The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

“Completion of the task, reward: a new variety of mushrooms.”

“Task: Being a knight requires not only courage and wisdom but also sufficient survival skills to maximize the significance of one’s life. Please learn Marcus’s full set of archery skills. Reward: Black Pearl of the Deep Sea.”

With the lumberjacking at Thorn Ridge pass completed, the Smoke Mission was timely updated.

The new variety of mushrooms was evidently growing somewhere in Mushroom Hamlet, soon to be discovered, and Liszt had enough patience to wait for it.

“The Black Pearl of the Deep Sea, what is that?” He was somewhat puzzled, but pearls were not cheap on the market and were popular accessories among the nobles; black pearls should be even more valuable and could sell for a lot of money.

He had been so poor recently that he was almost unable to pay his workers, and the thought of money consumed him.

“To learn archery from Marcus has been on the agenda for quite some time. So from tomorrow on, I shall officially start learning archery… but tomorrow seems impossible since Marcus will be visiting Coral City to pick up his family. Let’s start the day after tomorrow then, first having the caravan go to Tulip Castle to purchase a bow and arrows for me.”

On Coral Island, only a few noble families were permitted to sell weapons.

Liszt didn’t need to be troubled by this, for he could simply make his purchase at Tulip Castle, since he was a direct member of the Tulip Family.

Early the next day.

The newly formed Fresh Flower Town caravan, led by Old Geronte, with three merchants, six drivers, and seven youths, drove six nags from the castle toward Coral City. Each horse carried several packs of seafood, along with pots and firewood, for boiling the seafood on-site.

Marcus rode his dun horse, accompanying the caravan and incidentally serving as its escort.

The training of the Knight Squad was temporarily handed to the Retainer Knight Karl Ironhammer—he was the only one who had felt the Dou Qi and was on the verge of mastering it.

The other three Retainer Knights had shown no signs of Dou Qi to date.

As for the Knight Squad, the young men had been eating well and training hard, muscles starting to bulge on their bodies. The two with the best physical fitness who met the entrance standard of the Knight Academy, Philip Wool and Zavier Bull Dung, had started to feel the Dou Qi and could cultivate it at any time.

Blair also followed the caravan, on his way to pick up his family and settle them in Fresh Flower Town.

For Goltai and Isaiah, whose families either did not wish to come or could not conveniently do so, they continued to keep the town’s administration running, with plenty of work to do—roads were still under repair, houses in Oyster Village were still being built, and fallow fields were continuously being cultivated. Moreover, a new important task had also begun to be planned.

“Teacher Goltai, Isaiah, the town needs to be replanned. Probably tomorrow, Marcus and Blair’s families will be arriving, so please make sure their housing arrangements are in order as soon as possible. They all come with large families, so they can’t continue to reside in the temporary administration buildings.”

“Rest assured, Your Lordship, I had already considered this last night and rented two houses next to the temporary administration buildings for Marcus and Blair’s families to stay in temporarily,” Goltai spoke with increasing respect, having decided to follow Liszt because of his soon-to-arrive illegitimate child.

Following meant he became a subject of Liszt.

It was no longer merely a relationship of noble ranks and teacher-student affections.

“I am pleased that you have anticipated my thoughts,” Liszt expressed satisfaction with Goltai’s current attitude, “Now, let’s continue discussing the town planning. In about three months, a group of five hundred serfs and freemen will be settling in Fresh Flower Town. We will need to build more houses in each settlement, and the town itself must be expanded.”

Goltai had long known that Liszt intended to engage in the slave trade, and upon hearing this, he directly asked, “How will these civilians be allocated? How many serfs will there be?”

“If all goes well, there will be four hundred serfs to replenish the farming population in the various hamlets. One hundred freemen, most of them craftsmen, will be allotted some workshop land in the town as needed.”

He spread out the rudimentary map of the town.

On the only existing street, Liszt drew another line across it with his finger, “We’ll build another road to give the town a cross-shaped layout.”

“This is no small project, and three months may not be enough.”

“We’ll build first and worry later,” said Liszt, who wasn’t an expert with exact budgets or long-term planning, and many of his decisions were made on the fly. “The streets must be built wide, and the four areas split by the cross should have designated purposes: the west for a commercial district where we’ll eventually have a trading center and a vegetable market.”

The development of social systems in this world was quite primitive, and cities resembled densely packed shanties with no concept of planned districts.

But Liszt refused to accept this standard: “To the south, we’ll have the workshop district for things like mills, slaughterhouses, and smithies to be relocated to this area. The north will be designated for serf residences, and the east for freemen. Furthermore, to the west of the commercial district, closer to the castle, we’ll plan a residential area for nobles.”

It was highly unethical to classify people into hierarchical statuses.

Yet such was the way of the social system; nobles couldn’t possibly live alongside commoners, and freemen didn’t mix with serfs.

After pondering Liszt’s words, Goltai couldn’t help but express his admiration, “My lord, your ideas are truly unique; they’ve opened my eyes to new possibilities in city building. By categorizing areas this way, even the most distant merchants won’t struggle to find places to do business.”

Isaiah was a bit slower to catch on, but, understanding the value of city planning after hearing Goltai’s explanation, commented, “This has indeed been an eye-opener for me. Fresh Flower Town will become a pearl of Coral Island!”

Liszt smiled faintly, “There’s one more crucial point—there must be plenty of toilets. I cannot stand to see anyone defecating or urinating in the town, even if they’re only three years old!”

He added, “We need to hang signs on every shop and on each conspicuous toilet sign, and place markers at the entrances of roads. Whoever comes to Fresh Flower Town in the future must follow the rule against relieving themselves in the streets!”

He felt strongly about this.

Just a few days ago, during the Sea Festival, the knights accompanying the Earl had defecated more than a dozen times around his castle in just one afternoon!

For many knights, such behavior was normal—when they needed to defecate, they simply did so.

But Liszt would not allow it. He didn’t want to be strolling through the stables and, by happenstance, step in excrement.

As natives, Goltai and Isaiah didn’t care much about such matters, as they too had frequently relieved themselves wherever they pleased. However, Liszt had given the order.

They nodded in agreement, “Rest assured, my lord, we will prioritize the hygiene of the town.”

Suddenly, Liszt recalled another matter, “Right, Isaiah, my Knight Squad’s young men can’t recognize a single word. I wish to hire you as a literacy teacher for the Knight Squad, to teach them common writings, and at the very least, they should have the ability to read.” There was no Knight Academy in Fresh Flower Town, so he had to hire a teacher himself.

To this, Isaiah didn’t hesitate, “Isaiah is willing to serve.”