"No, Uncle Locke, I made a wrong move on the last step. Let me take that move back..." That was
Magic Beast Chess was a game from Galentea similar to Monopoly. The board was an irregular maze-like map dotted with nearly a hundred chess pieces shaped like magical beasts, and the boss was a red dragon piece placed at the center of the maze. The participants played as knight-shaped pieces, using dice rolls to determine how many spaces to move from the entrance.
Unlike Monopoly, Magic Beast Chess required solid calculation skills, because every beast piece had an associated score. For example, if a knight's score was ten and he moved two spaces to land on a Magic Sheep, the score carved underneath the Magic Sheep piece was five, meaning the knight killed the sheep without taking damage, bringing the knight's score to fifteen. If it was a Magic Wolf with a score of nine, that meant the two forces were closely matched — the knight's victory would only raise his score to eleven rather than nineteen. Only when the score difference was double or more could the scores be added; otherwise, you had to subtract the smaller from the larger and add the difference.
The land maze was riddled with intersections guarded by all manner of magical beasts. Every move required calculating the optimal way to increase your fighting strength so you could reach the center of the maze and slay the red dragon for victory. Because of this, the game was also known as Dragon-Slaying.
Just now the little girl had miscalculated and taken the wrong path, running into a Magic Tiger. Her knight's fighting strength was only thirty-seven, while the Magic Tiger's score was forty-two — meaning her knight had become the tiger's canned food. The little girl's knight had to retreat all the way back to the maze entrance and start over, and all the beast pieces that had been killed returned to the board. The little girl wouldn't have it and started throwing a tantrum, demanding to take back her move.
Lorist pinched the little girl's cheek indulgently and generously agreed to let her pick a new direction.
Sitting upright in the high-backed chair by the window was the little girl's brother, Schwad, who was completely absorbed in a book he had pulled from the bookshelf. On the floor in the middle of the room, Farea's twin brothers — those five- or six-year-old mercenaries — lay on their bellies nibbling on small pastries while playing with a set of building blocks. They were trying to construct a little castle…
Lately, Lorist had been pestered by this little girl Elisa. First, Lorist had been away from the convoy and back on family territory for over half a year, so Elisa missed this uncle who doted on her. Second, everyone was holed up in
Bodfinger and Farea had been worried that the children would bother Lorist and tried to stop them from coming, but Lorist shut that down. The long winter was tedious enough. Having a few children around livened things up. With others handling the affairs of the lord's convoy and the refugees, Lorist only needed to make occasional rounds to show a benevolent attitude — there was no need to personally attend to every little thing.
This was also a good opportunity to test whether his second disciple Schwad had neglected his studies during the northern journey. To keep the children from getting bored, Lorist racked his brains designing toys from his previous life and had craftsmen make them, turning his own room into a children's playground.
The door was knocked on again, and this time it was Pat who came in.
"My lord, Knight
"Uncle, you have important business. Let's stop playing." Before Lorist could even open his mouth, little Elisa very sensibly stood up and tossed the game pieces, scoreboard, and whatnot onto the board.
Lorist was left gaping: "Little lass, Uncle just needed two more moves to win. You're reneging again."
But the little girl paid him no mind. With a cheer, she ran over to the twin brothers, swaying her head back and forth as she declared their castle terribly ugly.
"Let's build a garden instead." She started dismantling the castle.
The two brothers were unhappy, and the three of them started arguing again.
"What did Yuri say?" After shutting the children's quarreling behind the door, Lorist asked Pat as they headed downstairs together.
"Yuri said the road is hard to travel — it's all wet mud, and one step will sink you up to your ankles. Right now, between the thaw and the continuous spring rain, the roads are terribly muddy. Carts can't pass. Without ten days or so of blazing sun, the roads won't dry." Pat replied. "Oh, and Yuri also said he went to the riverbank and asked the old ferryman at the crossing. The old ferryman said before the twenty-fifth of the second month, there's simply no way to cross the river. Lots of ice chunks and floes wash down from upstream and pile up along this stretch, and it won't be clear until late in the second month. Only then can you make the crossing."
"Ugh, another whole month cooped up here — my body's going to start growing mold. Since we still can't set out, what does Sir Shrade want to discuss with me?" Lorist let out a sigh.
"I'm not sure about that. He just said he had something important to discuss with you."
…
Compared to Lorist's leisure, Fatty was swamped with work. The burden of managing a northern convoy of over seventy thousand people and the lives of a hundred thousand refugees all rested on his shoulders. The petty incidents and minor disputes that arose every single day were enough to drive him mad. Even though he had promoted over fifty clerical administrators from the convoy and refugee ranks during the long northward journey to help him manage all affairs related to the convoy and refugees, he was still driven to the brink by the endless stream of trivial matters — his temper running hotter by the day.
"So what if he's eighty? He broke our rules and deserves his punishment — if the lashes kill him, so be it! Anyone who sympathizes with him can get out along with him. We don't need to keep useless old fossils who pull the age card to throw their weight around! Go on — ten lashes. That's an order!"
Lorist and Pat were still on the third-floor landing when they heard Fatty's thundering roar, wondering yet again what had set him off this time.
When they reached the main hall, they caught sight of one of Fatty's clerical administrators scurrying out the door, while Fatty was still smoldering with residual anger.
"What happened?" Lorist asked.
"Nothing much. Some seventy-something-year-old fossil who used to be a town mayor — he took it upon himself to pick two women from the refugees of his old town as personal maids, and he skimmed a tenth of the supplies we distributed from the townsfolk as his own cut. We'd been checking the campsite tents these past couple of days, right? That's how we found out he'd stockpiled a huge hoard of supplies. When we tried to confiscate it, he played the age card and threw a tantrum — cursing up a storm. So I ordered ten lashes to teach him a lesson. He's a refugee now and still thinks he can lord it over people. The audacity," Fatty said.
"Just hang him and be done with it. At his age, he's nothing but dead weight — a useless mouth that eats up our family's supplies and grain. Wouldn't you agree, my lord?" Yuri chimed in from the side, sipping his hot tea.
Lorist thought it over and said, "Never mind. Shrade has already handed out the punishment, so there's no point changing it now. But make a note — when the caravan sets out, have all the slick, lazy ones weeded out. I don't want them infecting the family's territory with their bad habits once we get there. Just leave them behind to fend for themselves."
What Fatty had come to discuss with Lorist also concerned the departure. Unlike Lorist, who wanted to return to the family's territory as soon as possible, Fatty let out a sigh of relief upon hearing Yuri's report that they would have to wait another month before heading north. It was only late January. Even if they wanted to travel north, preparations were necessary — all the wagons needed to be inspected and repaired, the horses had to be sent out to stretch their legs and rest, and the clothing, rations, and itinerary arrangements for over a hundred thousand people would all take time. They couldn't simply pack up and leave on a moment's notice.
Most importantly, Fatty wanted to pack up the remaining hundred and seventy million catties of grain in Kobol City and haul it back to the family's territory. If that were the case, the wagons originally meant to carry people would all have to be freed up for transporting grain, and having everyone walk would obviously slow the caravan to a crawl.
Lorist was vexed. He wanted to leave the grain behind and return to the family's territory as quickly as possible. But Fatty rattled off a string of figures and won him over.
Fatty pointed out that in just these two and a half months — a little over eighty days — some hundred and seventy to a hundred and eighty thousand people cooped up in Kobol City had consumed over thirty million catties of grain. If they left the grain behind and brought only people back to the family's territory, famine would strike within three months for certain. He refused to believe that the family's territory was secretly hoarding hundreds of millions of catties of grain just waiting for this crowd to arrive and feast on it.
Lorist had to admit Fatty made a compelling argument. He recalled Steward Spell reporting to him that the family's stored grain combined with what they had seized from Northwild Town amounted to no more than fifty or sixty million catties, and that had to cover the laborers building
"Bring it," Lorist conceded. Then he remembered something else. "Don't forget the trouble of crossing the river. While we still have a month, have the engineer camp start building small boats and wooden rafts. That way, we can use them to haul materials over first and assemble a pontoon bridge, then come back for the rest of the supplies."
"The Locke boats you designed?"
"Well… something like them. But this time they'll need to carry freight wagons, so the pontoon bridge has to be five meters wide. Tell the craftsmen to build the boats a bit longer. The river surface is nothing like a lake — it has to withstand wind and waves, so have them apply an extra two coats of that green adhesive clay. Right, the river is roughly three hundred meters across, so figure out how many small boats to build based on that length," Lorist instructed.
…
On the tenth of February, the
The Second Prince's reasoning was that he wanted Lorist to hold down Cobol City and lead his troops to militarily suppress the territorial lords of Dremauk Province, ensuring they wouldn't cause trouble while he fought his decisive battle against Grand Duke Madras. The Second Prince was confident that within three months, he could sweep through West Degler Province and bring Grand Duke Madras to kneel before his horse.
Lorist shook his head and flatly refused the Second Prince's request. He said that since he had left last September, he still hadn't received any word from his family, and he truly couldn't rest easy. Now that the bitter cold had passed and the spring rains fell endlessly, his heart was already yearning for home — he wished he could return to his family's territory the very next day. Therefore, he simply could not agree to the Second Prince's request, and he was truly sorry.
However, Lorist suggested that after his caravan departed, he could hand Cobol City over to the Second Prince. As long as the Second Prince dispatched over ten thousand Royal Legion soldiers to garrison Cobol City, the territorial lords of Dremauk Province wouldn't dare make any rash moves. As for borrowing grain, there was no need to mention it — he was willing to give the Second Prince twenty million pounds of grain as a congratulatory gift in advance for his victory over Grand Duke Madras.
Yet even with Lorist saying this, the Second Prince still furrowed his brow. He expressed that if he pulled ten thousand soldiers away, he wouldn't be able to concentrate his full force against Grand Duke Madras's Haishan Legion. The best solution would be for Lorist to leave half of his caravan's armed forces stationed in Cobol City while he himself took the refugees and supplies north to return to his family's territory first.
When you make a promise, you have to keep it. Besides, there was no justification for leaving his forces here — this wasn't his family's fief. What would be the point of staying?
In the end, Lorist and the Second Prince parted on bad terms.
Watching the Second Prince and his entourage receding into the distance, Lorist nudged Fatty Shrade with his elbow. "Now do you understand? He'll die before saying he'll grant Cobol City to our family. No matter how good his other promises are, they're all hollow. He's racked his brains coming up with reasons to try and convince us to stay — I have to give him credit for the effort."
Fatty Shrade smiled bitterly. "I think we need to speed up our departure preparations and leave here as soon as possible. I suspect the Second Prince's real reason for wanting our caravan's armed forces to stay is that he's received news the Second Prince — no, the other prince — is preparing to make a move on Dremauk Province. So he wants us here to block the other prince's advance, buying him time to prepare for battle, or waiting for us to fight the other prince to mutual destruction so he can reap the benefits."
"You're absolutely right." Lorist nodded. "I suspect the same thing, which is why he's unwilling to send his Royal Legion here. I don't believe for a second that being short ten thousand soldiers would affect his decisive battle with Grand Duke Madras. Didn't you see the letter Erle wrote to us?"
"This past winter, our dear Second Prince certainly hasn't been idle. With that hundred million pounds of grain, not only did he fill out the Galewind Corps to its full complement of fifty-six thousand men, he also expanded the Royal Legion into a massive army of eighty-three thousand. On top of that, he finished rebuilding the Lichtenana fortress castle and raised two garrison corps of ten thousand each. If he claims he has no troops, only a fool would believe it. Even if he can't deploy the Royal Legion, could he at least not send the garrison corps? Do they really take us for idiots?"
"I have to admit the Second Prince is truly a ruthless schemer. We did so much for him, helped him so enormously, and in the blink of an eye he sold us out without a shred of mercy. Does he really think we don't see through his intentions?" Fatty Shrade said with genuine feeling. "Compared to him, you're far too soft-hearted, Locke. Sometimes I really don't understand why you're so kind — like a pushover. Remember, you're a lord now, not an instructor at
Lorist laughed and recited a line of poetry that made Fatty Shrade feel strangely uncomfortable: "Ruthlessness does not necessarily make a true hero — can a man who loves his son not also be a great man?"
"So what do you think — is it better to follow a lord like me, or a hero like the Second Prince?" Lorist turned to head back to the castle.
"Hey, where did you get that poetry line just now? It's rather interesting." Fatty Shrade hurried after him, turning to catch up. "What kind of question is that? Of course I'm following you. You're my little brother — I need to keep an eye on you so you don't mess up. You're always making a fool of yourself as a lord. Besides, I'd sooner die than follow the Second Prince. Who knows when he'd sell me off and I'd still have to count his money for him. How humiliating would that be?"
"I just feel sorry for those former students and Silver Knights who went over to the Second Prince. They traveled north with our caravan for half a year without a single casualty, but the moment they joined him, two were dead within ten days. It wasn't worth it at all. Oh right, Locke — you should warn your cousin Chrisia. With the Second Prince's character, I doubt she'll ever become empress..." Fatty Shrade chattered on without pause from behind.
Lorist sighed and replied, "Fatty, you really do talk too much. Forget it — everyone has their own fate, and it's very hard for us to change their convictions. I'll warn my cousin, but whether she listens is up to her."
…(To be continued.)