117 – The Late Summer Rainstorm Is Here

“What a brazen person!” Thought Liszt after listening to the patrolman's report. That was akin to stealing right under the lord's nose.

However, Liszt didn't directly made his judgement from the one-side account of the patrolman.

“Sean, go ask Hent if he demolished his house.”

“Yes, Sir!”

The retainer knight Sean quickly returned along with Gort. The result was affirmative. After hearing that the costs for the repairs would be covered by the castle, Hent stated his intention to replace every piece of wood in his house. Then – when the cup of happiness overflows, disaster follows – the house collapsed.

“Teacher Gort, how do you think he should be dealt with?” Instead of indignation, there was a faint expression of inquiry on Liszt's face.

“Abominable people deserve being beaten to death!” Gort replied loudly, “Sir, the greedy freedman Hent dared to covet the castle's property! For that, he should be heavily punished! I think that he should be demoted to a serf and then receive one hundred lashes!”

There were many onlookers. When they heard Gort, they couldn't help but to shrink back. Being demoted to a serf was not that bad. However, receiving one hundred lashes was akin to a death sentence. Several commoners who had also laid hands on their houses in order to take advantage of the situation, when they heard Gort, their legs nearly started trembling.

Their greed faded in an instant. With uncertain steps, they quietly moved toward their homes to mend the damage they had caused…

To be frank, the one hundred lashes was a bit much. The crime didn't warrant death.

However, Hent's behavior displeased Liszt quite a bit. He had been striving to lead the Flower Town into prosperity, yet some ungrateful person actually tried to take advantage of him.

This kind of practice could no be tolerated in the least and had to be nipped in the bud.

“Seeing as he has a broken arm, the whipping shall be postponed for now. After he recovers, the whipping is to be meted out in two batches of fifty lashes each.”

He swept the nervous commoners with a glance before telling Gort: “Properly disseminate this case. I don't want there to be anyone else doing similar things.”

“As you wish, Sir!”

Gort revealed a cruel smile: “I will let these stupid commoners know whether a few pieces of wood are more important than their little lives.”

With such a disturbance, Liszt was no longer in the mood to continue inspecting the repairing of the houses.

He turned his mount around and headed back to the castle.

……

The black nightshade sprite worm's worm stalk in the black nightshade field had recovered gradually, its magic power started to flow steadily, and the black spots and dried up parts of leaves were slowly replaced with green.

After taking a look at the black nightshade, Liszt took his mount for a stroll around the horse field.

In the end, he returned to the shade below the apple tree.

Carrying a bunch of keys, Carter, who had just exited the cellar and locked its door, came over. His pace was very slow, carrying the calm of an elderly person. He was meticulously dressed. His clothes were a bit worn out, albeit very neatly ironed, lacking any creases or loose threads.

“Master, your don't seem to be in a good mood.”

“It looks like my mood is written on my face.”

“Is there anything I can do for you?” Asked Carter with a smile. The smile was very amiable, capable of making people's hearts warp up at once.

Liszt signaled Thomas to bring a stool for Carter before continuing to say, “Mr. Carter, am I a qualified lord?”

“There is no doubt in my mind that you are. You have the courage of the Tulip Family and the mercy, fairness, humility, and honor of the aristocracy. You are beloved by the glory of knights.”

“Has the Flower Town changed much in the past half a year?”

“It has changed quite a lot. I remember that when I first came to the Flower Town, the people had numb expressions, yet now, they look like they got a new lease on life. I have never seen as many smiles as I have seen here. Everyone is grateful for your kindness, Master.”

“Not everyone.” Liszt took a cup of cold juice and took a sip from it. A cooling sensation spread through his entire body, “Today, I came across a commoner who, without taking the kindness he had received from me into consideration, tore down his old house in order to get a brand new house from the castle for free.”

“Such commoners don't deserve your anger. Unlike n.o.ble aristocrats, petty commoners have a lot of bad habits.”

“Alright, I'll accepted your reasoning.” Liszt put his displeasure at the back of his mind, “In fact, Teacher Gort's proposal of punishment has already dispelled my anger.”

He might not be yet aware of it himself, but he had been more and more looking at things from the stand point of an aristocrat.

Although he was a transmigrator, but Liszt still lacked the capability to change the world. Instead, little by little, he was integrating into this world, betraying the communist ideology and s.h.i.+fting his allegiance to the side of the exploiting cla.s.s.

He was not far from becoming a standard aboriginal.

Regarding this point, Liszt had a retort: “My dream is to ride a dragon, not to change the world!”

……

The repairs lasted for five days. On the sixth day, however, the repairs could no longer continue.

On this day, the north wind whistled and dark clouds obscured the sky, and the horse field's alfalfa swayed in the wind without respite.

To keep the wind and rain away, the castle's servants were busy installing wooden planks on the windows.

Just like the windows in the Tulip Castle, Liszt could have crystal carved into thin sheets and then use the sheets to cover the windows. However, he was not such a spendthrift. The chest worth of crystal was reserved for the future to be carved into magic articles. For the time being, detachable planks were used to block the castle's windows.

In addition, each window still had a straw-woven curtain, which was ordinarily used to block sunlight and mosquitoes.

Now, however, the curtains could be blown aside by the strong wind coming from outside.

After installing the planks, the interior of the castle, which was not bright to begin with, turned even dimmer. Carter was busy instructing the servants to put lamps in the study, living room, and other rooms to let the inside of the castle recover some brightness. Now that Liszt's coin pouch was quite plump, there was no need to be too frugal with the lamps. The study alone had five or six lamps lit.

“Mr. Carter, don't worry about the expenses. I want my room to be well lit as reading under dim light is very harmful for the eyes.”

Liszt was flipping through a novel in his boredom.

There were one hundred and eighty-two books in the castle, and he had already read each of them at least twice. On the whole, the thicker books had tens of thousands of symbols, while the thinner books only had thousands of symbols.

He admired the authors who wrote these knight novels. In a few thousand words, they had to write a complete story with twists and turns. Moreover, their books had to include dragons, princesses, knight orders, kings, wars, banquets… Otherwise, no aristocrat would purchase their books.

If aristocrats didn't bye their books, then the dest.i.tute lesser aristocrats who made their living by writing all kinds of made up stories would starve. Basically, only dest.i.tute aristocrats wrote knight novels. Commoners could't write.

“Master, considering the current weather, there should be a torrential rain today.”

“A torrential rain is also good. Several of the Flower Town's ponds have dried up and are in an urgent need of water.”

“I hope that the crops won't be damaged, which would affect this season's taxes.” Carter took off a plank, took a look at the overcast sky outside, and said worriedly.

“Don't be nervous. Nowadays, the castle doesn't lack food, nor does the town. The East Coast is the Flower Town's canteen.” Said Liszt indifferently.

While leaning against the back of his chair, Liszt focus didn't lie on the cover of the knight novel in front of him.

Instead, he watched as smoke twist into Serpentines: “Mission completed. Reward: a spiky variant of fast-growing type of thorns.”