Chapter 35
The incident in which the Abandoned tried to kill Lord Calix using black magic ended with the death of its mastermind.
They were unable to investigate how Jethon, the last survivor of the fallen nobles, had obtained the black magic scroll.
That was because Jethon vomited blood and died as the price of using black magic at the very moment the last evil spirit was destroyed by Calix.
The incident, the first occurrence of black magic in decades, was reported to the Mage Tower, and it was concluded amid rumors that Calix Kron might possess the power to exorcise monsters from the evil spirit realm.
Dreihart's problems were completely resolved when the Abandoned blew themselves up.
The Dreihart domain became completely stable and began growing even further in coordination with the Kron domain.
Dreihart had spices and rare magical materials, while the Kron domain had salt and food.
In other domains, prices would have risen because of the middlemen's margins on tariffs, bribes, and the like, but since both domains were under House Kron, they could trade without such middlemen.
Thanks to this, both domains were able to obtain their scarce resources cheaply.
The profits generated by this would normally have been monopolized by a small group of powerful elites, but that was impossible in the Kron domain, where the lord personally distributed money to his subjects and the treasurer, who came from a merchant guild and possessed the Eye of Truth, personally caught those few corrupt rich men and sent them to the Room of Truth.
Naturally, the middle classes of both domains began to grow extremely strong, and the happiness of their subjects began to soar.
This naturally began to affect the surrounding domains.
The number of free citizens who wanted to move to the Kron domain began increasing at a dangerously rapid rate.
Of course, not every domain was like that.
The Sila family, for example, instead took advantage of the situation.
The head of House Sila had not reformed things as extensively as House Kron, but had raised the laborers' daily wages as far as possible and freed slaves who had worked for more than ten years, giving the slaves hope that they could become free.
Moreover, House Sila used its connection of having received a gift from the same imperial princess to get a slice of Dreihart's spice business.
“We’re comrades, aren’t we, Lord Calix? Ho ho ho!”
The Sila family wanted exclusive sales rights in the western region in exchange for covering all the transportation costs of the spices from Dreihart being shipped west.
The two houses signed a contract at a level where House Kron could profit while House Sila could profit as well.
Thus, although the people of House Sila were not as well-off as those under House Kron, their quality of life improved greatly, and they began living contentedly.
But not every domain was able to turn its crisis into an opportunity.
A prime example was House Ryan, located east of House Kron.
Bang-!
“How many people escaped!?”
The gloomy castle of House Ryan.
Hadem could not hide his anger after receiving the clerk's report.
The clerk trembled as he read the papers in his hands.
“So…132 free citizens escaped this week.”
“132 people escaped, and this is what our soldiers were doing all this time?!”
“Well…the soldiers fled too. That is, twelve soldiers fled.“
“You damn bastards!!!”
Crash-!
“Eek!!”
Hadem angrily threw his wineglass, and the clerk was frightened by the glass shattering into countless fragments.
“Haaah…get out!!!”
“Yes! Y-yes!!!”
Fearing that his head might disappear if he remained there, the clerk hurriedly fled.
Hadem felt as though the nonexistent hair on his head was falling out from stress.
Ever since Calix, whom he had considered a brat, became a lord, the Ryan family had continued to suffer one setback after another.
At first, Hadem had thought it was merely a feeble tactic used by the weak.
What would be the point of making the subjects prosper through things like tax reform?
The weak would be exploited anyway if someone possessed powerful force. That was simply the life of the weak.
Thinking that way, Hadem tried to turn the Ryan domain into a powerful military city, and his plan succeeded to some extent.
But as time passed, their situation continued to worsen.
It wasn't enough that a mage named Sharen, difficult even for Hadem to deal with, had joined Calix; Calix had also swallowed up Dreihart and brought the warrior Zarha, once Hadem's rival, under his command.
Hadem acknowledged Calix's mettle.
When he saw Calix boldly making demands without cowering before him, Hadem sincerely wished his own son had that kind of backbone.
But the current situation was infuriating.
Calix always acted precisely at the boundary Hadem could not cross.
He acted as though he knew that the prince would intervene if he crossed that line, and kept tormenting Hadem while stopping short of the war at which Hadem excelled.
On top of that, the number of free citizens and escaped slaves increased every day, and the situation was becoming bad enough to cause problems with the farms.
Dozens of times a day, Hadem thought about ignoring the prince and everything else and simply charging straight at House Kron.
As he was thinking that, the door opened and his adjutant, Lagos, entered.
“What is it, Lagos!!”
“The farm administrator tried to escape, my lord.”
“What! The farm administrator!!!?”
The farm administrator was one of the Ryan family's higher-ranking officials.
When Hadem heard that even such an administrator had tried to escape and been caught, he could hear the last of his patience snapping.
“Yes, I thought this needed to be reported to you, my lord, so I came to tell you. How should we deal with him?”
“Haaah…I’ll deal with it myself.”
Hadem picked up an axe.
He had held himself back considerably until now out of regard for the prince's dignity, but he could no longer endure it.
Hadem decided that his subjects, who had become toothless lions, needed to be taught a lesson.
* * *
The central square of House Ryan's domain.
Hadem stood atop a high platform built so that everyone could see him.
Hadem had ordered all the free citizens and slaves in the Ryan domain to gather in the square at this hour, and the square was packed with people.
Hadem was not the only person on the platform.
The farm administrator who had tried to escape was tied to a chair as well.
When the time came, Hadem rose, axe in hand, and began to speak.
“I hear that many people have been running away lately. Apparently, they were fooled by the minstrels' nonsense and ran away of their own accord to become slaves to those salt peddlers.”
Hadem began his speech in an even tone.
He calmly described what was happening in the domain.
Then he suddenly slammed the axe handle against the platform.
Bang-!
“What kind of disgrace is this!! Where has the greatness of the valiant Ryan domain gone?! Is fleeing like a lowly vermin for the sake of such paltry comforts what lions do?!”
The subjects were terrified by Hadem's enraged shout.
Hadem went over to the bound farm administrator with an expression that showed his anger was still not satisfied.
“What is your name?”
“I-I’m Boro. Great Lord Hadem…”
“What is your crime?”
“I-I tried to escape from my lord's orders! I’m sorry!!! I’m sorry!!! I was wrong!!! Please spare me!!! Please!!”
Boro looked like a perfectly ordinary man in his forties.
He was an ordinary-looking family man who diligently did whatever work he was told to do.
Holding the blade of his axe against Boro's neck, Hadem said,
“This man is our domain's farm administrator. He worked under me for ten years, yet he tried to abandon this domain and flee to the salt peddlers. Yes…those weak and despicable salt peddlers…”
Hadem lightly struck the platform.
At that, the waiting soldiers came up, took Boro, and placed his head in the guillotine.
“So, using this man's neck, I will ask God one question: Whose side is God on?”
“I was wrong! My lord!! I was wrong!!!! I’m sorry!!! Please spare me!! Please!! Please spare me!!!”
Hadem slowly approached Boro's head protruding from the guillotine.
Terrified, Boro did nothing but cry out for his life again and again.
“If God is on the salt peddlers' side, your neck will be spared. But if not, my axe will sever it.”
“My lord!! My lord!!!!!”
All the subjects of the Ryan domain turned their attention toward Boro.
Raising his axe over Boro, Hadem shouted,
“God! Deliver your judgment!”
Slash-!
Then Hadem brought the axe down with all his strength.
Struck by Hadem's strength and the sharpness of the axe, Boro's neck was severed without resistance.
A head rolled and blood flowed, yet no one screamed.
No—they were too terrified of that Mad Lion to scream.
“With this, God's judgment has been delivered. Do not disappoint God and become abandoned lions!”
With those words, Hadem stepped down from the platform.
The terror of the Mad Lion swept across the domain more fiercely than ever.
* * *
Several days after the incident, a letter arrived in secret at the Kron domain.
When Calix saw the letter, his expression hardened.
After much deliberation, Calix decided to meet the letter's sender and left the domain.
With only Azel accompanying him as his escort knight, Calix left the domain and arrived at a secluded tavern in the southeast that had been chosen as their meeting place.
When the tavern owner saw Calix's face, he immediately closed the tavern door and guided Calix to a secret underground room.
When the door opened, the letter's sender was waiting for Calix inside.
“Big Brother Calix! You came!”
The slender man with short brown hair who appeared to be the letter's sender rushed to Calix, knelt, and began to cry.
Without being unsettled by the man's sudden actions, Calix calmly patted him on the back and said,
“You’ve gotten so thin, Vara.”
His name was 『Vara Ryan』.
He was Hadem Ryan's only son and a victim who had been tormented by Hadem his entire life.
Having met Calix in the past, Vara secretly sent him a letter saying he wanted to meet, and Calix risked coming to see him in secret.
After crying for a long time and calming down, Vara and Calix sat across from each other at the table.
“So, Vara, what was it you wanted so badly to tell me?”
“Big Brother…please kill that Mad Lion! Kill my father!!”
Not only Calix but also his escort knight Azel could not hide their shock at Vara's words.
At a tavern in the southeast, a story that would throw the entire southern region into turmoil was about to begin.