Barbara was able to get off work early and returned to the communal housing before the overseer officials could arrest her.
The ominous bat-like winged beasts streaked with red in the sky seemed fewer in number, but upon closer inspection they were circling the outskirts of the city, keeping watch over any potential escapees on the ground.
"Not sure exactly what happened."
She and the others entered the large tent shelter. The massive space had no partitions, just row upon row of triple-decker beds lined up along the sides. There were still some scattered wooden tables and chairs leftover in the middle aisles, but they were barely usable. The Erl authorities didn't seem to realize the importance of daily necessities and light industry - even a clean sheet of paper and a pen that could write steadily were precious commodities this period.
Barbara approached the triple bunks assigned to her family. Her younger brothers and sisters were playing on the middle level.
The triple bunks were intended for the elderly of a family to sleep on the bottom, the married couple on the middle, and the children on the top.
Many families lacked sufficient members after the calamity to fill all the levels, but each was still assigned one entire triple bunk. This led to crowding for large families while single-person households hoarded excess sleeping space, giving rise to an informal rental market for the bunks.
Though the twelve noble houses paid wages, there was essentially no market - money was practically useless scraps of metal. Only food, paper, towels, and combs had real value as hard currency, while alcohol and medicine symbolized "wealth" and "connections."
Barbara and her siblings slept on the middle level, using the top to store personal belongings brought from home - clothes, daily necessities, dishes and the like. The bottom was rented out to a neighboring large family that used to live in the city proper, at the cost of 2 ounces of bread per meal.
"Fooling around again!" Barbara angrily grabbed her 6-year-old and 5-year-old mischievous siblings, her strength having increased noticeably.
The bed was a mess, with old letters from home and bank deposit slips she had hidden under the pillow now scattered everywhere.
"Sister, why are you back so early?" Her smart younger sister tried to change the subject to avoid punishment.
Her brother was more simple-minded, standing there helplessly, afraid of being spanked again.
"Don't change the subject!" Barbara started tidying up the bed. "Once the school is built, you two won't be able to run wild anymore."
Then she started sighing, "Ah, I wasn't like you kids when I was young. Back then, Mom and Dad were home every day. I got up at 4am, took care of the family's dairy cow, two oxen, seven hens and one rooster, plus a mule. Then I had to go help Dad pay off debts he owed to the alchemists by doing hard labor. Those so-called 'nobles' who looked down on us while nickel-and-diming over a poor family's wages."
"After coming home I still had to cook, continue taking care of the livestock, and help in the fields. It wasn't until the king exempted labor service that Mom and Dad dared go find jobs that paid better, and we could rent out the land to do other work. Only then could you lazy brats laze around eating for free every day."
Her brother and sister's underdeveloped prefrontal cortices prevented them from understanding the sadness in their sister's words. The brother asked, "Sister, when are Mom and Dad coming back?"
Barbara froze, a tear suddenly dripping onto the pillow and soaking into the unwashed, soiled sheets, staining the thin wooden plank beneath with a teardrop.
"Hmph! You still think our missing family members could still be alive?" An unkind voice came from nearby. Barbara looked over quickly.
It was old Rudolph's family from next door, who had just returned. Rudolph himself was the one speaking as he vigorously shook out his boots, trying to expel the clinging mud and dirt from inside while sitting barefoot on the bottom bunk.
"Uncle, my father really is missing," Barbara responded bluntly. "But my mother was just a maid working for a noble family in the northern city. Those lords are the current authorities, so I think my mother is probably just separated from me by the closed environment, not dead necessarily."
Old Rudolph had a goatee, gaunt features, and a sour look that not even a universal celebration could wipe away.
"Isn't that just the same as being dead? You think that dragon is the kind to leave survivors?"
Barbara tried to remain calm, "But we're alive right now, aren't we?"
"You're siding with the evil dragon!" Rudolph suddenly jumped up. "Well, well! You think that dragon has a merciful heart just because your parents' fates are uncertain? Have you been secretly bribed?!"
Barbara was baffled. "What bribery? Isn't it normal to hope my parents are still alive? You're being overly sensitive!"
Rudolph started hopping around like a madman, bare feet on the ground like a rabbit. "You're admitting it indirectly! That's right! The evil dragon used your relatives as bargaining chips, so you became the dragon's lackey! Ah! I just said the words 'evil dragon,' you'll definitely have those monsters come get me! You polluted wretch! DEUS…humans' downfall! TEMPIUM…it's a trick! When this is all over we'll all die! FAISUM DEUS…"
Rudolph's eyes bulged out, his tongue seemed paralyzed and spun wildly, his emaciated limbs contorted into an eerie dance as he twisted his body as if possessed.
The other members of the Rudolph family, who had hurried back later, rushed to restrain the old man, forcibly giving him a liquid from a hidden compartment in the wooden bed frame.
Eventually, old Rudolph calmed down and collapsed exhausted into sleep on the bed.
"Sorry…for scaring you…whew…" The eldest Rudolph son, who appeared to be a chef, apologized breathlessly to Barbara.
"Could you explain what's going on exactly?"
At first Barbara thought old Rudolph was just venting his resentment at her, but then realized he was raving like a lunatic, with his words interspersed with incomprehensible mutterings that sounded like voices from the abyss of hell.
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"Actually, my father used to be a really good person," the eldest son sighed, climbing onto the middle level of his family's bunk.
"Our whole family ran a seafood restaurant featuring cuisine from Oakenburg, on Water Lily Street. The young magic academy students really liked spending money there. It was my grandfather who started the place, which my father built into a thriving business. He treated people sincerely, was happy to help the downtrodden - he often gave handouts to the homeless for free, which caused a lot of arguments between us. Looking back, when people fall on hard times they really do hope for aid; a helping hand alone can save a life."
Barbara could hear the bitterness in his words. As a peasant girl who had endured calamity, she had contemplated suicide before persevering only because of her young siblings. How much harder must it be for this formerly well-off family who had lost everything?
"So why did he end up like this? Was he overly traumatized or just couldn't accept the hardship?"
Barbara carefully asked, not wanting to reopen old wounds.
"No…actually he was more optimistic than anyone," the eldest son shook his head. "That day when the royal guards evacuated us to the southern suburbs, everyone was dejected, but only my father said setbacks are inevitable in life. A great calamity like this is extremely rare - we should feel fortunate to have such an experience, as peaceful living is nice but spiritually impoverished."
"Mr. Rudolph must have had quite the eventful life!" Barbara couldn't help but remark.
"Yes, he originally wanted to become a wizard against his grandfather's wishes, but failed the entrance exam. Then he tried to become an alchemist, but that didn't work out either. After that he joined the military, hoping to become an officer or a noble of course, but failed at that too. Finally he took over the family business and devoted himself to the culinary arts."
"Oh I see."
Barbara had to admire him - she never would have guessed the raving old man had such a tenacious background. You really can't judge a book by its cover.
"Until one night - when Lady Lace was still here - he suddenly woke up shouting that he had seen the truth of the world."
The eldest son's expression turned eerie, and his topic veered into the uncontrollable realm of mystery:
"He woke each of us up, saying that under the guidance of the red-robed figures, he had seen the true world hidden beneath the surface of matter - a truth so indescribable it could overturn everything. Then he started ranting deliriously in some unknown language, unintelligible to us all."
"Father had an old friend, a physician he had roomed with when young as they both prepared for the magic academy entrance exams. The difference was his friend passed and became an official mage. He came over urgently that night and said my father's spiritual body had been polluted - in other words, something had been implanted into his brain on a physical level."
"After examining him, he said this 'something' must have been artificially implanted, as easily as putting food in a pantry. But I swear my father could not possibly have undergone brain surgery."
Barbara was entranced. "Then what happened?" Her hands clutched her brother tightly, trembling slightly.
"The next day, my father returned to normal, not even remembering the previous night's events or any further episodes of madness. The physician made us some potions that could forcibly put his brain into a dormant state as a way to suppress these incidents. He said it would only happen on specific dates, when we could use the potions."
He and Barbara both involuntarily glanced towards the weathered, drafty window. Outside, the night was utterly silent beneath the new moon.
"Like right now…" he muttered.
Barbara couldn't help but think of the so-called dragon cult members from before, who had been executed outside her village, wondering if there was any connection.
"Oh, it seems my father saw those red-robed figures when fleeing the city," the eldest son suddenly remembered. "He muttered at the time: 'How come there's no face under the hoods?'"
…
Alvis was currently at the port at this time.
The hastily assembled team of skilled human craftsmen had already repaired the area in just a few hours, though the rushed quality couldn't be guaranteed over time.
In the tar-like river surface, snake-like monsters with scaly blue bodies and gills emerged one by one, giving an unsettling feeling.
"Milmos?"
The lead Ceda-wyvern spoke in Draconic. "Lady Nana ordered us to follow Lord Raphael's commands, and now he has put you in charge of us. Are you deploying us on those ships over there?"
It gestured towards the distant silhouettes of ships.
As amphibious dragon kin adept in both water and land, they were also skilled sailors, reportedly to assist their draconic masters in destroying the orcs' supply bases in the Arctic island chains. However, the Ceda-wyverns could not remain in the open sea for extended periods and needed tools, as the ocean was very different from rivers.
"Correct, but now you need to come with me to do something else first. A small matter."
Milmos approached slowly, leaning on an iron staff. The leader silently nodded, and then one by one around 120 Ceda-wyverns crawled out of the river.
Alvis mounted a rat dragon and led the squad heading directly for the noble manors in the northern suburbs.
Lord Komo had wanted to join, but Alvis needed someone he could trust who also had deep ties to the noble faction to maintain order at the center, so he did not allow him to wander.
"Once someone gains power combined with the capacity for action, they truly become unstoppable in all things!"
Alvis mused to himself. He had come to Erl penniless with his family in tow, yet in just a single day could rise to prominence and set events in motion through the dragon kin kin acting on his will, forming a force capable of sweeping aside all worldly obstacles. This was also the reason Raphael could so easily destroy the Kingdom of Morey.
Once power reached a certain threshold, rules and order became mere shackles of the mind. If you defied them, so be it - no secular authority could punish you.
"We're here, start by cleaning out these thugs first," he whispered to Milmos.
Milmos pondered, then issued instructions to the large blood wyvern Mary beside him.
Mary let out a shrill cry, and the dragon kin troops redeployed from Pillar Mountain swarmed forward, easily cowing the human mercenary guards putting on a show of patrolling the perimeter.
"Don't kill us! We're just trying to make a living! We're nobodies!" The thug muscle cowered on the ground, shielding their faces as they pleaded.
"Round them all up, teach these punks a lesson," Alvis ordered.
The blood wyverns immediately fanned out, sweeping along the edges of the manors and quickly capturing a large group of humans.
"Send them all to join the noble brats?" Milmos asked.
"No. Aren't you operating that transport line? You've been developing it all this time until it's operational now, so why not send them to the old domain as labor? These are a bunch of vagrants with no families, perfect sacrifices to use as deterrents."
Milmos was already on board, so he had to tough it out. He instructed the communication blood wyverns to notify the dragon-kin overseeing the transport line to come collect the prisoners.
"You can release it now," Alvis told a kobold mage.
The kobold, clad in a miniature one-piece wizard's robe, cast a sound magic spell, projecting a pre-recorded voice across the area:
"By the command of Lord Raphael, regent viceroy of the Kingdom of Erl, we require the conscription of any personnel or materials suitable for maritime travel, which is the obligation of all peoples residing in the Kingdom of Erl regardless of race. As the enforcers of this order, we hereby requisition resources from the twelve noble houses of Vattier, Moran and others. You must grant us entry, or be subject to charges of treason!"
This blatant threat of force was truly terrifying.
"Uncle Moran, these guys aren't messing around!"
Aware trouble was imminent, the heads of the noble houses had gathered at the Amelia estate. Hearing the announcement outside, their faces paled.
"My lords! The mercenary muscle we hired have all been captured by the dragon kin!"
Moran's flustered steward rushed in with the news.
"This…quickly muster the guardsmen! We'll fight them to the last!" Several patriarchs were aghast, thinking the enemy intended a bloody purge and immediately ordering resistance.
"Wait!" Moran stopped them.
He frowned in thought for a moment, then instructed his steward, "Go to our family's storage, have the servants bring out some absinthe, rum, oranges, cured meats to send outside. Also rope, cloth, and other such supplies."
"What is the meaning of this?" the other baffled lords asked.
Moran calmly replied, "This is a provocation, trying to goad us into making a mistake. It's no big deal if those outside thugs and muscle were captured, at most it's just embarrassing, no real loss. But if we misjudge the situation and overreact, that gives them an excuse to come in and pillage our estates. They probably won't kill anyone though - that would be easier than what they have planned."
"So we should just fulfill their demands, no need to scare ourselves needlessly."