“Duke! This is urgent!” Nestor rushed into his study after hastily knocking just once.
Everything has been urgent these days…
“What is it, Sir Vogel?” He had been battling with paperworks as of late because it had been backing up. There was only so much Flora could do. Besides, as a pregnant woman, her maid, Avina, wouldn’t let her work for too long, which was perfectly understandable.
“An airship from Rokk has arrived! Lord Knell’s family is abroad!”
He stood up at once with his eyes wide.
Well, shit, it IS urgent then. Waszak had just sent a messenger to Keviel. It cannot be a coincidence, can it?
“Right away!”
Something blew up, he realized as he followed Nestor to the landing platform.
“Anything I should be aware of?”
“Lord Knell isn’t with them, so I am assuming that he sent his family ahead and left behind. The lady’s name is Sylwia.”
“He isn't here? That cannot be good news, can it?”
“The fact of the matter is that I don’t really know what is going on. I ran to you as soon as I got the word. But the fact that his family is here, it can mean only one thing. Sir Waszak is on his way as well.”
Kamil nodded in agreement.
Leonhard is going down.
Cezary had high praises for Isaac Knell. He branded him as a “fellow intellectual” and praised him for sticking with an idiot liege. Whatever was happening, he figured that he’d soon find out.
“Duke, please save my husband!” Sylwia got down on her knees as soon as he saw Kamil approaching. Her butler and maids followed suit at once. It had been years since he saw her the last time, and she reminded him of Esther with her long crimson hair. She was a beautiful woman.
“Lady Knell, arise. First of all, let us ent-”
She interjected at once. Tears were forming in her eyes as she looked fiercely into his eyes. “There is no time, Duke! Please send an army to save my husband!” She pleaded strongly.
Kamil and Nestor looked at each other, dumbfounded, as Cezary arrived at last.
“Please explain what happened. Only then I will make a decision.”
Lady Knell, still on her knees, explained the overall situation in her knowledge. She didn’t know everything because Isaac never told her the whole situation. What she did know was that Leonhard and her husband didn’t get along at all and that the former had constantly threatened him.
The trio glanced at each other. It was clear that Isaac had decided to defect.
“It doesn’t alter the fact that Lord Knell is an enemy,” Cezary said eventually flatly. “And we have yet to accept the terms of his surrender.”
This was the cold hard truth indeed. Just sending his family over to Ceres wasn’t the answer. Instead of panicking, Lady Knell told him boldly.
“Take away our nobility for all I care,” she declared. “I just want my man to return alive. We will leave, just the three of us.”
“N, now, now,” Nestor meddled in. “It hasn’t been decided. To be fair, your arrival is very sudden for us.”
“Even if you want us to send reinforcement, we don’t have a big army here,” Kamil replied. Cezary had been mobilizing the Lux Fenchel and the Flissing to invade Egria. Kamil’s army wasn’t going to be included in the campaign, thus Ceres had its full army, fifteen hundred of them, ready.
“My husband is battling the enemy with just three hundred men. Surely, you have more than that here,” she argued.
“True, but we don’t know what really is going on,” Cezary fired back with a scoff. It was clear to both Kamil and Nestor that they were not getting along for whatever reason.
“You are not going to help us …?” She asked, looking utterly disappointed. And then, to everyone’s surprise, she pulled out a dagger from somewhere swiftly and was about to stab herself in her chest.
“WOAH!” Kamil rushed in to grab her hand forcefully and snatched the dagger off her hand. Everyone, including her own people, looked shell-shocked by the sudden development.
“Milady!” Her butler, who had kneeled down, stood up at once and dragged her backwards, away from the weapon. “Please get a hold of yourself! Lord Knell is not a foolish man! He will come back!”
She fell to the floor and started to sob, facing down. “I don’t care about anything anymore. Please…, just save Isaac.”
Kamil glanced at Cezary who looked equally dumbfounded at the woman. She was reckless and very emotional, qualities which Cezary detested. Heaving a resigned sigh, he folded his arms.
“Captain Raem’s army shall be enough,” he declared. “I can picture what exactly happened.”
“Pardon?” Both Kamil and Nestor looked at him.
Cezary explained, “Leonhard panicked upon receiving the letter and probably demanded Lord Knell to do something to save his arse. Lord Knell, knowing full well that it was over, chose to defect instead of assisting his liege. Obviously, Leonhard didn’t want that to happen.”
He wasn’t exactly right but close enough.
“My husband was loyal!” Lady Knell barked angrily as she raised her upper body up in defiance. “He would have never chosen to defect unless he had no other choice!”
Kamil knew Isaac personally and he was inclined to agree with her actually.
“Why did he send you first? Why is he not with you?” Kamil addressed the elephant in the room.
“People of Rokk wanted to leave with him. He chose not to abandon him.”
“People? How many?”
“I don’t know. But there were a lot.”
The butler replied at this point, “Twenty five hundred people.”
With their eyes wide, Kamil, Cezary, and Nestor looked at each other.
“That’s more than half of their population,” Nestor said. “And they are coming here?!”
“Yes.”
“More refugee problems…,” Cezary grumbled, looking clearly displeased.
Guard Captain Raem was immediately summoned and was informed of the situation. They were in Kamil’s study. Lady Knell and her people had been escorted to an empty villa within the city meanwhile.
“Our army has been on full alert, so we can move out right now,” Raem reported. “I’d like to leave three hundred under Wiara to defend the city.”
“Twelve hundred men…, will that be enough?” Kamil wondered.
Cezary replied, “Probably, Duke. Leonhard is a timid man. He wouldn’t have sent all of his men after Lord Knell. My assumption is that he sent two thousand. Given the fact that Lord Knell will have some of his people with him, most likely armed, Captain Raem’s men should be enough to rival them.”
Kamil nodded along. When it came to wartime matters, he had always listened to Cezary’s advice, and he had never been wrong in his assessments.
“Very well, so be it,” he approved the plan and then asked a lingering question in his mind. “So…, what are we going to do with Lord Knell?”
He had a very favorable opinion of Isaac Knell. However, that didn’t mean he could simply accept his surrender. The matter of fact was that he defected at the last moment. Additionally, this was politics where personal feeling wasn’t the only aspect that mattered. Both Cezary and Nestor made troubled faces.
“This one is not easy,” Cezary said eventually. “The circumstances are complicated.”
Nestor added, “Agreed. And he is bringing all those people with him. We honestly cannot take them in.”
Ceres may have welcomed refugees a few years ago, but its situation had altered greatly. Now, the city was looking to develop its own culture and saw refugees in a more hostile light. There was also an issue with food supply. It had been dwindling due to vastly increased population and having to invest in wheat for recent wars. Kamil was well aware of the dilemma and he had an idea … although he wasn’t sure how it’d be received.
“Say…, why don’t we let Lord Knell establish a new settlement? It’s his people, thus his responsibility.”
He brought out a small map from his drawer and pointed at where Bronn used to be.
“He will establish a new town, Bronn.”
Nestor didn’t show much reaction whereas Cezary narrowed his eyes immediately, indicating that he was aware of the existence of Bronn.
“There is no settlement in this area, so it shouldn’t be an issue.”
“I agree with the general idea of letting him develop a new settlement,” Cezary responded. “But I disagree with the location. I assume you picked that location because it was where your town used to be, yes?”
Kamil nodded.
“But there is a much better location. It is where Lyatan used to be by the river. In fact, we are in a good need of a trade city in the North. But there is one issue with this.”
image [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img923/2420/mbwhwL.jpg]
“Which is?”
“It’s too good of a spot. Given Lord Knell’s abilities, I can foresee the new settlement developing rapidly and it will grow to become a successful city.”
The river didn’t have a name. It was simply referred to as “the river” because there was only one river in the whole known continent. A long time ago, the Siwen did attempt to name the river but no one bothered remembering it.
“Too good of a reward for someone who defected at the last moment,” Nestor added with a nod. “We could impose a special tax on them for, like, a hundred years.”
“That’s way too long. Make it fifty years,” Kamil proposed.
Cezary was in thoughts for a moment before speaking up. “I’d say no additional tax of any kind for the first ten years and then 50% tax on their income for the next 75 years.”
The new city would have time to develop and grow for the first ten years.
“Just so that we are all aware, the tax is perfectly justified on our part because we will need to make an initial investment to get started. Lord Knell would be a fool to turn it down since he will become a lord of a potentially much bigger settlement although it’s his children who will likely reap the benefits of his hard work.”
Hang on a sec…
Kamil just realized something.
“Are we taking it granted that Lord Knell will survive?”
“Of course, Duke. He will survive,” Cezary replied promptly.
“What makes you certain that he will survive?”
“Because he is a strategist. A strategist never dies on a battlefield. It’s not their job to be in one to begin with.”
“Lady Knell was making a big fuss, though. I thought that he would be in mortal danger.”
“Well, that’s what a woman does,” Cezary scoffed. He couldn’t disagree because Flora did also cry when he collapsed. What he failed to understand was the fact that, for noblewomen, their husbands were required to uphold their status. If a young noblewoman had her husband perished, there was a chance that their title could be taken away even if she had children. Strong leadership was required when their husbands were no longer alive, and not many women were capable of such although, in Sylwia’s case, it was pure love. She didn’t really care about anything else, not even her own daughter. She just wanted Isaac to return safe and sound no matter what the cost.
“Anyway, since we are on the topic, let us discuss the refugee center that was brought up recently.”
Cezary and Nestor nodded affirmatively. They had to tackle the issue now that some thousands of them were going to be arriving in Ceres soon.
“The current idea is that we build a refugee center outside of the city walls,” Nestor explained the plan. “We aim to reroute most of the refugees to elsewhere.”
Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“The purpose of the center will be to filter out the refugees. Skilled workers may be admitted into the city. Mages will be hired,” Cezary added with a nod. “Unskilled workers can go to where the sun doesn’t shine. We have too many of them at the moment.”
They had enough miners, and the farming community didn’t let strangers into their fold easily since it was predominantly family businesses. The refugees could start farms, but it did require a small investment in seeds and tools, which they didn’t have generally. Another issue with starting a farm was the lack of good lands left. All lots around the city were already taken. The further they went out to farm, the more risks of monster attacks at night. At the moment, Ceres was full in and out, and Kamil was advised to aim for organic growth since he couldn’t keep pouring coins into developments forever. On a related note, the city had one advantage which no other city had. Since it had an underground city, it could still continue to grow without fearing too much about monster attacks at night. For example, a large city like Lux was unable to grow further because it meant expanding the city boundaries which directly translated to building new walls. It was a very costly job to build new walls everytime they wanted to expand. In contrast, all Kamil had to do was just dig more.
“At the moment, I believe the population will hit 15,000 in two years,” Nestor said. “It’s almost guaranteed that we will surpass Lux in a decade.”
Cezary added, “Which is as it should be. This will be our capital.”
“It looks as if our city will be dealing with refugees for a foreseeable period. Therefore, I firmly believe that a refugee center is essentially required.”
Both Kamil and Cezary nodded in agreement.
“Now, moving on.” Cezary changed the subject. “I am afraid that we may need to abandon Broln. We need the air force to assist Captain Raem.”
The Lord of Broln had sent a letter for aid as well as a promise to swear an oath of vassalage very recently. Cezary proposed to send Ceres air force to help them since sending a physical army was not possible within a reasonable timeframe. But he was canning the idea in favor of assisting Isaac.
“Lord Knell’s matter is far more important. As soon as Captain Raem departs, I am going to send all clear for Lord Edmund to launch the invasion campaign. We are going to need the air force to set Keviel ablaze.”
Wait, what?
“Ablaze?” Kamil raised his voice.
“Yes, we are bringing no siege weapons because they slow them down. The air force will drop bombs, and the city will be set ablaze. That is unless Leonhard comes out and surrenders, which I doubt he will. He has had plenty of chances of doing exactly that.”
“I was under the impression that he was going to be captured and then executed.”
Cezary shrugged. “Why bother. Just burn him.”
Isn’t he being a bit of a pyromaniac?
He expressed a desire to burn Altzell down before. It did burn down by someone else’s hands. And he was expressing to burn something down again.
“To be fair, it might be the best outcome,” Nestor climbed in. “He is still officially the king of the Kingdom of Egra. On paper, the kingdom still exists.”
Kamil was yet to have his coronation, thus he was still officially a duke. Likewise, Leonhard was still the king. Capturing and executing him would involve a lot of political wrigging because Kamil revolted essentially. While he enjoyed the full support from major noble houses, it remained unclear how united smaller houses were for him. Going through the official means to get rid of Leonhard could earn unnecessary and unseen ire. It was true that it was better for him to just die during a battle.
“Speaking of which, Lady Egra of Elsos is Leonhard’s older sister,” Cezary added. “Leonhard needs to die, but I am uncertain how she will feel about that.”
Folding arms, Kamil pouted as he fell into brief thoughts. He realized that Cezary had a point when he suggested killing her. Her presence complicated things indeed. As if reading his mind, Cezary continued.
“I wouldn’t worry about her in this generation. It’s her future children I am worried about. For that, perhaps we should meddle in choosing her husband.”
“What?” Snapping out of his thoughts, he blurted.
“She was briefly married to the young Lord Flissing, yes?”
“Yes,” Nestor replied.
“Would it be possible for them to get back together?”
Eyes wide, Kamil stood up at once. He had first hand experience in dealing with her, well, her younger version. Daniel suffered greatly. Reconciliation seemed impossible.
“Any children between the two will likely favor the Flissing instead of Egra,” Cezary explained. “Even those born under a matrilineal marriage contract.”
“How so?”
“It’s a simple concept. If you have a choice of choosing dirt and gold, you choose gold.”
Those born from Daniel and Lillian would probably align themselves to the Flissing instead of Egra. The former was a high noble house related to the current royal family by marriage. The latter would be a disgraced and destroyed royal family.
“Now,” he continued his explanation. “Marginalized children may well choose to align themselves to the Egra and become seeds of chaos. It’s just that the chance will be reduced if Lady Egra ends up marrying Lord Flissing.”
Kamil robbed the bridge of his nose as he sat back down. “Sir Waszak, you are giving me a headache.”
He retorted right back, “Don’t blame me, sir. You are the one who spared Lady Egra.”
Feeling defeated, he replied reluctantly, “Point… taken.”
He could not imagine them getting back together after all that had occurred between them. But then noble marriages weren’t exactly based on feelings. Case in point, even his marriage wasn’t based on feelings. Even his marriage to Fionara as Tom wasn’t based on feelings, either. They married because it was convenient for both of them. Additionally, nobody around him married out of love.
That reminds me…
“Sir Waszak.”
“Yes?”
“You have told me that you will marry only when you become a landed noble. You are to receive Altzell soon officially. So, are you going to marry?”
“Certainly,” he replied with a nod.
“Have you chosen a lady?”
“I have.”
Both Kamil and Nestor’s eyes went wide. It was an unexpected answer.
“Is it someone we know?”
“Yes.”
They looked at each other, looking flabbergasted.
“Well? Who is it?”
“It’s Wiara.”
There was a freezing silence in the study for a good ten seconds.
The… fuck?
“The … hell?” Kamil blurted. “I am sorry but I never saw that coming. Wiara? The fire mage Wiara?”
“Yes.”
“Wow…,” Nestor said weakly, looking mighty shocked.
“I had no idea you two were dating?”
“We aren’t exactly dating. I’ve used her to carry out some missions from time to time. From conversations I had with her, I’ve found her to be an intellectual. I do not want a pretty doll as my significant other. I don’t want to marry a fool.”
“Isn’t she over thirty?” Nestor asked. Proper noblewomen giving birth after passing the thirty year-old mark was very unheard of. But then Wiara wasn’t a noble.
“She is in early 30s. I am in my mid 30s. It’s only fair. We will try for a baby as soon as officially able. As long as I get a child, gender doesn’t matter, it’s fine. She says she still has her periods. So, she should be able to get pregnant. I just need one child, and she probably has one chance. I am confident that it will work out.”
“Well, um, you do … you,” Kamil said, feeling really awkward.
“Fear not, Milord. I will find you an adequate replacement.”
“That’s not … the point, but thank you.”
He felt drained because it was such shocking and unexpected news. He was certain that he had something else to discuss, but his mind simply gave out and was totally blank. After the meeting was adjourned for the day, he summoned Wiara to hear her side of the story.
“Oh, he announced?” She blushed. From her reaction, it seemed clear that it was mutually agreed upon. “Yes, it’s true. We’ve agreed to marry.”
Crossing his fingers on his desk, he asked, “I am going to be honest. I was flabbergasted when I heard him. I mean …, how? What happened? Again…., how?”
With her index finger scratching slowly on the side of her head, she looked embarrassed and explained what had led to this unusual turn of event. It all began with Cezary searching for a reliable person to carry out some of his “covert missions”.
“Covert missions? Such as?”
“Mostly information gathering, but he wanted it to be done in a way that had not been done before.”
Traditionally, information gathering was done discreetly from either a distance or through bribing maids from noble manors. Cezary’s method was completely different. Instead of traditional methods, he’d send men to set up shops that openly purchased “interesting” information.
He interjected, “Wait, Wiara. How is that ‘covert’?”
“It is covert because the business is fake.”
“Fake?”
“Most information that was purchased was mostly false, and we expected as much. What Lord Waszak aimed was to turn people into spies. In his own words, there are pieces of truth in lies. People wanted money and they spied on the manor of their own lords. They usually didn’t have anything concrete, so they added lies to small pieces of truth to sell for a bigger price. My job was to filter out blatant lies to reduce the load on Sir Waszak.”
Kamil couldn’t grasp the method fully immediately but he could see that it could enable acquiring information that was otherwise unavailable. By turning the whole populace into paid spies, information was going to leak one way or another given enough time.
“As we worked together for longer, he told me that I was intelligent enough to be someone he could rely on. At one point, he said he needed a woman to wed and asked whether I wanted to be the one.”
He face-palmed at this point. Cezary had always been an oddball, but this was more than odd.
“And… you agreed, just like that?”
“Would you turn him down? Isn’t he going to be one of the most powerful vassals under your rule, Milord?”
Objectively speaking, no woman would turn him down. The Waszak was going to become powerful. That was given. He was certain that Cezary had received some marriage proposals already.
“And I know where I stand. A woman of my status and age, I would be more than a fool to turn him down.”
“True, my apologies for meddling in.”
“No, it’s fine. I was pretty shocked as well when he asked to marry. But it didn’t take me long to realize that I had to accept. I was already resigned to the fact that no ordinary man was going to accept me for what I am, so … . to be honest with you, perhaps this is my last chance for romance.”
“For what you are? Pardon me, but what makes you different?”
“In Sir Waszak’s own words, I am smart. Men tend to dislike women who are smart.”
He never considered high intelligence as minus in women. He wasn’t that kind of man to begin with. In fact, he didn’t have a chance to even consider such because he was given a wife before he had a chance to choose his own.
I do think Flora is pretty smart, probably smarter than me. Well, she is book-smart. I am probably street smart.
“Duke, there is something else.”
“Oh?” He snapped out of his thoughts.
“Something has been strange about magic.”
“Huh? What about it?”
“I cannot put my finger on exactly what, but it feels like magic has been empowered. And I actually saw a fire elemental recently when casting magic. What surprised me was that my emotions were under control. I was just casting fire to light a campfire.”
Elementals appeared when a mage’s emotions were out of control due to anger or happiness. Them appearing when a mage was perfectly calm was simply unheard of.
It … has something to do with me, probably, right?
He couldn’t exactly figure out why but was quite certain that it had something to do with him.
“Thank you for the report,” he replied indifferently. It wasn’t as if there was anything he could do. “I will make a note about it.”
She leaned forward to show gratitude. Kamil stood up and offered his hand for a handshake.
“Well, it’s been nice working with you, Lady Waszak. I hope you will find your share of happiness.”
She was a woman of good complexion in spite of her age, making her look younger than she actually was. But her appearance was strictly average with short brown hair and brown eyes. A tomboy was a good way to describe her appearance. She was bound to grow her hair longer now although she may not follow the tradition. Noblewomen tend to grow their hair long. Even his wife, Flora, refused to grow her hair, which he had no problem with. Actually, he just didn’t care.
“I will certainly try.” She took his hand and had a handshake. “I still have some work to do here, though. And our marriage won’t be announced for a while.”
“Shouldn’t you rush, though?”
He was indirectly reminding her of her age. The older the woman became, the more likely that she would have some complications during her pregnancy.
“That’s fine. It will happen within a year. Sir Waszak himself is not rushing, and I don’t see the need to rush, either.”
“I see. It is not my place to meddle in the first place.”
“I thank you for your concern, however.”
In spite of being a commoner, she was well educated in etiquette already. She wouldn’t probably need much further education to slot herself right into nobility.
“Man, what a day,” Kamil muttered after he dismissed Wiara. Sinking his back deeper into his chair, his body slid down slowly as he heaved a long sigh. “So many shocking events today for my heart.”
Isaac Knell defected, sending his family first to Ceres. Not only that, he was bringing over half of the population of Rokk to Ceres. That alone was enough to give him a headache. It was decided to send them elsewhere to start a new settlement, but thousands of refugees would need to be fed on a short term. It was going to stress the economy.
“Oof,” he whispered while rubbing the bridge of his nose.
And then the talk of remarriage between Daniel Flissing and Lillian Egra took another bit out of him as well. It would have been the worst idea of the century if he didn’t see how much she changed over a short span of time. He had doubts still but couldn’t disagree with Cezary’s idea.
“Daniel, buddy, you’ve got a long road ahead of you. I kind of pity you really,” he whispered to himself.
He recalled how much Daniel was waiting for the war to be over so that he could be with Esther. He didn’t want to imagine what kind of face he’d make upon hearing the news. Lillian was a woman who mocked him for having a small penis, allegedly.
“Man, O, man …”
The final strike of the day was Cezary and Wiara getting together. The most unlikely duo was getting married, and he never saw it coming, not in a million years.
“Human relationship is a mystery by itself.”
He felt that it was more of the fact that Cezary was a mystery. The dude was weird on so many levels that he couldn’t contemplate whatever the hell was going on in his head.
“I will give him credit for choosing a woman of his age, though.”
No one would have an issue with him choosing a fifteen year old girl who just came of age. He did have the choice, yet he chose Wiara. That was commendable.
“Ah, right. Broln…”
He finally remembered the topic he was going to bring up. Since Cecary chose to prioritize defeating Leonhard, Broln was getting shifted. He was going to suggest flying there on his own and see what was going on.
“Should I?” He wondered aloud. His top priority had always been looking after his own people first. Choosing to fly to the city was against the motto. However, his own people had been safeguarded to a point that he was feeling adventurous to reach out to others.
“And then there is Elias…”
He hadn’t forgotten about Elias Hunt and Reeva as well. Cezary said he’d send spies, and results had arrived. The spies claimed that something seemed amiss about the Wallen but they did report that Elias Hunt was healthy and he had two sons with Amy Wallen. So far, he didn’t have any excuse to pry into the Wallen. However, soon, Kamil’s coronation would be held. Once formally declared as a king, he would be able to call a royal party during which he would be able to do something about the Wallen. He folded his arms and sighed.
“And the dragon …”
Confronting the dragon was as easy as just flying to the general location. He’d be able to spot the dragon with ease. There was just one issue that was preventing him from doing just that. It was the Vass’ warning. He didn’t know what “becoming an elemental” would entail. If it was anything like Fionara, Ludwig, and Vass, he would be gone from this world. He furrowed his eyebrows at the thought.
“I have too many things to do. I am afraid I cannot afford to be gone, yet. But how long would I be able to just sit back? The Age of Darkness is progressing. How much time do I have, I wonder…”
And he did not want to leave Flora this soon, either. Making her a widow was the last thing he wanted to do. He also wanted to see his children grow up but knew that it was unlikely possible at this point.
“It feels like I am sort of cursed at this point. I chose to be reincarnated to exact my revenge.”
He had veered too far from his objective at this point although both Gregor and Karsten were dead.
“I have probably less than a year before having to confront the dragon…”
image [https://imagizer.imageshack.com/img922/9020/5hVapk.jpg]
He was correct. Atra was on the verge of total collapse, and there wasn’t much left of Estana either. Once either nation collapsed, Ceres was going to take the full brunt of the hordes. He could defeat the hordes, but that required powerful magic. If “becoming an elemental” was akin to death as a human, he had to use it to defeat the second dragon instead of wasting it on hordes that would come back anyway. He felt that this was a burden he must carry on his own and not discuss with anyone. Flora might not even be able to take it. He grimaced, displeased by the fact that there was no telling what was going to happen to him once he crossed the point of no return. Wiara’s report about magic bothered him as well.
“I don’t want to leave Flora but do I even have a choice in this matter?” He muttered. The clock was ticking.