Chapter 144. The Bloody Banquet (2)
“The world created by the Goddesses is not fair. The talents one is born with are different, and the position one stands in at birth is different, so the limits one can ultimately reach are set.”
Ensadu’s voice was heard in the dark hall.
Although the voice was clearly audible, it was a strange sound whose origin could not be specified.
It seed to be speaking from the front, then echoed from behind, and soon seed to whisper in one’s ear.
“That is why we always feel our own limits as we live. Because the existence known as human was made that way by the Goddesses.”
Count Lacie quietly closed his eyes and listened to the voice.
Limits and powerlessness.
Ensadu was right.
He was born as the son of a count family and eventually rose to the position of the hegemon of the south with Bigrove, but this was his limit.
He could not surpass Tolo with the sword, Ulbricht in power, or Cadmus in potential.
Count Lacie, who had realized his limits and realized he could not overco them, was in despair.
“So, accept it.”
Ensadu, appearing like smoke, was suddenly standing next to Count Lacie.
“The frustration, anger, powerlessness you felt while looking at your limits... all of it is based on the fear that arose from realizing your incomplete self.”
Count Lacie opened his eyes.
His knights were lined up in front of him.
They were not before, but now they were stronger than Tolo, younger than Cadmus, and nobler than Ulbricht.
They were his knights who had surpassed the limits set by this world and the Goddesses.
“Accept fear. Only then can you escape from your own limits, from your trapped potential.”
Ensadu was right.
Having accepted fear and realized his limits as a human, he had beco qualified to overco it.
“I hope Count Blanc likes it.”
An empty echo erged from Count Lacie’s mouth.
“He should like the gift I am giving him.”
But his laughter was not empty.
***
Baron Capone, who entered Norington in ti for Blanc’s birthday banquet, could not help but widen his eyes.
“I heard he had opened trade with the dwarves, but...”
Even Baron Capone’s aides could not hide their surprise at the current scene.
The ones repairing Norington’s walls.
They were all dwarves.
“They say they won’t accept a commission if they don’t like it, no matter how much money you offer...”
It was not just the walls.
The well-maintained roads and the plaza were overflowing with people, and in the comrcial district Blanc had prepared, not only rchants from the Felix Kingdom but also rchants from the Kingdom of Anton and even Gartaria were mixed together.
Baron Capone had visited Norington when Pallard Cadmus was the lord, but the current Norington was completely different from the Norington of that ti.
“My choice was right.”
Baron Capone felt proud of himself seeing the developed state of Norington.
Because the profits generated from here would flow beyond Norington to his own domain.
Baron Capone deliberately looked around Norington slowly as he headed for the Cadmus family mansion.
The white mansion standing tall at the highest point of Norington began to co into his sight.
“Only this place remains unchanged.”
Baron Capone had visited when Pallard Cadmus was the lord.
Although Norington’s appearance had changed incomparably from before, this mansion, despite being newly built, looked exactly as it did back then.
The only difference, perhaps, was the honorable flags fluttering from the mansion.
“Welco, Baron Capone.”
Baron Capone saw a black-haired man walking out from the entrance of the white mansion.
As Blanc slowly approached him, Baron Capone was looking for the image of a certain man that he evoked.
“The way you are becoming more dignified reminds of Lord Pallard.”
There was a black-haired lord who had welcod him with open arms when Baron Capone had visited this place before.
Blanc smiled upon hearing Baron Capone’s words.
He felt grateful to him for rembering his father and for finally answering his call, albeit late.
“You’re not going to turn away at the door for coming too early, are you?”
Baron Capone laughed heartily at Blanc’s hospitality and shook the hand Blanc offered.
“Turn you away? On the contrary, I am only sorry that I could not go outside the domain to welco you.”
“...I am sorry. For responding to Lord Pallard’s call so late.”
To Baron Capone’s genuinely apologetic words, Blanc simply responded with a smile.
Baron Capone had long shared his concerns with Pallard Cadmus.
So much so that in the joint petition Pallard Cadmus had created, Baron Capone’s na was written right below Pallard’s.
“Thank you for helping since Count Lacie’s birthday banquet last year until now.”
Although it was very late, Baron Capone decided to keep the oath he had made with Pallard.
“Four lords have agreed to join us. They are the ones closest to Norington and who have suffered greatly at the hands of Count Lacie.”
Although Blanc was a rising power, his influence in the south was limited.
This was because, in addition to Count Lacie’s interference, his relationships with the lords of other domains were completely cut off.
It was a situation that had occurred because the previous lord, Pallard, who should have connected and created those relationships, had died a violent death.
“Thank you for doing what I should have done.”
Blanc decided to entrust that role to Baron Capone.
“There was no need for to say anything. Everyone welcod it with open arms.”
Blanc, who had ford relationships with the southern lords by borrowing Baron Capone’s influence.
His blueprint for Norington was now reaching its final stages.
To the east of Norington, bordering Gartaria, were Quiesco, Tolo, and Neudorf.
To the west of Norington, where Count Lacie was rampant, were Baron Capone and the lords he had recruited.
“I will do my best for our alliance.”
Blanc had to increase his influence over them through Norington, which was newly becoming the center of the south.
“You will not regret choosing .”
To Blanc’s confident reply, Baron Capone responded with a smile.
***
In ti for Blanc’s birthday banquet, lords from the south were arriving in Norington one after another.
“Welco, everyone.”
However, their purpose was not so much to celebrate Blanc’s birthday as it was to get a glimpse of the new flow of the south.
They were here to judge how to treat Blanc, who had openly rebelled at Count Lacie’s birthday banquet last year.
However, the lords who arrived in Norington could not help but fall into extre confusion.
This was because Norington was becoming much stronger than they had anticipated, and there were already lords who were embracing Blanc and showing off their friendship.
“Do not worry. If you can hold out for this year, we will support you through the newly created granary.”
“That’s very reassuring! Count Blanc!”
“Count Blanc, I would like to hire dwarves...”
“A Dwarf Craftsman Guild, directly established by Brotswav, will soon be opened. It will be faster if you inquire through them.”
“Oh... the dwarves themselves!”
The order of the south was being reorganized much faster than they had anticipated.
Blanc Cadmus possessed not only what Count Lacie had but also what he did not.
His influence was recognized more in other kingdoms and the Goddess Order than in the south, so it seed clear that he would soon surpass Count Lacie’s influence if given ti.
At the sight of the shining Blanc, not only the lords who had been neutral but also those who had decided to stand by Count Lacie showed clear signs of contemplation.
“A success, Count Blanc.”
Blanc smiled quietly at Baron Capone, who approached him and spoke quietly.
This banquet had been created for this purpose from the beginning.
To show off his power, shake Count Lacie’s forces, and reorganize the order of the south.
Blanc raised his wine glass and quietly looked around.
“...I see.”
Everyone here was looking at him.
What he was doing, whom he was eting, what he was talking about.
Everyone was pretending to laugh and talk, but they were watching Blanc’s every move.
Blanc was at the center of everything.
However, to perfectly complete the plan he had made, there was a mountain he had to overco.
“My lord, they say Count Lacie has arrived.”
Hearing Billy’s report, a deep smile ford on Blanc’s lips.
“What was ant to co has co.”
It seed Count Lacie had decided to confront Blanc directly rather than just cowering in his domain.
Blanc turned his body towards his adversary who would soon enter.
“Show him in.”
The doors of the banquet hall opened in response to Blanc’s signal.
As a rule, the star of the banquet either makes the first entrance or the last.
Not only Blanc but all the lords in the banquet hall made an expression of ‘what was ant to co has co’ and looked at the person walking in from beyond the door.
Count Lacie entered with his knights, accompanied by the sound of clomping footsteps.
With each step he took, the tension in the banquet hall soared.
“Happy birthday! Count Blanc!”
Blanc licked his lips, trying to ease his tension.
Watching Count Lacie walk over with a happy expression, he once again felt that he was not an easy person to deal with.
“Thank you for coming all this way.”
“Isn’t it through exchanged congratulations that trust sprouts? Last year you ca to congratulate , so it is only natural that I co this year.”
Blanc shook the hand that Count Lacie offered.
“Even so, for you to co all this way...”
However, as Blanc clasped hands with Count Lacie, he noticed a sinister energy emanating from him.
Sothing unpleasant but familiar, painful to think about and hesitant to recall.
“But it seems the gift I sent has not arrived yet.”
Unlike Count Lacie who was smiling good-naturedly, Blanc’s expression was rapidly hardening.
In a situation where many people were gathered and he had to use it to his advantage, Blanc should not have done so, but he still could not easily hide his expression.
“...”
The lords who had been welcoming Blanc and Count Lacie realized sothing was going wrong as they watched Blanc’s expression distort.
A terrible silence began to settle amidst the fading applause.
In the silence where no one could easily speak, only Blanc and Count Lacie were intensely staring at each other.
“...Count Lacie, what have you done now?”
Blanc finally spoke, his voice growling as he spewed forth a thick anger.
An anger that could not be fully contained by the mask of Blanc Cadmus, Lord of Norington, was burning red in Blanc’s eyes.
“...What’s with this person getting angry already when the gift hasn’t even arrived yet?”
The sound of a snake flicking its tongue could be heard riding on the sinister air.
Blanc saw the shadow of a void snake coiling in the eyes of the playfully smiling Count Lacie.
“If you cross over to that place, you will never be able to return, Count Lacie.”
Blanc’s cold anger blazed as he saw the void shadow hiding in Count Lacie’s eyes, but Count Lacie simply laughed it off.
“Thank you for thinking of even when you’re busy.”
The cold and sharp current created by Blanc and Count Lacie soon stopped and froze everything in the banquet hall.
Sothing was going wrong.
“My lord!”
At that mont.
Breaking through the terrible silence that seed like it would last forever, soone suddenly opened the door and ran in.
“Help us!”
It was an elf.
A griffin rider who was protecting the Spirit Tree with Beronion.
The honorable griffin rider, as if he had no ti to worry about his own dignity or the surrounding situation, ca to find Blanc and said in an urgent voice.
“An unidentified group of evil beings is approaching the vicinity of the Spirit Tree!”
Hearing the elf’s report, which was spewed out all at once, Blanc turned his head to look at Count Lacie.
The smile he was wearing was sohow twisted.
“Don’t be so angry.”
Count Lacie approached Blanc with that twisted smile.
“Didn’t I say the gift I sent has just arrived now?”
His voice, whispering quietly in Blanc’s ear, was tinged with a void energy.
“So, won’t you smile for a little now?”
The void snake was slithering up Blanc’s neck.
Reviews
All reviews (0)