Imperial Throne

Chapter 112: Confusion

According to the plans drafted by architects and designers recruited from Bayor Territory, West Fort was expected to be completed in about three years, with the construction taking no more than four years at most. By then, it could accommodate a population of around ten thousand. The entire defensive structure adopted a triple-layer defense system consisting of the main castle building, the residential defense zone, and the outer defense zone. It was equipped with facilities such as watchtowers, observation posts, firing embrasures, internal underground passages, and an external escape tunnel from the castle. In addition, there were also an armory and an underground grain storage area.

It could be described as a highly comprehensive semi-militarized war fortress.

However, as it had only been under construction for half a year, only the residential area's living facilities and parts of the city wall had been completed. Even the castle’s main structure had not yet been built, let alone the outermost defensive facilities.

But since the underground passages and grain storage were being excavated and constructed simultaneously, those were more or less already complete.

The first batch of residents relocated by Lily numbered around four thousand. Among them, over two thousand were originally villagers from Plain Village, and the remaining thousand or so were residents forcibly transferred from White Mountain City due to past offenses. As for stationed troops, there were currently fewer than two hundred, three-quarters of whom were newly recruited from the militia corps. They had undergone full-time military training for less than three months, and their combat capability could barely be considered an improvement over the militia.

At this moment, as Yam led the group of Bloodline Knights back to West Fort, everyone quickly got busy.

On the return journey, Yam had already conducted a brief interrogation of the young man.

The other party claimed to be Aliman Shelf, the current leader of the Shelf Mercenary Group. The previous leader was his uncle, and the one before that was his father. However, both his father and uncle had died in battle, which had reduced the Shelf Mercenary Group from a medium-sized group to just a few remaining members.

After this incident, the Shelf Mercenary Group might as well be considered destroyed.

According to Aliman's account—

Their Shelf Mercenary Group had been active in the western region of the Tyrella Kingdom, but after a war broke out with the Os Empire ten years ago, his father had led the group into the conflict, hoping to earn military merits and gain noble status through wartime achievements.

However, as the kingdom’s victories expanded, the generals in the western army began to grow arrogant. During an important battle meant to expand their gains, they were ambushed, resulting in the loss of a large number of troops and Bloodline Users. Worse, it led to the death of the head of the Siger Family, the ducal house of the Western Region, nearly causing a complete break between the western forces and the kingdom's army, threatening civil war.

Although this near-civil conflict was quelled swiftly, all the spoils from the previous victories were lost as a result. Even several territories originally belonging to the Western Duke’s family were forfeited. Aliman’s father and uncle perished in those battles, and realizing his lack of strength, Aliman had no choice but to lead the remaining mercenaries away from the western region.

They journeyed eastward, planning to head to the legendary land of wealth—the territory of the Eastern Duke, the Ivenson Family.

However, while passing through Bayor Territory, they assisted a merchant caravan during an unexpected attack and were temporarily hired to escort the group to Red River Territory. Just as they were preparing to leave, the merchants offered them a far more lucrative commission. The task was divided into two parts. The first, an intelligence-gathering phase, lasted three months. After a series of investigations, Azman had assessed the mission's risk as low and thus agreed to carry out the second part—an actual operational strike.

Who would have thought they would be utterly defeated.

Aliman still could not understand why there were so many Bloodline Knights in White Mountain Territory.

And among these Bloodline Knights, neither Roda nor the other two Bloodline Knights of White Mountain Territory were even present—in other words, of the seven Bloodline Knights who had entered the battle, five had not appeared in his prior intelligence.

It was as if they had appeared out of thin air.

…

At that moment, in an underground interrogation chamber within West Fort, Yam was interrogating Aliman Shelf.

But the current line of questioning was not about the commotion he had stirred up in White Mountain Territory, but rather about other matters Yam found intriguing. After all, in his more than twenty years of life, he had only ever traveled through Red River Territory, Gem Territory, White Mountain Territory, and Red Soil Territory—he had never even left the vicinity of Red Eagle Territory, let alone ventured beyond the Southern Region to other parts of the kingdom.

"A war broke out in the west?"

"It’s been going on for about ten years now." Aliman shook his head. "All the kingdom's previous victories were lost in one blow three years ago. Now the discord between the Western Duke and the royal family is public knowledge. If not for the external pressure still facing the western region, the kingdom would likely already be in civil war."

"How is that even possible!" Yam clearly didn’t believe it.

"Why not?" Aliman scoffed. "Why do you think I brought my men out of the western region? The hard-earned merits my father and uncle fought for all went up in smoke when I left. You think I wasn’t heartbroken? … The royal family forced our hand."

"They even took a turtle-like stance, refusing to cooperate or strike. After blocking off the route through the royal capital, those bastards just sat and did nothing. The entire western region has been in chaos for three years."

"If I were the Western Duke, I’d have just allied with the Os Empire already."

Yam didn’t quite understand the dynamics between dukes and the royal family—that world was too far removed from his own. He didn’t even know how to help govern White Mountain Territory yet, so he simply treated it all as stories and rumors worth hearing. As for the specifics, he naturally wouldn’t comment.

"Alright, tell me about your mission in White Mountain Territory."

"I told you already, I just accepted a job. They paid me fifty gold coins. I didn’t think it was that dangerous, so I took it."

Aliman sighed. If he had known White Mountain Territory was hiding so many Bloodline Knights, he definitely wouldn’t have accepted that mission. He even suspected he had been set up by those merchants. And precisely because he believed that… he had surrendered so—

Aliman was extremely decisive, even going so far as to spill all the information he knew, wishing Yam would go confront the other party immediately and spare him.

"You said the other party was a merchant caravan. Did you see any merchant guild emblem?" Yam asked.

No matter the scale, as long as it was a merchant guild, there would always be a unique emblem. This was akin to the family crest of Bloodline User families—an identity marker. While impersonation and disguise couldn’t be ruled out, such merchant guilds typically had unique identification methods. They might deceive laypeople, but deceiving experts or local lords was simply not possible.

Because along fixed trade routes, each local lord only recognized one official trader. To replace that trader, a complete handover was required—it couldn’t be done just by someone showing up and making a verbal claim.

"I didn’t see any merchant guild emblem." Aliman thought carefully before answering.

As a mercenary with considerable experience, he naturally understood what merchant guild emblems meant.

"Then did you see a seal, or any other kind of identification?"

If it wasn’t a merchant guild, then only two possibilities remained.

One was a merchant caravan traveling along a fixed trade route, or a group of traveling merchants with the same destination temporarily forming a caravan.

The former used identity seals as identifiers.

The latter was more troublesome and could only be traced through individual identification, which made tracking and investigation far more complicated.

Aliman thought for a while, then said, "I didn’t see anything."

"What about clothing? Weapons and the like—were they uniform?"

"Yes." This time Aliman nodded without hesitation. "Their guards wore matching gear and were clearly trained in military discipline. When I rescued them in Bayor Territory, I saw them deploy a traditional military defensive formation. So even if we hadn’t supported them at the time, their losses wouldn’t have been too severe."

Yam immediately understood.

Lack of identification markers usually meant the caravan was a temporary group of merchants sharing the same destination.

Such caravans typically pooled money to hire mercenary groups for protection.

The Iron Wolf Mercenary Group used to take on this kind of work regularly.

But the guards of this caravan had clearly received standardized military training, which meant this caravan wasn’t a makeshift formation, but a deliberately disguised group with a specific goal.

"Were there any Bloodline Users?"

"No." Aliman shook his head. "If there had been Bloodline Users, they wouldn’t have been attacked by bandits in the first place."

"Strange." Yam frowned. "If that’s the case, why would this caravan send you to White Mountain Territory to stir up trouble and distract us?"

According to Aliman’s earlier account, their mission wasn’t to attack White Mountain Territory.

Their employer had tasked them with creating chaos in White Mountain Territory, drawing the attention and delaying the response of all the Bloodline Knights there. An initial deposit of fifty gold coins had been paid, and if they managed to hold the Bloodline Knights’ attention for more than five days, they would receive an additional fifty gold coins as settlement. Starting from the fifth day, they would also receive a bonus of twenty gold coins for each extra day they managed to delay.

Aliman had initially thought the mission wasn’t difficult, so they planned to delay for ten days to half a month and make a hefty profit from the employer.

It was for this reason that Aliman had merely set an ambush trap to lure Kalel and Borm, but didn’t kill them. His goal was to attract the attention of the three Bloodline Users at West Fort and then play a game of cat and mouse—where they were the cats, and Sien, Borm, and Kalel were the mice.

What he hadn’t expected was that almost immediately after the incident began, Sien had called for reinforcements.

Aliman felt incredibly unlucky—how did he end up facing a Bloodline Knight so cautious he could be called a coward?

Not a shred of knightly spirit!

"Lord Yam, we have received news." Sien entered the interrogation room and handed a document to Yam. "Five days ago, a caravan indeed entered White Mountain City in disguise and in groups, purchasing supplies. After that, they rerouted into the Eaglehead Mountains."

"They went into the Eaglehead Mountains?" Yam was surprised. "Weren’t they trying to smuggle into the Fertile Plains?"

"No." Sien shook his head. "All signs indicate that after leaving White Mountain City, they immediately headed east without turning north. Based on the timeline, this group should already be deep inside the Eaglehead Mountains. At this point, it’s no longer possible to track them down."

The Eaglehead Mountains were simply too vast, and five days was more than enough time for that group to vanish into them.

However—

Yam glanced at Aliman. "After delaying us for more than five days, how were you supposed to receive your final payment? And how would the other party ensure that you could extend the delay?"

Aliman blinked.

He suddenly realized just how quick Yam’s thinking was.