It was around two o'clock in the afternoon when the carriage drove into the family's manor castle, and I had already missed lunch.
Lorist personally carried Berunek to another guest room on the floor where Soderkamp and Pat lived, settled him down, and went upstairs.
The little maid, Elina, was mending a white dress with a needle and thread. When she saw Lorist going upstairs, she was so frightened that she trembled all over, like a little quail shivering after being drenched in the rain...
Lorist sighed secretly, trying to make his voice appear gentle and amiable, so as not to frighten his timid maid: "Erina, come downstairs with me, I need your help with something."
Taking Irina to Berunek's room on the second floor, Lorist said: "Irina, I will entrust Brother Baker to take care of you. Later, you will go to Mrs. Kress and ask him to take care of you. Find a maid to take care of Brother Baker personally. You can build a small kitchen downstairs, and Brother Baker will eat according to the recipe I gave you. Or we can eat in the small kitchen. If there are not enough people, you can do it again. Find a cook and maid, remember, you must find a loyal one, who has nothing to do with Beiye Town. Also, every time Brother Baker eats, let the maid taste it first to make sure there is no problem. You understand ?"
Elina carefully and secretly glanced at Lorist, then nodded.
Lorist said: "You make a list of the things you need, and give it to Speer, and let him prepare it for you. You also let him be responsible for remodeling the small kitchen in the downstairs room..."
Sodkamp came in and said, "My lord, Mr. Kress sent someone to look for you, and he seemed to be in a hurry."
"Well, Elina, I will leave everything here to you. If you have any questions, please tell me at night, okay?"
Elina gritted her teeth and nodded.
"Okay, Sedkamp, go find Pat and ask him to send a few guards here to guard and follow Elina's arrangement. Brother Baker, take a rest, I'll go see the boss first." Loris Special said.
…
The old manager Kress was very angry, mainly because of two reasons. One was that Lorist went to Beiye Town without his guards. Into a turbulent situation. The boss manager said that he was too old to be so frightened. He asked Lorist to consider his own safety before doing anything in the future.
Lorist was very aware of the concern of the boss for him, he pushed the wooden wheelchair the boss was sitting on while walking, and narrated his experience of going to Beiye City. The boss was so resentful of what happened to Berunek that he was poisoned and stayed on the sickbed for two years. If Lorist hadn't studied pharmacy, he might not know how long he would have been deceived.
However, the old manager raised objections to Lorist's decision to expand the defense team. He firmly opposed the expansion and believed that the defense team must not be allowed to grow. Lorist shook his head. Maybe this is the stubbornness of an old man. He has been guarding and vigilant against the garrison for so many years, but he couldn't turn around at once. The meaning of this sentence has to be silent.
At this moment, Lorist is pushing the old manager Kress to the family forbidden area, which is another reason why the old manager is very angry. Last night, the boss had repeatedly urged that as the new head of the Norton family, he must go to the family forbidden area to pay homage to the ancestors of the family on the first day. As a result, Lorist went to Beiye Town and came back so late, he really didn't take this matter seriously at all, and really disappointed the boss.
Pushing the wooden wheelchair, Lorist walked towards the back hill of the manor castle listening to the manager's rambling, but his mind was full of thoughts. What is the family sanctuary like? He couldn't find any impression in Little Locke's memory at all, and it was the first time he heard the boss mention it last night, what's in it? Is it like the ones described in those TV novels in the previous life, with countless wealth, powerful martial arts cheats, magical weapons, or a ghost-like old man
Lorist was a little disappointed. Under the guidance of the old manager Kress, they came to a cliff on the back mountain of the manor castle. This place was not only remote but also a bit cold. Lorist looked around, thinking that there were family masters ambushing and guarding the forbidden area mentioned in the novel, but he didn't even notice a ghost. Does this mean that the forbidden place of the Norton family is actually unguarded
The manager Kress rummaged in the wheelchair for a long time, took out a thick bronze key one foot long, handed it to Lorist, and motioned him to take it and insert it into a small hole on the rock wall. Lorist inserted the bronze key, twisted it twice under the guidance of the boss, and then heard a "click" from inside the rock wall.
"Push that big rock down to the left..." said the old steward.
The boulder was pushed away, revealing a hole in the rock face. A faint rotten smell hit Lorist's nostrils, causing him to sneeze several times in a row.
The old manager didn't seem to notice the stench, and turned the wheels of the wooden wheelchair towards the dark hole. Lorist hurried up to give a boost from behind.
The boss ordered Lorist to go in and light all the torches on the walls of the cave.
After Lorist went in and lit a few torches, he had time to look around the situation.
Day, is this a forbidden place for the family? To be precise, this is a morgue. There are platforms made of stones everywhere in the cave, and corpses are placed on the platforms.
The stench became more and more intense, and Lorist found three rotting corpses placed on three platforms near the entrance of the cave.
Lorist felt nauseous and wanted to vomit, he couldn't take it any longer. The scene in front of him reminded him of a movie he had seen in his previous life. It seemed that the hero was looking for a treasure hidden by the Nazis in Italy, and strayed into an underground public cemetery. Like this cave, there were everywhere There are corpses and bones, and swarms of rats...
Fortunately, there are no mice in this cave, Lorist thought.
The boss of Kress waved Lorist to pass. On the platform in front of him was a large rusty iron box. He opened the box and took out a large book bound in thick animal skin paper. , the boss solemnly handed over the book to Lorist.
"Little Locke, here is the record of the heroic deeds of the 327 ancestors of the Norton family over the past 248 years, and they are all buried in this cave now. There are their numbers on it, as well as the remains in the cave Correspondingly. Now I give you this book that records the glorious history of the Norton family. I hope that under the blessing of the ancestors, you will not fall into the prestige of the Norton family, become an excellent lord, and lead the family on the road to prosperity. .”
Lorist took the thick animal skin book with a serious expression, thinking that he had completed the task of visiting the family forbidden area and could finally leave the cave full of corpses. Unexpectedly, the manager of Kress became interested, and asked Lorist to push him around the cave, and casually recounted the glorious deeds of each corpse during its lifetime.
At this moment, Lorist almost suspected that Boss Kress had nothing to do before wandering around in this cave. He was so familiar that he could casually tell the story of these corpses! After struggling for more than an hour, the boss said he was tired, and ordered Lorist to push him out of the cave, push the big stone back and lock it, and then go back.
"Grandpa Kress, why are the remains of the ancestors of our Norton family kept in caves, instead of being buried like others?" Lorist asked.
"Well, this should be more than two hundred years ago. The first baron of our family was conferred here and chose to build a manor castle here. Just when the manor castle was about to be completed, it was attacked by the mountain barbarians. A generation of barons and his two sons died heroically in battle. His eldest son inherited the title and territory, and led the family to fight against the mountain barbarians. It was winter and the ground was as hard as iron. Fearing that the tide of monsters would destroy the tomb and the remains, there happened to be such a cave in the back hill of the family's manor castle, so the remains were parked in it. I planned to wait for the spring to arrange another burial, but later found that this is also very good , Let this cave be used as a family burial chamber, and all descendants of the Norton family's direct lineage will place their remains in it like their ancestors after death. In the future, Little Locke, you will be no exception." Mr. Kress said.
Well, Lorist imagined that when he died in the future and his body was parked in that cave to slowly rot, he suddenly felt that it was a very disgusting and terrible thing. I don't want to do that, Lorist said in his heart that this matter should be taken to heart, and he should find a way to change this tradition when he has the opportunity, this so-called family forbidden place really makes him lose his appetite and lose his energy.
Back in the main building, Lorist found that Pat had sent eight bodyguards who had awakened their battle qi. Although most of them were of bronze rank, they were rare elite soldiers in the current family.
Go upstairs to see that Berunek is sleeping soundly, but Irina doesn't know where to go. Lorist went downstairs, called two guards, and told them to inform Sedkamp, Pat, Steward Speer, and Steward Hansk to hold a meeting here at night.
Not long after, Lorist saw Sedkamp, Elina brought three girls and dragged a large cart over, giggling and carrying things from the cart with a few guards. It turned out that Sedkamp allocated four of the eight rooms downstairs to the new guards as dormitories, and the remaining one was converted into a small kitchen, one into a small dining room, and one for the two new arrivals. The maid's quarters, the last warehouse converted into a kitchenette. The taller of the three girls is Belunec's new maid.
Lorist nodded. Soderkamp is more considerate than he thought, which makes him very satisfied.
In the evening, Pat reported to Lorist that there were a total of 2,245 people in the family's manor castle. Excluding women, children and the elderly, there were only more than 400 young and strong people who were suitable to become family soldiers. With the assistance of Hansk's steward, he has selected 248 people. After sending eight guards here, the rest formed two guard teams. It's just that among the two hundred and forty people, less than 20 people have awakened their fighting spirit. To be honest, these are just two teams of farmers and soldiers. In Pat's view, they have no fighting power at all. In addition, the two newly-built guards had no armor, no weapons, and they couldn't even have a spear in their hands. They could only allocate a wooden stick to each of them.
Lorist said that everyone was convened to discuss at night, mainly about Beiye Town. Tomorrow, Sederkamp took a few people to Beiye Town to do population registration with Steward Kedan. There are two key points here. One is the survivors of those family soldiers and the residents who lost their land. This part of the population is going to be transferred to the castle construction site in the Morgan Hills. The second part is the guards who were squeezed out by the four major families. They are not reliable, so they have to be registered separately. Lorist is going to let these people build the other town he mentioned in Beiye Town, in order to secure the hearts of the four big families in Beiye Town.
Manager Hansk will be busy with two things in the manor castle tomorrow. One is that the guards of the manor castle are all former family soldiers in their forties. There are more than forty of them. Lorist was not planning to abolish them. He asked Manager Hansk to select a dozen of them to be the instructors of the two newly formed guard teams, and first teach the rookies basic military regulations and formation training. As for the teaching of fighting qi, Lorist is going to go out in person, and once again become addicted to teaching in the fighting qi awakening training class.
The second thing that Hansk was in charge of was the same as that of Soderkamp, counting the survivors and redundant labor of the family soldiers in the manor castle. Lorist also planned to send them to the castle construction site in Morgan Hill.
Lorist ordered Pat to go to Josk Knight tomorrow, and tell Josk Knight to deliver the sixty or so surrendered mercenaries imprisoned, the extra leather armor and weapons, and the carriages to the family before March 4th. manor castle.
In the end, Lorist gave Steward Speer a piece of paper, and asked Steward Speer to provide food for the newly formed guard team according to the recipe written on the paper from tomorrow. In addition, Lorist asked Steward Speer to take care of him Let's look at Elina's needs. After all, Irina is in charge of Belunek's recuperation here.
Lorist clapped his hands, it's alright, it's a bit late, everyone go to bed early, there's still a lot to do tomorrow.
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