Chapter 6: Watchman's Rules I

It had already been a week since Princess Amelia held a ball for her birthday. Naturally, the effects of Herbert's actions had now been widely known to the upper circles in the kingdom, not to mention the entire capital. It even appeared that the Ravenmoon Duke himself had tacitly agreed to his son's abrupt actions.

As a result of the Ravenmoon's sudden reversal of treatment towards them, the princess continued to lose the support that her family from her mother's side had given her. Even her distant cousin who was merely a concubine's third daughter, Lady Elena, had lost a big amount of investment that she had placed based on the trust that she had in Princess Amelia. Not only did she not receive help to take action against the Hawkwoods, but even the Ravenmoons also showed their support and tacit agreement towards the Hawkwoods.

During this period, Herbert had not been idle. He had continuously issued several orders and made adjustments to prepare for his travel back to Umbra, the Ravenmoon territory. Normally, a trip back from the capital would take about a month, and if rushed, it would take about two weeks or so. On the other hand, a messenger pigeon could travel the distance in about a day at least or two at most.

However, that was only considering if he were to take the shortest route. Herbert intends to go somewhere along the way which would take an additional week or two and this would largely delay his trip. Not to mention how much the weather could also affect them on the road. Nevertheless, his preparations during the week were already enough and he had already sent out letters informing others of the route that he intends to take. Naturally, this is to ensure safe and easy passage toward the other territories that he would enter along the way.

As he gazed at the cloudy sky, Herbert once again thought of his plan and its likelihood of success. Although he had made a clear deviation from the original timeline by showing a confrontational attitude towards Princess Amelia, there shouldn't be too many changes in this timeline. He then entered a large carriage; this was his private carriage and nobody else was allowed to ride or enter it. As he waited for all the luggage to be loaded on the other carriages, soon a knocking sound came from the door of the carriage.

"My lord, we are now ready to move."

"Alright, tell them that we can now set off."

"As my lord wills."

Soon, the carriages behind and in front of him started to move in the northwest direction. This was the route that will encroach upon another one of the four ducal territories in the kingdom. As the Ravenmoons were on the northern end of the kingdom, the other three ducal households are each in different cardinal directions. Their current destination was towards the western territories and the ducal family that has hegemony over it is the Rozenblood family.

As he spent the time traveling, Herbert had a lot of time to thoroughly think for himself. He had spent this time thinking about the major and minor details in the novel, as well as the possible dangers that he might face once he kills the protagonist.

The novel could roughly be divided into three separate stages. These three stages could be separated based on the participating characters and factions' strength, scale, and power level. The first stage includes a relatively low-level threat up to a kingdom-level threat. In the original story, the climax of the story's first stage would be his death. If he could prevent the events that led up to it then he just might be able to survive by the end of the novel. Naturally, just preventing his death during the first stage would not be enough as the second and third stages would include an empire-level threat and a world-level threat respectively.

Eventually, as they crossed several territories, their caravan began to reach the outskirts of the Rozenblood family's territory, the fertile Flos plains. As one of the major families in the western region of the kingdom, it is only right for them to receive the heir of another major family from the north in a grandiose manner. On their borders with the territory of Count Beargrave were troops stationed and at the ready, it was as if they were preparing for an all-out war. The soldiers who were affiliated with the Beargrave house that was in charge of escorting Herbert as they cross their territory were visibly shaken.

As the power of the royal family continues to decline, the kingdom's major factions will start to excessively militarize, as such, there was not much difference between entering their territory and entering an entirely different kingdom.

After exchanging pleasantries and swapping with their escort troops, Herbert received an invitation letter from the current lord of the Rozenblood family to enter and have a meal at their estate. Usually, Herbert would just ignore this and write them back a letter to politely decline as his status went far beyond the need to attend to trivial matters like that. Even if the one to invite him was the Duke of Rozenblood he wouldn't need to be courteous with them as he was also from a ducal household with almost equal status, but doing so would only be detrimental to his plans so he had no choice but to reluctantly accept it. He then ordered his butler to write back a letter with their intentions to accept their invitation.

To timely deliver the letter, their escort troops had sent a small detachment to rush back to the duke's manor. The riders each had a pair of horses so that they can switch whenever the one they were riding gets tired. Their horses were made to run and gallop as fast as they can and soon, they were out of Herbert's sight.

As the messenger arrived at the Rozenblood manor, the letter that they delivered was soon sent to the Duke's study. When he received the letter, he frowned before ordering the servants to prepare dinner. The invitation letter that he had sent was supposed to be just another show of courtesy, from his point of view, it was surprising that Herbert would accept it when he had been rejecting the invitations of the other nobles on his way to the north. Perhaps it was because of his sudden choice to pick the route that goes over the western region of the kingdom, or maybe it was because of some other reason, in the end, as an educated heir, Herbert should have his own reasons.

Duke Cloven Rozenblood was a middle-aged man with red hair. As a major lord of the western territories of the kingdom, he had never let go of his cautiousness. After all, he wasn't originally supposed to be the duke. It was only when his brother, the previous duke, Erwin Rozenblood, had died, did he take over the duke's position.

As the servants of the family moved around with great vigor and speed, a young lady with jet-black hair silently stood on the corner, occasionally she would also eavesdrop on the servants' conversation and her eyes would narrow as a smile secretly bloomed on her fair and unblemished face.

As soon as she had gathered enough information, she soon went upstairs and entered a room. Inside the room, she hastily locked the door and made sure that nobody could enter as she soon opened her diary which she had taken from a secret compartment in her drawer.

While looking at her written diary logs for the past few days, she soon stopped on a certain page before reading it out softly.