Knight with Wand

The days flew by.

The candlelight flickered, and in the dim cellar, Olivia held her breath and covered her mouth and nose, holding a long sword and standing quietly behind Mamuel.

The knight prisoner whose feet were bound by heavy iron chains could only lie on the ground and write. Only his hands were free at this moment.

With the help of the candle held by Rohak and the light cast by the cellar hole, Mam'r, who looked haggard and dirty, picked up a quill and wrote in his own handwriting on the letter paper to tell his family about the situation of being defeated and imprisoned.

Soon, three letters with exactly the same content were written.

Azarian pinched his nose and picked it up, examining each one carefully.

After repeated confirmation, in addition to simply informing his family that he was safe and urging him to raise the ransom, the letter also clearly stated the ransom delivery time, location and transaction method as required.

In fact, in the conflicts and wars between the northern and southern kingdoms over the years, there have been countless examples of such ransoms and trade of prisoners of war, and complete procedures and practices have long been in place.

As long as they were not killed on the battlefield, in most cases the victor would not execute valuable noble captives, and if the nobles who died in battle were of high enough status, their families would even try to pay a certain amount of money in exchange for the bodies to be buried.

When it comes to whether he can return to his hometown again, Maml will not play any tricks.

"How is it?" Leon asked, enduring the particularly unpleasant smell.

"No problem." Azarian finished reading the letter, translated the content into Ferru and read it quickly to his friends.

Leon confirmed again and again that it was correct. Before leaving, he frowned and looked at the prisoners of war for the last time: "Do you only know so much about the Falcon family?"

"How much do you expect me, a knight from Shannan, to know about the western coast?" Mam'er replied in a hoarse voice. He felt speechless and licked his dry lips.

"I'm a martial artist, not a nerd. If I hadn't followed the Baron to the North over the years, the heraldry officer wouldn't have introduced me to the coat of arms of the Falcon family."

Leon listened to his feeble answer and put away the letter helplessly.

Mamel could recognize that the white bird crest belonged to the great nobles who ruled the western port of Kantadar.

But unfortunately, his understanding of it was limited to knowing that Earl Falcon was a great nobleman who had a close relationship with King Aviut, and the city called Western Port under his rule was extremely wealthy.

I don't know anything else.

According to Mamel's confession, Baron Duson had no contact with the nobles in the west, and he was just a knight in the inner palace who only charged and killed the enemy, so how could he know about the affairs of nobles thousands of miles away.

Unable to get any more information, Leon put away the letter. Rohark walked to Mam'el and roughly locked his hands with shackles again.

Everyone quickly climbed up the wooden ladder one by one and left the smelly cellar.

After walking out of the warehouse where the prisoners of war were kept, the three Leon men immediately leaned on the wall and spitted. At this time, they didn't even bother to pay attention to the knightly etiquette mentioned by Lord Balfe.

"Sorry, if I had known better, I wouldn't have asked you to go down and help." Leon breathed in the fresh air and looked apologetically at the girl who also had a bitter look on her face.

"No, it doesn't matter."

Olivia reluctantly said with a pale expression: "I come every now and then to deliver food and water, so I'm mentally prepared."

But obviously, there is a huge difference between standing on it and hanging things in a basket, and going down to the smelly cellar in person.

It took a long time for everyone to recover from the nausea.

There was no way, right now the prisoner in the cellar was safe, otherwise with the opponent's martial arts, even in a weak state, he would still be in danger, and Olivia would not be able to watch him doing nothing day and night.

After returning home, Leon went upstairs and sealed the three letters written by the captives one by one, dripped the paint on them, and then used his own signet ring seized from Maml's luggage to stamp his personal coat of arms on the seal. .

The reason why the prisoners of war were asked to write three letters was because of the multiple insurances suggested by Azarian.

In this era, long-distance letter delivery is prone to accidents, and there is no guarantee that it will reach its destination. Writing multiple important letters and delivering them via different routes can ensure that at least one letter reaches the destination as much as possible.

Sitting quietly and watching Leon working on the table, Olivia took the wooden cup brought by little Lina.

"Thank you." She turned to Lina and smiled gently.

However, the warmth coming from the wall of the wooden cup in her hand surprised Olivia.

She lowered her head and looked at the mouth of the cup. The clear and transparent color was obviously water, not ale.

Holding the cup, the girl took a small sip with her lips.

The taste of still-warm hot water in her mouth made her feel strange.

Very unaccustomed.

Lina looked at Sister Olivia's strange expression, so she quietly leaned into her ear and whispered in her ear to explain: "Brother Leon taught us to boil water in a pot before drinking it. It's very strange~"

Olivia thought for a moment and whispered, "Maybe it's to teach you how to make tea in the future."

She had heard from her father that some wealthy nobles liked a high-end drink called tea, which was a fine leaf-like plant from distant Seralir that needed to be brewed with hot water.

"That's not true." Leon packed the envelope and raised his head to explain.

“In our Serion, the Church of the Holy Sun advocates boiling water. The priests say that water purified by flames is cleaner and will cause fewer diseases when drank.

Although ordinary people, except for wealthy families, cannot afford to burn fuel like this every day, we will try our best to boil water for drinking on every festival. "

This is not his excuse, but the truth of Serian in the original owner's memory.

The Holy Sun Church does believe that fire can purify ordinary water, which may be related to their worship of the sun and fire.

"You can try it too. I think drinking hot water can really prevent illness. If you think it's too expensive to burn coal, you can come to my place every day to make some boiled water to drink. It doesn't matter."

Leon picked up the hot water that Lina put on the table and moistened his throat comfortably.

In any case, if he has rich conditions like now, Leon still likes this ancient custom of Serian.

It's okay to drink raw water on the way to escape. Now that he is a lord, he can afford the coal money to boil some water.

Health and safety are not trivial matters. In this era, Leon doesn't want to die from an inexplicable plague instead of dying under the enemy's knife.

"Well, it sounds reasonable. I will boil more water to try it in the future." After learning about this interesting exotic custom, Olivia nodded as if she understood it.

Although she had never been sick since she was a child.

"Are you going to the western port of Kantadar in the next few days?" The girl took the wooden cup and took another sip of hot water.

I don't know if it's a psychological effect. After listening to Leon's words about fire purification, she got used to the taste and flavor of the hot water.

It's easy to understand. Just like food needs to be cooked with fire, maybe water is the same. Olivia couldn't help thinking.

In the past, the villagers, regardless of gender, age or age, really avoided drinking water as much as possible when they could drink beer. Perhaps it was because it was not "cooked" with fire.

"Azerien's injury is almost healed. If I don't leave for the western port as soon as possible, I'm afraid that the night will be long and dreams will be many."

Leon put down the wooden cup and sighed: "It's just that I have to trouble him to continue to accompany me and Lohak to take risks. It's really a bit sorry."

I have received the kindness of that kind lady. Now I have the ability. It is not reasonable to sit idly by and watch her whereabouts unknown, but Azerien actually has nothing to do with that lady.

"I think he has such a close relationship with you that he won't think that the safety of Lohak's sister has nothing to do with him." Olivia turned the cup.

"Yes, that kid will definitely say proudly that the descendants of the Flarel family will never ignore their friends." Leon smiled and nodded unconsciously.

Although he had gone through many hardships to cross over to this world, he could not get friends like Azerien and Lohak who were willing to stick their necks out for each other in his previous life.

"I'm afraid it will be very dangerous this time?"

"After all, it's in the territory of Kantardar. Although your father said that the west may still be trading, no one can tell the specific situation." Leon nodded.

"How about it." The girl tapped the wooden cup with her fingertips, looked at Leon with some expectation and suggested: "Take me with you. You see, I'm so good at fighting, I can definitely help you a lot on the road."

Leon raised his eyes and looked at the girl's eyes that suddenly sparkled, and he seemed to see the faint excitement in them.

This suggestion is very tempting.

With Olivia's martial arts that can still handle the siege of two fully armed and powerful knights of the Order of Arms with ease, if she accompanies them, will the safety of this trip be greatly increased?

Leon shook his head helplessly at her: "Forget the Baron of Cantadar who coveted you?

You, don't really think that your little face is not attractive to other men? What if you are taken with you, and you are favored by the nobles of Cantadar again?"

Hearing such a straightforward statement, Olivia lowered her head in embarrassment.

Judging from the eager reaction of the boys in the village to her since childhood, the girl is not unaware of her appearance.

But later, after picking up a wooden stick and showing her fierce side in front of the group of increasingly excessive bastards, she has also adapted to the attitude of fear rather than pursuit by the boys in the village in the past few years. Although the nickname of Golden Lion is unpleasant, it has also saved herself a lot of trouble.

However, this martial arts can scare the young people in the village, but it certainly cannot scare off the noble masters from the outside world.

If, as Leon said, such an embarrassing pursuit really happened after leaving the village, it would undoubtedly be a big trouble that would be difficult to deal with.

"I appreciate your kindness, but if you follow us, we will not know how many troubles will arise just by chasing flies for you on the road." Leon declined the girl's kindness.

Olivia thought about it, raised her arm, and raised her sleeve with the other hand to cover her face: "How about this? Cover your face, tie your hair in a hat, and I can put on a robe and pretend to be a boy."

"Have you heard too many strange stories?"

Hearing her proposal, Leon couldn't help laughing.

Disguising as a man and masking to play a boy is a good way.

However, the above reasons are not the real reason why he declined the girl.

Leon knew without thinking that Brian the blacksmith would never allow Olivia to go to Kantadar with him to take risks.

Folding his arms, he could only persuade the girl: "Olivia, you are different. The three of us are now alone and free of worries. We can go through fire and water freely. Even if we die in an accident, no one will cry for us.

If you are alone, I will definitely not refuse your joining.

But you still have your father to take care of. Your martial arts may be able to protect the three of us, but the three of us cannot promise Uncle Brian that we will protect you.

Do you understand what I mean?"

After hearing this, the girl's expression became visibly lost.

But Olivia also understood the difficulty in Leon's words, so she had to let go of this sudden impulse.

Leon stood up, stepped forward and patted the girl on the shoulder, comforting: "I know you want to help us, and you also want to get out of Selva and see the outside world. Believe me, this will definitely happen in the future, but not now.

Why don't you train the martial arts of us in the past two days before we set off? I heard that Rohak will come to you for sparring whenever he is free these days? "

Hearing Leon change the topic, Olivia cheered up, nodded and replied: "Lohak said that he always has nightmares and insomnia, so he has to practice martial arts every day until he is exhausted before he can sleep. However, his strength seems to be strong these days. It’s gotten bigger, and it’s a lot better than before.”

"He is more diligent than me."

Leon sat back at his desk and picked up the rough papers on the table.

It records the approximate data of cultivated land, pasture land, homeland, forest land, public land, population, livestock, craftsmen, etc. in the three places of Selva, Lonca, and Pleton that he has personally measured and investigated these days.

It's not accurate, but it can calculate the territory output relatively intuitively.

Excluding daily grain storage, seed saving, and grain collection and taxes before the previous war, the three territories will be able to barely make ends meet in the coming year, and will not be able to save much income. If they want to develop, they will have to wait until the war is over.

It happened that the young men from the other two places were unable to return home from the border fortress in a short period of time, and Selva had just suffered a disaster. Before these winter crops were harvested, he was unable to do more things that required human and financial resources to develop the territory.

In other words, during this period, the territory was in the same state with and without the three of them.

Leon put down his documents and looked at Olivia, who was sitting on a chair with a sword on her waist: "Yes, we really need your help."

After hearing that she could help her friend, the girl became energetic again and asked curiously: "What do you need me to do?"

"After we leave, although Selva's affairs are entrusted to your father to help manage, if there is any unexpected situation with Lonka and Pleyton, you can also help me look after it. Before we leave, we will go back and communicate with the two places. The village official informed me.

In addition, I will keep some of the gold coins in the box under your bed for emergency use in the territory, as well as the weapons and armor in the warehouse. If an accident happens again, you have the right to allocate these resources. Remember, these things are yours to use. Blending, not Uncle Brian. "

As he spoke, Leon touched his chin and reminded the girl uneasily: "Nowadays, many men have lost their wives and children, and some women have lost their husbands. If someone wants to reorganize a family in the village after a while, remember to pay attention to them. Whether it's your wish or not, I won't allow any force.

If you find that there is a conflict in the village, you have the ability and authority to intervene on my behalf to stop it. In the worst case scenario, you can forcefully capture the thugs on our behalf.

It can take as little as a month or more, I don’t know, but it’s my entrustment. "

Leon said as he took a piece of paper and wrote down the actual appointment document.

It's not just Selva who's written, but Lonca and Pleyton too.

Opening the drawer, he found the small seal of the sword-wing coat of arms from the seal sent by Knight Balfe in the past two days, and stamped it on his signature.

All that's left is for Lohark and Azerion to sign and seal it tomorrow.

Standing up, Leon said solemnly to the surprised Olivia: "Olivia, you are now officially appointed as our agent. You have the right to use our seal. You must maintain it before we come back." The order of the territory.”