Against the Benevolent Way of the Gods

The news that Count Boles had miraculously survived the encirclement by the Bandits was like a ringing slap across the faces of those old bureaucrats and local strongmen who had secretly been hoping he would die in an "accident."

After the brief shock and disappointment came deeper fear and resentment.

Naturally, they put this debt on that "meddlesome" Friedrich von Schmidt, and in private, no one knew how many times they cursed this young knight who had burst out of nowhere.

"That damn brat of the Schmidt family! Instead of chewing sand on his border, what's he doing coming to Herwenham to muddy the waters!"

"He dared chase down tens of thousands with a few dozen cavalry? He's a monster!"

"He ruined our good thing! That old bastard Boles really has a stubborn life!"

What gave them a slight sense of "comfort," however, was that after going through this life-and-death ordeal, Count Boles seemed to have been frightened, and restrained himself considerably.

He swiftly ended that "reckless" personal land survey on the southern border, and returned to the Governor's Office in Herwenham City with his entourage and the preliminary survey data.

For a period afterward, this governor kept to his residence and rarely went out. Aside from handling necessary daily affairs, he made no more thunderous, world-shaking moves.

The follow-up work of measuring and clearing the fields also seemed to stall with his departure.

This superficial "calm" caused the old forces watching in the dark to misjudge the situation.

They believed that this old count had either had his courage shattered by the scale of the Bandits and recognized the depth of Herwenham's muddy waters, or that he had finally "understood" the principle that even a mighty dragon could not crush the local snake, and had chosen compromise and hibernation.