Ancient Civilization: The Laws of Unity Had Shattered, and the Knights Had Lost Their Minds

The chaotic scene gradually began to settle into order.

The servants who had fled the castle were summoned back one by one to work: clearing away the bodies, repairing the walls, and so on.

The frightened residents had kept their doors tightly shut all night, ignoring the sounds of fighting outside, burying their heads in the sand like ostriches.

But if the Children of the Forest had truly wanted to slaughter them, their houses, built mostly of wood, wouldn't have protected them.

By morning, things had begun to fall into place.

Yveta and his companions had been the greatest contributors to exposing the Children of the Forest's conspiracy, and he also had Branton's authorization, as the sole surviving heir of the Moro Family.

So Yveta took control of the situation.

Thanks to his achievements and Branton's backing, he could give orders to the castle's servants, stewards, serfs, and the guards of Baron Moro's castle.

When he sent Black Wolf to the edge of the territory to bring back Leili and Alicia, who had been waiting by the carriage, Leili was so worried that he could hardly believe his ears.

Black Wolf told him that the Children of the Forest had been driven out of the castle, and Yveta was in control there.

Leili asked him about what had happened again and again before he finally believed the situation.

Even so, he couldn't help reflecting on how dangerous things had been.

If anything had gone wrong, everyone—both humans and the Children of the Forest—might have turned on Yveta and his companions.

When Leili saw Yveta at the castle, he gripped Yveta's hand excitedly and said, "Master, please don't take such risks again. That was a gambler's move. No one can be sure they'll win."

"If you keep gambling, sooner or later you'll make one careless mistake and lose everything you have."

"I know." Yveta sighed, then said with relief, "But when someone has nothing, taking a gamble is almost the only choice left."

"Still, you're right."

"If I can take full control of this barony, I'll have my first territory. A lord is different from an adventurer."

"Lords can't take risks like that."

Yveta hadn't yet fully taken control of the territory. He had no legitimate claim and no official status.

Besides, many of the knights in the territory had never sworn loyalty to him.

Without that ceremony, they weren't his vassals, and he wasn't their lord.

They wouldn't truly obey Yveta. For now, they were only heeding his advice because of the sudden crisis.

In truth, with the baron dead, the barony was already on the verge of falling apart.

Leili suddenly brought up something else. "Master, when I was near the edge of Moro Baron Territory, I saw some strange people with bark-like skin fleeing beyond the territory. But I also saw another army in the forest."

"None of the soldiers in that army were human."

"They were all creatures you'd only find in fairy tales in Ambrose."

"Minotaurs, centaurs, deerfolk, and even ogres. I also saw a Two-Headed Ogre."

"I saw someone with a ram's head for an upper body, a humanlike lower body, and cloven hooves. It was sitting on a bamboo palanquin, sleeping with its eyes closed. For some reason, when I saw it, my heart began to pound so hard I thought it would burst."

Yveta's heart sank.

This was bad.

His guess had been right. For some reason, the Children of the Forest desperately needed to take this territory.

They really were planning to seize it by force.

The Old Witch's face changed abruptly, and she looked Leili up and down. "Well, well, you really are a useless warrior who follows Your Grace around."

"You saw an ancient soul and somehow survived."

"The Forbidden Book says that one of the ancient souls ruling the Children of the Forest has a ram's head and cloven hooves."

"You're very lucky. If its eyes had been open when you saw it, your soul would have been sucked into it, and you'd have become its puppet."

Yveta frowned. "Old Witch, who was that?"

"Your Grace, it's not fit to be compared to you. The Children of the Forest once called it the God of Agriculture and Animal Husbandry. Later, they called it the Agricultural and Pastoral Ancient Soul." The Old Witch bowed. "Once again, you've shown me the art of seizing territory. You knew all along that Baron Moro wasn't human, yet you kept quiet and let things spiral out of control."

"Then you could seize this human territory with perfect legitimacy."

"You truly are the demon among demons!"

Yveta: "..."

"You knew Baron Moro wasn't human as soon as you entered the territory? Why didn't you say so earlier?"

The Old Witch replied, "If you didn't say anything, how would I dare? Besides, if not for this Forbidden Book, I wouldn't have known he was a Treant Person."

Yveta finally understood. From the very moment they had entered the barony, she had known the baron wasn't human, but she hadn't been able to identify what he was.

That was right.

From the Old Witch's perspective, how could he, a demon, not know the baron wasn't human?

And since he had said nothing, it really did look as though he were a schemer plotting to seize the territory.

Now, the Old Witch believed that he had won completely.

"..." Yveta.

Yveta stopped worrying about the matter and went over to speak with the Moro Family's steward, Akalanda.

Branton had already told Yveta about the man's background. He was a serf on the estate.

Unlike other parents, his parents had always managed to save a little money from their food, setting it aside to pay for Akalanda to learn to read and do arithmetic.

As a result, Akalanda was one of the few serfs who had received an education.

That gave him an advantage.

After the first three stewards, outsiders from minor noble families, had been forced out by popular anger, the real Baron Moro had hired Akalanda, a serf's son, hoping he would calm the people.

He had also granted Akalanda the status of a freeman.

Branton had told Yveta that the Viscount Ambrose's Independent State had already seen two large-scale serf rebellions.

The current serf system on the estates was the result of laws reformed after those two rebellions.

Serfs in the Viscount Ambrose's Independent State were oppressed less than serfs in any other country in the world.

There were two reasons for this.

First, the Old Witch had said that the Ancient Civilization, even older than the mysterious civilization supported by the druids, had once been centered in the Viscount Ambrose's Independent State.

Though the Ancient Civilization had collapsed for unknown reasons, remnants of its urban system, traditions of freemen, and institutions of magistrates and tribunes remained here.

Second, Ambrose's urban classes had grown increasingly powerful, and the harsh serf system was already close to collapse.

More and more serfs were escaping.

In the end, Ambrose's lords had no choice but to improve the treatment of serfs time and again.

Yveta asked Akalanda, "How many troops are still in the castle?"

Akalanda glanced at Branton. When he saw the admiration and dependence in Branton's gaze toward Yveta, he immediately understood that the castle had a new master.

He had risen from the serf class and had none of the pointless stubbornness of the minor nobles. "My lord, there are still 121 guards inside the castle."

"That's all? What about the feudal troops?" Yveta asked. He remembered that the Ambrose family had summoned eleven knights.

Even if a few had died in the battle in the hall, some knights should still be left, along with the infantry they had brought.

"And what about the castle's knight attendants?"

Akalanda looked troubled. "My lord, those knights won't listen to your orders."

"They're at the stables. Under Knight Tawil's command, they're preparing to lead their troops out of the castle to pursue the defeated Treant Person forces and avenge Baron Moro."

Thinking of his former master, Akalanda looked grief-stricken.

Yveta's expression changed dramatically. "Idiots."

"They don't even understand the principle of not pursuing a cornered enemy, let alone the fact that an army led by an ancient soul is still outside."

The demon hunter Black Wolf and Leili thought over the saying about not pursuing a cornered enemy and both felt that it made a lot of sense.

Yveta said, "Akalanda, take us to the stables!"

"Stop them!"

Yveta's face darkened. "With the troops they have now, they shouldn't be leaving the castle to pursue the enemy."

"Those fools are somehow even worse than a novice like me."

Black Wolf said, "Your Highness, that's normal."

"A church knight order like the Boar Knight Order is already considered elite."

Black Wolf said, "Tactics are scarce in this era. Charlemagne's tactics are already hundreds of years old."

"And even those are beyond most knights from small places."

"When they fight, they just charge blindly. They either win or lose."

"This seems to be because humanity suffered a severe decline in civilization after the collapse of the Ancient Civilization, and still hasn't recovered."

"Most cities from the past were abandoned when the Ancient Civilization mysteriously collapsed. Today's cities were either rebuilt on the foundations of its old great cities or newly constructed."

The Old Witch sighed as well. "I've heard my teacher say that once, humanity had only one nation, just as there was only one True God—the God of All Things."

"That nation was the Ancient Civilization."

"The Ancient Civilization was the God of All Things' sole representative on earth. But after its strange collapse, countless small nations arose. Each had its own customs, cultural traditions, and laws. The unified laws of old had shattered, leaving behind the broken laws of separate kingdoms, principalities, duchies, special small states, and republics."

Yveta could feel the sorrow everyone felt after such a colossal power had crashed down.

But he had no time to dwell on it. He had to get to the stables and bring back those foolish knights, so full of misplaced courage.

They had completely lost their minds.

Meanwhile, the Old Witch noticed the [human pus] on the bodies of the Children of the Forest scattered on the ground.

She narrowed her eyes as she watched Yveta's retreating back. "That Damage Curse of the demon's isn't as simple as it seems. It's so contagious..."

"No, I need to study it. Something's not right."