There were things
There was also an unspoken reason: everyone knew that Reidi, Shward, and Jeneorio were all Lorist's disciples. If any one of them showed up at the scene, people would immediately link it back to Lorist. To avoid rumors and suspicion, Lorist needed a pair of hands willing to do the dirty work. Tager might have been a suitable candidate, but as the Norton Family's intelligence chief, he was just as famous—wherever he went, those who recognized him would take notice.
Baron Criston was a very fitting choice. First, he was not one of Lorist's confidants, nor a high-ranking member of the family. No one would suspect him. Second, Baron Criston himself served as the Norton Family's criminal director, responsible for investigating and adjudicating all criminal cases across the family's territories and the three surrounding provinces. He was a recognized expert in criminology and a master of deductive investigation. Most importantly, third, if Baron Criston appeared at the scene, no one would connect him to Lorist. They would simply think it was a coincidence.
Just as it had been on the day Lady Elinna passed away, Baron Criston had happened to be escorting two subordinates through Maple Forest Manor on their way to North Sea City to investigate a fisherman's drowning. With nightfall approaching, they had taken lodgings at Maple Forest Manor. In terms of the route, traveling from Rage Bear City through the smugglers' path along the Blade Edge Mountains, then through Fangle Plains, North Wild Town, Maple Forest Manor, Poplar Town, and on to North Sea City was indeed the fastest road. Had darkness not fallen so quickly, Baron Criston would have planned to put up at Poplar Town instead.
While Baron Criston's two subordinates sat in the dining hall drinking and swapping tales of past cases with the guards and servants of Maple Forest Manor, one could see through the window the lamp still lit in the guest room where the Baron was lodging. The young maid who had gone to deliver dinner came back greatly impressed, saying that Baron Criston was truly a dedicated and elegantly mannered noble—even while eating, he was reviewing documents and handling official business without wasting a single moment.
What won the young maid over most was that when Lady Elinna's curses against Lorist and her wailing cries for young Master Leskt drifted through the night air, Baron Criston showed no fear or embarrassment. He simply listened quietly for a while, then said to the maid in a gentle tone, "She is just a poor mother who has lost her beloved son. You should all take care of her more in your daily lives. Hopefully, the passage of time will help her forget her tragic past and return to a peaceful life..."
The young maid thought Baron Criston was extraordinarily understanding. He was truly a good man. If the Baron were willing, all he would need to do was crook his finger, and the young maid would gladly have offered her ample bosom and tender embrace to accompany the Baron through a romantic and passionate night. Late into the evening, she even considered knocking on Baron Criston's door—unfortunately, the emergency of Lady Elinna's sudden illness and death intervened, causing the young maid and Baron Criston to miss what would have been a wonderful night...
It was fortunate that Baron Criston happened to be lodging at Maple Forest Manor, because upon receiving the guard's report, he was able to immediately secure the scene of Lady Elinna's death. Through a preliminary examination, he concluded that she had most likely died of a heart attack and inquired into her medical history. When the apothecary arrived, he concurred with Baron Criston's assessment—Lady Elinna had indeed died from an acute cardiac episode.
When Baron Criston returned to Rage Bear City and handed the black folder to Lorist, Lorist threw it straight into the burning fireplace. Both men knew that the black folder contained reports from the guards and attendants at Maple Forest Manor, the majority of which were transcripts of Lady Elinna's curses directed at Lorist. Lorist had entrusted Baron Criston with handling it, and the Baron had adopted a permanent solution. This, in truth, was also a pledge of loyalty.
Baron Criston got what he wanted. From that day forward, he entered the upper echelons of the Norton Family and became one of Lorist's trusted confidants. On the surface, his position was deputy director of the newly expanded Family Security Bureau—he had received a promotion, but his responsibilities still revolved around criminal cases in the family territories. In secret, however, he served as the head of the family's most secretive Internal Affairs Division, reporting directly to Lorist, on par with Tager in status.
The chapter of Maple Forest Manor was thus turned. Lorist's memories of Maple Forest Manor would become a distant recollection. Though it was the Norton Family's ancestral home, Lorist preferred the situation he had built for himself. So when Krisha asked him what he planned to do with Maple Forest Manor, Lorist answered without hesitation: keep it for now. Once Heliles graduated from
Heliles was the posthumous son of Lorist's eldest brother, who had long since fallen in battle. Raised under the guidance of his stepfather, Knight
The position of legion commander—since that garrison legion had been formed by downsizing the original Family Armed Guard First Legion—Krisha had only served as temporary legion commander for a short time, but she had grown attached to the role.
Lorist ultimately agreed to Krisha's request, though he objected to her taking Vilword along to the Pasture Plains Province. Krisha said that Vilword should see the breadth of the world and experience the trials of the great steppe's wind and sand. Only then could he grow into a proper man. And since she had already adopted Vilword, Lorist had no right to object. He could only watch helplessly as Krisha departed in high spirits.
At the end of November, Lorist convened another family work conference in Rage Bear City. This meeting established the family's development goals and priorities for the following year. On the administrative front, the primary focus was settling the newly arrived immigrants in Northland—distributing farmland and housing so the newcomers would settle down peacefully. In terms of construction, the main project was restarting the palace construction that had been delayed two years by the family's civil war. Simultaneously, the Security Bureau system and the armed patrol constabulary were to be fully assembled, improving the security environment across the family's territories.
On the military front, the priority remained reorganizing and reducing the family's armed forces, completing the establishment of garrison legions across the various provinces and localities. The Armament Division was to accelerate the integration and refinement of the new command and staff systems, while accelerating the modernization of weapons and standard-issue equipment for the family's main legions.
After completing this family work conference, Lorist finally had some time to relax. Winter had arrived, and apart from the family's armed forces, the civilian officials of the administrative system could essentially be said to have gone on an extended holiday. Beyond some summary and collation paperwork, the remaining task was preparing a grand New Year's celebration—which naturally fell to
Anna and Maria had finally become pregnant. However, this left Princess Silvia and the remaining two concubines, Fenagali and Daisy, unhappy, and they began squeezing Lorist even harder. Lorist himself would have been only too glad to get them all pregnant so he could enjoy a few months of rest, but despite exhausting himself every night trying to satisfy the three of them, he had yet to succeed. All he could do was lament his hard lot and continue the nightly battle...
Near the end of December, two uninvited guests arrived in Northland. Lorist had not expected Duke Kences and Duke Fisablen to have traveled all the way from the Mana Hill Plains front to Northland. Ostensibly, they were attending the Norton Family's New Year celebration, but in truth, the two grand dukes had been dispatched by His Highness the
Lorist had only just realized that in his busy efforts to quell the family civil war, reorganize the family's armed forces, and rebuild order in the family territories, he had completely forgotten about the Second Prince and the Andinak Kingdom's armies, who were still fighting tooth and nail against the Trade Alliance on the Mana Hill Plains. When he inquired about the situation at the front, the faces of Duke Kences and Grand Duke Fisablen were both grim—they had discovered that the Second Prince and the noble families' armed forces had been dragged into a massive quagmire by the Trade Alliance. Getting in had been easy; getting out was another matter entirely.
Duke Kences told Lorist dejectedly that since May, the Trade Alliance had launched five major offensive campaigns. The Andinak Kingdom had won three and lost two. But those two defeats had cost the Andinak Kingdom two fortress cities on the Mana Hill Plains—Klido City and Lete City. At present, the Second Prince held only one remaining fortress city: Bruivik City. This was the sole bridgehead occupied by the Andinak Kingdom's armies on the Mana Hill Plains. If it fell, the Trade Alliance's forces would be able to launch a counterattack into the territory of the former Krisen Empire.
Duke Kences's displeasure was understandable. His family's sole military legion was a heavy-armor corps, and the Second Prince had assigned it defensive duties. After the Trade Alliance's five offensive campaigns, the Kences family's 45,000-strong heavy-armor legion had been reduced to barely 18,000—a devastating toll. This had essentially wiped out the plunder and war spoils they had acquired from their invasion of the Mana Hill Plains over the past two years. For Duke Kences, this had become an extremely unprofitable venture—and one he couldn't walk away from...
Grand Duke Fisablen also told Lorist with a bitter smile that it wasn't just Duke Kences's heavy-armor legion—nearly every noble family's armed forces that had participated in the war had suffered catastrophic losses. Duke Shahin's two light infantry legions had been virtually annihilated. Duke
Could it be that the Second Prince was deliberately draining the military strength of the various noble families across the kingdom? Lorist began to suspect as much. But Grand Duke Fisablen shook his head and told Lorist that the seven White Lion Corps the Second Prince had trained years ago, totaling nearly 300,000 troops—aside from the 40,000 to 50,000 casualties suffered when Lorist and the Storm Sword Saint clashed and were ambushed by the Trade Alliance, the rest had been fighting the Trade Alliance's forces on the Mana Hill Plains. After the five campaigns, the Second Prince was left with only about three White Lion Corps.
The casualties were too devastating, Grand Duke Fisablen sighed. When all was said and done, the Andinak Kingdom's forces had lost nearly 200,000 troops on the Mana Hill Plains this year—both the kingdom's regular armies and the noble families' armed forces had been gravely weakened. If such a heavy price could secure victory, everyone could grit their teeth and persist. The problem was that the Trade Alliance's forces currently held the initiative and the advantage on the battlefield. The Andinak Kingdom could forget about victory—they couldn't even hope for a ceasefire.
The Trade Alliance was treating the Andinak Kingdom the way they had treated the Krisen Empire, their hated enemy of a century—flatly refusing to compromise with the Second Prince. Not only would they not agree to a truce, they were continuously mobilizing troops, conscripting and assembling new armed forces, and sending them to the Mana Hill Plains in an endless stream. Although their five offensive campaigns had resulted in greater losses than the Andinak Kingdom's side, within a month, large batches of newly conscripted forces would arrive to reinforce them, easily replenishing their depleted numbers and maintaining overwhelming pressure on the Andinak Kingdom.
"The Trade Alliance's forces took heavy casualties?" Lorist asked.
Grand Duke Fisablen nodded, giving Lorist a clear answer. Just as he had said, if the Andinak Kingdom had lost over 200,000, the Trade Alliance had lost at least 300,000 or more from their five offensive campaigns.
But the problem was that the Trade Alliance had the manpower to absorb those losses. They could afford it—even a two-to-one casualty ratio against the Andinak Kingdom was acceptable. Especially after the Glass War, the Trade Alliance had entered a mode of annexation and expansion, transforming overnight into the largest country on the Galentea Continent by territory. At the same time, because these annexed nations had enjoyed a century of peace, they were overpopulated. And because their former territorial nobles had squeezed them dry, they were desperately poor. With just a little money, the Trade Alliance could lure vast numbers of young men onto the battlefield to fight and die for them. So the Trade Alliance had no shortage of cannon fodder.
But the Andinak Kingdom was a different story. Seven years of civil war within the empire, followed by nearly a decade of wars among the various kingdoms and duchies, and then the Second Prince's campaign to unify the empire—the various fragmented kingdoms and duchies within the former Krisen Empire's borders had long since exhausted their vitality. Otherwise, the Second Prince would never have accepted Lorist's harsh conditions in exchange for help in conquering the four central duchies. It was precisely by seizing the four central duchies that the Second Prince had gained the resources and manpower to rearm 300,000 troops and threaten the Trade Alliance. Unfortunately, the Second Prince's designs had been frustrated—the Trade Alliance would neither bend nor break, insisting on fighting the Second Prince to the bitter end.
Truth be told, the Second Prince was now in an impossible position. The Trade Alliance could afford to lose troops; the Second Prince could not. He had already ordered the kingdom's last remaining Royal Guard Legion to be sent to the battlefield. If the 100,000-plus troops he currently had, along with the noble families' armed forces, were completely wiped out on the Mana Hill Plains, the Trade Alliance could march unopposed deep into the Andinak Kingdom, all the way to Dreimek Province and Winston Province. By then, the Andinak Kingdom would be finished.
If the Trade Alliance were willing to agree to a ceasefire, the Second Prince would now willingly return the recovered Armenia Province and Malivea Province to the Trade Alliance as peace terms. This kind of war—one that wounded the enemy a hundred while hurting oneself sixty or seventy—could simply no longer be sustained. That was why he had dispatched Duke Kences and Grand Duke Fisablen to Northland to seek aid. As long as Lorist agreed to send reinforcements, the Second Prince was willing to cede Yungeshandra Province to the Norton Family as governed territory.
Lorist let out an incredulous laugh. "What would I do with Yungeshandra Province?"
Duke Kences reminded him from the side that Lorist had previously signed an agreement with Grand Duke Forlundo for the joint development of Yungeshandra Province, which the Second Prince had subsequently sabotaged. The Second Prince had promised Grand Duke Forlundo that if he participated in the war against the Trade Alliance, he could relocate back to the family's original ancestral territory in Perolina Province. Thus, the joint development plan for Yungeshandra Province had been shelved indefinitely, and the Norton Family's half-year of investigation work and enormous expenditure on Yungeshandra Province had all been for nothing.
The Second Prince must have thought of this development plan, which was why he offered Yungeshandra Province as the bargaining chip to secure the Norton Family's military reinforcements—because he had nothing else of value to offer. This was truly a drowning man grasping at straws.
One situation that Grand Duke Fisablen described at this point caught Lorist's attention. Starting in the second half of this year, the Trade Alliance's forces had begun fielding many catapults and large wheeled crossbows that were strikingly similar to the Norton Family's equipment. While they were not as powerful as the Norton Family's catapults and steel crossbows, their sheer quantity made up for it. This was the main reason the Andinak Kingdom's forces, despite holding defensive positions, were still suffering such heavy casualties.
...