33 Risen#re - Chapter 351

Lirian returned to the Red Boar, completely unseen, and slipped into Bell’s room.

When he returned he gave Bell some food that he swiped from the kitchen on his way in, he couldn’t allow him to starve to death after all.

As Bell happily feasted on the food Lirian provided, Lirian closed his eyes and let his thoughts run free in his mind.

Lirian had to admit, that he kept trying to overestimate the power of his charm, but every single time his charm seemed like it wanted to defy his expectations.

Lirian was still uncertain of how exactly it was working, was it some pheromone his body was releasing, was it some intangible power mixed into his presence, did some strange change occur in the chemistry of a person’s brain when they looked at him.

Lirian still had no idea, but today he discovered that his charm was unbelievably powerful, what he had just done was something that only extremely powerful psychics were able to do, and it would come with great mental strain.

Yet it cost Lirian no energy, nor did it tax his mind in the slightest, he managed to influence tens of thousands of people, simply by speaking, he influenced them to go on a ‘crusade’ of sorts, and even as they were killed they didn’t lose their fate.

Even when they retreated, there wasn’t a single person who dared to voice a word of complaint about him not coming to their aid in their time of need.

In fact, there were those with zealous fervour, who were shouting that the attack was a test from god, to test their conviction, to test their hearts.

Lirian sighed as he thought of those people, they were a disappointment to him in all honesty, he never did like those kinds of people, those who claim that victory is from God, and loss is God’s punishment unto them, to test their resolve and conviction.

That said, Lirian did think that it would be useful to have such followers from time to time, their fanatism could prove useful in some situations.

The scene of them holding their ground against a cavalry charge that repeatedly trampled over them was all the proof Lirian needed, if he could create some cultivators out of those fanatics, they would be useful.

If they could be so fervent in the face of certain death, then their value would be immense.

The thing that made Lirian the happiest was that he forced House Kurt to open their gates and show themselves, now they wouldn’t be able to continue turtling up in their keep.

Lirian was looking forward to seeing how they were going to try to resolve the entire refugee situation.

Their initial attack was justified due to the manner in which the refugees were storming into the city and causing damage but if they started a slaughter again, they would completely lose the trust of their people.

As a result the villagers would refuse to pay their taxes to the minor nobles, and in turn the minor nobles would refuse to pay House Kurt their taxes, which would cause House Kurt to take a severe hit on their revenue, which would only be elevated when the high noble house that House Kurt was subjected to came to collect their taxes from House Kurt.

The remedy to the situation was simple but currently, it wasn’t viable, ordinarily, if a village refused to pay its taxes the lord would send troops to take it by force, but currently, House Kurt couldn’t afford to send any of its elite troops to collect taxes, as House Kurt was currently engaging in a battle that could escalate into a war at any time.

If House Kurt were to use anything less than elite troops to gather taxes, the odds were that they would be killed and robbed before they could return with the taxes.

Lirian sighed in admiration of the ingenuity of his own plan and closed his eyes to get some rest, a new day would be arriving soon, and he was willing to bet that there was going to be a storm.

—

Lirian awoke the next morning and yawned widely, before climbing off the pellet and getting ready for another day of work in the Red Boar.

Lirian followed the same old schedule, as the day before, he went out into the back, while the fog still clung to the blades of grass forming drops of dew on the ground and started to chop some wood for the fires.

He was early this time, so he didn’t have to worry about ‘Old Buch’, after the hour passed he brought back all his chopped up firewood, and proceeded to the kitchens where he helped with cleaning and chopping some of the vegetables.

That simple time quickly ended, when Lirian received his first request to play the lute.

When Lirian reached the room in which he was being requested to play, he found that it was filled with familiar faces, in fact, it was identical to his first request the day before.

Anthea, Stella and Selma, were sitting together once again and spiritedly discussed the events of the night, and shared what their families thought about.

“…I don’t see how this is going to do anything else other than hike the price of food,” Stella was saying when Lirian entered with the lute in his hand ready to play.

The three ladies all smiled warmly to Lirian as he entered, and Lirian paid attention to Anthea in particular, he wanted to see if Lady Liberia told her anything by gauging her reaction, but she seemed the same as she was the day before.

“Can you play ‘Hidden Coves’?” Anthea requested at once, she was very enthusiastic to hear some of her favourite songs played by Lirian, if he could make a simple song like ‘Tranquillity Upon the Seas’ sound so amazing, she couldn’t wait to hear what her favourites would sound like.

Lirian nodded, Bell was familiar with many a song, and ‘Hidden Coves’ was a moderately difficult song to play, but nothing beyond Bell’s skill level.

Silence filled the room just as the day before, and the ladies listened to the songs in wonder, they requested the song be repeated several times before finally moving on to different songs.

It wasn’t long before they started requesting songs that Lirian didn’t know at all, so they settled for some simpler songs, but not before stating that they would bring Lirian some song sheets of their favourites.

Lirian was incredibly surprised, to a bard like Bell such song sheets were worth more than gold, if he claimed to know some of those songs and played them, he’d be invited to play in the halls of any noble.

As Lirian started to play some simple songs the ladies resumed their conversation.

“All these refugees are going to do a lot more than just make the price of food increase,” Selma said to Stella in an exaggerated tone.

“Just this morning my carriage had to come to a complete halt because of a refugee,” Selma complained while clutching her heart.

“You should have seen him, the man looked like he was suffering from a dozen different plagues, and he was coughing out horrendous amounts of blood all over the street,” Selma continued speaking in an exaggerated tone, as she spoke of the sick refugee, like he was a demonic creature of death.