He steadied himself on the desk and stood up. As soon as he left the study, his manservant, Grassfork, hurried after him. "My lord!"
"I'm going back to rest," Leech said.
At his bedroom door, Leech refused the manservant's offer to help make his bed. 'There's a tombstone standing in there, after all. That thing is definitely not a blessing from the Four Gods.'
Closing the door, Leech placed his hand on the tombstone, and the crypt opened.
He lit a torch and walked into the crypt.
'This stench...'
The farther he went, the stronger the acrid smell became.
The source of the smell was four peasant corpses on the ground. They had been dead for two or three days, and in the cramped, narrow, and unventilated underground passage, the odor was magnified several times over.
Leech desperately wanted to burn the bodies right there in the crypt, but the only air vent led directly into his bedroom. The smoke would likely fill his room as well.
Disposing of the bodies at night wouldn't be difficult. Only Leech and his teacher, Jamie, lived inside the castle. In the past, when it was more crowded, his stepmother and younger brother, Leo, were also here. The steward, cook, and manservants rested in several wooden cabins outside the castle walls, and a manservant would come at once whenever the Baron rang a bell.
So, it wouldn't be much trouble to have the Undead Jamie find a place in the castle to dig a pit and bury the bodies.
But there was something else that concerned Leech more than the bodies.
Corpses rot!
He opened the Necromancer's journal. It did indeed mention the problem of decay. Lifeless corpses would rot; it was unavoidable. Unlike the living, they had no metabolism, and their hearts no longer beat.
However, the Necromancer had recorded two ways to inhibit decay: one was using a preservative, and the other was consuming fresh flesh and blood.
Unlike the industrial preservatives of the 21st century, the one recorded was a Magic Antiseptic that could keep an Undead fresh, even making it healthier and stronger than when it was alive.
The main ingredient was still salt, while others included snail shells, Pig's Eye Grass, the core of finger-vines, and some other miscellaneous things.
Flesh and blood was simpler, but it had to be fresh—meaning he'd have to throw a live pig or person to the Undead and let it eat them raw.
'I'd better make the antiseptic. The ingredients aren't hard to find...' He rejected the second, bloodier method. In Porcupine Territory, a missing person or even a single missing pig would attract a great deal of attention. After all, the place was just too poor.
...
Leech was at the dining table eating breakfast. He was planning to visit the kitchen under the pretext of checking on their work, where he could offer the cook a little guidance. Soy milk, fried dough sticks, or at the very least, he had to teach the cook how to pickle vegetables. He wasn't sure how long he could last eating this kind of greasy, pan-fried meat every day.
One cup held a thick soup, and another held ale. People didn't drink water, because most of them relieved themselves in the water sources. Drinking the murky, dirty water would cause dysentery.
His manservant, Grassfork, approached him. "Good day, my lord."
After Leech's request, no one could enter his room without permission. The manservant had been assigned a new task: to go out and gather the ingredients for the antiseptic.
They were short-staffed, so everyone around him had multiple duties.
The manservant couldn't read, so Leech had simply emphasized several key herbs. Anything he couldn't find, the steward, Simon, would be sent to Iron Stone City to purchase.
"Most of the ingredients you need can be found within Porcupine Territory, but a few might take some time," Grassfork said. "I've already sent a peasant to search in the direction of Pig Spine Valley. We might find them there."
The road from Porcupine Territory to Iron Stone City ran to the northwest.
In fact, Pig Spine Valley was vast, stretching from the northern edge of Porcupine Territory all the way to the northwest, effectively cutting off Baron Leech's domain on a coastal corner of the eastern gorge.
For a great distance outside Porcupine Territory, there was nothing but forest, home to ferocious beasts as well as an abundance of wild game.
"You've done well, Grassfork," Leech said with a nod.
"It is my honor, my lord." The manservant knelt on one knee.
Leech didn't tell the manservant to stop kneeling. While he wasn't used to people kneeling before him at the drop of a hat, he had no intention of challenging the aristocratic system, especially since he was now a nobleman himself.
"There is one more thing, my lord," the manservant said. "I saw Mr. Duke last night. He was digging a pit in your garden, and this morning I discovered four new grave mounds there."
'It had to be said, playing the part of a generous master really paid off.' Before he had offered the reward, even a loyal servant like Grassfork would never have dared to speak ill of the Warg Slayer in front of him.
Rewards could buy temporary loyalty, and more importantly, they could reinforce it.
"I arranged it." Leech wasn't concerned about this getting out, as long as no one discovered his most fundamental secret. He explained, "My teacher, Jamie, was burying the peasants who explored the crypt with me. They died for me, so they will be buried in my castle to continue protecting me in death. That garden has always been neglected anyway; it might as well serve a practical purpose."
'Used by me in life, and squeezed dry in death. In this world, that is considered an honor.'
He hadn't considered returning the four peasants' bodies. With the golden scars and the way they'd been dismembered by scythes, there were too many questions. It was simpler to just bury them.
Grassfork trembled slightly. He had tried to tattle but had made a grave mistake. Now was not the time to think about a reward; it was time to pray the punishment wouldn't be too severe. No nobleman liked a talkative servant.
'But given Baron Leech's gentle and introverted nature, perhaps...'
"You did well," Leech said. "I can sense your loyalty, Grassfork."
Grassfork looked up in surprise. Instead of being reprimanded, he was praised. He swore that from this moment on, he would keep a close eye on everyone! And that Silver Moon reward would surely be his!
"Praise be to you, my lord!"
Leech struggled to finish his breakfast. The freshly baked white bread was quite good, which was the only reason he managed to finish the meal.
'My territory needs a dairy cow,' he thought. 'But before that, egg drop soup could also suffice. The prerequisite is visiting the cook and giving him a little guidance.'
In his past life, Leech had been something of a househusband and knew how to cook simple, home-style stir-fries. Since it was autumn now, he could consider making preserved sausages—not the crude, skill-less blood sausages of this world, which were just lumps of fatty meat mashed together, tied with string, and pan-fried directly.
"We will inspect the territory today," Leech announced. "And we'll visit the families of those peasants. After all, they died for me."
The steward, Simon, immediately said, "You are truly a merciful and generous lord."
"Merciful" and "generous" weren't typically good words to describe a lord, but Leech accepted them with a smile. He hoped he truly could be a merciful and generous lord. As long as his own interests were secure, he didn't mind the commoners in his territory living well. This was perhaps a point of major difference between him and the native nobles.
The Baron's reward had filled the castle's inhabitants with motivation. Today, he hadn't seen any feces in the corners outside his castle. Perhaps a servant too lazy to use the fields was afraid of being reported, or perhaps the maid in charge of cleaning had been exceptionally diligent.
The groom had already led over the horse Leech usually rode.
All the horses of the Clarences were born to Lieder's fiery-maned mare. That horse was now living out its retirement in the stables. One of its foals had gone with Leo to East Port, and the rest were in Leech's castle.
Without needing a servant's help, Leech put his foot in the stirrup and swung himself onto the horse.
As the son of a warmongering baron, his physical fitness far surpassed that of an ordinary person. He had mastered horsemanship, archery, Swordsmanship, and spearmanship, though he wasn't particularly skilled in any of them.
But now that he had gained a sliver of the Warg Slayer's instincts, his Swordsmanship had improved considerably.