"How are things on the continent?"
Allen sat beside a small stream, gently prodding the newly lit campfire with a twig.
Ever since the agreement had been signed, he had once again taken a hands-off approach, leaving all administrative matters to his subordinates while he traveled north alone, intending to witness the Organization's destruction firsthand.
As lord of the Western Lands, Allen never worried that anyone would dare usurp his authority.
The essence of rule was violence. As long as he kept a firm grip on the institution with the greatest capacity for violence—the Knight Order—even those greedy merchants would not dare try anything underhanded.
The ten years since the rise of the Western Lands had already provided far too many bloody examples of that.
So much so that everyone left understood that reaching for power was a sign they had a death wish.
In this world filled with barbarity, slaughter, and darkness, so-called "capital" was nothing more than a fat pig waiting to be butchered unless it had sufficient military strength behind it.
As long as it did not affect ordinary people's lives, even if Allen ordered every major merchant under his rule killed and forcibly confiscated their property, it would not cause much of an uproar.
After all, capital required one prerequisite before it could control the world: order had to exist first.
Yet chaos and the rule of force currently coexisted on this island, where no universally accepted order had ever been established. How could there possibly be fertile ground for capital to grow?
Of course, Teresa, who had just returned from overseas, knew nothing of this and had little interest in it. She sauntered lazily over to the campfire, sat down, and removed the mask concealing her face before answering meaningfully, "Far worse than expected. Those