Knights and Magic Wand
Chapter 78 - 78 59 Recruiting Servants

78: Chapter 59 Recruiting Servants 78: Chapter 59 Recruiting Servants The girl was not hard to find, Leon saw her right outside her row house, discussing something with Brian the Blacksmith.

Baron Eriv had left, so the old blacksmith didn’t make her hide inside anymore.

Leon did harbor some suspicions, though—if he was truly worried about the girl being coveted by those noble masters…wasn’t Knight Balfe still staying in the village?

Was Uncle Bryan not afraid that the scar-faced noble knight would take a liking to his precious daughter?

Despite his doubts, Leon didn’t have much time to think further.

He approached them and greeted them briefly before asking about any vacant houses in the village.

Brian the Blacksmith pondered for a moment and then directly pointed to the house next to his own.

“If you don’t mind the size, the house next door, you could take it as your own.”

Hearing the old blacksmith’s formal address to him, Leon felt somewhat unaccustomed to it, as Olivia was already his close friend.

It felt strange to hear her father being overly respectful.

He looked up at the two-story residential house that temporarily housed a few injured people.

It wasn’t much different from Olivia’s home, featuring the same half-timbered stonework architecture, with an extended second floor, a wooden beam frame, and stone brick walls, topped with a sloped roof.

He had rested there the previous night—it was definitely spacious, with several rooms inside.

If one didn’t consider the modern conveniences from his previous life, and just the space of this house alone, it was many times larger than the expensive concrete box he had bought in an urban area on Earth.

That didn’t even include the backyard, which was the same size as Olivia’s.

“Were the original owners of this house among the casualties?” Leon asked.

Hearing this, a sadness appeared in Olivia’s eyes.

Mr.

Brian Sr.

sighed helplessly, “The house next door belonged to Matt’s family, the village carpenter.

He and I built this row of houses years ago with our own money.

Now, his entire family has met with tragedy, and the house is unclaimed.”

Leon silently mourned for the deceased, “Were their bodies recovered?”

Olivia nodded, “Uncle Matt’s family’s bodies are currently placed together with the other victims.

My father and I were just discussing this.”

“Are you facing any difficulties?” Leon then asked the girl.

“Thanks to Baron’s help, the bodies of the Kantadar people were buried in pits dug by the soldiers yesterday, but for the villagers, we still need to handle the bodies soon.

However, we lack manpower, and at this rate, it might take more than a week to excavate sufficient graves,” Olivia replied with a frown.

This was the problem—people could wait, but the rapidly decomposing bodies could not.

There were so many bodies, and the villagers didn’t have the means to preserve each one.

Leon noticed the worry on the girl’s face, and he realized that arranging burials for over a hundred bodies was indeed no easy task.

These were not enemy corpses; they couldn’t just dig a mass grave and bury them haphazardly.

It would’ve been simpler in Seryan, as the Holy Sun Church advocated cremation.

Except for saintly remains, most people were cremated in the Church’s facilities and then their ashes were put in urns and buried in tombs.

But in the Orland Kingdom, the populace still maintained the tradition of burial.

“Don’t worry, now that Selva is my domain, I will help too.”

Leon continued, “In a moment I will go to Longka and Platon with Lord Balfe to recruit labor to help create a new cemetery.

Also, does the village have enough coffins?”

“We don’t normally have wooden coffins here, and now that Uncle Matt is gone, we don’t even have a carpenter who can make them,” Olivia replied helplessly.

After speaking, she suddenly realized and asked in surprise, “Are you…going to prepare coffins for all the villagers?”

“Yes, I am.

Why?” Leon countered.

“Even the simplest wooden coffin would cost ten Dier, not to mention the transportation costs from outside the village, which might add another two Dier.

For most villagers, burying in a coffin isn’t cheap,” the old blacksmith kindly explained.

Leon then understood that they were worried about him wasting money.

Even though he had the memories of the original owner, the expenses of funeral arrangements were indeed not something a young person would typically understand.

Leon calculated, one hundred and twenty-four coffins, including transportation costs, would cost about fifteen gold crowns.

A single coffin might not seem expensive to him, but the costs added up when bought in bulk, enough to maintain a suitable warhorse for more than a year.

“Let’s do this, for families like Matt’s, where everyone has perished without any surviving members, I, as the lord, will pay for the coffins.

For others who still have living family members, I’ll cover the coffin costs for now, and the villagers can repay me later once they receive the ransom from the prisoners,” Leon proposed a compromise.

“Thank you, Leon, you are truly a good lord,” Olivia expressed her gratitude sincerely.

“Actually, you don’t need to go to such lengths,” the old blacksmith reminded the young knight.

“Many villagers, even while alive, couldn’t afford coffins for their deceased relatives and would just wrap them in linen for burial.”

“I know, consider it a bit of responsibility I want to fulfill as a lord.”

Leon understood how costly a coffin was for ordinary peasants, but he shrugged, “If I can’t even attend to these deceased’s final matters, then I don’t deserve to have other living subjects.”