Sword of Dawnbreaker

Chapter 165: What Happened in the Kant Territory

In this era, many emblems could not be freely misused. ——A considerable number of beasts and flowers and plants were seen as aristocrats’ privately owned symbols. The combination of a beast’s head sculpture and flowers and plants signified the mark of a certain clan in many circumstances, and civilians would have unknowingly infringed on the rights of aristocrats by freely using these symbols. According to the heraldry and aristocratic laws of Anzu that Gawain had grasped, the symbol on this dagger was clearly the mark of a certain clan as seen from its layout.

For 700 years, these clan symbols of the aristocrats still adhered to the ancient tradition.

This dagger possibly came from the ‘bestowing’ of a certain aristocrat. According to what Gawain knew, aristocrats had extremely strict practices when it came to bestowing another person a weapon: only the King was entitled to gifting battle axes, war hammers, halberds and similar weapons, and they would only be given to aristocrats with meritorious military services. On the other hand, swords of all kinds (mainly longswords) were more common gifts. Any aristocrat could gift another person a sword for any reason, but the person receiving it had to be an aristocrat too, and at least of Knight class; whereas daggers, pocket knives, short bows and the like were weapons seen to be ‘unpresentable’. Aristocrats would gift such items to ‘civilians’ that they favored, and the targets were often guards, attendants with excellent performance, or… lackeys.

“Seems like it’s just as I’d judged. Those mercenaries were ‘tamed’ by aristocrat clans.” Gawain picked up that dagger and took in every detail. “Only we don’t know if they’ve pledged allegiance to one family or several families at the same time…”

“Do you recognize the symbol on it?” Amber leaned over curiously. “Ah, initially, I just thought this thing looked nice…”

“I don’t.” Gawain carefully studied it and finally shook his head. “This clan had probably yet to emerge when I was alive. Go get Heidi here. She should know the aristocrats of the southern borders better.”

Very soon, Heidi came to Gawain’s tent.

After carefully scrutinizing the symbol on the dagger, she asserted, “This is the emblem of the Kant Clan.”

“Kant Clan?” Gawain recalled with a frown and finally found the source of this name in the general knowledge of the present era that he had been cramming recently. “The Viscount north of the Leslie Clan?”

“Yes, beyond the wild mountainous forest north of the White River, further north from where you brought the refugees back previously, is the territory of the Kant Clan.” Heidi began providing a simple introduction of the Kant Clan. “It is a clan that rose up three hundred years ago, granted the territory there because of military service. When the Cecil Clan got into trouble, they happened to be serving the current royal family, so they escaped the great purge of the southern borders. Currently, they’re considered to be one of the few clans in the southern lands with hundreds of years of history.”

Gawain casually asked, “How’s their relationship with the Cecil Clan?”

“Not considered distant, but not close either,” Heidi replied. “During the great purge of the southern borders a hundred years ago, they didn’t help nor did they add insult to injury. They maintained a neutral stance throughout. They are a clan that is relatively more mysterious. They do not interact much with the outside world, and their members rarely appear in the upper-class social circle. ——Although the upper-class social circle here at the southern borders is very loose in the first place, members of the Kant family are still the ones who appear the least.”

“What is their main estate? Farmland? Mines? Or ranches?”

“The Kant territory mainly produces grain and all kinds of quality medicinal herbs, including magical medicine, but they do not have mines.”

“That’s a problem then, a big problem…” Gawain tapped the table. “An aristocratic territory with no mines and mainly relies on farmland, what are they planning to do, capturing a big bunch of slaves before winter sets in? And judging based on this dagger, this group of mercenaries work specially for the Kant Clan. It’s definitely not their first time capturing slaves in the wild. ——What are so many slaves being sent to the Kant territory for?”

“This…” Heidi had also become aware of the bizarreness in the problem and suddenly recalled another matter. “Speaking of this, there’s another matter that is very odd. The Kant territory’s main output has always been grains, and medicinal herbs and magical medicine were both sideline productions. However, in recent years, the amount of medicinal herbs and magical medicine that they sell has been increasing year after year. Especially magical medicine, not only has output doubled, the quality is also getting better and better, showing signs of surpassing their grain output to become the main pillar of the Kant Clan. However, from the rules of magical power dispersion, such a situation is very difficult to explain…”

Due to the existence of various Beyonder powers, the ‘medicinal plants’ of this world were divided into two types. Other than medicinal herbs with average results, there were also ‘magical medicine’ that could be used in various magical rites or directly used as spellcasting materials. In normal circumstances, the growth of magical medicine would be highly restricted by the local magical environment. Its output would naturally have an upper limit. If the magical environment is poor, then regardless of how intensive the cultivation was or how seeds were improved, it would be impossible to increase the yield of magical medicine —— increasing the amount alone could instead cause the magical power in the herbs to lessen.

Yet the magical medicine output of the Kant territory had been rising year by year.

In this era where everything lacked statistics, other than merchants who specialized in doing business, aristocrats rarely noticed the fluctuations in the crop yield of the territories around (in fact, they might not even be very clear about the crop yield of their own territory. All these were matters for advisors and supervisors to pay attention to). However, as a mage, and a mage whose family was in decline, Heidi naturally paid great attention to the changes in the magical medicine market around them in usual times, so she observantly caught this abnormal phenomenon.

Amber had only been idly listening at the side, but at this point, her sharp ears abruptly quivered. She wore a look of complete horror. “Damn! The Kant territory couldn’t have been using living humans as fertilizer to grow those herbs, could they?!”

“…Although I believe that they could really come up with such a thing given the moral outlook of those aristocrats, to really do so isn’t quite possible.” Gawain waved his hand as the corner of his eyelid twitched. “Farmlands used to plant magical medicine usually cannot be hidden. Outsiders can spot them at one glance. Moreover, using living humans as fertilizer cannot increase the concentration of the magical environment either. —What kind of black magic would it be?”

Gawain was speaking when Betty’s voice suddenly came from outside the tent. “Lord! Lord! Pittman is here for you!”

Gawain faltered. Recalling the task that he had handed to the Druid earlier, a smile could not help but appear on his face. “It seems like his ‘special ointment’ has worked.”

As he had long expected that the average interrogation would do nothing to those mercenaries, Gawain had requested Pittman to come up with a way to tackle those two ‘captives’ right from the very start.

The Druids weren’t an occupation skilled in ‘interrogation’. Their spells in this aspect couldn’t be compared to those believers of the Blood God or those undead Mages whose expertise were in torture and the ways of anguish. However, if one could just change one’s way of thinking, ‘interrogation’ wasn’t the only way of getting information.

At least in Gawain Cecil’s memories, there were lots of methods of digging the information out of the enemy with the help of Druid potions and rites. Even though 700 years had passed, these methods still worked very well.

In a little hut that was used as a temporary prison, Gawain met the two captives who had potions forced down them, ointment smudged on their foreheads, and also inhaled ritual incense for a good hour.

These two people were already in a state of delirium by this time.

Pittman still stood at the side with a conceited look. “I told you, my potions and rites are all very effective, especially this incense. Even the strongest person would lose himself in its magical power…”

It was indeed as the little old man had said, the entire room was suffused with the fragrance of an incense that was so thick that it was almost nauseating. Even though Pittman’s rite had ended and this incense no longer possessed the power of interfering with the mind, this smell still had Gawain frowning hard. Even Amber made a big fuss beside him. “Wah—— old man, are you about to make smoked meat?”

“With the way you’re doing the smoking, most people would’ve come clean without even needing to chug the potion.” Gawain had to add an aura protection effect for himself before he dared to stand still in the room. “I’m even suspecting that this rite of yours is simply smoking the people till they’re unconscious. What has it got to do with magic…?”

Pittman nodded as he chuckled. “You’ve really hit the point. ——Actually, I’d considered improving this spell many years ago. I believed that even without using magical medicine, just smoking the targets with excrement was also useful. —— Unfortunately, I was given a beating by my mentor when I came up with this idea back in those years. In the end, I had to give it up. But you’ve given me a reminder this time. Perhaps—”

“I dare you to try putting it into practice?!” Gawain instantly glowered at the little old man upon hearing him. “If you really smoke them with excrement for an hour, even if they would come clean, I wouldn’t want to question them!”

Pittman immediately shrunk his neck. He examined Gawain’s sinews and came to a preliminary judgment that this excavated legend could at least beat twenty of his mentor; thus, he decided to give up on his bold ‘reformed rite’ plan.

Meanwhile, Gawain was looking with a frown at the disorientated mercenary captives before him. They were staring at the ground in front of them with a lifeless gaze. The power of magic potion, ointment, and incense had dragged them into a state between reality and dreamland. In this state, they could no longer distinguish whether they were answering questions in reality or reviewing their memories in their dreams. Before the power of the magic faded away from their bodies, they would answer almost all questions.

“Was it the Kant Clan’s…?” Gawain questioned but suddenly forgot the name of the current patriarch of the Kant Clan once he began. Thus, he turned his head, slightly embarrassed. “Heidi, who is the current head of the Kant Clan?”

Heidi turned her head slightly. “Viscount Victor Kant. He’s an aged Viscount.”

“Yes, Victor Kant.” Gawain turned towards the two mercenaries. “He was the one who sent you to capture the slaves?”

The Mage of the two mercenaries still seemed to be a little resistant, but the head of the mercenaries spoke up first, “Yes… Viscount Victor Kant sent us to capture refugees in the wilderness for him… But it isn’t to make them slaves.”

“Not as slaves?” Gawain’s brows knotted. “Then what is it for?”

“To help him…” The head of the mercenaries initially answered with a dull gaze, but he suddenly lifted his head; his eyes fixed on Gawain, and he revealed a strange smile. “Enter his dreams, Lord Gawain Cecil.”