will protect you while you do your work."

Vance and Lily raised their glasses, hesitantly at first, then with a sudden, firm resolve. For the first time, these outcasts felt they had a purpose beyond survival. They felt they were part of something larger.

"To Raphael’s Small Army!" Lily cheered.

CLINK!

That night, while Prince Caelus slept soundly in his luxurious dormitory, dreaming of his own untouchable status, a new force had been born in the shadows of the Academy.

A force built not on "blue blood," but on loyalty, ambition, and the burning resentment of the oppressed.

And Raphael Sudrath, at only fourteen years old, had just taken his first step toward becoming The Shadow Duke.