Thirty kilometers southwest of South Los stood a town with a population of twenty thousand.
This was South Town!
A town established only after the Seven-Year War had ended.
Elsewhere in South County, a population like that would have been enough to make it a small city.
Near South Los, however, it could only be called a town, and nothing more-in fact, a settlement with so many people should never have existed near South Los.
If...
Not for the coal and iron mines.
Toward the end of the Seven-Year War, the young Lissop had been knighted by his commander, Baron Borna, for his valor in battle and for being the first over the enemy walls three times. Later, he had saved Baron Borna during the battle of the Mold River Channel and reversed the entire course of the battle with a Death-or-Glory Assault, securing victory for the South County allied army. That feat had earned him the title of Lord.
Although it was not hereditary, it was still enough to inspire envy.
But what people envied most was this lord's luck-
Anyone with the title of Lord needed a fief, even if the title could not be inherited. An estate with two hundred to three hundred residents had been the preferred choice among lords at the time.
Lissop was no exception. He had chosen the then-nameless land where South Town now stood as his fief-it lay off South Los Road, and the South County allied army was still in its honeymoon period. The old Count of South Los had paid it little mind. Once Lissop had paid the appropriate amount in gold coins and sworn allegiance to the old Count, the land had become his.
An oath like that was different from the Lionheart Salute.
The Lionheart Salute was far