Chapter 19: Isonpol

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Olivia, who had walked over, saw all of Leo's actions and couldn't help but sneer, "How lame. You're all grown up, and still picking on kids!"

"You think they're kids? Do you keep your kids in a pigpen?" Leo retorted habitually and threatened, "These are the little ones I brought back for you. From now on, you gotta raise them like your own sons. If one of them kicks the bucket, watch out for the kobolds to revolt!"

As he said that, he pointed at Olivia and taught the kobold cubs, "Come on, call mom."

"Mom..."

Olivia rolled her eyes at Leo, speechless, but she didn't dislike the kobold cubs. Instead, she squatted down, highly interested, trying to communicate with them.

Unfortunately, when it came to Olivia, the kobold cubs just kept yelling "Mom, Mom" randomly and couldn't learn a single other word.

Early the next morning, Ulyan, along with two militiamen and a bag of iron ores, rode donkeys towards the nearest town, Isonpol.

Isonpol is a small town in the southernmost part of the Frolov family's territory. Thanks to its location at the intersection of the World Tree Avenue and the Anzerno River, its business is booming. It can be considered one of the commercial hubs linking the Western Region and the Northern Region.

The Grand Barrier forms a ring in the center of the Morning Light Continent. On the continental map, it resembles a huge tree stump.

The elves living on the Central Plateau call this huge tree stump the "World Tree". The so-called World Tree Avenue is a circular road built around this tree stump.

However, this incredibly long avenue, which can be considered a miracle, has a history of tens of thousands of years. As for who built it, even the elves have a hard time verifying.

Previously, Ulyan led an exploration team from a small village near the North Ice River and Wind God Fortress. They walked over a thousand li southwest along this World Tree Avenue before reaching the river bend settlement.

Without this avenue, Ulyan wouldn't have dared to be so ambitious.

In theory, the entire area west of the World Tree Avenue - namely, the mountainous region at the eastern foot of the Grand Barrier and the vast Wolf-Driving Plain - belongs to the Frolov family's territory.

But in reality, the human race has only set up some small towns and villages along the World Tree Avenue on the outer edge of the forest east of the Wolf-Driving Plain. The depths of the Wolf-Driving Plain and the eastern foot of the Grand Barrier are still blanketed by primeval forests, with countless beast lairs and alien tribes hiding within.

Due to cultural differences, the noble system in the Northern Region differs from that in other parts of the empire. There are scarcely any titles like "baron" or "viscount" here.

Below the Grand Duke of the Northern Region come the seven earls. Each earl is like the king of a small country, owning vast territory that southern nobles can't even fathom.

Below the earls are the knights they enfeoffed.

Of course, hundreds of years ago, the empire also granted titles to quite a number of "viscounts" and "barons" in an attempt to split and weaken the power of the great earls in the Northern Region.

But these relatively weak small nobles are undoubtedly sitting ducks in front of the warlike and ill-mannered Northern Region chiefs. In less than a hundred years, they all, for various reasons, lost their families and heirs, and their territories have been "temporarily administered" or "inherited" by the surrounding great earls.

To this day, the Northern Region is still ruled by the Grand Duke of the Northern Region and the seven great earl families, which have been around for thousands of years.

The Frolov family is not one of the most powerful among the seven earl families. However, it still possesses four small and medium-sized towns and seven or eight castles along the World Tree Avenue and commands over a hundred knight fiefs.

Setting off from the River Bend Settlement Camp and traversing over thirty li of wilderness along the Anzerno River, one will arrive at the Western Watchtower under the jurisdiction of Isonpol. From here, one can enter the World Tree Avenue.

Then, walking eastward along the flat World Tree Avenue for over sixty li, passing two small villages on the way, one will reach the small town of Isonpol.

Here lies the only large bridge on the two-hundred-li stretch of the upper reaches of the Anzerno River, and there is an inland waterway that leads directly downstream to the large eastern city of Olenik. Therefore, most of the trade between the northern Western Region and the western Northern Region passes through here.

However, the topography and products of the northern Western Region and the western Northern Region are not very different. Thus, the volume of trade is not large. Merchants from the Western Region mostly head to the central plains of the empire in the southeast direction to sell warhorses and furs, which are not very different from those in the Northern Region.

Since the Atlantis Empire established diplomatic relations with the Archipelago Free States in the Storm Sea in the southeastern part of the continent, those large-scale bulk transactions have all departed from the southernmost seaport of the Western Region, passing through the Archipelago Free States and reaching the imperial cities on the eastern coast of the continent. The existence of the Northern Region seems to have become unnecessary.

After Ulyan left, as Ulyan's top henchman, Leo confidently took over the overall management position, ready to give orders and achieve great things.

However, the others didn't pay any attention to him. The main tasks like logging, building houses, and reclaiming wasteland were all the responsibility of specialized foremen. These experienced old men only dismissed Leo's suggestions as nonsense.

All the management work in the settlement camp was in the charge of Olivia. From the villagers' illness and injury, food distribution to children's conflicts, everything needed to be resolved by her.

Among a group of numb and muddle-headed illiterates, Olivia, who held the financial power and was the only one who could write and calculate, was simply the incarnation of the goddess of wisdom, with the authority to make on-the-spot decisions.

People forgot that she was merely a sixteen-year-old girl.

A large number of kobold cubs clustered closely behind her, following her as she walked about the settlement camp, just like a mother hen leading a brood of chicks out of the nest to search for food.

In two days, aside from insisting on training the militiamen, the only thing Leo managed to do was to force the villagers to defecate in the newly dug latrines instead of defecating everywhere around the settlement camp or even outside the tents by showing off his muscles and using violence.

It wasn't until the afternoon of the second day that Ulyan returned, riding a donkey.

The first thing he did upon returning was to take a few villagers to build a simple wooden trestle by the river. Then he told the others to stack all the iron ores by the riverbank.

In two days, the industrious kobolds had carried nearly a ton of iron ores and successfully traded them for twenty bags of rye. The entire kobold tribe was plunged into a frenzy of carrying ores.

If Ulyan hadn't come back any later, Olivia would have had to stop this deal first.

Leo saw what Ulyan was up to and exclaimed in surprise, "Is a boat coming?"

Only then did Leo realize that the Anzerno River runs across the Northern Region. As long as there is a boat, not only is it possible to reach the nearest small town of Isonpol, but it's also possible to go directly to Olenik, an important town in the Northern Region, or even go out to sea along the river.

Of course, the prerequisite is to have a boat.

Ulyan cast a proud sidelong glance at Leo but didn't say a word. Instead, he stood there leisurely on the makeshift wooden dock, with his hands clasped behind his back.

After being whipped by the cold river wind for half an hour, Ulyan finally couldn't take it anymore. Shivering all over, he made his way back to the settlement camp and told Leo, "Go and keep an eye on the river. When you spot a boat coming, let me know."

Leo took Little Mouse and went fishing on the dock for over an hour. As the sky was gradually growing dark, four small boats finally appeared on the downstream river surface.

These were four small fishing boats commonly found on the Anzerno River. The hulls were less than five meters long and could carry at most a thousand catties of fish.

But this was still not bad. The exploration camp didn't even have a small raft that could stay afloat.

At this moment, among the four small fishing boats, except for the first one that was filled with people, the remaining three were loaded with goods, and there were only two fishermen handling the rowing and poling.