The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

Because it is backed by the Giant God Mountain Range and has the River of Tears running through its territory, Gray Collar is a fertile land despite its remote location.

This is a territory carefully chosen by Grand Duke Lars for his granddaughter; it is neither too poor nor too conspicuous, making it a good place to retire.

If Lena doesn't cause trouble, she can live a peaceful life in her territory until she dies. Moreover, since the Goggle Empire of the elves lies beyond the Colossus Mountains, even if the North falls one day and the demons really attack, she can hide in the mountains and cling to the elves' coattails.

The only problem is that it is located in the far west of the North, with a sparse population and a somewhat remote location.

However, given the current chaotic situation in the North, being in a remote location could actually help them avoid much of the fighting.

After leading Linde and his party to Gray Collar, the royal envoy and his guards ran away without looking back, and Linde finally met his fiancée, whom he had seen many times in the game, for the first time.

It has to be said that Lena is even more beautiful in person than in the game. Even when she is wearing armor, you can still see that she is tall and well-proportioned. Her golden hair is as dazzling as the morning light under the rising sun, and her emerald green eyes have a clear and pure quality. Paired with the female knight's attire, she looks even more heroic.

Unfortunately, Linde, who knew Lena's future fate, wasn't very interested in her. In addition, the various restrictions on the marriage contract meant that although he wasn't officially a live-in son-in-law, Linde was already prepared to live off her.

There's nothing shameful about dating a rich woman, especially such a beautiful young rich woman.

After greeting everyone, Linde handed over the people he had brought to Lena, and Lena then arranged a personal maid for Linde in return.

Before Lena could speak again, Lind very consciously led his personal maid away, seemingly not intending to get involved.

Although he had never been a kept man in his previous life, Lind still knew how to do it. After all, Lena was backed by the strongest family in the North, so how could Grand Duke Lars possibly be short of food? As long as he could find a way to prevent Lena from rebelling, he could probably live the life of ease he had always dreamed of in this world.

And so, as Linde strolled around the territory with his personal maid, he began to think about how to stop Lena from rebelling.

Because the area was previously a wasteland, and Lena had only just arrived, the territory was filled with overseers waving whips and directing the people to work.

"Are you an idiot? You think you can just knock the tent pegs twice and be done with it? If the tent gets blown away tonight, I'll shove your head into that river of tears over there!"

Watching an overseer use violence to urge the seemingly inept villagers to secure their tents, Linde frowned slightly and asked the maid beside him with some displeasure, "Are these villagers all serfs?"

"Not entirely."

The maid began to explain in detail beside Lind.

"Because it is said that the new territory needs to be reclaimed, the rich farmers and free people who own land are unwilling to come. These people are either serfs from Lars territory or free people who owe the Grand Duke money and cannot pay their debts."

Afterwards, Lind asked some basic questions, which the maid answered in detail, allowing Lind to quickly understand the basic situation of the territory.

"What's your name?"

Linde was a little curious; it seemed a waste of talent for someone who knew the territory so well to be a maid.

You can call me Lila.

The maid lifted her skirt and bowed.

Clearly, this maid is no ordinary person; she was likely sent by Grand Duke Lars to assist Reina, though she doesn't seem to have much power.

After a brief exchange, Linde learned that the reason Lila had become his personal maid was simply because she had been ostracized by Lena's clique.

It's not that Lena is incapable of recognizing and appointing capable people, but rather that the knights she brought formed a natural interest group. Whether out of loyalty or personal motives, those knights disliked someone like Lila, a public security officer from Lars, who had infiltrated their ranks.

Lena didn't like it either, so she simply handed Lila over to Lind.

"I was just urging Miss to work harder. After all, there are still many problems in the territory that haven't been solved yet, and Miss can't rest."

Looking at the chaotic territory before him, Lind wholeheartedly agreed with Lila's words.

After all, even Lind had fled here from the northern border, but Lena, who had arrived in the territory ahead of time, hadn't set up anything except a few tents for sleeping.

Even Linde was surprised to find out after asking Lila that the remaining serfs without tents actually slept on the boats by the dock at night, and that the dock had been built in advance by order of Grand Duke Lars.

However, seeing the cargo ships at the dock, Lind couldn't help but sigh. Although the engagement was called off by the royal family, Grand Duke Lars really doted on Lena. The supplies were coming in ship after ship; a few more ships would have blocked the river.

However, because the construction of the territory was progressing so slowly, a large amount of supplies on the ship had not even been unloaded yet.

The good news is that supplies are so plentiful that even serfs can be allocated tents to live in; the bad news is that the tents are still under construction.

With this level of management skills, how can she possibly rebel in the future? Lin De really didn't know who gave Lena the courage to rebel. It couldn't have been Liang Jingru, could it?

When Linde saw the serfs being whipped by the overseers, he felt a little sorry for them, but he didn't say anything more, after all, he was just a kept man.

But when he saw that the people he had brought were also whipped twice by the overseer, and even the border troops he had brought were being flogged by the overseer, Linde finally couldn't hold back anymore and got up and kicked the overseer.

"What the hell are you doing? How dare you rush people to work like that? Are you telling me what to do with the people I brought?"

The foreman was about to get up and argue that there were plenty of people who would do the job, but when he saw that Linde was followed by Lena's maid, his attitude immediately became respectful.

"Sir, I won't smoke. These people are still figuring out how to slack off. I'm just trying to get the territory better as soon as possible."

At this moment, many of Lena's knights heard the commotion and turned to look in this direction.

Although the knights said nothing, only giving warning glances, Linde couldn't do anything more. He could only pick out the elderly, weak, women and children from his people and settle them separately. These old people and children had gone through a long journey of escape and it was already very difficult for them to get here. Linde didn't want his people, who had barely survived, to be beaten to death.

At this moment, Linde finally realized how backward Lena's management system was. Calling it feudal would be an overestimation; it was more like slavery.

With such a territory, could they really rebel in the future?