Unknown Knight

Wocheze City, the main hall of the city lord's mansion.

A grand banquet was being held. The destruction of the pirates had greatly enhanced the reputation of Wocheze City. The nearby lords all came to congratulate and celebrate. Aix knew almost all of these people and soon became one of them.

As the saying goes, a son-in-law is half his son, let alone a precious daughter like Tundra. The Lord of Iaya now treats Aix as his own son and always keeps him by his side. He praises Aix to everyone he meets about how much he has contributed and how brave he is. This also made Aix quickly gain a resounding reputation in front of the Wocheze nobles, and the nickname "Son of Odin" is known to everyone.

Aix made the Lord of Iaia proud. Not only was he humble and amiable, but he also conquered the nobles present with his extraordinary drinking capacity. The grand banquet lasted until late at night and ended only after everyone had a great time.

The next morning, Aix, his father-in-law's family, and Li Da, who had just arrived from the territory, were counting the gains from the suppression of the pirates in the hall.

A total of 2,200 silver coins in cash, more than 50 pieces of silk, more than 60 bags of coarse salt, more than 110 pieces of cheese, 70 bundles of smoked fish, 30 bundles of leather, 40 bundles of animal skins, as well as some other miscellaneous goods, five boxes of gold, silver and jewelry, more than 200 sets of weapons and armor, and more than 50 prisoners were seized this time.

The most valuable ones are the thirteen sea ships, which are single-decker, single-masted dragon-headed ships that can sail on the sea or enter inland rivers. Each ship is worth between eight hundred and one thousand silver coins. The thirteen ships are more than the total number of ships owned by the Lord of Iaia.

Regarding the distribution of the spoils, the Lord of Iaya knew that he would not have been able to gain such a huge harvest without Aix, so he decided to split the spoils 70% to 30%, with him taking 30% and Aix taking 70%.

However, Aix firmly disagreed. He also knew that his father-in-law had been suffering from pirates for so many years and had a hard life. In order to keep this old man stable, he insisted on splitting the profits with him 50-50. The happy Lord of Iaia was beaming with joy and kept calling his son-in-law a good son-in-law.

When Miss Gangde saw how well Axe was taking care of her family, she stopped pretending and just let herself go. She held Axe's arm without any hesitation and even leaned her head on his shoulder, flirting with him in front of everyone.

As for the most valuable dragon-headed ships, Aix got seven of them. He didn't need them now, so he handed them over to Miss Gangde. The girl also had her own fleet, which could be considered as a dowry in the future.

On the second day after the accounts were settled, Aix insisted on returning to the territory despite Tunde's strong urging. Most importantly, he had to go to the city of Sagos to meet King Ragnar and report on the situation of the pirate suppression to see how he would deal with it.

Everyone rode at full speed and reached the city of Sagos in just two days.

That night in the palace study, King Ragnar, after dismissing his attendants, listened carefully to what Aix had to say about the extermination of the pirates. Aix fully expected that King Ragnar would be furious after hearing what had happened, and would immediately join forces with the Lord of Iaia to attack the Lord of Iden, but he did not expect that what he got in return was a sigh from King Ragnar.

He slowly told X a mythological story. After listening to this Nord mythological story, X finally understood the difficulties of King Ragnar. This mythological story is called "Ragnarok".

It turns out that every fifty years or so, a catastrophe would befall the northern continent, the homeland of the Nords. Those were the three long and severe winters known as the Fimbulwinter. At this time, the god of light, Balder, would die, the sky would lose its sunshine, the world would lose its warmth, and the entire earth would be covered with thick ice and snow.

What follows is that crops will fail and large numbers of livestock will starve to death. Because of hunger, people will no longer be tolerant, friendly, and helpful to each other. Instead, they will turn into ugly, cruel, and evil monsters. Brothers will kill each other, fathers and sons will become enemies, and they will fight each other in chaos. The whole world will be filled with sin and the plague will spread everywhere.

Then the disaster on earth will spread to the heaven. The gods of Asgard, led by Odin, will fight a decisive battle with the fire giants led by the enemy god Surtur. This will set the entire Asgard heaven on fire. The fire will burn the world tree that supports the universe, and the world that has lost its support will fall into the turbulent sea.

Finally, the stars fell, the sun and the moon disappeared, time ceased to exist, the charred ground sank to the bottom of the sea, and huge waves were everywhere. The entire universe was left with only dead silence and eternal darkness.

The whole story of "Ragnarok" is grand, tragic, and brutal, with chaotic fighting and life-and-death struggles (I will not go into too much detail here, lest some friends accuse me of watering down. Our slogan is: Never water down! Friends who are interested can search for "Ragnarok" on the Internet and study it in depth). The seemingly complicated and confusing relationships, and the ups and downs of the plot are difficult to understand, as if people can't figure out what this myth is about.

However, these are not difficult for Aix. Combining the various knowledge he learned in the original world, the translation is:

Every fifty years or so, the polar night line of the northern continent near the Arctic Circle will move south, causing the entire continent to be shrouded in the darkness of the polar night for a long time. This phenomenon usually lasts at least three years, and the consequence is that crops fail and a large number of livestock starve to death.

Then, due to severe food shortage, people became extremely cruel. In order to compete for the few survival resources, fathers and sons fought against each other, and brothers killed each other. The whole society fell into desperate chaos.

As for the battle between the gods and the fire giants, X believed that it was most likely related to an island full of volcanoes (Iceland). The polar night was dark, and the strong volcanic eruptions could be seen from far away. The ignorant people could not explain it, so they thought it was the gods fighting. In addition, the eruption of a large number of volcanoes may have filled the atmosphere with volcanic ash, which in turn blocked the sunlight, causing the temperature to drop further, thereby aggravating the disaster.

Finally, the bodies of people who died of freezing and starvation caused a plague, and there were dead villages and strongholds everywhere. Until almost everyone had died and no one was fighting anymore, the entire northern continent entered a long polar night.

Aix estimated that this phenomenon should be cyclical, and it has happened many times in history. When he was free, Aix read some history books of this continent. Since the snow salt business was mainly sold in the Nord Kingdom, he also deliberately studied the history of the Nords, especially after he established a relationship with Miss Tunde, he knew more. Now it is not an exaggeration to say that he is an expert on the Nords. According to his understanding, there have been several recorded invasions by the Nords. It's just that the scale was not large before.

The most serious incident was the one several decades ago. At that time, the continent was in a period of division and weakness. As a result, the Nords invaded again, took advantage of the opportunity to occupy the current territory, and established their foothold, establishing the current Nordic Kingdom.

This also illustrates the fragility of the human living environment in the northern continent. If it were a little colder, the polar night a little longer, or the volcanoes erupted more frequently, the people there would not be able to survive. It is a very harsh environment for humans, which may be the reason for their barbaric and ferocious nature.

Through King Ragnar's words, Aix also learned why the ungrateful Idenjar was alienated from the king and why he colluded with some domestic nobles to oppose him.

It turns out that Idenyar, who was doing well in maritime trade, had close ties with his hometown, the northern continent. He received a message from the shaman that the northern continent has been getting colder and colder in recent years, and there is a great possibility that "Ragnarok" will come again.

Moreover, after the last invasion of the Calradia continent, many residents were relocated, which alleviated the local survival pressure. However, after decades of reproduction and development, the population has increased a lot. The fragile living space of the local area can no longer support the current population, and there is an urgent need to migrate out.

Idenjar, whose territory is close to the heart of the Kingdom of Swadia, has witnessed the prosperity there and must have been jealous of those rich territories. He probably wanted to take them for himself a long time ago. So in the past few years, he has repeatedly instigated King Ragnar to take the lead in launching wars in order to occupy larger territories and obtain more resources.

It's just that one doesn't know the value of firewood and rice until he takes charge of the household. King Ragnar, who knows his own business, is well aware of the shortcomings of the Nord army. Moreover, when the old king was dying, he advised him that the Nord army, which only had infantry on the field, could not defeat the Swadian heavy cavalry, and told him not to easily launch a war against other countries, but to rely on the castle to defend the existing territory.

This was a lesson the old king learned with his blood. He had ignorantly launched several invasions in the past, but was badly defeated by the heavy cavalry. He learned his lesson, so he educated and even warned his son Ragnar many times not to start a war easily unless the enemy country was weak enough to take advantage of the opportunity.

The last invasion of the Kingdom of Vigia was actually initiated by King Ragnar because the pro-war faction was pressuring him. Although he finally captured the Castle of Ismorola, he also suffered heavy losses, many people died, and he lost a lot of popularity. It can be said that the loss outweighed the gain. If it weren't for the appearance of Aix, who helped him restore some of his reputation, King Ragnar's situation would probably be even worse.

The current situation is that Idenyar has colluded with the forces of his hometown and wants to go it alone. It is estimated that they originally wanted to integrate the Iaya family of Wocheze first, but they did not expect that it would be destroyed by Aix. It seems that the feud with Idenyar has been settled.

Although King Ragnar did not say it, Aix guessed that many local nobles also wanted to take advantage of this large-scale migration of their fellow countrymen to unite with them, or even use them as guns, waiting for an opportunity to expand their territory and reap more benefits.

The current king is likely to only control the territory near the city of Sargos. More and more Nord nobles should follow the trend and side with the war faction. The alone and powerless King Ragnar has no face to join, let alone step forward to stop it. Doing so will only make him stand on the opposite side of most of the nobles, and he may even be called a traitor to the Nords.

Now he could only watch as Idenyar's power grew day by day, and he was in great torment.

Thinking of this, Aix comforted him:

"Your Highness, you don't need to worry too much. Right now, Lord Iaya will never join the Eden camp. Your Highness should contact him more often. We should watch out for each other. I will also assist you when necessary."