episode_0100

After Levs left, I immediately started organizing the village. No, to be precise, the idea was to prepare the road in advance to suit the scale of expansion.

Although it is difficult to touch the residential areas where the residents live, it was possible to prepare roads near commercial and industrial districts in advance. The plan was to build a road in advance and develop it accordingly.

Due to my nature as the owner of a fiefdom, it was clear that the fiefdom would have a very strong commercial aspect. Therefore, it was good to develop villages into cities based on roads. It was obvious that there would be a lot of logistics movement, but if the roads were winding, there would be disruptions in the logistics movement. To me, laying a large road in advance and developing it accordingly was the best option.

Anyway, for that reason, a large number of skeletons were deployed. Although a contract was signed to mass produce items through Refs, it was only possible because production was scheduled to occur after the deposit was paid. Once the deposit was paid, the skeletons were to be driven to the blacksmith shop and put into production.

“Andrew, what are you asking those skeletons to do?”

As I climbed the wooden fence in the village and watched the skeletons move as I instructed, Amy came up to me.

Amy came next to me and gently leaned against the railing of the wooden fence, pointing to the skeletons hard at work outside.

The skeletons were holding something similar to a shovel-like hammer and were continuously hitting the floor with it. The purpose was to compact the dirt floor very firmly. In order to build a strong and long-lasting road, the foundation had to be very strong.

“Are you going to make the road that wide? Then wouldn’t it be a bit vulnerable to defense?”

When I explained that part, Amy seemed a little worried. The better the road, the easier it is to travel, but the problem was that the same was true for the enemies.

But honestly, Amy’s worries could be said to be unnecessary.

“Look over there.”

“What are you looking at? … .”

Amy turned her gaze to where I was pointing and momentarily fell silent. After spotting three goblins wandering around looking for food, several skeletons threw out what looked like hammers and ran towards the goblins like crazy.

“Look over there too.”

Amy looked fed up with the sight of skeletons capturing goblins and killing them without damaging their bones. He smiled lightly at that and pointed to a few other places.

The place I pointed to was on the fence or inside the village. Naturally, there were skeletons standing on duty there, along with those who had gone from guards to territory soldiers.

“Unless I can press it with overwhelming force, wide roads won’t be a problem for me. Rather, if you only count the number of people, it’s better for me because I’ll be the largest.”

The wider the road, the greater the number of troops that could move at once. So, there was no reason to risk making the road wider.

Amy must have fully understood that part as well, nodding with a snort.

“By the way, what’s going on? From what I saw earlier, it seemed like your mercenary group was making a fuss about managing the mercenary hall.”

“I don’t think I’ll have enough time to talk to you in depth later. You’ll be busy, and I’ll be busy too.”

“Uh… … . I guess so.”

I could tell what Amy wanted to talk about by looking at her as she wanted to talk earnestly.

And, Amy told a story similar to what I expected.

“Andrew. What do you think of me?”

“Hmm… … .”

I was a little taken aback by Amy’s speaking style, which got straight to the point without any warm-up or anything, but I was expecting it to some extent. Of course, the answer didn’t come right away.

After gathering my thoughts for a moment, I leaned slightly against the railing of the wooden fence, similar to Amy.

“We were good friends until not long ago. Until that friend pushed me against the wall and suddenly kissed me.”

“Wow, mane! That’s a bit much, right?”

“Then if it’s not grinding, what is it? I didn’t know at the time, but now that I look at it, my lip is bruised?”

“Ugh… … !”

Amy, who saw that one corner of her lips was slightly swollen, blushed, as if she couldn’t bear to say anything. But that didn’t stop him from looking away.

“So, what do you think of me?”

“I feel like she’s an attractive woman. Honestly, we haven’t seen each other in years, right? And since he’s hitting on me, I feel like he’s more of a girl than a friend.”

Even when I look at Amy right now, I don’t have the same feeling of playing together as a child when I was young. Rather, I had a stronger feeling that he was quite an attractive person of the opposite sex. I had subconsciously suppressed those feelings when I thought I was connected to Jienna, but that wasn’t the case anymore. As Levs said, it was because he decided to have an aristocratic mindset.

“Hmph, that’s right.”

Amy must have liked what I said, as she quietly adjusted her posture to lean against the railing. By straightening the shoulders, the voluptuous upper body was emphasized, and by pulling the pelvis back, the hips and thin waist were emphasized. In addition, she was wearing tight leather pants and gently crossed her legs, emphasizing her beautiful legs.

I almost burst out in exclamation at that sight, but I held it back. To be honest, as a man, I also want to just accept Amy, but there were several problematic aspects.

“But, there’s something you need to know.”

“… … What is it?”

Amy looked a little stiff at my words. He seemed to sense that nothing good would come out of my mouth, such as accepting Amy.

“First of all, I am a warlock. Oh, don’t misunderstand this. It’s not that I can’t meet you because I’m a warlock. It’s just that it’s not easy to accept you because of the characteristics that a warlock has. Beyond just what you tolerate Amy, there’s also something about me.”

“Is this because warlocks are infertile and cannot have children? I don’t care about that.”

“How do you know that… … ? No, that’s not what’s important. It means that there is a very high possibility that I will live for a very long time. To the point of being comparable to elves. Warlocks can live for a very long time unless something serious happens.”

When we talked about lifespan, Amy looked shocked. It seemed like he knew as much about lifespan as he knew about infertility. I don’t think I actually paid much attention to that part.

“I think I will live for at least three to four hundred years. However, in your case, there is a high possibility that this will not be the case… … . It’s hard to accept you comfortably. You have to think about the future too, right?”

To be honest, when I thought about the lifespan aspect, when I accepted Amy, I had a strong feeling that I would have a hard time later. That’s why I couldn’t just accept Amy, who insisted that I liked her.

“Hmph, what are you just worrying about?”

However, unlike me, who was serious in her own way, Amy seemed like she was telling me not to make a fuss about something that was nothing special. Even that wasn’t enough, he lifted me up and grabbed me by the collar again.

“Are you the only one who lives long? I can live a long time too. With just a little more effort, I will reach an expert level where I can manipulate mana more freely. If that happens, you will live at least twice as long as ordinary people. Still, it’s not enough compared to you who say I’ll live for 3400 years.”

“Expert… … ? Really?”

“I guess my dad wasn’t lying when he said I had talent. The accomplishment was pretty quick. No, that’s not what’s important!”

Amy slightly raised her head in response to my question about whether she was an expert, but she quickly grabbed me by the collar and shook me once before returning the topic to the original topic.

“If lifespan is an issue, you can solve it. So that I can continue to be with you.”

“By what route? Warlocks specialize in killing things, but they’re bad at keeping things alive. Even the healing magic I can use has side effects… … .”

“Death Knight. Wouldn’t that be enough? I don’t know any better than you as a warlock, but I heard a lot of things while working as a mercenary. I heard that the Death Knight has the same body and ego as when he was alive? Then, even if I die before you, I can become a Death Knight and be by your side.”

“… … .”

When Amy openly told me that she could just turn me into an undead, I opened my mouth and couldn’t say anything. I never thought I would say something like this.

But Amy’s gaze was staring at me, and I could already feel her resolute will to endure it all. I felt a firm determination to stay by my side, risking everything, whether it was Death Knight or something else. It felt like they were shouting with their eyes, ‘If it doesn’t work out, find another way and do it!’

“Or, whatever. Are you a eunuch who can’t take it even though I try to spoon-feed it to you like this? It’s not just that you can’t have children, right?”

“Hey! What do you mean, eunuch! There’s Jiena too!”

“I don’t know, I don’t know, I can’t believe it unless I experience it myself. If you want to prove it, try as much as you can.”

Amy said that if you want to prove something, you can prove it whenever you want, and then she burst into laughter and immediately walked away from me. I couldn’t help but look in despair as Amy quickly climbed down from the wooden fence.

After looking at the place where Amy had left for a while, I sighed.

“Death Knight… … . Is it possible?”

The story that Amy threw out never left my mind.

In the end, I couldn’t help but think about Death Knight for a long time. While I was doing all the basic work to develop the territory, that thought never left my mind. For almost ten days, I could not clear my mind under any circumstances.

“Lord! Youngjuniyim!”

However, in a situation where my mind was quite dizzy, a spirit soldier suddenly came running towards me, looking for me.

“What’s going on?”

“From the royal family! A carriage with royal emblems was spotted approaching the village a little while ago!”

“Royalty? Oh, could it be that they came directly from the royal family instead of Levs?”

When I heard that it was from the royal family, I wondered if it was a member of the royal family who had come to the village, not Levs, who represented the contract.

But in any case, since it was said that he had come from the royal family, he immediately got up from his seat. Although I went from being a major noble to a hereditary noble, I was still a baron. If someone came from the royal family, it was the duty of aristocratic society to first meet them.

I tried to push away the distracting thoughts that kept floating around in my head and headed towards the village entrance.

“Nice to meet you. Baron Steele. I am Coupang, a senior knight of the Royal Guard.”

However, it was not the royal family that came to the village. No, to be exact, it was the royal family, but a member of the royal family did not come in person. Only a wagon with the royal emblem engraved on it arrived.

Of course, there was only one reason why the wagon came without a member of the royal family. He had brought a deposit to secure this contract.

“Prince Digar, who represented the contract, was originally supposed to come, but something urgent came up, so I came instead. First of all, please confirm that this carriage includes a down payment.”

The door of the carriage, which was equipped with all kinds of protective devices, was opened according to the instructions of the driver named Coufen, and the large box inside came into view.

When I got on the carriage and checked the inside of the box, it was full of coins. Considering the size, it seemed like the right amount for a down payment.

When I looked at the pile of coins, the distracting thoughts that had been floating around in my mind for the past few days disappeared. No, it didn’t completely disappear, but I still had time to think about other things. When I thought about using this money to accelerate the development of my territory, I felt joy for no reason.