Chapter 21: Lord Ashbel’s Ordeal!
Author’s note: Thank you for reading. I hope you enjoy my humble novel.
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"My lord, lunch is ready."
Upon hearing that quiet voice from behind the door, Kaiden lifted his eyes from the book in his hands. He rubbed his tired eyes slightly, then said: "Come in."
He had been reading for roughly an hour and a half. He had finished the second book and had only just begun the third, and was feeling a little fatigued. He thought to himself: *Books are only enjoyable when reading them isn't compulsory.* He had heard of this irony before — students who could spend an entire day reading web novels yet couldn't get through a single page of a textbook.
Sidra entered carrying a lunch tray. The dish was simple: fragrant white rice topped with large cuts of eagle meat. The options were still limited, so there weren't many varieties — but Kaiden wasn't about to complain. He had spent more than half his life living on instant noodles.
While he ate quietly, a trade completion interface suddenly appeared before him:
[System Alert: "Lord of the Seventh Soul Territory" has traded ×2 Common Stamina Potions. You have received +13 Green Thanos Tree Leaves, +15 Triple-Root Mountain Clover. Gains dispatched to the Lord's inventory.]
Then, a second later, the quest completion notification he had been waiting for appeared:
[Quest "Potion Merchant!" Completed! Reward dispatched to the Lord's inventory: Special Potion — Health Recovery Potion ×1 (Rare)]
"Excellent! Another quest down… a Health Recovery Potion?" Kaiden murmured and set his spoon aside. He took the health potion from his inventory and looked at it. It was a small glass vial containing a ruby-red liquid that gleamed with a vivid brilliance.
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Name: Health Recovery Potion
Tier: Rare
Type: Medicine
Description: Restores full health within seconds — even if only a faint heartbeat remains.
Note: Effects will not be significant for those above the Black Iron rank.
---
When Kaiden finished reading the description, his eyes went wide. He had expected a decent potion when he saw the quest — but he had never anticipated one of this quality. This wasn't merely a potion. It was a second chance at life.
"And now I have another trump card… my territory talent truly is remarkable," Kaiden murmured with joy. He held the vial in both hands, studied it for a moment, then placed it carefully in a separate slot within his inventory.
Then he returned to his food, which had already gone cold. But he didn't mind.
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At roughly this same time, just a few kilometers away, Lord Ashbel — master of the Twin-Headed race — was living through an unbearable hell.
After the news of his soldier's death the day before, he hadn't dared send any of his forces or workers outside the protective barrier. He sat on his stone throne, terrified and stricken, despair filling him to the brim.
The two survivors from yesterday had told him what had happened. They said the forces of that human Lord were extremely powerful. With a single arrow, from a great distance, they had dropped their companion dead. And there were at least five or six of them — and that was only what they had seen before the mad escape began. They hadn't been certain of the true number.
Lord Ashbel felt that this wretched world was utterly unfair. Who in the world possessed six elite soldiers on only the second day? How dreadfully unlucky he was to have acquired such a savage neighbor!
Today was the third day. After using the daily summon opportunity, he had finally obtained just one elite soldier — and he was treating him like a precious treasure.
Ashbel searched through the World Chat for his race. He found that this was entirely normal. The vast majority of Lords possessed one or two elite soldiers — three at the absolute most. It wasn't that he was weak. It was his neighbor who was the aberration.
But Ashbel's real problem wasn't the present moment. With the protective barrier in place, that deviant human Lord wouldn't be able to enter his territory no matter how powerful he became. The problem was… the four remaining days.
His development had ground to a complete halt after the wood inside his territory ran out. He had managed to trade some stone for wood through the Market and succeeded in upgrading his Lord's Crown to the Bronze tier. But after that, even his stone supply was running low. Mining larger stone required iron tools — and not everyone was like Kaiden, who possessed every kind of workshop imaginable.
Ashbel was not foolish. On the contrary — he was quite intelligent. He had two brains, after all. So he knew perfectly well that after four more days, the protective barrier would vanish. At that point, that wretched Lord would come to settle accounts. And who could know how much he would have developed by then — while Ashbel remained trapped like an insect in a jar.
The problem was that his jar would shatter in just four days.
"No! This situation cannot continue!" Ashbel slammed the armrest of his stone chair with his fist, and expressions of fury and frustration appeared on both his faces.
Any ambition of establishing a noble Twin-Headed clan had long since faded. Survival was now all that mattered.
He devised a simple and direct plan to break the deadlock — and ordered one of his wretched villagers to take an axe and go cut some trees just outside the protective barrier.
The villager was not willing. This was obvious suicide. Ashbel's territory was small, and everyone knew what had happened yesterday. But under the threat of the Lord's soldiers' swords, the villager reluctantly picked up the axe… and was practically shoved outside the protective barrier.
Ashbel watched the loyalty numbers of the surrounding villagers drop with cold detachment. Loyalty was not his concern at this moment.
He had sent this villager outside as bait. He wanted to observe from within the protective barrier — was his territory truly under siege? Or had that Lord not yet discovered the location of his territory?
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In truth, Lord Ashbel's fear was entirely justified. Kaiden's forces were indeed besieging his territory.
At this very moment, the same elite team from the day before was concealed behind a large rock formation on a nearby elevation, with two other members watching other directions. Ashbel's territory wasn't large, so monitoring it was remarkably easy.
Behind the rock, Laura gripped her bow. As the team's sharpshooter, her keen eyesight made her the first to notice a hesitant villager emerge — carrying a wooden axe, both his heads turning left and right in obvious terror. The villager advanced with trembling steps toward the nearest tree and began striking its trunk with the axe.
Laura paid no mind to the villager's confusion and fear. All she saw was prey. She raised her bow toward the target, oblivious to his fate, and prepared to take the shot.
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— End of Chapter Twenty-One —