In the far south of the continent, in an inconspicuous countryside of the Duchy of Thunder, Knight Howard James was inspecting his territory with his two sons. When the farmers saw the knight and his son passing by, they all stopped what they were doing and saluted them.
This salute was almost pure etiquette. Compared with the uncultured northerners who were composed of pioneers, the farmers of the Keene Territory, who once believed in the God of Literature and Art, were much more polite.
Knight James was forty-two years old this year. For a middle-grade knight, his body was almost at the end of its peak, and it would begin to decline in one or two years at most. On the other hand, his two sons, Bonn, who was twenty-two years old, and Sean, who was eighteen years old, had already grown up. His eldest son had even given him a granddaughter, and together with his fifteen-year-old daughter, he had many children and grandchildren.
Compared with Knight Devore Owens, who died on the battlefield and only had two sons, aged fifteen and twelve, he was much luckier. When Crick first went to war, he considered that Devore was relatively weak and familiar with the territory, so he stayed to look after the house. Devore had no other choice. When a lord went to war, he needed at least one knight.
They had participated in that earth-shattering battle. In the end, only twelve out of more than a hundred people returned to their hometown alive. Not a single one of them was able to return in one piece. Even Lord Krieg had suffered serious injuries. In contrast, although Knight James did not get enough to boast to his descendants, at least he was alive and unharmed.
This made him very grateful. Although it was hard to say, although he was a little stupid, he was still very clear in his heart that nine in intelligence was actually not very stupid. It was very common among warriors, and he had never seen a warrior with nine in intelligence being regarded as mentally retarded.
However, this incident had also given him a wake-up call. Since winter, whenever he patrolled the territory or dealt with government affairs, he would bring his two sons along. He hoped that these two fellows would learn the skills that a lord should have as soon as possible so that they could take over after his retirement and continue to serve the baron loyally.
The "baron" was not referring to Anna, but Crick. Although officially, the current Baron Keene was Anna Keene, in fact, everyone knew that Miss Anna was neither interested in being a lord nor seemed to have the ability in this regard. The future of the Keene Territory still depended on Lord Crick.
"Alas! I don't know when the lord will recover … "Thinking of the current situation of Lord Crick, the loyal knight leader could not help but sigh deeply.
"Dad, don't worry! He will definitely recover! "
"That's right. How could a man who came back alive from the battlefield of 'Sun's Death Day' be defeated by a mere disease?"
If Crick was here, he would use his "Time Travel" ability to look at Bonn and Sean, and he would find that the loyalty of these two young knights was surprisingly the same as his father's, full value of 100.
Before he participated in the battle, the two young men did not admire the poet lord very much. But after he participated in that terrible bloody battle, dragging his body that was cursed by divine power and escorting the corpse of his best friend back, and killing the evil demoness on the way, his image in the young men's hearts suddenly became lofty, just like an idol.
What did the Divine Power Curse mean? This meant that he had been involved in a battle between Oracles or even Holy Spirits. To be able to participate in such a battle with the body of a mere mortal, how brave was that!
What did it mean to bring back the body of knight Spencer Harding? It meant that when this knight was sacrificed, he was right beside him. A famous master had died in battle, but he had survived. He had even managed to escape with the corpses of his comrades. This required very accurate judgment and extraordinary intelligence. After all, he was a believer of the God of Literature and Art, not the God of Luck.
As for on the way back, he killed Miss Maki, who had done many evil things and once became the head of the evil Church of the God of Aristocracy in this area, even though he was injured and sick. This further proved that he was a tough man, and even if he was only left with one breath, he should not be underestimated.
Brave, wise, strong, with good governance, and upright and noble character, Lord Crick was like a hero who walked out of a myth and legend, enough to make these young men look up to and worship him.
Although Crick himself repeatedly stressed that there were many mistakes in these statements, and there were many things that were derived randomly. But everyone felt that he was being modest, and no one believed him.
Crick could not do anything about this. The more he explained, the more everyone felt that he was covering up — after all, the tragedy of that battle was known to everyone, and the volunteers fought in the most dangerous place on the entire battlefield. Not only could he come back in one piece, but he could also bring back the body of his friend. This was an iron-clad fact.
… Even though Spencer was actually saved from the battlefield by him.
On one hand, this was also because Crick did not want to damage the reputation of his friend. The relationship between the Smith siblings was a bit weird, and it reminded him of some unhealthy works that he had seen before he came to this world. So he repeatedly told himself not to say anything that should not be said, and even try to forget things that should not be remembered — he also told Donaldson the same.
Donaldson was the man with a big beard and heavy armor who was hired by Maki to pretend to be the legendary adventurer Paul.
Of course, this guy's strength was not bad. After all, he was a character with a total level of twelve. Although his loyalty was only 60, Crick had a plug-in that could monitor the change of his loyalty at any time. As long as his loyalty did not drop, 60 was not bad at all. The rarest thing was that his intelligence was as high as 16, which was practically at the level of a wizard!
With such high intelligence, it was no wonder that he could disguise a legendary strongman so vividly with the strength of a mere mid-level warrior. Even Spencer, who had almost stepped into the legendary realm, was fooled.
Paul was a wandering legendary warrior who did chivalry everywhere. But in the last one or two hundred years, he had rarely appeared in the human world. Some people thought that he had become a god, and some thought that he felt that there was no challenge in the Main Plane, so he went to another world to adventure. The last known time he appeared was more than 20 years ago when he rescued the Smith siblings who were kidnapped by bandits and almost killed.
Perhaps it was fate, but on that dark and tragic battlefield, they actually met someone who knew Paul — the general of the Orc Empire's Southern Theater of Operations, "Iron Teeth" Ilo.
Paul was a half-orc, a lionman like Morani. Back then, before he had awakened as a half-orc, he used the name Reynold. At that time, he was known as "Heavy Lion" and was a fierce general of the Orc Empire. He was a good friend of Ilo. Later, Reynold awakened and embarked on the path of a kind ranger. He parted ways with his old friend and changed his name to "Paul" — Paul was a famous knight in history. He dedicated his life to protecting the weak, and in his nearly 400 years of life, he had saved countless people.
Times had changed, and very few people still remembered the former "Heavy Lion" Reynold. Instead, it was the ranger Paul who was more well-known.
But … actually, Paul had also become a legend. The last time Ilo met him was 60 years ago. At that time, he looked very haggard, sitting alone on a rock by the lake, deep in thought. No one knew what he was thinking about.
Ilo invited him for a drink, and he said that he had quit drinking.
At that time, Ilo had an expression as if she had seen a ghost. The dignified "Heavy Lion", a good man who could drink dozens of liters of wine in one meal, had actually quit drinking?!
Ilo had never seen him again after that. According to the words of this great orc general, Reynold, who didn't even drink, was no different from being dead.
Of course, Crick didn't think so. He always felt that the ranger Paul was definitely still alive. Perhaps he had lost his way on the path of life? Or perhaps he was just working hard to level up in seclusion? In short, even if he couldn't see him, this legendary figure would sooner or later step onto the stage of history again.
Of course, this didn't stop him from asking Donaldson to shave off his beard, change into a light armor, and return to the appearance of a normal warrior.
Speaking of which, Donaldson's real profession wasn't even a heavy warrior. He really didn't know how he could act a legendary heavy warrior so well!
He clearly didn't even have the level of a level 1 Wandering Poet!
Donaldson's current job was to be Crick's attendant, helping him handle a lot of chores. This job wasn't easy, but it wasn't very hard either. Most importantly, there wasn't any danger. Donaldson wasn't weak, and he looked very imposing, but in fact, he wasn't very courageous. He was completely a silver spear but a wax spear. If he were to go and fight with his life on the line with others, he probably wouldn't even be able to exert 70% to 80% of his strength. It was really a pity that he had such a big body and such a mighty face …
"Sort out these few pieces of information." While Knight James was touring the territory with his sons, Crick was also working. After he finished reading the regular important news reports he bought from the Guild of Thieves, he asked Donaldson to categorize and collect the information. Those that might have a significant relationship with the territory were put aside; those that might have a direct relationship with the territory but weren't very important were put aside; those that were important but wouldn't have a relationship with the territory were put aside; and those that weren't important were put aside.
Donaldson was quite familiar with this job and hadn't made any mistakes. As expected of someone who had been with Maggie for a long time.
At the moment, the most important news was naturally the independence of the Duchy of Griffon. But this news had nothing to do with the territory of Baron Keane, so it wasn't worth paying too much attention to. In contrast, it was the internal strife of the upper echelons of the Duchy of Thunder that worried Crick.
Although Baron Keane seemed like a big shot, he was really nothing in the context of the entire Duchy of Thunder. Previously, the small confrontation between the big shots had caused the territory to suffer heavy losses, and Crick himself had almost lost his life. If he were to be involved in such political turbulence again, the small boat that was Baron Keane might be smashed to pieces by the turbulent waves at any time.
So Crick had been thinking about how to avoid the political strife of these upper echelons so that his small territory could develop slowly and peacefully?
After thinking for a long time, he sighed deeply, coughed twice, clutched his chest, and shook his head helplessly.
After all, the cards in his hands were still too few and too small. In the face of such turbulence, there was really no good way …
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