A column of warriors—looking more like refugees than soldiers—emerged from the forest, each man caked in filthy snow and mud.
Slung across the back of a squire, Ryan could barely keep his eyes open; yet, as they stepped out of the woods, the scene unfolding before him left him awestruck.
They stood upon a ridge overlooking the forest—a dense canopy of trees that had obstructed his view for the past several hours.
Ahead of them, dropping some fifty or sixty meters below, lay a vast expanse of flat land—or rather, a snowfield.
A world of blinding white filled his vision, dotted here and there with dozens of scattered dwellings across the thousands of square meters of snowy terrain.
Further still stood a mountain peak resembling a rhinoceros horn. It likely towered two or three hundred meters high; to Ryan's eye—accustomed to a different perspective—it rose from the ground at a steep angle of forty-five to fifty degrees.
The very tip of that "rhinoceros horn" pierced deep into the biting winds and blizzards of the Northern Realm, creating such a powerful illusion that Ryan felt as though a colossal rhinoceros beast stood beneath the earth below, staring right up at him.
Shrouded in swirling snow, the peak's true form remained elusive to mortal eyes; only its vague outline could be discerned. Yet, even that mere silhouette exerted such an overwhelming pressure that the eight squires and Beard standing nearby found their breathing growing involuntarily rapid and shallow.
"This... is Young Master Ryan's domain..."
Though the old butler appeared frail and on the verge of collapse, he showed no signs of fatigue despite their arduous journey.
The physical constitution of a full-fledged Knight was, indeed, something Ryan still envied deeply.
Was this—this world of blinding white stretching out before him—truly the place where he would spend the rest of his days, until the very end?
Ryan felt a surge of curiosity within his heart; yet, moments later, that curiosity was abruptly extinguished for all ten of them.
For one simple reason... it was cold. With the shelter of the forests left behind, the biting winter winds of the Northern Realm set all ten of them—even their teeth—chattering. Occasionally, stray snowflakes would drift down to land on Ryan's neck, making him shiver involuntarily.
"It's so cold."
Even the old butler—a full-fledged knight himself—could not help but huddle deeper into his clothes; yet, as he gazed at the pale-faced Ryan, the fury burning in his eyes seemed to dispel nearly all the surrounding cold.
"Damn it all! If Young Master Ryan's rightful possessions hadn't been confiscated back in the Imperial Capital, how could a young master of such noble stature have been reduced to this wretched state?"
As he spoke, he turned his gaze toward Ryan, and his aged eyes once again welled up with tears.
"Once the Count—our Lord—returns, he surely won't let those people off the hook."
Hearing Beard's words, Ryan—who had been enduring his plight so passively that he had all but forgotten his own exhaustion—fell silent as well.
As a Baron personally invested by the Royal Family, his entourage certainly should not have consisted of merely one old butler and eight squire-knights.
During his investiture ceremony, King Columbus III granted him a retinue of one hundred guards: thirty full-fledged knights and seventy squires. At the head of this force stood three Knight-Captains, each possessing the formidable strength of a Silver Knight.
There were over a hundred warhorses, along with three carriages laden with supplies for developing his new fief—assets worth no less than a thousand gold coins.
He had also been assigned dozens of slaves to attend to his needs as a young Baron—a group that included several "Cat-girls" whom Columbus III had provided specifically to tempt and corrupt him.
Yet, in the short distance between the Imperial Palace and the city gates, his carriages vanished, and his slaves were taken away.
His guards, too, were detained outside the Imperial Capital under various pretexts; ultimately, only fifty squires remained to accompany Ryan as he departed the capital for the Northwind Province. By the time he reached the Northwind Province, only eight apprentice knights and the old steward, Beard, remained by his side.
Of the remaining forty-two guards and the old steward's son—young Beard—the vast majority had been detained at various checkpoints and territories along the route. Young Beard, in particular, had been imprisoned within the Flying Wing Canyon, the strategic pass connecting the Northwind Province to the rest of the Empire.
His predecessor, Ryan, had been consumed by rage and resentment over this treatment; he had even harbored fantasies of Count Clayton launching a counterstrike upon his return to the Empire, thereby rescuing him and whisking him back to the warm, comfortable South.
But the current Ryan understood all too clearly that the myriad obstructions and humiliations faced along this journey represented a concerted blockade against the Clayton family—one orchestrated by virtually every power bloc and interest group throughout the entire Empire. By settling every matter *before* the Count's return, they ensured that by the time he finally did arrive, it would already be too late to change anything.
Moreover, even if the Count were a force of nature—capable of righting wrongs and restoring order—Ryan's own status as Baron of the Frozen Tundra in the North remained immutable. It was a title bestowed by the Imperial Family itself—a decree absolutely beyond any possibility of reversal.
Thus, even if the Clayton family *did* manage to mount a counterattack, such matters would no longer have anything to do with him.
From the very moment he received his noble title, he had effectively severed his ties with the Clayton family.
From this day forward, the entity standing behind him would no longer be the Clayton family, but the Frozen Tundra—the domain of Baron Ryan.
Under his name, a brand-new lineage would begin.
*Thud!*
Ryan's entire body sank into the snow. The cold white powder no longer possessed the picturesque beauty it had seemed to hold before; instead, its biting chill—combined with the severe blood loss he had already suffered—caused his consciousness to begin to waver and fade. By the time he regained his senses, he found himself perched upon the back of the old butler, Beard. Kneeling before him were seven guards, while the Guard Captain, Deren, was in the midst of pummeling one of them with his fists.
"To think you dared to let the Baron take a tumble—Rosen, you deserve to be cut into a thousand pieces!"
Deren unleashed the full fury of his rage upon the guard named Rosen. Yet, beneath that anger, a flicker of fear lurked in his eyes; for a moment there, seeing Ryan look as if he were about to pass out cold, Deren had envisioned his own severed head rolling across the vast, snow-white landscape, leaving a crimson trail in its wake.
He drew his knight's sword, but a voice calling from behind him—Ryan's voice—halted his arm mid-swing.
"That's enough, Deren."
Ryan put a stop to the Guard Captain; after all, these nine men were the only ones he had left by his side.
He looked at Rosen, whose face had gone somewhat pale—whether from fear or from the biting chill of the Northern lands, it was hard to say.
"Rosen—and the rest of you—rise."
Ryan insisted on dismounting from Beard's back. Though he felt a twinge of discomfort, he knew that as the group's central pillar of authority, he had to project an air of hope and resilience right now.
Of course, the deciding factor was that he had just spotted the road leading into the village—a path that, by local standards, was actually quite smooth.
"From this day forward, this is where we shall make our home."
He made no overt gestures of leniency toward Rosen; in such a rigid and unforgiving era, showing too much softness was rarely a wise move.
Ryan's small frame, shivering slightly, trudged along the dirt road. In that moment, he felt profoundly grateful that he still possessed at least a rudimentary foundation in the physical disciplines of a knight.
Behind him, the old butler Beard and the eight guards—each wearing a distinct expression—watched Ryan's retreating figure with a mixture of surprise and awe. Ahead, within this nameless village, a dozen or so men—armed with pitchforks and other such "weapons"—had already turned their gaze toward him.
Ryan took a deep breath, looking out at the group of villagers before him—people who were visibly malnourished. His voice, though still boyish, carried an innate air of authority.
"I am Ryan, Lord of the Frozen Lands."
In this era, there was simply no possibility of impersonation; among the nobility—the ruling class—everyone was connected by blood or marriage; they were, in one way or another, all acquaintances.
Upon hearing Ryan's words, the villagers instantly cast aside everything they held in their hands and dropped to their knees before him.
"My Lord! You have finally come!"
"The Lord has arrived! Now, at last, we shall have food to eat!"