Knight with Wand

The girl was not hard to find. As soon as Leon went out, he saw her at the door next to the townhouse, discussing something with Brian the blacksmith.

After Baron Elliver left, the old blacksmith didn't let her hide in the house anymore.

In fact, Leon was a little suspicious. If he was really afraid that the girl would be favored by those noble lords, wouldn't Knight Balf still live in the village?

Uncle Brian was not afraid that the scarred noble knight would favor his precious daughter?

Although he was doubtful, he didn't have time to think too much. Leon went forward to say hello, and then simply asked the father and daughter if there were any vacant houses in the village.

After hearing this, Brian the blacksmith thought for a while and pointed directly to the house in front of him that was connected to his own house.

"If you don't mind the size, you can take the house next door for your own use."

Hearing the old blacksmith's honorific to him, Leon was a little unaccustomed for a while. Olivia was already his best friend, and the girl's father was too respectful, which made him feel weird.

He looked up at the two-story house in front of him where several injured people were temporarily living.

It looked similar to Olivia's house, the same stone half-timbered structure, with a protruding second floor, a wooden beam frame and stone brick walls, and a sloping roof on top.

He rested in it for a night yesterday. It must be spacious enough, with many rooms.

If we don't mention the various convenient living facilities of modern people in the previous life, the space of this house alone is many times larger than the broken cement box he bought in the city on Earth with a huge sum of money.

Not to mention the backyard of the same size as Olivia's house.

"Did the original owner of this house die?" Leon asked.

Hearing this, Olivia's eyes were filled with sadness.

Old Brian sighed helplessly: "The family next door used to be Matt's family. He was a carpenter in the village. This townhouse was built by him and I many years ago. Now his family has suffered misfortune. The house is now ownerless."

Leon mourned for the deceased: "Have their bodies been found?"

Olivia nodded: "The bodies of Uncle Matt's family are being placed with the bodies of other victims. My father and I were discussing this just now."

"Did you encounter any difficulties?" Leon turned to the girl and asked.

"Thanks to the help of the Baron, the bodies of the Kantadars were buried by the soldiers yesterday, but we still need to deal with the bodies of the villagers as soon as possible, but there are not enough people. It may take more than seven days to dig enough graves." Olivia frowned and replied.

The problem is that people can wait, but the rapidly decaying bodies can't wait. With so many bodies, the villagers don't have the ability to do embalming one by one.

Seeing the sad look on the girl's face, Leon knew that it was not easy to arrange the burial of hundreds of bodies. These were not the bodies of enemies, so it was impossible to dig a big pit for random burial.

It would be simpler in Serian. The Holy Sun Church advocates cremation. Except for the remains of saints, most people will be sent to the local church facilities to be burned into ashes after death, and then buried in the tomb with urns.

But in the Kingdom of Orland, the people still maintain the tradition of burying their dead.

"Don't worry, Selva is my territory now, and I will help."

Leon continued: "Wait a minute, Lord Balf and I will go to Longka and Plyton to recruit laborers to help open up a new cemetery. In addition, are there enough coffins in the village?"

"The village usually doesn't prepare wooden coffins, and Uncle Matt has also died. Now there is no carpenter who can make coffins." Olivia shook her head helplessly.

After that, she reacted and asked in surprise: "Are you going to prepare coffins for all the villagers?"

"Yes, yes, what's the matter?" Leon asked back.

"Even the most ordinary wooden coffin costs ten dirs, not to mention that it has to be transported from outside the village, and the cost may have to be increased by two dirs. For most villagers, burial in a coffin is not cheap." The old blacksmith kindly explained.

Leon then understood that they were afraid that he would spend money in vain.

Although he had the memory of the original owner, the cost of funerals was indeed not something a teenager could understand so early.

Leon calculated that one hundred and twenty-four coffins, plus the transportation costs, would cost about fifteen gold crowns.

A single coffin didn't seem expensive to him, but the cost was not small when the number was large, enough to feed a qualified war horse for more than a year.

"Let's do this. For the victims like Matt's family, who were all killed and have no family members left, I, the lord, will pay for the coffins.

As for the others, the coffins of the deceased whose family members are still alive, I will pay for them first. It won't be too late for the villagers to pay me back after they get the ransom of the captive." Leon proposed a compromise.

"Thank you, Leon, you are such a good lord." Olivia thanked him sincerely.

"In fact, you don't have to do that." The old blacksmith couldn't help but remind the young knight: "Many villagers who died in the disaster didn't have the money to buy coffins for their relatives even if their family members died while they were alive. They could be buried with just linen."

"I know, just think of it as me trying to fulfill my lord's responsibility a little bit."

Leon naturally understood how expensive a coffin was for ordinary tenants, but he shrugged: "If I turn a blind eye to the affairs of these dead, I don't deserve to have other living people."

Spending some money to buy people's hearts, why not.

Besides, as long as the ransom money is finally distributed to the villagers, they will naturally be able to return the money for the coffin to themselves.

The actual cost of coffins for extinct families is not much, and only the labor cost of hiring people to dig graves is a pure expense.

Turning around to look at the house that would belong to him, Leon also planned to buy several high-quality coffins for the Matt family who were killed.

If you occupy someone's house on the ground, you should also make a decent place for them to live underground.

This is not the earth. The ghosts and souls in this other world are real objective existences. He has seen it with his own eyes.

And if Miss Laura's statement is true, there is even a world after death in this world.

Leon still remembers the descriptions of those spells - taking the name of Yin Ni and obeying the laws of the eternally frozen primitive Dead Sea.

Is Yin Ni the name of the God of Death in this world?

Is the so-called "Dead Sea" a place like hell or underworld that Miss Laura thinks of?

"Big brother~!"

Little Lina's excited voice brought Leon out of his thoughts.

When the girl saw her savior, she ran happily from the house.

"Now it's time for you to call me 'sir', Lina," the old blacksmith reminded.

"Oh, I'm sorry, Lord Brother." After hearing Uncle Brian's admonishment, Lina had no choice but to stop, shrink her neck, and lower her head obediently.

"It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if you continue to call me brother." Leon smiled gently at the little girl.

"Well~! Thank you, big brother. I haven't thanked you and the other two brothers for saving me yet~ Listen to me. When I helped Aunt Miliya today, I learned a particularly delicious dish. Wait. I’ll make it for you to try”

Little Lina's childish voice promised to let the three of Leon have a taste of her craft.

Leon reached out and touched her head, sighing inwardly.

He had asked Olivia before. The little girl's family members had all been killed and she had no relatives left. Now the old blacksmith and his daughter were taking care of her.

Such a sensible and well-behaved child has lost his parents and is all alone at this age. How can he not be sympathetic?

In his previous life, a child of this age would have been attending classes on campus without any worries, but now he has suffered the disaster of his family being destroyed.

"Lina~? Come and help me." A woman in the house shouted.

"Oh! Okay, I'll be here soon." Little Lina turned around and responded, then she had no choice but to wave her hands and say goodbye to her elder brother, and ran back into the house.

Looking at the child's back as he returned to take care of the injured, Leon's heart moved and he began to think twice.

He turned to Olivia and asked: "How many children like Lina in the village have lost all their relatives and have become orphans, and at this age. I mean, under the age of fourteen, how many are there?"

In this world, there is no strict concept of adulthood. If we insist on it, the general nobles will give their children a formal name when they are around sixteen years old, and get rid of the childhood nickname.

But for ordinary lower-class civilians, the age of fourteen and above is the limit to measure whether a person has the ability to live independently.

"In this situation, besides Lina, there are four girls and three boys, all aged between ten and fourteen." Olivia nodded her chin and replied after thinking for a while.

That's right, it should be regarded as a good deed.

Leon already lacked some servants who could usually help the servants with chores, and if he used these children who were already free from worries, he would be more at ease to a certain extent.

"When you are free, help me ask them if they are willing to be my servants."

Leon calculated the accounts and then said to Olivia and the old blacksmith: "I need servants to help with chores such as cleaning the house and maintaining armor and weapons.

For those under the age of eleven, I can take care of their accommodation, food and drink. I usually just sweep the floor and wipe the tables and chairs. I will first learn how other older children do things.

If one of the children is over eleven years old and is diligent, I will pay an additional three dires per month.

If they can work with me until they are fourteen years old, I will continue to employ them at the normal salary of male and female servants. "

After hearing this, Old Brian couldn't help but marvel at the kindness of this young knight.

If those children who lost their parents had not suffered this disaster, they might not have such "lucky" in their lives.

Brian knew very well how much noble servants were paid.

An ordinary male servant serving a nobleman can earn nearly 20 dires per month.

An ordinary maid earns about 10 dires per month.

This is infinitely better than the fate of those children who grew up to work as farmers and herders.

Although cruel, such opportunities are entirely due to their tragic status as orphans.

"Let me first thank you for your kindness on behalf of those children, Lord Leon." The old blacksmith knew that it was impossible for those lonely children to refuse such an opportunity and a way out.

"Speaking of this, do you know anyone in the village who can take care of livestock? It's best to raise horses." Since the issue of servants was brought up, Leon simply continued to inquire.

"Hoke knows how to raise horses. My father taught him before. He often took care of my two horses before." Olivia replied immediately.

"Hawke?" Leon recalled that naive face.

"Is that the young man who stutters a little?"

"Yes, if you don't mind his stutter, I think Hawke can take care of your horses and livestock."

The old blacksmith also recommended: "The kid is not a bad person. His parents died early, and he grew up alone on the village's support. In fact, he is smarter than he looks, and learns things quickly."

Olivia raised her finger and shook it, smiling: "Do you remember the trouble you encountered when you first came to Selva? I was able to arrive so quickly that day because Hawke came to me in advance to inform me. He had been helping me keep an eye on that bastard Boris."

After hearing what the girl said, Leon remembered that Hawke was indeed at the end of the team of several village thugs brought by Boris, and he was the only one without a weapon in that group.

"Okay, I'll try to hire him." Leon nodded.

Of course, Hawke alone could not take care of all the war horses.

Even if he and his companions divided the war horses equally, if he wanted to take care of his three war horses, he would definitely need several people without skilled professional grooms.

However, seeing that Olivia and the old blacksmith recommended the young man, Leon decided to let Hawke be the leading horseman to lead the other people.

After all, any warhorse is valuable, especially the top-grade Uriah warhorses ridden by the three noble knights.

According to Baron Ierleif's valuation, the market price is around 180 gold crowns, which is more than ten times the price of ordinary Uriah warhorses.

This huge sum of money is enough to make any desperate person take risks.

If there are no trustworthy servants to guard day and night, if they are targeted by horse thieves one day, or even if the grooms they hired steal from them, they will have nowhere to cry.

Leon touched his chin, and now he felt more and more understand why so many nobles live in castles. Living in ordinary houses, it feels that even their own property is difficult to protect. Armor, swords, war horses, every item lost is a huge loss.

It seems that if there is a chance in the future, even if there is no money to build a stone castle, we have to find a way to build a wooden wall.

So, in terms of the selection of servants, there are candidates for servants to do odd jobs and candidates for the stables. Then Leon found a chef to take care of his diet through Olivia's recommendation.

It was the young woman named Milia. Leon remembered that when he and his friends lived in the windmill and were about to leave Selva, they tasted the cakes made by Olivia. The woman's craftsmanship was really good.

However, her fate was really sympathetic. Not only was she ravaged by those thugs, but her two children were also killed.

Now watching her busy taking care of the wounded in the village, people can only admire her strength. Fortunately, her husband was conscripted and escaped, and there is still a pillar in the family.

"By the way, your money is still under the bed in my room, don't forget to take it." After recommending the chef to Leon, Olivia did not forget to remind him of another more important thing.

"It's okay. You're the best fighter in the village. I'll keep the money with you for the next few days. It's safer than in our hands. You can get it when I move next door to your house." Leon waved his hand.