14 – Private Property “My lord, can you truly protect our Cedar Village?” The moment Ayla’s words left her mouth, the air went dead silent.
Village headman Edric’s face turned deathly pale.
He lunged to grab his granddaughter’s coarse skirt, his withered fingers trembling like leaves in the wind.
Duncan slammed his forehead straight into the mud, his whole body shaking.
In this Westeros ruled by nobles, a commoner questioning a lord could have their tongue cut out.
Rek’Sai’s thigh flexed.
The old wooden barrel beneath him, already at its limit, gave a sharp crack and shattered into pieces.
He stood to his full height.
His massive frame became a wall that completely blocked the sunlight above Ayla’s head.
Shadow swallowed the sixteen-year-old girl whole.
Ayla instinctively wanted to step back, but she bit down hard on her lip, forced her head up, and met those dark-green pupils.
“Protect?” Rek’Sai looked down at her from above, voice like grit scraping across an iron plate.
“House Tarth has collected taxes from you for hundreds of years.
When the pirates put knives to your throats just now, where were the knights of House Tarth?” Not far away, Brienne heard the words.
Her hand on the sword hilt tightened hard.
Her lips moved, but she could find no rebuttal.
“Those brightly dressed nobles talk endlessly of honor, bloodlines, and oaths.” Rek’Sai took half a step forward.
His military boots sank into the blood-water, splashing dark-red mud.
“They take your grain so they can feed knights who go fight those pointless lordly wars.
Your lives and deaths are just a string of numbers in their eyes.” He raised one thick arm.
The finger bones inside the leather glove cracked loudly.
“I don’t talk about honor.
I only recognize what is real.” Rek’Sai grinned, showing sharp white canines.
“As long as you pay the taxes on time and keep my beasts fed, you are my—Rek’Sai’s—private property.” He suddenly drew the Arcanite Reaper from his waist and swung it one-handed.
The heavy giant axe carried a bloody wind as it skimmed past Ayla’s scalp and smashed down onto a mutilated pirate corpse nearby.
Flesh pulp flew.
“I protect what’s mine.” Rek’Sai locked eyes with Ayla, every word hard as iron.
“Whoever dares touch my property, I will chop them to pieces.
My people do not need to live in fear.
Understood?” Ayla’s chest rose and fell hard.
She looked at the corpse that had been smashed into meat paste.
Instead of screaming, a light burst in her eyes— the kind of desperate resolve of a drowning person grabbing a floating piece of wood covered in thorns.
“Understood, my lord.” Ayla nodded heavily.
Her voice no longer trembled.
“Good.” Rek’Sai pulled the Arcanite Reaper free and shook the blood from the blade.
He turned to face the trembling villagers and pointed the war axe toward the Narrow Sea in the east.
“These Stepstones scraps dirtied my land.” His voice rolled through the sea wind, making eardrums numb.
“Pat!” “Here, my lord!” Pat scrambled to his feet, still clutching the account book tightly.
“Write this debt down on the first page by itself.” Rek’Sai gave the cold order.
“One day I will personally go to the Stepstones, flatten their nests, skin them, pull their tendons, and pile their heads on the docks as navigational markers!” The bloody oath, thick with killing intent, swept over the entire open ground like a storm.
The villagers knelt on the ground.
Not one dared make a sound.
But strangely, the fear in their hearts was fading.
In its place rose an unprecedented sense of security.
This giant of a lord seemed truly powerful.
“Pat, get over here.” Rek’Sai put the axe away.
Pat hurried forward.
Rek’Sai untied the money pouch at his waist, along with the one he had taken from the pirate leader, and threw both of them into Pat’s arms.
The heavy clink of metal nearly threw the young man’s back out.
“Five gold dragons, more than sixty silver stags, and these odds and ends.” Rek’Sai patted Pat’s shoulder.
“Keep enough for my wine.
The rest is yours to manage.” Pat’s eyes went wide as he stared at the fortune in his arms in disbelief.
“Hire people.
Repair the houses.
Build a wall.
Buy timber.” Rek’Sai’s words came rapid and hard.
“I don’t care how you calculate it.
Within three days I want to see two-meter-high chevaux-de-frise standing around the outside of the village.” “Y-yes, my lord!” Pat hugged the money pouches tightly, face flushed red.
A feverish light of extreme trust appeared in his eyes.
Rek’Sai turned to Brienne.
The heir of House Tarth was watching him with an extremely complicated expression.
The words that had just stripped the hypocritical outer skin from the nobility had deeply stung her, yet they had also shown her another, more real kind of power.
“Disciple.” Rek’Sai called.
“Master.” Brienne straightened.
“You’re in charge of security.
Take every young man in the village who can still breathe, divide up the pirates’ scrap metal, and teach them how to stick a spear into someone.” Rek’Sai pointed at the ground.
“Anyone who dares slack off, break their bones with the flat of your sword.
If they don’t sweat, they bleed.” “Understood.” Brienne did not hesitate for a second.
She suddenly felt that this simple, brutal set of rules was far more effective than all the complicated formalities of Evenfall Hall.
A territory needed to run, but Rek’Sai had not come here to be a bricklayer.
Leave professional work to the people best suited for it—even if they were not yet fully professional.
Rek’Sai whistled once.
Boom!
Boom!
Heavy footsteps came from the rear mountain.
The Boar King Pig charged down the slope, the ground trembling beneath it, and stopped beside Rek’Sai.
It affectionately rubbed its huge head against his thigh.
After the brief nourishment of the Beast Camp, the wounds on Pig’s back had already formed a thick scab.
The frenzy in its eyes had faded, replaced by pure obedience.
Rek’Sai seized the iron-reinforced saddle and vaulted onto the boar’s back.
“Master, where are you going?” Brienne could not help asking.
Rek’Sai pulled the reins and turned the boar’s head.
“I’m going into the mountains for a while.
Do your own work well.” No attendants.
No dry rations.
Rek’Sai clamped his legs.
Pig gave a low howl, kicked out with all four hooves, and carried its master toward the vast, deep forest behind Cedar Village.
Towering ancient trees quickly swallowed their figures.
The moment they entered the forest, the aura around Rek’Sai changed.
His breathing became long and quiet.
His dark-green vertical pupils contracted slightly in the shadows between the trees, catching every minute fluctuation in the air.
The Beast King template’s instincts were fully activated.
He needed stronger, faster, more lethal beasts to fill the camp.
Pig’s steps slowed.
Sensing its master’s intent, the huge boar’s hooves landed on the fallen leaves without making much sound.
Rek’Sai slid down from its back.
He walked to a thick ironwood tree and crouched.
The soil was a little damp.
At the roots lay a small tuft of gray-brown fur.
Rek’Sai pinched the fur, brought it to his nose, and sniffed.
A faint rank scent, mixed with the characteristic rotting-leaf smell of the rainforest.
Not an ordinary forest wolf.
Hidden inside that scent was an extremely dangerous trace of blood.
He stood and swept his gaze across the surrounding vegetation.
A broken shrub branch caught his attention.
The break was uneven, the height about one and a half meters above the ground.
That meant the creature that left the mark was abnormally large.
A bloodthirsty curve touched the corner of Rek’Sai’s mouth.
He drew the Arcanite Reaper, lightly patted Pig’s neck, and gave a hand signal.
Pig immediately lowered its body and followed silently behind him.
Man and boar slipped deeper into the rainforest, following the trail.
The light grew darker and darker.
At some point the insect sounds around them had completely vanished.
A oppressive, dead silence filled the air.
Suddenly Rek’Sai stopped.
On the open ground ahead, several corpses lay scattered.
Not animal corpses.
They were humans wearing leather armor.
Their deaths had been extremely brutal.
Chests torn open by violence, organs eaten clean, blood soaking large patches of earth.
Rek’Sai approached to examine them.
His gaze suddenly sharpened.
On the leather armor of these men, a blurred pattern had been painted with poor-quality dye—the sun and moon of House Tarth.
At that exact moment, from deep in the canopy overhead came an extremely deep, muffled roar that seemed capable of shattering internal organs.
A rank wind suddenly dropped from above!
A massive black shape plunged straight down from a thirty-foot canopy.
Enormous claws instantly tore through Pig’s back armor.
Rek’Sai rolled across the ground, looked up— and met a pair of eyes burning with ghostly green fire that were locked dead on him.