Chapter 525: Observation

Cecil had arranged the most comfortable accommodations for the visitors from the royal capital—not in the lord’s manor itself, but in a separate building nearby, under the jurisdiction of the administrative hall. This building was said to have been specially constructed to host important guests, and the Cecilians called it the “Autumn Palace,” since it had only been completed this very fall.

This novel arrangement once again impressed the visitors with just how different the Principality of Cecil was.

Duchess Victoria of the North lounged somewhat lazily on a soft, plush sofa, easing the stiffness in her limbs caused by the long journey and the evening banquet. Her sharp eyes carefully took in every detail of the room’s furnishings. To be honest, the decor hardly screamed “luxury.” Though everything was exquisite, it bore no resemblance to the style of the guest chambers in Silverkeep. Yet, the place still left a strong impression.

All the lighting fixtures here relied on magic crystal stones as their core. This cheap and simple glowing device required a constant infusion of magical energy, which made it difficult to popularize elsewhere, but in Cecil, it was something you could see on every street corner. The room was warm as spring, yet the fireplace on the west wall was unlit—clearly, it was decorative rather than functional. The real heating came from a system called the “magical energy thermal system.” Large, vivid curtains hung before the floor-to-ceiling windows. The fabric was woven in a peculiar way—simple stitching, almost cheap-looking—but the craftsmanship was surprisingly neat, as if a skilled old weaver had tirelessly crafted this modest cloth.

Behind Victoria stood Maggie, a black-haired maid, gently massaging the tension from her mistress’s shoulders. Feeling the muscles slowly relax beneath her fingers, the maid spoke softly, “You’ve been observing everything in this room very closely.”

“Oh? Is it that obvious?” Victoria’s tone lifted slightly as she stretched out more comfortably. She could maintain perfect composure in any unofficial setting, but this was her moment to unwind. She sighed. “I kind of regret not bringing along some shallow, mediocre noble from the capital to act as my ‘flower guardian’—someone who could ask all the questions about every new thing. There’s just too much here I don’t understand, and I’ve already asked ‘why’ too many times on this trip.”

“There are indeed many novel things here,” Maggie offered her opinion, “but they all seem to be just various magical devices. None of them are more advanced than the magical mechanisms you have arranged in Winterhold, right? The Cecilians use magic crystal lamps for lighting, and so does the inner court of Winterhold. Their gates open automatically, just like your mage tower. Ah, and they have magically powered carriages that move on their own—but they’re no faster than your dragonblood horses, and certainly can’t compete with your white-feathered griffins.”

Clearly, the black-haired maid thought her mistress was dazzled by Cecil’s flashy “tricks,” paying too much attention to these interesting magical gadgets. But Victoria shook her head. “No, Maggie, you don’t understand. None of their magical devices surprise me. What truly amazes me is that they have thousands upon thousands of each kind.”

Maggie’s fingers paused briefly on Victoria’s shoulder.

“Duke Gawain is pushing the extraordinary power to everyone. He’s breaking down the barriers between the gifted and ordinary people. The terrifying part is—not only does he have the authority to do this, he’s actually done it,” Victoria sat up, her expression serious. “I just can’t figure out how he managed it…”

The black-haired maid said nothing, and Victoria didn’t expect an answer from her. She just shook her head. “Maggie, bring me those ‘newspapers.’ I want to look at them again.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

A stack of newspapers was handed to Victoria. Looking at this strange thing, unheard of in the North, she couldn’t help but murmur, “Starting with teaching the common folk to read…”

The royal capital envoys from the North had never encountered anything called a newspaper before. But in the southern lands, it had long since entered the daily lives of ordinary people. Anyone could read it, and it was astonishingly cheap. Many pieces of information that northern nobles would consider “classified” were openly circulated in the Principality of Cecil—grain prices, appointments and dismissals of officials, new town constructions. These matters, which should have been tightly controlled by the nobility, were freely discussed by commoners, as long as they had learned basic literacy in school.

The other members of the delegation probably hadn’t noticed these newspapers yet, but Victoria had already taken note of them when passing through Kant City after leaving Rockfort. At that time, a “newsboy” was hawking these printed sheets along the roadside. On a whim, the duchess had someone buy a copy—and she was deeply shaken by what she saw.

Her eyes quickly scanned the reports on prices, construction, and current events, but her mind drifted back to the difficulties she had faced trying to obtain even basic statistics on passing merchants before leaving Pompei’s domain.

More than the content itself, what concerned the duchess were the opinion pieces on current affairs.

“Maggie… do you realize? If we had this, we wouldn’t even need to worry about whether the nobles and citizens support the coronation of the Prince of Wales,” Victoria said, waving the newspaper helplessly. “We could even make the people in the Eastern Territories start doubting their lords and princes.”

“You mean distributing something like this in Saint Suniel… or the Holy Spirit Plains?”

Victoria’s voice was weary. “It’s useless. Our people can’t read—and the nobles in the Plains and the capital won’t allow farmers to put down their hoes to go learn to read. Once they understand the truth, they’ll start questioning them.”

She left the rest unsaid: if she hadn’t seen the massive intelligence on Luan City with her own eyes, her thoughts would have been much like those of the capital and plains nobles…

No, once the nobles in the capital and plains learned what had happened in Luan City, they would be even more determined to keep the populace illiterate.

A breeze stirred nearby, and Victoria paused her conversation with Maggie. She glanced toward a corner of the room and nodded slightly. “Dark Crow, you’re back.”

A figure clad in black soft leather armor materialized from the air. Once serving Francis II, now loyal to the regent duke, the royal shadow guard known as Dark Crow bowed to Victoria. “Duchess, there is nothing unusual around this building.”

“Looks like our founding hero is straightforward,” Victoria nodded, but her gaze involuntarily flicked from the newspaper in her hand to the royal shadow guard nearby. “Did you uncover anything else?”

“Besides us, there seems to be another group of visitors in the city. We heard they are merchants, but their lodgings are some distance from the ‘castle,’ and they have to pass through a checkpoint. We worried about being discovered, so we didn’t investigate.”

“A group of merchants…” Victoria murmured, as if to herself. “Rumor has it that founding hero really likes ‘commerce’… He rose to power quickly by relying on merchants.”

Dark Crow lowered his head. “Shall I track down those merchants?”

“No need. It wouldn’t be wise to disturb the other guests,” Victoria shook her head. Then her gaze suddenly sharpened as it landed on Dark Crow’s shoulder. Her voice turned colder. “By the way, you’ve already been discovered.”

“…What?!” Dark Crow was startled. Following his mistress’s gaze, he immediately turned around and noticed something odd on the back of his shoulder. Reaching behind his armor, he pulled out a small slip of paper.

Reading its contents, his face instantly paled:

“Out for a stroll? — From the Shadow Goddess’s own daughter.”

“Duchess—” Dark Crow immediately dropped to the ground, his voice trembling with shame. “I… I was careless…”

It felt as if an icy spike had formed at the back of his neck, freezing his nerves and blood bit by bit. But the next moment, that bone-chilling cold receded like a tide, and he heard the duchess’s voice from ahead: “Stand up.”

Dark Crow broke out in a cold sweat and rose as if reborn. Victoria sighed. “Duke Gawain Cecil trained the first batch of royal shadow guards in Ansu. He must have the most powerful shadow master serving him. It’s no surprise you’re no match. Cancel all covert operations for now. This time, that shadow master who hasn’t shown himself was only giving us a warning. But when Duke Cecil speaks openly, it won’t be just a warning anymore.”

Dark Crow exhaled in relief. Though he wanted to say he should know the “Shadow Goddess’s daughter” who left the note on him—she wasn’t a shadow master at all, and in a direct fight, she was only slightly better than a goose—he was a rational adult and preferred that his mistress overestimate the half-elf’s power as much as possible.

“Since you’ve been discovered, do something else,” Victoria continued. “Leave the city for now. The day after tomorrow, follow our second convoy into the city officially. Then operate within Cecil City—visit the places you’re allowed to. I want you to focus on three things.”

“Please instruct me.”

“Observe how Cecil manages its people. Figure out why their efficiency is so high. Observe what ordinary people talk about most in their daily lives. Understand how they see the Principality of Cecil. Lastly, observe their markets. I want you and the other shadow guards to record every item sold, including approximate price fluctuations. Find out where these goods come from, their daily sales, and how the markets are managed.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Dark Crow vanished into the air. Moments later, Maggie looked at her mistress. “You mentioned the Cecilians’ markets last. Are you trying to understand how the Duke of Cecil runs his commerce?”

“That’s one goal,” Victoria nodded. “But more importantly, I want to understand just how powerful the Duke of Cecil is after conquering this land. Our entire route from Rockfort to Cecil City was planned out. What we saw was all planned. The market is the only way for us to learn about the southern regions.”

How many carriages and ships does Duke Gawain have? How many cities are completely under his control? How many roads connect the regions directly to Cecil City? How much gold flows through this land every day, and how many armies can that gold support? All of these can be estimated from the markets.

(End of chapter)