Chapter 89: The Three Stewards and Yilina

Old Steward Kreis had Lorist escort him back. When Lorist pushed the wooden wheelchair and returned the old steward to his bedroom, he found Pat standing guard outside, with Sedecamp and three middle-aged men seated within.

The three middle-aged men rose together and bowed to Lorist, greeting the head of the family.

Old Steward Kreis patted Lorist on the arm and said with a smile that these three were the family's three major stewards. Without them, even he himself couldn't effectively manage the entire family estate and castle.

The first to pledge his loyalty to Lorist was a somewhat balding middle-aged man named Hanske, the family's financial steward, who filled the role of accountant and treasurer.

The second middle-aged man was named Speer. He was the storehouse steward, managing the family estate and castle's thirteen warehouses of various sizes that held all manner of supplies. He knew every last detail of the stored provisions.

The last middle-aged man was somewhat slippery and quite the smooth talker. He was the family's personnel steward, well acquainted with the strengths and weaknesses of every member. Kreis quietly signaled Lorist to keep a closer eye on this man named Kodan, because even his oath of loyalty sounded hollow and insincere—the kind of words that immediately gave off a feeling of dishonesty.

Lorist, for his part, didn't particularly care about how eloquent an oath of loyalty sounded. Time would reveal a person's true character. As long as there was motivation to develop and progress under his command, loyalty would follow naturally. He asked the three stewards to give him a comprehensive report on every aspect of the family's current situation, so that he, as the new head, could understand the specifics.

As Lorist had suspected, the family's current condition was extremely poor. Hanske reported that the family's cash reserves—gold and silver coins—were practically depleted. Half a year ago, Grand Duke Lukins had dispatched his Gold Knights to forcibly collect over three thousand imperial gold coins in taxes, practically squeezing the family's reserves dry. Now the gold coins recorded in his ledgers numbered fewer than a hundred.

Lorist waved a hand and had Sedecamp bring the two chests of Forde gold he had brought home to Hanske, to be deposited into the family treasury first. However, Hanske remained blunt: a simple injection of capital wouldn't be of much use to the family. What the family lacked was trade and communication with the outside world. But with the family situated on the northern border, all channels of exchange were controlled by other lords. Purchasing large quantities of supplies or selling goods would only increase costs and trade expenses—it simply wasn't worthwhile.

After Hanske came Speer, who stepped forward to report on the stockpile status of each warehouse. Grain was the most abundant. Although the Northland had only one harvest per year, the Norton family's own fields produced enough from a single annual harvest to meet the estate's grain needs. On top of that, the Northfield garrison delivered their annual tithe from the fields each year, paid entirely in grain. As a result, grain just kept accumulating—even the harvests from two years ago still hadn't been consumed. The family's granaries currently held approximately ten million jin of grain, and without channels for external trade, the grain could only sit in storage longer and longer.

Besides grain, the family's second-largest stockpile was copper ingots. After all, the family had once owned a copper mine, and all the ore extracted had been refined into copper ingots and transported back to the estate for storage. Now, due to the family's cash shortage, Speer was arranging for workers to melt down the copper and mint imperial copper coins to address their most urgent needs.

The family's last significant stockpile consisted of various types of furs—many from harvests in previous years. But since the family had lost its military strength over the past two years, no organized hunts for magical beasts had been conducted. Beyond these, the remaining warehouses held only rope, wooden barrels, and a few production tools—nothing else of note. The family was critically short on iron ore, weapons, armor, and cloth, and even lacked spices and seasonings.

Steward Kodan gave the final report, sharing something no one had expected: the surviving families of former soldiers currently living in the estate and castle numbered nearly a thousand—this was even after three to four hundred had already left to return to Northfield Town. Those who remained could manage reasonably well if their children had grown or if relatives with able-bodied men could help support them, but those who had gone back to Northfield Town lived very difficult lives. They were unwelcome by their own parents and relatives and could only scrape by on the occasional grain relief from the estate.

A few years back, nearly a hundred members of the family's merchant caravan had all perished in battle. Then the Eldest Young Master had led the family's iron cavalry into the fray for the Second Prince—of two hundred Norton iron cavalry, only a few dozen returned. To top it off, when the Lord had attempted an ambush against the Mountain Barbarians, the garrison had refused to obey orders, resulting in the family's last military force being completely wiped out. In the wake of this string of disasters, the Norton family had gained nearly a thousand new soldier dependents. These families placed an enormous burden on the estate. The family was relatively well-off in grain and could still provide for their basic needs, but all other forms of compensation were nonexistent.

Beyond these fallen soldiers' families, there was also a Silver Three-Star family knight—Sir Belunek, who had once fought a magical beast to the death to save the Third Young Master and had been gravely wounded in the process. He was supposed to attend that evening, but his old wounds had flared up that afternoon and he couldn't make it. Kodan hoped Lorist would go to Northfield Town the next day to visit this family knight. It was, after all, the new lord's duty to do so.

That was easy enough. Lorist readily agreed.

Old Steward Kreis had everyone sit down. He told Lorist that after hearing Sedecamp's account of the new lord's journey north, he had been quite shaken. He wanted Lorist to recount the story of the convoy's northern journey once more, this time before everyone.

Lorist began. He had organized a convoy heading north, first defeating the Sloff Slave-Catchers, then clashing with Count Cobley. When he learned that Count Cobley was the mastermind behind the robbery and massacre of the Norton family's merchant caravan years ago, he decided to uproot the man's entire family to avenge both the caravan and his Third Uncle.

After slaying Count Cobley and his bastards outside Geldos City, and wanting to return to the Northland before March to inherit his title and family lands, Lorist abandoned the convoy and took Sedecamp, Pat, and a few subordinates, traveling day and night. They wiped out a band of mountain bandits in the town of Fonyata, in Viscount Comas's fief in the Andinak Kingdom, then assembled a new convoy and pressed on all the way back to the family's territory. Discovering that Viscount Kenmais was constructing a castle on Morgan Ridge, he seized the construction site and sent men to rescue the family's people held at the copper mine.

Lorist produced a map, spread it open, and explained the Kenmais family's development plan for Morgan Ridge to everyone, along with his intention to carry that plan forward and transform Morgan Ridge into a solid rear base for the Norton family.

Everyone listened as though hearing a legend. No one had imagined that during the Norton family's string of misfortunes and declining power, the exiled Second Young Master would make a dramatic comeback, single-handedly opening a new path for the family's rise.

The three major stewards were overcome with excitement, each requesting to visit Morgan Ridge where the castle was being built. Hanske was the most resolute. He believed the current family estate was like stagnant water—aside from doing simple bookkeeping, there was no place for his talents. He wanted to go to the Morgan Ridge construction site where he could truly put his skills to use.

Lorist agreed to Hanske's request. He told the three stewards that he himself would be heading to the Morgan Ridge construction site in a couple of days. The five hundred-plus slaves who had been idling at the estate would also be coming along—they would serve as construction labor and, once the new mountain fortress was completed, would be granted freedom to settle there as commoners. He would also be transporting a batch of grain and would notify the other side to send a convoy to meet them. The three stewards were welcome to come along and see for themselves.

Lorist asked the three stewards to keep this matter secret for the time being. They all gave their assurances before departing in high spirits. Only after the three stewards had gone did Old Steward Kreis begin to criticize Lorist. The old steward believed that building a city on Morgan Ridge was a waste of manpower and resources. He thought Lorist should bring the convoy and people here instead and build a new city alongside the family estate.

Lorist was puzzled by the old steward's reasoning. The old steward explained that the Norton family's ancestral mandate was to guard the border for the empire—and Morgan Ridge was hardly a border region!

Lorist smiled and reassured the old steward. He had never intended to abandon this place. A fist must be pulled back before it can strike. Once Morgan Ridge was developed properly, it would become the Norton family's clenched fist, and then the direction for that strike would naturally become clear.

When Lorist left the old steward's room, the night had grown deep.

Lorist returned to the main castle tower where he was staying and climbed to the balcony outside his bedroom, gazing at the estate and castle shrouded in the night.

This was indeed a fine place. Two hundred years ago, the family's ancestors had exhausted their efforts choosing this location as the family's base, spending decades building this estate and castle from nothing into such a well-appointed stronghold. No wonder the old steward was reluctant to part with it—when he heard that Lorist wanted to relocate the seat to Morgan Ridge, he had immediately questioned whether Lorist intended to abandon this place. The look in his eyes had been like he was staring at a heinous criminal.

"Master, your bath is ready..." A timid voice interrupted Lorist's thoughts. He nodded toward Yilina and headed downstairs to his bedroom.

After a comfortable hot bath, Lorist leaned back against the bed, watching Yilina bustle about like a diligent little bee—scooping the bathwater into a wooden bucket and carrying it out to dump, then removing the wooden bathing tub, cleaning the floor, returning to the washroom to rinse herself off, before putting on a grayish-white nightgown of fine linen, laying a leather sleeping pad behind the sofa, and taking out a woolen blanket to lie down on...

"Yilina, come here..." Lorist said, licking his lips.

Yilina's body went rigid. It took a long while before she slowly walked over to Lorist, head lowered and silent—only her body was trembling slightly...

"Are you really that afraid of me? Why?" Lorist asked, reaching out to lift her chin and raising her entire face.

The girl's eyes were filled with extreme panic, but her expression held a sense of resignation...

"Do you know what a maidservant is supposed to do for her master?" Lorist said.

The girl's body trembled even more violently, but she nodded to show she understood.

Lorist's fingers traced across the girl's face—her nose, her lips, her chin—and finally came to rest on the knot of her nightgown...

The grayish-white, slightly worn fine linen nightgown drifted to the floor, revealing the girl's slender, pale body, trembling with tension.

Lorist pulled her into his arms, caressing the two small crimson buds on her chest. "Yilina, from now on you're not sleeping on the floor anymore. Half of this bed is yours. Understood?"

Yilina was flustered and at a loss, her entire body rigid, knowing only how to tremble. Under Lorist's caresses, her body gradually began to heat up, and unconscious sounds started to escape her throat...

Lorist positioned the girl on the bed, lowered his body, and pushed his hardness and heat deep into the girl's tender warmth...

Tears burst from her eyes as she screamed: "It hurts! It hurts so much! It's killing me!"

Lorist froze and stopped moving. When the girl finally quieted, he lowered his head and gently licked the tears from her face. "I'm sorry—I assumed you'd already... I didn't realize you were still a virgin..."

The girl wept again: "Th-third young master, he... back then he was still young. Only sev... seventeen. The Lord said he couldn't touch me until after his eighteenth birthday, or it would damage his body and he wouldn't be able to properly awaken his combat force..."

It's my fault. I shouldn't have pushed him into the well and hurt his body... Lorist thought with self-reproach, but grew even gentler with the girl beneath him. "The first time does hurt a bit. Bear with it—soon it'll stop hurting and you'll start to feel good... You'll see in a moment..."

"You really need to stop trembling. All this shaking makes it hard for me to hold back... Stop shaking—keep going like this and I really won't be able to control myself..."

...

The moonlight flowed like water; spring filled the tower...