The Villain Changed the Ending

070 something is happening

***[Heroine Oscar]***

The escorts are soldiers who exist only for the Duke.

They don’t need to take orders from anyone but me.

Even Benno, the head butler, couldn’t interfere with their decision.

The escorts and Benno were in a cooperative relationship, and someone did not take the lead and give the order.

The scope of the escort was also limited to the Duke and Duchess, and the successor.

They have to react quickly whenever my circumstances change, or whenever I take an unexpected step somewhere.

Wherever I go, one of them must always accompany me.

For that reason, they were building their own system so that they could quickly decide and move anything within the organization.

There are various types of people, including not only escort soldiers, but also those who manage the escort’s horses and weapons, handle the affairs within the escort, check equipment and deliver it to the management department, and set the escort’s leave and turn according to my schedule. there is.

Slave No. 13, Gleuk, has been chasing the escort for the time being and doing the lowest job, such as chores and cleaning up horse manure.

After indifferently listening to such an explanation, Gleuk stood at the very edge of the escort.

He lowers his head a little and quietly follows with a blunt expression on his face.

The moisture around his eyes, which had been visible for a while when he named it, disappeared before he knew it, and he had the expressionless face he had seen for the first time.

But perhaps because of my mood, my face seemed to brighten just a little bit.

I’m not sure if that’s what I’m hoping for.

I took my eyes off Gleuk and turned to the official.

“Isn’t the manager here yet?”

At my words, the official of the fortress city lowered his head in embarrassment.

“Sorry, Duke. The sugarcane field is so large that it’s hard to find it once you go out there. Besides, once he’s absorbed in his work, he spends hours crouching in the field…”

There are two people who rule this fortress city.

One was a mercenary captain who raised and trained slave soldiers, and the other was a duke official in charge of cultivating sugar cane and making it into sugar.

Because I didn’t contact you before coming here, the management manager was out in the sugarcane field without knowing that I had come.

I sent a call as soon as I arrived, but I haven’t met yet, and the person in charge hasn’t returned.

“Then let’s go to the field. I want to see the field.”

“I… do you really want to go?”

In my opinion, the official was reluctant.

“The field is very large. Even if you go out, you can only see real sugarcane, Duke. Besides, it may be dangerous because it is outside the castle. Beasts appear by mistake, monsters appear, and, again, there are a lot of insects. “

“It’s okay. If it’s a beast, it won’t come close when there are people around, and since I have escorts for demon beasts. Besides, I’m used to insects.”

From the official’s point of view, the high-ranking aristocrat seemed to be something like a delicate piece of glass art.

I smiled brightly at the embarrassed official face.

Rather than looking for the person in charge and hearing the report, I wanted to see the results with my own eyes.

‘Because I just started making sugar properly.’

This is the culmination of my efforts.

He retrieved sugarcane seedlings from distant continents through trade ships, and researched sugarcane cultivation methods by mobilizing all of his knowledge that he did not have in his head with the management manager.

Even if you get sugar cane seedlings, it is useless if you don’t grow them properly to make sugar.

However, it was not that someone taught them how to grow or process them.

I asked the captain of the trade ship for information, but he couldn’t figure out anything deep either.

At first, I failed a lot.

Sugar cane needs to be processed quickly as soon as it is harvested. Otherwise, it hardened. Not knowing that, the first year of farming was almost ruined.

The hardest part was getting the right amount of water needed.

I went through many trials and errors.

I knew sugarcane cultivation required a lot of water, but I never thought that it would require watering thirty times a year.

I chose this place close to the river to get water, but I had to do a new construction to pull the water stream to each field.

‘It was fortunate that there were rice fields in our country.’

It is difficult to see rice fields in the city, but Koreans are familiar with rice fields.

When I made this sugar cane field, I remembered the vague rice field and imitated the watering method.

The method is simple.

After digging a deep ditch to let the water flow, make a groove for the water to flow into each field.

And when adjusting the quantity, the hole was closed or opened.

Well, I’m not sure if that was a real way to water the rice fields, but if you think about it with all the memories left in your memory, it will be roughly similar.

Sometimes, when I went near the paddy field, I remembered seeing the hole blocked by something like vinyl or a bundle of clothes.

‘Even if it’s not, it doesn’t matter now.’

It’s going well anyway. It won’t matter what the truth is like now.

“To think that a person of high status like the Duke went directly to the sugar cane fields where the slaves work.”

I headed out of the fortified city, following the official who muttered something in awe.

‘I want to grow sugar beets someday.’

I’ve seen somewhere that sugar can be made from sugar beets as well as sugarcane.

But I don’t know what beets look like.

I searched everywhere, but no one knew that it was sugar beet.

In the case of sugar cane, the route was easy to find because sugar was already entering the country, but sugar beet itself seems to be unknown.

‘I couldn’t imagine that there was a world without sugar.’

As I headed towards the sugarcane fields, I smiled lightly.

When I first found out about it, I was shocked.

Most of the sweet foods in this world are made from honey, and since there are no beekeeping, it is all natural honey.

Honey was a fairly expensive food because it was collected from high trees, rock crevices, and places like that while looking for beehives.

Sugar is much more expensive than honey.

There are many commoners who do not know about the existence of sugar, and even among nobles, poor families do not use sugar.

Can not use it.

Because sugar that comes from the continent beyond the distant sea by boat is really really expensive.

The fruit pickles and drinks that Benno always prepared for me were made partly with the finest honey and partly with sugar.

The fact that I ate sweet fruit drinks and pickled fruits from a young age seems to have been partly to show off the prestige of a high-ranking aristocrat.

Sugar, which is common on Earth, is a rare food that commoners can hardly see even once, and I did not even think that it was to show off its prestige.

Let’s ride a horse for a while, and the sugar cane field came into sight.

Things far taller than people fill up in front of my eyes.

Because sugarcane is several times taller than a person, even on horseback, it could not be seen far away.

“Certainly… it won’t be easy to find people in a place like this.”

As I muttered, the official smiled while wiping away sweat.

“That’s right. It’s really hard to find if you haven’t informed them where you’re going beforehand.”

Sugarcane looks exactly like a corn tree without corn.

Well, originally it might be grass, but since it looks like a tree, let’s call it a tree.

I raised my head and looked up at the green leaves.

The sugarcane trees were so tall that I felt like a little man in the land of giants.

While looking around the field for a while, the long stems and leaves swayed and the person in charge suddenly appeared.

“Duke?”

I don’t know I’m here, I think I was just getting a call that I had arrived.

“You look… so gorgeous.”

At my words, the face of the person in charge died.

“… I’m sorry. Dressed like this. I was rushing to change clothes.”

He was obviously fully dressed at home, but now he is half-naked.

He was wearing only a shirt and pants, with the sleeves rolled up to his shoulders, and the front chest, which was tightened with a string, almost loose.

On her legs, she was wearing strange sandals that looked like sandals.

It is barefoot.

It seems that he chose to give in to this heat rather than save face.

“It’s okay. It looks cool and nice. How about making sugar?”

“I think we will be able to start selling white sugar from this year. Of course, the quantity is still small, but we are finally getting enough quality to commercialize it.”

At the mention of sugar, the director’s face lit up.

Originally obtained from sugar cane, sugar is brown in color.

However, the high-grade sugar distributed in this country was white.

Brown is not considered a luxury item.

It needed to be white sugar to sell to nobles.

However, the method of refining sugar to make it white is a secret known only to countries across the continent.

The information I knew was pretty rough, so I had a really hard time making the sugar white.

The method used now is charcoal refining.

It takes a lot of time and money.

In order to obtain more and faster fine white sugar in the future, we must focus on technological development.

And it required an enormous amount of labor.

Growing sugarcane, cutting it down and crushing it to make juice, boiling it, and drying it in the sun to obtain sugar crystals, all of which require human hands.

All were borrowing the hands of slaves.

I feel like a vicious farmer who uses slaves from the distant past of the earth to make a living.

‘No, it’s not a feeling, it’s actually like that.’

The feeling is endlessly falling to the floor.

I looked at the busy slave, careful not to show it on his face.

“Take care that the treatment of the slaves is not too bad.”

“Of course. I know very well where the duke is concerned and where he is hurting. I won’t do anything to make you sad.”

After saying that, the manager smiled softly.

“Don’t worry. The captain and I really do care about the slaves. Nowhere in the country, slaves are treated as well as in our Duchy.”

“… okay.”

This person in charge is also a person who has been by my side since I was a child.

In order to keep the sugar cane secret, officials who come to this city cannot bring their families.

So was the manager.

It must be lonely and difficult because I am always alone, but the anguish is for my heart without showing any signs.

I am truly blessed in this world.

Suddenly, the manager’s eyes became half-moon.

“I am really happy to see you after a long time. Are you staying here for a few days? There are so many things I want to show you and report. “

“In the sugar cane field?”

“Yes. Sugar cane has a lot of moisture so it doesn’t burn. Only the leaves and useless things burn nicely. You can only see the wide field burning brightly from here.”

It feels like being the Roman Emperor Nero.

I smiled and shrugged.

“Sorry, but I have to leave tomorrow morning. I will cross the river to another estate.”

“Are you crossing the river?”

The manager was startled and shook his head.

“No, Duke. The river these days is dangerous.”

“…”

“Everyone is quiet, so rumors didn’t spread much, but I heard that there was an accident recently caused by a witch beast living in the river. A month ago, there was an accident where the boat was attacked by a witch beast and the floor collapsed.”

“The witch…?”

“Yes. We don’t know what caused it. But sometimes people say people were eaten in the river. It’s dangerous.”

The person in charge continued, wiping the sweat dripping down his chin.

“I heard that because of a boat accident, the number of boats floating on the river has decreased this month. Rumors are circulating that the store may have reduced the number of goods because of the accident.

indeed.

I nodded.

The reason I went to another territory this time was because of the wheat trade.

Suddenly, they wanted to sell wheat cheaply, and the lower estate had been asking our family for a doctor.

You’ve probably heard rumors that the Duke’s family is buying a lot of food.

I thought it was strange because there was no business, but if you listen to what the person in charge now says, the store may not have bought wheat.

Transportation costs are higher if roads are used instead of rivers.

There was a possibility that the merchants prioritized purchasing wheat from other places because of the cost.

In the end, when the lower family couldn’t find a place to sell it, they hurriedly brought the story to the duke’s family.

“Since when?”

“I don’t know about that. It seems that the lord nearby is keeping his mouth shut about things related to the river so that rumors don’t spread. It’s not much known yet, so only those in the know know about it.”

I wouldn’t have known if it wasn’t for this wheat trade.

“…”

There is no longer any doubt.

Something is happening to the witch.

I still don’t know what it is.

For some reason, my mind was agitated.

*

A few days later, an order was given to all the mountain keepers in charge of the dukedom’s mountains to investigate them.