Chapter 16: Activation Command (1/2)

The old man mistook Angora’s silence as his understanding that the fiefdom was not worth a dime, and hence ceased his attempt to make things more difficult for the new lord.

Seeing that Angora was actually quite young, he kindly said, “It’s late now. You could stay at my place if you don’t mind—you should leave first thing next morning.”

Angora, who had been trying to summon the System by straightening his neck was left dumbstruck in return. “Where is the former lord’s residence?”

“The last lord returned to his own home immediately after just a look at this place. He didn’t build anything like a manor,” the old man replied.

“Very well.” Angora sighed, surprised by how irresponsible his predecessor was. “Apologies for the trouble.”

It was on the way to the old man’s house when Angora learned that the old man was the mayor of the unnamed town, and that it was the years of revenant attacks as well as war that reduced the small but relatively thriving into its present state.

There were quite a number of houses, but most of them were left rundown following years of zero maintenance and vacancy. The roof tiles were falling off from time to time, with foxes or rats scrambling from the weed growing underneath.

It was already commendable to have a single resident in one out of three houses.

In fact, there were only twenty-nine citizens including the old-man who essentially had half his feet in his grave. The others were mostly elderly, women, or children. The young and able would either flee within the borders of the empire when they still had their strength, or conscripted by the Royal Army—either way, they were unlikely to return.

In spite of being mayor, the old man’s house was actually no different from the other residents’ save the fact that its roof was mostly intact, and those inside did not have to sleep bathed in starlight.

“Grandpa, you’re back!” A girl who looked just a little older than Angora himself dashed outside the house, and her gaze soon fell upon Angora, who was following the old man. “Who is he?”

“Vela, he is the new lord of the town. Mind your manners,” the old man said seriously.

Both the girl and Angora sized up each other—and from Angora’s perspective, if his own sister could be rated 8 in terms of looks, the girl called Vela would be around 5 to 6.

There were novels about knights where an ‘incomparably beautiful peasant girl’ character appeared, but there was little probability of that actually happening in reality. After all, both genders were hard at work when it comes to the peasantry, the wear and tear from excessive labor and rough weather turning even the better-looking ladies unrefined.

On that note, there were many nobles across the empire returning the authority of prima nocta, but rarely any would flaunt that power just to bed some dirty, ugly peasant girl… Instead, save for the random few aberrations born from incestuous unions, the nobles would always take beautiful women for wives for generations to improve their bloodlines. Therefore, most nobility had prim looks even if they did not stand above the crowd.

Therefore, even if Vela did not particularly catch Angora’s magical eye, a 5 to 6 peasant girl was not too bad either.

“I’m Angora Faust, but you can call me Lord Angora.” He introduced himself—having been raised amongst nobility, he did not believe that there was anything wrong with having peasants addressing him as lord.

“For dinner, I still have some black bread… Vela, go fetch it,” the old man told the young girl once they entered the house.

“But we don’t have much food, Grandpa…” The young girl appeared hesitant.

“It’s fine. Lord Angora is our liege—we must show our respect and kindness.” The old man firmly said.

Certain that she could not change her grandfather’s mind, she lowered her head and reluctantly took out a wooden bow from a rack.

Inside were three fist-sized coarse bundles of flour that looked rather dirty.

“Thanks for your goodwill, but I have brought some rations myself.”