Chapter 119

–Aegir POV–

「Uuu……I have to read this again?」

There is a stack of paper heaped onto the table in front of the weary Celia . It goes without saying that the sender is Claudia .

「A typical exchange is about 10 letters . If this many were sent, something must have changed . 」

「I want you to read it yourself……」

Celia normally doesn’t complain and faithfully listens to me, but she can’t hide her discontent . I don’t want to read all the letters with so many unnecessary sentences either . Besides, I can’t just throw them away if there are important issues mixed in with the worthless compliments and praise .

「Letters? There are so many of them . 」

Only Celia and Leah are by my side . Nonna and Mel showed up as well, but they didn’t want to read the letters from that woman, so they accompanied each other outside to go find something to eat .

「I don’t understand, since I can’t read it . 」

I’ll have to teach Leah how to read too .

「Ahem……then, I’ll summarize it . 」

Celia reads the letters and writes while sweating strangely, summarizing them all . The contents are as follows:

「Happy New year . 」

「I heard you will be heading to the capital of Goldonia this spring . I will match your schedule and come as well . 」

「This time it will not be a public obligation so I will be able to move freely . I want to visit you in your territory as well . 」

「I have also obtained an interesting present, so look forward to it . 」

「My heart feels like it’s tearing apart when I think about meeting you . I will be bringing Clara along too, so let’s fuck like crazy . 」

「In the time I was unable to see you, my body has gotten more lewd . Please don’t be mad . 」

「Fumu, it seems there is a considerable amount of content in these letters this time . 」

For me, I’d be done after reading half the letter, and even Adolph, who makes very detailed responses, would be done after two letters . I give Celia, who collapses over the desk, some fruit juice and sugary confections to revive her .

「That pig-woman is really……she even wrote in her letter that she’s getting fatter and fatter . 」

Don’t call her a pig, she’s our benefactor who easily gave 5000 gold to me . Without that, the development of my territory would slow down considerably and that shop which sells the sweets you like might not be around now .

「It seems she’ll be coming over this time . She’ll definitely do something unnecessary……」

「If it’s too much, I’ll tell her . I haven’t paid her much attention in two years . It can’t be helped that she’s in high spirits……she also said she’ll be bringing presents . 」

「She’s crazy to be embraced by you . 」

「I guess so . 」

I’m also looking forward to embracing the maturing Clara, and although Claudia tires me out as well, I’ve grown somewhat fond of her . When I embrace that lewd body, she’s not muscular but soft and I like how hard I can fuck her . I also don’t dislike the feeling of superiority when she craves for me .

「She’s not hairy either . 」

「We don’t have much money either, so it’ll be perfect if she spits out gold when you thrust your dick into her . 」

But the girls living in this mansion hate her like snakes hate scorpions . It would be nice if the present she brings isn’t anything strange that will trigger the girls again .

「With that said, it’ll be spring when we go back to the capital so there is still a ways to go . During that time, I’ll have to prepare the hearts of Nonna and the others . 」

I say that and stand up from the sofa .

「Aaau……even though I haven’t even started . 」

Unable to participate in the conversation, Leah was going to open the front of my pants and crawl her tongue over my dick . It’s a shame, but I have to take a look around the city today . If I slack off too much, Adolph won’t shut up . I’ll give her lots of love when I come back .

「I’ll come with you . 」

「No, I’ll be fine by myself . Celia should take it easy and rest your body . 」

Celia tries too hard, so it’s fine for her to laze around the house sometimes .

「……you’re not going to pick up girls, are you?」

「You think I embrace girls every time I go out?」

「Yes . 」

An immediate answer .

「The purpose isn’t for girls this time . I’ll just be going around the city and taking a look here and there . 」

Celia makes a dissatisfied face, but understanding that she can’t accompany me, she reclines back on the sofa and closes her eyes . As I thought, she got tired from digesting all the contents in those letters earlier .

「Celia-san, it’ll be fine . I touched his balls just now, and since they’ll get lighter when he releases, I’ll know about it . 」

（Shall I come along too?）

Geez, don’t follow me .

Casie switched the stuffed toy that turned into a cursed doll with a cute doll that Alma handmade and lowers it from her neck . This will make it so the servants will be able to see her and they won’t be as scared . It seems like her hair has gotten longer from the first time I saw her, but maybe that’s just my imagination?

「Anyways, I’m going . Celia, just be good and sleep or something . 」

I’ll finish things up quickly and come back .

After Rita orders the maids to clean, I exchange a deep kiss and tangle my tongue with hers at the entrance before heading out .

「Haah, haah . Wh-what are you looking at……? Haah, haa, hurry up and continue cleaning!」

She’s cute when she’s scolding the maids with her blushing face . Ah, Schwartz isn’t here . Come to think of it, Carla’s riding him, so I guess I’ll have to go on foot .

It’s been awhile since I’ve walked slowly around the city . When I descend from the mansion on top of a slightly elevated hill, there are two main roads – one running north to south and the other running east to west . The city is split up by these main roads and are divided into four sections .

「The city walls are too wide and there’s still nothing there……how much in the future is he thinking?」

On Adolph’s instructions, the walls were made to surround a large area around the city so none of the four sections have extended close to the walls because of that . The southeast section especially is mostly dirt so kids run around there . It’s convenient when we need to put troops in the city though . Still, there are houses being built everywhere so Rafen’s population is still growing . I’m sure it has grown past 10 000 but I’d have to look at Adolph’s record book to be sure .

Then, at the perfect location where the two main roads intersect, where it can be said to be the center of the city and the place with the most traffic, Nonna’s theatre was built . It has been completed recently and there have even been public performances . It’s a place close to the mansion so maybe I’ll take a little peek .

「Oh my, if it isn’t the feudal lord! Hey everyone, gather round!!」

The people who were left in charge of the theatre comes out one after the other after seeing my face .

「I just came here casually . Don’t mind me and go back to work . 」

I take a brief look inside but there aren’t many guests . There are over a hundred seats, even allocating room to stand, but most of them were empty . Some sort of play is being acted out, but after glancing at it, it wasn’t any different than the performances by travelling entertainers on the street side .

「Well, I guess that’s as much as I can expect . 」

「I’m terribly sorry……」

An elderly man, who looks like the manager of the theatre, lowers his head . It’s not like it was his fault .

「In any case, the people living in this city have only begun to live their new lives……they are still not very interested in things like theatre or opera . 」

Only the rich and the nobles see this kind of play in the capital as well . If the commoners have the time to watch a play like this, they would rather work and when they make money, they’ll use it to eat tasty food . Rather than going to a theatre, the young men would want to spend money on girls and liquor .

「In addition, Rafen doesn’t have a dedicated theatre troupe, but visiting travelling performers act……」

「It would be much cheaper to watch something like that on the streets, huh . 」

As I thought, the theatre made on Nonna’s suggestions won’t become successful .

「The troupes and singers gather in the capital . It’s quite the suburban city……please excuse my rudeness but Rafen gives off a very rural image to the people of the capital . 」

「I thought as much . 」

Even now with a through path from the capital and considerable development, it can still be seen as the wilderness . It isn’t a place where people who enjoy theaters, the symbol of city culture, would want to come .

「I have the chance to go to the capital soon . I’ll try looking around……but there are no guarantees . If there is a promising group of travelling entertainers, I’ll try to hold them down . 」

「I understand . And this is about the madam……she advised a variety of things regarding management……」

I guessed everything from the troubled face of the elder .

「If you face any trouble, tell me directly . Adolph alone probably won’t be enough to stop Nonna . During my absence, tell Carla and she’ll do something about it . 」

「I thank you for your thoughtfulness . 」

The only ones able to stop Nonna are me and Carla . Leopolt doesn’t seem to be proficient at it either, but it’s outside his area of expertise after all .

But this would increase my workload again . Fortunately for Adolph, he can push all the Nonna-related trouble to me .

I exit the theatre and head to the place where the shops are lined up . Along the main road, there are relatively larger shops and inns, whereas there are smaller shops and street stalls when you enter the side paths, and also somewhat shady-looking places . If I’m not careful when I enter a larger shop, they’ll recognize my face and do all the greetings and whatnot and it gets quite troublesome, so I’ll walk past them .

Although these shops all have different shopkeepers, they are all part of the same conglomeration under Claire . It made Adolph complain about diversity and monopoly .

Many of them sell food and clothes, and there are very few shops that sell decorations . The citizens probably aren’t rich enough to buy those things yet . The high-class sweets shop on the main road is undoubtedly being supported by the females in my mansion .

One characteristic of Rafen is having no nobles or knights . Furthermore, the only person besides myself with any status is Myla . There isn’t any privileged class, resulting in no unnecessary ties, but that in turn causes a low demand for luxury goods . At best, there will be a few merchants who are fairly successful .

「As the number of people increase, so will the number of successful people, I guess . 」

After mumbling to myself, I buy a chicken drumstick from a street stall . As I walk while taking big bites of meat, I feel someone grab my sleeve .

「Mister, I have some lemon that goes great with chicken! Now you-……mister feudal lord !?」

This girl, whose appearance still retains its youth, seems to be selling fruit .

「I guess I’ll take one . 」

「Here! You don’t have to pay . It’s because of the feudal lord that me and my mother can live without having to starve!」

What a cheerful little girl . The one who decides on the tax is Adolph, while I just stamp my approval . It would be bad of me to give money to her when she’s giving it to me out of courtesy .

「Then, I’ll gladly take it . I’ll have to thank you somehow . 」

「It’s fine! But if you’re asking, a kiss with the feudal lord~ just kidding!」

The girl giggles . It seems it’ll work out for the both of us .

「Aah! Aah, ah!! It feels good!!」

I take the girl to the back of an empty alley and caress her . Under the girl’s long skirt, she wears a short linen waistcloth in place of her underwear . In other words, I can flip it up and reach her genitals without having to removing it .

She’s standing with her hands against the wall and I’m putting my finger in her hole from behind, rubbing her sensitive spots and clitoris . She seems like a virgin so I have to be careful not to rip her hymen with my finger . Without pushing my finger too deep, I rub a shallow area diligently with my finger .

「Amazingggg! It can’t compare……to when I do it myself……aaahn!!」

I am pretty much as familiar with this as I am with battle . I’ll make you feel good in return for that lemon .

「I feel something shivering……ah! It’s weird, something strange is-!! Ah, ah……aaaaaaah–!!」

The girl twitches and trembles, spraying her liquid at my feet . It seems she was able to reach climax with my finger .

She loses her strength and looks like she was about to collapse, but I support her and turn her around, tangling my tongue with hers in a deep kiss . We exchange much of our saliva before I sit her on a clean wooden box .

「There’s the kiss you wanted . And, I’ll have you sell these to me too . 」

I take the entire basket of lemons the girl was selling and dropped some silver coins in her chest . That should be enough for compensation .

「Mister Feudal lord……incredible……how dreamy……」

Now where was I going next?

I head towards the city walls as I sink my teeth into a lemon . The walls encircle the area, but the work to raise the watchtowers and dig the moat is still ongoing . Realizing I’m here, a person who looks like the foreman comes out .

「To think the feudal lord would come here himself……」

「I just came to look . Don’t mind me, do you want some?」

If I ate the basketful of lemons by myself, my sense of taste will become strange .

When I look closer, there are other men with collars around their neck working besides the normal workers, while guards armed with spears are watching over them .

「Who are they? I don’t remember including any slaves . 」

Did Adolph do this on his own accord because of the shortage of personnel?

「They are prisoners . They’re people who have committed crimes within the territory……we have gathered mainly thieves and those who have hurt others . 」

「So it’s forced labor?」

「No, this is a full day’s work with nothing given to them besides meals and water, but their time in prison will be reduced to a quarter of the time if they choose to work . The ones who chose this are the criminals themselves . 」

「I see . 」

If they’re getting meals and water, that will be enough to keep them from dying for now, and since two years in prison would be reduced to half a year, many men would choose this . It’s quite the clever method that would save us the trouble of throwing them in prison and lets us use them as manpower as well .

「But there aren’t any who would run into the city to do something, right?」

「Escapees would be sentenced to death unconditionally . The collars cannot be taken off through human strength so even if they run, we’ll be able to distinguish them immediately . There haven’t been anyone who’s escaped so far . 」

「Then that’s good……roughly 40 people, huh? Give them an extra piece of meat for tonight’s dinner . 」

I hand him one gold coin . If they don’t eat meat occasionally, they won’t be able to muster any strength .

「You guys hear that?! I won’t give any meat to those who slack off . Work!!」

The speed of work visibly increases all around . It’s an easy method if I do say so myself .

When I look again, moats are being dug around and stone walls are being built on the outside of the simple wooden walls that have been surrounding Rafen to this time . The watch towers are also being erected at a regular pace, so as long as I station guards there, it will be impossible for monsters and bandits to sneak in secretly at night . It’s highly doubtful whether it will stop an army, but they should be sufficient enough to fulfil the role of protecting the citizens .

The completion of the city walls will grant a sense of security to the citizens beyond their physical strength and will also encourage immigration . I wondered what was going to happen after Adolph made the walls too wide, but the walls will soon be completed .

Where should I go next? I still have more than 10 lemons left . It feels like I can’t taste sour in my mouth anymore .

As I stroll along, I come across about 10 men holding weapons in an empty area . At first, I thought they were guards or soldiers who were in the middle of training, but it’s somehow different . It should be strictly forbidden for regular citizens to gather while wielding weapons .

「Oh, it’s the feudal lord! Hey you guys! We saw the feudal lord, now our fortunes of war will go up!!」

The large man, who appears to be a ruffian, raises his voice loudly . Well, just eat a lemon and calm down .

「We were just about to head out, do nothing much except hunt 10 or 20 of those black beasts . 」

The large man rests his spear on his shoulder and gets on a wagon with the other men . They continue on their way through the gates and exit the city . I wonder what that was all about .

「My, for the Count-sama to take the trouble of coming here . 」

When I turn around at the sound of a voice, I see Claire, who is short of breath . It seems she hurried over when she heard I was coming .

「So, does that mean the thing just now is your doing?」

「Yes, I contacted Adolph-sama to get permission but……」

I know nothing about that . I pretty much don’t even read the documents when I stamp my approval, not to mention I get Celia to do it for me when I find it troublesome . She’s been given something similar to my own mark .

「They’re a group of hunters . 」

It seems she felt my confusion so she explained it to me . It’s really helpful to have such a perceptive woman .

「Hunters? You took the effort to gather them in the city?」

I was wondering what they were going to do with spears and bowguns .

「Yeah, they will be getting those black beasts……the ones that appeared in the mountain nation territory . 」

So it’s that monster, now I understand . You’ll need considerable equipment and manpower to hunt that .

「Grilling the meat of that monster will naturally be delicious and so will drying it, so it seems like they’ll sell well . 」

「It was certainly tasty . 」

I ate some myself to try and it was really good .

「Moreover, they only appear in the mountain nation territory, so we actually have a monopoly over this . I thought this would be good business so I formed contracts with hunters and mercenaries and had them come over but……」

「They didn’t come back . 」

Claire collapses as she wails and cries .

「A clause for compensation on death was included in their contract so it’s a major loss . 」

She’s worried about that part? What a scary woman .

「Count-sama was able to easily slaughter it, but it takes tremendous effort to finish them off . Because of the risk of injury and death, I can’t really send proteges . 」

「So, what about them?」

「When they come back after they hunted the black beasts, we will buy it from them at a high price . We guarantee until it reaches our location since they have such large bodies in the first place . They won’t be able to carry it sufficiently if they don’t have a dedicated wagon . 」

「So they’re like mercenaries who get rewarded based on their results . 」

「Yes, even after considering the selling price of the meat, if it takes 10 people to take care of 2 or 3 of the beasts, they’ll get over an average monthly income . Idiots who risk their lives to challenge them……there are countless uncouth heroes like that . 」

I feel sorry for those men, but this can’t be helped since they agreed to it . There will always be a certain amount of risk when aiming for large profits .

「With this method, profit should rise steadily whether there are casualties or not . 」

「How big is the difference between the buying price of the monster and the selling price of the meat?」

Claire laughs elegantly with a ‘hoho’ . It seems there’s a considerable amount of profit made .

It would be troubling if the citizens die too, so this is something necessary . It would hinder construction in that area if the monsters run rampant and even when the road is completed, it would prevent easy travels back and forth . If possible, I would want them to concentrate on hunting along the highway and exterminate them all . In the meantime, a wagon comes into the city from outside . The following carriage is carrying two black beast corpses .

「Somehow we got two……Grace and Malorda is……」

「But our shares will increase……they were just unlucky . 」

「We’ll be safe this month . Let’s drink and forget about them . 」

「What a large specimen . It’s quite fresh so I’ll handle it and take it to the feudal lord’s place . Please use it for dinner . 」

What a scary woman . That would normally be the guards’ duty but it isn’t bad for me if I can generate profit from it too .

As an aside, this hunt is extremely dangerous but the profits are large and it’s become famous among the citizens in Rafen that if you are blessed with luck and skill, you can earn a monthly income over 20 gold .

Many people are participating in the hunt to aim for the chance to instantly pay back their debts and it seems ‘riding the wagon’ has become some sort of sexual lingo as well .

Claire has other duties as well, so we part after we kiss . Claire intentionally asks for kisses where other people can see, making sure that everyone knows that we have an intimate relationship with each other .

The sun is setting and this tour around town is just about done . I believe I saw most of the city, and after going to that place, I’ll be finished .

I down one cup of alcohol from a street stall and drop by the area that livens up during the evening……the place where the brothel and bars are lined up .

「Hey mister, how about a round? It’ll be only one silver . 」

「With your face, maybe half of that . 」

「There’s no helping it……then, how about this?」

「Uooh! Nicee breasts! Fine, I’ll buy you . 」

The time is just after the soldiers finish their training and also when labor work is done . The street is overflowing with young men searching high and low for women and the prostitutes are also enthusiastically calling out to the men . The poor men are being waved over to the alley by the street prostitutes, while the men with money are entering into the brightly lit brothels .

「I would want to enter one of those places . 」

But if I enter a brothel after I said I was going to do an inspection, I won’t be able to avoid Celia’s cold stares when I get back home . When I return to the mansion, there are a row of ladies who won’t overlook the fact that I visited a brothel, so I’ll have to endure .

「Ah, isn’t that the feudal lord?」

「Eh? Really?」

The girls standing outside the shop, who are wearing risky outfits to attract customers, walk over to me . They have come over as prostitutes and introduced me to their shop before so we know each other .

「Did you come to play around today?」

「If it’s for the feudal lord, we’ll give you as much service as you want~」

「Shall we call some girls from the shop? I think it’ll be fine to go 10 at a time . 」

That’s a very attractive proposal but if I stay out all night and