Old Steward Clancy asked Laurist to send him back. When Laurist pushed the wooden wheelchair back to Clancy's bedroom, he saw Padt guarding outside the door. Sederkamp and three other middle-aged men were sitting around the old steward's bedroom.
The three middle-aged men bowed to Laurist in unison, greeting the family master.
Chief Steward Kleis patted Laurist's arm and said with a smile, "These three are currently the three main stewards of the family. Without them, even Chief Steward Kleis would not be able to effectively control the family manor and castle.
The first to swear loyalty to Laurist was a balding middle-aged man. His name was Hansk, and he was the family's financial steward. He played the role of accountant and calculator.
The second middle-aged man was called Spear. She was in charge of the thirteen storehouses in the family manor and castle that stored all kinds of supplies. She knew all kinds of supplies like the back of her hand.
The last middle-aged man was a bit slick and good with words. He was the steward in charge of human resources in the family and knew the strengths and weaknesses of everyone in the family very well. Clancy secretly motioned for Laurist to pay more attention to this middle-aged man called Cordan, because this middle-aged man's oath of loyalty to Laurist sounded hollow, and it sounded like he wasn't being very sincere.
Laurist didn't care if the oath of loyalty was fake or not. Time revealed a man's heart. As long as he had the motivation to develop under his command, he would naturally remain loyal. He asked the three stewards to explain the current situation of the family to him. This way, he, the new family master, could understand the specific situation.
Just as Laurist expected, the family was in a very bad situation. Hansk said that the family's current cash reserves, which were gold and silver coins, were running low. Half a year ago, Grand Duke Lujins had sent his golden knights to forcefully collect more than three thousand gold coins from the elderly of the empire as taxes. This had almost drained the family's reserves, and Laurist had less than a hundred gold coins on hand.
Laurist waved his hand and asked Sederkamp to give the two boxes of gold coins he brought back to the family to Hansk and put them into the family's treasury. However, Hansk did not mince his words. Simply injecting funds into the family would not be of much use. What the family lacked was trading and communication with the outside world. However, the family was located at the border of the Northern Lands, and the communication channels with the outside world were in the hands of other lords. If the family bought large amounts of resources or sold goods, it would only increase the cost of the trade, which was very uneconomical.
After Hansk was Spear's turn. She went up to report on the situation in the warehouses. They had the most food. Although the northern lands were plowed once a year, the annual income from the Norton family's own fields was enough to meet the food needs of the manor and the castle. In addition, there was the annual tithe that the garrison of Northern Field City handed over, which was all grain. As a result, the grain accumulated more and more, until now, even the grain from the previous year had not been used up. Currently, the family's granary stored about ten million jin of grain. Without any external trading channels, the grain could only be stored for a longer period of time.
Apart from food, the family's second largest stockpile was copper ingots. After all, the family used to own a copper mine. The extracted copper ore was refined into copper ingots and transported back to the manor castle for storage. Now that the family was short of cash, Spear had arranged for people to smelt copper into imperial copper coins to solve the urgent need.
The family's last stockpile was mostly various kinds of fur, many of which were harvested a few years ago. However, in the past two years, the family had lost its military strength, so there was no organization to hunt for magical beasts. In addition, the remaining stockpile was filled with ropes, wooden barrels, and some production tools. There were no other supplies. The family was short of iron ore, weapons, armor, and cloth, and even spices and seasonings.
Steward Cordan made his final speech. He told everyone something that no one had expected. Currently, there were nearly a thousand family members of the former family soldiers living in the manor castle, and this was the result of nearly three to four hundred family members leaving the manor castle to live in Northern Field Town. The family members of the former soldiers living in the manor castle were able to live a decent life because of their children or relatives. However, the family members who returned to Northern Field Town had a difficult life. They were not welcomed by their parents and relatives, and could only rely on the occasional food aid from the manor castle to barely survive.
A few years ago, nearly a hundred members of the family's caravan died in battle, and the eldest young master led the family's cavalry to fight for the second prince. In the end, only a few dozen of the two hundred Norton cavalry returned. In addition, the old master ambushed the Mountain Barbarians, but the garrison refused to follow orders, which led to the family's last armed forces being wiped out. After this series of disasters, the Norton family gained nearly a thousand family members of the deceased soldiers. The bereaved families of these soldiers brought a great burden to the family. The family was relatively rich in terms of food, so they could still take care of the bereaved families of these soldiers. However, there was no other form of compensation.
Aside from the family members who had died in battle, there was also a 3-star silver ranked family knight. He was the knight who had fought with the magical beasts in order to save the third young master. In the end, he was the knight who had sustained heavy injuries. He was supposed to be there tonight, but his old injuries flared up in the afternoon. Cordan hoped that Laurist would take the initiative to go to Northern Field Town tomorrow to meet this knight. This was also his duty as the new head of the family.
That was easy, and Laurist agreed immediately.
Old Chief Steward Clancy had everyone sit down. He told Laurist that he had been shocked after hearing Sederkamp's description of the Patriarch's journey north. This time, he hoped that Laurist would describe his journey north with the caravan again in front of everyone.
Laurist started from Morent City, from how his friend helped him join the family as a knight, to how he organized the convoy north, first destroying the Slov Slave Hunters, and then going up against Count Corbili. When Laurist learned that Count Corbili was the culprit behind the robbery of the Norton family's caravan, he decided to uproot the whole family to avenge the caravan and his third uncle.
After killing Count Corbili and his illegitimate children outside Gerdos City, Laurist left the caravan and took Sederkamp, Padt, and a few other men to travel day and night in order to inherit the title and the family's territory. As a result, they killed a group of bandits in the town of Funyata, which was under the jurisdiction of Viscount Comas in the Andenac Kingdom. Then they took another caravan and went back to the family's territory. They found the castle construction site that Viscount Cummes was building in the Morgen Hills. They attacked the castle construction site and sent people to rescue the descendants of the family who were in the copper mines.
Laurist found the map and opened it. He explained the development plan of the Cummes family for the Morgen Hills and his plan to continue this plan. He wanted to build the Morgen Hills into a solid base for the Norton family.
Everyone felt like they were listening to a legend. No one had expected that when the Norton family was suffering misfortune after misfortune, the second young master who was exiled would rise up and open a new chapter for the rise of the Norton family.
The three chief stewards were very excited. They all proposed to go to the Morgen Hills where the castle was being built. Hansk was the most determined. He thought that the family manor and castle were like dead water. He could only do some simple accounting and nothing else. It was better to go to the construction site of the Morgen Hills where he could show his talent and put what he had learned to use.
Laurist agreed to Hansk's request. He told the three stewards that he would also go to the construction site of the Morgen Hills in two days. Over five hundred slaves who used to live in the manor and castle would go with him. These slaves would become the labor force for the construction of the castle. After the new mountain city was built, they would be free and live here. This time, they would need to transport a batch of food. Laurist would inform the other side to send a caravan to pick them up. The three stewards could go and have a look together.
Laurist asked the three stewards to keep this a secret for the time being. The three stewards made a promise before leaving happily. Old Steward Cress waited for the three stewards to leave before he started to criticize Laurist. The old steward thought that building a city in the Morgen Hills was a waste of manpower and resources. He thought that Laurist should bring the caravan and people here. It would be better to build a new city along the manor and castle.
Laurist was curious why the old steward would have this idea. The old steward said that the Norton family's ancestral teachings were to protect the kingdom's borders. The Morgen Hills were not even a border!
Laurist smiled and comforted the old steward. He never said that he would give up on this place. The fist had to be retracted before it could be unleashed. Once the Morgen Hills were developed, the Norton family would retract their fist. When that time came, they would naturally find a direction to attack.
It was already very late at night when he left Old Steward Cress's room.
Laurist returned to the main building of the castle where he lived. He went up to the balcony in front of his bedroom and looked at the manor and castle that was shrouded in the darkness.
This place was not bad. Two hundred years ago, the ancestors of the family had spent a lot of effort to choose this place as the family's base. It took them decades to build this family manor and castle from scratch to perfection. No wonder the old steward didn't want to part with this place. When he heard that Laurist wanted to move the city to the Morgen Hills, he questioned whether Laurist wanted to give up on this place. The way he looked at Laurist was as if he was looking at a heinous criminal.
"Master, your bathwater is ready …" a timid voice interrupted Laurist's thoughts. Laurist nodded at Elina and walked downstairs to the bedroom.
After taking a comfortable hot bath, Laurist leaned on the bed and watched Elina pour the bathwater out of the wooden tub like a diligent bee. She then removed the wooden tub, cleaned the floor, and returned to the bathroom to wash herself. After that, she put on a grey and white nightgown and placed a leather sleeping mat behind the sofa. Then, she took out a blanket and was about to lie down …
"Elina, come to me …" Laurist licked his lips and said.
Elina's body froze. After a while, she slowly walked to Laurist. She lowered her head and didn't make a sound. However, her body was slightly trembling …
"Are you that scared of me? Why? "Laurist said as he reached out his hand to Elina's chin and lifted her entire face.
The girl's eyes were extremely panicked, but her expression showed that she had accepted her fate …
"Do you know what the maid wants to do with the master?" Laurist said.
The girl's body trembled even more, but she nodded to show that she understood.
Laurist's fingers slid across the girl's face, then the bridge of her nose, lips, chin, and finally the knot of her nightgown …
The grey and white nightgown made of fine linen floated to the ground, revealing the girl's small and white body. She was trembling nervously.
Laurist held her in his arms and caressed the two protruding red spots on the girl's chest. "Elina, you're not allowed to sleep on the ground in the future. Half of this bed is for you, understand?"
Elina didn't know what to do. Her entire body was stiff, and she only knew how to tremble. Her body gradually began to heat up under Laurist's caress, and her throat began to emit unintelligible and unconscious sounds …
Laurist placed the girl on the bed and lowered his body. He inserted his hardness and heat deep into the girl's gentle depths …
The girl struggled violently, and her body trembled violently. She grabbed tightly onto Lollister's back, who was lying on top of her. Tears streamed down her face as she screamed, "It hurts, it hurts so much, it hurts so much …"
Laurist was stunned. He stopped moving and waited for the girl to stop speaking before lowering his head to wipe away the tears on the girl's face. "Sorry, I thought you had experienced it before. I didn't think that this would be your first time …"
The girl cried again. "Third, Third Young Master was still young at that time. He was only ten or seventeen. Master said that he could only touch me after he was eighteen, or else he wouldn't be able to truly awaken his warrior energy if he damaged his body … "
It's my fault, I shouldn't have pushed him into the well and damaged his body … Laurist thought in self-reproach, but he became even more gentle towards the girl under him. "The first time is a little painful, but bear with it for a while. It won't hurt after a while, and it will even feel very comfortable … You'll understand later …"
"Don't keep trembling. If you tremble like this, I won't be able to control myself … Don't tremble, I really won't be able to control myself …"
… …
The moonlight was like water, and the scenery of spring filled the entire building …
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