The Mighty Dragons Are Dead

“Uncle Phil wants a son?” Jessie was first taken aback, then nodded his head, “It seems so, I’ve heard him complain that he doesn’t have a son to take care of him when he’s sick.”

Liszt looked at Jessie.

Then he suddenly asked, “Jessie, if I remember correctly, you’re an orphan, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my lord, I was raised in the welfare institution of Coral City, grateful for the Tulip Family’s generosity, which allowed us orphans to survive,” Jessie said devoutly.

The welfare institution was an organization where nobles gathered orphans, as commoners often had accidents that left children without care. To display their benevolence, some wealthy nobles would establish welfare institutions on their family domains to gather orphans, who would then work directly for the castle when they grew up.

Jessie was such an orphan.

“Is the Old Tanner at the Tanners’ Shop now?”

“Yes, my lord, I was thinking of inviting Uncle Phil to go shopping with me, but he didn’t want to.”

“Then Jessie, come with me to see the Old Tanner, I have some business with him.”

“Yes, my lord, I will prepare the horses for you at once.”

In the castle’s stable yard, there was a rudimentary rest area where Philip and Zavier always stayed as Retainer Knights; they did not have the luxury of enjoying holidays.

Seeing Liszt mount the Fire Dragon Horse, they each mounted a nag and followed him.

Heading toward the Tanners’ Shop.

In every small town, there were generally Tanners’ Shops, where tanners made leather, sewed fur coats, and mended shoes. There were specific crafts, including helmet tanners, armour tanners, vest tanners, drumhead makers, bag craftsmen, utensil tanners, and most commonly, shoe tanners.

The Old Tanner in Fresh Flower Town, Phil, was a shoe tanner.

In big cities, shoe tanners were often wealthy freemen because handcrafting a pair of leather shoes required a lot of money. However, in small towns, the treatment of shoe tanners was poorer, as few could afford leather shoes. Thus, the Tanners’ Shop could only barely make ends meet—most serfs and freemen wore wooden shoes or straw sandals.

Of course, even more people went without any shoes at all.

“Is that you, Jessie?” The Old Tanner’s somewhat hoarse voice came from the table, as he fumbled to mend a pair of shoes. Even though his eyes were blind, his hands remained deft.

Jessie quickly said, “Uncle Phil, it’s Lord Landlord who has come, and Lord Landlord has some business with you.”

“Ah, Lord Landlord, Old Phil sends his regards to Lord Landlord,” the Old Tanner got up hurriedly from his chair, bowing respectfully, his hands trembling nervously, just as commoners do when they see a Lord.

Liszt surveyed the narrow, gloomy Tanners’ Shop, noticing its signs of neglect and disrepair, as it was so dilapidated that the roof allowed glimpses of the sun above.

Just like the Old Tanner himself, it bore signs of age and decay.

“Old Phil, don’t be nervous, I’m just here to have a chat with you.”

The Old Tanner’s cloudy eyes showed no change in emotion.

But Liszt felt that the man’s hands had quickly stopped trembling—not because his nerves had been calmed, it appeared more like he had stopped putting on an act, as the earlier trembling was probably feigned. This was easy to understand; after all, nobles enjoyed seeing commoners tremble before them.

The aged man had long learned to cope with life: “Lord Landlord, it is an honor for Old Phil to have a chat with someone as noble as you.”

“You settled in Fresh Flower Town as a beggar ten years ago, so where are you originally from?”

“I was born on Dodo Island, Lord Landlord.”

“Dodo Island?”

“It is an unlorded wild island, even further north of Coral Island. The island is home to a kind of Dodobird that can’t fly and cries out as if saying ‘dodo’. There’s also a particularly tall type of tree with a terrible name, the Human Skull Tree, and its fruits are known as Human Skull Fruit.”

“Human Skull Tree?”

“Yes, Lord Landlord, those fruits are white and from a distance, look just like human skulls. But they taste really good. The natives of the island satisfy their hunger with Human Skull Fruits; even Dodobirds eat them, but Dodobird meat is particularly nasty. Life on the island is extremely hard.”

A Dodobird that sounds like “dodo.”

It reminded Liszt of the dodo bird that had become extinct on Earth.

He wondered if the Dodobirds here were the same species as the dodo birds on Earth.

“So, how did you come to Coral Island from Dodo Island? You were born on Dodo Island, so you should be a native there. Where then did the inhabitants of Dodo Island originate from?” Liszt asked.

Around the Duchy of Sapphire, there are still many undeveloped islands, and Dodo Island must be one of them.

“I am a native of Dodo Island. I don’t know where we came from. Ever since I can remember, we all lived on Dodo Island. Then when the volcano erupted, many Human Skull Trees were destroyed, and without food, we had no choice but to cut down trees to make canoes and drift along the sea… It was during that time that I drifted to Hot Spring Island and became an apprentice at the Tanners’ Shop.”

What followed was that Hot Spring Island was caught in wars, and he was sold into slavery to Coral Island as a serf. A Baron on the island bought him, but after the Baron went off to war with the Earl, he never returned, all Domain Elves died, serfs feared punishment and started to flee.

The Old Tanner also fled.

Through twists and turns, he arrived in Fresh Flower Town.

“Back then, all the serfs were spreading rumors that the Baron had died in battle because a Retainer Knight who was of serf origin betrayed him. The followers were furious and decided to slaughter all the serfs on the domain to avenge the Baron,” the Old Tanner said, with a sigh perhaps lamenting his past ignorance.

It was a low-level rumor; nobles value their serfs highly.

The correct course of events should be—when the Baron died without an heir, the landlord he followed, which is Coral Island’s Count, reclaimed all the rights to the domain, including the serfs.

All in all, the Old Tanner’s life wasn’t dramatic nor was he a “man with a story”; even his blindness occurred naturally while he was in Fresh Flower Town.

The only thing close to a story was his identity as a native of Dodo Island.

Liszt carefully inquired about Dodo Island and found out it was just a tiny island, with fewer than three hundred natives living on it, ultimately devastated by a volcanic eruption. Apart from the surviving few Human Skull Trees, there likely wasn’t any value in developing it.

He was somewhat disappointed.

He had assumed that a person specifically mentioned in the Smoke Mission would have some mystery about them, but it turned out to be just an ordinary native.

He still planned to continue the mission to get the book as a reward—bringing Jessie along was to set him up with the Old Tanner as a son—a fatherless, motherless orphan, with a widower who had no children; they both got along well and should easily form a father-son contract.

But suddenly, he had a bold idea.

“Why should I follow the steps laid out by the Smoke Mission? I’m not its puppet. I can simply ask the Old Tanner for the book directly, instead of relying on completing a mission to get the book!”

The Old Tanner couldn’t possibly have many books, Liszt thought.

So.

He simply said, “Old Phil, I heard you have a collection of books, don’t you? I would like you to sell them to me.”

Given the command by the Lord Landlord, the Old Tanner dared not refuse and immediately agreed, “Yes, Lord Landlord, I do have a collection of books, but there is only one. I will present it to you right away.” Having said that, he stooped his back and, with Jessie’s support, took a wooden box out of a cabinet full of leather shoes.

“Jessie, the book is in the box, quickly give it to the Lord Landlord.”

Jessie opened the box, took out a very thick book, and handed it to Liszt. Liszt scanned it and saw that it wasn’t printed but hand-written, with Serpent Script and another foreign language on the cover.

He didn’t recognize the foreign language.

But he did recognize the Serpent Script “Philip, Scion of the Sun’s Diary”.