"Good morning, my lord. The steward, Hume, hurried over just now, insisting on seeing you. You hadn't shown yourself all morning, so I had Miss Jeanne receive him. I don't know what it was about, but they left together. They only just went, my lord, so you can still catch up with them."
Old Will answered in a booming voice. A nobleman's air always clung to him, and Aurelian could feel it.
"Is it morning already? How long was I meditating?"
He pressed a hand to his forehead, his mind full of questions, then turned to Old Will. "All right, you get back to work. I'll go catch up with them."
With that, he ran toward the stables.
"Ah, young people these days just don't have the energy they used to. They haven't gone out for a week."
Old Will shook his head, picked up a broom, and joined the servants in their work.
He hurried to the stables, passing George, who stood there brimming with excitement and anticipation.
"Sorry, George. I'm going to take these Barbarian warhorses for a ride today."
As he spoke, he patted the head of a tall black horse beside him.
"Grr!"
George turned his head away in anger.
Aurelian laughed, tugged on the reins, and swung himself onto the horse. George's resentful stare soon faded into the distance behind him.
The horse's tall, powerful black frame seemed to hold boundless strength. Its blood-red eyes looked demonic, and two bumps on its head seemed ready to burst into horns. It was a terrifying sight.
Most remarkable of all, it ran without making a sound, which could prove invaluable on the battlefield!
Now this was a real warhorse!
If he used horses of this breed as the foundation for a knightly order, just how terrifying would it be?
They could charge a thousand miles in a single night. The enemy might still be dreaming when their lives were already over.
Unfortunately, there were only a few dozen of them—not nearly enough to form a knightly order.
"The Barbarians must have plenty of tribes, right?"
As he rode along, he found himself turning his thoughts toward the Barbarians. He was probably the first person in the Star Empire ever to do that.
The Barbarians had once been a fearsome people who'd beaten the Star Empire so badly it dared not look north.
After passing Frost Town at the foot of the mountain, he finally saw plenty of people along the road.
Most of them were skin and bones, dressed in linen shirts as thin as paper. He had no idea how they'd survived. Only a small portion looked healthy, wearing warm wool coats.
He hadn't gone out of his way to look them over, but all the people in linen shirts were already prostrate on the ground, trembling. Only those who looked well stood upright, nodding respectfully to Aurelian as he passed.
These were commoners with the right to live freely. Most had jobs in town and worked for a living, but they'd been ordered to move here with Aurelian.
As for those prostrate on the ground, they were slaves without the right to freedom.
He quickly rode along the path, heading toward the farm.
Aurelian knew that Jeanne and the chubby Hume were there.
"Did something happen to the fields? What's got that fat man in such a hurry?"
Aurelian urged his horse to go faster.
Sure enough, before long he spotted Jeanne and the chubby Hume talking by the field.
"Did something happen?"
Aurelian jumped down from the black warhorse and asked them.
The chubby Hume quickly turned around with a fawning smile.
"My goddess, my dear Lord Aurelian has finally arrived! I've been waiting a whole week for you. I missed you so much!"
Same excitable tone, same over-the-top manner.
Hume hurried over to him, looking as if he could hardly wait to smother him with kisses.
Has it already been a week? he thought.
"Wuya!"
A soft, adorable little voice sounded from over there. Aurelian looked over.
It was Roundball, licking its round face with its enormous tongue.
He looked up. Jeanne was watching him with an expressionless face, but there was always a hint of worry in her sky-blue eyes. Now that she could see Aurelian was safe and sound, that worry slowly faded away until it was gone.
Hume slapped his own chubby face and said with a grin, "My lord, you should go take a look at the fields!"
"Oh?"
Aurelian was taken aback. He walked to the edge of the field and froze.
"Am I dreaming?"
Aurelian murmured softly.
Because right before his eyes, the most incredible sight had unfolded.
Every inch of the land, every patch of field, shimmered with specks of blue light, beautiful as sapphires.
"These are wheat seedlings. How could wheat seedlings grow like this?"
His mouth fell open in disbelief, as if the sight before him had stunned him.
That was right: the dazzling sapphire-like lights came from rows of newly sprouted wheat seedlings. They glowed with a faint, icy blue radiance, like magical plants in a fairy-tale paradise.
"Roundball, was this your doing?" Aurelian immediately turned to the creature in Jeanne's arms.
"Wuya, wuya!"
Roundball licked its little face and chirped a few times, as if asking for praise.
Aurelian grew excited in an instant. He took Roundball from Jeanne's arms and lifted it high above his head.
"Thank you! Thank you so much!"
Since coming to this world, he'd never felt so excited, so happy.
"Wuya! Wuya!"
Roundball responded happily. It shared a spiritual bond with Aurelian and was the creature closest to his heart.
"My lord, Miss Jeanne told me these are magic plants," the chubby Hume put in at just the right moment. He knew the news would make the lord even happier.
"Magic plants?"
Of course. Any crop that gave off magic could only be classified as a magic plant.
Every magic plant contained a tiny bit of magic that the human body could absorb. It didn't need to be refined through a magic node; people could simply eat it and absorb it directly, helping them advance in their magic cultivation.
Some noble families had children who weren't particularly gifted. They could help them advance in magic by feeding them large amounts of these magic plants.
But magic plants were scarce and precious resources, usually priced outrageously high. Anyone without a substantial fortune could hardly afford them.
"They're magic plants! Does that mean I'm going to get rich?!"
His eyes glittered with greed.
The several large sacks of seeds should have covered two or three acres. Based on the memories from Aurelian's old world, the yield ought to be two or three thousand pounds of Magic Seed Wheat.
Magic Seed Wheat was the name Aurelian had given this magic plant.
But his brow furrowed as he considered a problem. One person couldn't eat even a pound of wheat a day, but Winter Territory had more than three hundred people, counting the serfs and commoners.
Divided among them, the Magic Seed Wheat they produced wouldn't be enough to last through a single winter.
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