His Majesty the King of Iblia gripped the letter so tightly that the veins on his hands bulged, his entire body trembling with rage.
As the former
Regarding the Norton Family, the Second Prince had invested considerable effort in gathering intelligence. When he had first dispatched troops to the Duchy of Madras, he had heard a rumor that the Norton Family of the Northland had led a massive caravan to help the Second Prince of the Andinak Kingdom seize power, stabilize the kingdom internally, and assist the Second Prince in capturing the Liechedana Fortress in the Duchy of Madras, sweeping through Yungeshandra Province.
The Second Prince had laughed off the rumor. Was it possible? Though the Norton Family was known as the Roaring Rage Bears of the Northland, after the heir to the family, the
It was only after the Second Prince had captured Coburg City that he learned from refugees abandoned by the caravan that the Norton Family had indeed fielded a massive caravan—over ten thousand carts, accompanied by nearly one hundred thousand refugees heading north. But when the Second Prince had dispatched troops to pursue them, he discovered that the Norton Family's caravan had already crossed the
After that, the Second Prince had been busy plundering the private coffers of the territorial lords in Dremk Province under the Duchy of Madras, branding them with the crime of colluding with the Andinak Kingdom's rebels against the Iblia Kingdom's relief army and hanging them, while also sweeping through the private armies of nobles who had taken up arms in resistance. Right up until the defeat at Coburg City, he had completely forgotten about the Norton Family's northbound caravan.
This expedition to the Duchy of Madras had been a tremendous windfall. Not only had the massive debts owed to the Grand Duke of Madras been written off, but the vast wealth, grain, and supplies plundered from the territorial lords of Dremk Province had filled the depleted royal treasury. It could truly be called a spectacular haul.
But the defeat at the Battle of Coburg City forced the Second Prince to withdraw his forces from the Duchy of Madras. Suffering two devastating defeats—the "Dawn Assault" and the "Battle of Coburg"—the Second Prince had lost over fifty thousand men. Though the majority were the private armies of the territorial lords under his command, the three border defense corps his father-in-law, the Grand Duke of Fisablen, had sent to support him had also suffered over twenty thousand casualties, and that was what pained the Second Prince the most.
In times of turmoil, military power was paramount—the Second Prince understood this principle well. He planned to use the spoils of this campaign to establish a directly-controlled kingdom army. First, to secure his throne; second, to lay the groundwork for a future military campaign. But for the time being, the Second Prince could not think of anywhere within the kingdom where he could safely establish and train an army.
When the Iblia Kingdom had been founded, its territory comprised five former provinces of the Krisen Empire. The Northland Province alone accounted for half of the kingdom's area and operated as a self-contained entity. Apart from suppressing the Grand Duke of the Northland to prevent him from establishing a duchy that would secede from the kingdom, the Second Prince had never found any effective way to bring the Northland under his control.
As for the Eastern Wasteland Province and Meadow Plain Province near the northeastern great steppes, those were the personal domains of his father-in-law, the Grand Duke of Fisablen, and the foundation of his border defense corps. Unless the Second Prince had gone mad, he would never covet those two provinces.
That left the kingdom with the Southern Province and Winston Province, where the current royal capital of Windbury was located. But the Southern Province had just been battered to pieces by Grand Duke Merlen and the Tempest Corps. Moreover, if the Second Prince stationed his newly formed kingdom army there for training, it might provoke Grand Duke Merlen into striking first. The Second Prince did not want Merlen's forces at the gates of his capital again.
When the Second Prince had first established the kingdom, for the sake of appearances, he had renamed the Southern Province to the Three Southern Counties and the larger Winston Province to the Four Royal Capital Counties. Furthermore, in order to raise military funds and sustain his extravagant lifestyle, he had already sold off all his directly-held territories at premium prices. As a result, he could not even find a place to train his troops.
Just as the Second Prince was racking his brains over his next move, a scouting unit serving as the army's advance guard brought him several merchants. From their mouths, the Second Prince once again heard news of the Norton Family's northbound caravan. They had defeated the allied forces of the Northland lords led by Grand Duke Lukins, winning a decisive victory. And to exact revenge on the Grand Duke, they had plundered the prosperous heartland of the Grand Duchy and relocated all of its inhabitants. Now the Northland was leaderless and in a state of chaos.
This was a pie falling from the sky. The Second Prince made his decision without hesitation. He marched his forces to the Hendley-Forsa Bridge and captured the two strategic strongholds with virtually no effort. He then occupied Giridusk, the capital of the Grand Duchy, where he found Duke Lukins unconscious in the Grand Duke's manor, having collapsed from coughing blood.
The Second Prince waved his hand, and Duke Lukins was escorted away from the Northland on the pretext that the royal capital of Windbury would be more suitable for his recovery. Whether he would ever return to the Northland in his lifetime was an answer that everyone tacitly understood.
At that very moment, the Second Prince received another report. A search battalion of two thousand five hundred border defense soldiers, along with nearly three thousand noble private troops, had attempted to raid the seemingly intact town of Evanson, only to be ambushed by remnants of the Northland Legion garrisoned at the nearby Cherry Ridge Estate. The losses were severe—over two thousand killed.
Outraged, the Second Prince immediately mustered his main force to march out. To his surprise, the supposed remnants of the Northland Legion turned out to number over ten thousand strong, all mounted and clad in iron armor. Leading them were two Gold Knights—one was Sir Henneid, self-styled Baron Sahin and formerly one of Grand Duke Lukins's Gold Knights. The other was also a Gold Knight, Tabek. As two of the five renowned Gold-rank Family Knights under the Grand Duke of the Northland, they were no strangers to the Second Prince—in fact, they could well be called old acquaintances.
Glancing at the disorderly ranks of his own forces, then at the enemy bristling with killing intent, the Second Prince knew that if a battle broke out, he would gain nothing favorable. So he rode out alone under a flag of parley and offered conciliatory words. Only then did he learn that Sir Henneid had inherited his father's fief and the title of Baron. The Cherry Ridge Estate and the town of Evanson in the Grand Duchy now belonged to the Sahin family, and even Tabek had become Henneid's Family Knight.
The Second Prince had no choice but to apologize for his subordinates' ignorance and the offense of encroaching on Sahin family territory. He explained that due to Duke Lukins's condition, he had taken over the Grand Duchy's administration. He then cordially invited Sir Henneid to join him in a great enterprise.
Sir Henneid, now Baron Sahin, was gracious enough to give the Second Prince face. He accepted the apology, saying that those who did not know should not be held accountable. However, as a vassal family of the Grand Duke of the Northland, he could not very well accept the Second Prince's invitation without the Grand Duke's consent. After all, Duke Lukins had shown him extraordinary kindness, entrusting him with the Northland Legion in his hour of need—not only granting him the title of Baron but also having Sir Tabek serve as his Family Knight. His loyalty to Duke Lukins was beyond question. However, if the Duke himself were to tell him to serve under the Second Prince, he swore he would not hesitate for a moment and would fight to the death on the Second Prince's behalf.
First swallowing a bitter loss, then hitting a wall of polite refusal, the Second Prince retreated to the city in frustration. His only consolation was that when he had curiously asked Sir Henneid where his soldiers' iron armor had come from, Henneid had told him it was traded from the Norton Family.
The Second Prince then devoted considerable effort to investigating and gathering intelligence on the Norton Family. As an endless stream of contradictory rumors and hearsay converged before him, he finally managed to piece together a roughly reliable picture.
It turned out that the current head of the Norton Family was the Second Young Master who had been exiled from the family for a full ten years. Having left the family at the age of fourteen, he had spent his years outside mastering an impressive array of unarmed combat skills. Though his fighting strength was only at the Black Iron level, he had once subdued Grand Duke Lukins's Gold Knight, Tabek, forcing Tabek to spend an entire year bedridden.
Proud and fiercely ambitious, the young master had immediately upon taking over the family's territory provoked a war with the Kemais Family, burning down Viscount Kemais's Red River Valley estate castle and constructing a fortress called Stonehold in the Morgan Hills. He refused the Grand Duke of the Northland's extortion, annihilated the four thousand troops the Grand Duke had dispatched to subjugate the Norton Family, and even sent forces to hang Baron Farad—who had once served as the Second Prince's personal attendant—on charges of harming the Norton Family's messenger.
It was said that this Second Young Master of the Norton Family had made a fortune during his exile. Upon receiving the family's summons to return and inherit the title and territory, he had organized a massive caravan heading north. He also had several Gold-rank Family Knights under his command, the most notable being a Golden Sharpshooter who had returned to the family's territory ahead of the caravan. While this marksman held Stonehold Fortress, Grand Duke Lukins's coalition of Northland lords had besieged it in vain, ultimately suffering a crushing defeat when the Norton Family's northbound caravan arrived.
Having learned the general intelligence about the Norton Family, the Second Prince distilled three key points.
First, the Norton Family was extremely wealthy. The wealth they had plundered from the Grand Duchy alone exceeded one million gold Fordes, to say nothing of the caravan heading north—nearly twenty thousand carts, reportedly loaded with iron armor beyond count. Henneid had told him that the armor he had traded for his ten thousand men accounted for less than a tenth of the Norton Family's total stockpile.
Second, the Norton Family's military strength was formidable, estimated at forty to fifty thousand men. Their weapons and equipment were more complete and advanced than those of the Second Prince's Iblia Kingdom army and border defense corps. Currently, the Second Prince's only option in the Northland was to maintain friendly relations with the Norton Family rather than provoke them.
Third—and what the Second Prince found most laughable—was that the Norton Family's new head, that Second Young Master, was a short-sighted, utterly ambitionless turtle hiding in its shell. Anyone who possessed the Norton Family's current financial resources and military power as capital, with even a modicum of ambition, would have long since made the Northland their feast. Instead, this new Norton Family head had defeated the Grand Duke of the Northland, plundered the Grand Duchy, and then retreated back into the family's territory with his spoils.
Looking at the map of the Norton Family's territory in the Northland, and the Stonehold Fortress marked on the Morgan Hills that separated the family's domain from the outside world, the Second Prince found it absolutely hilarious. The legendary Roaring Rage Bears of the Northland had become the Hiding Turtles of the Northland. Though their territory was vast, it was exceedingly desolate. It seemed the Norton Family had relocated all those people from the Grand Duchy precisely to seal themselves off and focus on developing their territory.
The Second Prince had already ordered the territorial lords under his command to escort all these displaced people to the Grand Duchy of the Northland. There were ready-made farmlands available for cultivation. As long as the Second Prince exercised a little patience, once these farmers and refugees had settled in and begun producing harvests, the former Grand Duchy in the Northland could become a treasure trove providing him with a continuous supply of manpower and resources.
By seizing the Grand Duchy, the Second Prince had not only eliminated Duke Lukins—who had been determined to detach the Northland from the Iblia Kingdom and establish an independent duchy—as the greatest hidden threat, but had also gained a territory for training troops and accumulating wealth. The Second Prince was brimming with confidence. He intended to firmly control the entire Northland, binding every territorial lord to the war chariot he commanded, making them shed blood and sweat for his ambition of conquering the world.
Moreover, the Second Prince now had all the time in the world. He was in no rush. Everything could be taken slowly. As for the Norton Family, whom he currently could not afford to provoke, the Second Prince had no intention of letting them off. After all, the former Grand Duke of the Northland had also been a turtle hiding in its shell, yet the Second Prince had still manipulated him like a puppet. The Second Prince was thrilled—if the Norton Family's new head was also a hide-and-seek turtle, then he had plenty of experience dealing with such creatures. Compared to the old Grand Duke, this fledgling was clearly much easier to handle.
The letter the Second Prince had written to the new Norton Family head had been carefully considered. Even the three conditions he proposed were a form of probing. The first condition demanded the surrender of three hundred thousand gold Fordes' worth of property from the Grand Duke's private treasury. The purpose was simple: to make the Norton Family feel that their plundering of the Grand Duchy had become a legitimate, sanctioned act of retaliation. They had stolen over a million, yet the Second Prince was asking for a mere three hundred thousand—this would make the Norton Family feel they had gotten a considerable bargain. By handing over three hundred thousand, they could avoid being held accountable for relocating all the Grand Duchy's inhabitants. The Second Prince was confident the Norton Family would happily deliver three hundred thousand gold Fordes to his doorstep.
The second condition targeted the Norton Family's new ruler—the hide-and-seek turtle. He demanded that the new lord appear before the Second Prince to swear fealty, and in return, the Norton Family's noble title would be elevated. This was both bait and a trap. Once the man was within arm's reach, the Second Prince would have no shortage of ways to control him. What good were all the Gold Knights under his command? Grand Duke Lukins had not dared to declare the Northland independent in part because his five Gold Knights had been repeatedly suppressed without recourse by the two Great Swordmasters at the Second Prince's side.
The third condition demanded that the Norton Family dispatch two military corps to help the Second Prince pacify the Northland. This was yet another test of the Norton Family's ambitions. After all, with such formidable military power cooped up in their family territory, the Second Prince could not sleep easy. If they agreed to this condition, it would prove the Norton Family's sincere submission to the Second Prince, and then he could consider how to carve off pieces of flesh from the Norton Family for a hearty feast.
From reminiscing about the Norton Family's eldest young master, who had fought valiantly and died in battle, to laying down his three conditions, the Second Prince felt his letter was well-reasoned and deeply moving. In his dreams, he envisioned the Norton Family's new head kneeling before him in submission, making the Norton Family yield everything he desired—manpower, troops, weapons, equipment, supplies, wealth—pouring in like an endless river.
The Second Prince laughed in his sleep.
But what was this reply? Just two words on the paper: Get Lost.
In the common Galentea language, there was no such phrase as "get lost," and no one had ever linked the two words together. This was neither "scram" nor "go away," yet when these two words were put together, the Second Prince realized they were laden with thick malice, carrying contempt and mockery—as if he had been slapped twice across the face.
The Second Prince slowly folded the reply. As a person of authority, maintaining composure was a quality he still possessed. After dismissing Viscount Sinderson, who had delivered the letter, the Second Prince clutched the reply, grinding his teeth. Given enough time and the right opportunity, he would make the Norton Family suffer eternal damnation. And when that day came, he would force that brat of a new head to swallow this very letter. No one had ever insulted the Second Prince, who had held high status since childhood, like this. He would remember these two words for the rest of his life... (To be continued.)