"So these are the Wild Tribes?"
Leon propped his chin on his hand, his eyes widened unevenly as he examined the frail blue-haired boy before him.
It was his first time seeing a living member of the Wild Tribes. Merchants had once brought dried Wild Tribe heads back to Three Rivers City.
"Lynn, who is he?"
Suo Wade, the "prince" of the Lowland Tribe, tilted up his little head and likewise sized up the somewhat plump Black Market Merchant.
Among the Wild Tribes, where resources were desperately scarce, being fat was an extraordinary privilege. He had never seen a man with such a broad build.
In truth, Leon was still some distance from actual obesity.
"Suo Wade, he's one of my men. I brought him here to inspect the salt mine."
"Leon, he isn't an ordinary member of the Wild Tribes. He is the chieftain's son of the Lowland Tribe, one of the Nine Tribes—the esteemed first heir of the Lowland Tribe."
Lynn smoothly switched between the two languages as he introduced them.
"The chieftain's son? Him?"
Leon's first reaction was disbelief.
The Nine Tribes of the Wild Tribes might have fallen on hard times, but they had once ruled the Northern Border, with a population exceeding one million at their peak.
In today's Northern Border, that would at least be the scale of a duchy.
One of the Nine Tribes would be the scale of an earldom.
This filthy, short, skinny runt with a face full of malnutrition was actually the tribe's first heir?
How was that possible?
Leon took another careful look and, by firelight, spotted the chainmail beneath Suo Wade's fur clothing.
Well then. At such a young age, he could afford chainmail and even wore a longsword at his waist. He really did seem to be