Chương 72: The Return

Three days after leaving the massive white walls of the Western Market City, the black carriage was rolling steadily along the dirt highways. Inside the cabin, Karen was sitting by the window, watching the rolling hills pass by, completely mesmerized by the changing scenery. Jack sat across from her, a large, detailed parchment map spread wide across his lap. He had purchased it in the Outer Market before they left. It was a complete topographical and political map of the Bhawan continent.

Jack studied the shape of the landmass. It looked like a slightly elongated kite. The scale, however, was what truly caught his attention. He checked the legend at the bottom corner and quickly did the calculations. The distance between the absolute northern tip and the southern coast was roughly seventeen thousand miles. But the continent was incredibly wide. The distance from the eastern shores to the western edge was over fifty thousand miles.

"It's massive," Jack thought to himself, tracing his finger along the trade routes.

"Without magical beasts pulling the carriages, crossing this landmass would take months." The map was heavily marked with the territories of the major Mage and Merchant Guilds. But the most prominent markers belonged to the ruling powers. In the deep south, a massive golden sunburst marked the 'Holy City'—the primary headquarters and seat of absolute power for the Holy Church. However, right in the direct center of the continent, there was an even larger marker simply labeled'Capital.'

According to the history books Jack had browsed through, this city used to be the capital of the largest, most powerful kingdom on the continent. It was a kingdom three times larger than the territory the Frost-Grip family had ruled at their peak. Even after the Holy Church forces swept across the continent and unified the land through centuries of war, the city was so culturally important and densely populated that everyone still just called it the Capital.

When the Church conquered the continent, they didn't slaughter the royal families. Instead, the Church showed benevolence. They stripped the kings and emperors of their authority, but allowed them to live, demoting them into major or minor nobles and scattering them to different regions. If you kill a king, you make a martyr, and the loyalists rebel for centuries. If you let the king live as a comfortable noble, the rebellion loses its fire.

That's exactly how the Frost-Grips ended up pushed into a frozen northern valley. Jack moved his eyes away from the cities and looked at a series of jagged red marks scattered across the map. Spatial Rifts. There were forty-seven of them marked on the continent. The vast majority—twenty-eight of them—were clustered in the eastern territories, followed by nine in the deep north, one of them was near Jack's valley. These rifts were the source of the Beast Tides.

During the winter, when the ambient mana shifted, the rifts acted as bridges to the mysterious 'Third Continent.' Thankfully, the rifts had been steadily weakening over the centuries. No high-tier magical beast had been able to physically pass through a rift for over three hundred years. Instead, it was the weaker prey animals from the Third Continent that slipped through the cracks.

They would pour into the northern mountains, driving the native predators into a starving frenzy, pushing them down into the valleys and causing the massive Beast Tides. Jack folded that section of the map back and looked at the primary road leading up to his fief. He pulled out the secondary map Master Toris had given him at the Iron-Route Syndicate. It highlighted the path the cargo wagons would take to pick up Jack's coal. Jack frowned slightly.

The Syndicate's route didn't follow the main highways they were currently travelling on. It took a massive, winding detour through a series of smaller provincial roads, completely bypassing two major toll bridges. It was much longer.

"They're taking the long way around," Jack said quietly. Silas, who had been sitting with his eyes closed, opened them and glanced at the map.

"The Syndicate moves thousands of tons of cargo. If they use the main roads, the local lords will tax them at every single checkpoint. They use the back roads to avoid the fees."

"Makes sense," Jack shrugged, folding the map up.

"It takes them an extra week of travel, but they save thousands in gold. Not my problem anyway. As long as the wagons show up at the base of my mountain at the start of the month, I don't care if they drive them backward." Jack reached into his coat pocket, his fingers brushing against the twin spatial rings. This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. Before leaving the city, Jack had made one final, highly practical stop.

He had cashed out the remaining balance of the credit line Silas had given him. He had converted the vow tokens back into standard gold and silver coins, stuffing them directly into the spatial rings. High-tier magical artifacts were great, but Jack had a rapidly growing human population. He needed actual, physical currency to establish a working economy within his fief and to pay the upcoming merchants for basic supplies. Furthermore, he needed to start pushing his core.

If he wanted to stop acting like a sickly boy and actually step onto the political stage, he couldn't keep relying on skeletons hiding in the dark. He needed to advance his magic so he could start using the higher-tier necromancy techniques from his grandfather's journal—specifically, the ability to disguise his undead as living, breathing humans and control things directly from the daylight. The days passed quietly in the comfortable carriage. The scenery outside the window began to change.

The green plains of the west gave way to the rocky, pine-covered foothills. The temperature dropped noticeably. They had crossed back into the northern territories. As they got closer to the Frost-Grip valley, Silas Thorne fell into a heavy, lingering silence. The Inquisitor sat in the corner of the carriage, staring out the window at the passing pine trees. He looked calm on the outside, but internally, his mind was racing with anxiety. Cardinal Xander's orders echoed clearly in his head. Assist the boy.

Protect him. And convince him to travel to the Atera continent by the end of the summer. Summer was already here. Silas had just a few months to come up with a valid, convincing reason to get Jack to pack up his life and cross an ocean.

"But why Atera?" Silas thought, subtly rubbing his temples.

"What is waiting for him there? And more importantly, what happens to me when I deliver him?" Silas was not a fool. He was a mage who had spent decades navigating the lethal, backstabbing politics of the Holy Church. He knew exactly how secret operations worked. The Church was actively nurturing a heretical Necromancer. If this secret ever leaked, it may cause a war. Which meant Silas was a massive loose end.

Once he delivered the boy to Xander, there was a very high probability that the Cardinal would simply execute Silas to ensure his silence. No one wanted to die for no reason, especially not a man who had fought tooth and nail to reach the Gold Core stage.

"I need leverage," Silas thought grimly, looking at Jack, who was casually reviewing a ledger.

"I need to know the truth about what this boy actually is. It's the only way I can negotiate for my own life." In the quiet cabin of the carriage, the powerful Inquisitor closed his eyes and offered a silent prayer. He didn't pray for forgiveness or strength. He simply prayed for a way out. Five days later, the massive wooden gates of the Frost-Grip palisade came into view. The black carriage rolled smoothly over the diet and finally near the castle.

Jack stepped out of the carriage, taking a deep breath of the mountain air. Karen followed right behind him, carrying a small travel bag. Silas stepped out last.

"I will not be staying at the castle today, Lord Jack," Silas said smoothly, adjusting his pristine white robes.

"I have accumulated several reports that I must file with the regional Church outposts regarding our journey."

"Of course, Silas," Jack nodded.

"You have your duties."

"If you require my assistance, or if the local lords attempt to harass your borders, blow that whistle," Silas instructed.

"I will hear it, and I will come. I will return to check on the fief's progress in a few weeks."

"Safe travels," Jack said, slipping the whistle into his pocket. It was a casual farewell. Silas gave a curt nod, turned, and walked away down the village. Jack turned and began the walk up toward the castle, with Karen trailing close behind. When Jack pushed the doors of the castle open, the air inside was completely stale. Karen immediately started coughing, waving her hand in front of her face.

"By the gods," she gasped.

"The dust!" Jack looked around the entrance hall. A thick, grey layer of dust covered the stone floors, the wooden tables, and the tapestries. It looked as though the castle had been abandoned for years. Jack, however, was secretly thrilled. Before he left for the city, he had given the villagers a very strict, somewhat eccentric order: absolutely no one was allowed to set foot inside the castle while he was gone. He claimed it was for security reasons.

Seeing the undisturbed layer of dust meant that Giles and the villagers had followed his orders. No one had snuck in to snoop around. Which meant no one had accidentally stumbled into his bedroom and found the trapdoor leading down to his army of undead skeletons waiting in the crypts.

"It's a mess, My Lord," Karen sighed, looking overwhelmed. Jack walked back out to the courtyard and signaled to one of the militia guards.

"Go down to the village and gather twenty of the bonded laborers," Jack ordered.

"Bring them up here with brooms and buckets. I want this castle scrubbed from top to bottom." Thirty minutes later, a large group of men and women filed into the castle, carrying cleaning supplies. Jack stood on the staircase, leaning on his cane.

"Start with the main hall and the kitchens," he instructed them.

"Work your way up." Jack then selected two women and pointed them toward the stairs.

"You two. Come with me. We are doing my quarters first." Jack led them up to his bedroom. He opened the door and stood directly in the center of the room, leaning on his cane and watching them with hawkish intensity.

"Sweep the floors carefully," Jack instructed, keeping a very close eye on the large rug that covered the trapdoor.

"Don't move the heavy furniture. Just clean the surfaces." The two women worked quickly, dusting the desk and sweeping the stone floor. It was slightly awkward having the lord of the castle hovering over them while they cleaned, but noblemen were known for their strange habits, so they didn't question it. Jack didn't care if he looked paranoid. Better safe than sorry. Once his room was spotless, he dismissed the maids to help with the rest of the castle.

"Karen, fetch some hot tea," Jack said, sitting down at his clean desk.

"And send a runner to the village. Tell Giles, Barnaby, and Old Miller I want to see them in my study in an hour." An hour later, the three men walked into the study. They took off their caps, looking highly respectful and slightly eager.

"Welcome back, Lord Jack," Giles said, offering a deep bow.

"The journey was fruitful?"

"Very," Jack said, leaning forward and resting his arms on the desk.

"But before we get to the new materials, tell me what happened while I was gone."