HTLCCBFT Chapter 30

Has The Lord’s Career Chart Been Filled Today? – Chapter 30

Considering that Knight-Captain Noel had too little time to select able-bodied men and train them as guards, and with more and more outsiders coming to Laina City for the Summer Market, Oliver found it very difficult to trust those rookie guards who had only undergone temporary training.

It would be fine if everything went smoothly and they only had to stand guard, but if an unexpected incident occurred, they probably wouldn’t be able to handle it.

So, before setting out for the woods, Oliver slightly reduced the number of his attendants.

Besides his butler, Fosse, who insisted on never leaving his side, he was only willing to bring Knight-Captain Noel and the manservant, Johan. The other two knights were to remain at the castle to hold the fort for him.

When the young master made this decision, Fosse’s expression was solemn, his lips pressed tightly together. For the first time ever, he didn’t say a single word of opposition.

Although in Fosse’s view, the young master’s safety was always the most important thing—even if he brought everyone from the castle to act as guards, such a procession would still fall short of the pageantry befitting an Angel Duke.

But after personally witnessing so many divine miracles manifest on Oliver, even Fosse, with his thickest rose-colored glasses, had to admit a fact that left him slightly disappointed.

After receiving divine favor, his most important young master was no longer as frail as before.

Oliver didn’t yet know that he had successfully convinced the most stubborn butler with the “vigor and vitality” he had displayed while recently reclaiming and sowing the land, and the “immense strength” he had shown when chopping down trees.

With Fosse remaining quiet and cooperative, he soon happily led his streamlined retinue, riding through the familiar woods to the bank of the gurgling Laina River.

On this day, however, Oliver had a whim to change his spot and no longer fish on the rock that had been so comfortable to sit on before.

He stood on the riverbank and observed for a short while, soon picking out a flat piece of ground covered by the heavy shade of trees, which insulated it from the increasingly scorching summer heat.

A good spot.

After making this judgment, Oliver decisively led the other three men over.

He still sat on the wooden chair Fosse had specially prepared beforehand, but he didn’t intend to let the other three stand around arduously the whole time.

According to his plan, he was going to be fishing for the better part of the day.

Seeing that they had indeed not prepared anything for themselves, Oliver took three rocks out of his game backpack without a second thought. “You sit, too.”

The three men froze.

Before Fosse, the first to recover, could speak, Oliver added with a smile, “This is an order.”

Since it was the young master’s order, Fosse naturally couldn’t say anything more.

Knight-Captain Noel was fine. After thanking the always gentle and kind young master, he graciously sat down, still remaining vigilant of his surroundings.

As for the manservant, Johan, whose face couldn’t hide how overwhelmed he was by the favor, he remained stiff for a good while under Fosse’s sharp gaze before carefully taking a seat.

Oliver had already entered a state of focused fishing and didn’t notice the subtle interactions among the three behind him.

Ever since casting his fishing rod, he had been staring intently at the float, listening to the whirring sound of the reel by his ear, and patiently waiting for a river fish to bite the hook.

At first, he had felt slightly uncomfortable being watched by so many people as he did things… but that feeling was soon dispelled by his ever-present butler, who was even more nervous than he was. The meticulous, ever-present, and capable butler had practically forced him to develop the ability to ignore the stares of his attendants.

To support the repairs of the various buildings around the castle, he had recently spent most of his time chopping down trees to get lumber.

On top of that, he was getting rather tired of eating fish every day, so he couldn’t help but slack off on his fishing. He would usually only catch enough for the castle residents’ dinner, plus three or four more for the servants’ fish soup, before heading back with his lumber.

It was for this very reason that while his foraging skill was leveling up at a breakneck pace, his fishing level had stagnated.

Ever since he reached Level 2 and his crude little bamboo pole was upgraded to a ‘well-made fishing rod,’ his experience points had only climbed slowly toward Level 3. After so many days, he was only at 90% of the experience needed for Level 2.

Oliver held the rod’s handle in his right hand and covered his mouth with his left, letting out a silent yawn.

It wasn’t because he felt tired… but purely because the waiting process was just too boring.

He had already adapted to the game’s control interface suddenly appearing over his real-world view whenever he was fishing.

Thus, the process—from waiting for a bite, to a fish taking the bait, to the struggle, to the harvest—had become a veritable assembly line. The only differences were the species of fish and the intensity of their resistance, which left little room for any exciting surprises.

But in the eyes of Fosse and the others, the bobber that might not move for an entire morning for anyone else would start bobbing frantically every few moments when in the Lord’s hands.

Whenever this happened, the Lord, with his beautiful golden hair and slender build, would skillfully turn the reel, neatly retracting the fishing line amidst a scalp-numbing zzzzzt sound.

After watching this many times, Fosse had even managed to summarize a pattern.

Among the fish that got hooked, those that appeared sluggish and wooden—where the rod would initially dip sharply due to the fish’s weight but would otherwise be brought in by the tightening line in an almost docile and obedient manner—were usually the orange-colored carp.

Drifting down from the lake upstream, the slow-reacting, foolish carp were undoubtedly a godsend for novice players unskilled at fishing, but Oliver found them somewhat distasteful.

—Too many bones.

For an expert angler like Oliver, he actually preferred the slightly more challenging salmon, which was sweet, delicious, and could be easily prepared as sashimi to be eaten raw.

Unfortunately, salmon only swam back upstream to spawn in the autumn; they were nowhere to be seen in the summer.

As Oliver completed his “battles” with the fish in quick succession, pulling one plump, flapping prize after another from the Laina River… this sight, which had initially left his attendants in disbelief and awe, had gradually become something they were completely accustomed to.

Just as his energy value dropped to 1/6, approaching the red zone of near-exhaustion, and the thought “I should head back” crossed Oliver’s mind, the bobber plunged violently once more, then began to jerk up and down like a madman.

—Definitely a feisty pike.

Oliver lifted his gaze and began the tug-of-war with the pike with practiced ease. When he was using that crudely made novice fishing rod, the pike could still make the struggle a thrilling affair… but as Oliver’s Fishing skill level increased, coupled with the improvements to his fishing gear, the trouble its resistance could cause him had been weakened many times over.

White spray splashed noisily on the river’s surface, the fish’s body appearing and disappearing from view.

Oliver’s right hand held the fishing rod steadily the whole time, while his left hand pinched the small wooden handle of the reel. He watched the fishing progress bar on the right, which shot forward and then retreated abruptly, as he skillfully reeled in the line.

Huh?

Oliver froze.

On the fishing progress bar, he actually saw an icon that was once quite familiar, yet its appearance here was completely unexpected.

The small icon of a treasure chest, symbolizing an extra reward.

Before his mind could process it, his body had already reacted.

After repeatedly darting left and right, the pike, which had been resisting fiercely, finally had its energy depleted and became the prey hauled in by the lord of Laina City.

As it fell defeated and dying, Oliver’s gaze wasn’t on it at all—but on the small, sparkling item that had been hooked along with it, glinting under the sunlight.

Oliver deftly unhooked the listless pike and tossed it mercilessly into the fishing basket by his side, then focused on examining the extra loot that had appeared for the first time.

It was a ring that glowed with a deep blue light and had a metallic texture.

He briefly compared the size of the band with his finger and found it was a perfect fit for his ring finger.

The moment Oliver’s finger touched it, the game system unhesitatingly stored it in his inventory, simultaneously displaying the item’s name—

[Ring of the Cat God]: Under the protection of the great and generous Cat God, you, who are deeply loved by Him, will shine brightly and be invincible! (Comes with a lighting effect, Attraction +20%, Attack +10%)

Oliver: …

He stared blankly at the three words ‘Cat God’, which were practically etched into his mind, and fell into a long silence.

If he remembered correctly, the ring in the game with this effect and appearance should have been the top-tier item called the [Galaxy Ring].

He also vaguely recalled that a level 2 or higher Fishing skill did have a chance of yielding extra output, and the [Galaxy Ring][mfn]
(iridium band in the game)[/mfn], nicknamed the “Lucky Emperor Ring [mfn]Chinese slang meaning supreme luck.[/mfn]” by players, was one of the extra outputs with the lowest probability.

How could the name [Galaxy Ring] have been replaced with [Ring of the Cat God]?

Oliver was in a rare state of confusion and speechlessness.

And Cat God… wasn’t that just an affectionate nickname he had casually made up for the statue of the God of Wealth?

“Your Highness?”

Because Oliver had his back to his attendants and had collected the ring too quickly, Fosse and the others hadn’t seen that a deep blue ring had been hooked along with that unusually ferocious pike.

Fosse asked with concern, “Is Your Highness tired? Perhaps we should head back first?”

“Mm,” Oliver replied distractedly. “It’s fine. Let’s continue for now.”

It was a pity that, setting aside the fact that his game system was incomplete, its nature as a single-player game alone meant there would never be any customer service staff to answer his questions.

Slowly, Oliver cast his fishing line again, unable to stop himself from continuing to fish.

After obtaining the [Ring of the Cat God]—a prize that would be envied by thousands of unlucky players—Oliver’s heaven-defying luck did not continue before his energy was completely depleted. Although he did fish up another extra reward later, it was just two pieces of ordinary lumber.

He didn’t care much about them, merely glancing at the lumber before casually storing it in his game backpack.

At that moment, most of Oliver’s attention was clearly focused on the [Ring of the Cat God], which he couldn’t wear for the time being but had sparked a myriad of questions in his mind.

What on earth was going on?

However, after pondering for a long time, the only conclusion he could barely reach was, “Perhaps the name change was a mutation that occurred when the game system transmigrated with me into this era, an era filled with the worship and faith of different Gods.”

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