My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!

Chapter : 1563 Follow current novᴇls on NoveI~Fire.net

"They get nothing," Lloyd said. "Tiamat was the richest land, but its people were the poorest. Every grain of wheat, every cow, every apple was taken. It was shipped north to Ferrum, west to Austin, east to Garcia. The people of Tiamat were allowed to keep just enough to not starve to death, so they could keep working. They weren't citizens, Jasmin. They were livestock. They were assets."

He traced a line down the middle of the Tiamat region on the map.

"And because Tiamat was so valuable," Lloyd continued, "it was the prize. The four families fought over it constantly. Eventually, they split it. Half of Tiamat was placed under the direct administration of the Ferrum family. The other half was placed under the Austin family."

Jasmin’s eyes widened. "So... our ancestors..."

"Our ancestors were their wardens," Lloyd said brutally. "My father's ancestors ruled the eastern half. My mother's ancestors ruled the western half. And they didn't rule kindly."

He leaned forward, his voice dropping low. "This is the part that isn't in the royal library. This is the blood. The Ferrum lords of that time... they didn't just tax the people. They used them. They believed that the strong had a right to consume the weak. They saw the farmers of Tiamat as a resource for their Void powers."

"What do you mean?" Jasmin asked, her voice barely a whisper.

"Blood Steel," Lloyd said. "You've seen me use it. I make chains from the void. But in the old days, the technique was... cruder. To forge the strongest weapons, the old Ferrum lords believed they needed blood. Vitality. They drained the life force of the Tiamat peasants to fuel their wars. They worked them to death in the mines and the fields, and when they were too weak to work, they used them as... batteries. Sacrifices to strengthen their iron."

Jasmin looked sick. She put a hand over her mouth.

"And the Austins?" Lloyd continued relentlessly. "They were mystics. They needed test subjects. They needed people to experiment on to understand the limits of the Void. The western half of Tiamat was a laboratory. They twisted people, broke their minds, tried to breed magical affinity into commoners. The Orchid House you saw? That wasn't a new idea, Jasmin. That was an old Austin tradition that the Altamirans learned from us."

He sat back, letting the horror sink in.

"So when you ask why they hate us," Lloyd said, "understand this. It's not because we are a rival kingdom. It's not because of trade routes or borders. It's because every person in Altamira has a grandfather or a great-grandmother who was a slave to my family. They remember the Ferrum whip. They remember the Austin cages. They don't see me as Lloyd, the guy who makes soap. They see me as the descendant of the monsters who drank their blood and stole their children."

Lloyd looked at his hands. "The hatred is generational trauma, Jasmin. It's in their bones. To them, the Kingdom of Bethelham is just the same old monsters wearing a new mask. They think we are just waiting for the chance to put the chains back on them."

Jasmin was silent for a long time. She looked at the map, at the lines that divided the world. She looked at the symbol of the hydra.

"But..." she started, her voice shaking. "But Arch Duke Roy... and Duchess Milody... and you... you aren't like that. You saved Risa. You fight the Devils. We aren't them."

"No," Lloyd said softly. "We aren't. But we share their blood. And we inherited their sins. That's the unfair thing about history, Jasmin. You don't just inherit the castle and the gold. You inherit the ghosts, too."

Lloyd opened another book, flipping past the section on crop rotations and tax levies until he reached a series of detailed geographical surveys. He smoothed the page down. It showed a relief map of the region that was now the Kingdom of Altamira.

"Look closely," Lloyd commanded, tapping the parchment. "Forget the political borders for a second. Look at the land."

Jasmin leaned in, squinting at the fine ink lines. "It looks... green," she said. "There are a lot of rivers."

"Exactly," Lloyd said. "This is the Tiamat basin. It's a geological miracle. Two major mountain ranges—here and here—act as a funnel for rain clouds. The water flows down into this central valley, creating a massive network of rivers and lakes. The soil is volcanic, brought down from the mountains over millions of years. It is, without exaggeration, the most perfect farmland on the continent."

Chapter : 1564

He traced the path of the largest river. "In a sensible world, the people living here would be the richest, happiest people on the planet. They have everything. Water, sun, soil. They should be fat and happy."

"But they weren't," Jasmin said, her voice quiet.

"No," Lloyd said. "Because in the logic of Babylon, value didn't belong to the person who created it. It belonged to the person who could take it. Tiamat was the 'Breadbasket.' That’s a cute name, isn't it? It sounds nice. But a basket doesn't get to eat the bread, Jasmin. A basket just holds it until the master is hungry."

He moved his finger to the northern border of the Tiamat region. "Here. This is the Ferrum border. My ancestors looked south and they didn't see people. They saw a granary. They saw a supply depot. The Ferrum Nation was mountainous. It was cold. We had iron, we had stone, but we didn't have enough food. We were always hungry. So, we looked at Tiamat and we took it."

Lloyd’s voice took on a narrative quality, like a bard telling a grim tale around a campfire. "The division of Tiamat was the result of a war between Ferrum and Austin. Neither side could conquer the whole thing, so they drew a line right down the middle. This river, the 'Serpent’s Coil,' became the border."

He pointed to the eastern side of the river. "This half went to Ferrum. We set up a system of 'Overseers.' These were minor Ferrum lords, the ones who weren't important enough to stay in the capital. They were sent south to manage the harvest. They were bitter, ambitious men who wanted to prove their worth to the main branch. And the only way to prove your worth was to send more grain north than the guy before you."

"So they pushed the people," Jasmin guessed.

"They broke them," Lloyd corrected. "They set quotas that were impossible. If a village produced one hundred tons of wheat one year, the Overseer would demand one hundred and twenty the next. If they failed? The Overseer would burn a house as a lesson. If they failed again? He would execute the village elder. It was a machine of extraction. The Ferrum philosophy of 'Steel is Truth' was twisted into 'Strength takes what it wants.' The farmers were weak, so they deserved to be taken from. That was the logic."

He pointed to the western side of the river. "And over here, the Austins. My mother's people. They weren't hungry for food. They were hungry for knowledge. They were obsessed with the Void. The Austin territories in Tiamat weren't farms; they were harvesting grounds for something else."

Lloyd paused, looking at Jasmin. "You know how rare magic is? How rare Spirit users are?"

"Yes," Jasmin said. "It's a gift."

"The Austins believed it wasn't a gift, but a science," Lloyd said. "They believed that the people of Tiamat, living in such a life-rich environment, had a higher potential for magic. They thought the land itself changed the blood of the people. So, they collected them."

Jasmin’s face paled. "Collected?"

"They took children," Lloyd said bluntly. "Anyone who showed even a spark of talent. Anyone who had a strange dream or moved a pebble with their mind. The Austin lords would come, take the child, and tell the parents it was an 'honor.' They said the child was going to be trained in the capital. But they never went to the capital."

He tapped the map, right in the center of the western region. "They went to places like this. The 'Tower of Silence.' It was a research facility. They tried to extract the magical potential from the blood. They tried to graft spirits onto unwilling hosts. They tried to breed better mages. It was a factory of horrors, Jasmin. And the fuel was the children of Tiamat."

Lloyd sat back, his expression weary. "That is the history of Tiamat. For two hundred years, they were crushed between the Hammer of Ferrum and the Scalpel of Austin. They were bled dry to feed our armies and our spells. They didn't have a name for themselves back then. They were just 'subjects.' But in the dark, in the slave quarters and the fields, they started to call themselves something else. They started to call themselves 'The Children of Tears.'"

Jasmin looked at the map, at the green valley that looked so peaceful on paper. "And that's why they hate us. Because we are the children of the Overseers and the Wardens."