Chapter 13: Bandit Footprints

This is called silver salmon locally. It has a green line on its back and its belly is covered with silver scales.

But it doesn't look like an adult fish yet. It's only slightly longer than the palm of your hand, but it's still quite fleshy.

Olivia didn't expect to actually catch any fish. She walked over in surprise. The miller's child had already taken the two fish off the hook with quick eyes and hands. He took out the small knife at his waist, cut off the fish heads and internal organs in a few strokes, and buried them in the snow beside him.

It can be seen that this child often does things like this. He is very skillful and almost as clever as Adam.

Olivia continued to hang up the pig liver bait, sat down on the chair, and looked at the child slowly.

He was probably the miller's youngest son, and the miller was the person who managed the grain handed over from the fiefdom, and was considered the head of the village. His family had accumulated some wealth over the years by managing the mill.

The child was wearing a thick felt robe with several layers of robes stuffed inside, and leather boots. It was hard to tell how old he was, but he was probably about the same age as Adam.

However, he looked older than Adam and was very perceptive. When he watched her fishing, he didn't come over to talk, but just kept adding firewood to the fire to ensure it didn't go out. Only when he caught a fish would he wait until Adam was happy enough before taking it and cleaning it up.

Olivia secretly observed for a while, and seeing that there were seven or eight salmon and pike of different sizes lying on the snow nearby, she decided to take them back and cook.

After packing up his tools, Adam fried all the fish he had caught into a bunch and carried them with him, then followed Olivia back to the manor.

Looking back, I could see the miller's children putting out the fire and packing up the things they had taken from his house.

"Adam, what's his name? How old is he?"

"His name is Ethan Declan, the miller's youngest son, about my age.

He has two older brothers and one older sister. His second brother is called Rig, his eldest brother is called Tani, and his sister is called Alice. Tani is eighteen years old and is an infantryman serving the Knight.

Rig and Alice are sixteen and fourteen respectively, and both work as helpers at the mill. My father always says that Ethan and Alice are the most capable siblings in their family.”

"I see."

Olivia lowered her head and thought. Before unlocking the attribute function, she didn't want to make the offer rashly, but she had already kept an eye on this child and would see if she could train him in the future.

When they returned to the manor, she asked Adam to take the fish to the kitchen and wait for her to cook it. She then went to take a look at the livestock area that was under construction in the back.

Behind the kitchen, three farmhouses are enclosed together. The foundation of the courtyard in the middle has been compacted. A group of craftsmen are processing building materials here. When my parents came, they also sent the leather craftsman from their fiefdom, who is now also working hard to push the bark with a knife.

After a whole day, we have seen some initial results. At least half of the foundation has been laid, and there are dozens of processed timbers piled next to it. Once the foundation is laid, we can start building.

She went back to the kitchen and saw the cook preparing thick oatmeal porridge for the craftsmen and workers, mixed with smoked offal and meat. Then she turned around, took out the fish she had caught today, and went to the stove to cook it.

Lucy wanted to learn how to cook, so she came over to watch. The lady first took some salted lemons, broke open the flesh, removed the soft and golden flesh, chopped the lemon peel into small pieces, put it into the pot, and casually added some chopped vanilla and caraway seeds from the seasoning table.

Caraway seeds look similar to fennel and have a slightly lemony and spicy taste, which can remove fishy smells.

For example, the wild boar meat we had these days was pickled with caraway seeds, sea salt, rosemary, sage and other local dried herbs.

After making some sour and spicy sauce, Olivia asked Lucy to help cook the fish. She peeled the fish and deboned it, put it on a plate, rubbed a little salt on it, and put it in a cast iron pot. She turned it upside down in another bowl and steamed it. When it was all steamed, she poured the sauce on it and drizzled it with a little fried butter.

There's more to dinner than just this, Olivia has started developing new ways to use wheat flour: frying!

Lucy also uses local materials. These days, she squeezes goat milk every day and ferments it to make cheese.

Mix these cheeses with flour, add a few eggs, some yeast, butter and a little honey, knead them, put them over the fire to ferment for a while, cut them into small pieces, melt the butter in a narrow pan, and fry them on all sides until golden brown.

If you have vegetable oil, you can fry it directly, but we don’t have any here, so we can only fry it with butter mixed with a little lard.

A few days ago, the cook skillfully used wild boar fat to make a large jar of snow-white lard, without wasting any corners.

At the same time, Olivia did not forget the ugly apples in the corner of the kitchen. She peeled and cut them into pieces, added the lemon pulp, and cooked them into a paste. She then scooped a large spoonful of crystallized honey and threw it in.

Half an hour later, the sweet sauce was almost cooked. Lucy was asking what the fried bread was called when she suddenly caught a glimpse of her wife standing there in a daze for a moment.

At dinner time, Caesar came out of the bedroom after washing up, sleepy-eyed, and immediately smelled the greasy aroma of noodles.

He went downstairs and walked into the dining room, where he saw the servants setting out food in styles he had never seen before: golden, creamy bread, grilled meat, and fish.

"Ah, you're awake, come and eat." Olivia waved at him, using the same tone as she waved to the kitten.

Caesar scratched his head and sat down. He saw Olivia tear open a fried bread, dip it in apple sauce, and handed it to him, saying, "Eat more."

For some unknown reason, Caesar felt that his wife was a little abnormal today, but he still took it and took a bite.

Suddenly, the whole mouth is filled with the aroma of milk and butter, and the sweetness of apple and honey, which stimulates the taste buds.

And the fish on the table was very delicious and tender. I don’t know how it was cooked.

However, as they ate, Caesar noticed that his wife seemed to be thinking about other things. She would eat for a while, then stop for a while, and would always stroke her ring. He observed her secretly without asking any questions, as he felt that he would not get any answers.

However, because the food today was so delicious, Olivia still ate three or four fried yogurt breads, a few pieces of fish, and the meat grilled by the cook.

After dinner, Caesar, as usual, paid attention to what had happened on the estate that afternoon and the work done by the steward. The craftsmen and working tenants all went home.

Finally, Adam was asked to call the entourage to come and plan the route for the night patrol.

Olivia sat by the fireplace in the dining room, knitting, practicing needlework, and listening from time to time. At the same time, she turned on the system and checked the map, finding several unfamiliar footprints wandering in the dense forest north of the village.

On the map, she could see all the large animals and human footprints in the fiefdom.

Everyone has their own punctuation marks and annotations. Inside the manor, she can see everyone's name. Outside the manor's walls, she can see the villagers' green footprints. At this time, there are still a few villagers in the mountains picking up branches.

However, just a few miles ahead of the logging area planned by the steward, at the edge of the forest belonging to the Knight of Traussini's fiefdom, there were several red footprints that would occasionally cross over for a while, then disappear and reappear for a while. She counted them carefully while eating and found that there were about seven or eight people on the other side.

Obviously, these people are definitely not villagers, so they are enemies.

Squire George was just saying that: "There are a lot of people in the forest today, and there are people gathering branches. We can go directly to the river tonight."

They were on night shift and had to patrol a total of three or four surrounding villages, but first they had to go to the manor of another knight on duty to meet up with him. They could go to his place by the river or into the woods.

The river is closer, and it takes an hour to ride back and forth on horseback. If you go along the woods, you will pass through two or three nearby villages, and you can patrol a larger area, but the distance is more than doubled.

Caesar was the youngest knight under the baron. Some of the older knights around him were either too old or perfunctory in their work. They often went out and went home to sleep after work. Few of them did their patrol work seriously.

Therefore, Caesar could only choose to work harder and visit as many places as possible. As expected, he denied George's words, still took the road in the forest, and warned George not to be lazy.

Olivia listened from the side and leaned back in her chair with relief.

She would not tell Caesar that there were enemies there, otherwise if the news got out she might be taken away and burned as a witch.

Although the witch hunt has not yet begun, there are too many ignorant and fearful people these days.

However, she was very confident in the system settings. Caesar was a carefully designed character who was always conscientious and capable. She had spent so many game points on him and maxed out his combat power.

He could handle these few small bandits by himself without any help from his entourage.

Just when Olivia was regretting that she should have allocated some points to her luck value to reduce the chance of triggering bandits, Caesar had already determined the route with George, informed her, and stood up to put on his armor.

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