HTLCCBFT Chapter 19

Has The Lord’s Career Chart Been Filled Today? – Chapter 19

“Stay in the castle as a maid?”

Oliver blinked, a hint of amusement in his eyes.

In his eyes, Lucy was, after all, just a seven-year-old child with limited experience, and she came from a slave background.

Although he didn’t know the specifics of Lucy’s family situation or what her parents might have instructed her to ask for… for such a rare talent in his domain, he was willing to be magnanimous, thinking, ‘As long as her request isn’t too outrageous, I’ll grant it.’

Yet, unexpectedly, rather than material rewards like a “bigger and better house” or a “more generous salary,” Lucy wanted the security of a long-term, respectable job.

This decision was surprisingly mature, Oliver thought.

Steward Fosse’s face had completely darkened.

If not for his deeply ingrained years of aristocratic education and self-restraint, and his awareness that he couldn’t speak out of turn as long as the young master was present, he would have likely berated the insatiably greedy slave girl on the spot.

Oliver gazed at Lucy, who was trembling slightly all over with fear, yet whose eyes were incomparably resolute. A gentle, approving smile bloomed on his lips. “What a clever child. Is this your only request?”

“I am willing to offer Your Highness all my loyalty, and my life as well.” Lucy racked her brain for words, continuing to kneel on the cold, hard floor as she pleaded with all sincerity, “I swear to the great Cat God, if I break today’s vow, then I will—”

“There’s no need for that.”

Oliver coughed lightly, interrupting the vicious oath the child was about to utter.

Never mind that the witness she chose for her oath, the “Cat God,” was essentially a ‘deity’ he had made up to fool everyone; the binding power of a vicious oath varied from person to person anyway.

Compared to a vague and insubstantial oath, Oliver valued actions more.

“The wise and brilliant Cat God has too much to attend to. As a faithful believer, you shouldn’t trouble Him with trivial matters,” Oliver said with a smile. “I have heard your request. You may rise.”

When Lucy shakily got to her feet, she saw the beautiful lord, whose every strand of golden hair seemed to shimmer, smile at her and say, “As long as you can pass the Cat God’s trial, not only will I grant your request, but I will also give you much more.”

If Lucy could truly master the wood-charring technique, which could be widely applied to Laina City’s next major project—the renovation of all the city’s residences—then she would become a bona fide technical talent.

Moreover, at such a young age, her potential was limitless. Oliver was eager to cultivate her talent; of course he wouldn’t waste such a gift by letting her remain a maid doing menial chores in the castle.

—Great Cat God, you really heard my prayer!

Lucy’s eyes widened in a daze. It took her a long moment to realize that the beautiful lord had actually agreed to the request she had mustered all her courage to make!

She was overcome with excitement, and tears rolled uncontrollably down her cheeks.

She didn’t even notice Steward Fosse’s cold, sharp glare from the side. Her mind was in a dizzying haze as she stammered her thanks to Oliver before leaving with Supervisor Ed, who had been breaking out in a cold sweat over her boldness.

“Fosse.”

After the drawing room door was closed, Oliver smiled and turned his head, looking innocently at the butler whose thin lips were pressed together. “You must be thinking that I’m being too good to Lucy, aren’t you?”

Fosse lowered his gaze and answered without hesitation, “A qualified servant should not influence their master’s decisions.”

“But you’re not my servant.” Oliver’s smile was brilliant. “Fosse, you are my most important Mr. Butler. You and Noel are like my right and left hands, indispensable presences in my daily life.”

Knowing that His Highness Oliver was deliberately placating him at this moment, Fosse’s heart instantly warmed with emotion, to say nothing of Noel, who was blushing with joy beside them.

Oliver sighed softly, his long, golden lashes drooping slightly, casting a faint, melancholic shadow on his fair, delicate eyelids. “If it weren’t for my royal brother Cameron’s… His Majesty’s command, I wouldn’t have had to hastily dismiss so many reliable attendants. And there are just too many things that need to be done in Laina City. To perfectly pass the Cat God’s trial, I need more people to share your workload. That child is a good candidate.”

Fosse looked at his beloved young master with a pained heart. “Your Highness, this is all the fault of that detestable traitor, Cameron!”

As expected, just mentioning Cameron’s name was enough to successfully divert Fosse’s attention.

Fosse, who had always been brooding over the injustices His Highness had suffered, could no longer be bothered with the insignificant little serf girl. He immediately directed all his anger toward the culprit far away in the royal capital, Cameron.

And after that day, although Lucy remained a greedy and cunning serf in Fosse’s heart—one who had exploited His Highness’s kindness to request to stay in the castle as a maid—he no longer concerned himself with such things, since His Highness believed she possessed something that made the Cat God willing to test her.

Besides, with his noble upbringing and the bearing of a former knight commander, no matter how dissatisfied he was with her actions, he would certainly not stoop to Andison’s level and despicably bully a weak slave girl, so long as she did not offend or displease his master.

Fosse’s calm treatment was clearly not the reason Lucy was being subtly isolated by the people in the castle.

In the eyes of a group of castle servants led by Annie the cook, this filthy and despicable little serf girl had, by some unknown means, been permitted by the noble Duke to frequently enter and leave the castle, meet with His Grace, and even lead a group of grown men in their work!

Not since Johan had Annie despised someone so much.

—Even a free citizen like her, a cook whose family had served the lord for generations, had never received such favor from His Highness.

If Oliver knew of Annie’s jealousy, he would most likely have been speechless and pointed out, “That’s because your cooking is truly terrible.”

It was only thanks to the strict orders from the shrewd and meticulous Butler Fosse that this cook—who loved to pile on terrifying amounts of spices to create so-called ‘flavor,’ but in reality wasted ingredients and murdered his poor taste buds—had recently reined herself in…

Otherwise, Annie, a cook who couldn’t even do her own job properly and severely impacted his quality of life, would likely have been the first person fired by this new lord with an unbelievably good temper. In truth, Oliver rarely paid attention to Lucy’s progress.

Firstly, he didn’t want the ‘lord’s frequent inquiries’ to put too much pressure on the child.

Secondly, the tasks he had to perform in his dual roles as lord and ’emissary of the Cat God’ were already enough to keep him busy.

The deadline for holding the Summer Market made time seem all the more precious.

Over the next five days, the people under him were tearing their hair out learning how to build ‘toilets’, keeping Supervisor Ed, who was in charge of the matter, so busy he was run off his feet.

Meanwhile, the lord who had issued this order nearly took root in the forest.

As for the market square, which had no other merits besides being flat, clean, and spacious enough, Oliver still put in some effort to show how much importance he placed on this recruitment event.

While patiently waiting for the first batch of corn to ripen, he also made full use of every nook and cranny in the fields—whether on the ridges separating the plots or around the perimeter of this overly simple square, he personally planted a row of sunflowers.

The sunflower seeds, of course, came from the game system.

Among the pitifully few varieties and quantities of seeds in his game backpack, sunflowers were one of only two crops that could be sown in summer and autumn.

The sunflower seeds from the game backpack had a maturation period of just eight days, just in time for the start of the Summer Market.

Although sunflower seeds couldn’t serve as a staple food, Oliver loved them for several reasons. Not only were the brilliant, eye-catching sunflowers themselves a delight, but upon harvesting them, besides getting flowers for oil extraction, he could also obtain 0-3 seeds.

These were undoubtedly advantages that Oliver cherished.

Even if they didn’t extract oil, once food was plentiful and better living conditions were possible, it would be nice to let the common folk plant them and enjoy roasted sunflower seeds as a snack.

For the rest of the time, Oliver did nothing but chop trees.

Of course, the higher the level of a professional skill, the harder it was to level up—each new level required more experience points than the last.

But with Oliver’s tireless chopping day after day, the results after five days were undoubtedly astonishing: his game backpack was piled high with a full 10 stacks of lumber!

Another 5 stacks or so would be enough for everyone in Laina City to build wooden houses.

By the time they finished building, the first batch of tree seeds he had planted while chopping should also be mature. He could continue chopping when he had time, or he could leave them for later…

As Oliver calculated, he habitually hugged his dear Cat God and offered a ‘prayer’ before lying down on his bed in satisfaction.

The moment his eyes closed, the game system punctually presented the day’s settlement panel.

The Foraging skill had already reached level 5.

Three days ago, when Foraging had reached level 4, Oliver had unlocked a passive buff that “increased lumber yield from each tree by 25%,” which had greatly accelerated his speed of accumulating lumber.

Level 5 Foraging unlocked the recipe for the “Tapper.”

A Tapper!

Oliver couldn’t help but open his eyes.

Tree sap might not be of much help for immediate survival, but for a long-term source of income, it was of the utmost importance. Ever since Oliver learned from his butler, Fosse, just how much money could be made by reselling the fifty-odd barrels of wine he had left abandoned in the castle warehouse—wine he found so repulsive he wouldn’t even take a sip—he had been eyeing the “wine barrels” in the game system, known as a divine brewing artifact.

And the resin collected by the sap collectors was precisely the material needed to craft high-grade fertilizer and wine barrels!

Oliver, who had gone to great lengths to have his subordinates build ecological composting toilets as a permanent solution, wasn’t concerned with the fertilizer recipe.

But the “wine barrel” item, which had a one hundred percent success rate for brewing wine, was simply too tempting.

Oliver was utterly captivated.

Unfortunately, for some unknown reason, his adorable cat god statue had only ever given him gold ingots.

Nearly nine days had passed since he first took out the God of Wealth statue, yet he hadn’t seen so much as a copper or silver ingot. Only gold ingots.

Even Oliver hadn’t expected to have such a luxurious problem—no matter how one looked at it, from the value of the materials to their external worth, gold ingots were definitely harder to obtain and more valuable.

Yet, the crafting recipe for a wine barrel, aside from 50 units of wood, required the most basic copper ingot.

Two of them, in fact.

“My dearest deity.”

With a “might as well give it a try” mentality, Oliver sat up in bed and smilingly hugged the golden beckoning cat statue.

He rested his pointed chin on the Cat God’s smooth head, closed his eyes, and prayed softly in a low, intoxicating voice completely different from his usual lighthearted tone, “May I please see a copper ingot when I wake up tomorrow morning? Thank you, generous Cat God.”

—His consciousness was still hazy, yet the Cat God, who had clearly heard the beautiful believer’s wish, felt a warmth that intoxicated a god suffuse its entire being.

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