Chapter 107 : Stirring

Chapter 107: Stirring

If one went straight north from Kushan City until reaching the open sea, they would arrive at Shiron City.

Since it lay along the coast, the people lived more on fishing than farming, but these days the city was undergoing changes.

In every hill, saplings bursting with Silflower bloomed thick, forming dense colonies. At the very heart of those colonies, quaint little buildings had risen.

From each building came the noisy sounds of spindles spinning thread and looms thumping as they wove fabric.

It had already been two months since I had eaten Dracium. I was now making a long-overdue round through the whole of Norberju to visit the younger ones to whom I had entrusted missions.

Jia said proudly,

“Everything’s moving along smoothly. The branches of Olomnima grow at an incredible rate. Just plant a broken-off branch and it shoots up. As for the main body, if you just give it a little recovery time, it drops new branches whenever we need them. Look—just seeing it makes you feel full, doesn’t it?”

Jia pointed to the luxuriant Silflower colonies cascading down the slope.

They were only saplings from planted twigs for now, but before long those branches would grow into forests, yielding an enormous amount of thread.

This time Jia pointed toward the workshops and said,

“Especially here—since it’s a coastal city, the skills for drawing thread and weaving cloth are excellent. There are many craftsmen who used to make fishing lines, nets, sails, and such. We can mass-produce cloth here, take it to Rundna for dyeing, and it’ll become an amazing product.”

There was something about it. When someone you already expected to do well did so, it felt natural. But when someone you had quietly worried about did well, it hit differently.

“You really worked hard, Jia.”

Though I spoke plainly, inside I felt moved.

This kid who once only liked to play and fool around had already grown this much.

With a happy heart, I pulled out the refreshments I had packed into the Subspace Necklace.

“Let’s eat and play a bit today!”

“Oh! I’m in!”

The menu was strawberry soda pie.

It was Jia’s favorite.

I had bought it specially from the shop in Ilunael that she liked most.

The taste was exquisite—the pie burst with a sparkling sensation in the mouth, then melted sweetly across the tongue.

“Ah! Ruc! You don’t eat this! You always complain about belly fat!”

“This one doesn’t make you fat. Thanks, Noona.”

Jia and Luccrancer bickered again that day.

As I was enjoying peace after a long while, chatting with the younger ones, a carriage approached.

“Ah, that auntie’s here again.”

“...She’s actually the same age as me. Does that make me an old man?”

“Ah, but Oppa is different.”

The person Jia had so rudely called “auntie” was Kassania Shiron.

She was the Lord of Shiron City where we were now.

“It has been a while, Your Highness Grand Duke Ransen. I heard news of your visit and came to pay my respects.”

Kassania clearly looked uneasy around me.

Still, the very fact that she had come out of her way to greet me revealed her goodwill.

She was, after all, one of the few lords who cooperated with my policies.

“It is good to see you, Countess Kassania. This is strawberry soda pie—would you care for some?”

“...Then, I shall not refuse.”

So she ate it.

From Kassania I had sensed emotions of tension, unease, and fear, so I thought she would decline.

Indeed, human will was fascinating in the way it did not always follow raw emotions.

We sat side by side on the mat, quietly chewing strawberry soda pie.

Though Kassania remained visibly uncomfortable in this setting, she was the one to first bring up a topic.

“I have seen the fabric woven from Silflower.”

“And what did you think?”

“It exceeded all expectations. Even the Eastern silk or Yunsil Cotton seemed shabby in comparison.”

“Quite worthy of being Norberju’s specialty, is it not?”

“Yes. With such a product, Norberju would no longer be just a passageway, but could rise as the very center of the world market.”

Kassania paused for a moment and fixed her gaze on me.

“And I also tasted the Manna. Baked into bread, it was unbelievably delicious. Since its flesh comes out in a dough-like form when pressed, there is no need to laboriously grind and knead it like flour. It is unaffected by season and yields an overwhelming harvest.... Truly, it is a crop that could change the future of Norberju.”

Every word of hers was positive. Yet on Kassania’s face, instead of hope, there was only tension.

“It might truly come to pass—that which Your Highness spoke of, Norberju uniting into one great economic sphere. Bound together not by fear or power, but by shared profit, the union would be all the stronger.”

She stopped again.

It was clear she wanted to say more but did not know how to phrase it.

So I said it for her.

“Why? Are you worried I might declare myself king?”

Kassania was startled.

Her innermost thoughts were transparent. She feared change.

Though she understood reality and was more cooperative with me than anyone else, she still feared it.

For her, born and raised in Roberland, used to living independently, a king was a frightening, unknown presence.

“Rest assured. Here is how I see it: a king is not someone who calls himself such from above, but someone raised up by those below.”

“Then... you mean you have no intention of becoming king?”

“Well.... All I wish is to win your hearts and strive for the growth of all Norberju. Therefore—”

I looked at Kassania.

“Don’t ask me. Ask yourself—whether you wish to make me king or not.”

At that, Kassania showed a shocked expression.

“Ask myself....”

She sank into deep thought.

Leaving her to it, I handed the last strawberry soda pie to Jia.

King.

That was the title I, heir of the Banroa Kingdom, must one day reclaim.

But I had no desire to obtain it by threatening other lords.

From the very start, what was needed in Seah’s Three-War Strategy were Ailun and Shamalun—not the entirety of Norberju.

Me. Kassania. And Norberju.

I did not know how our fates would unfold from here, but I only intended to give it my best.

*         *         *

After meeting Jia and Luccrancer and encouraging them, I went to Taros City to find Katrina and Zaltran, who were overseeing the consecration works.

“As expected of the heir of the Count House of Juan. You quickly set up the defensive posture, didn’t you?”

Instead of taking long to build stone walls, Zaltran had erected wooden palisades to bolster the city’s defenses.

Yet even as wooden works, he had reinforced them by filling them with sandbags, and had adopted a half-bastion structure ideal for luring in and surrounding monsters—hardly something to be underestimated.

“How about Katrina? No clashes with the lords?”

At my question, Katrina shook her head.

“Well. They weren’t fond of me checking and meddling in every detail, but they still listened. They even used a good portion of the funds provided through loans as capital to build fortifications.”

“Of course. They had no reason to refuse. They were securing their own safety with the money I lent them.”

“But Oppa, since it’s been a while since we met—why don’t we spar a little? My mind’s been itching lately, and I think I’m about to grasp the Stage of Body-Sword.”

“Gladly.”

“Oh? Hyung! I want in too. A spar!”

Katrina, the battle maniac, and Zaltran, the diligent one.

I had an exhilarating sparring session with them both. Perhaps thanks to the Dracium, their skills had improved remarkably in a short time, which left me very satisfied.

When we finished the match and were resting, the Lord of Taros City came to pay respects.

Unlike Kassania, he showed signs of discomfort, offered only formal greetings, and then promptly withdrew.

Well, that was the ordinary reaction.

After all, they were cooperating only because they had no choice, forced into submission by my military might.

Kassania had been the unusual one.

Still, once they safely passed through the Wave with our help, perhaps they too would begin to open their hearts.

With that hope, I lingered for a while with Katrina and Zaltran, then mounted my horse again and this time rode toward Madbed City.

In this city at the northwestern edge of Norberju, Varen and Catch were hard at work repairing the roads.

I praised them generously.

As I had traveled around Norberju, I had been impressed at how much easier the roads were to use compared to before.

The monster clearing had been so thorough that, while passing through the Ashen Lands, I had not been attacked even once.

“Hyung, reaching the Stage of Body-Sword feels completely different, doesn’t it? Last time, didn’t you even beat a mutant ogre on your own?”

This time too, Catch had advanced faster than anyone else to the Stage of Body-Sword—in ancient terms, the level of Mid-grade Expert.

Catch, brimming with excitement, boasted endlessly to me.

Seeing that, Varen pretended not to care but slipped in his own brag,

“Hm—when the Lord of Nio City tried to sabotage the road repairs, I fought a duel and taught him a proper lesson.”

At once Catch brought up yet another tale of valor, and Varen kept acting indifferent while quietly inserting his own exploits between stories.

Meanwhile, the Lord of Madbed City never once came to greet me.

Though the projects were proceeding much the same everywhere, the lords’ reactions were each so different.

Well, in the end, I believed they would all be grateful to me.

When the Wave came, reinforcements would be able to move swiftly along the roads Varen and Catch had repaired.

But....

“When will the Wave finally break? I just want it to happen and be done with.”

At first I was glad, since it gave me time to hasten development. But now it had begun to weigh on my mind.

What was stranger still was that the Monstrous Anomalies, which until recently had multiplied by the day, suddenly vanished without a trace.

Even the Demonic Beasts that had swarmed the Border had gone quiet.

“What is this? Will the Monster Wave not happen at all?”

I had been convinced the Emperor was plotting something... but had it only been my imagination?

*         *         *

Hans was an ordinary man from Herepol in Norberju.

But “ordinary” only described his origins—it did not define the man himself.

He had been born into a family that could not hold even one Dallon in a month. Yet the ambition he carried was vast enough to engulf the world.

Dreams. Ambition.

For most people, such things fade with age. But Hans’s ambition did not.

He swore to become the richest man in the world.

He swore to become a ruler before whom all would kneel.

The older he grew, the more fiercely that ambition blazed.

He spared neither means nor methods.

To make more money, one needed more money.

The first thing he did to escape the hand-to-mouth life was theft.

Through meticulous planning and preparation, Hans had raised capital by theft. His next scheme was fraud.

He borrowed money under the pretense of starting a business. He repaid it with heavy interest for several years. Finally, when people came to trust him, he borrowed their entire fortunes—then fled to another city.

It was the very picture of doing whatever it took to succeed.

One day, a victim whose household had been ruined by Hans’s scam tracked him down, teeth clenched in rage.

“Hans...! Give me back my money. Or I’ll rip your guts out right here.”

Looking at the murderous victim, Hans replied,

“Very well. I’ll pay you back—with plenty of interest.”

“What? You mean it?”

“Yes. But would that really be enough?”

“Shut up and hand it over.”

“You must have suffered terribly because of me. And how much did you struggle to find me? You should be compensated for that too.”

“What kind of nonsense are you spouting?”

“Why don’t we make a big score together? I’ll put an enormous amount of money in your hands.”

In this way, Hans even turned the victim who had come to find him into his accomplice, and continued to rise higher.

But then....

How had it come to this?

“You... you bastards! You tricked me!”

Hans screamed as he stared at the monsters surrounding him.

The men who had lured him here wore suspicious gray robes and muttered incomprehensible incantations.

“Name your price. I’ll pay whatever you want! Spare me!”

Krrrr—

Hans begged, but the Demonic Beasts around him only exuded fiercer killing intent as they drew closer.

Hans regretted it.

‘I should never have signed that contract. I should never have followed them!’

It had been greed.

He already had more money than he could ever spend....

But those suspicious men had made him an offer he could not refuse.

“Wouldn’t you like to possess power so great that even a Swordmaster could not withstand you?”

More powerful than wealth was authority—and in Roberland, that authority came from individual martial might.

To Hans, who had plenty of money but lacked the strength to defend himself, it was an unbearably sweet offer.

Still, suspicion gnawed at him, so he had even used a lie-detecting artifact.

“Even this? Fine, no problem. Follow us. We’ll make you reborn as a great being.”

Amazingly, their words had registered as true.

So he believed and followed....

But how had they deceived the artifact?

No—it didn’t matter now.

“Spare me!”

They had said they would grant him a ritual to grow stronger, but instead they had thrown him into the midst of monsters.

And these were no ordinary Demonic Beasts.

The High-grade Expert bodyguard Hans had hired with a fortune was torn apart by those monsters as if he were nothing.

They were the Monstrous Anomalies that Ransen had named.

Monsters possessing the martial power of a Swordmaster—there was no way a mere swindler’s bodyguard could stand against them.

“Uwaaaaaah!”

In the end, Hans was devoured by the creatures. Dozens of Monstrous Anomalies shared him like a rare delicacy, chewing long and slow to savor the taste.

What happened next was strange.

Krrrk—

Krrrrrk—

Every monster that had swallowed even a bit of Hans’s flesh shuddered violently.

Their skin began to melt, then their muscles dissolved, and finally even their bones liquefied into blood.

Ssshhh—

As dozens of Monstrous Anomalies turned into blood, a small pond quickly formed in the field.

And then—

Shrrrrrr—

The pool of blood swirled, merging into one and rising upward.

The blood solidified, then softened again, taking the shape of a man.

It was Hans.

He had always been handsome, but the Hans who was reborn now bore an appearance so striking that it left all speechless.

The figures in gray robes cheered.

“It’s a success! We’ve created an Immortal!”

“It truly wasn’t easy to find someone with such a twisted desire.”

“Now we have something to report to His Excellency!”

“It was a harder mission than expected.”

Among them, an elderly man reached his hand toward Hans.

“Hans—no. Blood Priest. It was we who entrusted you to the Great Being. Now we shall tell you what you must do.”

At that moment, Hans was staring blankly at his hand.

“...I really came back to life. So it wasn’t a lie.”

One of the hooded gray-robed men spoke excitedly.

“That’s right. You have been magnificently reborn. Now kneel before His Excellency, who granted such grace, and accept his command.”

Hans grinned palely.

He swung his hand.

From beneath his feet, blood surged up like a tidal wave, sweeping in all directions.

“Uaaaaagh!”

The men caught in the flood of blood melted at once, leaving only white bones.

Crack.

Snap.

The blood spread across the ground clumped together again, sticky, then was absorbed into Hans’s body. The crunch of bones breaking and being swallowed resounded.

“Fuuuu—”

Stretching long, Hans muttered indifferently.

“I have no need of the Emperor’s command. I already know what I must do. ‘He’ told me personally.”

His gaze fixed beyond the horizon.

Toward the direction where Ilunael City lay.

The being whose name he had heard countless times when he was still human. Ransen, the Conqueror. Hans could sense that he was there somewhere.

“I must grow stronger. Hidden, until I can kill Ransen the Conqueror.”

Hans picked up the gray hood he had preserved in the blood and pulled it over his head.

He walked into the depths of the Ashen Lands, to bide his time and build his strength until the moment came.

Following his steps, Monstrous Anomalies and Demonic Beasts across the land began to move.