Chapter 283

The convoy spent another week and a half traveling through the kingdom before they made it to the border with the Empire. In this time Ajax had a good chance to get a good look at all of the gear the royal family made available for him and in their two spots along the way the leather armor as well as the weapons were given an once over so that they would fit him better.

Much like their first stop the other two stops had also prepared a welcoming party for the crown prince. Unlike his first stumble into a noble party Ajax was quick to move away from the young people his age and approach the heads of Houses. To his surprise most of the heads of the noble families were more than happy to have him join the conversation.

In those two parties Ajax had gotten a very quick overview lesson on party etiquette, he could barely suppress a wince as he was all but pointed out about all the missteps he had made during his first party.

The noble families were likewise very interested in discussing early development and stat distribution with Ajax, though they did avoid specifically asking about Ajax’s training method in detail. Many of them were surprised by Ajax's encouragement of manual labor for their young offsprings.

“Surely you jest?” a noblewoman exclaimed when Ajax mentioned it. “Farming, mining and wood cutting?”

“I’m not saying they should be doing all of that.” Ajax was quick to explain. “But those three are the most widespread jobs among villagers, though it’s rare to find one that has any two or by some coincidence all three. This means that there is a good chance anyone can gain the skill for at least one of them.”

“And how would that help them?” another noble asked.

“The first few levels of those skills are all easy to gain. The bigger advantage is in the amount of effort that needs to be put into them. Regardless of skill level for a child, doing any of them for a two to three hour period will strain their strength, dexterity and endurance.” Ajax said. “This will not only reward them with decent experience but also with a solid way to increase their stats.”

While not everyone was willing to push their offsprings into such training from an early age, they would however be more than happy to push their private soldiers to do so from an early age.

“Ajax , a word.” the crown prince approached him as they took their last rest stop before crossing the border.

“Yes, your highness?” Ajax asked.

“It would be for the best if you had Theron drive one of the carriage from here on.” the crown prince said. “A beastkin riding on horseback or inside a carriage would just antagonize the empire needlessly.”

Despite Ajax very much wanting to antagonize the empire for their racist views he knew very well that doing so at this moment wasn’t a smart thing to do so he acquiesced with the prince's request. Theron himself didn’t seem surprised and had no issue going along with it.

“We shouldn’t stay for longer than two weeks inside the empire capital. Not to mention that you’ll be inside a dungeon for a portion of that.” Ajax said to the bull beastkin.

“Are they even going to let me enter?” Theron asked the one question that had been on his mind the entire trip.

“They hadn’t said anything to deny this in the deal we brokered so you should be fine.” the Goldmancer guard said.

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It was a pleasant surprise to see that despite a few raised eyebrows from the border guards there were no real comments on Theron’s presence in the convoy. What did come as a surprise was the commotion that followed their clearance of the checkpoint. Not twenty seconds after they had started inspecting the final carriage a group of twenty beastkin emerged from the forest and made a mad dash for the border.

The best Ajax could make out most seemed to be some sort of equine beastkin, either horses, deer, zebras or gazelles. Most telling however were the thick black collars they all wore around their necks as they darted towards the kingdom.

“Dammit Edgar.” the guard that was closest to Ajax cursed as he looked out at the fleeing slaves.

“Sorry, Sir.” a younger voice came from the watchtower. “I’ll go after them, sir.”

“You’ll do no such thing.” the guard was quick to ignore the carriage. The moment that a young man in a guard uniform exited the tower and took two steps toward the runaways he was tackled and his head was pushed down into the ground. “Are you trying to cause an international incident?”

“But sir…” the young man started.

“But sir, nothing. You’ll never catch them before they cross the border.” the guard cut him off then leaned much closer to whisper in his ear. “We might have some leeway on the border to chase them for a short distance usually but you want to do that with their crown prince right here, are you daft boy!?”

“Gods damned sympathizers.” the other older checkpoint guard swore as he spit off to one side. “Don’t let it get to you kid, they do it all of us, every time there is a new sentry they always find out their watch schedule to get a few groups past. If it’s any consolation you’ll be building those scouting skills quickly.”

Ajax waited until they were once again on their way past the checkpoint before he started to ask Anna and Lexi questions about what just happened.

“How come we don’t have a checkpoint at the border crossing?” Ajax asked.

“We do.” Lexi answered. “We passed about three miles back.”

“What… but…” Ajax could get his head around that logic.

“The royal family decided to pull back our checkpoint with the Empire border close to a century ago.” Anna explained. “The royal family claimed it was to show goodwill and friendly relations towards the empire but it was mostly the opposite.”

“How is pulling back the checkpoint the opposite?” Ajax asked, confused.

“Because runaways like the group we just saw wouldn’t happen with our checkpoint on the border.” Anna continued. “Now the group will still be spotted at our checkpoints but since they are only spotted inside our borders there is deniability in sheltering them. That decision is what opened peace talks so quickly with the Republic.”

“From the sound of it seems like they regularly cross the border to chase down anyone fleeing.” Theron commented from the driver’s seat. With the silencing enchantment down he could still partake in the conversation.

“They do,” the guard answered. “So long as they don’t go too deep into the kingdom’s lands we don’t make an issue of it so we don’t antagonize the Empire.”

“How is defending the border antagonistic?” Theron asked, though Ajax could hear some anger in his voice.

“I did a punishment stint at the border early in my career before I got picked up by House Goldmander, so trust me when I say we are always watching the border. But if we react every time their guards cross it a little we can’t turn a blind eye to any of the slaves that cross either since it would mean we knew they came from the empire.” the guard said.

Ajax, Lexi and Anna spent the rest of the trip in silence following that downward turn in the conversation. They instead decided to focus on their magical training as they all burnt through half their mana pool as they practiced.

It was already getting dark by the time they made it to the first city inside the Empire and unlike inside their own kingdom they wouldn’t be traveling throughout the night here. Thankfully they had already sent people ahead to make sure they all had accommodations for the night.

Ajax was surprised as he first got a look at an Empire city. Unlike the cities in the kingdom of Gryndor the Empire’s not only had walls surrounding it but high towers that even now looked manned and even a small moat with a drawbridge. The moat wouldn’t do anything to stop anyone above level fifty from scaling the wall but it would stop any siege vehicle from getting to the wall.

The layout of the city was also very different. Whereas the cities in Gryndor were obviously overgrown villages that just kept expanding until they were large enough for a wall to be built with a bit of extra room for expansion. This city had a much more standard layout, all of the buildings seemed to be built in their own quadrants with large open streets but no small back alleys anywhere.

“All of their cities are built around former military bases as humanoids pushed further and further to expand their territories.” the guard said as he saw Ajax look around. “Following their civil wars even the cities closer to other kingdoms follow the same model.”

Pushing further to expand their territories sent a shiver up Ajax’s spine as he remembered the dragon’s warning about humanoids who pushed outside their territories and challenged any of the other recognised races.

“Best get a good night’s sleep, we’ll be in the capital tomorrow late in the evening and I guarantee you won’t be able to slink away early from whatever party is waiting for us.” Lexi jokes with Ajax.