Chapter 47
Chapter 47: Back to the castle. …
After witnessing the agreement of the gods, Alice returned to the village in a daze.
The first thing she had to do was to find the village chief and ask him to return the dozen gold coins she had just given.
The village chief was dumbfounded:
“But you just gave it to me! How could you change your mind so quickly?”
“I didn’t change my mind.” Alice said, “The sacrificial ground has been repaired. Um… Considering that the sacrifice itself also costs money, you can give me ten gold coins, and use the remaining money to make the sacrifice lively. point.”
The village chief reluctantly returned the gold coins that hadn’t been warmed up to Alice. Seeing his eyes, he probably thought Alice was crazy.
This matter is difficult to explain, even if Alice can tell it clearly, the village chief cannot believe it. So Alice could only ask him to see it again with his own eyes, and went back to the desk in the study to continue fighting with the books.
The village chief went reluctantly. It was obvious that the only reason he agreed to take a look was that he hadn’t known Alice long enough, and he couldn’t figure out what the new knight was. The cautiousness of the elderly played a role, so that he would rather run more than stand here and question the new owner of the village.
Alice’s work did not go smoothly. Settling accounts requires concentration, but Alice can’t help but think about the “homology” that the Faun told her. According to the description of the Faun, true homology is far less simple than the one she had experienced by chance before. What happened between the Faun and his first believer? Can she and Circelian experience that kind of homology?
Perhaps it was because Cecilian had expended too much energy in the previous agreement, or because he had no answer to the question that Alice was considering at the moment, and he did not show up when Alice was thinking about it.
At this time, there were rapid footsteps outside the door, and Alice, who was constantly distracted, raised her head and saw the old village chief trotting in all the way, panting and holding the door frame yelling:
“My goodness! Penrose is here! How did you do it!”
You don’t need to ask to know what the old village chief is talking about. Alice has already guessed his reaction and raised her head and said lightly:
“I did not do that.”
Alice’s brief statement is like a wall, directly blocking all kinds of questions that the old village chief may raise. Seeing Alice’s expression, the old village chief silently swallowed his words. He stood at the door for a while, and just about to leave, he heard Alice ask:
“Have you heard of someone named Catherine?”
“Catherine?” The old village chief was confused. “There are many of us named Catherine, there are three or four! Do you remember the Peggy’s house we visited before? Their eldest daughter is Catherine.”
“I’m not talking about Catherine now, but the past.”
Alice thought for a while and gave some clearer tips:
“Are there any earlier legends? Someone related to the Faun, or Catherine related to some miraculous deeds?”
“what-”
The old village chief suddenly realized:
“I know if you say that. There is indeed such a Catherine here. It is said that she is a shepherdess who looks after her father’s flock on the ranch. Later, the faun wandered here and saw her herding sheep alone, so she was seduced. she.”
“Temptation?”
“Farmer, although he is also a family member of Guangming, he is never a particularly bright and stalwart character in the story. Anyway, I don’t know what he did to Catherine. When Catherine’s father decided to marry her to a farmer in the same village, she didn’t Agree, and then she went to live on the mountain and became a priestess or a witch. She grazes sheep with golden wool and teaches the villagers to sacrifice to the Faun. In short, it is probably such a story, very Simple, nothing special.”
After the old village chief had finished telling the story, he suddenly thought of something and couldn’t help but tentatively asked:
“You won’t run into the faun in the wilderness, too?”
Alice did meet the Faun, but the story that happened was obviously not the kind that the old village chief had imagined in his mind. Fortunately, in her capacity, she doesn’t necessarily have to answer questions. So she just thanked the old village chief for the story and kindly asked him to leave.
Although Alice can tell the old village chief not to ask questions, she can’t control what others think. What’s more, the newly repaired sacrificial ground can be seen by anyone. So when the old village chief told the story of “After taking the master knight to see the sacrificial field, the sacrificial field was miraculously restored” to the villagers, quite a few people soon thought that the new master knight It was a divine envoy, and as for the previous sayings of “monsters” and “demons”, they gradually died down.
If you really want to talk about it seriously, this kind of statement is actually pretty reliable.
Of course Alice didn’t know these arguments, even if she did, she wouldn’t care, as long as they could pay the rent in autumn. The story of Catherine told by the old village chief was too brief, and could not provide any reference on the issue of homology. Alice was disappointed, and she was more serious about calculating the accounts.
A lot of problems can be seen from the accounts. Alice was so busy until the night that she read it completely, and she had a good idea of the situation in the village. As the Knights of Kent said before, Ronald Village is indeed very rich. Almost every year there will be about 500 gold coins in income. These five hundred gold coins are collected from the tenant farmers. Generally speaking, about one hundred gold coins are needed to maintain various facilities in the village every year.
The above is a general situation, but the situation that Alice is right in front of her eyes is still a bit different.
First of all, she must return the money owed to the merchant. This money requires interest payment, so it is best to pay it off as soon as possible. According to the records in the accounts, she needed to return five hundred gold coins to the merchant in total. That is to say, if the situation is good, the income in the fall should be just enough.
But she cannot return all the money to the merchant immediately after receiving the money, because according to the village chief’s reflection, the fellow Reynolds has always refused to spend on the construction and maintenance of the village, resulting in many infrastructures in the village. They are all too old, and there are many parts that need to be repaired urgently, and this is not a problem that can be solved by one or two hundred gold coins. One by one, everything costs money.
More importantly, she must have some money on her own. Now she is a knight of the duchess and a knight who already has a fief. And this means that the Duchess will not give her a lot of allowances. If the Duchess asks her to go somewhere to accomplish something, there is a high probability that she won’t give extra money.
She must keep a little money for herself.
Alice finally decided to use one hundred gold coins from the autumn proceeds. Half of the remaining money was reserved for repairs, and half was returned to the merchant until the debt was paid off. If all goes well, in about three or four years, she will be able to earn 400 gold coins a year steadily.
Although there are many various expenses in the life of a knight, the annual income of four hundred gold coins is not a small sum. If the Alice who served dishes in the pub knew that she would earn four hundred gold coins a year one day, she would probably wake up in her dreams.
But now Alice has matured a lot, and she is not upset that she can only get one hundred gold coins a year now, nor does she wake up with four hundred gold coins in the future. This night, she slept as well as usual. After getting up, she discussed some things in the village with the old village chief. Seeing that there was nothing else she needed to make up his mind, she mounted her horse and returned to the castle.
Accounting accounts are really not suitable for Alice. She sat at the table for a few days, only to feel rusty all over her body. She felt much more relaxed when she rode back. She would talk to Cecilian about the future along the way. Imagine not feeling lonely at all.
The awkward horse has been the old village chief looking for someone to feed the horse these days. This guy hasn’t seen Alice for a few days and seems to be very dissatisfied with it. . Fortunately, the journey was not too long. Alice spent a long time coaxing her, and finally let it carry her and arrived before the castle closed.
Alice led the horse to the stable, and went to the Duchess before taking a rest, and reported on Ronald Village. The Duchess heard the report, and although she did not commend her, she showed satisfaction. Looking at her expression, perhaps the Duchess thinks that it is the right choice for Alice to be the knight.
That’s all Alice wants. Sifelix led those complicated open and secret fights, and Alice couldn’t understand it, but the duke promoted her from a mercenary to a knight, and she could be regarded as her benefactor. She hopes to be a useful person to the Duchess and live up to her expectations. What might happen after this is not within her consideration. In any case, even if the entire Sifelix is in chaos after the death of the Duchess, as long as she is protected by Circilian, her future life will not be too bad.
After she got out of the duchess’ study, she really felt tired. The exhaustion accumulated over the past few days all at once flooded. There was still some time before dinner, and Alice went back to the room. She just lay down on the bed and was about to rest when she heard a knock on the door.
Who is it? I was sure that she came and knocked on her door as soon as she came back. Alice struggled to get up from the bed while complaining in her heart.
“Come in!” she yelled, “the door is unlocked.”
The door opened from the outside, and the kent knight’s passionate face appeared in front of Alice:
“You finally came back!” Kent’s eyes sparkled, “I have been waiting for you for several days!”
“What’s the matter?” Seeing Kent so excited, Alice was even less energetic, just wanting to kick this guy out, and then return to the bed to sleep with her head covered.
“What else can you do! Of course it’s a martial arts competition!”
When Kent said that, Alice vaguely remembered that there was indeed such a thing. There are so many things she has encountered in Ronald Village these days, and she has forgotten the knight tournament that the Duchess had mentioned before.
However, Kent obviously did not forget, not only did she not forget, but in the past few days when she was away from the castle, it is estimated that she has been maintaining this state of excessive excitement. Although the seventeen-year-old is always very passionate, Alice also thinks that he is a bit scary.
Kent didn’t think he was scary at all, he held Alice’s hand excitedly:
“How? Do you want to team up with me!”