Twenty-five years ago, in the Valcrestian Year 82, King Aldric was still young and energetic.
He went hunting very frequently, having already been the King for several years, and he had already enjoyed every pleasure his kingdom had to offer.
Once, he went hunting near the forests of Valewood and stayed there for quite some time.
The village was poor even back then and had very little to offer the King, but the people did their very best to please him.
At the time, Aldren Morcant was a wine merchant in Valewood.
Wanting to impress the King, he brought with him a hundred-year-old wine.
When the King tasted it, it was unlike anything he had ever experienced before.
It was as though his tongue had tasted something otherworldly.
The King was so impressed that he asked Aldren to name his price.
Aldren replied,
“Your Majesty, this bottle is worth more than my own life. I am not capable of putting a price on something that exceeds my own worth.”
The King fell into thought.
He wanted to reward Aldren, but there was nothing in particular that Aldren had asked for.
After thinking for a while, the King decided that the least he could do was give him the village of Valewood.
And so, King Aldric announced,
“I grant you the village of Valewood.”
In reality, this meant that Aldren was granted the taxation and administrative rights over Valewood.
He did not own the land.
He was merely a royal official managing the village on behalf of the Crown.
When the King ordered his secretary to draft the document, however, the secretary raised a concern.
“Your Majesty, granting villages merely for wine could lead to opposition from the nobles.”
The nobles considered themselves to be of special blood and despised the idea of a commoner being elevated through merit alone.
So, the King placed a time limit on Aldren’s rights of 15 years.
After fifteen years, Aldren’s administrative rights were supposed to expire.
And fifteen years later…
They did.
But Valewood was such an insignificant village that nobody even bothered to check.
As long as the Crown continued receiving its tribute on time, nobody cared who ruled what.
And so, Aldren continued ruling Valewood.
For another ten years.
Until Adrian took over.
But Aldren Morcant had been aiming for Valewood from the very beginning.
And it all started a few weeks before the King arrived.
Aldren had recently gotten his hands on that hundred-year-old wine.
The tax collector at the time, Tuton, was a greedy bastard.
When he learned that Aldren possessed such valuable wine, he demanded the bottle as a bribe.
Aldren refused.
And Tuton began harassing him.
His caravans started getting attacked.
Authorities began pestering him constantly.
It became so bad that even assassins were eventually sent after him.
Aldren spent the next few days hiding, desperately trying to survive.
Then the King arrived.
And Aldren saw his chance.
He took it.
And it worked.
The tables had turned on Tuton.
Aldren had already formed an association with the merchants of Valewood, all of whom were sick of Tuton and wanted to get rid of him.
Tuton was only a low-ranking noble—a Baron.
Nobody in the capital even knew his name.
Yet he had started robbing merchants through bribes and had somehow become known in the capital.
But his time had come.
His evil deeds had reached their peak.
And now…
His Retribution had found a face.
Aldren Morcant.
After becoming the sole authority of Valewood, Aldren began hunting for Tuton.
But Tuton had disappeared.
Aldren raided and seized all of his properties.
Tuton was eventually reduced to a mere beggar, wandering throughout Valewood and begging for food.
Aldren eventually found him.
But he didn’t kill him.
Instead, he left him in that miserable state.
He enjoyed watching Tuton beg for food every day.
He mocked him personally.
His friends mocked him as well.
Tuton eventually couldn’t take it anymore.
One day, he tried to attack Aldren.
But Aldren’s guards immediately caught him.
Tuton was later executed in the public square.
And with that…
No one remained in the whole of Valewood who was willing to oppose Aldren Morcant anymore.
Aldren then eliminated every other taxes except the agricultural tax.
And the only people who suffered were the peasants.
They poured their sweat and blood into growing crops.
And Aldren took more than 60% of what they produced as taxes.
For the next fifteen years, he sucked Valewood dry.
When his original administrative rights finally expired, Aldren eased his grip somewhat.
He had no intention of provoking complaints that might reach the King and cause the Crown to seize his authority.
So he became more careful.
Years passed.
And eventually, Adrian was granted the administrative rights to Valewood.
But Aldren was still the one truly in power.
He had spent years placing his friends and associates in important positions throughout the village.
He had also become the leader of Valewood’s ruling class.
During his years of administration, he had bought their loyalty by removing taxes from them and making sure that any criminal cases against them mysteriously disappeared.
Now, the Prince was merely the face of Valewood.
Aldren was the power behind it.
He was the shadow government of Valewood.
But even Aldren Morcant was not immortal.
He was growing old.
And he wanted his child to inherit everything he had built.
There was only one problem.
Aldren’s greatest source of power was his network of connections.
Those connections had been built over decades.
They could not simply be transferred to his child.
His son could inherit his wealth.
His properties.
His bank.
But he could not inherit the relationships that Aldren had spent his entire life cultivating.
So Aldren needed something else.
He wanted to establish a system in which whoever was appointed to govern Valewood would effectively become a puppet.
The official lord could change.
The administrator could change.
Even the Prince could change.
But the real power would remain with the Morcant family.
And the Valewood Bank was a major step toward achieving exactly that.
Aldren was, in fact, extremely grateful to the Prince.
After all, it was Adrian who had given him the idea for the bank.
A tool that Aldren could use to transform his informal influence into something far more permanent.
A system of power that could survive even after he was gone.
But…
There was one massive problem surrounding the Valewood Bank.