This time,
Count Kemess had brought two handmaidens, four personal attendants, two Family Silver Knights, and ten guards.
Baron Phelim brought only one concubine and two handmaidens, along with his beloved daughter Katrina and four guards. Lorist brought his two apprentices Rede and Schwed, Great Swordmaster Hughes, the divine archer Josk who had once again left the army, the three Dina ladies with their three attending handmaidens, and twenty personal guards. The entire party totaled eighty-nine people.
Before the Glass War, the Dosleg Grand Hotel had been the most popular place for foreign nobles to stay when visiting Morant City. All manner of banquets, balls, and parties were held there regularly, where the upper echelons of the Commercial League and nobles from various nations mingled and brokered exchanges of interest and agreements. But after the Glass War, the Dosleg Grand Hotel had grown rather desolate. Lorist's party, however, breathed a good deal of life back into the place.
When Lorist arrived at the Red Crow Tavern, he was surprised to find Rede sitting there drinking and chatting with the owner Garrilando. When Rede saw Lorist come in, he hurriedly rose to greet him.
"Hm? What are you doing here? Where are the others?" Lorist asked in surprise.
Rede knew what Lorist was asking about and replied, "My lord, they've all gone back to the Dosleg Grand Hotel. I figured I had some free time, so I came back to see the old man."
Lorist sat down. Garrilando rolled his eyes at him and sighed: "Locke, I really regret letting El and Rede go with you to the Northland…"
Lorist was taken aback. "Why do you say that, Old Ga?"
"What a wonderful opportunity it would be," Old Ga sighed. "If El were still here, I'd have him organize a mercenary group, go scamper around the Kingdom of Trinborough for a while, and come back at least a Viscount. He could become a noble and have his own territory right away. Why on earth did he have to follow you to that barren wilderness in the Northland to fight and die?" Garrilando lamented.
"Heh heh, Rede, do you regret following me?" Lorist ignored Garrilando—old age made one's mind go fuzzy. Did he really think it was that easy being a noble in the Commercial Alliance? Don't be fooled by the flurry of fief-nobility titles granted just now; those were mostly for show. Aside for those who already held immense prestige and respect within the Alliance, like Rector Levins, every other newly enfeoffed noble was the result of plenty of behind-the-scenes bargaining and balancing.
"My Lord, I have never once regretted it. Being able to follow you is the honor of my life!" Rede replied without hesitation.
Garrilando pointed at Rede, speechless. "You... you've learned to flatter! Look at yourself—you've been following this kid for ten years. Ten years ago, you were already Bronze Two-Star. Now look at you, only Silver One-Star. And you still say he hasn't held you back? El is only just preparing to advance to the Gold Rank now, but that can't be helped—his family's shadow-attribute
Rede curled his lip. "I'd rather not follow you running a tavern."
Garrilando choked with anger. "You... you're killing me here! He's clearly stunted your future, and you still won't turn back. I'm doing this for your own good, don't you understand?"
Lorist was displeased. "Hey, hey, Old Ga, what are you saying? How have I 'stunted his future'? Oh, right, I forgot to tell you—Rede will always be at Silver Rank One. He can never advance further. That's because he's cultivating my technique, not Combat Force. But let me tell you plainly—even if you're at Gold Rank One, you are no match for Rede right now."
Garrilando was furious. "That's nonsense! I'm not a match for him? Impossible! I'm at the Gold Rank, and he's only Silver One-Star. Just the difference in Combat Force rank alone means I can crush him easily. Come, come, come—Rede, follow me to the backyard for a spar. If you lose, I won't let you follow this kid anymore!"
Rede looked helplessly at Lorist. Lorist waved his hand. "Go ahead. Remember to take it easy on him."
This was like pouring oil on a fire. Garrilando glared at Lorist, snorting in anger. "You're not coming to watch?"
"What's the point? I already know how it'll turn out — makes no difference whether I watch or not." Lorist found it odd. Old Ga seemed off his game tonight, and he didn't want to push him any further.
Old Ga spun around and left, and Rede had no choice but to follow.
He went fast and came back even faster. Lorist had just finished ordering from the tavern maid when Rede returned.
"How many swords?"
Rede held up five fingers.
"Hmm, five, huh? You've still got work to do. I was expecting three." Lorist sounded a little disappointed.
"No," Rede said. "We went twice. First time, two swords. The old man wouldn't accept it, said he'd been careless, so they went again — that time it was three…"
Not seeing Garrilando anywhere, he asked, "Where's Old Ga?"
" squatting in the backyard. Told me to beat it." Rede said.
"No, seriously — what's going on with Old Ga tonight? Something's off. He's acting like he swallowed a barrel of gunpowder, blowing up at everything." Lorist asked.
Reddy burst into laughter: "He really lost face today. He gathered a few old neighbors at the shop to play Maze Cards, and just when they were having a good time, Boss Louise asked him to watch over the two kids for a bit because she needed to go out and buy something. He agreed but didn't really pay attention. Those two little rascals took advantage of his inattention and snuck drinks nearby, getting completely drunk. Boss Louise came back furious, whacked him several times with an iron pan, threw the Maze Cards away, chased all the old neighbors out, and made him kneel in the corner without getting up. Then she took the two drunk kids and went home first..."
Lorist couldn't help but laugh out loud. Garrilando had married Boss Louise ten years ago, and despite his age, he was still going strong, managing to get Boss Louise pregnant twice. The two kids were now ten and seven. Those brothers probably developed their taste for alcohol growing up in the tavern, and they were particularly fond of drinking. Whenever no one was watching, they would sneak sips. Boss Louise always complained that Old Ga shouldn't have let them taste alcohol while they were still nursing, which had turned them into little drunkards.
However, he didn't expect that over these ten years, Garrilando had developed a fear of his wife. The moment Boss Louise got angry, Old Ga became a cowardly chicken, showing none of the impressiveness of a Gold Swordmaster. Come to think of it, it was quite amusing.
"No wonder when I came in, I felt something was off about the tavern. It's because Boss Louise wasn't standing behind the counter, and I didn't hear the usual clamor of the two kids," Lorist said.
Reddy shrugged: "When I came in, Dad was kneeling in that corner, facing the wall. I asked a maid what was going on, and he heard my voice, so he got up with a stern face to lecture me. It's a good thing you arrived, Master, or else Dad would have vented all his anger on me..."
Just then, a maid brought the wine and food Lorist had ordered. Lorist smiled and said, "It seems we came at a bad time today. Let's just eat our fill and head back. You should sit down and join us."
"Yes, Master." Reddy poured Lorist a glass of black plum wine. "Master, this afternoon when we were shopping on Triumph Avenue, we ran into a shameless noble youth. He came over to harass the Dinah sisters and Baron Shahin's five wives, spouting all sorts of nonsense. Later, we broke one of his legs and told him to watch himself."
"Oh?" Lorist was taken aback. How could this possibly happen in Morant City? Who would be so stupid as to harass foreign noble ladies on Triumph Avenue? In his ten years in Morant City, he'd never heard of such an incident. However, Lorist immediately remembered the four hundred-plus landed nobles recently enfeoffed by the Commercial Union. It was probably some wastrel son of a landed noble who thought that once he became a noble, he could do whatever he wanted. Merchants were just merchants after all, lacking the true foundation of nobility.
Nodding, Lorist said: "I see. It's fine. Next time, break all four of his limbs. If he still doesn't behave, cut off the offending part. Our
After a hearty dinner, Lorist and Reddy didn't call for a carriage. They just walked along the road toward the commercial district at a leisurely pace. After walking for over half an hour, they could already see the tall gateway and the silhouettes of several buildings behind the Dowslager Grand Hotel. Tonight's moonlight was exceptionally bright, casting a brilliant golden glow over the gilded roofs of the Dowslager Grand Hotel's buildings.
Hm, no, something wasn't right. Why had so many people gathered in the garden square in front of the Dowslager Grand Hotel? They seemed to be waving swords and shouting curses, and the crowd of onlookers kept growing. What was going on?
Lorist and Reddy exchanged a glance and quickened their pace, soon arriving at the front gate of the Dowslager Grand Hotel. They could see dozens of hotel guards standing at the main entrance, maintaining a state of tense vigilance. Across from the hotel in the garden square, several hundred people dressed in haphazard mercenary garb had assembled, waving their weapons and bellowing demands for the Dowslager Grand Hotel to hand over the culprits or else...
Reddy pulled Lorist aside: "My lord, those people in the square seem to be coming for us..."
"Hm? Then why are they demanding the hotel hand over the culprits? Didn't you say you broke one of that young noble's legs this afternoon?" Lorist asked.
Reddy smiled bitterly: "My lord, we did break one of his legs, but he'd brought quite a few guards with him. Only a handful of our men suffered minor injuries, but two-thirds of his guards had to be carried back. I don't know whether anyone went too hard on them, or whether some didn't make it..."
"Oh, is that so? Let's circle around and slip in over the wall from the side first, then figure out what those people out there are really after." Lorist pointed toward a wall at a distant corner.
Once inside the hotel, Lorist quickly met the Dowslager Grand Hotel's head steward. The half-white-haired, stern-faced hotel manager, always impeccably polite, visibly relaxed upon seeing Lorist's arrival and hurried over: "My lord, may I ask whether you had a conflict today with the young master of Marquis Bejishanluo?"
"Marquis Bejishanluo? What kind of name is that — that's not even a proper noble house name," Lorist said, thoroughly bewildered. The name was absurdly crude and awkward; it couldn't possibly belong to any noble family.
The characters literally translated to "the bottom of the alley," and it was generally a commoner's epithet, meaning the family living at the very end of an alleyway. So the moment Lorist heard it, he found it strange — there were nobles with names like that?
The head steward flushed red. As someone responsible for hosting nobles from various countries, he had a fair understanding of the knowledge systems these noble families prided themselves on, and he felt rather ashamed on behalf of such a name. But there was nothing he could do about it. The Commercial Union had enfeoffed over four hundred nobles in one fell swoop, and many of them didn't even understand what being a noble truly meant. They simply assumed that becoming a landed noble meant they could do whatever they pleased within their own domain, treating themselves as little emperors.
A name like Bejishanluo might sound quaint and peculiar, but anyone who truly understood the knowledge system behind noble lineages would know that such names were nothing more than the vernacular pronunciation from the era before mages had created the Common Tongue. After the mages developed the Common Tongue, surnames were fashioned from the Ancient Elven language based on the inheritance of magical bloodlines. A surname like Bejishanluo indicated that the family had been commoners even during the ancient age of magical civilization, never having been granted a Common Tongue surname.
However, the fact that a surname like Bejishanluo had persisted to the present day was, in a way, a story of bitter tribulations finally giving way to reward — the family had produced a man of genuine talent. The current deputy speaker of the Commercial Union's Second Council, the Speaker of the Union Parliament, was none other than Marquis Bejishanluo himself. It was said that this marquis was a fierce hawk on foreign policy, currently clamoring in the Union Parliament to use the powerful, invincible military might of the Union to crush those kingdoms that had severed trade routes. He was a vocal advocate for establishing a legion of over a hundred thousand to subjugate the surrounding nations that refused to submit to the Commercial Union. This kind of reckless rhetoric had found an enthusiastic audience among the common folk of Morant City.
The head steward, face flushed, finished his brief introduction of Marquis Bejishanluo's background. Lorist scoffed dismissively. "This afternoon, while our ladies were shopping on Triumph Avenue, they were harassed by that marquis's son — the very same one you just described. He even tried to have his guards seize our ladies! Outrageous! When did Morant City become so lawless? So we taught him a lesson and broke one of the boy's legs. I was preparing to lodge a formal protest with the Commercial Union — is this the sort of noble you people enfeoff? It's a disgrace to the nobility of the entire Galentea Continent!"
The head steward managed a bitter, helpless smile. "Count, the Union's system of nobility has only just been established. It's inevitable that there are problems. But filing a complaint or protest with the Union Parliament right now wouldn't accomplish anything, because Marquis Bejishanluo is the Speaker of that very parliament. He would never allow it to be heard."
"Isn't there a higher body — the Commercial Council?" Lorist asked.
"Count, the Commercial Council consists of the Seven Magnates, and the presidents of the seven great trade companies are currently all away from Morant City. They are busy consolidating their respective company territories. So right now, Morant City is firmly in the hands of the Union Parliament. That's why the young Master Bejishanluo was brazen enough to openly harass the ladies of visiting nobles right on Triumph Avenue — because his father is the chief hawk on foreign policy, advocating the use of military force to expand the Union's sphere of influence. They're not afraid of clashes and disputes with foreign nobles..."
*Damn — I never expected the Commercial Union to have its own breed of xenophobic thugs.* Lorist stroked his chin and glanced toward the crowd of people cursing and shouting in the square before the inn. "Are those people demanding that you hand us over?"
The head steward nodded. "Yes. But please rest easy, Count. Since you chose to stay at the Dosleg Grand Hotel, we will absolutely guarantee your safety. All we ask is that for the next few days, you refrain from going out casually to avoid any untoward incidents. Also, we would appreciate it if your guards could exercise restraint and refrain from provoking them further, which would only escalate the conflict."
"Fine. Then we'll rest here comfortably for three days. If that Beji-whatever Marquis still refuses to let it go after three days, then he'll have no one to blame but himself." In that moment, Lorist's killing intent blazed nakedly.
...(To be continued.)