Black Iron's Glory

Claude laid down on the grass in a daze, not quite falling into deep sleep. There were three little children rolling about on top of him. Sometimes, he would arch his back into a hill for them to climb on and even stamp their naked feet on his face.

When he finally couldn’t endure it, he rubbed his grizzled beard on their faces, causing them to cry for their mother to save their lives. Angelina and Sheila came over and took the three from him, finally allowing him to catch a breath.

Sheila handed him an icy cup of blueberry juice. Seeing Angelina and the maidservant deal with the three kids, she said enviously, “They’re really cute…”

“We can try hard ourselves to make you a mother, you know,” Claude said.

Currently, he was hiding out at Anna Farmstead. Since he forcefully took his eldest son, Tesoray, from Ferd Manor, and tossed him into camp, he became the most unwelcome person in the manor, no, the nemesis of his own wife and mother. Kefnie no longer spoke to him one bit. Even his second son, Beuergarcy, and beloved daughter, Amelisa, no longer interacted with him.

As for his mother, she feigned sickness in bed once more and cursed him for being unfilial and heartless, having sent her beloved eldest grandson into the force without even acknowledging him as son. She couldn’t be happier if Claude, her son, died an early death, lest he sent her to her deathbed through sheer anger alone.

All he could feel was the two most important women in his life were brainless. They had forgotten their roots and why they came so far. Claude’s mother cursed Claude to die, not in the least aware of the fact that if anything happened to him, the conscripted Tesoray would never be able to leave the force to head home and would end up experiencing far worse than Claude did.

Angelina rushed back from the farmstead to check out her mother’s health. In the end, she told him with a cold look that their mother was too stubborn and could live for at least two to three more decades. Half the reason for her refusal to leave her bed was feigning sickness, the other half was embarrassment. The heir she had tried so hard to raise was tossed in the force just like that. She couldn’t bring herself to face anybody else.

Since his mother’s health was fine and Kefnie shot him cold gazes all day he constantly felt like he was on the edge of getting frostbite, he didn’t bother to stay in Ferd Manor any longer. Instead, he sent guards to get Sheila to come to Anna Farmstead with him to relax.

One of the three kids was Myjack and Angelina’s, named Leo. The other two were Bloweyk and Adele’s twins. Since Adele’s death, Angelina adopted the twins. The boy was called Myr and the girl was Betty. The three were around three years old, being in their cutest and most energetic age.

When they saw Claude and Sheila, they seemed rather timid and scared. However, it didn’t take two days before they were completely familiarised with them and played around with Claude all day, stoking Sheila’s envy nonstop.

When the three small ones were tired from playing and went to bed, Angelina sat down beside Claude and got him to write a letter to Maria on her behalf to thank her for her research journal. She said she would not let her down and properly analyse her insights.

“Aren’t you going to continue your magic experiments in Blackstone Arms Factory?” Claude asked, puzzled.

She nodded, saying that she didn’t want to help with any more weapons research. She said that she wasn’t that skilled in the mechanical aspect like Sonia was and usually played the role of a helper, and she couldn’t take out time to go help with the three children living with her now.

She planned to stay at the farmstead to nurture those three. Not to mention, their antics often gave her quite a lot of trouble. Since Claude happened to return with Maria’s journal, she decided she would use what time she had left to pick up herbalism where she left off.

Since his sister had made up her mind, Claude didn’t bother to talk her out of it. In fact, she felt apologetic about forcing her to start weapons research and delaying her advances in herbalism in the first place.

However, she said she didn’t mind it. She told him that the magically talented orphans the household recruited were now grown up and achieved the rank of first-ring rune magus. Their loyalty was assured and their future development was up to Claude to decide.

There were 14 of them in total. Apart from Claude’s illegitimate son, Marcus, who reached the third ring, the other 13 weren’t that talented, being just barely passable. They trained hard for three years just to become one-ring magi. Nine of them were ready to have their basic spells decided on by Claude to fix the type of magi they would become.

Incidentally, Marcus had wanted to join the army, but he was held back by his grandfather, Liboyd, as a helper. Liboyd wanted to pass on all he had to his beloved grandson, knowledge and wealth included, and become a great inventor.

The other four were girls whom Sonia and Angelina split amongst themselves to take as their experiment assistants. As for the nine young men, they were placed in Claude’s charge.

Claude asked about them and Angelina said two among the nine were talented in experiments. So, he got them to join Sonia as rune magi. As for the other seven, they would be battlemagi. They would be Claude’s force hidden in the darkness.

Sheila was quite interested in it and volunteered to train those seven, to which Claude agreed. He decided he would let them mature even more under her tutelage before sending them to the army for training when they were two-ring battlemagi to train under Bloweyk. They would be the sharpest knife and strongest shield of the household.

With the main matters dealt with, Angelina asked why he insisted on sending Tesoray to join the military and caused that rift between him and his wife and mother. Claude smiled in resignation at their unique family circumstance. Usually, the man took charge of the household in Freia per traditions and customs. Though, there was also no lack of those that feared their wives and mothers.

Claude’s problem was that he was basically never at home due to how busy he was. With their lifestyles improving and them getting visits from those who wanted to curry favour with them, Kefnie and Madam Ferd had forgotten who they used to be and set themselves on the path of making House Ferd a top noble family, resulting in even Bloweyk having to leave the household because of Adele’s death.

However, Madam Ferd didn’t learn any lesson from Bloweyk’s departure at all. Kefnie, on the other hand, had her eyes on the head of the household position left vacant by Bloweyk. Claude, though, had his own plans and never acted just because others wanted him to. As a result, his stubborn mother worked together with Kefnie to raise Claude’s eldest son into a full-fledged noble to take over as head of House Ferd.

Claude had always been quite dissatisfied with his eldest son. Thanks to all the spoiling his wife and mother gave his child, he became quite the rascal with a nasty personality. Claude had often wanted to give him a good lesson, only to be stopped by his mother. It didn’t help that the recent battles had him away from home most of the time, leaving the two women to completely fail Tesoray in education, moulding him into a disappointment to Claude.

While Claude was often absent, he kept himself updated on what happened back home. Ferd Manor’s head butler, Svenson, the other servants, as well as the guards were Claude’s eyes. Every one of Tesoray’s actions as well as his noble education was reported to Claude in detail, unbeknownst to his wife and mother. That was the reason behind his decision for sending his son to join the army. If Tesoray didn’t endure the training, he wouldn’t acknowledge him as his son.

Given Claude’s position as Lord Militant, he could definitely exempt his son from military service. As such, Tesoray never imagined he would have to join the army one day. His noble education and training caused all his other skills to be neglected. While he would always put on a good show before his mother and grandmother, he was in fact quite lustful.

Usually, lust was but a normal trait of men. One only had to learn how to regulate one’s own desires. But since Tesoray matured, he had always used the maidservants to sate his needs. There were already seven of those Claude knew. In the end, Kefnie settled the matter with money and had the maidservants retire.

While Tesoray was quite the chubby and well-kempt fellow, he was a rather frequent customer of Lanu’s taverns thanks to being unable to live out his desires in full in Ferd Manor. He even used his money to reserve one of the tavern’s barmaids to himself. It was only when she was impregnated and wanted to use that chance to climb the social ladder did the matter reach Madam Ferd’s ears.

Tesoray said he had been tricked into bedding the maidservants when he was drunk and said he didn’t even know whether the children were his, completely abstaining from any responsibility. So, Madam Ferd went all out and had the maidservant retire with a huge sum of money for the woman to never show herself in Lanu ever again. Fearing Claude’s power, the maidservant had no choice but to leave.

It wouldn’t be hard to tell from that alone that not only was Tesoray’s lust hardly manageable, he didn’t even have the spine to take responsibility for his own actions. He had learned all the worst qualities of the nobles: their sneakiness and cruelty. Ever since he was made aware of that, he decided he would toss his son into the army. After all, what better moulding pot was there? If Tesoray couldn’t emerge refined, then he was part of the impurity in the mix to begin with and ought to be eliminated.

Yet, before he could put that into action, his mother came out with the plan to let Tesoray run Claude’s hereditary county, much to his humour and anger. Since when did his mother and son had a right to decide what to do with what was his? He immediately flipped out and forced Tesoray into the army, rendering their plan useless.

He really wanted to laugh sometimes at what his mother said about Tesoray taking over should he fall to some untimely accident. Should that really happen, Bloweyk was the only one who could inherit the household to protect it. If Tesoray did it, nothing but doom awaited them.

When Claude finished his explanation, Angelina seemed a little crestfallen. Their mother didn’t use to be like that. Back when their father passed, she fell ill and Claude was the one who had to hold the household together. When Claude joined the military, it was up to Angelina.

No matter how much Madam Ferd spoiled Bloweyk back then, he was reeled in by his caring, but strict siblings, and grew into a sensible young man. It was only after Claude returned the kingdom’s captain did their family’s future seem to brighten. After that, Kefnie joined the family and they spent their days comfortably and blissfully. Yet, when Tesoray was finally born, Madam Ferd went back to focusing all her attention on her beloved grandson.

“Is Tesoray doing well in the force?” she asked.

He shook his head. “He’s just average. He got beat up badly the first day he got in and is recovering in the infirmary. It’s all his fault for attempting to bully a soldier smaller than him. Little did he know that his target was relentless in fighting and he was taught a really harash lesson. By the way, he’s Traykli now and has nothing to do with me.”

Angelina rolled his eyes. If he really no longer had anything to do with his son, he wouldn’t have known about his fight and subsequent admission into the infirmary.

Claude argued, “I didn’t interfere. I only had someone observe him to see whether he’ll learn the rules in the force. I’m not hoping for him to become Bloweyk. I only want him to be at least qualified. I don’t need him to be a fierce tiger. A loyal guard dog will be more than sufficient. At least, he’ll be capable enough to guard what we have.”

“WHat about Beuergarcy?”

That was Claude’s second son five years Tesoray’s junior. He was fifteen and in first grade in Lanu Middle School.

“He’s quite different from Tesoray. He’s a quiet one, preferring books and academics. When he graduates, I’ll see if I can send him to the royal capital’s college.” Claude was quite troubled that both his sons weren’t as tough and strong as his brother was in his youth. Perhaps it was due to their fortunate upbringing.

Bloweyk was the unbeatable physical stream student in school, whereas Claude’s two sons were the silent, civil type. Though, Tesoray was merely acting the part whereas Beuergarcy was truly genuine. Perhaps their privileged life deprived them of the risky misadventures a child born without a silver spoon would be allowed to undertake.

He spent ten plus days at his sister’s before he got word from Lanu that Bolonik, Henderman and most of the representatives had returned to the region. They were accompanied by Myjack and some ten other generals.

Currently, only Skri, Bernard and some 30 council members remained at Northbay for the development of the fiefs. Eiblont also remained as Thundercrash’s acting corpsman to maintain order. Birkin, on the other hand, was stationed at Polyvisia with Monolith.

As for the return of Myjack and the other generals, they didn’t have much of a choice. The ministry of the army’s mass promotion instantly added 22 new major-generals to the ranks, with the former 8 major-generals promoted to lieutenant-generals, and the sole lieutenant-general promoted to general. Thundercrash and Monolith had no need for so many generals in the first place, given how each of their lines were already in command of a major-general.

Fortunately, eight major-generals and three lieutenant-generals wanted to retire. Taking into the fact that Bolonik would be leaving the military administration for civil administration, Claude decided he would have another large-scale reorganisation to summon the generals back lest they piled up in humiliating fashion in the two corps.

Myjack returned to the region to deal with the daily duties at headquarters, with the generals he brought back taking up various posts in different departments. Some became Claude’s top strategists to work on Operation Wildfire.

Claude had no choice but to leave his relaxing life at Anna Farmstead and head back to Lanu.