Chapter 24 (1/2)

Translator: Atlas Studios  Editor: Atlas Studios

Gawain had not been walking at a fast pace.

Although Rebecca seemed a little anxious along the way, Gawain still conducted the journey at his own pace. He allowed the group to stop at each town along the way. Upon stopping, he instructed the soldiers to disguise themselves as travelers or mercenaries to spread the news of ‘The kingdom’s founding Grand Duke Gawain Cecil has come back to life’ and ‘Grand Duke Gawain will soon arrive in the city of St. Soniel.’ At the same time, he would also employ local bards and hoodlums to spread similar but more bizarre versions of the news. The funding they had received from Viscount Andrew was sufficient for him to accomplish these things.

At first, Gawain was still worried that neither he nor Rebecca had any experience dealing with the local tyrants and that they might encounter difficulties as they carried out these tasks. However, they did not expect that Knight Byron, who had traveled with them, would show his extraordinary skills. Though the middle-aged knight was not very powerful compared to his peers, his ability to deal with those loafers was impressive. Upon arriving in a city, he did not need much time before making connections with those ‘rats’. Before the soldiers spread the news, the various rumors about the southern border began to spread from the bottom rungs of the city…

Gawain was reminded of hearing about Knight Byron’s background from Rebecca. Byron was not a true noble, but he used to be a mercenary who had traveled extensively. He was taken in by the previous generation’s Viscount Cecil, after an incident and was able to rise up to the knight class. From the looks of it, it seemed that his experience as a former mercenary had not been wasted.

And Amber was the other person who had been of great help and performed just as Gawain had expected. She was indeed very proficient at dealing with those hoodlums. He was between describing her as being very professional versus being very adept at business… Gawain had given the half-elf girl some money to bribe those hoodlums, and when she was done with it, she returned with even more money…

Of course, such a behavior was strongly condemned by Rebecca, who had a good upbringing. In order to keep up a good image for his descendants, Gawain had no choice but to press Amber’s head and make her promise to return the stolen money and to never do that again.

This was a huge blow to Amber as though her values were being condemned. Gawain thought that it was probably impossible to teach her proper values.

Besides allowing the news to continue spreading, Gawain had another motive that was hard to talk about—he needed to understand the world better.

It was not because there was a huge 700 years of difference between the knowledge from the memory he had inherited and the current reality, but because he was not even a person of this world. The images he had seen in the sky could at most be used as a map, while the memory he inherited could not be readily and flexibility used. On several occasions, he tried to search for something within the memory, but he did not know the ‘keywords’. And after all the wasted effort, he realized that what he needed urgently was to understand this world.

This process had been quite smooth.

He saw the poor and backward southern villages of Anzu Kingdom, the bustling and lively central cities, the wilderness, the fortresses built by humans. All these were slowly blending together with the map he saw when overlooking the land.

Inferring from a few details, he confirmed that the ‘latest’ top-down map in his mind should not be too outdated. It was probably a record left about ten years ago. That was the last image he saw when he was hanging atop the sky.

In this slow-paced world, a map from ten years ago was absolutely usable.

With regards to leaving the southern border for so long and whether there might be any problems that could arise in Tanzan Town, Gawain was not as worried as Rebecca. He believed that Herti would be able to deal with things. And he could be quite certain that Viscount Andrew would properly fulfill the terms of the deal. It was not that he trusted in the Viscount’s character, but he believed that the benefits of the deal was good enough that it would bind him to the Cecil Clan. Before leaving the southern border, he instructed Knight Philip to spread the news through every channel. In addition to letting everyone know about the resurrection of Gawain Cecil, it would also bring the survivors from the Cecil territory into the focus of everyone’s attention. Viscount Andrew, who sheltered the survivors, would have no choice but to continue taking care of the refugees until Gawain Cecil returned from the capital, and everything was settled.

No matter how long the journey took, the journey would soon come to an end. Two months after leaving the southern area, the towering walls of the city of St. Soniel finally appeared before Gawain and the group.

This was a city built on a plain. It was of a scale far bigger than those of the poor and backward southern cities. The white walls and neat light blue roofs were the city’s distinctive features which had given it the reputation of being ‘The White City’ and ‘The Blue Crowns’.

Ever since the founding King Charlie the First led his people to cultivate the land on this plain and built this city, the city had undergone countless expansions and reconstructions. The first walls made of earth and stones were no more, leaving behind only a few symbolic walls in the older parts of the city. The newly built city walls made of large stones were ten times larger than the original. These stones were obtained from the rocky ridges in the north, and the hard rocks in the eastern area. Molten copper and lead filled between the bricks. Within this thick and sturdy city wall, crystals blessed with earth elemental power was buried every hundred meters to ensure that it would not crack and disintegrate. This luxury was something that the pioneering ancestors back in those days would never have even dreamed of.

Standing below the walls of St. Soniel, looking up at the stone bricks dazzling under the sunshine, he realized that he could not find any such associations in his memory.

This city was no longer the same place as the small city in Gawain Cecil’s memory.

With proper entry passes and a reliable status of aristocracy, Gawain and the party entered the city without any hiccups.

The King, Francis II, who ruled over the entire Anzu Kingdom, awaited these visitors from the south in his royal palace, the Silver Castle, and he was especially keen to meet the special guest who lived 700 years ago.