Frozen Earth Territory

Frozen Earth Territory

A ragtag band of warriors emerged from the Mountain Forest, every one of them covered in filthy snow and mud.

Ryan, slumped on the back of an Apprentice Knight, could barely keep his eyes open. But as they emerged from the Mountain Forest, the sight before him left him shaken.

They stood on a ridge within the Mountain Forest. Dense trees had blocked his view for hours.

Ahead of them, fifty or sixty meters below, lay a plain—or rather, a Snow Plains.

A boundless expanse of white filled his vision, with several dozen houses scattered across the thousands of square meters of snow-covered land.

Farther ahead stood a mountain peak shaped like a rhinoceros horn, perhaps two or three hundred meters high. Judging by his old perspective, its angle with the ground was roughly forty or fifty degrees.

The tip of that rhinoceros horn pierced the freezing wind and snow of the Northlands, making Ryan feel as though some enormous rhinoceros beast stood beneath the earth below, staring at him.

Shrouded in endless snowfall, its outline was all mortals could vaguely make out. Even so, the oppressive force it gave off made the eight Apprentice Knights and Beard around him breathe faster.

"This is Young Master Ryan's territory..."

Though the Old Steward looked as if he were on his last legs, he showed no sign of fatigue after walking for so long.

The physique of a Formal Knight still made Ryan deeply envious.

Was this endless white world where he would spend the rest of his life and die?

Ryan could not help feeling curious, but before long, none of the ten could spare a thought for curiosity.

Because... it was cold.

Without the Mountain Forest to shield them, the fierce winter wind of the Northlands made all ten of them shiver with chattering teeth. The occasional drifting snow that landed on Ryan's neck made him tremble even more.

"So cold."

Even the Old Steward, a Formal Knight, could not help hunching his body tighter. But as he looked at Ryan's pale face, the fury in his eyes almost drove away all the cold.

"Damn it! If not for everything belonging to Young Master Ryan being withheld in the Imperial Capital, how could a young master of such noble standing have fallen to this state?"

As he spoke, he looked at Ryan, tears shimmering once more in his aged eyes.

"When the Count returns, he definitely won't spare those people."

Hearing Beard's words, Ryan, who had been forced to forget even his exhaustion, fell silent as well.

As a Baron personally invested by the royal family, he naturally should not have had only one old steward and eight Apprentice Knights by his side.

At the investiture ceremony, Columbus III had granted him one hundred guards. Thirty of them were Formal Knights, while the remaining seventy were Apprentice Knights. The three Knight Commanders leading them even possessed the strength of Silver Knights.

There were also over a hundred warhorses, as well as three carriages loaded with supplies for developing the territory, worth no less than a thousand Gold Coins.

Several dozen slaves had been assigned to attend to him, the young Baron, including Catfolk sent by Columbus III to corrupt him.

But in the short distance from the palace to the gates of the Imperial Capital, his carriage was gone. His slaves were gone.

His guards were also detained outside the Imperial Capital under various pretexts. In the end, only fifty Apprentice Knights had followed Ryan out of the Imperial Capital toward Northwind Province.

By the time they reached Northwind Province, only eight Apprentice Knights and the Old Steward Beard remained at his side.

Of the other forty-two guards and the Old Steward's son, Little Beard, more than half had been detained in the territories at checkpoints along the way. Little Beard had even been imprisoned in Winged Gorge, which connected Northwind Province to the Empire's other provinces.

The previous Ryan had been filled with anger and resentment over this. He had even hoped for Count Clayton's retaliation after returning to the Empire, hoping the Count would bring him back to the warm and comfortable South.

But the current Ryan understood clearly that all the difficulties they had encountered along the way already represented the Empire's upper and lower echelons—or rather, the blockade imposed on the Clayton Family by the vast majority of interest groups.

If everything was settled before the Count returned to the Empire, then it would already be too late by the time he came back.

And even if the Count was absurdly powerful and managed to set everything right, Ryan's Noble Title as Baron of Frozen Earth Territory in the Northlands could not be changed. He had been personally invested as a Baron by the royal family. There was absolutely no possibility of altering it.

So even if the Clayton Family had a chance to strike back, those matters no longer had anything to do with him.

From the moment he received his Noble Title, he had already become someone separated from the Clayton Family.

From this day on, what stood behind him was not the Clayton Family, but Frozen Earth Territory—the Baron Ryan.

In his name, a new family genealogy would begin.

Bang!

Ryan's entire body sank into the snow. The cold white snow was no longer as beautiful as it had seemed before, and the piercing chill made the already blood-drained Ryan's consciousness grow hazy.

By the time he came back to his senses, he was already on the Old Steward Beard's back. Before him knelt seven guards, while Deren, the captain of the guards, was violently punching one of them.

"You dared to let the Baron fall? Rosen, you deserve to be cut into a thousand pieces!"

All of Deren's rage erupted upon the guard named Rosen. Fear also filled his eyes. Ryan's earlier appearance, as though he were about to pass out, had made him feel as if he could see his own head rolling across this white earth, leaving behind a bright red trail.

He drew his knight's sword, but Ryan's voice from behind made his arm freeze in midair.

"That's enough, Deren."

Ryan stopped the guard captain. After all, only these nine people remained by his side.

He looked at Rosen. The man's face was pale as well, whether from fear or the bitter cold of the Northlands.

"Rosen, and the rest of you, get up first."

Ryan insisted on getting down from Beard's back. Though he felt somewhat unwell, he believed that, as their pillar, he had to show that he was someone who could give others hope.

Of course, the key reason was that he had spotted the relatively level road leading into the village.

"From now on, this is where we will live."

He did not go out of his way to excuse Rosen. In this strict age, that would not have been a good thing.

Ryan's small body trembled as he walked along the earthen road. At this moment, he was immensely grateful that he still had some foundation in the Knight Training Method.

Behind him, the Old Steward Beard and the eight guards, each wearing a different expression, watched Ryan's figure in surprise.

Ahead, in this nameless village, more than a dozen men were already looking toward him with manure forks and other "weapons" in their hands.

Ryan took a deep breath. Looking at the clearly malnourished villagers ahead, his voice was childish, yet naturally carried authority.

"I am Ryan, the lord of Frozen Earth Territory."

In this era, there was simply no possibility of impersonation. As nobles of the ruling class, everyone was connected by kinship or acquaintance; they all knew one another somehow.

The moment the villagers heard Ryan's words, they threw down everything in their hands and knelt before him.

"My lord, you've finally come."

"Now that the lord has come, we'll have food to eat."