Volume 2 chapter 55
With the issues regarding the five Viscount families resolved, Lawrence had no more questions, but he hesitated before asking one final thing.
"Young Master, regarding the Lord... When you return to the Capital this time, will you visit home?"
"Go home..." Charlo paused, looking up at him.
"True. Before the audience with the Emperor, I should visit home." Charlo let out a long breath. "Although soon, my surname will no longer be Rose, the blood still connects us. They are my parents, after all."
Reaching the rank of Count meant entering the upper echelons of the Empire. It also meant one had to establish their own House—which required taking a new surname!
This was a mandatory rite of passage for every noble who branched out from their original family. Charlo had been lucky; his parents' family was powerful, his talent was exceptional, and he had chosen a remote territory, allowing him to keep his original surname until now.
But as a Count, a new name was non-negotiable. Otherwise, when his father retired and his elder brother took over, how would the family structure work?
Two Counts, both named Rose? The Iron Rose Family would effectively have two patriarchs!
Internally, who would the family members follow? Externally, the Iron Rose Family would effectively double its territory, breaking the unspoken rules of the great noble game.
Every noble family tried desperately to prevent their territory from being divided, using various methods like strict Primogeniture. If the Iron Rose Family broke the mold and expanded through a second branch keeping the name, the system would collapse.
It would encourage other Great Nobles to follow suit: send their second sons, third sons, and cousins to establish new territories while keeping the family name, then support them secretly to win the "Battle Royale" of the lower nobility.
For a Count family, playing this game was risky. But for the Marquises and Dukes? It was trivial! Their overwhelming supernatural power was unreasonable. A hundred Sixth-Rankers couldn't beat a single Seventh-Ranker.
If this happened, the lower nobility would lose all room for survival. They would either be swallowed whole or forced to become vassals—just like the five Viscounts had submitted first to Ester, then to Charlo.
This would announce the death of the Empire's feudal system.
In the end, only a few Great Families would partition all the land, sealing off the path of advancement for everyone else and severing the Emperor's control over the realm.
It would be equivalent to fracturing the Empire!
Therefore, to keep the game running, neither the lower nobility nor the Emperor would allow a second "Count Rose" to exist.
This strict enforcement was also a symptom of the Empire's decline: the Emperor feared the Great Nobles seizing power.
In this supernatural world, a single powerhouse could suppress a nation. Small independent kingdoms had been extinct for twenty thousand years, swallowed by the Three Great Empires.
Under the Empires, everyone was a vassal. No independent duchies or principalities existed. The Three Empires had carved up the entire continent.
Why could they do this? Because of the Saints.
Saints were the foundation of an Empire. No number of Ninth-Rankers could match the deterrence of a single Saint.
The other two Empires had Saints suppressing them. They didn't worry about their nobles expanding military power. They maintained the feudal system only to have a legitimate excuse to grant territories to royal offspring and slowly devour other noble lands. The nobles could only accept it, daring only secret obstruction.
Honestly, Charlo believed that if not for the threat of other Empires poaching disenfranchised nobles, the feudal system would have been replaced by centralized rule long ago.
In the past, Maurice Empire was the same. The Emperors were Saints, and the nobles were obedient. But in this generation, Maurice's Saint... was gone!
The 39th Emperor, Hooke de Maurice, had reigned for over three hundred years. He was still Ninth Rank. He had not ascended to Sainthood.
Hooke took the throne at over a hundred years old. Now, he was over five hundred. A Ninth-Ranker lived for six hundred years at most.
That meant—he didn't have much time left.
The entire Empire whispered, wondering if Hooke would be the first Emperor in history to die of old age on the throne.
In this world, individual martial power dictated everything. Because of their long lifespans, the succession rule was simple: The first Prince to reach Ninth Rank ascends. They didn't wait for the Emperor to die.
Retired Emperors became the Empire's hidden reserves, enjoying their retirement and emerging only to deter enemies.
But with Hooke, things were grim. He ascended first, took the throne, but then hit a bottleneck. He couldn't break through to Saint.
For the first century, the old Saint Emperor Gaine was still alive to suppress the realm. But after Gaine died two hundred years ago, the Maurice Empire was left without a Saint!
Without a Saint, Hooke and the few Royal Ninth-Rankers couldn't suppress the Dukes—who had over a dozen Ninth-Rankers among them!
Even the Royal Dukes had different interests than Hooke. Even brothers kept clear accounts, let alone distant cousins.
Without the absolute suppression of a Saint, when interests conflicted, negotiation was the only option. If talks failed, Hooke was helpless. Everyone was Ninth Rank, everyone was named Maurice. Why should I fear you?
Thus, Hooke was wary of all Great Nobles, even his own kin. Allowing Charlo to keep his surname initially was a move to check Grand Duke Folk.
Ironically, Charlo had to thank Ester. If Ester hadn't forcefully subjugated the five Viscounts, Hooke wouldn't have targeted him.
As long as Ester stayed quiet, Hooke wouldn't care if he unified the border. But Ester had cozied up to Grand Duke Landon.
The Counts and Viscounts were pieces meant to dilute the power of the Grand Dukes. If they aligned with the Grand Dukes, they became useless to the Emperor.
So Charlo was sent here. Hooke, worried that a self-made noble couldn't beat the entrenched Ester, allowed Charlo to keep the "Rose" name so the Iron Rose Family could openly support him.
Then Ester died, making no waves at all. Even Grand Duke Folk ignored it.
"So, Young Master, have you decided on a new surname?"
Hearing Charlo agree to visit home, Lawrence relaxed and asked.
"Of course. I decided long ago! You'll know soon enough." Charlo smiled mysteriously.
"Is that so! Then I look forward to it!" Lawrence smiled and withdrew.
A few days later, Charlo set off with a ceremonial guard of fifty and ten elite bodyguards, heading for Landon City.
Although the Empire had main roads connecting the Capital to the four Grand Dukes, Charlo chose the Teleportation Array.
The distance from the Eastern Border to the Capital was 2,000 kilometers. A round trip of 4,000 kilometers would take two months on foot. Charlo didn't want to waste time.
Activating the array cost a fortune in Mana Stones, but Ironwood wasn't short on stones!
The journey was desolate. Winter had arrived early. Snow covered the roads, and silence reigned.
It was another harsh winter.
"Heavy snow in early winter... I wonder how cold deep winter will be..."
Charlo sat in the carriage, sighing softly. Clearly, this winter would create a massive influx of new slaves. Grimly, for Ironwood, this was "good news"—more slaves meant lower labor costs.
Entering Landon City, the style shifted dramatically. It looked like a medieval Japanese fantasy city.
An oval mega-city built on the plain, bisected north and south by the Prague River.
The South District was the Outer City, the realm of commoners. Low houses, chaotic markets, narrow alleys...
Dirty, messy, and poor. Commoners drank dirty water, ate low-quality food, and lived numb lives in dark, smelly environments.
The North District was a different world.
Tall, bright buildings. Orderly shops. Clean, paved streets.
This was the idealized medieval fantasy. People wore neat clothes, practiced proper etiquette, and looked energetic.
Charlo's convoy entered the city smoothly. A Viscount wasn't a big shot in Landon City, but he wasn't someone to be trifled with either.
Commoners saw the banners from afar and scrambled out of the way, bowing their heads if they couldn't clear the path in time.
In the Upper City, things were better. The residents here were either nobles or held knightly titles, so they didn't need to flee like rats. Some even boldly appraised Charlo's carriage.
Arriving at the Teleportation Plaza, Charlo paid 50 kilograms of Mana Stones to transport the carriage, fifty ceremonial guards, ten bodyguards, horses, and supplies.
Sitting in the array again felt different. Because of his resonance with the Space Element, Charlo sensed more this time.
It felt like being wrapped in a force, then pushed through a pipe from one end to the other.
In the blink of an eye, they traveled from Landon City to the Imperial Capital's Teleportation Plaza.
"This feeling... is the principle of spatial teleportation..." Charlo mused, sensing the lingering spatial fluctuations.
"Overlap two spatial coordinates, fix them with an array, protect the contents with a shield, and use massive mana to connect the ends. That's teleportation!"
Charlo savored the sensation, his grasp of space deepening slightly.
According to the plan, he didn't go to the Palace immediately. Instead, he left the Capital and headed for the Iron Rose Territory.
The Capital was built on the Notos Great Plains. The Emperor and the Royal Family controlled nearly two million square kilometers of land here. But in the corners, mid-sized noble families still existed.
The Iron Rose Family was one of them.
Comments (0)
Please login or sign up to post a comment.