Fairy Tale Survival with Ability Copying

Levi was the newly enfeoffed lord, and in the eyes of others, a lord without any foundation whatsoever.

In other words, before this moment, none of the people present knew Levi, and likewise, Levi did not know them.

So if Levi wanted to take over Hornreach, he first had to go through the formal procedures to confirm his "legitimacy."

According to the rules, Levi had to possess the official Letter of Appointment personally signed by the Duke of Silverbrook—written on a parchment scroll, sealed with wax, and bearing the duke's insignia.

This was the legal basis for Levi's rule over Hornreach.

And the former steward had to carefully verify the authenticity of that Letter of Appointment.

Carrying the intimidation from the earlier killings, Mott did not dare falsify anything or play any tricks in this matter. In front of everyone, he honestly confirmed the authenticity of the Letter of Appointment and announced that Levi was the new lord—the Baron of Hornreach.

There were actually a whole series of complicated ceremonies afterward, but Levi rejected them the moment he heard about them.

He had come here to play a lord-management game, not to perform like a circus monkey for other people to watch.

Seeing how forceful he was, Mott did not say anything further and instead bid Levi farewell.

Levi gave him a deep look, one that made Mott's heart pound wildly. Forcing himself to remain calm, he said, "Baron, I need to return to Aetherlan to report back to the Duke of Silverbrook, if you no longer require my services."

"How could I not require them?" Levi said expressionlessly. "As for your collusion with the Silverclaw Viscount to frame the new lord, as well as the two of you embezzling the Duke of Silverbrook's territorial assets together, all of that requires you to stay behind and accept investigation."

"Baron, that is a serious slander. This concerns not only my personal honor, but also His Grace the Duke himself."

"You must give me an explanation, otherwise I reserve the right to report this matter in its entirety to His Grace the Duke." Mott had never expected Levi to disregard the rules so completely. Right after the territorial handover, at a time when his foothold should have been extremely unstable, he actually dared to do something like this!

This was simply lawless!

He completely ignored noble conventions!

On the surface, he looked furious, but inwardly he was overwhelmed with fear.

"An explanation?" Levi's gaze shifted slightly before he said to Yalina, "Yalina, you and Little Red Riding Hood go into that room inside the castle. Behind the third oil portrait, there's a hidden compartment. Inside are the letters exchanged between him and the Silverclaw Viscount over the years, along with some account books… Also, over there… is the money the Silverclaw Viscount gave him…"

Before Levi could even finish speaking, Mott's face had already turned deathly pale.

Yalina and Little Red Riding Hood acknowledged the order and immediately moved to leave. Mott's mind had already gone blank. Without even thinking, he blocked their path and screamed, "No!"

"You cannot enter my room! Without my permission, you cannot—"

Yalina did not indulge him. She was also a Great Knight. She directly grabbed him and flung him aside.

The moment Levi saw that, he immediately said to the castle personnel who had come out to receive them, "Seize him!"

"Throw him into the castle dungeon."

The people all froze in place, their eyes filled with hesitation. They wanted to act, but they also had all sorts of concerns.

Levi said nothing.

Instead, Rune Winter the Sky Knight barked at them, "What? No one listens to the lord's orders now? Do you want to be thrown into the dungeon together with him, or—do you want to die?"

All of them were frightened by those words. Immediately, one person stepped forward. With someone taking the lead, the others quickly followed suit. In no time at all, they had restrained Mott and prepared to escort him to the castle dungeon.

At that moment, Levi coldly added, "Because you failed to carry out my orders decisively, none of you will be eating today."

"If there's a next time, you'll all be thrown into the dungeon together." Levi spoke mercilessly.

He had already used Detection to check. Between eighty and ninety percent of the people here were directly or indirectly connected to the Silverclaw Viscount.

What Levi was doing now was establishing authority over this group.

Only once they became afraid would Levi's orders truly be carried out.

As for rewarding them afterward, that would come later.

Hearing Levi's punishment, bitter expressions appeared on everyone's faces, but none of them dared resist. Obediently, they escorted Mott toward the dungeon.

Meanwhile, Yalina and Little Red Riding Hood headed to Mott's room to search for evidence and assets.

As for Levi, surrounded and escorted by the Sky Knight Rune along with several members of the castle staff, he walked into this gloomy castle, filled with a moldy smell where rats could occasionally be seen scurrying past.

...

The castle hall.

Levi sat atop the elevated platform, while below him stood the castle soldiers and the other personnel, silent as cicadas in winter.

He did not need to say a word.

A mere sweep of his gaze was enough to plunge the entire hall into dead silence.

What Levi needed to do now was divide them into groups.

Originally, the entire castle staff consisted of forty-seven people. After Steward Mott was thrown into the dungeon by Levi, only forty-six remained.

They were mainly divided into three categories. First were the administrative and internal affairs personnel, numbering fifteen. Second were the military garrison personnel, numbering twenty. Finally, there were eleven servants and laborers.

Among them, some were Mott's trusted confidants and diehard loyalists, while others did not have such close ties with him.

Those loyal to Mott had merely been intimidated by Levi's decisiveness and ruthlessness. They did not dare cause trouble openly for now.

But if Levi continued using them, then information would leak everywhere. An order issued by him today would likely appear on the Silverclaw Viscount's desk tomorrow.

Naturally, Levi intended to prevent problems before they happened.

So while the iron was still hot, he immediately divided everyone into groups right there in the hall.

The first group consisted of twenty-seven people, all relatively close to the former steward Mott. Their positions within the castle had generally been fairly high.

The second group had only nineteen people. Their status in the castle had originally been much lower, and their relationship with Mott had only been average.

The moment Levi separated them like this, the expressions of those people instantly became subtle, while enormous waves rose in their hearts.

'How does he know?'

"Everything is under my watch."

Levi's voice suddenly echoed from the main seat above.

Those words startled everyone present once again.

He seemed to know everything.

The fear everyone felt toward him deepened even further.

"But as long as you remain loyal to me and obey my orders, you will never need to worry about your safety or your rewards."

Levi spoke bluntly, his gaze sweeping across the entire hall.

Everyone present—whether they had been close to Mott or only loosely connected to him—lowered their heads.

Levi nodded inwardly and began issuing orders.

The group that had originally been closer to Mott was assigned to clean the castle.

By the standards of this era, the castle's sanitation was already considered fairly good, but in Levi's eyes, it was still unbearable to look at.

Take the great hall he was currently sitting in, for example.

The floor was made of stone slabs, but it was covered with a thick layer of rushes.

Food scraps, dog hair, spit, and even the occasional vomit would all be swept into the reeds.

Over time, the lower layers fermented and produced a sour, rotten stench.

Everyone else had long since grown used to it, but Levi found it extremely difficult to endure.

Then there were places like the walls and towers. Although the strong winds could disperse unpleasant odors, corners were still piled with bird droppings, rat corpses, and garbage that had gone uncleared for long periods.

Some places even carried a lingering metallic smell of blood, while the floors were stained dark red and black.

Then there was the waste disposal system.

This was another thing Levi found deeply offensive.

Wall latrines were the standard castle configuration. In truth, they were simply holes that led directly into the moat or river below.

But during the summer, or whenever the wind blew the wrong way, the stench would flow back into the rooms. Massive amounts of accumulated waste would then become a paradise for flies, rats, and parasites.

One could easily imagine the countless white maggots writhing within.

There was actually a profession dedicated to dealing with this, known as the "gong farmer," whose job was to dig out and clean the cesspits from outside the castle in the dead of night. It was an utterly disgusting occupation.

However, the gong farmer clearly had not been working for quite a few days. When Levi used Detection to investigate, the cesspit was already overflowing with excrement.

Levi simply could not tolerate it.

So he sent the group that had been close to Mott to handle all the cleaning work. It counted as making use of waste, in a sense. After all, Levi had no intention of trusting them anyway.

At the end, Levi even had the Sky Knight Rune Winter supervise them. If anyone was found slacking off or showing signs of betrayal, they could be executed on the spot.

Making a Sky Knight perform this kind of supervisory work was truly beneath his status.

But Levi had no other choice. After all, he simply did not have enough people under his command right now.

As for the relatively more loyal second group, Levi had them temporarily take over the castle's various affairs and keep the overall structure functioning for the time being.

Once the castle stabilized, the town would stabilize as well.

Because in this era, towns generally operated under a semi-autonomous system. The castle administrators mainly handled taxation, while most other matters were left alone. Even public security had effectively been "contracted out."

Although at present, the castle only had five military personnel left.

This was clearly the weakest moment in the history of Coldwind Keep.

But it was also its strongest moment.

Because Levi was here.

Even excluding his own presence, just having the Sky Knight Rune, the Great Knight coachwoman Yalina, and the wolf-eared girl Little Red Riding Hood—who carried the bloodline of the Werewolf Royal Court and, though only one-quarter pureblood, still possessed extremely formidable combat strength once transformed—already made Coldwind Keep many times stronger than before.

They were all sent off to work.

Meanwhile, Levi sat in the well-worn chair, deep in thought about the territory's future development.

First and foremost, the most fundamental thing was still people.

Without people, it was like water without a source. No matter what you did, development would never truly take off.

People were important, but managerial talent was equally important. Otherwise, if Levi had to personally handle every single matter himself, then this lord-management game would no longer be fun.

So where were the people and talented individuals supposed to come from?

The entirety of Hornreach only possessed the single port town of Coldwind Keep, with a population of merely three thousand, and the overall quality was not particularly high.

There were no villages.

Because the environment was harsh, most of the land was saline-alkali soil unsuitable for growing crops. Fishing and hunting also depended heavily on luck and weather, with no stable output, meaning the number of people the territory could support was extremely limited.

In modern terms, the territory suffered from a severe lack of food self-sufficiency and relied on grain imports from the Silverclaw Viscount's territory.

This was actually one of the main reasons why Steward Mott, who had been sent by the Duke of Silverbrook, had no choice but to collude with the Silverclaw Viscount.

He truly had no grain in his hands, and with the territory almost entirely surrounded by the Silverclaw Viscount's lands, his room for choice had been extremely limited.

The problem that once troubled Mott had now become an issue Levi himself had to solve.

Under the heading of "Population and Talent," he added another problem:

"Stable, self-sufficient food production."

Only after solving those issues could they begin talking about development in other areas.

Levi raised his head and looked out toward the sea through the window, deep in thought.

...

The Silverclaw Viscount's territory.

Unlike the harsh conditions of Hornreach, the vast majority of Silverclaw Territory consisted of fertile plains, supposedly capable of growing crops no matter what seeds were scattered onto the soil.

This was the foundation built over generations by the Silverclaw Viscount's family, and the source of confidence that allowed their strength to rank among the top powers within the Duchy of Silverbrook.

The Silverclaw family's castle, Silverclaw Keep, which had been managed for hundreds of years, resembled a gigantic beast lying in wait atop the foothills of the Grayrock Mountains.

Compared to it, Levi's Coldwind Keep looked like a crudely rushed straw hut.

In the words of the nobility, it possessed no foundation whatsoever.

The castle, constructed from Frostsilver Stone as hard as iron, reflected a cold metallic sheen beneath the midday sunlight, as though an enormous silver claw were gripping the earth itself.

The towering spires of the main keep seemed capable of piercing the clouds, while the moat surrounding three sides of the fortress was not stagnant water, but rapid glacial meltwater diverted from the upper reaches of the mountains. A biting chill lingered above its surface year-round.

Beyond the heavy iron portcullis, the luxury of the inner court was even more astonishing.

The floors were covered with velvet carpets woven with golden thread and transported from the southern deserts. Every hundred steps stood a pure silver falcon statue, their wings spread wide as if prepared to pounce upon intruders at any moment.

This was also a display of the Silverclaw family's wealth and power, a warning to every person and family who dared oppose them:

"Watch your claws. Cross the line, and you will be devoured."

The dome of the main hall was covered in murals depicting the achievements of successive generations of the Silverclaw family.

At the very center stood a ten-meter-long obsidian table, said to have been specially excavated from an underground volcano at the Viscount's command. Its surface was smooth as a mirror, reflecting the hundreds of whale-oil crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling.

The entire hall was illuminated as brightly as daylight, yet carried an oppressive sense of authority.

At this moment, seated at the end of the obsidian table, the Silverclaw Viscount sat upright upon a high-backed chair draped with the hide of an entire white bear.

He was thin and gaunt, and beneath his hooked nose, his gray-blue eyes burned with fury. His fingers unconsciously tapped against the silver lion head embedded in the armrest.

The news that Levi, the new lord, had killed his soldiers and imprisoned Steward Mott, with whom he had enjoyed a smooth partnership, had already reached his ears.

He was utterly enraged by it.

Though Hornreach nominally belonged to the Duke of Silverbrook, in reality it had long since fallen under his control.

What Levi had done was a vicious slap to his face.

"For the honor of the Silverclaw family, we must respond to Levi's actions after he crossed the bottom line," the Silverclaw Viscount declared.

He seemed to have forgotten that he himself had been the first to test and intimidate Levi.

If Levi had not possessed overwhelming strength, he likely would have ended up as a fake lord hanging from the gallows.

And it was precisely that act which had enraged Levi and led directly to Steward Mott being imprisoned.

Without that incident, Levi would not necessarily have flipped the table so completely.

But the Silverclaw Viscount did not care.

He considered himself the stronger side—at this point, he still had no idea what kind of existence he had provoked.

He believed he controlled the rules.

He would never consider his own actions to be wrong. In his eyes, the problem could only lie with Levi.

Levi actually dared to resist?

That fact alone was enough to condemn him!

So he intended to take revenge on Levi!!!

This concerned the dignity of the Silverclaw Viscount's family.

If he failed to respond, then the wolves lurking outside would think the Silverclaw family had grown weak…

---

I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> /TitoVillar

---