Melissa and Lady Penelope's history was old news at the castle.
Lady Penelope had berated Melissa, accusing her of being unable to tolerate her. With a Marquis backing her, Lady Penelope couldn't afford to offend her, so she had no choice but to move out of Tulip Castle.
Liszt, however, thought Lady Penelope had simply been too mean. More than ten years had passed, and she was still going on and on about it.
Besides, in all those years, Melissa had died, yet Lady Penelope still hadn't managed to move back in. She had fallen out with the new countess, too.
"You're lucky to have come back today. The Baron's daughter isn't at the castle, or I'd have turned around and left at once. There's something about her scent that makes me uncomfortable. Your father is the only one who can put up with her. Now the whole castle reeks of her. I can't stand being here for a moment."
Lvera was sitting beside Lady Penelope. At her words, she clung to her arm, dropping her usual forceful manner and speaking in a coquettish voice. "Grandmother, if you don't like Tulip Castle, you can come to Falcon Town. I have a beautiful estate there, and it even has a hot spring. I'm sure you'd love it."
"My dear girl, a noble lady must know how to sit properly. Just look at you. You're nineteen this year and still haven't found a suitable partner. That's because you're not ladylike enough."
"Grandmother's right, Lvera. You should learn to be a proper lady instead of riding out with a spear like the rest of us." Levis teased her, then turned to Lady Penelope. "Grandmother, if you think the castle smells bad, I can put out more Fragrance Agent."
"This isn't something Fragrance Agent can fix. Having two women like that join the family has worn me out. I'd never come to the castle unless I had to." Lady Penelope then turned to Louis, the butler standing nearby to attend to her. "Louis, you'll pass those words on to the Baron's daughter for me, won't you?"
There was a distinctly provocative tone to her words.
Louis smiled gently. "Old Madam, you know I prefer to keep my mouth shut."
"Boring Louis. You've been boring ever since you were young, and you're still boring now that you're an old man."
From the moment Lady Penelope arrived at the castle, the conversation revolved around her. Naturally, she had spoken for eighty percent of it herself.
Liszt could only manage an awkward yet polite smile.
It wasn't until the Count returned and announced that dinner could begin that Liszt was finally freed from the uncomfortable atmosphere.
The dinner at Tulip Castle was clearly beyond comparison with the one in the little castle in Flower Town.
The number of guests alone made that obvious.
Almost all the nobles at the castle were seated at tonight's dinner, including the Count's family, the tutor, the captain of the knights, and several of the Count's followers who were visiting the castle. There were sixteen nobles in all, with Baronet Knights, Barons, Viscounts, and Counts all represented.
With Lady Penelope at the dinner, there was naturally no lull in the conversation. She kept chatting without pause.
Liszt focused on enjoying the food. He had never gotten used to Western cuisine, but compared with the coarse food in Flower Town, the dishes here were delicious. He didn't join in the conversation, and few people spoke to him. Just as in his predecessor's memories, he was once again a nobody at the castle.
Back then, he had wanted to join in but couldn't get a word in.
Now, he simply didn't want to. After all, he was a transmigrator who had taken over someone else's body. He couldn't make himself part of the Tulip Family, and could only look on coolly, quietly do things suited to the times, and keep his head down as he built things up. Perhaps one day, he wouldn't have to keep a low profile and could do as he pleased.
The day after the dinner, Liszt rose early. The three siblings were leaving with the fleet to visit their sick maternal grandfather, Marquis Merlin Long-Yam, on Red Crab Island.
"Give him my heartfelt regards." The Count had risen early as well and shared breakfast with his three children.
As his son-in-law, he should have gone to visit in person. But now he was a former son-in-law, and his ties to the Long-Yam Family had grown distant, so it wasn't appropriate for him to visit.
Lady Penelope had just returned from her walk. "Levis, Lvera, Liszt, give Marquis Merlin my regards while you're there. I remember him as a handsome, dashing nobleman, strong and in excellent health. I can't believe that after just a few years, he's too ill to work and has even stepped down as captain of the royal fleet."
"Birth, aging, sickness, and death are the laws of nature. You needn't dwell on it, Mother."
"Are you trying to tell me I'm an old woman who ought to die, too?"
"Why would you think that? I hope you live to be a hundred."
"Judging by the two women you married, you've been hoping for me to die for ages, so you can finally have some peace and quiet. Then no one will stop you from doing whatever you want on Coral Island."
The Count could only manage another awkward yet polite smile.
Liszt brought Marcus along, with a castle servant following behind to carry his luggage. After saying their goodbyes, the three siblings headed together for the pier, which was part of Coral City. Calling it a city was generous; Liszt preferred to think of it as "a giant toilet." The streets and alleys reeked of the sour stench of fermenting feces.
That was precisely why the Tulip Family's tulips, which gave off a strong fragrance, were so popular with the townspeople.
People heading out would pin a tulip to their chests to dull the nauseating smell of the streets.
Setting the stench of feces aside, a large city like Coral City was nowhere near as grand as a small county town in Liszt's hometown.
There were no high-rises or grand mansions, just scattered wooden and stone houses lining streets of varying widths and stretching into the distance. Shops of every kind stood along the roads, where hurried passersby couldn't help stepping in feces. The townspeople always liked to dump it right onto the street.
If it was a single pile of dog shit, you could simply avoid it.
But if an entire street was covered in dog shit, the proper way to go about things was to wrinkle your nose and walk right through it.
Layer upon layer of feces, trampled over and over until it blended into the road, had created the city's unique "Dung Road," which stank by nature.
Why was sanitation so poor?
The commoners were too busy making a living to care about cleanliness, while the nobles lived in castles on the outskirts and didn't care about the filth in town.
The only saving grace was that Coral City was an island city with a limited population. The amount of excrement it produced was still bearable, thanks to the constant weathering of the natural world.
In a larger city, feces and urine might well drown the whole place.
"Were the elves' abilities so limiting that nobody thought of using feces to grow crops?" As Liszt looked out over Coral City, his imagination ran wild. "Maybe I could collect all the feces on the island and haul it to Flower Town. Then I could build a few biogas digesters in town... no, on the outskirts."
He understood how biogas digesters worked, but using biogas for lighting and cooking would be a little difficult.
After simple fermentation, using it to fertilize fields was the quickest option. Flower Town's soil, as barren as the yellow earth of the mainland, was in urgent need of fertilizer.
"The trouble is the transportation. One trip by carriage would cost more than the manure is worth... Forget it. I shouldn't pollute my Flower Town. The town can produce and use its own manure."