Karon Forest was a place Roel had frequently heard of but wasn’t familiar with.

  From a young age, he had heard that there was a terrifying place south of the Ascart Fiefdom known as the Karon Forest, where countless monsters and vicious werewolves lurked. These werewolves would sneak into the bedrooms of naught children and swipe them away in the middle of the night.

  Indeed, this was a narrative rather popular in not just the Ascart Fiefdom but the entire Saint Mesit Theocracy. Werewolves were depicted to be mass murderers who went around doing evil, similar to a headmaster who was constantly lurking in the shadows, waiting for a child to err so that he could take him away. Almost all children who heard that story for the first time would burst into tears.

  Of course, that story no longer scared Roel after he regained the memories of his previous life. He looked into it out of curiosity afterward and noticed that there were many weird stories going about regarding the Karon Forest. Many of those were gossips written into novels, and the Ascart House had quite a sizeable collection of that.

  With the terrifying image pinned on the Karon Forest, no one dared to venture into the area anymore except for adventurers with a screw loose. After all, any adventurers who still had any semblance of sanity would rather explore ruins where they could make it rich than to visit some darned forest.

  The reason why any adventurer would even think of entering the Karon Forest was probably due to the rumors that there was a great secret hidden in the depths of the forest. The past Roel would have simply shrugged it off as an empty rumor, but after hearing Isabella’s words, he felt that the rumors might be related to the Twilight Sages Assembly.

  Treant was an ancient race that had mostly gone extinct by now. They were known for their long lifespan, which could easily go up to several thousand years as long as their environment was fairly decent. Most of the treants that had appeared in the legends were wise sages, but the one Isabella spoke about seemed to be a little atypical.

  Drunkard Treant…… What kind of weird combo is that?

  Roel was utterly confused by the title, but this was the only clue he had at the moment. He also recalled Isabella mentioning that a core item he would require to meet the Drunkard Treant was the Ancient Austine Empire’s Conti wine. This wine was also a foreign name to Roel, who hardly knew a thing about alcohol at all.

  In truth, he was planning to tell Carter about the information he had gathered during this period of time, but when his father mentioned that he would be returning to the eastern border in two days’ time, he chose to keep his silence.

  He didn’t want to worry Carter and distract him from his duties. After some careful contemplation, he decided to indirectly probe Carter about the Twilight Sages Assembly and the Six Calamities so as to see how much he knew about these things.

  “Hm? I’ve never heard of that before. Which historical record did you read about those from?”


  Seeing that his father was really ignorant about these matters, Roel hesitated for a moment before attributing it to random myths he had stumbled on while casually browsing through the books.

  While the two of them were chatting with one another, Charlotte suddenly dropped by, and the three of them shared lunch with one another. The atmosphere was still fairly harmonious. Carter even put in a good word for Charlotte, telling Roel to work closely with her over the fiefdom. This left the auburn-haired girl incredibly touched.

  “Uncle Carter, please don’t worry. Leave the development of the Ascart Fiefdom to Roel and me!”


  Charlotte grabbed Roel’s hand and reassured Carter with a thump on her chest. She looked even more determined than Roel to make things work out here.

  The truth was that Charlotte didn’t have any cards to rely on anymore, so she wanted to prove her importance by ensuring the smooth development of the Ascart Fiefdom. She could make use of this opportunity to win the officials of the Ascart Fiefdom over to her side, and that would prove to be a valuable card for her to play in the future. If all of the officials were to support the marriage between Roel and her, Carter would have no choice but to seriously consider this matter in view of his fiefdom and family’s interest.

  In summary, if Charlotte wanted to sugarmummy Roel, she would have to sugarmummy the whole fiefdom along with it.

  In truth, Carter knew deep well the intentions Charlotte had in mind, but having promised not to interfere in this matter, he decided to keep his silence here. He glanced at his completely oblivious son and sighed deeply.

  This sure is queer. Just what has he done to make all of these women so steadfast for him?

  Carter couldn’t understand Roel’s tricks, but at least things still didn’t look too bad for the time being.

  Roel was intending to leave with Carter since he had fully recovered, but Charlotte retained him under the pretext of ‘medical observation’. Allowing him to return with Carter was the same as sending him over to Alicia’s side. She had already learned a lesson from what had happened two days ago, and there was no way she would let him go that easily.

  After sending Carter off, Roel asked Charlotte for the investigative report and immediately started browsing through it.

  He had to admit that the Sorofyas, as one of the largest business conglomerates in this world, had the most developed intelligence network in the whole of Sia. Their intelligence network had begun looking into the Karon Forest and the Conti wine even before the two of them arrived at Rosa, and in Roel’s hands at the moment was the first investigative report compiled by them.

  It was not without reason that Roel had never heard of the Conti wine before; it turned out that there was no one else present in the Sia Continent who had heard of it either. The reason behind that was simple—it had changed names.

  The one who had told them about the wine was Isabella, a person who lived several centuries in the past. Back in that era, the common language was still the Second Epoch’s Ancient Austine Language, which was the origin of the current languages used. There were some deviations in the pronunciations, so it was hard to determine what the wine was referring to. Nevertheless, by a process of elimination, the investigation team eventually deduced that it was referring to the Austine Empire’s Cadi wine.

  It was a wine that had nearly disappeared from the Austine Empire, though the reason behind that was rather unexpected. It was not because the wine was difficult to make but that its flavor was simply too horrendous.

  “Hold on for a moment. Did you just say mushroom wine? As in, the mushroom that we all know of? Can that even be brewed into alcohol?”


  Even Roel was flabbergasted upon hearing the report. The middle-aged man who was in charge of the investigation responded with a helpless smile. He had also questioned the authenticity of the information when he first heard about the matter.

  “Yes, my lord. We have sent our men down to personally investigate the matter, and it’s indeed an ancient wine with a long history behind its production.”


  “Isn’t it too early to confirm that the Cadi wine is the Conti wine just by its age itself?”


  “We have other supporting evidence to back up our deduction too.”


  “Supporting evidence?”


  The middle-aged man looked at Roel as he nodded his head grimly.

  “A few hundred years ago, a village near the Karon Village received a huge order of Cadi wine.”