Chapter 47: Count Chebman

Harvest Manor is one of the oldest noble estates in the Kingdom of Gambis, boasting a history that stretches back over two centuries. The manor spans more than seven hundred acres, enclosed by stone walls and comprising animal pens, wells, ponds, dwellings, warehouses, barracks, arable fields, and orchards. Unlike other noble estates, Harvest Manor has no beautiful gardens or exquisitely designed houses. Instead, its broad open spaces are filled with crops, vegetables, and fruit trees.

Except for the sturdy limestone walls, most of the buildings within the estate are constructed from brick and tile—simple yet imposing, devoid of any superfluous adornments. The space is utilized to its utmost, and only the mottled green moss on the brickwork stands as silent testimony to the estate's noble lineage. This farm-like noble manor perfectly embodies the Chebman family’s style: frugal and practical.

As evening approached, a plain yet robust carriage rolled slowly into the manor without obstruction. All the guards recognized it as the vehicle of the family’s great knight, Lord Dewitt.

Dewitt, grasping his mithril longsword, stepped down from the carriage and was immediately greeted by a bowing attendant.

“Take me to see the count. I have urgent matters to report,” Dewitt instructed with a nod.

Led by the attendant, Dewitt made his way to the heart of the manor.

Behind the main building lay a small patch of greenery. Although the chill of the Water Season had yet to pass, this lawn remained lush and verdant. The grass was a rare, long-leaf variety—evergreen throughout the year. It bore no flowers, yet exuded a fresh, invigorating scent that lifted the spirit.

Here on this lawn, Dewitt encountered his lord, Count Timock Chebman.

“Dewitt, if your business is not pressing, wait a moment and let me finish my dinner,” the count called out as Dewitt approached. He sat before a table, enjoying his meal, and was eager to finish before sunset to save a candle—a habit inherited from his father.

Dewitt raised his left hand in silent acknowledgment, bidding his lord to dine at ease. As the Chebman family’s chief knight, he was well acquainted with the count’s routines.

Soon, an attendant brought Dewitt a chair. He sat, inhaling deeply, filling his lungs with the unique refreshing scent of the long grass—a fragrance so pleasing that even a Silver Knight would find it intoxicating.

It was said that in all of Gambis, only two places boasted such lawns: Harvest Manor of the Chebman family and the royal gardens. The lawn at Harvest Manor began as a small sod, spirited away from the royal gardens by the count himself in his youth, and cultivated over decades. Why only a small patch? The old count had deemed it wasteful to plant such grass over valuable land; earth should be for crops, and a single lawn was enough to display the family’s noble heritage.

Count Chebman focused intently on his meal, eating with haste—though he was Dewitt’s lord, it would have been impolite to keep a Silver Knight waiting in the dark. The count appeared to be in his thirties, with a somber demeanor, gaunt face, narrow eyes, and a pair of thin mustaches above his lips. He wore a black noble’s suit, its fabric immaculate yet cut in a style from decades past, with faint signs of wear at the cuffs. This attire, coupled with his features, lent him an austere and old-fashioned air.

At this moment, the count sat upright, knife and fork in hand, working through his dinner—a golden-roasted leg of lamb. His posture was elegant, his movements unhurried, conforming perfectly to noble dining etiquette. Even the most fastidious courtier would find no fault with his manners. Yet his eating speed was astonishing. In a flurry of deft motions, he sliced uniform pieces of meat from the leg, sending them swiftly to his mouth. The rhythm of his actions was almost mesmerizing.

Before long, the entire leg was stripped clean, leaving behind only a smooth, gleaming bone that not even the hungriest goblin could have picked cleaner. With a gentle tap at the center of the bone, a flash of greenish-blue energy split it neatly in two, revealing the snowy white marrow within. The count leaned forward and, from several centimeters away, inhaled softly. The marrow seemed to come alive, flowing into his mouth.

Satisfied, the count drained his water glass. At once, a servant cleared the table. According to Chebman tradition, the bones would be ground to powder and fed to the estate’s hunting hounds.

“My lord, your mastery over battle aura is refined to the utmost. Surely you will soon reach the pinnacle domain?” Dewitt could not help but marvel at the natural ease with which the count used his aura to split the lamb bone.

“Is it so easy to ascend to the Gold rank? I have stood at the peak of Silver for ten years, yet I still cannot sense the Elemental Sea. It seems that advancing further is not merely a matter of honing one’s aura; bloodline affinity with the elements is the key, much like Her Highness Roland.” The count shook his head with a wry smile.

Dewitt fell silent. He knew his lord was a veteran Silver Knight with perfectly tempered battle aura, but the Gold domain remained out of reach. In contrast, the kingdom’s princess, Royal Highness Roland, had ascended to Gold at the age of twenty-three—a truly astonishing talent.

“Dewitt, you didn’t come here today just to discuss the way of the knight, did you?” The count smiled. As a feudal earl, he cared less about personal advancement than about strengthening and perpetuating his family—a true lord’s responsibility.

“Indeed. Today, I escorted a load of mithril ore back to the manor. The quality of this batch surpasses the last two. From this single cart, we can refine a full pound of mithril.” Dewitt composed himself and reported.

“Oh, that is excellent news!” The count’s smile was genuine.

“There is even better news. Our miners have discovered that the silver ore in the mine is diminishing, while the mithril ore is becoming more abundant.” Dewitt paused, then continued, “This means that the vein is not a silver seam with associated mithril, but a mithril vein with associated silver!”

“Ha! Ha! Ha! This is the best news I’ve heard in years!” The count could no longer contain his elation and laughed aloud.

“My lord, the plan I previously had reported to you regarding the control of that territory will have to be amended,” Dewitt said quietly once the count’s excitement had subsided.

Some time ago, upon learning of Victor’s weakness and incompetence, Dewitt had submitted a plan for taking control of Victor’s domain. Before the count could reply, however, a major incident occurred there, forcing Dewitt to revise his plan. Seizing the opportunity of escorting the mithril shipment, he now sought to discuss matters face to face.

“My original plan was to incite the freemen to unite against the young lord. After the York family’s knights withdrew, we would encourage the freemen to migrate near the young lord’s hill camp, build settlements, and restrict his activities to that area. Finally, our men, disguised as freemen, would infiltrate and seize real control of the domain.”

At the count’s gesture, Dewitt continued, “But just four days ago, the young baron’s captain led his soldiers to overrun three freemen camps in two days, killing over a hundred. Now the remaining freemen are so terrified they no longer dare defy his orders. Some even killed their own leaders to join the hill camp.”

“Oh, I hadn’t expected the young baron to have such capable subordinates! What about their own casualties?” the count asked, raising an eyebrow in surprise.

“Our informants report that the young lord’s guards suffered only a dozen casualties.”

“So few? I thought the baron had no knights among his men. Did Sophia secretly assign one of her family’s knights to her little husband?” Although the opponents were only vagrants, slaying over a hundred with minimal losses in two days was a feat only a knight could accomplish.

The count was genuinely astonished. His confidence in pilfering Victor’s mithril had stemmed from Victor’s status as a discarded family member—powerless and without backing.

But if Marchioness Sophia had taken Victor back under her wing, the situation would change. Her military might was no match for the Chebman family’s, but her wealth, influence, and latent power were formidable and not to be underestimated.

On second thought, the count found this unlikely.

According to reports from family members stationed in the capital, Marchioness Sophia was ardently pursuing Sir Andre, a Gold Knight of the Boreal Alliance. Though her wealth was vast, her forces were wanting, so she urgently needed to ally with a powerful Gold Knight to further her commercial empire. Rumor had it that Queen Catherine herself supported this endeavor, hoping to use the dazzling marchioness to win a mighty Gold Knight for the Prince’s faction.

Thus, Sophia had effectively exiled her young lover to the western frontier. Until she achieved her aim, she would not reclaim him—and once she did, it might well mark the young baron’s demise.

“Could it be that the York family secretly sent a knight to pose as his captain?” the count pressed.

It was a plausible scenario. As rivals of the Prince’s faction, the Yorks had every reason to use Victor’s status for their own ends.

“No, neither. The young lord’s captain is a rare berserker named Nelson, once a mercenary whom the young lord recruited,” Dewitt explained.

“Oh? The young baron is lucky indeed, to have hired a berserker,” the count remarked, relieved to learn Victor had neither York nor Sophia’s direct support.

“This Nelson is not unknown—your lordship may have heard his moniker: the Bear of the North.”

“The Bear of the North from Dodo? No wonder—what a pity,” the count said, surprised, and shook his head.

Ordinarily, no number of commoners could slay a knight, just as no flock of sheep could kill a lion. But berserkers were not ordinary men; the barbarians of the Terrill Mountains, for example, could match Bronze Knights in battle. Few human berserkers could rival knights, but the Bear of the North was one of those rare few.

Five years ago, during a clash between the Kingdom of Dodo and the Sassanids, a Dodo mercenary company met a Sassanid knight’s raiding party. The mercenaries, against all odds, annihilated the raiders—including the knight himself. Thereafter, the mercenary who slew the knight was known as the Bear of the North.

“Yes, the same Bear of the North for whom the Tartus family of Sassan offers a bounty of five thousand gold sols,” Dewitt nodded.

The Tartus family was a powerful Sassanid military house. Ordinarily, the death of one of their knights would not trouble them, but to have one slain in open combat by a lowly mercenary—who then gained fame at their expense—was a humiliation. Thus, they set a bounty on the Bear’s head and declared that any house sheltering him would be their enemy.

The nobles of Dodo would not kill Nelson for a mere five thousand gold sols, especially since he had fought the Sassanids, but neither would they risk Tartus’s wrath for a berserker. In war, captured knights could be ransomed; angering the Sassanids might make such deals impossible. As hostilities waned, many mercenary bands were absorbed by Dodo’s lords, but the renowned Warbear Company found no patron. Disheartened, Nelson led his men out of Dodo, and his fame gradually faded.

The count cared little for Tartus’s threats; what he regretted was that this knight-level berserker had fallen into Victor’s service.

“My lord, I had assumed the young baron was weak, only to discover he commands a berserker of knightly prowess. So, to ensure our plan’s success, I intend to act personally and eliminate Nelson,” Dewitt remarked coolly, as if dispatching a berserker was a trivial matter.

“Heh, Dewitt, I have read your plan—but I never intended to approve it!”