Lord of Plenty

"I heard that the lord coming this time is not only a noble lord from the royal city, but also a great wizard. Does he want to dissect corpses and use living people for those terrible magic experiments?"

"A child from my relative's family became an apprentice to a magician. After several years, he came back and looked like a nobody.

It is said that the black wizard deceived apprentices from all over the place and then used them to experiment with his magic. It's really terrible."

These are all what Joel heard from fellow villagers when he went out to collect firewood at night. It's true.

Joel is not afraid of becoming a slave. What's the difference between his current life and the slaves under the hands of those great nobles? But Joel is afraid of becoming a monster that even his mother and sister can't recognize.

So he chose to listen to his mother's advice. He would rather tighten his belt and eat only a little food a day, and never step out of the house during the day.

Because during the day, the lackeys of those lords wander around the village. As long as they see someone coming out, they will immediately swarm up and surround the person and talk about this and that.

Or they would drag people away half-pushingly, saying they were going to the castle gate to register for some household registration, and as soon as the sun went down, they would immediately run away without a trace, forcing the villagers to come out only at night.

"Brother, I'm hungry."

The little girl, who looked particularly thin in a gray cloth that didn't fit her well, pulled the corner of Joel's thin clothes.

Children are like this, as if they can never fill their stomachs.

Joel sighed slightly. In fact, he was also very hungry, but the food stored at home was really running out. He was a little worried whether the food could last until the ice and snow melted and winter ended. Joel still forced a smile on his face and said:

"Brother will cook you red wheat porridge."

"Okay, Xiaoya likes sweet red wheat porridge the most."

The little girl became happy in an instant, her eyes sparkling.

Red wheat actually doesn't taste sweet at all, but rather a little bitter, so the blood-scorching wine brewed from red wheat often has a special bitter flavor.

Bitter?

What is bitter?

The suffering of life, the suffering of poverty, the suffering of the world, these words are too far away from her. As long as she can be with her mother and brother, Leia has never thought about these things.

Sometimes she is very hungry, and it feels like someone is stirring her stomach with a knife, which is a bit unbearable.

Joel, who was walking towards the kitchen, froze up, looked back at his sister, and forced a smile:

"Let's eat black bread. I remember there was some black bread left yesterday. Eat the black bread first, and I will cook porridge for you in the evening."

There is no firewood at all, what to cook red wheat? You can't soak it in the snow water that has frozen into ice.

Little Leia bit her thumb, hesitated for a moment, and nodded.

Joel came to the kitchen and took out a palm-sized piece of black bread from the cloth bag hanging on the wall. The black bread, which was already very hard, was frozen like a stone overnight.

Joel, who still had strength, broke the bread with a red face before dividing it into two pieces.

Just when he was about to break one of the pieces apart again, Joel suddenly caught a glimpse of the wooden barrel in the corner of the kitchen. It was the fir barrel that their family used to store grain. The lid on the barrel was not accurately placed on the barrel, but was a little misplaced.

Joel took two big steps to the barrel and opened the lid of the barrel a little bit with trepidation. His throbbing heart suddenly became as empty as the empty barrel.

Who?

Joel gritted his teeth, staring out the window with bloodshot eyes, wishing to eat someone.

Someone must have sneaked into the kitchen and stole the food that kept the three of them alive while he was out collecting firewood at night!

The sunlight shone through the window on little Joel's hideous face. For the first time in his life, he felt that the sunlight was so dazzling and cold.

The sun, without any warmth, slowly set in the west until it disappeared at the end of the horizon. The prosperous territory, which had been busy all day, gradually became quiet.

At this time, it was also the time when another group of people started to move. With the rising and setting of the sun as the boundary, the Emerald Heart Farm seemed to be split into two halves.

The round purple moon was covered by dark clouds. Joel, who went out much later than usual, did not walk out of the farm, but quietly touched the window of a house at the end of the path.

Holding a long hook in his hand, Joel stood in the corner for a long time. After making sure that the people in the house had fallen asleep, he slowly raised his heavy arm.

"..."

Joel's face was distorted because his hands could not stop shaking. He knew what would happen if he ran out of food in this late winter.

Why can others steal from him, but he can't steal from others? How can there be such a reason in the world?

The people in the Emerald Heart are all neighbors. They don't see each other when they look down, but they see each other when they look up. He also calls the hostess of this house "Auntie". How hard it is to raise three hungry children, just look at his family.

But when he thought of his sister's disappointed expression when he left home at night, Joel felt that his heart was stabbed hard by someone, and his eyes became firm.

"Pah!"

A small piece of ice accurately hit Joel's head as he was about to take action. Turning back suddenly, Joel saw the person he least wanted to see at this moment.

There was a scar under his left eye that spread to the corner of his mouth. The girl was full of wildness like a wild beast. She leaned against the fence, squinting at him and asked with her mouth:

"What are you doing?"

As if she had seen through the young man's predicament, the girl did not continue to ask questions knowingly. She looked up at the sky, stretched out her hand as if she wanted to pull down a few gems from the sky and put them in her arms. The girl said to herself:

"Originally, I wanted to ask you to borrow some red wheat, but it seems that there is no need to ask.

Tomorrow I will go to join the lord's work team, yes, the work team, that's right, the old man named Li Taite said that name, I heard that if you perform well, you can get meat. What about you, do you want to go with me?"

"No!..."

Joel shouted in a hurry, and Joel immediately lowered his voice after reacting. Yin advised:

"Nia, those lords are all black-hearted bastards. They give civilians one point of treatment and want to get ten times the benefits from civilians. What if he plots against you?"

Nia rubbed the scar at the corner of her mouth with her fingers and said without hesitation:

"When the lord was inspecting the village the day before yesterday, I secretly took a look through the crack of the door. He looked quite handsome. If he really plotted against me, it's not certain who would suffer. Well, no loss."

"That won't work either. How can this... this matter be calculated like this? This is too, too..."

Joel, with a red face, was choked and couldn't say a complete sentence for a long time.

Nia glanced at Joel's lower body and suddenly started to curse:

"You are a bastard, you still have the nerve to say that others are not good, but you are good. How does Aunt Lim treat you? Did she do anything wrong? You actually want to kill her.

And what about Tammy's three little guys?

You say that they are black-hearted. Has your conscience been taken away by the snow wolf in the forest? I think there is no difference between you and those hooligans of Reddo. Neither of you is a good thing.

Anyway, no matter what you say, I will go to the work team tomorrow. Don't worry, even if I starve to death or am sold as a slave, I will never eat a bite of red wheat from you, Joel!"

Hearing the sound of the two people arguing, the originally dim room suddenly lit up, but there was no sound in the room, as if it was warning, and as if it was afraid of something.

"Heh!"

Nia spit on the ground viciously, turned around and left without even a glance, leaving Joel alone in a daze.

The ice and snow at his feet slowly melted, leaving deep holes.

The holes on the snow silently looked up at the dark and deep sky, as if questioning something.

Early the next morning, Joel sneaked out of the house with his mother and sister on his back, turned around in the alleys of the village, and finally went around to the lord's Black Stone Castle.

Joel saw Nia's figure in the crowd gathered in front of the castle. Among these people, Joel didn't know most of them, but there were a few familiar ones, such as Leido, who was about the same age as him and Nia.

"What are you doing here in a sneaky way?"

Joel was startled. He didn't hear any footsteps approaching him at all. This was snowy, so he looked back quickly.

A middle-aged man in fine armor and a big sword on his waist was staring at him condescendingly. For a moment, Joel felt as if he was facing a terrifying mountain lion at close range. The strong mental pressure made his brain blank.

"Are you a villager who came to join the work team?"

Dawn's expression softened as he thought of something, "Follow me."

The two words 'follow me' were like a command spell. Before Joel came to his senses, his body had already moved, following the unknown man step by step towards the team in front of the castle.

Joel suddenly remembered this man's identity, the new sheriff of the territory, a third-level warrior, Dawn!

A warrior, there has never been a warrior in the entire Jade Heart, and this one is the legendary peak warrior, a third-level warrior.

Such a legendary figure is now only one step away from him? !

Old Tate, who was sitting at the side of the table, shouted to the people in front of him:

"The felling team should go over there to register, and the construction team should register here. All the rules are the same as before. The work team will provide two meals, breakfast and lunch, but not dinner. The wages will be paid daily, and the money will be calculated according to the remuneration points.

One remuneration point is five kingdom copper coins. It has been made clear in advance that the remuneration points of the felling team are higher than those of the construction team. By the way, is there anyone here who has not entered the household registration?"

Joel didn't know what entering the household registration meant, so he didn't say anything, but most of the people here know each other.

There are only a few original residents of the Jade Heart Village who dare to come here now. They were all called out individually to record their household registration and personal information. Joel was a stranger, so he was naturally pushed to the front of the crowd.

Mark, who was responsible for helping Old Tate, glanced at Joel, who seemed a little embarrassed, and smiled:

"Don't be nervous, just record your personal information, so that we can arrange a better job for you after the territory is built."

Isn't it really for the convenience of tricking the villagers out and selling them?

Joel opened his mouth and finally nodded woodenly.

"Name, age, gender, family members, and skills?

Well, that's what you know, such as cooking, herding, farming and other skills. Tell me everything you can think of."

Joel answered Mark's questions one by one, and finally circled the location of his home on a map of the Jade Heart.

Watching Mark record everything he said on the precious parchment, an inexplicable emotion spread in Joel's heart.

Although Kun copied the household registration of Blue Star to Fengrao Territory, because the people in this world are very "simple", or their life experiences are very ordinary, there are not many things that can be recorded in the household registration here, and a piece of parchment is enough.

"Okay."

Mark put away the household registration form, and then handed Joel a number plate with the number '7' written on the front.

The number plate is made of thin slices cut from the fragments of the fir wood cut from the Ever Dark Forest. The small one is only the size of a baby's palm, but it has excellent toughness.

These fir woods, which Dawn praised as being able to be used to make wooden armor, have extremely high strength and plasticity.

"Keep it. This is your pay card. How much work you have done today will be reflected on this card. After work, you can exchange it for money with the stamp on the card.

One more thing to say, keep your own things safe. If you lose them, you can replace them with a copper coin each, and naturally you will lose your pay points for the day."

Joel hurriedly and carefully put away the thin-looking wood chip, and touched his pocket anxiously to make sure that his pocket was not leaking and that the wood chip would not be lost.

The breakfast provided by the work team was a large piece of black bread with some pickles, but the black bread was steamed soft, not hard at all, and there was no gravel or sand mixed in it.

Joel actually tasted a hint of grain aroma from this black bread. I don't know if the craftsmanship of the black bread maker is too good, or if there is not much bran mixed in this black bread.

It shouldn't be the latter, right?

After eating the breakfast provided by the work team, the work team began to split up, and one wave headed towards the village. The main work was to build new wooden houses and clean up the feces of people and animals in the village.

The other group, led by the sheriff Dawn, went to the border of the Plenty Territory and the Ever Dark Forest to cut down trees.

Only then did Joel realize that free people could choose their own jobs, but slaves brought by the lord could not. They had to do whatever jobs they were assigned to.

In the end, the three peers from the Emerald Heart Farm all chose to work as lumberjacks.

Joel's idea was simple. This job paid more points and made more money, so he naturally chose to work as lumberjacks.

As for Nia, who fed the whole family and Leido, who was not short of money, they were probably going for the sheriff, right?

What if he was chosen to be a warrior apprentice?

Although Joel knew that this was unlikely, it was not illegal to think about it!