River-Crossing and Arrival


    Probably because he wanted Lorist to leave his dominion as soon as possible, Viscount Kermas didn’t cut any corners on the items he promised to deliver, much to Shadekampf’s delight. The 7 carriages of food and 3 carriages of textiles had all been brought over in one go and the 10 carriages that came along was also given to them as a gift, causing Shadekampf to be relieved as he didn’t manage to procure as many carriages as he had hoped.


    Now with 10 extra carriages in hand, Shadekampf wouldn’t have to worry about not having enough to transport all the goods. After another night of checking and finalizing, Lorist’s group finally departed Fenyata Town on the 11th day of the 2nd month.


    Three dayster, Lorist’s convoy arrived at the border between the Andinaq Kingdom and the Madras Duchy and rested for one day at the Nadgas Border City around the area before entering the duchy a dayter.


    Compared to the Andinaq Kingdom, the Madras Duchy seemed to fare much better after the conflict in terms of both civilian standard of living as well as order and security. This was much in part of Duke Madras’s efforts who had taken a defensive stance during the civil war within the empire and only defended himself against invaders withoutshing out at anyone else, allowing for his duchy to be in better shape inparison to thends of other powers. He paid meticulous attention to the borders as well, earning him the title of ‘The Hedgehog Duke’.


    Lorist’s convoy traveled along the duchy’s border from the south to the north for a distance of around 650 kilometers and only encountered two groups of mountain bandits and another cavalry bandit group within 7 days. Naturally, these ignorant fools soon regretted their decision to prey on the convoy and by the time it arrived at the border between the Madras Duchy and the Northern Hignds, the Metropoulos River, the number of carriages filled with resources and loot had already increased by 6 with another 70 or so prisoners.


    “Milord, after crossing Metropoulos River, we will arrive at the outer regions of the Nortnds and will only have around 350 kilometers left to travel. We no longer have to travel at night anymore as we will be able to reach the family dominion well before the third month if we travel for 50 kilometers a day,” said Shadekampf as he breathed a sigh of relief at the fact that his decision to bring along so much resources had not dyed Lorist’s arrival at the dominion before the inheritance ceremony.


    The Metropoulos River was calm and tranquil as the clear water quietly flowed downstream.


    Beyond that river, elevatednds could be seen in the far distance with a number of lush-green mountains filling out their field of view.


    This was the Nortnds, the homnd of the original owner of Lorist’s body.


    Lorist looked towards the distance and thought, so this is my homnd...


    “I recall that ten years ago when I left the dominion with the merchant convoy, there was a bridge somewhere here and the stream under it was rather turbulent unlike how calm it is now.”


    “Milord, I believe the bridge you are talking about is the Hendliff Suspension Bridge which is located upstream the Metropoulos River around 50 kilometers from where we are. The Freist Castle, which is one of the territories of the Duke of the Nortnds, Duke Loggins, is just beyond that bridge. Because you said that you didn’t wish to deal with the duke before we embarked on our journey, I have decided to cross the river over here instead. This ce is one of the two crossings to the Nortnds from the Metropoulos River. After we cross it, we will arrive at the dominion after passing through 7 territories of other nobles,” exined Shadekampf.


    “Where is the crossing then?” Lorist asked.


    “It’s just a little further up ahead. That is the territory of Baron Ss. I’m sure he would earn quite a bit from the toll we have to pay given the size of our convoy,” said Shadekampf.


    “Well, we have to pay what we ought to. Let’s go. After we cross the river, we’ll set up camp to rest for another day,” said Lorist.


    ......


    As a noble, one would normally be entitled to cross another noble’s territory at no cost whatsoever. In normal circumstances, Lorist only had to use his badge to demonstrate that his convoy wasn’t a merchant convoy to be allowed to cross the territories of other nobles without having to pay a fee. However, when it came to crossing rivers, it was different as the fees for the ferry service had to be paid regardless.


    Baron Ss’s harbor wasn’trge and only held two boats. A que was erected near the harbor that indicated the pricing for crossing the river: it would cost 1 imperial silver for a person, 10 imperial silvers for a horse, 1 imperial old head gold coin for a carriage filled with goods, etc. Even if one was a noble, the price would still remain the same with the only benefit of being allowed to cross ahead in line should there be others waiting to use the ferries as well.


    What’s the point of being allowed to cross earlier? It’s not like there’s anyone else waiting here... ording to that old guy who’s repairing the oars, the boatmen are also away as well...


    The arrival of the convoy had turned the once serene surroundings to be filled with merry chattering that even caused the baron to personally bring a squad of garrison troops over to calcte the total cost for all the people, horses and carriages of the convoy. When he received the bag full of gold coins from Lorist as payment, he smiled so hard he couldn’t shut his mouth for quite a while. The baron who was in a cheerful mood even especially asked his servants to bring some bottles of wine from his precious collection back at the castle and treated Lorist to a drink.


    However, Lorist felt quite troubled at that moment as one boat could only ferry 4 carriages and a few people at once and each trip across the river easily took up to one hour. His convoy had near 100 carriages, 600 horses and many more people. How much time would he need for the convoy to bepletely brought over to the other side of the river? There were only 8 boatmen after all and they needed to eat and sleep as well. Lorist estimated that it would probably take seven or eight more days before it could all bepleted.


    Baron Ss apologized deeply for the inconvenience given the amount of payment he had received for the convoy’s crossing and said that it couldn’t be helped as he only had two boats with eight boatmen.


    Lorist then asked, “Do you happen to have any rope?”


    Baron Ss nodded and said, “Yes, of course we do. Due to the fact that my dominion is near the river, we are easily able to harvest the reed that grows at the banks which we will then make into ropes. This can be considered one of the unique local products my dominion has to offer.”


    Lorist then asked Baron Ss to procure a lot of rope for him which he connected one end to another and linked them to the front and back of each boat. He then tasked his men on both sides on the river to makerge pulleys which can be used to guide and pull the boats to and fro the riverbanks. That way, not only could the boatmen save much more energy for each trip, the stability of the boats when it neared the shores could be better managed, thus shortening the time for each trip from one hour to only thirty minutes.


    Even with the increased efficiency, it was already evening of the second day when Lorist got onto thest boat. Looking at Baron Ss who was seeing Lorist away and waving nonstop from the other side of the bank, Shadekampf said in a dissatisfied tone, “That baron actually got 150 imperial gold coins from us as toll... It’s no wonder he’s so eager toe over to see you off even though it’s already getting thiste.”


    Lorist waved back to the baron on the riverbank and recalled the night before when he brought Ovidis along with him to the baron’s castle after having been invited there as a guest, much to the full-bearded former bandit’s surprise. The reason Lorist brought him along was because Josk and Patt were busy managing the matters of the camp on the other side of the river, leaving only Reidy and Ovidis together with Lorist. After receiving the invitation, he instructed Reidy to monitor the proceedings of the crossing and was only left with Ovidis to bring along to the banquet.


    At that night, Lorist presented Baron Ss with an upper body te armor that was decorated with golden engravings which was part of the loot he got from the bandits they encountered along the way. Lorist didn’t know which unfortunate noble the bandit stole it from, but due to it being too eye-catching on the battlefield, the bandit leader who was wearing it got shot in the throat by Josk at the start of the battle.


    As it had no noble family insignia on it, it was the perfect gift to present to someone. Lorist reasoned that the armor was probably order-made by someone as a gift for some young noble’s ceremony ofing of age. Lorist himself didn’t take a fancy for that shy armor as wearing it was just like saying to one’s enemies, ‘Hey, I’m here, quick, shoot me!’ That kind of suicidal thing was definitely not what Lorist wanted to do.


    However, the baron absolutely loved Lorist’s gift to the point that he wasn’t willing to let it go. After the banquet, the full-bearded Ovidis excused himself and returned to help Reidy organize the crossing as he felt a little out of ce. Baron Ss on the other hand invited Lorist to go sample even more well-aged wines from his precious collection.


    When they were in his study, the baron thanked Lorist once again and said that even though there were many merchant convoys of the northern nobles wishing to cross the river, due to theck of manpower and boats, the convoys usually didn’t want to wait and went straight to the Hendliff Suspension Bridge to make their crossing, causing him to lose quite a bit of potential revenue. Now that Lorist had improved the system they had at his crossing and greatly increased its efficiency, he believed that it would spur many of the convoys to choose to cross the river at his dominion instead.


    Lorist felt weird at the fact there were convoys that would even think of crossing the river at Baron Ss’s dominion to begin with. In the first ce, Lorist’s convoy only traveled to the baron’s territory because he wanted to avoid dealing with Duke Loggins. But, why would the other convoys go out of their way to try to avoid using the Hendliff Suspension Bridge?


    “Isn’t the toll for crossing the Hendliff Suspension Bridge half as cheap as using your ferry service? Why would the convoys even want to cross the river at your dominion?” Lorist asked.


    Baron Ssughed out and said, “Duke Loggins of the Nortnds is quite famed for his immense greed. Even though the fees paid to cross Hendliff Bridge is half of what I charge here, they would end up at Freist Castle the moment they cross the river. The duke has set up a strict customs in that area. Even though nobles would usually be allowed to pass without paying a fee, if the duke discovered anything he liked in any of their convoys, he would forcefully purchase it at half of the market price. If one is fortunate, one would only lose one or two carriages to the duke. The ones who have it worse could lose up to half of their convoy. That caused the nobles of the Nortnds toin to no end and choose to cross at my ce instead.”


    ......


    Lorist stood atop the boat and felt refreshed by the chilling gust that just blew by. Thinking back at what the baron had said the day before, even though the Nortnds was huge and had the Metropoulos River as a natural border, there were only two ces where one could enter or leave it. The first ce was the Hendliff Suspension Bridge, however, that ce was under the duke’s control. The second ce would be Baron Ss’s ferry crossing, but due to therge width of the river at that part, it was difficult to construct a bridge there and crossing with boats took far too much time.


    The main reason why the Metropoulos River was considered a border for the Nortnds was this: aside from Baron Ss’s crossing, the river mainly flowed through high cliffs or rugged terrain where the current was far too turbulent to allow for any crossing with boats to be done.


    Lorist suspected that the poption of the Nortnds was so sparse because the main locations of entering and leaving it was under private control of people like Duke Loggins and Baron Ss and served as their main source of ie.


    Even if Charade and the rest of the convoy managed to make their way back to the Nortnds, with the entrances being under the control of others, the family could easily be locked at the Nortnds without being able to do anything about it thus limiting its development. There was a saying Lorist had heard of in his past life, ‘Building the road is the first step to bing rich’. But with the main paths of entry to the Nortnds beyond his control, how would he be able to bring his dominion to prosperity?


    I guess one of the first things on my agenda once I return to the dominion is to find a way to pave a new entry point so that I won’t have to be at the whims of others. Sigh, I guess the day we will be able to do as we please is still far off. Lorist looked at the distant mountains and once again fell into deep thought.


    Having been dyed for yet another day due to crossing the river, Lorist’s convoy continued their journey on the 25th day of the 2nd month. He decided to cross the remaining 300-odd kilometers of distance during the next five days to reach his dominion by the 30th day of the 2nd month.


    After setting his foot on the Nortnds, Lorist noticed the reality of its war-torn state that was first brought up by Charade during the meeting they had some time ago.


    After only passing through three dominions of other nobles, they have already witnessed 5 conflicts between thended nobles in the area. Some older noble families acted against new ones while others called for their neighboring families to invade the territories of their enemies. There were even some who invaded others to settle old grudges with many others engaging in conflict over a myriad of reasons. Fights broke out everywhere and the sounds of killing and ughter could be heard at every corner.


    But perhaps due to the low poption of the Nortnds, the conflicts between the various nobles were only on the scale of skirmishes between different small viges. Usually, the forces of those nobles only numbered around hundreds of farmer soldiers with tens of garrison troops and less than five knights. Thergest force Lorist had seen only consisted of four to five hundred farmers in tattered clothing.


    The mostughable part was that one of the nobles actually had his eyes set on Lorist’s convoy and demanded for half of everything they had to be given up as a toll. Given that an act like that vited the sacred right of nobles of being allowed to pass through each other’s territories without any cost, Lorist mobilized his guard squad andpletely crippled the opposing army without a single casualty, causing the ignorant and arrogant noble to prostrate before Lorist and pleading for his freedom while crying profusely. Lorist released him after receiving 50 Nortnder Horses and 4 carriages’ worth of food as ransom.


    To prevent further incidents like that from happening again, Lorist instructed his guard squad to be fully-equipped at all times to escort the convoy in as high a profile as possible. As expected, nobody dared to cause the convoy any trouble in the following days with two warring nobles even stopping all activity to make way for the convoy to pass.


    On the fifth day, the convoy arrived before an ancient, ever-reaching forest and a long-stretching mountain range.


    Shadekampf and Patt cheered out loud before exining, “Milord, we have arrived at the dominion of the family. That over there is the ck Forests and the mountains in the distance are known as the Magical Dragon Mountains. Beyond all that is where the Morgan Hills is located. From there, it would only take another day of traveling before we will be able to arrive at the family’s bastide.”


    After another half day of travel, the convoy circled around the sides of the ck Forests and arrived at the Morgan Hills.


    However, Shadekampf and Patt were stunned by the walls that could be seen blocking the pass through Morgan Hills. On top of it was a g that didn’t belong to the Norton Family but instead depicted three all-epassing golden rings...