The moment Lucian returned to the castle, he spotted Johanna emerging from a side corridor with her two-handed greatsword in hand.
"Lord Evans, the corpse puppets inside the castle lost control after that evil necromancer was killed by you, but we've already cleared them all out." Johanna lowered her eyes and reported with an air of deference.
In her heart, beyond the awe and respect she felt toward the Holy Knight's strength, there was also a fair measure of discontent. He—a Holy Knight of formidable power—had hired their adventurer party for "protection," clearly as a smokescreen to deceive Baron Habero and the necromancer while he conducted his investigation and launched his surprise attack. But because of that, she, her husband, and her younger sister had been dragged, with their meager strength, into a battle between the powerful, and had nearly been killed by that wretched, terrifying owl.
Lucian looked around and asked calmly, "Are there any survivors in the castle? Where are Simon, Betty, Wise, and Mars?"
Johanna was no sheltered girl like Betty. Mature as she was, even with her grievances, she answered the Holy Knight's question with complete seriousness: "Apart from Mr. Mars, there are no living people left in the castle. They were all turned into corpse puppets by the necromancer. Simon detected some disturbance in Grey Mist Town and went to deal with it—he suspects a few corpse puppets that failed to escape got loose there. Mr. Wise and Mr. Mars have been hiding in the storeroom, afraid to come out. And Betty is in the washroom, throwing up."
"Throwing up?" Lucian pinched the spell-casting materials in his left hand.
A look of disgust crossed Johanna's beautiful face as well. "When we were handling the corpse puppets earlier, Betty found the ingredients for what was supposed to be our dinner in the kitchen. They were all rotting chunks of human flesh—with eyeballs, tongues, fingers—all crawling with fat white maggots…"
She was nearly sick just talking about it. The scene was clearly not something she wanted to recall.
Lucian nodded. So the baron had been planning to use rotten corpse poison and the like in the food to make dealing with him easier. But with Cailin and the others dead, those carefully prepared ingredients had lost their appealing facade. "Miss Johanna, you don't need to call me 'lord.' Just call me Mr. Evans. I don't have a title or rank."
Johanna looked up with slight puzzlement and happened to meet Lucian's deep, captivating eyes. She immediately felt as though she had fallen into a vast, dreamlike starry sky, unable to pull herself free, her gaze hazy with admiration. "Alright, Mr. Evans."
Lucian slowly asked about her memories of the earlier battle, and finding nothing amiss, he used a hypnosis spell to subtly alter a few details without triggering Johanna's mental backlash.
"I have no further questions. Johanna, head into Grey Mist Town and help Simon—better not leave him to handle things alone. He might run into trouble." Lucian dismissed the Charm Person spell.
Johanna snapped back to full awareness, both cheeks flushing crimson. She had just been staring blankly at Mr. Evans, finding him utterly charming—how humiliating! She was acting like a lovestruck adolescent girl! Still, with Mr. Evans' extraordinary strength, handsome appearance, refined speech, and gentle demeanor, any woman would likely find him attractive. She just needed to keep it to quiet appreciation.
"Mr. Evans, I'll head to Grey Mist Town right away." Her face felt scorching, so she turned and strode quickly out of the castle.
Lucian watched Johanna leave in silence, then turned and took the opportunity to deal with the minor memory details of Betty, Wise, and Mars one by one, as well as the few traces of battle remaining in the baron's chambers.
……
The dim candle flame flickered in the bedchamber. Lucian addressed Simon, Johanna, and Betty before him: "Thank you for keeping order in Grey Mist Town, and thank you for helping me during the fight. As for the valuables in Baron Habero's castle, per adventurer's agreement, you are entitled to one-tenth. Of the remainder, one-third goes to me, and the rest is to be handled by Viscount Stanley and the Church. Lock your rooms tight and don't give any thieves an opportunity."
Lucian still wanted to maintain his cover identity on the surface. To avoid arousing suspicion from the Church and the nobility, he had not swept up all of Baron Habero's wealth—his handling was consistent with what a passing knight who happened upon such a situation would normally do.
In truth, Baron Habero didn't possess that much in the way of liquid assets. The truly valuable things were his castle, territory, and estates. As for cash, between purchasing infants and children, maintaining a lavish lifestyle, and greasing palms to ensure the bishop and priests in Koseth City wouldn't discover that something was amiss at Grey Mist Town's small chapel, he had only sixty gold thalers left in coins, plus a family heirloom second-level extraordinary weapon called "Boulder."
Nobles in the central and southern regions of the continent, barring the very few at the top, could hardly match the nobles of Altor who held titles and properties—they were lucky to possess even one or two items of Arcane Magic or Divine Arts. Hence the reputation of the continent's most barren lands was well-deserved.
Moreover, Baron Habero's only set of extraordinary armor had already been paid to Hunter as compensation, and Hunter had then pawned it off to purchase materials.
"Twenty gold thalers?" Even a shrewd and composed man like Simon couldn't help swallowing hard, because the one-tenth share wasn't just one-tenth of the coins—it also included the depreciated value of that extraordinary sword. Only assets with a distinctly noble character, like the castle, territory, and estates, were excluded from the calculation.
According to the knowledge Lucian had gained from Natasha, in Altor, apprentice-level extraordinary items were generally worth around ten gold thalers or less. Low-tier items (first and second rank) ranged from dozens to several hundred gold thalers. Mid-tier items (third, fourth, and fifth rank) fetched anywhere from several thousand to tens of thousands of gold thalers. Extraordinary items above that were essentially impossible to value in money—they were traded directly for materials, goods, territory, ports, cities, potions, and knowledge.
But extraordinary items were always expensive and scarce. Not only were they rare, but unless you had entered the magic circles, noble circles, and the like, you couldn't buy one even with gold thalers. If Natasha hadn't known that Lucian possessed near-knight-level strength, she would never have shared this information with him. Victor, for example, had earned roughly a hundred gold thalers a year in the past, yet he had never even touched a single extraordinary item.
"This two-handed greatsword is a second-level extraordinary item. It can bring the wielder's strength close to that of a Third-rank Great Knight, crushing enemies just like Boulder. Though it does have certain strength requirements, its value of a hundred and forty gold thalers isn't expensive." Lucian had originally planned to top up the gold thalers and claim this second-level two-handed greatsword for himself, but it required a full knight's strength just to lift—so he had no choice but to give it up.
At the same time, Lucian silently reflected that he was glad he hadn't given Baron Habero the chance to obtain "Boulder" back then. Otherwise, things would have been far more complicated.