The Defeated Dragon Chapter 133

133 – Good Afternoon, Gort

The Lisztscope was divided into two types, the long tube and the short tube. The long tube, whose magnification reached over thirty time, was the telescope used to observe the moon. The short tube was a portable telescope that he was going to forge for the knight squad; it could be lengthened and shortened and its magnification was about fifteen times at best.

The twenty convex and concave lenses could only form one long tube and three short tubes. The remaining lenses were substandard.

He gave the lenses to Carter: “Mr. Carter, try them out and see which of them can magnify. You can use them to read.”

Carter was old and had poor eyesight. It was natural for him to be elated when he received magnifying lenses.

The long tube stayed in the castle. Of the three short tubes, Liszt carried one, Marcus' knight squad got one, and Karl's patrol team got the last one.

Originally, Liszt still planned to detain the crystal craftsman Brad with a high salary, but the other party declined without hesitation. Although, the Flower Town was developing quickly, but when compared to the Coral City, there was still a great gap. It could not attract a freedman craftsmen with a good social status like himself.

Isaiah's family came to the flower town to visit him, but when he tried to persuade them to stay, they similarly declined without hesitation. His son even said: “You must be kidding! There isn't even a single brothel here!”

Gort's family also came to the Flower Town to visit him. They stayed for two days before leaving.

Anyway, as an aristocrat, his descendants weren't bad off and naturally didn't want to live in the countryside. His wife, on the other hand, wanted to stay in the Flower Town. However, she was refused by Gort due to a very good reason – the Flower Town was too barren and he didn't want her to go through hardship.

In fact, he was afraid that his wife would discover Freya. Freya's belly was already protruding by a bit.
“Sir Lord, I heard that you invented a telescope that can be used to see far away?” Captain Kosto had hurried to the castle once he heard of this news, “Can the Flower be equipped with a telescope? Sailing the sea requires a very good field of vision. A telescope can provide us with tremendous help.”

It was a very reasonable request.

Liszt felt a slight knot in his chest. The long tube ‘Lisztscope', which stayed in the castle, should be suitable for sailing. But it was what he used to explore the universe.

After thinking it over, he said: “Captain Kosto, go back and train your apprentice sailors first. The logging team will soon open the road to the wharf. The Flower Town's wharf is about to be established. You can familiarize yourself with the the wharf and its vicinity first. As for the telescope, you'll get one.”

After sending Kosto away, Liszt reluctantly took out a crystal and handed it to Thomas: “When the Flower Caravan's transport team returns, hand it over to the person in charge. Tell them to ask the crystal craftsman Brad to carve two sets of number 3 and number 17 lenses.” Number 3 and number 17 lenses were the lens models necessary to assemble a long tube telescope.

For Liszt, the matter with the telescopes was more akin to busywork.

After figuring out what he could, he no longer fiddled with the telescope and in fact, had no interest in it any longer. He spent an entire day looking at the moon and stars, yet he didn't find any secrets regarding how the universe operated.

In order to relieve his boredom, he took Tremblingwoods to inspect the work of the logging team.

To the north of the dairy farm was a large tract of thorns shrubs, which was the area covered by the thorns sprite worm's worm stalk. Besides ordinary thorns, the majority were fast-growing types of thorns, which comprised of the fast-growing poisonous thorns and fast-growing spiky thorns. It was unknown whether the thorns sprite worm chain mission would have a follow-up.

To the northeast of the thorns shrubs was the work site of the logging team.

The site was buzzing with activity and thick smoke surged.

A number of serfs shed beads of sweat as they cut down large trees. Some chopped down tree trunks with axes, others saw branches with saws, yet others hacked leaves with machetes, still others stacked tree trunks together, stacked branches together, and carried leaves to bonfires to be burned.

The bonfires served both to threaten the beasts and magic beasts as well as to produce plant ash, which would be used as fertilizer when reclaiming uncultivated land in the future.

The clerks and patrolmen shuttled among the serfs, frequently berating, scolding, and urging them to work hard. Gort, Isaiah, Blair, and Karl, each of them commanded a large group of serfs to maintain order at the scene. Marcus took the knight squad to patrol the surroundings.

Gort trotted over when he saw Liszt: “Sir, good afternoon.”

“Good afternoon, Teacher Gort.” Liszt greeted him, “There should be a quarter of the town's population here. How long do you think it will take to cut down the trees in the Thorns Ridge?”

“With enough tools, it would only take twenty weeks, no, it might only take two weeks. However, there aren't enough tools, Sir. Many people have to share an axe, a saw, or a machete. This is too wasteful. Even though the serfs responded enthusiastically to your call, but they still can't display their full strength.”

“I already had the Flower Caravan purchase tools from various cities. Iron tools are very expensive, while bone tools are very brittle… I hope that Father can plunder some iron ore. Otherwise, the current lack of iron will never be solved.”

Without metals and gems, and with few sprites, this was the reason why aristocrats were keen on vying over the continent rather than staying safe and secure on their islands. Oftentimes, it was a last resort. If they weren't so narrow-minded, they might have developed technologies to make up for this gap, but they were, so they could only go plunder resources from the continent to make up for the deficiencies.

Why had the Eagle Kingdom been repeatedly harassed by the Sapphire Grand Duchy? That was because they had a white iron dragon, which was capable of producing a lot of iron ore.

Steel was probably the most useful metal among all metals.

Therefore, as long as the Steel Ridge Kingdom issued a call to arms, the Sapphire Grand Duchy would promptly issue an expedition decree and the aristocracy would rush like a swarm of bees to burn, kill, and pillage.

Liszt mused at times: “Why do I always feel like the Sapphire Grand Duchy is a bunch of Japanese pirates in a different world?” [1]

Taking advantage of the fact that they were an overseas state and that their fleet was developed, they attacked the continent's kingdom in an unbridled fashion. Hit and run, they repeated this play every year. Despite being lacking in skill, they still succeeded every year. The count had been to the continent a lot of times.
Little by little, he cumulated such a large property like the Coral Island.

“Sir, because of the logging work, the town's construction projects have temporarily been suspended. The autumn harvest is around the corner and the barley settlement and wheat settlement might lack manpower.”

“When the harvest date is confirmed, it won't be too late to transfer back the manpower.” Liszt suddenly thought of something and looked at Gort, “Teacher Gort, how long has it been since you followed me to the Flower Town?”

Gort was taken aback for a moment before responding: “Sir, you were enfeoffed as the Flower Town's baron on March 9th. We set off the next day and arrived at the Flower Town on the afternoon of the same day. Today is September 23rd. It's been six months and two weeks.”

“Six months and a half passed by in an instant.”

“However, the Flower Town of today is not the Flower Town of six months ago. It's full of vigor.”
“That's right, I'm very satisfied with the Flower Town's development.” While atop Blackdragon, Liszt slowly rode ahead. The world in front of him had already integrated into a whole. “But what I'm satisfied with the most is the change in mentality, Teacher Gort. Six months ago, you were always ready to have a drink, yet now, you know to first finish your work before having a drink. You'll even delay drinking for your work.”

Gort smiled embarrassedly: “People slack off after getting older. Fortunately, I came to the Flower Town and recovered the confidence and fighting spirit of my youth.”

“I'm very pleased with your change.” Liszt looked into the distance and continued: “A group of 500 serfs should arrive in a few days. I want you to come up with a settlement plan. Instead of just settling the serfs, I want you to come up with a comprehensive plan that takes the future of the Flower Town into consideration, Adviser.”

When he heard the word ‘adviser', Gort's pupils suddenly enlarged.

[1] – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wokou

Chapter end