Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 526 - 525: Observation

Cecil Clan arranged the most comfortable accommodation for guests from the royal capital—not within the leader’s mansion, but in an independent building near the leader’s mansion, under the authority of the Administrative Office. It is said that this building was specifically built to welcome important guests and is called the "Autumn Palace" by the Cecil Clan, as it was only completed this fall.

This novel arrangement once again allowed the visitors to feel the distinctiveness of the Cecil Principality.

Duchess Victoria leaned languidly on a soft and comfortable chaise longue, relaxing her slightly stiff limbs due to the travel fatigue and the evening banquet, carefully observing all the furnishings in this room—to be honest, the furnishings here had nothing to do with the word "luxurious." Although everything was exquisite, it was completely different in style from the guest rooms in the Silver Castle, yet the items here were still impressive.

All the lighting facilities here rely on magic crystals as the core; this cheap and simple glowing device is hard to popularize due to the continual need for magical energy, but in Cecil it is something commonly seen in streets and alleys. The room is warm as spring, but the fireplace on the west wall is not lit, apparently because it is not a heating facility but some sort of decoration. The real heating here is solved by something called a "Magic Thermal System." A large and vivid curtain hung in front of the large floor-to-ceiling window, and the weaving technique of the fabric was peculiar, the stitching simple, even with a sense of cheapness, but the uniformity of it was astonishing, as if a skilled old weaver had tirelessly woven such a cheap and simple fabric...

The black-haired maid Maji stood behind Victoria, gently massaging her mistress’s tense shoulder muscles, feeling the muscles under her fingers gradually relax, and this black-haired maid spoke softly: "You have been observing everything here."

"Have I? Is it that obvious?" Victoria’s tone rose slightly, her body stretching out more languidly—she could maintain the most perfect state in any unofficial occasion, but now it was time for her to relax. She sighed, "I’m a little regretful that I didn’t bring along a mediocre and shallow aristocrat of the royal capital to act as a ’escort of the flower’—he could take my place in asking about each of these novelties. There are just too many things here that I don’t understand, but I have already asked too many ’whys’ along the way."

"There are indeed many novelties here—but they seem to be just various magical devices, no more advanced than the magical mechanisms laid out in Bitter Winter Castle, aren’t they?" Maji expressed her opinion, "The Cecil Clan uses magic crystal lamps for lighting, as does the inner court of Bitter Winter Castle. Their doors can open automatically, as do the doors in your Mage towers. Ah, and they have magic-guided vehicles that can drive by themselves—not as fast as a Dragonblood Horse, nor can they surpass your White Feather Griffon."

Apparently, in this black-haired maid’s view, her mistress was dazzled by Cecil’s flurry of "tricks," overly concerned with those interesting magical devices. However, Victoria shook her head: "No, Maji, you don’t understand—the magic devices of the Cecil Clan do not surprise me. What truly surprises me is that they have thousands of each type of magical device."

Maji’s fingers pressing on her mistress’s shoulder paused slightly.

"Duke Gawain is pushing superordinary power to everyone, breaking the boundaries between Transcendents and ordinary people. The frightening part is that—not only does he have the qualifications to do so, but he has also succeeded," Victoria sat up, her expression turned serious, "I can’t figure out how he managed this..."

The black-haired maid did not respond, nor did the duchess expect to hear an answer from her maid’s mouth. She just shook her head: "Maji, bring those ’newspapers,’ I want to look at them again."

"Yes."

A stack of newspapers was brought to Victoria. Looking at this thing, also unheard of elsewhere, she couldn’t help but sigh softly: "Starting with teaching civilians to read, huh..."

The envoys from the northern royal capital had never encountered such a thing as newspapers, yet in the southern borders, they had already entered the sight of every common person, read by everyone, so cheap as to be unbelievable. Many information pieces that the northern aristocrats would consider "confidential" were openly disseminated throughout the Cecil Principality, including the price of food, official appointments, and new town constructions—things that should belong solely in the hands of the aristocrats, yet here civilians freely discuss, as long as they have learned basic literacy skills in school.

Perhaps other members of the envoy haven’t noticed such things called newspapers, but Victoria had already paid attention to them when she left the rocky ridges Fortress and passed through Kant Castle—at that time, a "newsboy" was selling this printed matter along the street, and the Duchess, momentarily intrigued, ordered someone to buy a copy. Then she was deeply shocked by it.

Her sight rapidly swept over the contents concerning prices, constructions, and current news, but in her mind, she thought of the difficult experience she had when trying to obtain statistics about transiting merchants before leaving the Pompeii Domain.

But what concerned the duchess more than these contents were the commentaries on current affairs in the newspapers.

"Maji... do you know? If we have this, we wouldn’t even need to worry about whether the aristocrats and citizens support Crown Prince Wales’s coronation," Victoria raised the newspaper in her hand, with a tone full of helplessness, "We could even make the people of the eastern borders start questioning their leader and prince."

"Are you planning to distribute similar things in St. Soniel... or the Plains of the Holy Spirits?"

Victoria’s voice was full of fatigue: "It’s useless. Our people are illiterate—and neither the nobles of the Plains of the Holy Spirits nor the royal capital will allow the farmers to lay down their hoes and run off to study, understand the reasoning, and then question them."

She only spoke half of it, leaving the rest unsaid: If not for seeing a lot of information about Lu An City with her own eyes, her own thoughts would actually be similar to those of the aristocrats of the royal capital and the plains...

No, rather, once the aristocrats of the royal capital and plains know what happened in Lu An City, they would be even more afraid to let the public become literate.

A light breeze blew by, causing Victoria to pause her conversation with Maji. She glanced toward the corner of the room and nodded slightly, "Dark Raven, you’ve returned."

A figure clad in black soft leather armor emerged from the air, once serving Francis II, now at the command of the Regent Duke as the royal shadow guard "Dark Raven" bowed to Victoria, "Duchess, there is nothing unusual around this building."

"It seems our founding hero is indeed upright," Victoria nodded, but her gaze couldn’t help but drift over the "newspaper" at her side, then she looked at the royal shadow guard not far away, "Did you uncover anything?"

"Apart from us, there seems to be another group of visitors in this city. It’s said to be a group of merchants, but the place they reside is at a distance from the ’castle’, having to cross a post in between. We’re concerned about being discovered, so we didn’t investigate."

"A group of merchants..." Victoria said lightly, as if speaking to herself, "Rumor has it that the founding hero truly enjoyed ’commerce’... It was by relying on the strength of merchants that he rose rapidly."

Dark Raven lowered his head, "Should we pursue the situation of those merchants?"

"There’s no need; it’s not wise to alert the host’s other guests," Victoria shook her head, then her gaze suddenly fell on Dark Raven’s shoulder, a hint of coldness in her voice, "Additionally, you’ve already been discovered."

"...Ah?!" Dark Raven was startled and noticed the gaze of the mistress. This royal shadow guard immediately turned his head and finally noticed a slight anomaly on the back of his shoulder. He reached to grab it and ended up retrieving a small note from between the seams of his leather armor.

Upon reading the content on the note, the royal shadow guard’s face changed dramatically:

"Hey, going for a walk?—Left by the Goddess of Shadows’ beloved daughter."

"Duchess—" Dark Raven immediately prostrated himself on the ground, with a tone of shame and a hint of tremor, "I... I was careless..."

An ice cone, freezing the blood seemed to take shape behind his neck, the royal shadow guard felt his nerves and blood gradually cooling, yet in the next moment, that piercing chill receded like a tide. He heard the duchess’s voice from the front, "Stand up."

Dark Raven broke into a cold sweat, getting up with a renewed sense of life, facing Victoria who sighed, "Duke Gawain Cecil once trained Anzu’s first batch of royal shadow guards. There must be the strongest master of shadows serving him. It’s normal for you not to match up. Cancel all subsequent covert actions, that master of shadows who has remained unseen merely gave us a warning this time. But when Duke Cecil speaks, it will likely be more than just a warning."

Dark Raven let out a sigh of relief, although he wished to say he should recognize that "beloved daughter of the Goddess of Shadows" responsible for leaving the note on him, the other party isn’t exactly a master of shadows, and if it came to a direct confrontation, they would likely be only slightly better than a goose, but as an adult with normal intelligence, he preferred the mistress to overestimate the power of that half-elf as much as possible...

"Since you’ve already been discovered, do something else," Victoria continued, "First leave the city, then follow our second convoy two days later and formally enter, and then operate within Cecil Castle—go to those places you’re allowed to visit. I want you to focus on three things."

"Please instruct."

"Observe how Cecil manages ’people’; understand why their efficiency is so high. Observe what ordinary people here usually discuss, understand what the Cecil Principality looks like in their eyes. Finally, observe their market, record everything sold in the market, including approximate price changes, inquire about the origins of those items and daily sales figures, as well as their market management approach."

"Understood."

Dark Raven’s figure disappeared into the air, moments later, Maji looked at her mistress, "You lastly mentioned the Cecil people’s market... Are you trying to understand how Duke Cecil’s commerce operates?"

"That’s one of the objectives," Victoria nodded, "but more importantly, it’s to understand how strong Duke Cecil became after claiming this land. Our journey from Rocky Ridges to Cecil Castle, all routes are planned. What we can see is also planned—the market is the only means to understand other regions in the southern borders."

How many vehicles Duke Gawain has, how many ships, how many cities have been completely controlled by him, how many areas are directly connected by roads to Cecil Castle, how many Gold Coins flow on this land every day, and how many armies these Gold Coins can support... These are all estimable from the market.