CH747 Entering the Extreme North I

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[A.N: A new day, a new week, a new arc... new beginnings.]

About a week later, Alex and his hundred or so companions formed another caravan after passing through three towns on their route towards the alternate crossing over the Rotbark River.

Saul and Eleanore reasoned that it would be strange for a noble arriving to take over a territory to appear empty-handed, accompanied only by his retainers and guards. At the very least, a group of their size should have carriages carrying food and other resources for themselves and their mounts—not to mention that, as a new noble, it would benefit Alex to bring supplies to his new territory in order to quickly win the hearts of the people.

While Alex could simply pull out these resources from his Sanctuary pocket dimension—which was now an open secret among his new companions—it would not do to advertise such a capability within his new territory.

As such, despite the inconvenience, Alex agreed to form another caravan to create the appearance of transporting goods towards their border territory staging area.

Coming up a few days behind Udara and her scouting party, Alex’s group arrived at the alternate crossing route—a harbour downstream on the Rotbark River within a barony.

Traffic at the harbour was quite low, as merchants brave enough to move goods towards the empire’s extreme north-east, on towards the border with the Great Berserk Beast forest, would much rather take the faster route across the bridge crossing in Marquis Bradford’s domain.

The situation at the harbour was so poor that, upon seeing the sizeable caravan, even the domain lord, Baron Corbin, came personally to receive the group and calculate their crossing toll.

It didn’t take much to understand why.

Alex’s caravan had over two hundred horses, eighty or so carriages, and just over a hundred members. The toll amounted to more than a handful of low-grade Berserk Stones.

Considering the state of the harbour, it was obvious it had not received such a large payment in a single transaction for a long time. The baron could not sit still and risk his money being embezzled.

Baron Corbin grinned from ear to ear as he calculated the final toll for the caravan, and Alex handed over a weighty pouch filled with full Berserk Stones—not the shards the harbour was accustomed to receiving.

Alex shook his head inwardly, finding the baron rather stingy. Even displaying his noble token and Count certificate hadn’t incentivised the baron to reduce the price. If anything, it made the man even more confident that Alex could afford the extravagant toll.

At least the baron still possessed a measure of business ethics. After receiving the toll, he personally took charge, ensuring that all hands were on deck to get the caravan across the river as quickly as possible.

As a noble, Alex and his caravan also had the right to cross first. However, since there were only a handful of people ahead of them anyway, this privilege was essentially useless.

Unfortunately, things were destined not to go as smoothly as Alex had hoped.

Baron Corbin’s harbour wasn’t large, possessing only four boats, with each vessel capable of ferrying only a few carriages and passengers at a time.

And judging by the width of the river, it would take up to two hours for each boat to complete a round trip. At that rate, it would likely take days for the entire caravan to cross, especially considering that the boatmen could not work continuously and still needed time to eat and rest.

Alex considered using magic to cross the river but eventually decided against it out of caution, prompting Sugud to propose another solution.

Due to being a domain situated along the bank of a major river, the Corbin Barony had an abundance of ropes. Sugud advised the baron to lash the boats together end to end, forming a larger ferry platform. This platform would then be connected to a simple pulley system anchored on both banks of the river by the baron’s garrison forces.

The system allowed the garrison troops stationed on either side to pull the connected boats using the pulley lines. This not only reduced the burden on the boatmen, who no longer had to rely solely on rowing, but also increased the stability of the vessels and kept them travelling along the shortest route across the river, significantly reducing the travel time.

The two-hour round trip now took less than an hour to complete. And since the boatmen were far less fatigued after each journey, more trips could be made throughout the day. Even so, Alex and his group still spent about four days in the Corbin Barony.

On the last night they spent in the domain, the baron insisted on hosting Alex and his retainers at a banquet—one during which he informed Alex that he would be returning a massive... 5% of the toll Alex had paid as a rebate and gift for Alex’s retainer helping him improve the efficiency of his operations.

Alex’s lips twitched at the middle-aged man’s shamelessness.

What was worse was that the man genuinely and sincerely believed the 5% partial refund was sufficient compensation for the system Sugud had implemented.

This level of shamelessness and money-grubbing reminded Alex of a lovable gnome back at the DragonHold Enclave.

Chuckling inwardly, Alex chose instead to view the refund as a gift—a sign of a budding friendship between himself and Baron Corbin.

The next morning, after the banquet, when Alex and his party were about to make the final crossing over the river to join the other members of the group who had set up camp on the opposite bank, they noticed a significant increase in the number of people waiting to cross.

Apparently, word of the harbour’s increased efficiency had already spread amongst nearby merchants.

It seemed they were not the only ones willing to lose a bit of time rather than pay the exorbitant toll at Marquis Bramford’s bridge—or risk having one of their key goods forcibly purchased at half its value by the Marquis.

’If it is this bad, someone might have to do something about the Marquis,’ Alex mused to himself.

For some reason, he had a feeling that responsibility might eventually fall upon his shoulders.

Sighing, Alex joined Eleanore, Zora, Mogal, and Sugud on the boat to cross the river. On the opposite bank, they reunited with Saul, Kavakan and the rest of their forces before continuing their journey.

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