The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

“The tide is starting to recede, my lord,” Thomas tugged at Douson, speaking to Liszt.

“Hand Douson over to me, and you, along with Tom and Jessie, go search for the seafood as I have instructed you,” Liszt took the leash from Douson.

Douson kept trying to dash outward, chasing the waves.

Liszt suddenly shouted, “Quiet, Douson!”

Douson did not listen.

Liszt dismounted and stretched out his hand, pressing Douson into the sands, making it unable to move, and commanded loudly, “Douson, be quiet!”

“Woof woof…” Douson let out two confused barks, struggling in futility, and eventually lay down obediently.

Then Liszt slowly let go of his hand.

Douson tried to struggle and dash outward again.

Liszt repeated the process of pressing it down and issuing commands for it to be quiet. After several attempts, Douson finally stopped moving, and at that moment, Retainer Knight Karl hurriedly brought over a piece of bacon, which Liszt rewarded to Douson, “Quiet and you’ll get to eat meat, understand, Douson?”

“Woof woof.” Douson frantically tore at the bacon, gobbling it up.

Before leaving home, Liszt had specifically instructed Thomas not to feed Douson, for only hunger could engrave a deep memory in animals, better forming a conditioned reflex and achieving obedience training.

“Lord, you have a great talent for taming magical beasts, and I can foresee that Douson will become a qualified domestic magical beast in the future.”

“Of course, it will. If it can’t achieve that, I will have it slaughtered halfway through. The smoked Fierce Earth Dog meat we had last night was quite delicious. I’ve hardly ever had magical beast meat like that in Long Taro Castle.”

The large Fierce Earth Dog had not been sold for its meat; all had been left at the castle to cure and dry.

“It was indeed a delicacy, and eating it, one could feel the magic power nourishing the body,” Marcus had also dined at the castle last night.

After training Douson for a while, Liszt handed him over to Karl and then rode his horse to the beach where the tide had receded, to check on how the servitors were doing.

At this time, Thomas, Tom, and Jessie, each wearing a pair of thick leather gloves and carrying buckets, wielded hammers and shovels, busily at work.

Thomas was responsible for flipping rocks, searching for seafood under and on top of them.

Jessie took charge of digging through the sand, looking for seafood buried beneath it.

Tom, on the other hand, picked up various stranded seafood that hadn’t made it back to the sea in time.

“Teacher Marcus, do you know the correlation between the tides and the moon at night?” asked Liszt, in a good mood.

Marcus shook his head, “I do not know.”

“The moon keeps moving, and it attracts the seawater, causing tides to rise or fall. Of course, the sun does the same, but it’s much further away and doesn’t have as strong an attraction as the moon.”

“I do not understand these things you know, my lord,” Marcus politely admitted.

Marcus was already being courteous.

The moon and the sun can attract seawater? If it was someone else, he would surely have spat in their face, calling it nonsense. Then he would have countered, saying you claim the moon and sun attract seawater, so why don’t they pull us humans up into the sky too? In that case, everyone could fly, and we could all be Sky Knights, so stop deceiving me for lack of education.

Seeing Marcus’ expression, Liszt found it uninteresting—ignorant natives.

After his reflection, he thought to himself, “Since the moon here can also cause tides, does it indicate that this world is indeed a planet? If I sail along the Sea of Azure Waves continuously, can I make a circle around the planet and come back to this place? If that’s true, perhaps one day I could dispatch a fleet for a trip around the world?”

The thought was distant, and Liszt did not dwell on it further.

He rode up to where Tom was.

Tom promptly saluted, “My lord.”

“Continue with your task, I’m just taking a look,” Liszt saw at a glance that Tom’s bucket contained clams, conchs, starfish, crabs, sea cucumbers, clams and seaweed, as well as creatures similar to sea centipedes and sea cockroaches.

However, sea cockroaches and sea centipedes could run away, occasionally spilling out of the bucket.

So Tom had to go and pick them up again, all thumbs.

“These two kinds of bugs that run are not seafood, they can be thrown away,” Liszt reminded him.

“Oh, okay, okay, Master,” Tom busied himself throwing away the bugs, sweating profusely as if he was nervous about the landlord being present, always trying to catch them but failing.

Not far off, Thomas, who was moving rocks, saw Tom’s clumsy actions and turned around, smirking with pride—he was the only one of the castle’s three male servants who was outstanding enough to be the proper successor to the butler.

As for Jessie, who was digging in the sand, he had spent half the day without catching a single razor clam or shrimp that the landlord had mentioned; aimlessly digging, he didn’t realize he was supposed to follow the small holes the seafood uses for breathing.

“What a couple of good-for-nothings!” he thought to himself.

Therefore, he happily wielded his hammer, tapping it under the rocks, knocking off clams, sea cucumbers, and oysters, occasionally also picking up a few small crabs.

“The oyster meat needs to be removed like this.” Thomas took his hammer and shattered an oyster shell, then scooped out the soft flesh inside.

Before leaving, Lord Landlord had mentioned that the flesh of oysters was delicious.

Thomas didn’t find those soft and unattractive things particularly tasty, but he was meticulous in carrying out the instructions of Lord Landlord.

It was hardly any effort at all.

On the exposed rocks after the tide had receded, there were oysters and sea cucumbers everywhere.

In just two hours, Thomas had filled the two buckets he brought with him, one of which was entirely filled with the oyster meat he had harvested.

Looking over at Tom, his bucket might have been full, but the landlord had told him several times not to pick certain things, yet he still did.

Even though it was the same kind of bug, he thought they were different.

That was just too silly.

As for Jessie, he might as well be ignored, having dug himself into a sweaty mess with barely more than the bottom of his bucket covered. A few plump shrimp—the landlord had called them mantis shrimp—and a few razor clams that looked like sticks, apparently called bamboo clams.

He put down his bucket full of oyster meat, stuck out his chest, and awaited Lord Landlord’s inspection.

Mounted on his horse, spending most of his time under the coconut trees enjoying the cool breeze, Liszt noticed noon was approaching and the sunshine growing blistering hot, so he called an end to this foraging experiment.

He rode over and examined each bucket.

“Tom, you still need to put in more effort to distinguish between pests and seafood, not everything found by the sea is edible. If it’s poisonous, it could kill someone,” he said.

Ashamed, Tom lowered his head and responded, “I’m sorry, Master, I’m too dumb and couldn’t make out the difference.”

“It’s alright, Tom, it’s normal to lack experience on your first foray into foraging; don’t feel so guilty about it,” Liszt consoled him, then turned to Jessie’s bucket, “Hmm, Jessie, your hard work is visible to me, but obviously, you’ve not applied the methods I taught you.”

“Master, I dug hard, but as I dug, the holes would just disappear,” Jessie said in a flustered manner.

“You need to dig following the direction of the holes,” he instructed.

“I… I can stay and keep on digging here, Master, I’m sure I can fill the bucket,” Jessie offered.

“If you stay here, then there’s nobody in the castle to fetch water, Jessie. I’m not blaming you. It’s not an easy task to dig for mantis shrimp and bamboo clams,” Liszt explained.

Finally, Liszt walked over to Thomas’s bucket, one full of oyster meat, and the other also brimming with crabs, sea cucumbers, and more.

“Well done, Thomas.”

“Thank you for the compliment, Master, it’s my duty, and I give my all in service to you,” Thomas beamed.

Liszt responded with a smile befitting a noble, acknowledging Thomas’s efforts—he was well aware of Thomas’s ambitions, as Butler Carter had already informed him. As a landlord, he was not concerned, for Thomas’s ambition extended no further than becoming the castle’s butler.

If he truly had the ability, and Old Carter was no longer up to the task, what harm would there be in letting Thomas become the butler?

No servant could turn his world upside down.