Serfs were not only responsible for farming during busy seasons; they also had to complete tasks assigned by the farm owner at other times. Men were generally assigned heavy physical labor, including feeding livestock, logging, harvesting, winemaking, or carrying heavy loads. Of course, there were also technical tasks, such as making barrels and furniture, repairing houses, and producing Candles and torches.
As for women, they could not be idle either. Their main work was processing raw materials like flax and wool into fabric, followed by spinning, dyeing, and sewing clothes. Some women were also assigned as servants on the farmstead, tasked with washing clothes and cooking. Those who were more attractive sometimes became targets for others to vent their desires—a method farm owners used to control their Guards.
Various tasks occupied most of their time. Anyone caught slacking off would be punished with whipping, starvation, or whatever it took; the farm owner would not let them stop working. Only when night fell could the Serfs, who had toiled all day, finally get a little rest. It wasn’t that the farm owner didn’t want them to continue working, but lighting was an issue at night. The consumption of torches and Candles was too great, making it uneconomical.
Originally, the farm had only a dozen or so Serfs, but their numbers had expanded to nearly a hundred, while the housing remained the same. Consequently, many Serfs didn’t even have space to lie down. They were forced to sit and rely on ropes for Enjoy reading on NovelHub - your free online novel platform. Others were crammed into cowsheds and sheep pens to sleep. Although the stench was overwhelming, at least there was room to lie down.
In this enclosed farm, these people were essentially no different from Slaves. All their labor brought them no return; they were simply working for the farm owner for free. But at least they had some food, which was much better than what most townsfolk had.
The first place they visited was the granary. Upon opening it, they saw it was filled with bags of grain.
"HAHAHA!" After confirming the stock, Lance laughed out loud. Despite having transmigrated, he couldn’t shake his emphasis on food. As the saying goes, "With grain in hand, one does not panic."
Lance desperately needed grain; otherwise, he couldn’t appease the hungry townspeople, and all subsequent actions would depend on having food supplies. After all, if people couldn’t eat their fill, no one would join him against Elder Gan. A revolt would mean trouble in his own backyard, eroding his very foundation.
"Let’s go. To the next one." Lance impatiently moved to the next granary. After inspecting all three, he reached a rough conclusion. The other two granaries weren’t full, but the grain piled inside was enough to feed the townspeople for a year. No wonder the town had been exporting grain before.
Since the grain couldn’t be released to stabilize the market, it just sat there. Meanwhile, consumption by the mercenaries caused liquor prices to rise, so the farm owner began brewing wine to use up the grain and get money from them. The poor had no food, while the rich had enough excess grain to make wine.
Lance went directly to the winery and ordered a stop to this wasteful practice. The Serfs had no choice but to obey his words. Even if they didn’t recognize him, how could they not recognize Reynard’s Knight’s Armor?
The animal pens held pigs, cows, sheep, and chickens. The farm raised these mainly for by-products like milk, wool, and eggs, only using them for meat at the very end—except for pigs, which were raised exclusively for meat. Due to production cutbacks, many products had piled up. Milk was dumped instead of being given to people to drink, and rooms filled with eggs were never distributed.
"Damn it! These people truly deserve to die!" Witnessing such waste of food made Lance’s blood pressure soar. Only a month had passed; otherwise, seeing so many eggs spoil would have been more agonizing to him than being punched.
The Serfs working in the chicken farm didn’t understand why this lord was angry and all looked terrified. However, Lance didn’t vent his anger on them. Instead, like an inspector reviewing his staff, he simply instructed them.
"Work hard," he said. "After today, everything will be better."
The Serfs looked overwhelmed, as if by a great honor. They weren’t accustomed to such treatment, which only made them more flustered.
Lance said nothing more, turned, and left. Once outside, he said sternly, "Let’s go. We’re heading back."
Reynard and Balistan sensed his foul mood and said nothing, simply hurrying to follow.
However, the situation within the manor took Lance by surprise. Dismas had somehow failed and was even being chased. This was because two unexpected women were on the scene. One was the maid from before. The other was an overweight woman, looking to be at least two hundred pounds, who was currently chasing Dismas and shouting insults.
The maid, meanwhile, was pacing anxiously to the side, seemingly unsure what to do.
The intrusion of Lance and his men interrupted the farcical scene, and the chase stopped.
"My lord... I..." Dismas approached Lance, his face etched with embarrassment, clearly ashamed of failing to complete his task.
"It’s fine." Lance didn’t seem to care much. He knew Dismas had sworn an oath not to harm women and children; otherwise, she would have been shot by now. Still, he couldn’t resist teasing with a smile, "None of us here could withstand a charge from her."
Hearing this, Balistan weighed the Shield in his hand. In his youth, he had dared to wrestle bulls, but now he realized he truly wasn’t confident he could block her.
"Who are you? Get out of my house!" the woman roared, her face, already distorted by layers of fat, looking even more ferocious.
"You’re the farm owner’s daughter?" Lance asked, sizing up the obese woman. He understood now why David had been so reluctant when the farm owner previously mentioned his daughter. He had even been a bit envious of David’s supposed dumb luck—narrowly escaping death to marry a wealthy woman and take control of the farm. But now it seemed that sponging off a wealthy woman wasn’t so easy. To control the farm, David had paid a steep price—a burden too heavy for one life to bear.
"Where did she come from?" Lance asked Dismas.
"A servant must have let her out," Dismas replied, looking somewhat helpless. If it were a two-hundred-pound Fatty, he could have taken him down with a single shot, but this was a different challenge. He could only look to Lance for help. "My lord, what should we do?"
"Tricky," Lance said, pulling out his gun. "I say we don’t bother dealing with her."
He was curious whether a Sacrifice of this tonnage would yield greater rewards.
The woman had been bold enough to chase Dismas earlier, but facing Lance’s gun, she froze. Her fatty flesh trembled, all traces of her previous arrogance gone.
A classic case of bullying the weak and fearing the strong.
Seeing Lance draw his gun without a word terrified the farm owner. David’s death was still fresh in his mind, and now the gun was aimed at his own daughter.
"Wait!" the farm owner exclaimed, rushing out to stand in front of his daughter.