Quinte rode into White Salt Town with a squad of guards.
Sure enough, he found the Storm Territory's unlucky peasants, filthy and reeking, each holding fish to sell.
The Storm Territory peasants selling whale meat also paled when they saw him arrive.
Quinte was barely in his twenties, but so corpulent that his warhorse could hardly breathe beneath him. He was also notorious for his sharp tongue and cruelty.
"Where did you get all this fish? Are there really fish this big in the sea?" Quinte enjoyed seeing the serfs tremble before him in fear. Looking down at them, he questioned the crowd.
"My lord Quinte, our lord lent it to us!" The serfs naturally didn't dare neglect him and hurried to answer respectfully.
"Hmm? Then how did your lord get so much fish?"
"I... I don't know!" The person Quinte questioned happened to be Kenbi Cowdung. Though fear showed on his face, Kenbi immediately shook his head and lied.
Crack!
"Speak up! How could you not know where all this fish came from?" Hearing the answer, one of the guards immediately cracked his whip through the air to threaten them, without caring whether it was true.
"My lord Quinte, I... I really don't know. Our lord told us to come and borrow it! When we arrived, the fish was already piled up by the roadside." Kenbi Cowdung shrank his neck in fright.
The guard was about to swing his whip again, but Quinte stopped him.
"If you don't know, then so be it! Go ahead and sell it. However, White Salt production has fallen recently, so we can't sell any to the Storm Territory for now!" Quinte held his head high and spoke nonchalantly.
"Ah, you won't sell us any salt?"
Kenbi Cowdung and the other serfs all tensed up. They needed White Salt to preserve the fish, and without salt to cure it, the meat wouldn't keep for long.
Quinte didn't care how Kenbi Cowdung and the others reacted. He continued, "Also, food such as wheat has been in short supply lately. From now on, you'll have to pay three times the tax when you buy it." With that, Quinte rode back toward the castle on his overburdened warhorse.
Quinte's reasoning was simple: by depriving the serfs of salt, he could force them to sell all their fish to him, then exploit the Storm Territory's serfs with heavy taxes.
That way, even if he couldn't learn how to obtain the fish for the time being, he could still make a fortune.
The Barony of Quinte was the closest territory to the Storm Territory. If they didn't sell the fish, it would only spoil. Quinte had no reason to worry.
"Johnny, give the order. From now on, whenever those unlucky peasants come to sell fish, buy it all. I'll have it made into dried fish and sell it elsewhere in the Earl Territory," Quinte said casually on the way back to the castle.
"Yes, my lord!" Johnny, the captain of the guard squad, cautiously kept pace beside him, then asked, "My lord, should we send a few men to infiltrate the Storm Territory...?"
He knew his lord would certainly want to find out how they had obtained so much fish. The Quinte Territory also had a coastline, which meant this could be a source of wealth.
"For now, the situation in the Buffer Zone is what matters most. We don't want that lord paying too much attention to this area. If more fish shows up after a while, then we can investigate."
"Yes, my lord!" the guard replied. Then he and the others escorted Quinte back to the castle.
"Village chief! What do we do now?" After Quinte left, several villagers from Misfortune Village gathered around Kenbi Cowdung.
"Let's sell the fish first and take some food home," Kenbi Cowdung said, his face full of worry. But there was nothing he could do. For now, they could only exchange the fish they had brought for food.
Although the tax had tripled, they had already brought the fish here. By the time they got home, it would be dark, and after sitting in the sun all day, the fish would definitely have spoiled.
Another day passed in a flash.
In the study of the Storm Territory's baronial castle, Nalant was looking over the census Vivian had completed through tireless effort.
The census had been carried out strictly according to Nalant's instructions, and it recorded the Storm Territory's population in full.
The Storm Territory had a total of 1,321 residents, all serfs and not a single commoner.
What surprised Nalant, however, was that there were quite a few skilled workers among the serfs.
There were eight hunters, five carpenters, three stonemasons, one blacksmith, and one cook.
For a population of over a thousand to include so many skilled workers was good news for Nalant, regardless of how accomplished they were—especially since one of them was even a cook.
Stonemasons and blacksmiths were highly sought-after professions in this world. They rarely became serfs, let alone willingly came to the Land of Misfortune.
Of course, Nalant knew that every one of them had been exiled to the Storm Territory along with their families because a Daughter of Misfortune had appeared in their household.
"My long-awaited cook has finally appeared! I wonder when the second Daughter of Misfortune will show up."
Putting down the register, Nalant couldn't help thinking of the reward for completing the side quest. Two days had passed already, yet there was still no news of the second Daughter of Misfortune.
"Ding! Although you've given the serfs enough food, their lack of salt makes preserving the fish a difficult problem."
"System side quest: Help the serfs solve their salt problem!"
"Quest reward: Battle Qi secret technique!"
"Hm? Another quest?" Nalant was taken aback by the system's voice in his mind. "Solve their salt problem? Isn't the Storm Territory by the sea?"
Nalant found it strange. How could a coastal territory lack salt? Even if the Storm Territory had none, they could buy it from the Barony of Quinte. Given the geographical advantage, salt shouldn't be too expensive.
"But the reward of a Battle Qi secret technique is incredibly generous! I need to finish this quest quickly!" Thinking it over, Nalant decided the quest was well worth doing, because the reward was too tempting.
A Battle Qi secret technique was, as the name suggested, a powerful move exclusive to a Title Knight.
It allowed a Title Knight to unleash a devastating attack in an instant by using a special method of circulating Battle Qi.
However, although Battle Qi secret techniques were powerful, they were extremely difficult to obtain. They were every Title Knight's ultimate trump card.
After all, in the age of cold weapons, victory was decided by the sword. One powerful move could offer a glimpse of victory.
The Berick Family didn't have a Battle Qi secret technique. It was a newly risen noble family, and it had only been a baronial house for a few decades.
At the thought, Nalant couldn't sit still. He rose and headed straight for the door.
Nalant had just left the study and reached the first-floor hall when Thomas hurried in from outside the castle!
"My lord! Captain Quick reports that several serfs have arrived outside the castle. They're asking to see you!"
"Hmm, I know." Nalant wasn't surprised. They must be here about their request for salt.
"Greetings, my lord!" In the courtyard, Nalant had the guards let the serfs in. They were the two village chiefs, Kenbi Cowdung and Pete Leatherboot.
Since there was no steward, Nalant had told them they could come straight to the castle to report any problems.
"Get up. What brings you to the castle?" Nalant asked from the chair the servants had brought out for him.
"My lord, please forgive us for disturbing you. We wouldn't have come to the castle if we hadn't been left with no other choice!" Kenbi Cowdung spoke first.
"Just tell me what it is. No need to beat around the bush," Nalant said, waving a hand.
"Yes, my lord. My lord, you generously lent each of us fifty pounds of fish, but we don't have enough salt to preserve it. So we'd like to ask your permission to go to Black Rock Territory and buy some."
Serfs were their lord's private property and weren't allowed to leave the territory without permission.
The Barony of Quinte was only half a day's journey away, and they had always gone there to trade. The people of the Quinte Territory wouldn't do anything to them.
But if they went to another lord's territory, where no one knew them, they'd be in trouble if a guard caught them.
They'd either be driven away or captured and sent back to the Storm Territory. Then their own lord would have to pay their well-meaning noble neighbor a small compensation, and they could imagine what would happen to them.