Chapter 6.1 - Steinbeck Suzerain with Disaster-Ridden Future Prospect on the Path of Taking Office Part 1 (1/2)
Ximengsi Continent’s southern part.
On the way to the deserted Steinbeck Fief, the carriage bearing Clyde’s party encountered a bandit group. A man and two women in a carriage were usually easy targets. Clyde’s party had no funds to hire servants and guards, giving others the sense that they were ordinary travelers. If these bandits had known that this was a suzerain’s carriage, they might have restrained themselves, and this matter would not have happened.
After Princess Saras was hidden in the carriage under Lucifer’s protection, Clyde quietly opened the curtain and looked at the bandits around the carriage. There were dozens of bandits, and their weapons resembled that of Owles Kingdom’s guards. It seemed that they had robbed many passing travelers.
“We don’t have money. We have women, but it is impossible for us to give them to you all. This is the carriage of Steinbeck Suzerain. You all definitely don’t want to rob us!”
“Suzerain? Are you stupid? What type of suzerain doesn’t even have a single guard? Steinbeck Fief hasn’t had a suzerain for a long time. You…”
Clyde didn’t feel like exchanging any more superfluous words with these bandits. After getting off the carriage, he lightly stamped his foot, and tens of black tentacles sprang out from the ground, instantly stabbing these bandits to death. They didn’t know the value of life. After the carriage, those corpses were sucked dry by those black tentacles and dissolved into corpse fluid scattered on the road.
On the way to Steinbeck Fief, Clyde’s party encountered over ten bandit groups. One bandit group even had over a hundred bandits. Alas, their endings were all the same. The black tentacles stabbed them to death, and their corpses were directly dissolved into corpse fluid. Princess Saras in the carriage didn’t see this terrifying scene because Lucifer covered her eyes at the crucial moment. Although she didn’t see these terrifying scene, she could still hear the bandits’ blood-curdling screams, sending a shiver down her spine.
After Clyde sorted out several groups of bandits in a row, they finally reached the outer region of Steinbeck Fief. Since cleaning up bandits was the suzerain’s responsibility, Clyde dealt with it in advance. The only matter that dissatisfied him was that those bandits were all dirt poor. They didn’t even have a single coin on them. He sighed: no wonder they had all entered banditry. Because his tentacles dissolved them, their equipment and armor were destroyed. It was impossible to sell any of the spoils for money.
“What happened to this bridge? Even the bridge is broken.”
“Big Brother Clyde, this bridge seems to have been broken a very long time ago. Since there was no suzerain before, it was left like this.”
Clyde’s party finally reached the last checkpoint to enter Steinbeck Fief, Lawrence River. There, they encountered trouble. The only bridge to cross this river had collapsed, and Lawrence River was far too wide to ford. Even if they wished to look for a boat to cross this river, none could be found. According to Princess Saras’s calculations, not counting labor costs, just the materials to fix this bridge would cost over 500 gold coins.
In other words, the ten gold coins Clyde’s party had spent was not enough to inherit Steinbeck Fief. They still needed to throw in 500 gold coins to build a bridge. In addition, they needed an unknown sum of money to repair the suzerain mansion. Thinking about everything, not to mention the exemption of tribute and military service requirements for a year, even exempting them for five years was not enough to fully recover from this state.
“Lucifer, didn’t you…”