Chapter 409: Old acquaintance
Chapter 409: Old acquaintance
As the sun approaches the western mountains, the afterglow colors the town of Lakeshore a golden yellow, and the chimneys on the roofs of many homes have already produced curling smoke.
In an office room on the west side of the lord’s mansion, Lardy Sertia finished her day’s work, she put all kinds of paperwork and files into the cabinet, carefully locked the doors and windows, and walked towards the outside of the lord’s mansion, and didn’t go to say goodbye to Paul as he had gone to inspect the port of Fulan.
Originally, she was only Paul’s political and economic adviser of the corner of the Bay, the work is still very leisurely, but then Paul to implement the “new life movement”, the task of popularizing the knowledge of health to her, and since the head of the Board of Education, “Betty” left, the work of the education sector also fall on her. Since the departure of Betty, the head of the Board of Education, the work of education has also fallen on her, a series of changes have made her more and more busy. After all, she is now the most knowledgeable person beside Paul.
Before she left, “Betty” formulated a huge and detailed education construction plan, the first stage was to establish enough schools in the large towns of Alda, Bairdine and Emden, so that the children of ordinary families could receive education at low tuition fees, and the second stage was to take the towns as the center of gravity, and radiate the education resources to the surrounding rural areas. the vast rural areas around them.
However, the first phase alone may require hundreds of thousands of silver coins to be invested, causing many officials in the Council of State to be dissatisfied, in these people’s opinion, while civilian education should be developed, it is really too wasteful to spend such a huge amount of money.
Although under Paul’s influence, these old ministers of the Greiman family can be said to be the most enlightened group of people in the Northwest Bay, but they were also used to living a hard life before. If it was four or five years ago when Paul’s father was still in power, and the lord was going to spend hundreds of thousands of silver coins just to teach the children of the commoners to read, then there would definitely be people crashing in front of the lord’s residence to make a bloody admonition. After all, at that time, the lord’s own income (including all kinds of taxes and the economic output of the land) at the end of the year after deducting the year’s miscellaneous expenditures, there is only a pitiful surplus of a few thousand silver coins, and every year of disaster will most likely be a few years of accumulation will be consumed.
As Paul succeeded to the throne, for many years the pirates were eliminated, the opening of the shipping route to the south, a variety of profitable new industries have been established, as well as the tax revenue of the counts of the Bairdine also into the Council of State, and finally relative to the other territories of the Northwest Bay can be said to be the affluence of the Emden was placed under the control of the lake town, the Alda’s financial revenues rose, year by year, the exponential growth.
However, the lord’s spending speed also increased exponentially. In addition to building schools, the lord had to expand the administrative system, raise an off-duty army, repair roads, repair water conservancy, build public toilets and bathhouses, take in stragglers, and pay high salaries to recruit those snotty, downtrodden Crystalline Yankees.
It wasn’t like everyone didn’t realize that this was all good in the long run, but spending money so lavishly was just unacceptable. This made them feel uneasy in their hearts, according to the traditional viewpoint, helping one’s bannerman to accumulate more wealth to leave to the next generation is one’s duty as a bannerman. Even if you want to spend money, you should at least renovate your castle first, which is related to the decency of being a lord.
As a scholar, Lardy was very much in favor of the education plan that Irene had left behind, but she was also well aware of the resistance of the old-fashioned bureaucrats to this plan, but fortunately, these resistances were not worth mentioning with the support of Lord Greymane.
She stepped out of the gates of the lord’s mansion and made her way south along the central street of the Lake Island district to the bridge that connected the island district to the south shore, and after crossing the bridge a short distance further to the family-run restaurant, the Flying Dragon Pavilion.
In recent years, the residents of Lakeshore Town, who had saved up a bit of money, had begun to raise their material standard of living, so the restaurant run by her mother, Xie La, which specialized in Corner Bay cuisine, had done a brisk business since its opening, and was recently planning to open a branch there, considering that more and more Corner Bay people were moving to live permanently in the port of Fulan to the west.
It was dinnertime, when Mother and Lisa were supposed to be busiest, so it would be better not to disturb them. Instead of heading for the front door, Lardy turned into the side alley and headed for the backyard of the Flying Dragon Pavilion.
“Surely I’ve been living in comfort for too long? I didn’t realize it until now ……”
Walking to the corner of the alley, she suddenly said in a self-deprecating manner before abruptly turning around.
A cloaked pedestrian behind her also stopped in her tracks, and now they were the only two people in this alley.
“It looks like the vigilance you’ve developed over your years as an adventurer hasn’t completely worn off.”
The person following her spoke, surprisingly a woman as well.
“Who are you?”
Lardy asked coldly, not pretending to speak. The other party could say “adventurer” obviously knew her identity, and if she wasn’t visiting openly, she probably had something to hide.
She secretly prepared to call the police.
That’s right, is to call the police, on the one hand, the public security department supervisor Ruth Hayden under the police are very trustworthy, the security of the lake town in their maintenance is very good, just walked through the street there are police patrolling, on the other hand, she also do not want to personally hand out to expose their own hidden identity.
“I’m not the enemy, remember what I look like?”
The visitor pulled off his hood, revealing his face. Was it someone he knew? Lardy scrutinized the other man’s face, searching her memory.
The other person smiled slightly, revealing a hint of flirtation, “May I remind you of the party in 1988 of the Holy Calendar …… Remember? The Witch of Green.”
Lardy was creeped out that the visitor knew her nickname in the circle of spellcasters.
“You are …… Asitini?”
She retrieved the name in her head.
……
In the backyard of the Sertia house, Lardy and Sevia sat opposite each other across a stone table, with only a hint of afterglow left in the sky.
“You did a great job in Nisborough.”
Lardy had long known about the prison robbery in Horn Bay by a witch named Asitini at Cecil’s regular briefing, and she was staggered at the other woman’s audacity, but at the time, because of her fuzzy memories, she didn’t connect the incident to an old acquaintance from years ago.
“Hehe, I actually want to hide away alone and live a leisurely life.” Sevia narrowed her eyes.
The accusatory undertone of the words pierced Laadi’s heart, “Hmph! I don’t feel any obligation to other spellcasters.”
“And yes, isn’t it normal for you to be so used to being alone that you don’t appreciate the feelings of your own kind? Even though you are one of the most powerful spellcasters in Horn Bay ……”
Lardy frowned and said in an unkind tone, “That’s enough! Did you come to Northwest Bay just to mock me?”
“Naturally not!”
Servia smiled and stood up, the two of them did not know each other well, the reason why she was so unrestrained in front of Lardy was because she had already gotten a hold of the other party’s temper. When she was still in Horned Bay, in order to find an ally against the Church, she had tried to find the mysterious and powerful Witch of Green, whom she had only met a few times, and collected various information about her, but the witch herself was not found, but her former companion when she was an adventurer was found, and from her companion’s mouth, she had further deepened her understanding, however, as for the witch’s whereabouts, her companion had always remained tight-lipped, and refused to disclose any information.
Yes, that’s it, to stir up her guilt first.
With that in mind, Sevia walked slowly over to Lardy, leaned down to her ear, and whispered:
“I heard from the locals that the lords here trust you?”
Her voice was low and nice, but with the slightest hint of something unspeakable.
“The power of the church here is not strong, is there any interest ……”
Sevia’s eyes shone with elation.
“To make this lord submit to the greatness of magic?”
(End of chapter)