At Death's Door

Glan City.

A city with a permanent population of over fifty thousand, walls more than thirty meters high, a magnificent lord's manor within, a tall white city hall at its center, neatly planned Commercial Areas and a street of inns and hotels beside it, an officers' academy in the west, and a grand, majestic monastery atop the small hill in the north. Flowers bloomed in abundance, crowds flowed through the streets, traveling merchants gathered, and workshops stood everywhere. Though this city had been completed less than five years ago, its prosperity already rivaled Woz City, the royal capital of the Vorris Kingdom.

But this morning, companies of Light Cavalry had rushed through the city gates. After announcing an emergency lockdown across the city, all of Glan City had been shrouded in a tense, oppressive atmosphere.

That afternoon, fierce shouts of battle came from the lord's manor. Before long, the fighting stopped. Some sharp-eyed citizens of Glan City seemed to see Lord Donny of the manor being escorted away by a squad of fully armed soldiers to an unknown location. Their hearts skipped a beat. The skies over Glan City were about to change.

Lord's Manor.

A side hall in the western wing.

Donny was escorted in by soldiers, dejected and resentful. There, he saw the person he hated most.

"You shameless thief! You stuffed everything from my territory into your own pockets!" Donny spat at him.

"Donny, how exactly had I wronged you for you to hate me this much? Look at this prosperous city beneath your feet. Look at this fertile land. Brick by brick, blade of grass by blade of grass—what part of it had I not painstakingly won for you? You sat in the castle every day, enjoying the fruits of all this, basking in wealth and glory. Why did you still have to pull this ridiculous stunt behind my back?"

Zhou Ming turned around with his hands behind his back. Looking at Donny, now over thirty, with stubble covering his chin and a mature body but a temperament far from mature, he felt utterly disappointed. He truly did not know what to say.

He had painstakingly supported him for more than a decade, campaigning north and south without rest, only to receive this in return.

Ah, it was infuriating to see someone refuse to live up to expectations.

"Bah! Damned thief! I only regret not listening to Eugenie sooner and poisoning you with a cup of wine! You thief, stealing my authority, putting me on that puppet's seat, toying with and manipulating me as you pleased—I have had enough of this life! I want to take back what belongs to me! I want back everything you, you damned thief, stole from me!"

Donny roared hysterically, his eyes bloodshot as he lunged at Zhou Ming with bared teeth and flailing claws. But two guards immediately pinned him down.

Looking at Donny in this state, Zhou Ming suddenly thought of Madam Madeline, who had once treated him as her own son and cared for him deeply. After putting up a futile struggle herself, she had leapt from the top floor of the towering castle on a gloomy day, ending her painful and despairing life.

He had never expected Donny to walk down this path as well. Perhaps for the supreme authority to rule over all things, perhaps for the radiant smile and sweet promises of that peerless beauty, or perhaps for greater freedom and wider skies, he had chosen to betray his closest friend. He had chosen to betray Alice, the wife who had stood by him for thirteen years and borne him four children.

This was absolutely unforgivable!

Yes, King Herrian, who had fought Zhou Ming for more than a decade and repeatedly lost only to fight again, had finally found a Fatal Flaw in Zhou Ming's airtight defenses. That Fatal Flaw was, naturally, Donny.

Through several traveling merchants, Herrian had secretly sent his breathtakingly beautiful daughter, Princess Eugenie, into Donny's bed. Donny had always been lustful and had left behind more than ten illegitimate children among the common folk over the years. He could not get enough of this stunningly beautiful, graceful, noble-born woman who had been educated in court etiquette since childhood. Lost in her tender embrace, he could not pull himself free.

When he learned her true identity—that she was King Herrian's daughter—and was told that Herrian was willing to form a marriage alliance with him, end the war, and grant him the title of Grand Duke of Glan Territory, ruling over the seven earldoms in the eastern part of the kingdom, Donny's heart immediately began beating wildly.

Nor was that all. King Herrian also promised that after his death, Donny would be made the first heir to the throne of the Vorris Kingdom. In other words, so long as he agreed to marry Princess Eugenie, he would not only gain a peerless beauty, but an entire Vorris Kingdom.

Damn it, why the hell not?

By then, Donny had long since thrown his wife Alice, who had stood by him through so many years, to some distant corner of the world.

Compared to Eugenie, who came from royalty, this common-born wife—whose family background, beauty, bearing, education, and noble etiquette could not compare to even a strand of Eugenie's hair—had fallen in Donny's estimation to little more than an ordinary mistress. Indeed, after bearing children so many times and becoming plump and misshapen, he sometimes felt she was not even as good as those young, beautiful mistresses outside.

After falling for Herrian's honey trap, Donny, under the guidance of that beauty, had thoroughly mangled a number of policies Zhou Ming had implemented in the territory for years while Zhou Ming was away on campaign.

He dismissed the six governors Zhou Ming had appointed, made six earls responsible for taking over military and civil administration across the regions, and recruited a batch of knights from who knew where. He made one man a baron, another a knight, and in no time at all, returned this land, which had undergone earth-shaking changes over the past decade, to the old state of large and small lords governing their own fiefs.

For a time, Glan Territory, which Donny had turned upside down, seethed with public outrage like oil poured onto flames, ready to erupt at the slightest spark.

Upon hearing that his rear had caught fire, Zhou Ming had no choice but to race back with the Light Cavalry and seize control of the turmoil that could very well have shattered his hard-won position overnight.

"Donny, have you ever heard this saying? The reason fools die is that, even when everyone knows they are fools, they still go ahead and do the stupidest thing possible!"

Zhou Ming spoke in furious disappointment. Aside from the woman behind Donny and a group of knights of unknown origin, not a single person in this territory, this city, or even this lord's manor had supported the idiotic things Donny had done, save for a few opportunists.

Even the guards escorting him were members of the lord's guard who had once been most loyal to him.

"Ryan, could it be... you want to kill me?"

The instant he heard the word "die," Donny began trembling in panic. He immediately remembered how this ruthless man had used underhanded means to kill who knew how many people over the years. Now that he had turned his blade toward him, Donny finally realized that, of all people, he should never have provoked this demon.

Thud!

Overwhelming fear of death made Donny fall to his knees. Clutching Zhou Ming's trouser leg, he wailed, "I'm sorry, Ryan! I was wrong! Please spare me! I'm your best friend and your brother-in-law! Could you really bear to let Alice lose her husband? Could you bear to let her four children lose their father while they are still so young? Don't kill me! Please, don't kill me!"

He wriggled forward a little farther and wrapped his arms around Zhou Ming's leg.

"Whether you live or die is not for me to decide. It is up to Alice. Go beg Alice."

Zhou Ming shook his head, pulled free from Donny's grasp, and left the side hall. He handed everything here over to Alice, who entered carrying a child.

Alice's eyes were red, clearly from having just cried. Her body still trembled slightly. She had just led people into the neighboring side hall and poisoned Princess Eugenie, the woman who had made her feel inferior at first sight. It was also the first time she had watched a living person die before her eyes, and she had yet to recover from the tangled emotions of fear, excitement, thrill, and vindication.

"Alice, my beloved wife and lover, please spare your husband! I swear before God that from now on, I will love only you! I will devote myself to you and treat only you well! Please don't kill me! I am the father of your four children and your husband! Surely I matter far more to you than your brother's husband!"

Near collapse, Donny grabbed Alice's skirt hem. Tears and snot streamed down his face. At that moment, he wanted only to live. Even if he lost all his wealth and glory, even if he had to live like a dog, anything was acceptable so long as he survived.

"Get away from me! You heartless bastard, you are not worth a single hair on my brother's head! For one woman, you abandoned the promises you made to me, abandoned the future of my four children, and abandoned everything you promised me! You conscienceless animal, and now you still want to kill my brother! Go die! Go repent in hell!"

Alice delivered the death sentence without mercy. Yes, she had once held hopes for this man. But as she watched the number of his illegitimate children outside grow, watched his attitude toward her become colder and colder, and finally saw that woman who made her feel so inferior she despaired, she no longer had the slightest pity or sympathy for this heartless, faithless man.

Yes, her brother had been right. The only man in this world who treated her well, who would always treat her well, was her brother.

"Alice!!"

Donny cried out in despair, but he could only watch that figure move farther and farther away from him.

Time flew by. In the blink of an eye, another ten years had passed.

Over those ten years, after Zhou Ming led his Tiger and Wolf Legion to conquer the entire Vorris Kingdom, he halted further expansion. Instead, he built solid fortresses along the borders to prevent several neighboring kingdoms, driven by fear, from joining forces to invade this still-unstable new nation.

He continued promoting the agricultural revolution, reducing corvée labor and taxes, encouraging childbirth, improving sanitation, and releasing bandit gangs to abduct people from neighboring countries. By every possible means, he increased the nation's population base.

He implemented low taxes, encouraged industry and commerce, vigorously mined coal and mineral deposits, massively expanded steel production, and strengthened the military. He both stored wealth among the people and made the nation prosperous and militarily strong.

In just ten years, this small Burns Kingdom under Zhou Ming's rule became a powerful nation with a population exceeding six hundred thousand, more than thirty thousand elite troops, and the ability to muster an army of one hundred thousand in an emergency.

This August, in a border war against the combined invasion of four neighboring kingdoms, he annihilated the forty-thousand-man army those four kingdoms had scraped together by emptying their treasuries. One king was killed, two were captured, and the small Burns Kingdom shook dozens of kingdoms and became renowned across the continent.

A number of perceptive monarchs also noticed the unique governmental structure of this kingdom during that battle. The tremendous power it contained caused discussions of reform to spread among the upper ranks of several kingdoms.

Because he caught a chill and his lung disease worsened, that battle became the final campaign Zhou Ming commanded in his military career. Over the following years, he could only lie in a sickbed at the Private Manor, sustaining his life on costly medicines. He also summoned his two sons to his side, intending to spend his final years properly training them.

The weather was cold and overcast that day.

Perhaps sensing that his time was nearly over, Zhou Ming summoned his two sons to his bedside and carefully gave them his instructions.

He said to his twenty-six-year-old eldest son John, "John, I know you command two-thirds of the kingdom's field armies and have won great military achievements. Last year, you took twelve earldoms from the Iron Fortress Kingdom. You are proud and arrogant, and you look down on your soft-tempered cousin, the King... but you must never go to your aunt Alice and ask Cousin Allen to move his backside and give you that seat. Never do that! Since this kingdom is called Burns, it should belong to the Burns Family! This is the promise I made Alice. I must keep it while I am alive, and after I die, you must keep it for me as well!"

"Yes, Father!"

John lowered his head, deeply startled. He had kept that thought buried very deeply in his heart, yet his father had still seen through him.

"John, it is not that I wish to stop you from accomplishing great things. But do not make your great achievement fighting within the family. Set your sights farther ahead. Do not stare only at the Burns Kingdom. Any land beyond the Burns Kingdom can be yours to conquer and rule."

Tired from speaking, Zhou Ming paused to rest for a while before continuing, "John, do you know that the explorer I sent east two years ago recently returned? He told me that beyond Ural Snow Mountain, east of the kingdom, lies an incomparably vast land, even larger than the hundreds of kingdoms we know combined! You can send people to carve a passage through and seize that vast land. It has many volcanoes and mineral deposits, including saltpeter and Sulfur needed for gunpowder."

"Father, Ural Snow Mountain is ten thousand fathoms high. Legend says only demons can cross it. If we send people to carve a passage, how long would that take? Father, I plan to conquer the Iron Fortress Kingdom next year and make it my own fief. Cousin Allen and Aunt Alice should agree to that."

John spoke with a relaxed expression. The entire Burns Kingdom had been won by the Derek family, Zhou Ming's family. He only wanted a fief that he had conquered himself. Surely no one would have anything to say about that.

Seeing the flippant way his eldest son spoke, Zhou Ming knew that no matter how repeatedly he warned him, John probably would not take it to heart. Ever since learning a little from him, the boy had grown somewhat arrogant and flighty. But he was still his son, so Zhou Ming could not bring himself to speak too harshly. He could only hope that after he was gone, John would not suffer too great a setback.

After giving John his instructions, Zhou Ming turned his gaze to his younger son George, who was only sixteen, had a personality much like his own, and was deeply interested in invention and creation.

His younger son was very gifted. At the age of thirteen, following the design drawings Zhou Ming had given him, he had invented a Matchlock Gun with decent power.

Perhaps knowing what his father's instructions meant this time, young George had said nothing. He merely listened quietly. But when he heard that Ural Snow Mountain could be crossed and that an even wider world lay beyond it, his eyes immediately lit up with boundless curiosity.

"Father, do you want me to fulfill your wish and help you see the world beyond Ural Snow Mountain?"

Before Zhou Ming could speak, young George seemed to know what he wanted to ask the moment their eyes met and spoke first.

George knew that his father's lung disease had become extremely severe. Every word he spoke took tremendous effort, and the considerate boy wished to lessen his father's suffering.

"George, among all my children... you are the youngest and the smartest. Father has only one thing to say... keep your burning curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Do not care what others think. Keep... keep moving forward... until you reach the land... of dreams you seek in your heart..."

Perhaps because he had let out a final breath, Zhou Ming felt himself growing more and more tired. His head floated hazily, and his body gradually slipped free of that pain. Before losing consciousness, he seemed to hear his younger son George, his wife Anna, and his two daughters crying beside him.

"Ding~"

"The game character has died. Exiting the game..."