Chapter 14
#14. A Bond Forged by the Sun
In front of the Grand Duke's castle warehouse.
The people of the territory gave the Grand Duke and his party a rousing welcome upon their return from subjugating the King Slime.
"Heave-ho! Careful carrying it! Seal it tightly so nothing leaks!"
"This cart is full too!"
Dozens of laborers swarmed over the task like ants, carrying the spoils—slime and magic stones—into the warehouse. Kylan could not help being impressed anew by their incredible speed.
"Were there always this many laborers in the North? It seems like there are twice as many as before."
Count Lian answered Kylan with a broad smile.
"Isn't all this thanks to the policies Your Grace devised? Not only are the daily wages generous, but rumors have spread throughout the Empire that anyone who works diligently can purchase a home at a low price. Laborers have been flocking here from all over the Empire every day."
"Hmm. It certainly gives people incentive to work."
"This expedition has completely solved our lime mortar problem! If anything, we should be able to build sturdier buildings now. All we need is lumber and a little iron!"
So he's saying, hand over the lumber and iron.
The nerve of him.
But even if he had the territory's people hastily cut down trees in the North now, they had neither the time nor the space to dry the timber.
"Why not behead that insolent bastard for deceiving a noble and bring back the materials...!"
"That would take the fun out of it."
Kylan shook his head at Cedric's suggestion.
Everyone had something they valued as much as their own life.
For a knight, it might be the mission of protecting the North's ramparts. For a merchant, it would probably be the fortune he had spent his entire life building.
First, he would kill Günter the merchant. Taking his actual life afterward would not be too late.
When Count Lian looked up at him with concern, Kylan grinned.
"Don't worry. If you want, I can get both iron and timber in one go."
"You mean iron and timber at the same time?"
Kylan pulled out a map of the North and pointed to one location.
It was a pitch-black forest in the northwest.
If the slime cave they had subjugated today was an unexplored region, this place was different.
It was the habitat of the walking tree monsters whose existence was already well known in the North, yet who had been impossible to eliminate by force.
"Our target is the 'Howling Forest' in the northwest. Our knights and the Winterwald Guild will subjugate this place as well."
"Gasp... Your Grace!"
"That place is still far too dangerous for the adventurers of the North!"
Knight Commander Cedric and Guildmaster Walter shouted at the same time.
"It's a forest teeming with Trients! Their bark is so hard that nothing short of a knight's aura can cut through it!"
Walter hurriedly backed Cedric up.
"That's right! They're no different from living steel trees. If we go there to cut them down, the rookie adventurers will be nearly wiped out!"
Despite his retainers' vehement opposition, Kylan wore the same impassive expression as always.
The Howling Forest was home to an enemy so fearsome that even a battle-hardened old knight of the North would turn pale.
But it was only a difficult opponent, not an invincible one.
Trients were certainly tough, but their movements were sluggish.
Not only veteran adventurers, but the knights of the North as well, could easily defeat them.
"I know a way to cut them down easily even without the knights' aura. Count Lian, if we subjugate this forest, that will solve our construction-material problem, won't it?"
"T-the bodies of Trients are indeed as hard as steel yet light, but..."
In fact, once their magic stones were removed, they became sturdy construction materials that did not even need to be dried.
"But how can we use wood that even knights have trouble cutting as construction material?"
"Didn't I say I know a way to cut them easily?"
"You mean even ordinary laborers can process them?"
Kylan nodded and ordered Cedric and Walter to finish preparing for the expedition by the morning of the day after tomorrow.
Even by his own standards, Kylan was an extraordinarily merciful ruler for allowing them even one day of rest.
***
That night. The Grand Duke's office.
As Kylan skimmed through documents in preparation for the expedition, someone cautiously opened the office door and entered.
"Your Grace..."
A bewitching woman he wanted to see again the moment they parted.
The woman Kylan loved.
It was Eleanor.
"Eleanor. Are you still awake?"
Kylan set down his pen and welcomed her with a gentle smile. Eleanor slowly approached and gently took his hand.
"I heard you're going on an expedition to the Howling Forest tomorrow. You must not have recovered from the fatigue of the last expedition yet..."
"Haha. The Monster Grand Duke never tires."
It was not bravado.
Even the little mental fatigue he had been carrying vanished the moment he saw Eleanor's face.
"This is the new-city development you spearheaded. What kind of husband would I be if I couldn't secure even a single piece of material for it? Ah, and just so we're clear in advance, don't even think about coming with me this time."
Kylan deliberately put on a stern expression.
"I didn't show it, but do you know how anxious I was during the slime-subjugation expedition? I felt as though I'd lost ten years of my life worrying you might get hurt."
The Monster Grand Duke, who never revealed his weaknesses to anyone, was pouting at his wife and making all sorts of faces.
Her eyes rippled at his gentle tone.
"If you've come to tell me you're joining the subjugation, go straight back to the bedroom!"
"Your Grace... I don't always come to your office to talk about work."
Swoosh.
Eleanor cautiously slipped into Kylan's arms. As though she needed to make sure her husband was really there, she pressed her face against his chest and looked up at him.
'Ah... My wife is so maddeningly adorable.'
Kylan lightly kissed the crown of her head and stroked her soft platinum-blond hair.
"Don't worry too much. This expedition will let us source construction materials ourselves and thin out the monsters near the territory. It's killing two birds with one stone, isn't it?"
"Hehe..."
Eleanor whispered into Kylan's ear in a voice brimming with emotion.
"I can't say how fortunate I am to have been born with sun mana."
"Indeed. And thanks to you, it will be a tremendous help on this expedition as well..."
It was then.
Eleanor raised a pale finger and gently covered Kylan's lips.
"Thanks to having this mana... I can't say how fortunate I am to have met you, Your Grace."
Affection spilled from her clear, sky-blue eyes.
No man in the North could stay unmoved after receiving such a direct advance from the woman he loved.
Instead of answering, Kylan pulled her tightly against him by the waist.
It did not matter whether they were in the office or anywhere else.
The moment he deeply kissed her red lips, the temperature in the room rose unmistakably.
***
The next morning.
The Northern knights and adventurers stepped into the Howling Forest.
As though their footsteps were a signal, strange sounds began coming from the forest.
Crack! Crrrk!
Unpleasant scraping sounds came from every direction.
The Trients that had been disguised as ordinary trees simultaneously yanked their roots from the ground and began approaching with grotesque shrieks.
That was why it was called the Howling Forest.
Although slow and clumsy, the Trients were more than frightening enough for the Southern adventurers, who had never dealt with them before.
"Eek! Big brother. Are we really supposed to bring all of those down ourselves?!"
Several adventurers from the South trembled and backed away.
On the other hand, some adventurers were unexpectedly calm.
"That's the Grand Duke of the North who cut down that monstrous slime in a single stroke. We just have to do as the guildmaster says."
"Big brother... you've become a complete Northerner!?"
Kylan gave the trembling adventurers orders suited to them.
Soon, Cedric and Walter shouted at their subordinates until the veins stood out on their necks.
"All personnel! Form a defensive formation! Be careful not to get impaled on their branches!"
The sight of enormous trees as hard as steel surging forward like waves was practically a natural disaster.
Yet Kylan merely smiled calmly and thought of his wife.
'That's right. Under normal circumstances, these are troublesome things that are hard to cut even when wrapped in aura.'
In the original novel, this had been a forest of calamity that could not be conquered until Eleanor came to the North.
There was no need to explain why that had been the case.
The only weakness of those disgusting steel trees was 'sun mana.'
"All personnel! Use the magic stones you were issued on your weapons."
At Kylan's command, the Northern knights and adventurers simultaneously drew small, brightly glowing magic stones from inside their clothing and began enchanting their weapons.
They were small magic stones Eleanor had painstakingly condensed with her own small hands for the subjugation force.
It was the moment they touched their blades and axe heads to the magic stones.
Fwaaash!
All their weapons began emitting a blazing light, as though each had become a small sun.
"T-this is...!"
"It's Her Highness the Imperial Princess's mana! Begin felling!"
Kylan led by example, swinging his greatsword, imbued with golden aura, in a powerful arc.
Shhk!
With a single blow from the Northern Grand Duke, dozens of Trients were chopped apart and swept aside.
The opening strike that turned the tide sent the troops' morale soaring sky-high.
Kieeeeeek!!
Kylan was not the only one making a contribution.
The knights who occasionally fought Trients at the ramparts sliced through the steel trees with their swords, then stared at their glowing weapons in even greater surprise.
"Gasp...!"
"T-they cut! We can cut these monstrous steel trees so easily!!"
The eyes of the Northern knights bulged as if they were about to pop out.
"Hahaha!! They slice apart like radishes!"
The adventurers also began chopping excitedly. With the invincible buff bestowed by the princess, even the ferocious Trients were merely premium construction materials.
"Cut them down!! As long as Her Highness's miracle is with us, we're invincible!!"
In the Howling Forest, only the adventurers' mad shouts echoed—not the Trients' cries.
Kylan swung Frost Fang, chopping down steel trees ten at a time, and smiled contentedly as the construction materials piled up like a mountain.
'Yeah, cut them all down. It's all money and buildings!'
The presumptuous merchant guild's little stunt was instead about to bring even greater wealth to the North.