The carriage stopped at the yard gate. Reddy said to Pat, who was sitting on the passenger seat, "We're here. This is the master's home."
He then got down and opened the carriage door.
Reddy was puzzled and asked, "What's wrong? Why aren't you going inside?"
Pat thought for a moment and said, "I came to find the young master at my grandfather's request. He instructed me to stay by the young master's side and protect him, whether or not he returns to inherit the domain, because he is the last direct-bloodline heir of the
Reddy laughed. "Brother Pat, I don't mean to belittle you, but if you stay by the master's side, it won't be you protecting him, but him protecting you. With your
Pat rolled his eyes at Reddy in exasperation. "In our Northland, there's a saying: Even the most alert magical beast can doze off, and even the strongest horse can slip. I already know the young master is Black Iron Locke, and it's remarkable that he's invincible at Silver rank. But no matter how formidable he is, he's still just one man. I only need to stay by his side and quietly act as his shield. I'm Black Iron now, but if I train diligently, once I advance to Silver rank, I believe I can help him plenty."
"Well said, Pat." Lorist had come up to them without them noticing. "Did Steward Kreis really tell you to stay by my side?"
Pat nodded calmly. "If you return to inherit the domain, I will be your personal guard. If you refuse to go back, I will still stay by your side and protect you."
"Having said that," Pat gave a self-deprecating laugh, "it seems you've changed more than I imagined. Not just your skills, but even your personality is completely different. You don't need my protection at all now. My grandfather and the others thought you must have had a rough time during the long period you were out of contact with the family. It looks like they were all wrong."
Lorist nodded with deep emotion. "Ten years. In the blink of an eye, it's been that long since I left home. It's been seven years since I lost contact with the family. To survive, what choice did I have but to change? It took a lot of hardships to get where I am today. Come on, Pat, let's go inside and talk about how things are back home."
Sedkamp then gave a rather detailed account of the Norton Family's current situation. That string of misfortunes had crippled the family's combat strength. Lorist's father had been a one-star Gold-ranked swordsman. Although a wound he'd sustained while hunting magical beasts in his youth had halted his advancement, he was still a Gold-rank. His death had cost the family its pillar. The death of Lorist's eldest brother had then shattered the family's hope entirely. The eldest young master had been a Gold-ranked knight. During a charge, he was struck in the back by a poisoned arrow and died shortly after being rescued. As for the third young master, he had contracted a severe illness after falling into water as a child and could never awaken his
Lorist felt very uncomfortable at this. He knew that the third young master's illness and inability to awaken his Combat Force were the result of being pushed into a well by the original owner of this very body, Little Locke, out of jealousy when they were children. At the very least, half the blame for the third young master's death lay with Little Locke. Now that he had inherited this body, the responsibility was his to bear as well.
Sedkamp related that when the third young master encountered the magical beast, the family's sole three-star Silver-ranked family knight had been guarding him. Though he managed to slay the beast, he was severely wounded and was still recuperating to this day. Now, the family had only a single one-star Silver-ranked female knight, Andre Belsa. She was the daughter of the late family knight, old Andrew, had grown up with the eldest young master as childhood sweethearts, and the Lord had arranged their engagement. But no one expected the eldest young master to be killed in action before the wedding could take place. He wondered if the young master remembered the red-haired girl who was always following the eldest young master around.
Lorist nodded. In Little Locke's memory, the red-haired girl who was always with his eldest brother was as fierce as a boy. Just pulling her braid had earned him a sound thrashing, leaving a painful memory for Little Locke.
Sedkamp then informed him that aside from Miss Belsa, the Silver-ranked female knight, the family's remaining forces consisted of a few Black-Iron swordsmen in the garrison and a few elderly Black-Iron retainers in the castle. Miss Belsa was currently managing the territory's affairs, while old Steward Kreis had stepped back due to his age. This was why the family so eagerly wished for the second young master to return and inherit the domain to take charge.
Pat, who had once been Baron Norton's personal guard, then narrated the details of the ambush on Lorist's father. When the Baron heard the hill tribes had come down to raid again, he gathered the cavalry in the castle. There were eighteen riders, the family's main mobile force. Together with the Baron and Pat, that made twenty cavalry. Having learned that the hill tribe raiders numbered over fifty, the Baron sent someone to summon the garrison to join them, intending to wipe out the entire band.
Since the Baron and Pat were on horseback, they set out first. Upon arriving, they found the raiders off their guard. Calculating that the garrison would arrive soon, the Baron decided to launch an attack first. He figured that when the garrison saw the battle underway, they would naturally join the assault, and a pincer movement would surely annihilate the hill barbarians.
Being fewer in number, the men had to rouse their spirits, and for a time, the fight was fierce and chaotic. If the garrison had appeared then, the hill savages would surely have been crushed. But they waited and waited, and still the garrison didn't arrive. Seeing his men suffering heavier and heavier casualties, the Baron became anxious. Ignoring his own illness, he threw himself into the fray. Just then, a cheer erupted from the hill tribes. Another fifty or more of their reinforcements had arrived. This was too much for the Baron's men. Seeing the tide turn, Pat quickly shielded the Baron, who had taken a few hits, and evacuated the battlefield. All of the family's cavalry were slain.
Only after Pat returned did he learn that the garrison hadn't left the town at all. Enraged, Pat charged alone into the garrison camp, wounding Garrison Captain Mart outright. The garrison soldiers were furious. Over a hundred of them surrounded the castle, demanding that Pat come out. Miss Basha and old Steward Kreis, relying on their many years of prestige, barely managed to calm the situation down. Thus, when Scotcamp was dispatched to
As Scotcamp and Pat continued their account, everyone gradually understood that the Norton family's situation was not just difficult—it was utterly dire. The first trouble was the winter wave of magical beasts. Every winter, magical beasts from the wasteland would swarm into the territory in droves, foraging for food. If they were herbivorous beasts like mana cows or mana sheep, it wasn't too terrible—at worst the fields and gardens would be destroyed. But if packs of winter wolves appeared, even the castles, estates, and towns could be attacked.
The second trouble was the hill barbarians. The Norton family's territory lay in the far northern wasteland. To the north was the endless Black Mud Swamp, to the west was the Blade's Range Mountains, and beyond the mountains to the west was the sea. The people of the Northland had to cross the Blade's Range Mountains to reach the coast, then climb down the cliffs to haul seawater back up to boil for salt—a laborious and troublesome task. This was why salt prices in the Northland had always remained high. To the south were the Black Forest and the wasteland hills, the only passage connecting the family's territory to the external world and the domains of other nobles. To the east were the Demon Dragon Mountains, a vast stretch of rolling peaks and dense virgin forests where the hill barbarians roamed across hundreds of miles of mountain territory.
It was said the hill barbarians were descendants of humans who had fled into the mountains during the Dark Age seeking a place to survive. Centuries of living in the mountains, having lost all contact with the outside world, had caused them to degenerate into a primitive tribal form, worshipping ancient totems. They ate raw flesh and drank blood, a world where the strong preyed on the weak. Although they now had some contact with the outside world, they were still notorious for their brutal, unreasonable, and arrogant nature.
From the moment the Norton family's founding ancestor became the lord of this wasteland, the hill barbarians had been a constant plague upon the family, descending from the mountains to plunder whenever they pleased. They stole anything and everything they could get their hands on. They were more cunning, more ruthless, and harder to handle than any magical beast. The Norton family had once tried to expand outward, establishing over a dozen reclamation villages on the wasteland. But all of them suffered heavy casualties and property losses from hill barbarian raids, and they were ultimately forced to abandon them one by one. The reason Lorist's father, the old Baron, had insisted on leading the campaign despite his illness this time was precisely because the hill barbarians had attacked the territory's only ranch, making off with a huge quantity of cattle and sheep.
The Norton family's third trouble was the territorial garrison. The territory now had a total population of over five thousand, with more than three thousand of them living in a town called Northwild Town—the only town in the family's domain. Most of the residents were family members of the garrison soldiers or the dependents of fallen soldiers who had served the Norton family. They occupied two-thirds of the arable land within the safe zone, and every year they only had to hand over a tenth of their harvest—absolutely nothing else.
In the early days, when the territory was vast and sparsely populated, the Norton ancestors had made great efforts to attract refugees and purchase slaves to emancipate as settlers in order to develop the land. They offered extremely generous treatment to any settlers willing to join the garrison. While the pay was not high, they were exempted from forced labor, head taxes, and various other levies. Their families were also given fields, with the only condition being that they hand over a tenth of their harvest each year.
Even as lords, the Norton family still had to fulfill their duties as nobles of the Krisen Empire. Besides raising troops to fight when the Empire demanded it, they also had to pay a land tithe from their own territory—a tenth of the harvest from all cultivated lands within their domain had to be submitted to the Empire. At the time, most other nobles in the Empire set their land tax at fifty percent. Adding the head tax, trade tax, entrance tax, fishing tax, firewood tax, salt tax, and many other levies, a lord who let his subjects barely scrape by was already considered merciful.
The generous treatment the Norton family gave to garrison members meant that, aside from the land tithe paid to the Empire, they derived absolutely no benefit from the families of these garrison soldiers. At first, not many settlers were attracted to join, since becoming a garrison member meant facing real danger—the winter magical beast tide every year was a severe trial. But as the territory stabilized and the safe zone expanded, sharp-eyed people realized the benefits of joining the garrison were immense. Becoming a garrison member quickly turned into a scorching hot trend across the territory. The Norton family was initially delighted by this development, but as time went on, they realized something was off—things were starting to get out of control.
Generally speaking, the people of Galentea were accustomed to having their children split the family estate and live independently once they came of age. But these families with garrison members stubbornly refused to divide their households. Seven or eight brothers and sisters would each marry and still live together, all just to enjoy the privileges of being a garrison soldier's family. Some garrison members even brazenly demanded that the family allocate land to their brothers and sisters.
The family had thought this would curb the trend, but they hadn't anticipated that what the garrison members truly valued was the exemption of their families from corvée labor and various miscellaneous taxes. Relying on their status as garrison soldiers' families, they freely hunted and fished across the territory, boiled salt, and smuggled without remitting a single coin of their income. They lived a more comfortable life than the Norton family itself.
Over the course of more than a hundred years, these garrison members followed a pattern of fathers retiring and sons taking their places, elder brothers dying and younger brothers replacing them, firmly turning garrison membership into a hereditary occupation. In Northwild Town, over a hundred middling commoner families had sprung up, the smallest numbering a dozen or so people and the largest thirty or forty. They had grown into a troublesome local power within the family's territory that was too entrenched to be easily uprooted.
The Norton family had considered taking action against the garrison, but the entanglements ran too deep for them to follow through. The maids in the family's castle manors were nearly all daughters of these commoner families, and a great many of the family soldiers conscripted from the territory were themselves members of garrison households. At the slightest sign of trouble, the garrison got wind of it. If the Nortons tried to use force, the outcome would likely be mutual ruin, and the Nortons would become a laughingstock among the nobility.
It was precisely because of these concerns that resolving the garrison issue kept getting pushed aside. When the Norton family head was strong, as long as he didn't touch the garrison's bottom line—revoking the privileges of its members and their families—the garrison remained docile and obeyed orders. When Lorist's father and eldest brother were alive, the garrison was extremely compliant, even obediently providing troops to follow the eldest young master on his campaigns. But after the eldest young master was killed in battle and the old lord fell gravely ill, the third young master took over, and the garrison began to comply in appearance while resisting in spirit. Take the time the third young master encountered magical beasts during an inspection of the territory. The few garrison members escorting him actually fled on the spot, leaving him unguarded, which caused him to fall from his horse and die.
Especially last year, the garrison's refusal to follow orders led to the complete annihilation of the family cavalry and left the Baron severely wounded. To make matters worse, they audaciously sent men to besiege the family castle, demanding the family hand over Pat, the family head's personal guard who had injured their captain. In a sense, this behavior was tantamount to outright rebellion. Having lost its military strength, the Norton family had no choice but to stoop to compromise. Resolving the problem of the territory's garrison had become the most pressing issue for the next head of the Norton family.
The fourth problem was a territorial dispute. Bordering the Norton territory to the south was the Viscount Kenmais's domain. Normally, since the Northland was mostly wilderness, a little more or less land wouldn't matter much. But the disputed area, the Morgan Hills, was the site of the Norton family's copper mine. This was their only remaining source of revenue keeping them financially afloat. How could they be willing to hand it over? The two sides had clashed in arms several times over this, with Viscount Kenmais coming out on the losing end.
In truth, Viscount Kenmais had no leg to stand on. The Norton family's territory had been personally delineated by the founding emperor of the Krisen Empire, and the Morgan Hills were clearly marked within the Norton domain on the enfeoffment map. The Viscount's territory, on the other hand, had been granted by the
Now that the Norton family was in decline, Viscount Kenmais had started making trouble again. Especially after a cousin of his became the mistress of Duke Lugins, the Grand Duke of the Northland, the year before last, he somehow managed to curry favor with the Duke. Growing even more brazen, he dug a mine tunnel into the other side of the Morgan Hills and started extracting the copper resources that rightfully belonged to the Norton family. The Norton family could only swallow this insult and refrain from quarreling over it.
If Viscount Kenmais ever learned the true state of the Norton family, he would likely annex their copper mine immediately. Without the income from the mine, the Norton family's finances would quickly collapse. This was the fifth problem facing the Norton family, one that could be called a financial crisis.
Ten years ago, even with the troublesome garrison existing in their territory, the Norton family was not the kind of nobles who could only make ends meet by bleeding their subjects dry. The family relied on its own military strength to hunt magical beasts for their pelts and shipped the Northland's special products by family caravan to Morant City for trade. The profits from these annual expeditions were extremely substantial. At that time, the family cavalry numbered as many as two hundred, fully equipped, and the fearsome reputation of the Norton Iron Cavalry resonated across the Northland.
But the good times did not last. Seven years ago, Lorist's third uncle led a caravan that was attacked by bandits, and every last member perished, depriving the family of its primary source of income. Shortly after, the eldest young master led the family's Iron Cavalry to fight across the realm for the Second Prince. When he fell in battle, only a few dozen cavalrymen escorted his remains back home, more than half of them wounded or crippled. Paying their pensions and compensations drained most of the family's savings accumulated over the years.
To add insult to injury, the Second Prince sent a decree transferring the Norton family's fealty from the Krisen Royal Family to Duke Lugins. If the family's Iron Cavalry and the eldest young master were still around, the old Baron would have naturally and rightfully refused this command, even at the cost of going to war against the entirety of the Northland nobility. After all, the Norton family's oath of allegiance was to the Krisen Royal Family, not to some prince.
When the eldest young master was alive, the Second Prince had spared no effort to win him over. But little did anyone expect that the moment he fell, the Second Prince would turn his back so completely, offering neither recompense nor commendation, and casually handing the Norton family over to Grand Duke Lugins like some kind of chattel. It was both ironic and tragic for the Norton family. Yet at the time, all the nobles of the Northland had pledged themselves to the Second Prince. The Norton family had no strength to resist and could only silently accept reality.
This made things extremely difficult for the Norton family. They could not levy these additional taxes on the garrison and their families. On the contrary, they had to pay the equivalent of three-tenths of the income from their fields on their behalf. If not for the copper mine providing a balancing revenue, the family would have fallen into a deficit long ago.
Even though the war was over, the Duke not only failed to reduce the levies but imposed an additional "restoration tax," claiming it was to prepare for the eventual rebuilding of the Krisen Empire. How long this preparation would take, no one knew. It might be collected for decades or even centuries. All the vital roads for the family's external communications now ran through Grand Duke Lugins's territory. Faced with this, the Norton family had no choice but to swallow their anger and bear it once again.
When Sederkamp and Pat finished outlining the entire state of the Norton territory, everyone fell silent. Even Telman, who had been insisting that Lorist go back to inherit the fief, became quiet. It was clearly a blazing fire pit; whoever jumped in would be burned to death.
Fatty Shi asked Pat and Sederkamp, "Does your family have a deadline for Lock to arrive in order to inherit the territory?"
Pat replied, "My master passed away in March of this year. It took us over three months to travel from the Northland to Morant City. The journey was rough—we ran into bandits, slavers, territorial conflicts, and so on, making plenty of detours. After we reached Morant City, it took over a month to find the young master. Before we set out, my grandfather instructed me that if the young master wished to return and inherit the territory, we absolutely had to arrive before March of next year. If we didn't make it back by then, the family would have no choice but to pick an heir among the children my master had with the maidservants."
Fatty Shi nodded. "That's good. We're not in a rush yet. You two stay by Lock's side and observe for yourselves which choice is really best for him. At the same time, let Lock think carefully about which direction his future path should take. Let's leave it at that for now."