Chapter 31 30.1: Apollon

The crack of dawn.

Two months had passed since I brought the Dark Moon Bandits under my hands. The baron's knights were joined by Count Guitare's knights after I swindled him into believing that this was a territory where he needed to put his money.

We also collected a ton of sculptors, painters, and other artists to the point the village was slowly getting filled with them, and once we had talent, we started teaching the other villagers as well. Most importantly, I promised my music instructor that I'll help him earn money and had him open a school over here with his disciples. Of course, we just increased the amount of investment he was going to put into my book, so that evened out.

It reminded me of the book as well. The publisher had handed it over to some of the biggest patrons of music in Schwarz including the royal palace and other nobles and it was apparently making waves here. Thank you, Beethoven, Chopin, Ravel, Debussy, there were more people to thank than I could mention in a breath.

I continued my training in the field of our mansion. Today was a big day for the territory, but that didn't matter much to me. It was just a step on the way to having the strongest territory in the world, so my training continued.

"Haaahm, good morning young maste—"

I turned my head to the side at the sound of the stifled yawn, only to see someone of a height slightly shorter than me. There was but one person in this mansion like that.

"Lily, morning."

"Y-young master, what are you doing?"

What a weird question. Did she develop blindness too?

"I'm practicing horse riding."

"With the horse on YOUR back!?"

"That's why it's 'horse riding' though?"

How rude of her. I lightly patted Black's face as he whimpered and nuzzled at my face.

"What if I have to carry a horse someday? It even doubles as strength training. A truly strong man is prepared for everything."

"I— Haah..." Lily sighed and held her head with her palm. "Right, I should be used to this stuff by now."

The horse and I both nodded at her remark which only seemed to irk her further.

"I'll prepare breakfast, should I bring it to your office later?"

"No, let's eat together with everyone today," I said. "We're doing the first performance of the play tonight."

Lily smiled, I think she did, as she cheerfully nodded and walked away.

***

The morning was filled with tension all over the village that was now as good as a city. Thanks to the revolutionary architectural style that the young master of Hall himself created, the place was not only compact and modernist but extremely beautiful and intricate in its design. It was a simple yet complex style that only the people hired and trained by the young master could manage to build.

And the fruit of all the labors for the past months was coming to greet the people. But even more than that, they wanted to repay.

They wanted to repay the young master that showed them the right way even in their desperation.

The one that helped them come out of the worst of the worst and give a future to their children and adults alike. At not just one place, but many.

The artists wanted to thank the patron that accepted and gave a platform to even the worse-off ones like them.

They all wanted to thank their magnanimous and kind young master.

Little did they know their strongest young master who lived in the modern world was more well-versed in business and management along with fine techniques than they could imagine. Every action he took benefitted him as well, well at least that's what he liked to believe despite putting in much more than he could recover. It was possible to make this place beautiful.

He had done it already, and he was going to continue doing so.