Chapter Summaries

After a feast in the Red Tide Fief, Louis learned that Sif had fled there and would soon be killed by Frostfrozen White Bears. He decided to rescue her and ordered Lambert to prepare a hunt.

• Louis celebrated with the residents, sang a song from Earth, and woke the next morning with a hangover.
• Louis practiced the Tide Breathing Technique but remained stuck at the Mid-Rank Official Knight bottleneck.
• Louis read that Agricultural Officer Mick had proposed to Tanya and that Cold Fang had become the wolf cubs’ king.
• Louis learned that Sif had collapsed unconscious in the wilderness and would be eaten by Frostfrozen White Bears that afternoon.
• Louis chose to save Sif and summoned Lambert to arrange a hunting party.

Sif fled south after the Cold Moon Tribe was destroyed, but collapsed from exhaustion near a frozen river. Louis found her during a hunting expedition and brought her to Red Tide, where he used a life potion to save her.

• Sif escaped the burning Cold Moon Tribe after her brother Sigel sacrificed himself, but her horse collapsed and she lost consciousness in the snow.
• Louis led a hunting party north under the cover of a hunt, secretly searching for the princess he expected to find.
• A scout reported finding an unconscious girl near the frozen river, and the hunters identified her as Sif of the Cold Moon Tribe.
• Louis ordered the party to take Sif back to Red Tide for treatment despite her tribe's enmity with the Northern Frontier Province.
• Louis gave the healer a life potion, and Sif's breathing steadied, though she remained unconscious.

Louis prompted Silco to reveal his alchemy skills and prepare demon soil for frostblood redberries. After learning that demon marrow was needed, Louis ordered supplies purchased and led the Red Tide Fief's knights toward the Northwest Mountains to slay the Frost Giants and secure the mines.

• Louis repeatedly hinted that he needed demon soil until Silco admitted he knew how to prepare it and negotiated one day off each week.
• Silco gave Louis a list of ingredients for demon soil, including demon marrow from the mining area in the northwest.
• Louis decided to deal with the Frost Giants that had been roaming near the mines and claim the area's resources for the Red Tide Fief.
• Louis sent two knights to buy the alchemical materials and ordered Lambert to assemble the knights for battle.
• Lambert assembled the knights, and they rode toward the mining area in the Northwest Mountains.

Louis led the Red Tide Fief's knights and soldiers in an ambush against four Frost Giants, using traps, fire, and coordinated attacks to exploit their weaknesses. After one giant broke free and devastated a squad, Lambert and the knights brought it down, while the other fights remained underway.

• Louis ordered the Red Tide Fief's forces to split the Frost Giants and draw them into separate trap zones.
• The knights immobilized the giants with weighted hemp nets, attacked their weak joints, and used torches and flaming arrows to weaken their frost armor.
• The knights killed the first Frost Giant by striking its heart and throat.
• One Frost Giant broke free, unleashed a frost storm, froze two Apprentice Knights, and badly injured an Official Knight.
• Lambert and two Elite Knights wounded the rampaging giant, disabled its club, and led the knights in killing it.

After the battle with the Frost Giants, Louis saved a gravely wounded knight with a precious Life Potion and rewarded his soldiers for their service. He ordered the giants’ corpses brought back to the Red Tide Fief to be processed into fertilizer.

• Louis used one of his last two Life Potions to save the knight whose chest had been crushed by a Frost Giant.
• Louis promised the knights he would not readily abandon anyone who pledged loyalty to him, strengthening their resolve.
• Louis personally rewarded those who had earned merit, despite his limited funds.
• Louis ordered the Frost Giants’ corpses brought back to the Red Tide Fief for Agricultural Officer Mick to process into fertilizer.

Louis oversaw the first careful excavation of demon marrow ore, then entrusted Mick with turning Frost Giant corpses into fertilizer and cultivating precious Frostblood Redberry seeds. The chapter ended when a guard told Louis that the rescued girl had awakened.

• Louis ordered his subjects to mine a small amount of demon marrow ore and leave the rest sealed until specialists could help.
• Louis congratulated Mick on his accepted marriage proposal and gave him two smoked fish as a wedding gift.
• Louis instructed Mick to turn four Frost Giant corpses into fertilizer for the crops.
• Louis gave Mick half of the Frostblood Redberry seeds and told him to bury them in ice to activate them.
• A guard informed Louis that the rescued girl had woken up.

Sif awoke in a cabin after the destruction of the Cold Moon Tribe and learned that a southern lord had rescued her. When the lord arrived, his unexpectedly youthful and gentle appearance unsettled her, but she resolved not to trust him or reveal her identity.

• Sif woke weak and grieving after her family and tribe were destroyed, and she reminded herself that she still wanted revenge.
• A middle-aged woman gave Sif water and porridge and told her that the lord had rescued her.
• Sif feared that the lord might exploit her status as a former Cold Moon Tribe princess, so she decided to act obediently while seeking a chance to escape.
• A guard announced the lord's arrival, and Sif braced herself for a cruel imperial noble.
• The young, handsome lord entered, surprising Sif, who stayed wary and watched him closely.

Louis gave the amnesiac Sif the name Whitey and made her his secretary, while she concealed her identity as a princess and resolved to survive and take revenge. After leaving her to rest, Louis went to discuss building a castle as construction across the Red Tide Fief progressed.

• Louis questioned Sif, and she stayed silent rather than reveal her identity.
• Louis suggested Sif had lost her memory, named her Whitey, and offered her work as his secretary.
• Sif accepted the position while privately deciding to survive and take revenge.
• Louis left Sif to rest and considered how her writing skills could help Silco with paperwork.
• Louis headed to the craftsmen's workshop to discuss building a castle with Mike as houses took shape across the Red Tide Fief.

Louis decided the Red Tide Fief needed a castle quickly to withstand threats in the Northern Frontier. After Mike warned that his stone-castle design could take decades, Louis redesigned it as a practical, fast-to-build Tulou and explained its construction to the craftsmen.

• Louis visited the workshop and told Mike he wanted a castle built as soon as possible, prioritizing defense over comfort.
• Mike warned that Louis's elaborate stone-castle blueprint would take at least ten years and possibly thirty or forty to complete.
• Louis recalled Tulou buildings from his previous life and revised the blueprint into a large cylindrical structure that could be built faster and at lower cost.
• Louis explained how the Tulou would use hot-spring heat, circular defensive walls, and timber-framed homes with storage and living levels.

Louis’s Tulou castle design impressed the craftsmen, and construction began in the Red Tide Fief. After reading Louis’s letter about the fief’s resources and practical needs, Duke Calvin decided to send limited aid and Bradley to investigate and oversee him.

• Louis outlined defensive features for the Tulou, and Mike agreed the design seemed feasible despite the lack of precedent.
• The craftsmen began discussing the plan, and the Red Tide Fief’s Tulou project officially started.
• Duke Calvin read Louis’s letter, learned of the cold iron and demon marrow ore deposits, and was intrigued by Louis’s practical requests.
• Duke Calvin ordered Bradley to investigate the demon marrow ore and secretly monitor Louis’s fief.
• Duke Calvin arranged for craftsmen, architects, knights, funds, food, tools, seeds, livestock, and other limited supplies to be sent to Louis.

Bradley set out for Red Tide Fief with relief supplies, while Louis learned that Yorn Harvey would be attacked by bandits and rode out to save him. Yorn’s party was ambushed at Blue-Rock Rift, where outlaws launched a deadly assault.

• Bradley departed for Red Tide Fief with knights, craftsmen, supplies, livestock, the Blood-Drop Stone, and three thousand gold coins.
• Louis read the Daily Intelligence System’s warning that Yorn Harvey would encounter bandits at Blue-Rock Rift and decided to rescue him.
• Louis ordered Lambert to assemble the knights and prepare to leave for Blue-Rock Rift.
• Yorn boasted to his knights about his supposed exploits with Louis in the imperial capital.
• Outlaws attacked Yorn’s camp with crossbow bolts from the cliffs, killing soldiers and sending the camp into chaos.

Louis arrived with a trained knight squad and turned the bandits’ attack into a rout, rescuing Joern and his soldiers. After Lambert confirmed the captured bandits belonged to the Snow Oath, Louis ordered the prisoners executed.

• Bandits ambushed Joern’s party, overwhelmed its knights, and revealed that they had orders to take Joern back for a sacrifice.
• Louis led a squad of armored knights in a sudden charge that routed the bandits and killed their chief.
• Lambert confirmed that the surviving prisoners were members of the Snow Oath, a rebel group from the Northern Frontier.
• Louis judged the prisoners too dangerous to keep alive and ordered their execution.

Louis learned that Joern had voluntarily come to the Northern Frontier with over six hundred people and ten thousand gold coins, and accepted a pouch of gold before returning to Red Tide Fief. At the Snow Oath’s hidden camp, Hiro continued a blood ritual and rejected Elder Grom’s warning, leaving his revenge campaign unresolved.

• Joern told Louis he had volunteered for the Northern Frontier and chosen a fief beside Louis’s.
• Joern revealed he had brought over six hundred people and ten thousand gold coins, then gave Louis a pouch of gold.
• Louis invited Joern to visit Red Tide Fief and rode away with his knights while Joern set off for his own fief.
• At the Snow Oath’s secret camp, a priest sacrificed captured Ironblood Empire nobles in a ritual to the Ancient God of the Cold Abyss as Hiro watched.
• Elder Grom warned Hiro that the Northern Barbarian Witch was exploiting the Snow Oath and that its warriors were dwindling.
• Hiro had warriors drag Grom away and renewed his vow to repay blood with blood.

On her first day as Louis's secretary, Sif watched him train with Lambert and inspect the Red Tide Fief's soldiers. Louis's discipline and the soldiers' genuine respect began to challenge her suspicion that he was like the nobles of the Ironblood Empire.

• Sif arrived for her first day as Louis's secretary and watched him finish cultivating before he explained that her task was to accompany him and record his work.
• Louis trained with Lambert, repeatedly facing the knight's forceful attacks and showing Sif that he was genuinely working to improve his swordsmanship.
• Louis took Sif to inspect 120 soldiers running in formation under a standardized training regimen he had designed.
• Louis praised the soldiers, corrected several for sloppy movements, and ordered them to run five more laps, which they obeyed without hesitation.
• Sif observed the soldiers' sincere respect for Louis and began to doubt her assumption that he was no different from other imperial nobles.

Louis showed Sif how the Red Tide Fief cared for its people and managed its fishing and farmland, while Sif began to see him as an approachable leader despite her hatred of his people. The chapter ended with Sif watching Louis among the farmers, lost in thought.

• Louis visited the recovering Javier, promised to find a potion to help restore his cultivation, and ordered the guards to care for him.
• Louis inspected the river with Sif and heard fisheries officer Luke report that fish farming trials had begun under sustainable fishing rules.
• Louis visited the fields, where agricultural officer Mick reported that the turnips, rye, and potatoes were growing well.
• Louis praised Mick, joked with him about married life, and joined the farmers in a relaxed conversation.
• Sif recognized the trust Louis had earned from his subjects, reaffirmed her hatred of them, and found herself staring at Louis.

Louis showed Sif how Doris made Birch Sugar and brought candy to the children at the school. The children greeted him with excitement, while Sif heard their wildly exaggerated story of Louis bringing down a frost dragon with a stone.

• Louis visited Doris's workshop with Sif and tasted the Birch Sugar she had made from birch sap.
• Sif cautiously tried the candy, enjoyed it despite her protest, and accepted a bag from Louis.
• Louis told Doris to keep making sugar and suggested trying fruit trees when birch sap season ended.
• Louis brought candy to the school, where Sif heard a caregiver tell children an exaggerated tale of him killing a frost dragon with a pebble.
• The children welcomed Louis and eagerly ate the candy he handed out, lifting Sif's mood.

Louis trained Cold Fang with whistle commands while Sif watched and mourned her lost wolf, Solitary Moon. Louis offered her a cub to raise, and Sif named it Solitary Moon; afterward, she recorded Louis’s work and privately acknowledged that he seemed like a good person.

• Louis trained Cold Fang at the beast-training grounds, using whistle signals to direct the wolf through an ambush, attack, and retreat.
• Sif told Louis that her former Tundra Wolf, Solitary Moon, had died, and Louis invited her to choose another cub to raise.
• Sif chose a silver-gray, ice-blue-eyed cub and named it Solitary Moon, then cried as she stroked its fur.
• Louis ended the training and asked Sif to record his schedule, so she returned to her room and wrote about his work that day.
• Sif wrote that Louis was a good person, dismissed the thought aloud as possibly an act, and ate a piece of Birch Sugar.

Bradley arrived at Red Tide Fief with supplies and reinforcements from Duke Calvin, expecting to find Louis struggling in a barren frontier territory. As Bradley saw the thriving farms, new homes, and people’s devotion to Louis, he reconsidered his judgment and left hopeful about the young lord’s future.

• Bradley traveled across the Northern Frontier, doubting Louis’s claims that Red Tide Fief was flourishing and rich in demon marrow ore.
• Louis welcomed Bradley and received three Elite Knights, ten Official Knights, thirty Apprentice Knights, skilled workers, food, seeds, and livestock sent by Duke Calvin.
• Bradley told Louis that the Calvin Family would invest further if he managed the fief well, but would withdraw its support if he proved incompetent.
• Bradley saw thriving crops, new farmland, and recently built longhouses as the party traveled through Red Tide Fief.
• Bradley noticed that the people showed Louis genuine affection and respect, and concluded that Louis had understated his achievements and had a promising future.

Louis led Bradley and the craftsmen to a vast demon marrow ore deposit in the Red Tide Fief, which proved far richer and more valuable than expected. Valentin began surveying the dangerous mine and planning its development, while Bradley resolved to report the discovery and request more guards.

• Louis led Bradley, Valentin, and the miners to the site, where they discovered a huge, high-purity demon marrow ore vein.
• Valentin judged the deposit to rank among the Ironblood Empire’s top twenty, and Bradley recognized its strategic value.
• Bradley warned Louis that the mine could attract attackers, and Louis said he had only informed his father by letter.
• Valentin surveyed the mine, identified stable and unstable areas, and warned that miners could suffer mana poisoning.
• Valentin proposed ventilation shafts, support frames, and tunnel dimensions, and Louis entrusted him with the mining plan.

Louis oversaw the reinforcement of the mine and confirmed that its demon marrow was exceptionally pure. He arranged for the Calvin Family to handle sales while keeping processing in the Red Tide Fief, then used the family’s influence to acquire 1,500 slaves and began imagining a future in which he could command that influence himself.

• Valentin directed workers to reinforce the mine, and Louis ordered miners to extract a small test batch of demon marrow.
• Silco tested the ore and reported to Louis that its purity was even higher than expected.
• Louis told Bradley that mining and processing would remain in the Red Tide Fief while the Calvin Family handled sales, and Bradley agreed to relay the arrangement to Duke Calvin.
• Louis asked Bradley to exchange gold for slaves, limiting the purchase to 1,500 people based on the fief’s food supplies.
• Bradley’s letter brought slave traders to the Red Tide Fief, where they delivered 1,500 high-quality slaves at a price that left Louis with 700 gold coins.
• Louis thanked Bradley and wondered whether he might one day command the Calvin Family’s full influence.