"My Lord, Count Churchwick must know all about our
It was Schweid who spoke. They were on their way back to the inn. After
One move. A brush past, and the Adam's apple shattered—end of story. How sharp a sense of movement, how keen an eye, and how lightning-fast did one's reflexes need to be to leave a three-star Golden Knight with no way to dodge and no way to survive? Never mind Baron
Present were also three Great Swordmasters. Grand Duke Fisablen's reaction was shock. Great Swordmaster Limad's was terror. And Great Swordmaster Hughes's was admiration. Having frequently sparred with Lorist, Hughes could see it clearly: just as that Golden Knight Heinleman had charged forward like a mad tiger in an all-or-nothing strike, Lorist had taken a single small step forward. And that single step had thrown the Golden Knight's entire rhythm into chaos, because he had lost his predetermined strike target. He didn't even have the chance to redirect his sword. All he could do was watch helplessly as his longsword scraped past Lorist's body, and watch helplessly as Lorist's right hand reached out and touched his throat—as if he had delivered himself up to it. *Crack*…
*This is what seizing the initiative means,* Great Swordmaster Hughes sighed with deep emotion as he watched Lorist's figure walking ahead. A Great Swordmaster who had reached this level could almost certainly be considered to be approaching the half-step peak. Lorist was only thirty-four years old. At that age, successfully advancing to the Golden rank would already make one a prodigy of battle force cultivation. But his lord was an outright monster—already approaching the half-step peak, and clearly destined to become a Sword Saint. A Sword Saint!
Jost squeezed his horse's flanks hard, urging it forward a few paces to catch up with Lorist. "My Lord, did you notice at the banquet just now? When Count Churchwick was describing the war between the Four Central Duchies and the
"Heh, you noticed too? Here's what we'll do—once we're back at the inn, take a few guards and invite him over. There are some things I'd like to ask him," said Lorist.
After killing the Golden Knight Heinleman, Lorist had even smiled and asked young Prince Dukke if he wanted to send up another person for revenge. The prince had been scared witless, shaking his head over and over. Finding it all rather pointless, Lorist had taken his leave of Grand Duke Fisablen. The Grand Duke, knowing that Lorist had already had his people book an inn near the south gate for their lodgings, didn't try to keep him and simply saw Lorist and his party out through the gates of the Rose Palace.
Not far from the south gate stood an inn called Anna's Home. It had five stories—the ground floor was a tavern, and the upper four floors were the inn. It was quite a well-known establishment in Windbury Royal City.
Unfortunately, what made Anna's Home famous was not its facilities or service, but a tragic tale. During the reign of the fifth Krisen Emperor, Windbury was still a newly developing livestock trading city. On the site where the inn now stood, there had once been a rundown general store. The shopkeeper had a mute daughter—a very gentle and kind girl who often took in stray cats and dogs and gave food and clothing to orphans.
When Anna grew up, she married a hardworking young man, and the couple lived their happy little life running the general store. Because of their kindness, they had taken in over a dozen stray children, which strained their finances. So they took out all the savings the parents had accumulated over a lifetime and built a two-story building—selling liquor on the ground floor and running an inn above. Thanks to their diligence and honesty, the inn did very well, and Anna had more resources to take in orphans and stray animals.
With business booming, the couple decided to expand. They spent money to build this five-story building as an inn. But it was precisely this five-story building that attracted the attention of greedy nobles. Those nobles sent men to arrest Anna's husband on trumped-up charges like smuggling and harboring fugitives, and then sent threats to Anna, offering a single Imperial gold coin for the five-story building.
Helpless, Anna accepted the price and sold the building—worth nearly a thousand—for a single Imperial gold coin, hoping only to save her beloved. But what was thrown from the prison was not her husband alive, but his tortured corpse. Anna went mad. She clutched her husband's body and sat before the city lord's manor for three days and three nights, and finally, with a wail of agony, she smashed her head against the stone base of the flagpole and died.
She cracked her skull against the flagpole's base and bled to death.
This was recorded in the history of the Krisen Empire as the only citizen riot in its annals. Enraged citizens and merchants burned down the city lord's manor and hanged the city lord, who had been as fat as a pig. When word reached the capital, the furious Krisen V ordered a thorough investigation. In a twist of irony, the first noble envoy sent to investigate was bribed by those territorial nobles and pinned all the blame on the dead city lord. But the merchants and citizens of Windbury wouldn't accept it. They continued their strike, organized the Windbury Citizen Guard, and made a tremendous fuss.
The first noble envoy furiously ordered the nobles of Winston Province to send their private soldiers to suppress the uprising, but many nobles refused—they believed the fault lay not with the rioting citizens but with those greedy nobles. When the standoff before the city walls and the details of the affair reached the capital again, the furious Krisen V dispatched the Royal Knight Order and appointed its commander as the final executor to handle the matter.
When the Royal Knight Order arrived in Windbury, the Citizen Guard opened the gates and surrendered, submitting a petition that detailed the entire affair and demanded severe punishment for those nobles.
Standing on the side of the Crown, the Royal Knight Order used this as a pretext to massacre the nobility of Winston Province. Nearly two-thirds of the province's nobles were implicated and stripped of their titles and lands. The ringleaders had their families annihilated and their properties confiscated. The first noble envoy was strung up on the gallows.
In the history of the Krisen Empire, what came to be known as the Windbury Riot was in truth a clash between the Crown and the territorial nobility. The Crown indeed could not interfere with the territorial nobles' governance of their own family lands, but it absolutely would not allow those nobles to extend their hands into the Crown's territory. At the time, Windbury and several other major cities were under direct royal administration. Nobles conducting commercial activities in these cities could enjoy tax reductions or exemptions by virtue of their titles, but seizing the property of merchants and citizens amounted to touching the Crown's cheese. Krisen V shrewdly used this incident to launch a sweeping investigation of all major cities, expelling countless nobles from their commercial operations there. This was one of the reasons Krisen V's thirty-seven-year reign was hailed as a golden age.
Now, Anna's Home was run by the descendants of the poor couple's relatives. Even during the period when the Second Prince established the Iblia Kingdom, no noble had been willing to scheme against this inn. To the nobility, the building was an ill-omened place. As such, Anna's Home catered mainly to small trading caravans and mercenaries. Nobles avoided the place like the plague—to be seen frequenting it would be considered beneath their dignity.
In recent years, Anna's Home had been doing poorly, barely managing to stay afloat. Lorist, however, was entirely unbothered. The moment he arrived in Windbury Royal City, he had booked the entire inn as his residence.
"My Lord, Knight Tigell and Brother Reidi have been waiting for quite a while," Schweid reported.
"Oh? Have them come in right away." Lorist wiped his face with his hand. "Oh, and have the servants bring a bath tub and hot water. I'd like to soak for a bit."
Tigell and Reidi arrived quickly. They had reached Windbury Royal City two months before Lorist—one to set up the Wolibel intelligence post here, and two to see whether Grand Duke Fisablen harbored any ill intentions in organizing this knight tournament.
"How are things proceeding?"
Reidi stepped forward. "My Lord, the three underground gangs in Windbury have been consolidated into one. Their backing is gone, and the new boss has sworn allegiance to Wolibel."
Lorist sniffed the air. "There's quite a strong scent of blood on you."
Reidi shrugged—a gesture he had picked up from Lorist. "Can't be helped. There were too many who couldn't appreciate a good thing and didn't know when to quit. I had no choice but to send them to Sigwa's paradise to rest in peace."
Lorist turned his gaze to Tigell.
Tigell reported: "My Lord, the Green Nica Gang's backer was Viscount Vasinga, a noble from the Southern Province and a prominent figure in the Queen's faction, highly trusted by the Queen. Five days ago, Lord Reidi arranged for him to fall from his horse and suffer a fatal skull injury. The Queen believes her father, the Grand Duke, was behind it. Currently, the father and daughter are at odds. Without Viscount Vasinga, the Green Nica Gang figured they could carve out their own territory. Last night, Lord Reidi went to try to persuade them, but the results were poor. Of the surviving mid-level leaders of the Green Nica Gang, fewer than seven or eight remain—the other thirty-four were all killed by Lord Reidi."
"Has Grand Duke Fisablen made any unusual moves?"
"No. Over the past month, we've conducted thorough investigations and found nothing out of the ordinary from the Fisablen family. The Grand Duke appears genuinely eager to host this knight tournament well. He spent nearly fifty thousand Gold Forde demolishing the former slum in the royal city and constructing four large wooden square arenas there. The knight tournament will most likely be held at those venues. Our intelligence operatives have already infiltrated the servant teams at all four arenas. Everything there is under our surveillance—any unusual changes will be discovered and reported."
"Well done. How have the Queen and the other nobles reacted to the Grand Duke's actions?"
"Other than the Queen having a major argument with the Grand Duke and extracting over ten thousand Gold Forde from him, the other nobles have been quite cooperative in helping the Grand Duke organize this knight tournament. They don't have money to contribute, but they've sent their stewards to assist, and some nobles have even followed the Grand Duke's orders to go out and procure or purchase supplies."
"Is the intelligence post in Windbury Royal City set up yet?"
"Not yet. The various neighborhoods are all controlled by different noble factions, and information doesn't flow easily between them. We haven't been able to find a suitable location. They don't know about each other either, so the intelligence we receive can be cross-referenced later. However, we have one difficulty—we can't establish a messenger hawk station within the city, because it would easily be discovered or cause trouble, and might attract those greedy nobles. I'm worried they'd try to seize our messenger hawks by force. The best approach is to set up the station outside the city. The late Viscount Vasinga had an estate north of the city that would be an ideal site for a messenger hawk station, but we have no way to obtain it without exposing our identity…" Tigell answered.
Messenger hawks were the result of a plan proposed several years ago to use falcons for long-distance message delivery. After years of effort, they had finally obtained a batch of excellent messenger falcons, which were called messenger hawks. If they set up a messenger hawk station in Windbury Royal City, news of events here could reach Lorist, far away in Northsea City, in just one day. Sending messages by horse would take ten days or more.
"Are there no nobles in the royal city sympathetic to our Norton Family?"
"My Lord, we haven't found any. The nobles here are a bunch of stubborn fools. They don't care about what happens outside—they only have eyes for their own little patch of land. Their impression of our Norton Family is still stuck on the moment we took the royal city and captured the Second Prince a few years ago. You could say they're afraid, or you could say they don't trust us. They avoid us like the plague."
"Forget it. I'll think of something. Where are your next assignments?" Lorist asked.
"As originally planned, once we've finished here, we're heading to the Merlein Duchy," said Tigell.
There was a knock at the door—the inn's servants had brought the cleaned bath tub and hot water. Reidi took the tub and set it in the room, then helped pour hot and cold water.
Right in front of Tigell and Reidi, Lorist stripped off his clothes and climbed into the tub, splashing water on his face. Reidi took a clean linen towel and wiped Lorist's back.
"That's enough, Reidi—just a quick wipe is fine." Lorist took the towel and draped it over his face. "Tigell, at the welcome banquet hosted by Grand Duke Fisablen just now, I met several nobles from the Four Central Duchies. I'm very interested in their backgrounds and motivations. Over the next few days, look into them. After the tournament is over, you and Reidi go to the Four Central Duchies first. Set up an intelligence network there, and then head on to the Merlein Duchy.
I have a feeling that the Four Central Duchies may become an obstacle to our family in the future. We need to prepare our defenses, and the sooner we understand them, the better. Oh, I've already sent Jost to invite Count Churchwick from the Handra Duchy—he seems to know our family quite well. If he comes, Tigell, you'll act as an attendant and observe him carefully from the side. I hope he'll be wise enough not to refuse my invitation…"
"Yes, My Lord. As you wish."
…(To be continued.)