Cities were nothing to look forward to; only castles were. The nobility still valued cleanliness. They had baths and toilets, and servants carried their waste and rubbish outside the castle.
Since nobody knew that manure could fertilize fields, people simply dumped it in the wilderness, where it decomposed naturally.
Making effective use of manure to fertilize fields could absolutely reduce reliance on elves—only reduce it, since elves could also improve the traits of crops.
The two-masted barque sailed across the azure sea. Coral City had gradually disappeared from view, and Tulip Castle, perched high atop a mountain, was sinking below the horizon.
Did this prove that this world was spherical, too?
Liszt occasionally wondered what sort of world he had crossed over into, but he had no information from which to draw any conclusions.
"My lord, what are you looking at?" Marcus came over.
"The sea. The azure sea hides countless treasures."
"I grew up by the sea, so I don't have such romantic ideas about it. There are sea monsters in the ocean, and perhaps a few fish. But rivers and lakes have fish too, and they aren't dangerous. The wealth on the mainland is what's truly abundant and inexhaustible. The glory of knights and nobles is won through struggles on the mainland, too."
The Sapphire Grand Duchy was an archipelago, but it had never given up its campaigns on the mainland. Every few years, it organized a knightly order to travel there and compete for mineral resources.
This had given rise to generation after generation of nobles.
The Tulip Family had also risen to prominence this way. Marcus had often dreamed of going to war on the mainland and earning a fief as a Baronet Knight for his service.
Now that he had resolved to serve Liszt, he naturally still tried to tempt him with such ideas from time to time.
Liszt continued gazing at the deep sea, paying no mind to the "mainland wealth" argument. Why go to a battlefield so dangerous? It was much better to live quietly as a country lord, complete missions, and farm, advancing steadily, one step at a time. If he had merely crossed over to this world, he didn't think he could distinguish himself among the natives. But with the Smoke Mission to help him, becoming stronger was only a matter of time.
As for what the Smoke Mission was, one day he would uncover its secret.
"Teacher Marcus, I've heard that beyond the archipelago of the Grand Duchy, there are vast stretches of undeveloped islands?"
"Yes. I've spoken with some old sailors. There are many islands beyond the archipelago, but they lie in the deep sea, where storms often rise and reefs are plentiful. Ships can hardly travel there, so the islands have little value to develop."
"Perhaps."
Liszt said noncommittally.
Setting everything else aside, once deep-sea fishing developed, the sea's wealth would begin to reveal itself. At that point, the struggle over islands might be no less fierce than the struggle over land.
He couldn't do that yet. He was only the lord of a small country town; for now, he would focus on developing it.
"Raise the sails! Head forward!"
"Raise the sails! Head forward!"
The sailors roared from beneath the mast. The south wind was blowing from behind the ship, snapping the sails. The captain promptly ordered the crew to hoist them and catch more wind.
The advent of sailing ships had allowed humanity to venture into wider seas. The Sapphire Grand Duchy's fleet consisted mostly of sailing ships, but they all had square sails; lateen-rigged ships had yet to appear. The advantage of square sails was that they were swift with a following wind. Their disadvantage was that they were nearly useless against a headwind, requiring the use of oars.
With the wind at their backs, every ship in the fleet raised its sails. Together, they formed a triangular formation on the sea, an impressive sight.
They set out in the morning and reached Red Crab Island by evening.
Red Crab Island was ten times larger than Coral Island. Long-Yam Castle was not by the sea, but halfway up a mountain in the island's center. So after disembarking, Liszt and the others had to spend the night in the port city of Sea Crab City, then switch to carriages and travel for a day. They wouldn't reach Long-Yam Castle until the third day.
Pigeons had not yet been trained to carry letters, and a pigeon probably couldn't carry the weight of Parchment anyway.
However, since arrangements had previously been made for a knight to deliver a letter announcing that members of the Tulip Family would soon come to visit, servants had been stationed at the Long-Yam Castle residence in Sea Crab City to await their arrival. As soon as Liszt and his party arrived, the servants arranged for them to stay at the residence, sparing them an overnight stay in the filthy city.
After dinner that night, Liszt took a bath and lay down in bed.
He was feeling a little seasick.
Back home, he had been used to planes and trains, and he really wasn't accustomed to traveling by ship. Fortunately, his predecessor had been an islander with decent swimming skills, which had helped him adapt a little. Otherwise, he would have been completely seasick.
"For someone born on an island, you sure get seasick. Liszt, I have to say, you're bringing shame to the Tulip Family. I thought you'd matured, but you're still so pathetic. After that cowardly behavior of yours before, you really are my foolish little brother." Lvera had appeared in Liszt's room at some point.
She hadn't knocked.
Liszt was startled, since he had been examining his Smoke Serpent Script—he often brought it out to see if he could discover anything new.
But he soon settled down, because Lvera didn't seem able to see the Smoke Serpent Script. It was visible only to Liszt, so there was no need to worry about his secret getting out.
"You forgot to knock."
"Did I? It doesn't matter." Lvera folded her arms and stared at Liszt, making her disdain clear.
"It matters to me. You haven't respected my privacy, and what you did wasn't very ladylike, either. Nobles like ladies, dear sister."
"I don't need to change who I am to please any noble! Besides, Liszt, when did I ever ask for your advice? If we weren't on Red Crab Island, I'd give you a good beating and teach you that reaching the rank of Earth Knight is nothing special!"
Liszt had been bullied by Lvera since childhood.
He thought the root cause was that Lvera envied his looks—handsome enough to make most women feel ashamed of their own.
"You didn't come all this way just to tell me I'm still weak, did you?"
"I just wanted to see how pathetic you look when you're seasick."
"Well, you've seen it. Can you leave now?"
Lvera glared at him, then turned and walked away. Liszt got up and locked the door. She was nineteen, still a young woman, and her behavior really was hard to make sense of.
He didn't mind much. In his memories, Lvera had always been this straightforward—or rather, careless and flighty.
The count often lamented that he and Lvera ought to have traded personalities.
One was more delicate than a girl, the other more boisterous than a boy.
After lying back down, Liszt found himself unable to sleep, so he thought about something trivial instead. "I visited Long-Yam Castle once, five months ago, for the New Year's visit. Marquis Merlin wasn't on the island then; he was still serving as a captain in the court fleet. I probably haven't seen him properly in four or five years."
Given the nobles' system of monogamy, their families were often not particularly large.
Marquis Merlin had a son and two daughters. His third child, Melissa, had passed away, while his second daughter, Melinda, had married one of the Marquis's followers, Roland Pinecone, the Viscount of Long-Enclosure Island. He had only one heir, his eldest son, Messiro Long-Yam, and Messiro had only one son, Meopel Long-Yam.
"Cousin Meopel... he must be almost twenty-five, and still unmarried? Apparently he's trying to win the Sapphire Grand Duke's daughter? I hear this little duchess is quite the social butterfly."
In a duchy, an empire, or a kingdom's vassal state, the highest-ranking ruler held the title of Grand Duke. Strictly speaking, he wasn't a king, so his daughter couldn't be called a princess. What's more, the newly enthroned Sapphire Grand Duke had been demoted to Duke because he was unable to become a dragon knight.
In the noble hierarchy, Prince, Grand Duke, and Duke were titles of the same rank. But only those who became knights could be granted the title of Prince or Grand Duke; otherwise, they could only be Dukes.
But rules were dead, and people were alive. In the Sapphire Grand Duchy, all the nobles called their ruler the Grand Duke. Naturally, his daughter was also treated as a princess and fawned over.
Liszt thought maliciously, "If Meopel marries the princess, he might find out the child isn't his... Heh."