BXBX NOVEL Chapter 182 - Letter and Shambles
Chapter 182: Letter and Shambles
In his original deduction, Lilith Kant should be a living person and the only sober “dream creator” in the castle. It was obvious that he had made an error in his judgment.
Gawain immediately understood when he and Amber arrived at the giant stone coffin and looked at the two sets of skeletons and the Viscountess’s corpse that was being protected by magic and had yet to decay. Lilith Kant was truly dead, but she died probably to activate this horrifying dream-creation ritual or so that she could have “contact” with her husband and son. She had truly given up her life.
She had been lingering in the basement of the north tower and lingering the castle while holding the portable lamp. However, it was merely her shadow… No wonder the Viscountess, who was the ‘dream creator’, had never left this castle for 30 years. It wasn’t because she didn’t wish to leave but because she was already unable to leave this place.
But such matters didn’t matter anymore as the dream realm had ended. The real world’s sunlight now illuminated this dark and ancient castle. Be it the dream creator or the dreamers, they had gone back to where they were supposed to be when the dream realm ended.
They left behind in the real world nothing but shambles.
Amber was still a little stunned as this unbelievable experience caused her mind to be in a complete mess (of course, her mind might frequently be in a complete mess). She looked at the three corpses in the stone coffin for a long time before saying, “So, we were actually in a tangle with three dead people for such a long time?”
“It is this land that has been in a tangle with them for thirty years.” Gawain shook his head and said, “The Eternal Sleepers… are indeed the most dangerous among the three evil cults.”
“A person that climbed out from a coffin is looking at three people lying in another coffin and criticizing an evil cult for causing their deaths. I have never seen anything more supernatural than this in my life…” It was unknown what Amber was thinking, but she suddenly quivered due to her own words. She then looked down at her feet and suddenly noticed. “Hey, Gawain. There are papers here!”
There were a few magic-imbued parchments that were emitting a slight radiance scattered in front of the stone coffin. This was the location where Viscount Victor Kant vanished from previously. Gawain was astonished as he picked them up and read the words written by Viscount Kant. “This is… left behind by Viscount Kant?”
“He left them behind? Are they letters for you?” Amber blinked her eyes with shock and said, “Hurry up and read them!”
“They are indeed letters, but they are not all for me. Some are for the King, and some are letters to declare to the public.” Gawain flipped through the parchments swiftly, and the organized words entered his sight:
“I am Viscount Victor Kant, the noble conferred by the Anzu Kingdom’s royal clan, the feudal lord of the southern Kant Town and its surrounding farms, feudal land, and villages. I swear an oath in the name of the Kant Clan’s ancestors that everything I am saying is true. The truth must be made known to the masses as a warning to everyone.”
“My clan has been cursed by the Eternal Sleepers.”
“The heretics used evil ritual magic to corrupt my territory. For thirty years, countless innocent people have perished in the ritual. My wife has been controlled by the sorcery, and my spirit wasn’t able to escape the curse and had been used as the accomplice…”
“…Without Duke Gawain Cecil’s help, I will never be able to rest in peace. The Duke responded to my request for help. He risked his life to help and to eliminate the curse that has enveloped me and my family…”
“Your Majesty… Your loyal conferred official sends his greetings. This shall be my last secret letter to you. The thing that happened to the Kant territory…”
“Everything that happened is as stated. I use my final humanity and my clan name to guarantee that everything is truthful without error.”
“I have no direct heir or next of kin to inherit my title and property. It is the same for my wife. The two of us have a long-distant nephew who does have the right to inherit our property, but he is innately born with an incomplete mind, and it will be hard for him to take over a noble’s duty. As such, according to the kingdom’s laws, I shall return the feudal land that I inherited from my ancestors to the royal clan. Before this, I have to repay my gratitude to Duke Cecil. This is a favor for rescuing my soul.”
“Apart from the land, I wish to give to Duke Cecil, at no cost, all my wealth that includes the library collection, treasures, antiques in the castle, and all six pioneered farms that don’t belong to my titled land. I acknowledge that he can handle this wealth as he pleases.”
“For all of the production from my feudal land this year, apart from the portion that will be given to the royal clan, the rest shall be gifted to Duke Cecil.”
Apart from the public letter for the southern region’s noble clans and a secret letter to the King, there was another letter reserved for Gawain:
“Duke Gawain Cecil, when you see this letter, my soul should already have regained peace.”
“For this outcome, I only have serenity and joy; there isn’t any resentment. If I have to say something I am regretful for, then it is the promise I am unable to fulfill. I once swore to turn around the clan’s extravagant and corrupt lifestyle. I swore not to follow the bad example of those brutal and cold-blooded new generation nobles. I also swore to imitate your generation, to be pioneering martyrs, to develop lands, to protect refugees, to become the protector for innocent people and poor people, but everything ended in complete shambles.”
“I am very glad that before my soul has thoroughly fallen into darkness, before everything is irrevocable, you appeared in time to get rid of the haze on this land.”
“When I was young, I always treated you as my model and idol, so much so that I even looked forward to becoming a Knight, to charging into the darkness like you, to pioneering a few pieces of land for the residents to live in. As a result, there are six pioneered farmlands in the Kant territory. That might be the spark of light in my lamentable life.”
“If there was a change of timing and method, meeting with you might have been the most glorious moment in my life. I am even willing to give up my nobility and all my wealth to become your Knight Apprentice with this aged body of mine, to pioneer new territory at the foot of the Dark Range, to complete the unfinished dream that I had since I was young… However, none of these will be fulfilled in the end.”
“Apart from the wealth in the castle and the six farmlands that I personally pioneered, I truly cannot think of any other things that can be used to repay you. But I have information regarding the Eternal Sleepers heretics that you might be interested in.”
“For all these years, I have been existing as a puppet in the dream realm. Even my thoughts were constantly guided and controlled. Perhaps due to the excessive contact with the Eternal Sleepers’ power, I was finally able to obtain an instance of free will, allowing me to understand some truth behind this ‘curse’.”
“Please be warned. The Eternal Sleepers’ conspiracy isn’t just simply and merely the Kant territory. The terrifying sacrificial ritual that they established in this castle is just a ‘node’ in their series of plans. This node is considered a calculation node, and they have a massive plan. The plan requires more souls, and more victims will be involved…”
“Their conspiracy might be spread throughout the entire world. Once they succeed with the plan, they will be able to drag all the sentient life forms into the abyss of eternal damnation.”
“However, their actions cannot be traced. According to the truth that I comprehended, every ‘calculation node’ requires a large number of living people as ‘consumables’. In the south region, they might be able to secretly capture refugees to slowly gather enough for the ritual, but the number of refugees is rather small. As for places with comprehensive social order, as soon as they observe the number of missing people, they would be tracked down.”
“I have already reported these matters to His Majesty, but I wish that you can remain vigilant and beware of those heretics that might return haunt you. In the declining south region of the kingdom, you are the people’s only hope.”
“Viscount Victor Kant, a sinner that sincerely wishes to be a good person.”
Gawain’s eyes had been shifting among the words, and he flipped through all the parchments until the last piece was presented to him.
Amber’s sharp eyes immediately noticed that this wasn’t a letter. “Hey! This doesn’t look like a letter that is written to anyone!”
“That’s right. This is the feudal lord’s order, and it is to be announced in the territory after signing.” Gawain read the contents of the parchment and couldn’t help but sigh. “He has relieved everyone’s liability to serve the Kant Clan on the territory. He has also given the rights of freedom to all the direct serfs of the feudal lord and the servants in the castle. He also announced that they have the authority to leave the territory freely.”
Amber blinked her eyes and suddenly recalled what Gawain once said, “Hey, I remember you saying that such a relief should be done in sequence and steadily…”
“That’s right. It should be done in sequence and steadily. To directly release the serfs as free residents would only make them lose the basic guarantee that the feudal lord provides. Without a comprehensive and follow-up system of land distribution, the slaves that turned into free residents wouldn’t be able to last long with the little bit of dismissal fee. They will quickly lose their freedom again and have to ultimately sell themselves and go back onto the same path as slave servants or even slaves.” Gawain shook his head and said, “But Viscount Victor Kant wasn’t an idealist that indulged in fantasy. He definitely thought of all this —but he didn’t have a choice. The Kant Clan is done for, and with the current administrative efficiency of the Anzu Kingdom’s royal clan, a new feudal lord will only arrive after a year or two. According to the laws of Anzu Kingdom, everything in the castle belongs to the noble, while all the slave servants don’t have any private property. As such, during this period of time, the people that the old feudal lord left behind would be the most miserable. They would have to think of a way to make a living. But if slaves make a living autonomously, it would be a crime. They could also steal the things in the castle to sell off, but that is also a crime.”
“So Viscount Kant released all these people as free residents and allowed them to leave on their own will, so that they will at least have a way to survive.”
Amber was stunned and suddenly felt her brain getting a little bigger. “It feels like… a huge pile of shambles!”
“This is indeed in complete shambles, but someone needs to deal with the aftermath.” Gawain’s mouth twitched as he said, “I feel that this matter is already on my head.”
Amber blinked her eyes in a manner that was asking for a beating. “That’s why my line of work is the best. Normally, after we finish our work, we will just leave and don’t have to consider the aftermath. But if we leave a little slow, we will be the one being dealt with…”
Gawain looked at this fellow and grabbed her arm and said, “That’s right. You left too slow when you dug my grave previously, so you have to settle the aftermath with me now.”