Cthulhu Gonfalon

Chapter 300: Chapter 10

A farmer was singing work songs, commanding an old ox to walk slowly through the field while pulling the plow. It left behind deep ditches in the land.

“It’s incredible!” Knight of Charles Ouss, the eldest son as well as his heir of the late Knight D’vor Ouss, was looking at the sight in front of him. He admired it again and again, and finally said to the thin man beside him who was still wearing thick clothes in the already warm weather, “Lord Crick, you are the wisest person I have ever seen!”

Crick Keane smiled, first coughed twice, then calmly said, “This means nothing. It is a lord’s duty to let the farmers harvest more and have the people live better.”

After the battle a few months ago, Crick had fallen ill after returning to his hometown.

After inspection, it turned out that he had been involved in the battle between the Holy Spirits and the Oracles. In the battle, he had been affected although he had been innocent and had been cursed by the Divine Power.

Curses of this level were hard to get rid of. Dispelling them was only possible with either holding a large magical ritual or finding a master of the same level as that of the Archbishops of big churches. Either one had been beyond the ability of Baron Keane, so he could only stay sick.

Fortunately, the leader of the Church of Void Mask who was stationed in Keane City happened to be a priest who was a master in the fields of “life” and “treatment.” With his help, Crick’s condition had stayed stable. Although his body was somewhat weak, at least it would not continue to deteriorate.

Crick thought that this was good enough. After the earth-shattering war, he was so lucky that he still owned a complete body and that he could still talk and laugh. To ask for more would be a bit greedy.

He had witnessed the fall of a true G.o.d and the death of countless Oracles. As for the death of mortals, it had been too hard to count. It had been said that even the city guards were seriously suffering in the Kingdom of Eagle. In contrast, Crick had been nothing more than a little sick with a slightly weak body, cough and a low fever from time to time. These were all little things, weren’t they?

After all, because he had “escaped from the battlefield,” he had rarely appeared in front of people and had made the external statement of “sick in bed.” The t.i.tle of Baron Keane had already been handed over to his sister Anna. At present, he was like a backstage manipulator in the stories, hiding behind the scenes and promoting the development of the territory of Baron Keane.

Anna had naturally been very happy that her brother came back alive. Even Knight D’vor had died on the battlefield. Although less than one out of ten had been able to come back alive in an army which had undoubtedly been courting death, she didn’t care about anything else as long as her brother could come back.

Those days, when her brother was not there, the little girl who had barely supported the family business, was really exhausted. She had never thought that being a baron would be so tiring, and she had never thought that there would be so many things to deal with. Even with the book, A Concise Handbook for Barons, left to by her brother for reference and the a.s.sistance of Housekeeper Layton, she still felt dizzy. She had often sunk into bed immediately after finis.h.i.+ng her work and fell into a deep sleep until the morning of the next day.

If Crick hadn’t come back, maybe this little girl would grow up in hards.h.i.+p and eventually grow into a strong woman. However, since the big tree that could keep out the wind and rain for her had returned, she naturally turned into a little deer who had slept peacefully under the tree again. She had just given everything back to her brother.

In this regard, Crick had had no choice but smile.

His own sister was not as fond of power as those in some soap operas were, and that was certainly a good thing. However, she was, after all, the heir to an aristocratic family!

What should the Keane family do if something happened to him?

Although he was not the real Crick Keane, since he had inherited the ident.i.ty and legacy of the young baron, he had an obligation to pick up the burden of the Keane family. In his work plan, training Anna Keane to be a qualified heir was a natural course of action.

In the end, he had crossed out this one; she was an unteachable pupil.

Instead of counting on this younger sister who was just ten years old, it was better for him to get married, have children, and then hurry to educate his children!

With this in mind, Crick had held a small wedding. The former maid, Amyveile, the girl who was not very talented except for having a loyalty of ten, had become the former Baroness Keane.

Amyveile had of course been very happy. In her opinion, whether she could become a baroness or not was not important at all. What really mattered to her was that Master Crick liked her!

For a diehard who was almost brainwashed, there was nothing better than this!

There was a person who deserved her loyalty; her loyalty was owned by the person she loved, and this person also loved her at the same time. With three states of happiness joining together, it was like a dream!

Well, after listening to her sighs, Crick had secretly taken time to check out and see if any moaning fans of the White Alb.u.m should be punched to death for influencing his wife in his own territory. But it turned out that he had worried too much.

As he had been “sick in bed,” he was unlikely to encounter any mistresses. Moreover, with an average intelligence of ten, it had been very difficult for Amyveile to be considered a b*tch. Some expansion pack about the “White Alb.u.m: The Keane Family” definitely would not appear.

What Crick really cared about right now was to continue the agricultural reform that had been interrupted because of his own expedition. He had no tie to worry about trivial matters such as scrupulous women.

Traditional farmers didn’t have the habit of cultivation. They had thrown seeds into the soil in the spring, and then they might pour some water when the soil was dry or pluck if there were too many weeds. Except for that, they had done nothing else but concentrate on herding sheep or some other stuff.

In Crick’s view, this was simply a tragedy!

Even if he had just been an art student who barely knew anything about agriculture, he still knew that this farming method was horrible!

So started the experiment again, which was cultivation this time.

“Excavate the farmland with rows of ditches, then arrange the seeds one by one in the ditches; cover them with a little soil and finally water them to germinate them?” after listening to his plan, Mage Damwade, asked with a frown. He had been helping Crick with the research. “Isn’t that too much trouble?”

“Not too much,” Crick had said, smiling. “This method, combined with the fertilizer I added to the field in the fall, should be able to greatly increase the harvest.”

“But… the workload of this ‘cultivation’ you mentioned is too much,” Mage Damwade said. “Few farmers can get the work done before the end of the planting time.”

Crick was stunned and thought carefully. Finally, he remembered that they should use plows to cultivate the fields.

However, how do you make a plow?

He didn’t really know.

He told Mage Damwade his idea about the “plow,” and the wise mage had had no clue as well. Therefore, he gathered all the senior officials and professionals in his territory and held a seminar.

At the seminar, Nikola and Thomas proposed two different designs. Nikola’s design was more complicated and ingenious, and it was fancy at first glance; Thomas’s design was out of style, but it didn’t seem bad.

After using magic to create the “plow” designed by those two people on the spot, even Thomas had had to admit that Nikola’s design was much better than his. However, considering the problem of production efficiency, Thomas’s design finally gained the upper hand.

It was a pity that the manufacturing time and the required magic power of Nikola’s design were close to as much as five times more than Thomas’s. To make matters worse, even the most powerful spell caster, Thomas, of the entire territory and Nikola himself who had designed it couldn’t make it. The only person that could make this plow was Mage Damwade, a combination of a scholar, an alchemist and a mage.

In contrast, Thomas’s design could be completed by ordinary mid-level mages, and more than 20 were made that day. On the fourth day, all the farmers in the territory had received the “plow” and started the “cultivation” either with manpower or animal power.

That had been a week ago. Now the farmland in the entire territory was basically cultivated. Many places had finished sowing and watering, waiting for the seeds to germinate.

What Crick and Charles were watching at the moment was the last field that had not yet been cultivated. The owner of this field was a soldier who had died on the battlefield. The farmer and cattle who were cultivating at the moment were both aided by the territory. This aid would continue until his child grew up and could support the entire family.

“You are a kind, generous and humane lord,” Charles said.

The soldier’s wife carefully planted with the child, and then the skilled farmer sent by the territory helped them cover the soil and water them. Seeing this, Charles couldn’t help but sigh. “I never thought that an aristocrat like you could exist in the world and cared so much about the civilians!”

“Haha, you are an aristocrat yourself,” Crick said, smiling. “Both you and your father are people who care about civilians.”

Talking about his father, Charles’s look was a little gloomy, but there was still a bright light in his eyes.

“Father, he… is the hero I admire. I want to be like him, so there are still many things I have to learn!”

Crick patted his shoulder and nodded lightly, remembering the scene where he had fought alongside D’vor in the b.l.o.o.d.y battle.

When had Divor fallen?

Was it when he had broken into the enemy formation? When he was defending the position? When he was involved in the big battle of the Oracle Army? When they charged with the Holy Spirits? Or was it when they were besieged after the Oracles had disappeared?

He tried hard to remember, but he couldn’t figure it out.

The memory of that battle was both clear and vague. He clearly remembered the fierce fights, blood, weapon collisions, sorrows, roars, despairs, anger, and fear, but he couldn’t remember many details. This battle was not long ago, but the pages of his memory had already begun to fade.

After pondering for a while, he finally sighed.

Anyway, D’vor must have followed him into the enemies. Only by this fact, he was a really brave warrior!

“The deceased are now ashes, but the living still needs to continue to work hard.” Crick looked up into the distance, and there were already many wildflowers blooming in the spring breeze. “D’vor laid the foundation for this land, and you definitely can continue to move forward on the basis he has laid.”

“Yes!”

“You must do better than him; carry forward the Ouss family from generation to generation!”

“Yes!”

“I will continue to work hard as well, D’vor, Spencer… and those brave soldiers. For their blessings, I can stand here alive. If I don’t work hard enough, I will feel shame when I find them in the afterlife…” Crick looked up at the blue sky, smiling.