Lord of Winter: Beginning with Daily Intelligence

Chapter 683: Chapter 389: New Northern Territory and Old North (Part 3)

As long as they could avoid the Red Tide Caravan’s gaze, they could maintain that shred of dignity remaining.

Sorel did not expose them, just smiled and accepted it.

When he left, he glanced back at the gloomy castle, as if looking at an old beast nearing death but still trying to stand up its mane.

He came to a harsher conclusion in his mind: these lords were not simply hostile towards Louis, they hated him for showing them their own backwardness.

They envied the prosperity of the Red Tide, regretted not joining earlier, yet stubbornly clung to pride, refusing to admit reality.

He sat back in the carriage, fingers clenched inside his gloves.

"This isn’t a matter of character... it’s a civilizational gap."

The Red Tide system was pulling the entire Northern Territory into a new era with silent, irresistible force.

And these people could only be left behind, the more they struggled the more ridiculous they seemed.

Heading north, Sorel initially focused only on these lords.

Gradually, he found that what truly reflected the reality of a land wasn’t the feasts, wasn’t the castle, but those ordinary people living in the wind and snow.

As the carriage passed through the old territory that rejected the Red Tide system, the sight was glaringly hard to ignore...

On a winter night, the street was pitch black, not a single decent oil lamp. The wind brought real cold, not warmth resisted by the fireplace.

Outside a shabby house, he saw the refuges curled up on the edge of the snowy ground, wrapping themselves in torn burlap sacks.

Some were startled, avoiding the carriage, others looked numbly, habitually lowering their heads and hunching their shoulders.

Children hid in the corner of a shack, eyes large but without light.

Occasionally staring at passersby, as if gazing at shadows that will bring no good news.

What made Sorel frown most were those knights.

Knights in shabby cloaks charged through the streets, completely disregarding the civilians.

Their horses scared the refuges to scatter, a woman forced against a wall narrowly avoided being trampled.

Watching this scene from the carriage, Sorel unconsciously clenched his fist.

"This is the Northern Territory I remember."

But moving forward for a few more days, the scene abruptly changed, as if cut from its roots by someone.

Entering the scope of the Red Tide system’s influence, the night remained cold but was buoyed by scattered lights.

Iron stoves burned along the roadside, magic stone lamps hung from wooden poles releasing steady white light, allowing nighttime travelers to avoid stumbling in the dark.

Along the roadside, porridge stalls appeared, steam rising at the stall entrance, a few elderly queued to receive hot porridge, with two lazy wildcats at their feet.

Further away was a small clinic, a wooden sign painted with the Red Tide’s sun emblem.

At the door, a medical woman wrapped in a thick shawl was comforting a mother holding a child in a low voice.

Sorel stared at these scenes, feeling an unfamiliar confusion sweeping through him for the first time.

Children played alongside the street, laughter purer than the snow. Some tossed snowballs, others fell down, immediately helped up by adults.

A woman repairing the fence with Red Tide’s iron farm tools, using them effortlessly, her hands practiced as if using them for a long time.

A granary stood on the snow line, its outer wall constructed with new wood and stone, steady like a small mountain.

Workers moved grain bags back and forth from the warehouse, faces showing clear warmth and vigor.

Sorel watched the patrolling knights even longer.

The Red Tide system’s knight team moved uniformly, clad in deep red cloaks, their horse steps light. When they passed the intersection, they’d actively pull the reins to slow down, giving pedestrians right of way.

A knight even greeted a passerby, "Watch your step on the ice."

That tone was one Sorel never imagined hearing from a knight.

"Is this... a transformed Northern Territory?"

Sorel murmured softly, eyes falling on the light and shadows interwoven from the distant granary and magic stone lamps.

"Or... an entirely new country?"

The faces of the lords can be camouflaged, but the lives of the people do not lie.

Moving further east, the wind and snow thickened.

A layer of frost covered the carriage windows, but the outline of the city squeezed into view from afar.

For the first time, when Sorel lifted the curtain, he saw not a single city but two completely different giant shadows standing side by side.

On the left, it was a glow of lights unfolding in the snow fog.

The city walls towering, streets aligned, magic stone light scattered like gilt in the wind, layered upon layers, illuminating half the sky. Even from this distance, the pressure of magnitude and order brought a feeling of completed prosperity.

On the right side, in the further shadows, lay another kind of scenery.

Black smoke rose there, fine columns of smoke ranged neatly and stably, not a chaotic haze.

The snow reflected a pale gray under these columns, colossal buildings spread like ridges, their lines straight, lacking any noble decoration.

Sorel stared for a long time before realizing these were workshops... but larger than any Imperial military workshop he’d seen.

Yet he knew none of the details, only that area resembled the body of an iron giant, while the flourishing city on the left was the giant’s head.

Together they formed Red Tide City.

He lowered the curtain, sitting back into the soft seat, his chest feeling pressed by something.

He placed his hand in his bosom, gripping the silver pendant tightly.

The image of Ellie inside the pendant was familiar and gentle, yet now it made him more uneasy.

He repeatedly reviewed his mission all the way.

Royal family’s favor? Ensign? Seat? Legitimacy endorsement?

These words circled in his mind, soon like paper meeting water, soaked and softened.

He had originally thought the chaos in the Northern Territory would make these chips useful, but the lords he encountered along the way... they didn’t view Louis as a lord, but as a patron who made them wealthy.

What they pondered were dividends, workshops, roads, heaters, not the imperial title.

Even the most obstinate old nobility couldn’t contain their yearning when discussing Red Tide’s glass and hardened roads.

Sorel closed his eyes, fingers unconsciously pinching the pendant.

The imperial title held no allure here, the imperial laws held no authority,

As for money... he thought of those lords flaunting dividends, of the Red Tide’s granaries piled like mountains, of the workshops and goods he’d seen along the way...

He could no longer lie to himself: Red Tide was wealthier than most provinces of the Empire, even much wealthier.

He couldn’t offer them chips they’d find appealing.

Sorel closed the pendant, his palm cold, sweat already seeping through.

Looking up again, Red Tide City was drawing closer. Those two cities standing side by side, one bustling, one of iron, like a giant maw opening from the horizon.