Chapter Summaries

At Duke Edmund’s banquet, Louis was welcomed into the Northern Frontier’s elite circle and listened as the nobles discussed winter preparations and disparaged Frontier Nobles. The gathering ended with Edmund revealing that the king planned a southward campaign and wanted the Northern Frontier to provide knights.

• A crowd of nobles surrounded Louis at the banquet until an attendant escorted him to Duke Edmund’s reception room.
• Duke Edmund introduced Louis to prominent counts, who praised his victory at Clearfeather Ridge and accepted him into their circle.
• The nobles discussed the approaching winter casually, while Louis worried about protecting the people in his newly acquired lands.
• Several nobles mocked Frontier Nobles, and Count Albert noted that Louis was an exception.
• Duke Edmund announced that the king planned to expand south in a few years and expected the Northern Frontier to send knights as reinforcements.

Duke Edmund appointed Louis prefect of Snowpeak Commandery and secretly proposed a marriage alliance between Louis and his daughter Emily to Duke Calvin. Duke Calvin was startled when he read the proposal.

• Duke Edmund told the Northern Frontier nobles that victories in a coming campaign could win them land in the south, stirring their enthusiasm.
• Duke Edmund asked Louis to become prefect of Snowpeak Commandery, and Louis accepted while promising to help the war-ravaged region's subjects.
• Duke Edmund sent Duke Calvin a letter proposing that Louis marry Emily, judging Louis a suitable match for his daughter and family.
• Duke Calvin read Edmund's letter in his study and nearly spat out his tea when he saw the marriage proposal.

Duke Calvin learned that his overlooked son Louis had become a celebrated military leader and Commandery Governor in the Northern Frontier, prompting him to reconsider Duke Edmund’s marriage proposal. He saw an alliance with House Edmund as a valuable refuge from the emperor’s pressure but began weighing the political risks before replying.

• Duke Calvin read Duke Edmund’s proposal to betroth Emily Edmond to Louis Calvin and wondered why Edmund had chosen his son.
• Duke Calvin read Louis’s report of his victories, medal, land grant, and promotion to Commandery Governor of Snowpeak Commandery.
• Duke Calvin realized he had underestimated Louis and considered him a potential representative of the Calvin Family in the Northern Frontier.
• Duke Calvin decided the marriage alliance could give his family a northern fallback amid the emperor’s growing pressure on the great houses.
• Duke Calvin recalled the emperor’s age, the Third Prince’s suspicious death, and the resulting political tensions, then began drafting a cautious reply.

Duke Calvin accepted Duke Edmund's proposed marriage alliance between Louis and Emily and sent support to Louis in the Northern Frontier. Louis learned of the match through his Daily Intelligence System, then hurried out to hunt Frost-Mane Tundra Rabbits whose Ice Moss Fruit could strengthen his Battle Aura.

• Duke Calvin sent Duke Edmund a letter expressing preliminary acceptance of the marriage alliance between Louis and Emily.
• Duke Calvin ordered officials, supplies, knights, greater family resources, and authority sent to support Louis in the Red Tide Fief.
• Louis woke in his tent and learned from the Daily Intelligence System that Duke Calvin had accepted the marriage proposal.
• Louis learned that Duke Calvin's fourteenth son would be born in seven days and reflected on his family and his sister Rachelna.
• Louis discovered that Frost-Mane Tundra Rabbits had appeared near the camp and led several Knights northwest to hunt them.

Louis hunted three Frost-Mane Tundra Rabbits and used their Ice Moss Fruit to break through to Novice Elite Knight. As his Battle Aura surged, his dormant bloodline awakened.

• Louis led seven knights to hunt the wary Frost-Mane Tundra Rabbits and ordered them to lay a Cloud Moss Powder bait trail.
• Louis and the knights ambushed the three rabbits with nets and paralyzing needles, then collected their nine clusters of Ice Moss Fruit.
• Louis ordered the Ice Moss Fruit and rabbit meat made into soup and drank a bowl at camp.
• Louis practiced the Tide Breathing Technique as the soup’s energy surged through him, breaking his barrier and making him a Novice Elite Knight.
• Louis discovered that his breakthrough had awakened his dormant bloodline.

Louis awakened the bloodline talent Trajectory, which let him briefly predict an opponent’s movements, and tested it in a spar with Fryo. After using the talent to disarm Fryo, Louis told Lambert that he had awakened a bloodline talent.

• Louis awakened Trajectory, gaining a brief ability to predict targets’ movements and a warning premonition in mortal danger.
• Louis emerged from his tent, and the knights celebrated his breakthrough to Apprentice Knight.
• Louis challenged the mid-tier Elite Knight Fryo to a spar and initially struggled against Fryo’s greater strength and experience.
• Louis activated Trajectory, anticipated Fryo’s attack, and knocked the sword from his hand.
• Lambert asked how Louis had countered Fryo, and Louis quietly revealed that he had awakened a bloodline talent.

Louis returned to the Red Tide Fief after surviving the campaign and winning glorious victories, and the people welcomed him as their hero. Lambert advanced to Transcendent Knight after drinking Frost-Mane Tundra Rabbit soup, while Vale reaffirmed his goal of becoming a Knight at Louis’s side.

• Louis told Lambert he had awakened his bloodline talent, and Lambert urged him to keep it secret.
• Louis gave Lambert a Frost-Mane Tundra Rabbit, and Lambert broke through his five-year bottleneck to become a Transcendent Knight.
• Louis and his party returned to the Red Tide Fief, where the townspeople gathered to celebrate his survival and victories.
• Bradley welcomed Louis home, and Louis thanked him for his hard work.
• Vale watched Louis’s return and vowed to become a Knight at his side.
• Louis told the crowd, “Red Tide Fief, your lord has returned,” and the town erupted in cheers.

Louis Calvin returned to the Red Tide Fief and held a banquet to thank its people for protecting the land, promising improvements and freeing two hundred slaves. He honored the knights for their service, while Vale resolved to earn recognition from Louis one day.

• Bradley prepared a public homecoming banquet, and Louis arrived before the gathered people with an honor guard of knights.
• Louis thanked the people of the Red Tide Fief, promised to use the victory’s gains to improve their lives, and announced that two hundred people were freed from slavery.
• Bradley read the freed people’s names as they celebrated, and Louis assured the remaining slaves that they could earn their freedom through their work.
• Louis honored knights for their service by awarding badges, ale, gold, weapons, and land or estate management rights.
• Vale watched the knights receive their rewards and vowed to earn recognition from Louis himself.

After celebrating his fief’s growing prosperity, Louis reviewed intelligence about resources across his lands and substantial support from the Calvin Family. The new personnel, supplies, Knights, and authority gave him timely help as he worked to stabilize and administer his expanding territory.

• Louis watched the feast in his fief and allowed himself to enjoy its growing prosperity.
• The Daily Intelligence System reported new medicinal plants, demon marrow ore, and Snow Mountain Goats across Louis’s territories.
• Louis learned that the Calvin Family had sent over forty civil officials and stewards, along with winter supplies and a contingent of Knights.
• Louis considered how the officials and Knights could help administer his lands and strengthen their defenses.
• Louis learned that Duke Calvin had made him the Calvin Family’s representative in the Northern Frontier, granting him access to commercial networks and trade routes.
• Louis recognized that the family’s support had arrived when his expanding territory urgently needed it.

Louis reviewed the war-damaged lands under his authority and organized a plan to aid the refugees while preventing disease. He left Sif to prepare the orders as he noticed her reaction to him.

• Louis greeted Sif in his office and received her compiled reports on the Red Tide Fief and newly controlled lands.
• Louis focused on the refugee crisis and warned that an infectious disease outbreak could become a catastrophe.
• Louis divided nearly a thousand square kilometers into the Gray Deer Fief, the Ice Ridge Fief, the Snowfield Fief, and the Cold Fir Fief, assigning knights to investigate refugee needs and numbers.
• Louis ordered reception outposts with shelters, clean water, food, bedding, and medicine, and directed workers to build them to winter standards.
• Louis established a food-for-work program, called for registers of workers and skilled refugees, and planned for his family, knights, and refugee representatives to staff and manage the outposts.
• Sif admired Louis's concern and focus, but blushed when he caught her staring and asked whether he had dirt on his face.

Louis summoned Vale after learning of his remarkable progress as a Reserve Knight and gave him rare Frost-Mane Tundra Rabbit soup. As the soup’s powerful energy surged through Vale, Barnes instructed him to sit still and control his Battle Aura.

• Sif abandoned her attempt to explain herself when a cook arrived with Louis’s rabbit soup.
• Barnes brought Vale to Louis and praised how Vale had advanced to High-Rank Apprentice Knight in two months.
• Vale knelt before Louis, whose calm response concealed his surprise at Vale’s talent and devotion.
• Louis offered Vale the valuable soup and told him to prove himself worthy of it.
• Vale drank the soup and felt its energy surge through his body, prompting Barnes to tell him to sit cross-legged and steady his Battle Aura.

After Vale ate the Frost-Mane Tundra Rabbit soup, he broke through two ranks and nearly reached High-Rank Official Knight. Louis appointed him as his knight bodyguard, and Vale eagerly accepted.

• Barnes guided Vale through the breathing technique as he endured the rabbit soup’s surging power.
• Vale broke through from Apprentice Knight to Low-Rank Official Knight, then advanced again to Mid-Rank Official Knight.
• Vale nearly pushed his power to High-Rank Official Knight but stopped short without losing control.
• Vale struggled to express his gratitude to Louis, who appointed him as his knight bodyguard starting the next day.
• Vale accepted the appointment and promised Louis he would not let him down.

Louis inspected the newly completed Red Rock Storehouse, where Bradley had built a carefully organized underground granary and food-storage facility. Vale saw its abundant grain and realized his mother no longer needed to fear going hungry over winter.

• Louis rode past Vale's mother at the smoked fish workshop, and he made the embarrassed boy greet her while on duty.
• Louis and his guards arrived at the concealed Red Rock Storehouse, where Bradley welcomed them.
• Bradley showed Louis the storehouse's separate rooms, ventilation, rat barriers, removable shelves, and other storage features.
• Louis praised Bradley's work as he inspected the clean, orderly storehouse.
• Vale saw the storehouse's large supply of grain and felt relieved that his mother would not need to worry about food for winter.

Louis reviewed the Red Tide Fief’s winter reserves and realized they could only barely feed its current residents for four months, leaving thousands of refugees on his new territory without food. He chose to buy more provisions through the Calvin Family’s merchant associations and ordered Bradley to bring them in before winter.

• Bradley showed Louis the organized food stores and calculated that their reserves could barely sustain the Red Tide Fief’s roughly twenty-five hundred residents through winter.
• Louis realized the food sent by the Calvin Family would not be enough to feed the thousands of refugees on his newly acquired territory.
• Louis considered abandoning the refugees but decided he could not leave them to die in the snow.
• Louis ordered Bradley to buy cheap, filling, long-lasting food through the Calvin Family’s merchant association channels and deliver it before winter.

Louis prepared the Red Tide Fief for winter by starting hot-spring greenhouses and overseeing a bumper fishing harvest. After the first crops sprouted and the fish migration yielded more than two thousand fish, he ordered Luke to test winter fishing grounds.

• Louis ordered Mick to build small greenhouses near the hot springs and plant fast-growing lettuce, winter radishes, and earth dragon grass.
• The first greenhouses were completed, and lettuce seedlings sprouted in the warm soil.
• Louis explained the greenhouses to Vale, then went with him to inspect the docks and fishing fleet.
• Luke reported that the first haul would bring in more than two thousand fish and credited Louis's changes to the fishing nets.
• Louis told Luke to take men and set up a few simple winter fishing grounds.

Louis outlined winter fishing methods to help the Red Tide Fief stockpile food. Elsewhere, Ian struggled to keep his feverish daughter Mia alive in their ruined village, and he reached for a blade when he heard approaching hoofbeats.

• Louis suggested reinforcing holes in slow-moving rivers, setting baited nets beneath the ice, and using warm runoff to keep fish alive; Luke eagerly accepted the task.
• Ian held his unconscious, feverish daughter Mia in a ruined house and remembered how the Snow Oath had destroyed their village two months earlier.
• Ian had scavenged food and shelter for Mia, but she worsened after developing a high fever two nights ago.
• Old Ewan told Ian that Mia would not survive and urged him to let her die, but Ian ordered him out.
• Ian heard hoofbeats approaching, feared the bandits had returned, and reached for his woodcutting blade.

A knight of the Red Tide Fief took Ian’s feverish daughter Mia to a relief camp, where physicians treated her and said she had a good chance of surviving. Ian stayed beside her through the night, and as dawn came he watched her breathing steady and received a bowl of hot porridge.

• A knight of the Red Tide Fief caught Ian’s cleaver, found Mia burning with fever, and carried her toward a nearby physician.
• Ian chased the knight on foot for nearly two hours and reached a refugee camp among the ruins of a village attacked by the Snow Oath.
• Ian found Mia being treated in the camp’s largest tent, and a physician told him her fever had eased and she still had a good chance of surviving.
• Ian stayed beside Mia all night as her breathing steadied and her forehead cooled.
• At dawn, a boy wearing the Red Tide Fief’s red armband brought Ian hot porridge, which he ate in tears.

Ian and his daughter Mia found refuge under Lord Louis Calvin’s rule, where Ian received supplies and work as a carpenter. As Mia awoke and thanked her lord with Ian, a band of about thirty armed bandits attacked the camp’s food line.

• Ian reunited with Aike, who praised Lord Louis Calvin for rescuing refugees and providing food, medicine, and shelter.
• An official registered Ian, gave him supplies and boots, and assigned him to help build houses at work shed number three.
• Mia opened her eyes, held Ian’s hand, and called him “Daddy,” bringing Ian to tears as he thanked Lord Louis Calvin.
• Louis’s relief teams took in refugees across his newly acquired lands, including displaced people willing to work.
• About thirty bandits rushed the camp’s porridge line and demanded that the food be handed over.

Louis’s order led the Red Tide Knights to crush bandits attacking the refugee camp and execute seven after a public trial. The refugees settled into safer, more stable lives, and confidence in the Red Tide Fief’s rules began to take root.

• Three Red Tide Knights charged into the camp, killed more than twenty bandits, and captured the survivors.
• An officer sentenced seven captured bandits to death under the laws of the Red Tide Fief, and a Red Tide Knight carried out the executions before the cheering crowd.
• Louis had ordered a public trial and beheadings to establish that robbery and murder would be punished by death.
• Refugees who registered and worked received regular meals, shelter, and protection as craftsmen built partially sunken dwellings.
• Ian worked on the new homes while Mia recovered, and he felt grateful to Lord Louis.
• The refugees grew more hopeful and secure, and the belief that workers would be fed and protected spread through the camp.

Louis trained and praised Cold Fang before hearing reports of progress across his fiefs and visiting the nearly completed castle in the Red Tide Fief. He admired its rugged design and met Mike at the gate, where Mike proudly announced the castle was finished on time.

• Louis played with Cold Fang, who followed his commands and sought affection from him.
• Sif read reports about new livestock, settlement, civilian rescues, and bandit suppression across the fiefs.
• Louis learned that the Red Tide Fief castle was nearly finished and decided to inspect it after lunch.
• Louis admired the castle’s sturdy, practical design and credited himself with its concept.
• Mike emerged from the castle and told Louis that he had completed the task on time.