Louis Calvin's inauguration banquet as Commandery Governor and Snowpeak Commandery's first assembly were to be held in the Red Tide Fief.
As soon as the news spread, nobles from all quarters set out ahead of time, making their way to the young noble's fief.
Each had their own calculations, hoping to secure greater benefits for themselves.
Snowpeak Commandery had only finished fighting a war last year, followed immediately by the Northern Frontier's long winter...
By all rights, everything should have been a complete mess.
Yet the moment they entered the Red Tide Fief, they all fell silent.
How was this anything like what we expected?
They had imagined ruined houses and smoke rising from battlefields. Instead, they found level gravel roads and streets so clean they practically reflected their faces. Even the roadside trees stood in perfectly straight rows.
"Have... have we taken the wrong road?" a southern baron murmured, steadying himself against his saddle.
"What a joke. If this is a postwar wasteland, our own estates must be primeval forests!"
Another noble from the Northern Frontier looked disgruntled. His words remained defiant, but his eyes kept straying toward the orderly villages.
Farmers worked their fields, children ran into modest schools with books on their backs, and noticeboards in the residential districts displayed "This month's grain distribution standards."
The nobles fell utterly silent. Their own estates were still fretting over spring food shortages, while this place had already started distributing grain?
Patrol cavalry occasionally passed by, their armor gleaming and their movements synchronized. One glance showed they were Knights with Battle Aura, nothing like a hastily assembled army. Their cloaks snapped in the wind, and merely standing there was enough to make the nobles feel pressured.
It felt less like a welcome for the nobles than a display of strength.