The woman in black started, her gaze sweeping across Lorist's face through her dark veil as she tried to figure out what he was up to with this sudden display of hospitality. But when she heard him mention the roast lamb chops and fine red wine, her throat bobbed twice, as though she were swallowing hard.
Yet the woman in black restrained herself from the temptation of good food and rose gracefully to her feet with a light bow. "If your convoy is an inconvenience, my lord, then forget it. It was wrong of me to interrupt your lunch — please forgive my presumption."
"Wait—" Lorist stood and raised a hand to stop her. "Please wait, young lady. Perhaps I should introduce myself. I'm
Lorist placed the gold family crest on the table. Its raised design depicted a roaring bear with its mouth agape, while the reverse bore intricate laurel wreath patterns with Lorist's name engraved at the center. This was proof of his status as an aspiring noble — anyone who had received a proper noble education could verify its authenticity at a glance.
The woman in black gasped and covered her mouth behind her veil, clearly shocked to have stumbled upon the very person she'd been seeking. For a moment, she didn't know what to say.
"Young lady, what's wrong?"
"Young lady—"
From the neighboring table, a man in his fifties who looked like a butler and a maidservant of fifteen or sixteen stood up.
The young maidservant rushed over to support the woman in black, her wide eyes glaring fiercely at Lorist as though he had committed some unforgivable crime against her mistress...
The butler-like old man positioned himself in front of the woman.
Heh, Lorist chuckled. The old man's bearing — iron-rank at least. Loyal and protective of his master. Very commendable.
The woman in black finally came to her senses and hurriedly waved the old man and the maidservant aside, then bowed to Lorist once more. "I'm terribly sorry, my lord. They were merely concerned for my safety..."
Lorist waved it off with a smile. "It's nothing, I understand. Now, would you care to sit and tell me what brings you to seek out my family?"
The sharp-eyed maidservant spotted the gold crest sitting on the table. "Oh, a crest! Is it really gold?"
She picked it up and bit down on it with her teeth...
"Don't—" Lorist was alarmed, but it was too late to stop her.
Sure enough, the maidservant's teeth met something as hard as tempered steel. She dropped the crest and clutched her jaw, yelping in pain...
"Young lady, this man is a fraud! His crest isn't made of gold at all..." the teary-eyed maidservant complained to the woman in black.
The woman in black pressed her fingers to her forehead beneath her hood, looking thoroughly defeated by her scatterbrained maidservant.
Lorist held back his laughter, picked up the discarded crest, and secretly channeled a bit of combat force into it. He turned to the maidservant. "Little girl, no noble's crest is made of pure gold. To verify a crest's authenticity, you first check the patterns on the back, and then you do this..."
Lorist fed the residual combat force from his bloodline into the crest. A wisp of black smoke rose from its surface, then slowly coalesced into the form of a bear roaring at the sky.
"That's amazing..." The maidservant forgot all about her aching jaw and stared wide-eyed at the black bear formed from the smoke.
"That's because the crest contains special materials that resonate with combat force. Given the design on the front and the patterns on the back, it's easy to produce this effect once combat force is channeled in. All noble family crests can be verified this way. Each family's material ratios and pattern arrangements are closely guarded secrets, making it nearly impossible for outsiders to forge a convincing crest. So impersonating a noble isn't as easy as it sounds." Lorist explained with a smile as the black smoke bear on the crest slowly dissipated.
"I'm so sorry, my lord. Little Vinnie was terribly rude..." The woman in black apologized as she removed her hooded veil, revealing a delicate face — chestnut hair, intelligent eyes, a small mouth, and a rounded chin, though her complexion was rather pale.
"That's quite all right — she's adorable. So, beautiful young lady, might I now have the pleasure of inviting you to lunch?" Lorist extended his invitation once more with impeccable courtesy.
"Lunch? Sure! I want roast chicken legs, steak, fried bacon, and cream pudding and egg tarts—" Before the woman in black could even speak, the maidservant Vinnie had already rattled off a whole list of things she wanted to eat.
"Vinnie..." The woman in black gave her maidservant a reproachful look.
"But young lady, Vinnie has been gnawing on potatoes with you for half a month now. Vinnie wants meat..." The maidservant Vinnie looked at her mistress with her big eyes, the very picture of grievance.
The woman in black flushed crimson with embarrassment.
"Whatever the young lady over there wants, please see that her requests are fulfilled," Lorist said to the serving girl.
"Of course, my lord. Your order will be ready shortly — please wait a moment." The inn's serving girl, aware of Lorist's noble status, was extremely deferential.
"Ah, I haven't yet had the pleasure of asking the young lady's name."
The woman in black composed herself. "That's my fault — I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Nicole Tressti, the adopted daughter and student of Nico Albess..."
"Nico Albess? That name sounds familiar — let me think..." Lorist furrowed his brow in thought, then quickly recalled something. "The famous female scholar of ruins from the former Krisen Empire — a professor who held the noble title of Dame. She wrote numerous research books about the ruins of the Arcane Civilization era..."
"Oh! My lord, how do you know so much about her?" Nicole Tressti was visibly surprised.
Lorist laughed. "It's simple — I studied at the
"Heh heh..." Tressti laughed too. "You memorized them just to pass exams. In truth, if you had genuinely studied with intent, you wouldn't have needed to memorize anything. My mother's books were extremely well-organized — once you grasped one point, the rest followed naturally. Memorizing just proves you never really engaged with the material."
"You're right. After passing the exams, I found that I quickly forgot everything I'd memorized and couldn't recall any of it. By the way, how is your mother, Dame Albess?" Lorist asked.
Tressti's expression darkened, her eyes glistening with unshed tears. "My mother is gone. Three years ago, the First Prince launched a surprise attack, and the Third Prince led a desperate counter-offensive. The resulting chaos destroyed half the capital. In the midst of that battle, my mother was caught by routed soldiers and looters. To protect her research, she was killed. I gathered her manuscripts and research materials, and fled with the butler and Vinnie to the nunnery of the Temple of War, where we survived the conflict. When the war ended, I found that our home had been ransacked completely. Over the past two years, conditions in the capital have been terrible. As a scholar, I simply couldn't make a living, so I accepted my friend's advice and decided to head for Northland."
Lorist's expression grew somber. "My condolences..."
"It's all right..." Perhaps the hardships of life had given this pale young scholar a resilience beyond her years. "The truth is, heading to Northland to seek out the Norton family was partly my friend's insistence, and partly to continue my mother's research. My friend — her name is Norton Krisia. She told me that though the Norton family's territory is in the remote north, it's free from war, and I could continue my mother's research there in peace..."
"Norton Krisia? My cousin?" In Lorist's memory, a chubby girl appeared — though the memory wasn't a pleasant one, because that girl had been pinching little Lorist's cheeks and making faces at him while little Lorist wailed in protest...
That was when Lorist's mother was still alive. Lorist had been five years old. The chubby girl was the daughter of his second uncle, whom he'd never met before. She'd come to Northland with her mother to visit relatives, and little Lorist had become her favorite toy...
Painful memories indeed. Lorist shook his head and cast them aside. "Do you have news of my second uncle's family? Can you tell me their current situation?"
Tressti shook her head. "I parted ways with them two years ago, so I don't know how they're doing now. But my lord, your second uncle is also gone. Seven years ago, around the time the First Prince launched his rebellion, the Royal Guard Knights — the unit your second uncle belonged to — walked into an ambush set by the First Prince's forces and were completely wiped out. Your second uncle didn't survive either. He was the deputy commander of the Royal Guard Knights at the time. When the news came, your second aunt fainted from grief several times..."
Lorist's hands clenched, veins standing out against his skin. "The First Prince again. I'll remember this. We'll settle this score, one way or another..."
"Krisia was a combat force prodigy. She was only twenty at the time but already at Silver Two-Star rank. Our home was right next door to your second uncle's, and Krisia would often come over to play. She was very good to me — like an older sister. After your second uncle died, Krisia enlisted to avenge him, but she came back less than a year later, furious. She said the Third Prince was indecisive, only interested in holding onto the throne, and had no ambition worth serving. Later, she grew close to His Highness the
"The last time I saw Krisia was two years ago, near the end of the civil war. The three princes and the grand dukes were negotiating a ceasefire. Krisia returned to the capital and came to our home. She told me that the Third Prince, to prevent the First and Second Princes from causing another succession crisis, had disbanded the White Lion Legion that supported the Second Prince and ordered the Second Prince to return to his own fief. Krisia said she intended to follow the Second Prince, and had come back to the capital to bring your second aunt and her two younger sons to the Second Prince's territory."
Tressti shared everything she knew about Krisia's situation.
"She didn't invite you along?" Lorist found it somewhat strange — why would his cousin send this young scholar all the way to the remote northern territories instead of bringing her along to the Second Prince's fief, which would obviously have been a far safer journey.
"Everyone thought that once peace arrived, we could finally live lives, but I never expected that things would get even harder after the war ended. Prices skyrocketed, supplies became scarce, law and order broke down, and more and more people turned to banditry. The great war may have ended, but conflicts between lords kept increasing. Life in the capital became truly untenable, and that's when I decided to seek out your Norton family."
"The biggest reason for going to Northland is my mother's research. Does your family's territory have a Black Swamp?" Tressti asked.
"You mean the Black Mud Swamp?"
"Yes, the Black Mud Swamp. After years of research, my mother discovered that there very likely lies a ruin from the late Arcane era within the Black Mud Swamp, though she was never able to pinpoint its exact location. I want to go to Northland and see the Black Mud Swamp for myself. If I can find the ruin, I'll finally be able to put my mother's spirit at rest." As she spoke of her research, Tressti's eyes glowed with a distinctive light.
Lorist pursed his lips skeptically.
"I'm not making it up! My mother really did make a discovery, and I believe there are ruins in the Black Mud Swamp that haven't been found yet. Krisia knew about it too — that's why she wrote me a letter of introduction." Tressti, thinking Lorist doubted her mother's research, looked on the verge of tears.
"Oh, that's not what I meant." Lorist hurried to reassure the young scholar. "I was just wondering whether you could actually get close to the Black Mud Swamp. It's one of the most dangerous places in all of Northland. It's home to a ferocious magical beast called the Iron-Spine Bay Crocodile — there are thousands upon thousands of them, too many to count. I recall that someone in the family once spotted one that was thirty or forty meters long. Without at least Silver-rank combat force, you shouldn't even think about approaching the Black Mud Swamp."
"Oh... I see." The young scholar stared blankly after hearing Lorist's words.
You think you can just waltz into the Black Mud Swamp and search for ruins? If it were that easy, someone else would have found them long ago. What a naive girl.
"Tell you what, Miss Tressti. As the current head of the Norton family, I welcome you to join our convoy heading north. You're also welcome to stay at our family estate for as long as you wish. You can continue your research in peace, and you needn't worry about living arrangements — we'll take care of everything. We'll do our best to ensure your satisfaction," Lorist said.
Just then, Lorist noticed the Garrison Captain, looking harried, hurrying into the inn. The captain spotted him and walked over with a respectful salute. "My lord, Viscount Comas, the local lord, has arrived. He requests an audience with you."
Lorist indicated that the captain should wait a moment. "Miss Tressti, the convoy will set out in two days. Due to certain circumstances, we may need to travel continuously for extended stretches. If you need any assistance, please let us know in advance so we don't hold up the convoy's schedule. Would that be all right?"
The young scholar's face flushed bright red. She seemed unaccustomed to asking for help and hesitated for a long moment before saying that the three of them had two carriages, but they still needed three draft horses to pull them.
Lorist nodded. "Rest assured, Miss Tressti — we'll arrange all of that for you. Just wait for the convoy's departure. Please forgive me, but I have business with the local lord and must take my leave. Your lunch has arrived — please enjoy it. If you need anything else, don't hesitate to ask the serving girl. All charges will be put on my tab, so please don't hold back."
Lorist stood, bowed politely to excuse himself, and instructed the innkeeper to take good care of his three guests before following the Garrison Captain out.