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Chapter 22 – Lord of the Manor
After entering Fort that looked like a Manor House, Rod, the youngster who had given them the quest to capture the fort, stepped forward and bowed deeply towards the trio. In a respectful tone, he said:
“You are heroes to the village. We were no longer plagued by bandits because of you.”
After waiting a little while for the trio to finish looking at their quest completion, he continued:
“Did you know about the current state of the area is chaotic? Other then the bandits, all the villages around this region were also plagued by random monster attacks. The villagers' lives are currently in a mess.”
“Well, that made sense” Bunny replied, thinking this could be a chain quest
“The reason for the villagers' misfortune is because this area doesn’t have a protector! If leaders like you people with a substantial army can protect them, they will be at ease and have less worries. Please! Can one of you become the Lord of the Manor and guide them!”
Bunny looked at her friends, both of them had similar offers. Turning to Rod, Bunny said:
“Give us some time to discuss over the issue, I want to check out the location first”
*****
The so-called Fort, was just as Gene had described: a Manor House with fenced up estates. The total land area in the Fort was about a hectare, the same size as the ranch Bunny had in Serabroug. The Manor House took up almost half the space.
The building was a single rectangular block when viewed from outside. Walking in from the entrance situated at the northern side of the building, the trio encountered a great hall, large enough to gather over 100 people. It had a grand stairway up the second and third levels. At the corners of the great hall, corridors led to various small empty rooms.
Proceeding to the second floor, it had similar structures of corridors leading from the central area. Bunny counted 12 'bedrooms' on the second floor, with each room being spacious and wide. In the only room that was furnished, which Bunny assumed belonged to the demonic couple, the trio looted random items of no importance.
Reaching the third floor, it was split into East and West sides; two huge empty rooms at each side of the main hall. Each of these huge rooms had two chimneys, which did not make sense to Bunny. After exploring, the trio sat down in the Western side to discuss the ownership of the area.
Angel started the talk with a question:
“Anyone find it weird that a common village boy can confer a title or land deed?”
“Maybe he is some royalty or noble in disguise?” Gene supplied
“It's just a game, don't dwell too much on it. We already have an 'A'-Rank quest, it is not wise to dig too deeply and gain another high-rank quest, our quest slots will be extremely limited” Bunny replied
“But... what if Rod is an agent and wants to use us in some political struggle?” Gene asked
“Then we can just reject his pleads later. This and that are different matters” Bunny said
“Hmmm... that's true. We only need to calculate our current gains. Just to remember Rod as a link to somewhere will be good enough. If that quest is related and we have not trigger it, that means we are still lacking. If we forcefully start it now, things will turn sour.” Angel agreed
“Alright, we ignore Rod for the moment, so who wants to be the new Lord?” Bunny asked
Angel shrugged and shook her head: “I am offered to create an abbey, it will end up becoming church property depending on which church I offer the abbey to. Economically speaking, I don't think I should hold this place.”
“As a druid, I need to be in the wilderness. Taking the position will give me a permanent 'in-town' debuff. I don't want that. But I can help administer the area.” Gene rejected the position too.
“Since we are in this together, I will take the name, but we will share this position. The Kingdom needed Levy, shall we just sent those bandits we captured?” Bunny asked
“OK!” Her two friends nodded in agreement
“As for running this place, we all put in effort and split the benefits equally?” Bunny proposed, to which her friends nodded again.
With their discussion done, Angel looked at the surrounding and sighed:
“It's a pity that there is no lair or dungeon nearby, so the animals we station here will just spent time idling. The taxes obtain should cover their food, but they will not grow fast”
“How about we make this manor-house into our personal Lair... You know... by raising some monsters inside, and have the animals kill them off periodically? Orcs seem to reproduce fast enough, from a newborn to a capable fighter, they only need a week... How about we go capture some orcs, let them breed inside this huge building, then reduce their numbers once in a while by having the animals killing them as training.” Bunny suggested after picking up Angel's comments.
“Not very practical, we need to feed the Orcs too if we want them to breed.” Angel replied
“Orcs will eat anything, and we always have spare rat meat from Sera-Ranch”
“Then, where are we to capture those initial Orcs?”
“Ummm... Actually, we can make a demon Lair” Gene suggested hesitantly
“Huh?” Bunny was astonished by his suggestion.
“What do you mean?” Angel asked
“Well... There are lots of bloodstones around, more if we keep up the mining operations. We can summon low tiered demons as long as we have the bloodstones. The previous king of Sur Kingdom did something similar. It was written in a book called 'Stupidity of the various Kings' found in the library.”
“From the title of the book, I think something bad happened” Angel queried suspiciously
“The King wanted to make an army of demons, he ended up with a demonic apocalypse” Gene nodded.
“But we are not making an army, and we will kill them constantly” Bunny added.
“It all sound nice and good, but can either of you do the summoning?” Angel asked, still skeptical.
“Ummm... I got the skill needed, but I have never tried it before.” Gene confessed meekly
“You got such a powerful skill and you never use it?” Bunny asked incredulously.
“For summoning of the demons, all we need is open a portal to the demon realm, then use bloodstones to lure them here. The book 'Basic Demon Behaviors' states that demons for some reason loved bloodstones which is not available in their realm, so when they sense the stones across the portal, they will rush over.”
“Where did you learn such summoning skills? Isn't that exclusive for Warlocks or Dark Mages?”
“Well... It is not exactly a summoning skill. There is a book called 'Portal' located in the library, it explained about how to make portals to different realms. I find it interesting, so I copy all the various magic circles. After drawing all the magic circles at least once on paper, I gain the skill 'Realm Portal' but it leads to nowhere. I gained access to Demon and Vampire realm after reading up books like 'Demonology' and 'Origins of Vampire'. The size of the magic circle will determine the level of things that can pass through.”
While Gene explained, Bunny and Angel were looking at him flabbergasted. It was then that they remembered Gene had stayed in the library for a whole month... 4 game months just reading books... not to mention his weird fetish... liking for unusual 'monsters'.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
After more thinking Angel decided:
“Alright, this plan sounds good enough. Bunny, you will take ownership of the Manor, I will help Gene test that portal spell, if all goes well, this will be our new lair.”
“We should first claim the villages in the area before summoning the demons.”
“I agree, there is the quest from Village Soie too.”
*****
Back outside the Manor, Bunny approached Rod and accepted the title.
Other then receiving the temporary title from Rod, Bunny also got a stack of documents along with a quest to deliver them to the officials when she reached Serabroug. This quest was to finalize her position as the Baronetess. Bunny wanted to peek at the contents, but the documents were wax sealed.
The trio had captured a total of 16 bandits from the fight with the Incubus and Succubus. 'Captured' was not the correct word to use, as the bandits were requesting for swift deaths after watching Bunny handled the Incubus. Adding the 18 from the previous encounter, that made a total of 34 prisoners. More then enough to be sent to the Kingdom as Levy.
When asked, 33 of the 34 were very desperate to join the army. Bunny had told them they would only be paid 20 silvers instead of 30 silvers monthly, but all 33 ex-bandits were persistent. Their actions raised question-marks on Bunny's head, but she decided it didn't matter, since she saved some gold from their reduced salary.
Angel just shook her head at the commotion; She knew the 'soldiers-to-be' saw Bunny as some sort of devil-incarnated and wanted to be as far from her as possible. Bunny's way of killing the Incubus had etched itself as nightmares for them.
The last ex-bandit wanted to become a full-time miner. When asked, the man, named Erik, said he was only 16. He had a build large for his age; Bulky, beefy but not too smart looking. Erik claimed he had enough of killing and wanted a more peaceful life. If he had to slave away, he preferred the mines over another job which required killing and looting.
Bunny liked Erik's simple nature, so she assigned Erik to teach the rabbits about the basics of mining. Rabbits were born diggers, Bunny thought it wouldn't take long for them to become good miners. Erik was surprised when he was given a salary of 20 silvers a month, the typical wage for a laborer, instead of just food and water as a slave.
As a side note, compared to the ex-bandits, the orphans hired by Bunny were paid lavishly, about 1 gold per person per month. Although they were all beginners in their trade, due to the location they worked at, they were paid salaries of advance journeymen. The orphans had high familiarity with Bunny and were hardworking in whatever they do. Bunny thought the expenditure as an investment for the future.
While Bunny was busy with the ex-bandits, the squirrels rearranged the loot they had collected from the expedition. Iron Ores and Bloodstones were neatly piled up near the Manor house while money and valuables were given to Angel, to be distributed between the trio. The remaining loot to be sold were consolidated by 5 squirrels that would accompany Bunny into the village. The rest went with the rabbits to carry ores and stones out of the mine. Due to the sheer number of workers, they were split into 3 shifts, ensuring all would have enough rest.
The cats lazing around, were set as guards. Even when they looked lazy and usually did nothing, they were ideal guards, because they didn't need shifts; Cats sleep and did guard duty at the same time. Bunny didn't know why, but the cats just seemed good at sleeping on their jobs.
*****
The way to Soie Village was uneventful but necessary.
From the village, the trio split up, Bunny led the 'soldiers-to-be' towards Serabroug to validate her new position. Angel and Gene were going to the other two villages in Bunny's new demesne, checking out the village conditions and possibly adding them under Bunny's protection. Gene brought the Minks along as additional 'firepower' since they would be combing the outskirts to understand the monster types in the surrounding areas
Bunny made a forced march with the 'soldiers-to-be' towards Litvart. Without breaks or rest, the group reached their destination in 5 hours, almost half the time needed compared to normal travel. Since the sun had set, Bunny gave them a few hours rest, while cooking up stamina replenishing food. Her target was to reach Serabroug just before sunrise, making the best use of time.
When offered food cooked by Bunny, they at first gingerly took it, but lost all their composure after tasting. Each stuffed themselves with twice or trice the amount they would normally eat. Although Bunny's cooking skills were only at Beginner Lv8, but compared to dirt-like food the bandits had always eaten, her grilled kebab and meat stew felt like heavenly fruits and spiritual nectar.
Rice, the boy cook hired to run the tavern, watched in awe as he saw over 30 rough looking men wolf down his employer's food while showing blissful faces. His respect for Bunny and Cooking both escalated because he had always thought the two items 'Rat meat kebab' and 'Mouse tail soup' on the menu were jokes left by Bunny.
It was just after midnight, being rested, Bunny and the group set off again towards their target. Unlike players, NPCs usually need to sleep at night, but having been bandits, the men were able to keep up with Bunny's unreasonable demands. As all of them were between Lv50-60, wolves and bears in the region were not even considered a threat.
The group reached Serabroug right before sunrise, just as Bunny planned. Leading the men towards the central area, the destination of the group was the 'Department of Land affairs'. Having over 30 rough men cramp into the small office of the representative was quite a sight, given the representative was a petite sized female.
Handing over the relevant documents to the pale-faced representative, it did not take long for her to process the information, collect money and direct a runner to the barracks. Someone who looked like an officer came shortly to lead the 'recruits' over to the military barracks. The officer looked over the 'recruits', with a slightly perplexed expression before leading them away. Lv50-60 recruits were not unheard of, but extremely rare.
Bunny had noticed the representative looked even more pale after reading the documents she presented. It may be related to how a boy in a small village could confer her a title. The trio had discussed on this issue and decided it was good to just keep the knowledge, so Bunny did not dwell on it.
With all procedures done, Bunny received a status window accompanied by cheerful music.
