The moment Asher opened the door, Kelvin quickly asked. “My Lord, are you the cause of the changes in the fortress?”
Asher smiled.
“I should be.”
He walked out, and Kelvin followed him. While walking through the corridor, Asher marveled at how spacious it was. The whitestones gave the castle a brighter shade, seemingly dissipating its dark history.
He saw some rooms a good distance away from him and opened them. Each of the rooms was bigger than his room before the upgrade!
“One room should belong to you, Kelvin. It’s time you maintained a good distance with the maid’s quarters. And the others should be for my personal guards, when I form them.”
Kelvin smiled. He was tired of their giggles and baseless gossip that always disturbed his sleep. He couldn’t remember how many times he would barge into their area and order them to sleep, but to no avail.
Asher looked at his right, at the numerous windows, and saw his courtyard. The ground was paved with cobblestones, and there were towers attached to the corners of the castle, and soldiers manned them.
Some guards were following farmers who brought in the Lord’s quota on carts. Asher’s eyes zeroed in on the different kinds of meat, pork, beef, chicken, and some magical beasts and species that filled three carts and were pushed by the maids to a different part of the castle.
“Kelvin. Since when did we have all these?”
“After you left, I went to Hebron Town to sell some of our products while hiding where they came from. I exchanged some with wealthy farmers who did not have enough money.”
Asher raised a brow. Hebron Town was one of the hotspots for merchants in the Flameheart territory. Hearing this made Asher consider the awkward name his stronghold had.
Ash Stronghold?
Meh!
“What was your price?”
He asked after pushing his thoughts aside.
“1 silver coin for one corn and 10 gold coins for a catty of Moonlit Starhorn milk.”
Asher turned to face his butler and crossed his arms, but there was a hidden excitement in his eyes. “So apart from the food, we also have money?”
“We do. There are 10,000 gold coins in our treasury, and the maids are taking the food items to the undercroft.”
Asher chuckled softly.
“Where you sold the corns, can they plant them?”
“No. We have discovered that except for our fields, no other field can support their growth, and I also boiled the corns. The fragrance was more enticing that way.”
Asher burst into laughter at Kelvin’s cleverness.
As Asher walked down the staircase with a proud smile, he recalled something. “What about the people’s quota?”
“Alex delivered them last week, and this week, I plan for Eritrea to do the same.”
Asher nodded.
“Good,” he said.
When he came down, Asher went straight to the left and saw that the small maid quarters had been upgraded to become large servant quarters for both maids and servants. The arrangement of the doors was neat, and though the design was simple, it was also flawless.
After the servant quarters, he visited the kitchen and armory and later left the servant floor to the highest part of the building, which was the lookout room located at the spiral roofs of the castle’s watchtowers.
“My Lord.”
A Bonestrike Ranger saw him and bowed.
“You got here so quick?”
“No. I actually found myself here, and I found myself accustomed to this station.”
“I see.” Knowing this was the doing of the system, he finally understood how Kelvin, the guards, and the maids behaved more normally than him. He had been thinking about how they easily located the undercroft and the treasury, but he now understood that the system had imprinted a blueprint of the castle into their minds.
It was the same for the citizens. Although they were amazed and knew this was the doing of their Lord, they still had a mystical knowledge of everywhere they needed to know so as not to get lost.
Asher the Lord was the only stranger in his territory!
He took the sharpshooter’s position and looked at his stronghold. From this high spot, he could see his stronghold, even to the first walls!
He could see barbarians with mining tools hopping on carts, which were heading for the mines. Some joined the farmers, some did animal husbandry, and a few went to learn occupations like sowing, forging, and so on.
His eyes rested on the accumulating snow on rooftops, the streets, and the walls. “We’re a month in. The depths should be almost inhabitable.” He muttered to himself.
….
A few hours later, two men stood behind Kelvin, who stood before the mighty doors that hid the sacred hall behind them.
“Sir Kelvin, are you sure we can go in there? I heard the Lord’s pet beast is always in there.” The first man said.
“Drop your fear and you’ll be fine.”
“What about me?” The second asked, trembling badly.
“The same. If you dare urinate in there, you’ll surely die.”
The hairs on the man’s neck stood up.
“Maybe we should-”
Before he could complete his words, a heavy sound echoed as the doors were slowly opened.
They saw a 7-foot-tall knight clad in chainmail armor with an absurd sword attached to his back. “The Lord has agreed to see you both.”
He then gestured for them to go in.
The first man peeked and was shocked to see such a massive hall, but apart from the man on the chair at the other end, he saw no giant beast as the rumors had it.
“It’s not inside.” He said to the second man.
The second man stopped trembling and exhaled heavily.
“Let’s go,” Kelvin said with an unnoticeable scoff.
Both men followed him in. The moment they crossed the door, they turned to their right because the creature there was impossible to ignore.
It was a huge white wolf that laid down with its eyes closed. As if Sirius could sense them even in its sleep, its ice-blue eyes opened, striking terror into both men’s hearts.
