Unknown Knight

Late at night, a scream suddenly came from the velvet satin quilt, followed by a burst of rapid breathing, which made people feel that it was the delicate and rapid breathing of a beautiful woman.

After a long while, a sigh was heard from the darkness, indicating that the woman who had just screamed in her dream had woken up.

The beautiful woman who sighed was Mrs. Gand, the current de facto leader of the Territory of Aix. In recent times, she always felt a dull pain in her chest, accompanied by insomnia, nightmares, palpitations and other symptoms. Lady Catherine of the territory and the doctors from the research institute also came to see her, but they could not find out anything and just asked her to pay more attention to rest.

But now she has no extra time to rest. Although Atiman, Bandak and others assist her in handling the affairs of the territory, many important matters still require her to plan and decide. Although she is known as the wisest woman in the Nord, it is still quite difficult for a woman to deal with so many complicated things in this era.

Now a new problem has arisen in the territory. In order to avoid attracting outside attention and secretly increase the territory's military strength, the upstarts agreed to a plan to expand the army in the name of a mercenary group. Although this strategy is very effective and allows the territory to expand its military strength in a short period of time, it also leaves a huge hidden danger.

As the saying goes, a name without a right name cannot make the words right. The loyalty of these five major mercenary groups, especially the leaders, to the territory is beyond doubt, but the territory cannot recognize this ownership in name. This problem is okay in the short term and has no impact, but as time goes on, it is inevitable that some people with ulterior motives will cause trouble, and no one can guarantee that the leaders of these five major mercenary groups will not be affected.

Recently, she discovered some signs that something was wrong. Some members who had recently joined the five major mercenary groups began to violate military discipline, and engaged in bullying, fighting, and even serious incidents of robbery, rape, and murder occurred from time to time.

This gave Madam Tanda a headache, but fortunately most of the mercenary groups' salaries were still paid secretly by the territory, and she still had certain control over these mercenary groups. However, these five major mercenary groups all had their own profit model, and as time went on, as the proportion of their own profits and losses increased, no one could guarantee how much of this control would remain.

This was only a distant problem. What gave her the most headache was outside the window, in Tismo County on the other side of the river. There lurked a fierce tiger that could rival her, a tiger that she tried to avoid - Lady Katia.

The daughter of Voldratboye, the former lord of Kudan City, and Aix's nominally undivorced ex-wife, had higher authority over this territory than her, both in name and in law.

It's not that Lady Gand has never thought about getting rid of this scourge secretly, but the Vijia nobles headed by King Yarogelk have always supported Lady Katia. Once she has any abnormal situation, it will inevitably attract interference from these people. The last time King Yarogelk led the army to besiege Kudan City is still vivid in their minds. They cannot give these people an excuse, let alone a reason to raise an army. Aix is ​​not in the territory now, and she has to protect the foundation that her husband has worked so hard to build for her.

Therefore, Mrs. Gangde tolerated Katia in everything. This bitch knew that Gangde could not do anything to her, so she became even more unscrupulous. Every now and then, she would bring a group of people to the City Lord's Mansion to find fault and provoke. She even pointed at Mrs. Gangde and cursed her in public like a shrew.

This made Mrs. Gangde extremely annoyed, but she could do nothing about Katia's shrewish behavior. She couldn't hit her, nor could she curse at her like a shrew. She had to adopt the strategy of avoiding this bitch. When she knew she was coming to cause trouble, she would either claim to be sick to avoid her, or use the excuse of going out of town for inspection or hunting to avoid her trouble.

According to the news from Cress's spies, the crazy woman had spread the word a few days ago that today is the Harvest Festival and a celebration will be held in the city. The crazy woman wanted to teach her a lesson today, so she has gathered a group of shrews and decided to make a big fuss in the city and expose her shame in public.

Seeing that the sky outside the window was already turning pale, Mrs. Gangde was in no mood to sleep any longer. She decided to leave the city early in the name of hunting to avoid running into that crazy woman and being blocked by her in the city.

She had already given instructions about this matter last night. This was not the first time that the City Lord's Mansion had experienced such a situation. A cavalry team of more than 30 people was waiting at the City Lord's Mansion early in the morning. Upon seeing Madam Gangde's arrival, the cavalry team escorted her out of the City Lord's Mansion. At this moment, many people had not yet gotten up, and there were not many pedestrians on the street. The cavalry team moved quickly and left the city in a low-key manner.

They came to a secret valley outside the city, which used to be the stronghold of Wolf Boye, the leader of the snowfield bandits. The reason they chose to come here was not only because of the beautiful scenery in the valley, but most importantly, there was a good quality hot spring in the valley.

Influenced by the life in Tangquan Fortress, Mrs. Gangde has completely fallen in love with the feeling of taking a hot spring bath. It has now become a habit for her, especially when she is exhausted and depressed. Taking a bath here can not only make her forget the trivial matters and unhappiness for a short time, but is also very beneficial to her physical health.

So she secretly transformed the place and built a small manor in the valley, where she would come to bathe and relax when she had nothing to do.

To avoid bad luck like today, although she had originally planned to go out of the city to hunt, she felt tired after leaving the city and the first thing she thought of was to come here, so she ordered the cavalry to go directly to this hot spring valley.

After soaking in the hot spring for a whole morning, they cooked a venison barbecue with Sophia who had hunted a deer. The two girls enjoyed the meal and drank a lot of wine. After eating and drinking, Mrs. Tsuna, who felt a little tired, suggested that they take a rest in the manor and there was no rush to return to the city.

It's just that Mrs. Tsuna was already unwell, and after taking a hot spring bath here, she felt very relaxed and slept very deeply. When Sophia woke up in the afternoon and saw that she was sleeping soundly, she ordered the escorting cavalry team not to return to Kudan City today, but to spend the night in this valley manor.

It was already midnight when Mrs. Gangde woke up. Perhaps because she had slept enough during the day, she was no longer sleepy at all. She simply wrapped herself in a cloak and took a walk in the valley.

At this moment, the stars are shining brightly, the night is quiet and peaceful, and the sound of the gurgling springs seems particularly ethereal, making the whole valley seem to be constantly playing a beautiful natural music.

Mrs. Gangde sat on a big rock, her mind was rare calm, she closed her eyes and listened carefully to the music, unconsciously becoming intoxicated by it.