Regressor Of The Fallen Family [EN]: Chapter 60

“Rest? There’s no time for rest. We need to keep working hard, as always.”

“Sorry? Why are you saying such serious things all of a sudden?”

Dwaine, who was putting papers in order, looked surprised. “Ah, nothing,” Logan said. “Just something silly happened.” Logan thought about the betrayal again. Because of this, he decided to give the dwarf even more work in the workshop.

Making the crossbows was going well. There were a few small problems, but nothing serious. Actually, they were making them even faster than planned. Hamarr, the dwarf, had worked so hard that the dark circles under his eyes were now huge and black. He had made enough crossbows for all the soldiers in just a few weeks.

Thanks to this, the soldiers’ training began to gain even more momentum.

The best thing was that people from the two old castles were moving into McLaine Town. Ten thousand houses were ready, just as planned.

“Wow, Mommy! Is this really our house?”

“Wow! It’s so big! Are we really going to live here?”

“Y-yes,” their mother said, tears in her eyes. “I think so. It’s amazing…”

She had a baby tied to her chest and another on her back. She cried when she heard her children’s words.

It was a wooden house with two floors. Each floor was small, and the houses were built very close together. But none of that mattered. Compared to their old homes with leaky roofs made of straw, this new house felt like a palace.

“I didn’t know how we would survive the winter,” she whispered. “This is truly a blessing.”

Her tears were tears of relief. She had felt like she was about to fall into a deep hole, and now, suddenly, there was light.

“But Mommy…”

“Sniff. Yes, dear? What is it?”

“Will Daddy be able to find our house?”

“…Yes,” she said softly. “If Anna is a good girl, eats her food, and grows up strong, Daddy will come home safe.”

“Really? Really?”

“Yes, really.”

This was a conversation between a mother and her four-year-old daughter.

The twelve-year-old son, who understood more about death, looked up at the sky and covered his eyes.

The mother saw this and her heart hurt again. Not long ago, she had wanted to die and join her husband.

*They are giving us food, and even a house like this. And they say they will give us land to farm…* she thought.

Suddenly, she felt hope again. Hope to live.

“Thank you,” she whispered. “Thank you so much.”

She bowed her head again and again, towards the direction where she thought the nobles might be, even though she couldn’t see them. Her anger at the nobles who started the war, a war that seemed so pointless, began to disappear, just a little.

Most of the people moving were those who had struggled in the old castles. So, everyone was happy and excited about their new homes. You could hear small sounds of happiness everywhere in the town, like little songs in the air. It made the whole town feel bright and full of life.

Logan, the person they were all thankful to, could feel this happy atmosphere too.

“It feels much more alive now that there are more people,” Clayton said. “It’s good to see.”

Logan nodded, looking out over the town. “Yes, but it needs to be even bigger. We can still build more houses here.”

McLaine Town would keep growing. It would become the heart of this land.

Logan stood at the top of the magic tower, looking down at the town, and smiled. It was a wide, happy smile.

“The town is built now, and the crossbows will be finished by the end of the month, like we said.”

“Good, well done.”

“What is it? Why are you still here?”

“Well, um…”

“Oh, right. I need to give you this.”

*Thump.*

Logan put a heavy piece of silver metal on the table in front of Hamarr, who looked unsure.

“W-what’s this?” Hamarr asked.

“What else? Mithril, of course. Make some weapons for the knights.”

“What? Don’t dwarves love working with rare metals? Isn’t that exciting for you?”

“Ummm… exciting…”

“Yes? Isn’t it?”

“Y-yes, it is. Sigh… yes, very exciting.”

“Great! Then, enjoy your vacation! Six months should be enough, right?”

“Sorry? Vacation? Six months?” Hamarr’s eyes widened.

“I’m giving you a long break. Don’t you like it?”

“H-how could I not like it! Of course I like it! Thank you!”

“Good. Have fun working with the mithril and enjoy this… special time. I’m looking forward to seeing the amazing weapons you make.”

“Wait, weapons?”

“Yes, it sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? A romantic time with mithril, making weapons. Eighty weapons should be enough in six months, right?”

“Haa… this…” Hamarr started to say something bad, then stopped himself.

“What?” Logan asked, raising an eyebrow.

“Ah, nothing,” Hamarr mumbled, looking down. He clenched his fists, but didn’t say anything more.

“Clearing the land for farming is going well,” Lugel said. “The only problem is, we don’t have enough workers for all the land.”

“Is that really a problem?” Logan asked.

“No, not really. I think we will have a very good harvest this year,” Lugel replied, smiling brightly.

The sun shone on Lugel’s bald head, making it gleam. His happy smile showed how good things were in McLaine.

“People are talking about our new farmlands and town in other places too,” Lugel added.

“Oh?” Logan asked, sounding more interested than Lugel expected. Lugel looked a little surprised and explained further.

“…Yesterday, about twelve people came to town. They looked like farmers who clear forests to grow crops. They said they heard rumors from the traders who bring us food.”

“Hmm. That’s quicker than I thought,” Logan said.

“Yes. They are refugees, so they came hoping to find a better place, just in case the rumors were true.”

In those times, most people belonged to a lord and lived in his land. They worked and paid taxes to him. But not all lords were good, and not all lands were good to live in. Some lords were cruel, and sometimes wars happened. When life became too hard, people had to leave their homes. They might hide in the mountains and try to farm there. But it was a hard life, and often they had to move again, becoming wanderers, searching for a place to settle down.

These refugees who came to McLaine Town had heard just a whisper of a rumor – that a big new farmland was being made. Even though it wasn’t officially announced, they came anyway, hoping it was true. This showed how desperate they were for a better life.

Logan sighed softly.

“Why are you smiling like that?” Dwayne asked, sounding a little worried. “It’s a bit… strange.”

“It’s nothing,” Logan said, but his smile didn’t fade. It was a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, and Dwayne felt a chill despite the warm air.

“It doesn’t seem like nothing, though?” Dwayne pressed, still uneasy.

“Mind your own business,” Logan said, his tone sharper now, but still with that strange smile playing on his lips. “Anyway, you accepted all the refugees, right?”

“…Yes.” Dwayne nodded slowly.

With land to spare, accepting the refugees was no problem at all.

“Any precautions?”

“I’ve made sure they understand the simple territory laws, and that they’ll be exiled if they cause trouble. I plan to handle future refugees the same way.”

“Good. Well done.”

“Something feels uneasy….”

Logan simply smiled again, a more normal smile this time, ignoring Dwayne’s muttering. But Dwayne couldn’t shake off the feeling that something important, something perhaps dangerous, was beginning.

The rumor that McLaine was accepting refugees spread quickly among the farmers who moved from place to place and those who rented land in the southwest of the kingdom.

Several months later, as early summer approached, the number of refugees who had settled in the town already neared five thousand.

Naturally, the surrounding territories couldn’t help but react sensitively to this trend.

The refugees kept coming, and McLaine territory was changing fast. But this sudden growth did not go unnoticed by their neighbors. In a castle not too far away…

“The McLaine territory?” Baron Max asked, his voice booming in the room.

“Yes, Baron,” Rihalt replied, bowing slightly. “They say they’ve cultivated the wasteland west of McLaine Castle.”

“Huh. That barren land?” Baron Max scoffed. “Impossible! Was that land even cultivatable?”

Baron Max Pereta couldn’t hide his bewildered expression at his subordinate’s report.

When Tesron started a war last year for no reason, only to be defeated by McLaine and devoured instead, he was a little surprised, but he thought it could happen.

Padreig McLaine was a formidable force, at least in terms of military strength.

Moreover, he was a madman who operated over fifty knight orders in the barren land of McLaine Castle.

At that time, he thought Haman Tesron had made an unnecessary and reckless move in a territory with nothing to eat.

But this time, he couldn’t help but be surprised.

“I was curious about that too, Baron, so I looked into it. They say they drilled a hole in the mountain and drew water from the Luther River,” Rihalt explained carefully.

“…Drilled a hole in the mountain? Hah. They did such a crazy thing to cultivate the wasteland?”

“Yes. I sent someone to check, and it was confirmed to be true.”

“Hahaha. Aside from how they even thought of doing such a thing, did they have the money to do such construction? In McLaine?”

“There are rumors that Tesron had a lot of spare money, and there are also rumors that the Grand Duke made money by doing some business. Besides that, there are rumors that a gold mine was discovered, and some even say money fell from the sky….”

Max Pereta waved his hand to stop his subordinate’s words.

“It doesn’t matter what those absurd rumors are. Let’s just look at the revealed facts. The wasteland cultivation is certain, right?”

“Yes. That’s right.”

“Then how much do you think that cultivated land is? Compared to us.”

“…It is estimated to be at least three times larger.”

“Hmm. Even considering that the yield will be somewhat low because it’s fundamentally wasteland, it’ll still be double ours.”

“That’s right.”

If the yield was twice as much as the Pereta barony, which had plains twice as wide as Tesron, it was an unbelievable level of production.

“Amazing….”

The neighboring territory suddenly became rich overnight.

If you just applaud and cheer when you see this, you can’t be called a true aristocrat.

At least, that’s what he knew as common sense.

“Hmm. I can’t just leave it alone…. Can we find an excuse?”

“There’s no need to create a justification. Coincidentally, there are territory residents who have fled to the pioneer village they’re creating. We can go in under the pretext of catching those guys.”

At Pereta Baron’s question, his subordinate Rihalt answered as if he had been waiting for it.

“Oh, our territory residents? My property? Then I can demand it with dignity. What should I ask for in return?”

“As you wish, that land, or even the adjacent plains of Tesron would be good. However, there’s a problem….”

Rihalt trailed off, but the Baron understood his words perfectly.

“Tsk. Right. It might be dangerous to eat alone, is that it?”

Max Pereta clicked his tongue, but he didn’t seem too worried.

The military strength of the Pereta barony was not comparable to Tesron, which had been trampled by McLaine.

The number of knights exceeded 120, and the number of regular soldiers was close to 2,000.

In addition, there were two castles with a resident population of nearly 40,000.

He could confidently say that he was superior in all aspects, including food and other general matters, in the plains adjacent to Tesron Castle.

However.

“Soto Silvan. That guy is a problem.”

“That’s right. It would hurt to be hit in the back of the head.”

“It would be fortunate if it ended with just being hurt.”

Max Pereta clicked his tongue and thought of his rival to the north.

The guy with the same title only had one castle, but the troops gathered in that castle were not much different from the combined troops stationed in his two castles.

Even the fact that he was bordering Tesron, which was now McLaine’s territory, was similar.

He was an archenemy who was a hindrance just by his existence.

“Damn it, this is troublesome. No matter how much of an upper-rank knight I’ve become, it’s impossible to beat Padreig, right?”

“Ugh!”

Rihalt’s face turned pale from the momentum the Baron suddenly spewed out, but he nodded.

“Yes. Padreig McLaine became an upper-rank knight 20 years ago. It would be impossible for you to stop him directly, Baron. You’d have to shed quite a bit of blood to strike McLaine alone. If Silvan aims for the back in the meantime….”

“Yes, I think so too. I certainly like you, you rascal.”

“I am honored.”

At first glance, it might seem like he was ignoring his lord, but Max Pereta was not only greedy but also cautious.

He believed that no matter how much McLaine had increased by one castle, the short period of one year would not be enough to make up for the already wounded power, but he wanted to prepare for even the slightest possibility.

“Contact the Silvan barony. Their tax rate is as high as ours. Surely quite a few have run away from there too. Isn’t that right?”

“Of course. The thoughts of the fools are all obvious.”

Pereta and Silvan were both territories that imposed the highest level of tax rates among the kingdom’s territories, reaching 70%.

If they dragged those guys in, they could easily swallow McLaine.

‘It’s a union of two baronies. McLaine will have to choose between losing everything or losing most of it.’

Max Pereta already felt like he had taken over the land flowing with honey.

“Even if they sneak in just because the tax rate is low, it’s obvious that they’ll raise it a lot after they’ve cultivated it. Tsk tsk, pathetic fools. They can’t see beyond their noses.”

“Isn’t that the limit of commoners?”

“Yes. That’s why we’re the rulers. Well, good. Execute it.”

“Yes!”

“It’s a waste to share, but it can’t be helped.”

“That’s a wise choice.”

Even if McLaine was fine, or even stronger than in the past, the union of the two territories could never be stopped.

McLaine’s rapid revival was nothing more than a table set for them to eat.

At least, everyone in this place thought so.