The Duke of Winter City

In the year 2020 of the Era of the Human King, Winter Territory.

Aurelian's boots stepped onto black snow mixed with mud. White vapor escaped his mouth with every breath.

"It's freezing. This new world." He tightened the dark cloak wrapped around him.

If not for his duty as lord to inspect his territory, he would never have wanted to leave the warm, comfortable castle.

Bang! Bang! Bang! The sounds of fists striking flesh caught Aurelian's attention. He tugged the reins and rode toward them.

Two boys were fiercely grappling in the muddy black snow.

"Stop it! I said stop!"

A noble's status was still quite useful. The two bruised and battered boys released each other and glared viciously.

"What exactly happened?" Aurelian's attendant stepped forward and demanded.

"I found a potato, but Jimmy insisted he saw it first!" the bald boy on the left complained first.

Aurelian turned to look at the other boy's hand and indeed saw a pitch-black oval in it.

"All this over a potato?"

"Don't fight over it! What's so worth fighting over about one potato?"

Hearing Aurelian's words, Jimmy immediately said excitedly, "This isn't a potato. It's life! My uncle starved to death!"

Looking into the boy's agitated eyes, Aurelian did not know what to say. The state of his territory was even worse than he had imagined.

"Bring the potato here. I'll divide it. Half for each of you." Aurelian came up with a small solution to settle the dispute.

The attendant snatched the potato from the extremely reluctant boy and handed it to Aurelian.

He took out a small dagger and sliced it down the middle. A foul stench immediately assaulted his nose. His brows furrowed, and he threw the "potato" into the black snow.

"What is this? This isn't a potato! It's frozen horse dung!"

The two boys froze upon hearing that, then burst into tears at the same time.

They no longer paid attention to the person they had just been fighting to the death with. Each turned and ran away.

It was a long while after the two boys had left before Aurelian finally came back to his senses.

If he had not happened to come out today, he never would have believed that his subjects were living in such hardship.

"Damn it, what the hell was the previous owner doing? His people were starving to death in droves, and he still couldn't think of a solution?"

Aurelian cursed inwardly.

Yes, he was not from this world.

In the popular terms of his time, he was a transmigrator.

The previous owner of this body, Aurelian Sol, was the ruler beyond the Great Wall, the esteemed Duke of Winter.

A duke governed land equivalent to a province in his previous life. The more powerful ones could call themselves grand dukes, with status nearly equal to the kings of small nations. They practically stood at the pinnacle of human society.

For someone who had transmigrated here, he had already surpassed ninety-nine percent of the people in this world from the very start.

The only imperfection was that the Duke of Winter was the current King of the Star Empire's only illegitimate son—and a thoroughly unwanted one at that. Otherwise, he would not have been granted the most remote northern Frozen Land beyond the Great Wall of Despair.

Complaining was one thing, but he still had to accept reality and make changes.

Aurelian took the reins handed over by his attendant, mounted his horse, and headed toward Winter City.

Hume, the fat administrative officer, sat in his chair handling affairs with his large belly protruding. His eyes swept rapidly across one note after another. As he flipped through them, the man who usually liked to smile with narrowed eyes found his brows knitting tighter and tighter, until his small eyes became mere slits.

The doors were kicked open violently. Hume, still bent over his desk, was startled and sprang upright, the fat all over his body trembling.

This was the Administrative Hall. Who dared cause trouble here? Did they want to be hanged?!

He looked up and saw two black-clad guards carrying longswords walk in.

"Y-you... what do you want?" Hume's short legs trembled as he looked at the soldiers, who clearly meant trouble.

"Nothing. I just remembered that it has been far too long since I last saw you, my dear smiling Mr. Hume."

A young voice sounded from outside the doorway.

A young man with black-and-red hair, red eyes, and defined features softened by an Eastern air stepped over the threshold and approached one step at a time.

"Lord Aurelian." Hume stared in shock, forgetting the fawning manner he had so often displayed before.

"It seems Lord Hume still remembers that I am the master here. Then I would like to ask you, Mr. Hume: my subjects are about to starve to death, so why are you, the administrative officer, still sitting here doing nothing?"

Aurelian's eyes were like sharp swords, and his tone like ice that would never melt.

If Hume tried to argue, Aurelian would not mind replacing him with someone else in the position.

"My lord, spare me! I did not want this either! I went to the castle to ask to see you several times, but every time you had old butler Will send me away. There was nothing I could do! Without your permission, I did not dare distribute the food in the warehouses to the subjects!" Hume looked on the verge of tears.

Hume's face was filled with grievance as he shouted desperately. He had been wronged!

Aurelian froze.

Thinking back to the scene when he had first transmigrated, it seemed that was indeed what had happened.

Come to think of it, his transmigration had truly been an accident.

Thankfully, the previous owner had overexerted himself while cultivating magic power. Otherwise, Aurelian had no idea where he would still be drifting.

Because he had not fully absorbed this body's memories and feared others would notice something amiss, he had refused to see anyone.

So it had been a misunderstanding. He had thought his administrative officer was an incompetent, cold-blooded bastard occupying the position for nothing.

After coughing twice to ease the awkwardness, Aurelian said,

"Since it was a misunderstanding, hurry up and open the warehouses. Helping the subjects is the urgent matter."

Hume shook his fat head and said worriedly, "Opening the warehouses to help the starving subjects can only be a temporary measure. In truth, the stored food is very limited. But that is not the biggest problem. Lord Aurelian, do you actually understand the situation your territory is in?"

My territory?

Aurelian's thoughts raced. In his memories, his territory was vast, stretching all the way to the foot of the world's tallest mountain range, the Abif Mountains. It could be said that all land beyond the Wall of Despair belonged to him.

But in reality, the land he could manage was very limited. At present, it was confined to a few kilometers around Winter City.

Moreover, the previous owner, along with the subjects who had migrated here with him, had only arrived less than two months ago.

And the previous owner had been obsessed with cultivating magic power, hoping only to catch up to his brothers and sisters. He had no interest in managing the territory, so how could he possibly have had the time to understand it?

"My apologies. Please tell me—please tell me what has happened to the territory."

Aurelian felt no shame whatsoever at being the lord of a territory and saying such things without even blushing.

My goddess, why did I end up with a lord like this?

Though Hume grumbled inwardly, his face blossomed into the bright, obsequious smile he had often worn before. That was the proper cultivation of a qualified administrative officer—it was a matter of attitude.

Had he not seen how many foolish administrative officers had been sent to the gallows simply because they did not know how to conduct themselves?

"Hehe, my lord, this situation cannot be explained in a few words. Please go and see for yourself."

The humiliation he had just suffered had long since been cast into the distant void.

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