Before the Return

"Lady Nicole, I cannot conjure food out of thin air!" Facing the formidable female knight of the family, Blackcastle's scribe Max argued his case with justified confidence.

Nicole's bright almond-shaped eyes flashed with a dangerous, cold light as she said coldly to Max, "I have been to the storehouse, and it is piled high with grain. If you dare to say that is not food, I will knock every tooth out of your mouth."

Nicole's hands were exquisite—slender, fair, smooth, and flawless—yet Max knew that these delicate hands, soft enough to squeeze water from, could easily bend a spear forged from fine iron. He also knew Nicole was not joking in the slightest. Max swallowed hard with difficulty and said, "The storehouse holds twelve million pounds of grain, but we have no food to give to Viscount Victor's subjects—not a single grain!"

"Are you saying you are deliberately making things difficult for Victor?! Who gave you the courage?"

Nicole was genuinely enraged. Victor's masonry technology was of vital importance to the family; this was a consensus among the family's upper echelons. It was simply that the rock bricks were extremely sensitive, and had she not happened upon the situation by chance, she would never have known the reasons behind it herself. A middle-ranking official like Max stood no chance of knowing even a hint of the truth. Nicole did not believe Max would dare to obstruct Victor's subjects; if he was doing so, he must have been directed by some high-ranking superior. This betrayal of pulling the ladder up after crossing the bridge made Nicole extremely angry.

Max, however, shook his head and said, "Lady Nicole, with all due respect, you are a noble and powerful knight, but you do not understand the family's internal affairs. The family has fallen into a crisis of grain shortage."

"Of the twelve million pounds of grain, six million pounds are seed grain that must never be touched. What we can use is the remaining six million pounds. But please note, the current population of Blackcastle Town is one hundred and twenty thousand, and their daily rations amount to two hundred thousand pounds. Our grain is only enough to last for thirty days."

"Yes, you heard me correctly. Not three hundred days, not one hundred days, but a mere thirty days. As a family knight, you probably do not yet know that we attendants in charge of internal affairs have already begun eating the black bread meant only for the dregs of society. This crude food is made from flour ground from rye together with bran. To be honest, the first time I ate this stuff, I started to believe the Seymour Street murder case was true."

The Seymour Street murder case involved a deranged chef who murdered five poor vagrants. What the nobles relished discussing was not the case itself, but the fact that the murder weapon used by the chef was actually a piece of black bread. Now, half a brick-sized loaf of black bread tossed onto the table was more persuasive than anything else. Nicole's aggressive momentum vanished completely.

Nicole stammered, "Has the family been reduced to such a plight?"

"The hardships are yet to come. Our grain harvest failed completely this year, and we have one hundred and twenty thousand people to feed. Caravans no longer come to Blackcastle Town. Fortunately, our neighbors are still supporting us, but they have also suffered disasters. For the next three years, we will need to rely on the kingdom's aid, but please trust my judgment—the royal family will not let us eat our fill," Max said sincerely.

Nicole was silent for a moment, then gritted her teeth and said, "You are lying to me! The family has constantly been providing food to Victor's subjects; are you telling me you cannot even spare twenty days' worth of rations?"

Seeing the female knight showing signs of flying into a rage, Max hurriedly said, "That is different. We can provide food to those who remain in Blackcastle Town, but we will never provide dry rations to those attempting to leave. That is simply the reality. For those willing to stay, we must give them a meal no matter how difficult things are. But as for those who wish to leave, whether they have anything to eat is any business of ours?"

The York family needed sufficient labor to build fortresses, farm the land, and herd livestock. Moreover, the peasants who were left behind were no fools; with the Horse-Head Hills now established as a pioneering territory, who would be willing to suffer and endure hardship here? They would do everything in their power to leave Blackcastle Town, and only by tightly controlling the food supply could such behavior be severed. This was inherently the York family's strategy: we are already in great difficulty, and only those who join us get to eat; those unwilling to join may seek their own path. The church tacitly accepted the York family's approach, and the lords of the western kingdom would certainly not accept these refugees either. However, Nicole was not going to let the matter rest.

"Don't try to fool me! The family is taking in refugees who have nowhere else to go, and Viscount Victor's subjects are not those rootless refugees. You cannot possibly be unaware of the relationship between Victor and the family?"

Max said firmly, "Even so! Once word of this gets out, scoundrels will incite fools to cause trouble for us at the church, and they won't care at all about Lord Victor's relationship with the family. I will never agree to it!"

Saying this, Max added cautiously, "Lady Nicole, you must not forget your own stance and identity. If Viscount Victor were to make a request to the family, I would certainly arrange things properly for him; that is a noble courtesy. But do you think the nobles would spend such favors on a matter like this? At the end of the day, those subjects are merely lower-class people. Besides, they have highly skilled guards among them, and finding something to eat in the wilderness is by no means difficult for them. Of course, I will arrange a carriage and food appropriate to Lady Lilia's status, which will be sufficient to preserve Viscount Victor's dignity."

Nicole was persuaded. After all, she was a knight, and by nature, there was an unbridgeable gulf between her and the lower classes. Had it not been related to Victor, Nicole would not have bothered with this matter at all.

"Return the horses and ox-carts to them; those are Victor's property," Nicole said indifferently.

"As you wish."

When Nicole's slender and graceful figure vanished outside the door, Max breathed a sigh of relief. If he had refused Nicole's request any further, he surely would have had his teeth knocked all over the floor.

Outside Blackcastle, Nicole met Lilia and said apologetically, "Lilia, I'm sorry. The family's grain is truly running short; I only managed to reclaim the horses and ox-carts for Victor."

"That is wonderful! As long as we can take these warhorses and plow oxen back, Victor will certainly be very happy. Thank you, Sister Nicole. We will solve the food problem ourselves," Lilia said with great joy.

Nicole held Lilia's hand, words failing her as she stopped on the verge of speaking, finally only offering the warning, "Be careful on the road."

"Mm, I will."

The howling mountain wind swept past Victor's side, giving him the illusion that he could fly away at any moment.

Victor was covered from head to toe in dark cyan armor, the surface of the armor shimmering with a faint, cold light—mysterious and chilling, resembling a knight from the netherworld. Victor had not expected the dual-silver full body armor crafted from ant-man carapaces to be so light; the overall weight did not even exceed sixteen kilograms. Although light in weight, the toughness of this suit of armor was astonishingly high. Back then, Gillian had used all her strength without managing to sever the ant-man chieftain's body, which was sufficient proof of the ant-man carapace's strength, not to mention that this armor had also been fused with precious mithril. Now, it could withstand direct hits from military heavy crossbows. Victor believed that with this armor, ordinary knights could no longer do anything to him.

This type of armor far surpassed the original dual-silver leather armor in every attribute. What Victor regretted was that the set of dual-silver leather armor had been eliminated before he even had time to get used to it. But in terms of appearance, the dual-silver leather armor clearly conformed to most people's aesthetic, whereas the ant-man armor exuded a cold and ruthless aura. For instance, Reno beside him was completely clad in this armor and held a 2.5-meter-long fine iron great blade; merely standing there exerted immense pressure on ordinary people. Of course, the armor he wore was merely mithril-grade equipment.

Victor was not paying attention to his new armor at the moment; instead, he was joyfully inspecting his own castle.

This thirty-meter-high hill castle covered an area of twenty-five mu, comprised six stories, and featured twenty-seven rooms, four basements, and four watchtowers. The castle's inner courtyard contained a barracks, a blacksmith's workshop, eight mu of vegetable plots, and a small garden.

The sections of the city walls near the ground were two meters thick, and the watchtowers reached an impressive thickness of four meters, tapering thinner the higher they went. Every wall of the castle consisted of three layers: the inner and outer walls were carefully connected using rock bricks and mortared over, making them exceptionally sturdy. The space between the inner and outer walls was filled with cobblestones, gravel, and mortar.

Four thirty-eight-meter-high watchtowers were built at the four corners of the castle, upon which heavy ballistae and small catapults could be mounted. These campaign-level weapons were incapable of dealing with formidable individuals, but they could effortlessly destroy enemy siege equipment and dense rear formations.

Along the thirty-meter-high city walls, slender parapets had been constructed, consisting of alternating high and low sections. The higher battlements featured slender openings serving as arrow slits; once the ant-men besieged the city, two hundred spirit-monkey militiamen could make them taste the power of longbows and heavy crossbows with the aid of the parapets.

"Is it really going to be fine without a water source inside the castle?" This hill had no spring; if it were subjected to a long-term siege, the consequences would be unimaginably dire. Victor felt deeply concerned about this.

Busor pointed to a large water storage pool on the roof and replied, "My lord, this place backs against the great swamp, and the air humidity is very high. We have installed many fine iron pipes on the roof, and the dew collected every day flows along these fine iron pipes into the storage pool beneath the roof. You need not worry about the castle's water supply."

Victor saw that the water storage pool was three meters high and covered with a shed to prevent the water inside from being contaminated by bird droppings. Moreover, the bottom of the pool was actually connected to many fine iron pipes, which led directly into the buildings below for people's use. Victor could not help but grow excited—was this not running water?

"Busor, is there anything I've asked of you that you cannot do?" Victor remarked with deep emotion.

Busor thought for a moment and said, "My lord, I do not know how to grow the crops here."

Victor was instantly rendered speechless. An alchemical human loaded with planting skills did not know how to grow crops. That was because the crops here were not the crops of the alchemical empire, just as a modern farmer returning to ancient times—lacking chemical fertilizers, pesticides, and hybrid rice seeds—would still fail to harvest a thousand pounds per mu. Aside from completely different species, the crops of the alchemical empire also required mithril magic arrays and alchemical fertilizers; Busor and his kind truly did not know how to cultivate the local crops. This was a fracture in civilization. In fact, many of the technologies Busor mastered were impossible to realize, most of them involving alchemical runes.

"My lord, the alchemical crows have discovered that Captain Nelson and the others are about to enter the territory," an alchemical militiaman reported, coming over.

"I know," Victor nodded, then asked, "Busor, is the plow I asked you to forge ready?"

"It is already prepared."

"Dig up all the tubers in the fields for me; I want to take them along."