Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 456 - 455: Summons

Forty-six days.

Baron Sunderland sat quietly on his single bed, facing the wall, counting the notches on the wall from beginning to end, and then from end to beginning.

He had been in this cell for forty-six days.

As a member of the southern aristocrats who had raised arms in response to Count Hosman, he knew he was quite fortunate. Due to his low rank, he was not eligible to be near Count Hosman’s troops, thus narrowly escaping the bombardment at Broken Stone Ridge. Later, again due to his low status, he was left behind far by the main forces during his escape, resulting in him being one of the first nobles captured by the Cecil Clan, thus avoiding the ordeal of fleeing day and night in the wilderness.

But he didn’t know how long this "luck" would last.

The collapse of the Noble Coalition Army seemed like something from the last century. That hopeful expedition, which ended in tragedy, was now deliberately avoided but continuously replayed in his mind. Baron Sunderland knew that the entire southern borders, except for the Cecil Clan and a few who pledged allegiance early to the Cecils, all nobles were finished. Even though when he was first thrown into this cell, he had a small hope that the Cecil Clan would suffer losses in subsequent battles and eventually reach a stalemate and compromise with the southern aristocrats, what he ultimately awaited was one "cellmate" after another—

Familiar faces were thrown into the cell, each face representing a piece of new land falling into the hands of the Cecil Clan. When more than half of the southern nobility appeared in this "prisoner camp," Viscount Sunderland had accepted the fact: there would be no turning point.

Now, he, like all other noble prisoners, could only quietly wait in these cells for that Duke Gawain Cecil to summon them one day and give a clear result.

A commotion came from the next cell.

Baron Sunderland raised his head, saw his "cellmate" Viscount Trell in the same room also raised his head, and both of them listened intently to the noises from the next cell, then glanced at each other with a helpless, bitter smile.

"It’s those from the rocky ridges Fortress," Viscount Trell said with a bitter smile, "It seems they are still not used to the ’rules’ here."

"It was the same for us in the beginning," Baron Sunderland responded with the same bitter smile, "Listen—they demand that the guards salute them, and they ask for wine and pillows, they even talk about ransom... I haven’t heard those words for a long time."

The people in the next cell had been confined only a few days ago; they were from the rocky ridges Fortress. Baron Sunderland once thought these people had escaped the pursuit of the Cecil Clan and returned to their respective territories, but now he knew they only hid in that fortress to the north.

These new "cellmates" brought astonishing news to the noble prisoners in the camp. According to their description, rocky ridges Fortress had fallen—in less than two days under the heavy assault from the Cecil Clan.

In fact, according to some accounts, the actual attack lasted only about half a day, with two days including the time the Cecil Clan settled camp.

Having stayed here for forty-six days, Baron Sunderland had smoothly adapted and accepted the current situation, but evidently, those who had just arrived needed a buffer period to understand the circumstances.

After the commotion from the next cell finally ended, Viscount Trell asked, "What do you think Duke Gawain Cecil wants?"

"Perhaps unconditional allegiance from all southern nobles, just like allegiance to the King," guessed Baron Sunderland, "We have seen that this entire war was essentially pushed by him from beginning to end. He clearly wants to take back what belongs to him—the southern borders will reestablish the Cecil Principality."

"...Cecil Principality," Viscount Trell fell silent for a moment, sighed, "That’s what I thought too after he didn’t ask for ransom for so long."

Baron Sunderland muttered, "It could be worse..."

Viscount Trell wanted to ask what "worse" meant, but before he could speak, the sound of military boots on the cement floor interrupted him—the cell door opened, and a Cecil soldier clad in magic armor stood at the entrance, speaking in a cold voice, "The Duke wants to see you."

Baron Sunderland and Viscount Trell suddenly lifted their heads, looking at each other with surprise and joy:

After waiting so long in anxiety and confusion, is Duke Gawain Cecil finally going to summon the southern nobles?!

...

In the lounge next to the main conference hall of the Cecil Castle’s Administrative Office, Gawain was leisurely waiting, with Aunt Heidi quietly standing beside him and Amber, who was anything but quiet.

"Hey, hey, do you think those nobles will be persuaded by you?" Amber glanced at the stack of files on the table next to her and couldn’t help but lean towards Gawain, "These things are almost lethal to them—"

"Can you pay a little attention to the rules and etiquette?" Aunt Heidi said, frowning, "This is the Administrative Office, you should at least have some awareness..."

Amber put her hands on her hips and said confidently, "I was paying attention! I even came in through the door just now, didn’t you see?"

The occasional bickering between the two had become a routine. Gawain ignored it directly and said calmly, "Convince them? I haven’t planned to talk to them, the choice isn’t in their hands."

"To be honest, if that’s the case, why don’t you just send them all to the mines to dig stones until they die, instead of dragging them out to ’voluntarily’ give up their noble privileges," Amber said puzzledly, "Anyway, you’ve already taken over their territories, defeated their armies, and imprisoned their people..."

Gawain shook his head with a smile, then looked at Aunt Heidi: "Heidi, explain it to her."

Aunt Heidi glanced at Amber helplessly, although she didn’t want to engage with this disgrace to the elves, she still had to listen when an elder spoke: "The ancestor’s proposed population migration and new city construction projects are underway. The transformation and construction of Hosman City, Leslie City, Gran City, and Kant City are entering new stages, but as populations concentrate and new decrees are implemented, resistance is gradually emerging everywhere.

"The situation is better in Leslie, Gran, and Kant regions. The biggest resistance comes from the Hosman region and nearly all the old aristocratic territories outside these four new cities.

"The impact left by the downfall of the old aristocracy is still present and quite tricky. Many wealthy farmers in the area remain skeptical of the new leader, and a significant portion of local scholars and merchants still support the old leader or are outright the ’private entourage’ of the old leader. The Grade 2 Bureau of Affairs finds it very difficult to recruit personnel in those areas, and commercial reform is facing considerable obstacles.

"In the western Peibo region and the northern areas around the Carol Region, some exiled knights and aristocratic Soldiers have transformed into bandits. They don’t dare to approach the Cecil Corps’ stationed areas but frequently harass the countryside. Due to the limited manpower of the Cecil Corps, the progress in exterminating these exiled knight bandit groups is not satisfactory. And worse, some exiled knights in the northwest region are getting in touch with Lu’an City, and they might transform into the armed forces of Luan Grand Cathedral."

Amber widened her eyes: "There are still exiled knights and aristocratic Soldiers?! Weren’t they all killed or captured!?"

"Seventy thousand people running around on the plains, there are bound to be some who slip through the net," Gawain shook his head, "Moreover, the seventy thousand men pulled together by Hosman couldn’t have been the entirety of the noble forces. Every aristocrat would at least leave a few knights and Soldiers in their castle as guards, right? After the news of the noble coalition army’s defeat returned, the more astute of these stationed knights almost immediately fled, becoming exiled knights."

"What a hassle..." Amber felt her head spin upon hearing such things, "You took the southern borders in a few days, but maintaining order seems even harder than conquering the whole southern borders..."

"Governance is indeed harder than conquest," Gawain cast a sidelong glance at Amber, "I could pull you down from the window ledge in a second, but it’s been over a year and you still jump through the window to get inside."

Amber: "...Did I ask for this trouble..."

Gawain ignored Amber’s protest and spoke to himself, "The troubles we encounter are indeed very thorny, and some of them, if not handled properly, could even cause setbacks and reversals in our establishment of new order. Some of these issues may last for a long time, even for whole generations... but I’m not worried at all."

From the adjacent hall came the sound of many footsteps, Gawain showed a faint smile and stood up.

"Apart from the issues that must be solved over time, such as changing customs and nurturing people’s hearts, most of the remaining issues actually concentrate on those aristocrats and the traditional order they maintain. And I am precisely the origin of those aristocrats and traditional order."

The Attendant stood before the door of the grand meeting hall and shouted in a powerful, resounding voice—

"Southern Guardian, Anzu Pioneer, Kingdom’s Founder, Ruler of the Cecil Principality, Duke Gawain Cecil Duke arrives—"

The southern aristocrats sitting by the long table in the grand meeting hall, filled with apprehension and until a moment ago whispering amongst themselves, almost unanimously fell silent, as if dozens of invisible hands were simultaneously choking their necks, making them all lift their heads in unison and turn toward the door of the hall.

Their craning necks made them look like a flock of comical ducks.

Gawain, wearing a black duke’s cloak, entered the hall, looking at those southern aristocrats craning their necks by the long table — these people had been left deliberately in the captive camp for quite a while, some for even over forty days. Except for a few just captured from rocky ridges Fortress, the remaining aristocrats had already had their spirit greatly dampened. Seeing their expressions at that moment, Gawain knew today’s affairs would be straightforward.

The aristocrats stood up one after another; although they had been imprisoned for dozens of days, the etiquette movements engraved in muscle memory made them almost instinctively perform the most standard salutation processes.

Gawain gracefully accepted the salutations of these losers and strode to the head of the conference table. He didn’t bother with any formalities but gestured to the clerks who followed him in from behind, "Distribute to them."

Two clerks, holding dozens of documents in their hands, began to distribute them to every aristocrat present. The aristocrats watched this scene in shock and curiosity, even daring to whisper amongst themselves — this was completely different from the ’summoning’ process they had predicted, this ’Cecil Style’ rule left them at a loss.

However, the aristocrats receiving the documents immediately focused their attention on the printed materials before their eyes: They first noticed the remarkable uniformity of these prints, with each character, each line of text, each section precise to perfection, something no master craftsman could carve on a printing board. But quickly, their curiosity about the ’printed materials’ was dispersed by the specific contents of the documents.

The aristocrats who saw the contents of the documents all showed expressions of shock.