Lucas sat in the office working through multiple paperwork sent to him, it has been a couple of months since Anastasia's coronation. He had been holed up in the room since morning, after breakfast. The Duchy’s butler and aide, William, gave him a bunch of paperwork to be done for today. Lucas even forgot to eat lunch. After they arrived in Petersburg, the widow of Duke Novgorod peacefully handed over the Duchy to Bianca through Lucas. The knights left in Petersburg were all loyal to the former Duchess and when she handed over her authority to him, the knights, too, kneeled to their new ruler. Their leader, Asher Zermano, was made a commander of the new knight's company.

The late Duke of Novgorod had left Lucas with much more trouble than he could handle. Some nobles in the Duchy who were against Bianca’s rule were immediately executed by Lucas and their families were exiled, their properties and wealth were then seized by the Duchy. Now, Bianca's rule was accepted by the nobility in the Duchy.

New decrees have been enacted by the Crown. The agricultural reform; The military reform; and the road construction project. Lucas told Bianca to enact the reforms and projects as fast as possible, but not this fast. Lucas was overwhelmed by the request from the Crown, especially the road construction project. To his surprise, the Novgorod's coffers were more than he had thought would be.

For some reason, the road construction project was different from what Lucas wrote. He wrote the nobles would pay 25% of the construction but in the decree sent to him, the nobles pay 50% of the construction. Looked like either Bianca or Anastasia was the one who made changes to the plan.

As a coastal city, Lucas thought Novgorod would flourish from trade from other coastal cities from the same continent and other continents. However, there was no trade in the city. It was weird for a coastal city to not flourish as a trade centre. He wanted to investigate the reason why, but he had another matter to be done first.

There was a group of bandits ravaging the villages around the territory of Novgorod. Lucas had sent the knights to investigate, but they were beaten by the bandits. Lucas planned to go with the knights after they had recovered. Asher reported to him that they underestimated the bandits and were beaten off when they tried to take them down. It appeared they had powerful individuals among them.

When Lucas heard that, he immediately ordered the knights to investigate the bandits and their hideout. He expected to receive the reports first before confronting the bandits. When he was deep in thought, someone came into the room. It was Ella, Lucas’s personal maid. She became his personal maid after the nightly adventure she had together with him when Lucas arrived at Petersburg. The head maid felt it was appropriate to assign her to that duty after she was given personal affection by Lucas.

Ella had long wavy blonde hair and grey eyes, she always had a bright smile whenever she saw him. Ella brought refreshments and lunch for Lucas.

“My Lord, you’ve locked yourself here for a long time, how about eating something? What happens if you die?” blabbered Ella.

“I’m not going to die if I skip lunch, Ella.”

“No, no. You must eat now!” nagged Ella.

Lucas decided to do what Ella said. “Fine, just prepare it on that table over there”

“Okay!”

William came to meet him while he was eating and waited on by Ella inside the room.

“Oh, hello William!”

“My Lord,” greeted William, “I was worried that you had forgotten your meal, but it seemed you hadn’t”

“Well, whose fault is it that made me almost forget about it?”

“No idea. Anyway, I came to give you a report. The project of constructing the road went smoothly, until today…”

“What happened?”

“One of our convoys was raided by Night Howl.”

“The bandits? How?” The bandits were called Night Howl.

“They ambushed our men and immediately beat the guards.”

“No resistance?”

“They did their best protecting the convoy, but they were taken by surprise, so…”

“I see… Alright, I’ll think about how to take care of them.”

“Yes, My Lord. Also, Baron Brawn wanted to meet you.”

“Where?”

“At the training field, he said he wanted to introduce something to you.”

“Alright, I’ll be there after this.”

After having lunch, Lucas went to the trending field. There he saw Max waiting for him with a familiar weapon to Lucas, a musket. It seemed Max had made a prototype for Lucas to check.

“Max, is that what I think it is?”

“It is. A musket.”

Max gave the musket to Lucas. It was just like a musket from the 18th and 19th century. A long muzzleloading gun with a bayonet attachment in the mouth of the gun.

“Here, the gunpowder and the bullets. I was able to make smokeless gunpowder.”

“Neat. let’s try it.”

The gunpowder and the bullet were encased in a paper cartridge. Eliminating the need to measure how much gunpowder is needed to shoot the musket.

Lucas loaded the musket and aimed at a target 100 metres away. A loud voice like thunder came as soon as Lucas pressed the trigger in the musket. Lucas looked at the target and it missed the target.

“As expected, it can’t be as accurate as a rifle.”

“Well, the musket has a smoothbore barrel and a round ball bullet, of course, it wasn’t accurate.”

“Right, we need at least a hundred people shooting at intervals to ensure this gun is useful on the battlefield. What about the cannons?”

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“It’s in the making, I’ll let you know when it’s done.”

“Ok, the cannons will be the key to making our enemy run. They won’t expect that.”

“Of course, should I make chemical ammunition?”

“What? No. I don’t want to be harsh on these people. Anyway, I want you to prepare for tomorrow morning, we will hunt down the Night Howl.”

“Just the two of us?”

“No, I’ll take some of the knights with us. Right, bring your rifle, in case we need it.”

“Alright.”

Morning came by and Max and several knights were present in the training fields. Max had worn his service uniform with his rifle and sword on his hips, the knights had their own uniform with some bringing swords and some with bows and arrows. Lucas arrived at the training fields after he got a report from William about the attack on the convoy of road construction..

“Are you really going with this many people?” nagged Ella.

“What’s wrong, we have Max with us, so there won’t be a problem.”

“Our knights were sent to take care of them and they were defeated completely. How am I not worried? What should I say to the Duchess when something happens to you?!”

Lucas immediately grabbed her and kissed her forehead, Ella then blushed, she wasn’t expecting this.

Lucas said, “Don’t worry, I’ve been to a worse place than this… Stop worrying. You don’t have to explain to Bianca, she will understand if I was injured… How about this, when I came back… We do it.”

“Do wh– ah…” Ella said shyly, “Okay, I’ll wait for you to come back. Make sure you come back… Okay!”

Lucas nodded with a soft smile.

Lucas then approached the men waiting for him in the training fields. After a short speech, they went to hunt down the bandits ravaging the duchy. Ella looked at them with a worried look, she hoped they would come back safely.

The group went to the scene of the ambush first, the scene was already partially cleaned by reinforcement that came to help the convoy. Lucas looked through the wreckage left from the attack. He deduced from the scene that the convoy was indeed taken completely by surprise and was struggling when they were attacked. Around the path where the convoy was attacked was a wooded area, perfect for an ambush. According to the report, the bandits had two powerful magicians in their ranks and from the wreckage of the attack, at least one of them participated in the attack yesterday.

After a short break, Lucas ordered the men to continue to the bandits' hideout. The group Lucas led consisted of 32 knights and Max. It was minuscule compared to the knight detachment sent a few days ago. However, Lucas and Max brought rifles with them and they proved effective against the magic defence. So, Lucas was sure they would be able to defeat the bandits, as long as their magicians were killed first.

The groups arrived at the bandits’ hideout around the evening. Lucas was surprised when he saw the hideout, the report said they hid in the cave. But, what he saw was a man-made structure styled as a cave, as if someone made the cave itself. He could faintly see writing on top of the cave’s mouth. It had been broken by the vegetation growing around the mouth’s cave, making the writing unreadable.

The cave was big, it could fit at least 3 Main Battle Tanks side-by-side with a spare room to walk around it.

“Commodore, this isn't a natural cave.”

“Right, this cave is man-made.”

“The entrance is big, it could fit multiple Main Battle Tanks side-by-side. So what should we do?”

“We went inside, the report said the bandits live inside the cave.” Lucas prepared his rifle.

“Are we going in first?”

“Yes, we have rifles. So it will be easier for us to just take them out silently… at least until they realise when they are attacked.”

“Cool.”

Lucas waited until nightfall before he began the attack. Lucas ordered the knights to follow him closely and waited for orders to charge. They carefully advanced to the mouth of the cave, at this point, Lucas realised how much easier it would be if he brought Lyra with him on this mission. Lucas ordered Max to take point and lead the charge inside.

Max counted down from 3 before they went inside the cave. Both Max and Lucas had set their rifle to silence mode. They took down two bandits guarding the cave before they advanced deeper to the cave. The cave went downward the deeper they went and finally they arrived at the ‘end’ of the cave. They found a makeshift shack and living quarters made by the bandits.

Lucas told everyone to prepare to attack the bandits. Max and Lucas observed the bandits who were still up and talking in the fire camp. Lucas tried to look around the place to look for the magicians. However, they were not outside the shack. They must have slept or stayed inside the shack.

“What’s the plan?” asked Max.

“The magicians are inside the shack, I presume.”

“Yeah, I guess so as well.”

“Then, let’s wake them up. Start by taking down the bandits around the fire camp. On my count.”

“Okay.”

Lucas and Max decided on which person they should shoot. After they made that decision, Lucas gave the command to start shooting. One by one the bandits around the fire camp were shot. However, they were able to wake up the other bandits who were sleeping in the camp. At first, they were confused by who was killing them, then they immediately ran to Lucas and Max's position. Seeing the charge, Lucas wanted to conserve the ammo of his rifle, so he ordered the knights to charge.

A clash immediately happened between the knights and the bandits. Lucas waited behind for the magicians to show up when suddenly an ice spike flew in his direction. He immediately jumped to dodge the ice spike. He looked at the direction the ice spike came from and he saw a magician preparing to shoot again.

In retaliation, Lucas shot the same ice spike at him, but it was deflected by his magic defence. Soon the other magician joined his comrade and fought Lucas. Max was helping the knights fight the bandits, so Lucas was alone against the 2 magicians. Both magicians shot multiple spells at him and most of the time he was able to deflect them or dodged but an ice spike was able to hit his leg.

A surge of cold was felt when the ice spike stuck on his leg, it was as if his leg were thrown with freezing water. He held this sensation and fought back. In the end, Lucas was able to hit the magicians with flames of fireball right on their faces and burn them to death. After he had done dealing with the magicians. He helped the knight deal with the bandits and soon enough the bandits were completely defeated, none were left alive.

Finally, he felt the pain in his leg, the ice spike was gone and it left a scar on his leg. Max came to him and helped him tend his wound.

“You should take a shot of nanomachines, the healing grows slower because the nanomachines are about to be depleted.”

“I know, but I don’t think we need to use that often. We had a limited supply of those.”

“You’re right, I guess bandaging and natural healing is enough for you.”

“Of course.”

After he was done tending his wound, Lucas looked around the bandits’ camp. Lucas was interested in the ‘end’ of the cave because it was not a naturally made structure, rather it was a man-made structure, specifically, it was a gate. A huge gate where a couple of Main Battle Tanks could go inside together. He looked at the gate and he wondered what this structure is supposed to keep. The model of the gate was the same as what the Duchy of Lorien used for their armoury.

“Lucas!” Max shouted. Lucas immediately went to Max's location and inside one of the shack rooms was a door, a metallic-looking door.

“What is this,” wondered Lucas.

“Looks like a door… to somewhere?”

“That gate-looking thing and this door must have hidden something. Do you know how to open it?”

“This thing looked like a card reader device and some sort of eye, maybe a face recognition device?” Max pointed at a device near the door.

“Do you think the bandits were able to get inside?”

“Don’t think so, the door looked like it hadn't been open for ages.”

“I see.” Lucas looked at the device closely, to the point his face was looking directly at the eye or face recognition device thingy.

Suddenly, a voice was heard. “Lorien dynasty members detected… Looking through the database… Data not found.”

“What the…” Lucas was shocked.

“Additional verification needed…. Ave rosa speciosa”

Max looked at Lucas with confusion, the same expression Lucas had. Lucas wondered what this place was and why is it related to his House.

“Ave rosa speciosa,” repeated the voice.