What Jason had handed him was none other than a Healing Potion.
Even this small amount of Healing Potion was extremely expensive.
Moreover, considering the count’s house’s current financial situation, it could only feel even more expensive.
“Father, I am fine. The bleeding has already stopped. It will heal naturally with time.”
“Do not say something so absurd!”
At Lawrence’s words, anger crossed Jason’s face.
“Do not act stubborn for no reason and apply it already. How upset do you think Adela will be if a scar remains on your face?”
When his mother was mentioned, Lawrence could no longer refuse.
Lawrence nodded slightly and applied the Healing Potion to the wound.
When the slightly sticky Healing Potion soaked into the wound, a cool sensation washed over him with a faint sting, and the pain subsided considerably.
As expected from what he had heard, the Healing Potion’s performance was remarkable.
It could not cure disease, but for treating wounds, it was a miracle medicine.
‘Fascinating.’
The Healing Potion was more effective than any ointment Lawrence had used in his life.
After confirming that Lawrence’s face looked much better, Jason asked in a rather serious voice.
“Lawrence, I heard everything from Martin. Have you been fighting monsters at the Barrier Wall until now?”
“…….”
At Jason’s question, Lawrence lowered his head deeply and could not say a word.
He had made his parents worry, so even if he had ten mouths, he had nothing to say.
“I am sorry. Because I am incompetent, I have only made you suffer.”
On Jason’s face, guilt toward his son and pride crossed together.
His eyes reddened, and tears welled in them.
He had thought it was a miracle that Lawrence had overcome that terrible disease and risen, but beyond that, Lawrence had grown astonishingly strong in only a few months.
And with that power, he had fought bravely for the territory and resolved in one stroke a crisis that could have caused the territory to collapse.
“No, Father. You do not need to apologize. I only did what I naturally should have done.”
Flustered by Jason’s sudden apology, Lawrence waved his hands.
“Hahaha.”
Jason smiled warmly like sunlight and pulled Lawrence into his arms.
His large, firm hands gently wrapped around Lawrence’s back, and Lawrence entrusted his whole body to his father’s soft embrace like snow melting beneath spring sunlight.
Jason’s warm love washed into Lawrence’s heart like gentle waves.
Accepting his father’s emotions, Lawrence’s heart filled with happiness and love, and tears of emotion gathered around his eyes.
It was a feeling he had truly missed.
He had thought he would never feel it again…….
Because it was something he had desperately longed for, Lawrence could not help but be even more deeply moved.
Jason released the embrace, placed both hands on Lawrence’s shoulders, and looked into his eyes with a warm gaze.
In his father’s eyes were love, pride, and deep trust.
“But when did you become so strong?”
At first, Jason had not been able to believe what Martin had told him after urgently opening the office door without knocking.
How long had Lawrence been training in swordsmanship, for him to defeat none other than the Knight Commander?
It was such an absurd thing to say that at first, he had wondered whether Martin was teasing him.
But he also thought there was no way the loyal Martin would make such a ridiculous joke.
Moreover, seeing his face covered in sweat, panting as he spoke urgently, made it difficult to think it was a lie.
Jason’s mind had been in chaos.
In that case, seeing it with his own eyes was the fastest and surest method.
He had made a quick decision and rushed to the training ground.
And how shocked had he been when he saw Juan fallen the moment he opened the door?
Even just recalling that moment made his chest swell.
“It turns out that I have a constitution with high Mana Affinity. Until now, a considerable amount of mana had already accumulated in my body just through breathing. And Martin diligently taught me swordsmanship, while real combat allowed me to rapidly improve my skill. As for the decisive blow, I received help from the spirit Father already knows about.”
At Lawrence’s explanation, Jason could not hide his joy.
His son was a genius sent down by the heavens.
A great talent had been born in the Romanov family.
“I will take the place of the knights who were expelled. And I will firmly establish discipline among the remaining knights as well.”
“Yes. Since that is what you want, let us do that. Thank you, my son.”
Jason’s eyes were filled with love and pride toward his son.
Juan could not rest comfortably even in prison.
Because O’Neill blamed all of this on Juan and tormented him every day.
Even without mana, Juan was far stronger than O’Neill.
However, after being struck by Jason and having his jaw broken, he could not eat properly.
His stamina, already weakened by his injuries, worsened even further, and in the end, Juan had to submit to O’Neill, who had once been his subordinate.
Imprisoned for life, he would now be tormented by O’Neill until the day he died.
And the remaining knights also received stern punishments according to their crimes.
Juan’s gang had their mana circuits destroyed, their property confiscated, and they were expelled from the territory together with their families.
In this era, life as a landless wanderer was extremely arduous.
There was no way it would be easy to live without even a small patch of land to farm.
There were even many cases where people willingly became slaves in order to survive.
On the day they left the territory, not a single person showed sympathy.
The people of the territory, who had suffered under them, did not hesitate to hurl curses too foul to put into words.
Because of them, family members, friends, and comrades had been injured or killed.
Some even threw stones, carrying the resentment they had held all this time.
A knight struck by a stone flared up and tried to rush at the people of the territory.
But at Lawrence’s dignified figure standing before the people of the territory, he forced down his anger and turned away.
Thus, the knights had to leave their hometown without even being able to raise their heads.
In this way, the Romanov Territory removed the cancerous mass through major surgery and laid the foundation for reconstruction.
Although the number of knights had decreased compared to the past, they blocked monsters far more stably than when Juan had been the Knight Commander.
After everything had been settled, five knights remained.
Following Lawrence’s orders, they gathered at the training ground from early morning.
“Whew~”
Hansen, one of the remaining knights, let out a long sigh.
“I still get so intimidated just by seeing the Young Master’s face that it drives me mad. I should be showing him how hard I’m working, yet I keep making mistakes. I don’t know if I’ll end up being driven out like this.”
“That won’t happen. If you were going to be driven out, you would have been driven out along with Juan’s gang. And if even we leave, who will defend against monsters?”
“Hey, don’t say something so unlucky.”
While waiting for Lawrence, the knights spent time talking about this and that.
But Lilgia, one of the remaining knights, furrowed his brow deeply and kicked the training ground floor with the tip of his foot.
Thud, thud.
“Barrier Wall duty alone is exhausting enough…… What kind of training is this, making it so brutal too? This is going too far. Still, when Juan was commander, things were comfortable.”
He had not joined Juan’s gang, but secretly, he had been greatly satisfied with that lifestyle.
Since he had received treatment far beyond his ability, in a way, it was only natural that he could not adapt to his current life.
The gazes of the other knights looking at Lilgia, who failed to read the atmosphere and was complaining when it had not even been long since Juan’s gang had been expelled, were far from pleasant. But since they were not much different, they could not say anything.
They did not complain openly like Lilgia, but they also understood Lilgia’s feelings to some extent.
That was how harshly Lawrence trained them.
Compared to Jason in the past, it was training of such high intensity that there was no comparison.
After living comfortably for a while, they had ended up living an even harder life than when Jason had been there, so dissatisfaction gradually accumulated among the knights.
Human nature was originally like that.
When Juan and his gang were punished, they had resolved to work hard, but as their bodies and minds grew exhausted from the high-intensity training, that resolve gradually faded.
And at some point, as if they had been infected by Lilgia, the knights began agreeing with him and grumbling along with him.
Without even realizing that Lawrence was approaching.
‘Sigh…… I didn’t drive them out because they at least had some promise, but they still haven’t come to their senses. I had already needed someone to make an example of because the atmosphere has been loosening lately, so this works out perfectly.’
His eyes grew ferocious.
They were like the eyes of a beast of prey hunting its target.
“Is everyone gathered?”
At Lawrence’s voice from behind them, the Knight Order flinched in surprise, and their faces filled with panic.
‘Surely he didn’t hear everything, did he?’
Lilgia, who had slandered Lawrence the most sharply, quickly played dumb and managed his expression.
At the sight of him shamelessly acting as if nothing had happened, Lawrence’s eyes narrowed.
“Lilgia.”
When Lawrence called him in a heavy, sunken voice, Lilgia’s heart lurched.
“Yees? D-Did you call me, Young Master?”
When Lawrence suddenly called his name, he panicked, his face reddening as he stammered.
At the thought that perhaps what he had said had been heard, his heart dropped, but he decided to pretend not to know until the end.
The water had already been spilled.
Instead, he lifted his head even more stiffly.
Part of it was because he had grown bold, thinking that as the other knights said, the number of the Knight Order could not be reduced any further. And part of it was because his irritation had reached its peak due to the continuous harsh training.
In one corner of his heart, he even strongly wanted to quit because it disgusted him.
In the end, he acted as if he no longer cared what happened.
“I heard you were last in skill among the Knight Order. Tsk tsk. Can someone with only that level of skill really be called a knight? Despite that, you have the most complaints. If I were you, I’d be too ashamed to even raise my face.”
Hearing Lawrence’s unexpected mockery, Lilgia’s face turned bright red with shame.
He wanted to refute Lawrence’s words at once, but because they were true, he had nothing to say.
Biting his lip hard in resentment, he did not bother hiding his displeased expression.
“It is true that I lack skill, but I am still a knight in name. Are you not speaking too carelessly?”
Lilgia, unable to endure Lawrence’s mocking tone as if he had eaten his manners with rice and thrown them away, finally grew indignant.
But at Lilgia’s reaction, Lawrence was so dumbfounded that he let out a hollow laugh.
Because Lilgia was acting so laughably without knowing his place.
Lawrence ignored Lilgia’s words and suppressed him with a single sentence.
“You said it well. What are you relying on when you have neither skill nor patience? Our territory does not need someone like you, so get lost.”
“W-W-What did you say?”
At Lawrence’s reaction, different from what he had expected, Lilgia panicked.
He looked at Lawrence with widened pupils, as if asking whether he had heard correctly.
“Have your ears rotted too? Then I will tell you clearly once more. I do not need a man like you who cannot even understand his own place. Get. Lost. At once.”
Each of Lawrence’s ruthless words tore Lilgia’s pride to pieces.
In particular, the final words, “Get. Lost,” spat out one syllable at a time with force, felt as if they were trampling his very existence.
Not only mental pain, but even physical pain, as if someone were squeezing his heart tightly with their hand, could be felt vividly.
Lilgia had never expected that he would be driven out like this.
Because now that most of the knights had been driven out, was this not a time when they should have been borrowing even a cat’s paw to defend against monsters?
No matter how hard his current life was, in truth, compared to the lives of the people of the territory, it was a warm spring day.
He did not need to worry about his livelihood, and all he had to do was bow his head in front of the people of the count’s house.
Moreover, even if he did not particularly do anything, soldiers and the people of the territory lowered their heads on their own before him.
As he always felt, the feeling of looking down on people was always thrilling.
He absolutely did not want to let go of this sense of superiority.
Lilgia belatedly realized his mistake and looked at Lawrence with eyes begging for sympathy, but Lawrence wore a firm expression that would not allow even a single needle to pass through.
Only then did Lilgia feel that something had gone terribly wrong, and he hurriedly sent a gaze toward his fellow knights.
‘What are you doing? Take my side right now. We are one team, aren’t we?’
He sent an earnest gaze containing that meaning, but the knights were busy avoiding his eyes.
As if by agreement, they avoided his gaze and looked toward the distant mountains.
‘How can these bastards do this to me? They were cursing with me just now, and now they’re betraying me?’
Lilgia could not believe his comrades’ betrayal.
His face gradually reddened with anger, and his entire body trembled as if he might go mad from feeling wronged.
An atmosphere in which it would not have been strange for anything to happen at any moment hovered around Lilgia.