Chapter 48 (2/2)

Liszt said solemnly, “Mr. Goltai, you must disseminate the safety instructions. I do not want any civilian to be in danger because of seafood. As officials of the town, you have to pay attention to this. Population is the most important thing for Flower Town’s productivity.”

Maybe they still did not consider it a big deal, but they all knew Liszt’s attitude and nodded without hesitation.

“Tomorrow, if you have time, come to Oysterton with me and let’s see their work. Meantime, you have to teach them what seafood is edible and how to preserve the seafood.”

“Lord Baron, the clerks have made sure of that. Also, each of them already had a taste of the seafood in the castle. They are all quite enthusiastic.”

“Very well.”

During the low tide the next day, Liszt came to Oysterton with his squires. Houses were not built yet, but a desolate area not far away from the ocean had been flattened.

At this moment, about two hundred men and women were flipping the stones and digging in the sand with baskets or buckets in their hands.

Many of them were working with bare hands—the productivity of the tailor’s shop and the blacksmith was too low.

“Greetings, my lord!”

The fishermen all paid tribute to Liszt when they saw him.

Liszt nodded at the fishermen. Fishing could be exhausting, but the results could also be fruitful. So, the unqualified farmers were all working passionately despite their lack of experience.

Liszt sweltered after only watching for a while. He hurried to hide in the shade of a coconut tree.

He looked at the tall tree and felt that something was wrong. A moment later, he realized that there were no coconuts on it at all!

He turned to a clerk next to him. “Do these trees not yield fruits?”

“They do, my lord, but the fruits were picked by the monkeys of Thorn Hill when the fruits were very small.”

“Monkeys?”

“It’s a gray and yellow monkey that we call fruit thief. Sometimes they even ruin the crops in the farmlands in groups.”

“Fruit thieves…” Liszt nodded without any comment.

He suddenly recalled the articles he read before. It seemed that some countries in southeast Asia had the tradition of training monkeys to pick coconuts because coconut trees were too tall for human beings to climb. If a group of fruit thieves could be trained, it would be possible to develop a coconut industry.

Of course, he was not sure if the coconut tree was the same as what he knew. They shouldn’t have survived the winter in Flower Town when it snowed consecutively for two months.

“How does the coconut taste?”

“I once picked a coconut that a fruit thief dropped. There’s juice that tasted sweet and sour like milk. It’s delicious.”

Liszt’s appetite was whetted.

There were many such trees on the coastline. If they were protected, a lot of coconuts could be harvested and even be made into a special beverage.

He looked at Thorn Hill further away. I will take down Thorn Hill sooner or later and exterminate all the threats to Flower Town!

The fruit thieves there could be enslaved to pick fruits for him.