Chapter 42: The first trip to Huahua Town

"The tide is beginning to recede, sir," Thomas tugged at Hiddleston, addressing Liszt.

"Hand Hiddleston over to me. You, Tom, and Jesse follow the instructions I gave you to search for seafood," Liszt took the rope tied to Hiddleston.

Hiddleston still attempted to dash towards the retreating waves.

Liszt promptly barked, "Settle down, Hiddleston!"

But Hiddleston ignored him.

Liszt dismounted, stretched out his hand, and pinned Hiddleston to the sandy seashore, rendering it immobile. He issued a firm command, "Hiddleston, be still!"

"Huff... Puff..." Hiddleston let out two incomprehensible whimpers, struggling fruitlessly before obediently lying down.

Then, Liszt gradually released his grip.

As Hiddleston tried to wriggle free and run again, Liszt repeated the process, ordering it to stay calm. After several repetitions, Hiddleston finally ceased its movements. At this moment, the squire, Carl, hastily offered a piece of cured meat for Liszt to reward Hiddleston, "Stay quiet, and you'll get your meat, Hiddleston. Do you understand?"

"Roar!" Hiddleston tore into the salted meat frenziedly, devouring it with great gusto.

Before it left, Liszt had specifically instructed Thomas not to feed it, believing that only hunger could create a lasting impression and establish conditioned responses for obedience training.

"Sire, you possess a natural talent for taming magical beasts. I can foresee that Hiddleston will become a qualified domesticated magical beast in the future."

"Certainly, if it fails to meet expectations, I'll slaughter it halfway through. The smoked boar dog meat from last night tasted delightful. Even in Longtaro Castle, I haven't had the chance to savor magical beast meat that often."

The meat from the large boar dog hadn't been sold; it was all preserved and dried within the castle.

"Indeed, it was a delectable dish. The magic within the meat nourished my body even after consumption," Marcus had also dined at the castle last night.

After training Hiddleston for a while, Liszt handed the beast over to Carl and rode his horse to the receding shore to check on the progress of the male servants.

At that moment, Thomas, Tom, and Jesse, the three male servants, were each wearing thick leather gloves, carrying buckets, and wielding hammers and shovels as they busily worked.

Thomas was responsible for turning over rocks to search for seafood on both sides.

Jesse was tasked with digging through the sand to uncover seafood hidden beneath.

Tom, on the other hand, was in charge of collecting various seafood that couldn't make it back to the sea and were stranded on the shore.

"Liszt, do you know the relationship between the tides and the moon at night?" Liszt asked with a pleasant mood.

Marcus shook his head. "I don't."

"The moon moves constantly, attracting the seawater, causing the tides to rise or fall. Of course, the sun also exerts such an attraction, but it's much farther away and not as strong as the moon's pull."

"I have no idea what you're talking about, Your Excellency," Marcus said politely.

Marcus was being kind. If it had been someone else, he would have spat at them and dismissed their words as nonsense. He would then counter by asking why, if the moon and sun could attract seawater, they didn't lift humans up into the sky, making everyone a Sky Knight. Don't try to fool me into thinking I'm uneducated, he would say.

Seeing Marcus's expression, Liszt found it dull – typical ignorance of a native.

After his sigh, he pondered to himself, "Since the moon here can still cause tides, does that mean this world is indeed a planet? If we sailed along the Bihai all the way, would we eventually circle the planet and return here? If so, perhaps one day I can send a fleet on a circumnavigation journey?"

The thought seemed far-fetched, so Liszt didn't dwell on it further.

Riding on horseback, he approached Tom.

Tom hurriedly bowed. "My lord."

"You carry on with your work. I'm just here to look." In one glance, Liszt noticed that in Tom's bucket were clams, snails, starfish, crabs, mussels, scallops, and seaweed, as well as some worm-like creatures like sea centipedes and cockroaches. However, these creatures could run, and they would often spill out of the bucket if not careful.

So, Tom had to clumsily retrieve them.

"Those two running creatures aren't seafood; you can throw them away," Liszt reminded him.

"Oh, yes, my lord. Right away," Tom replied hastily. Perhaps due to the presence of the lord, he always seemed to struggle to catch them, leaving him drenched in sweat.

Not far away, Thomas, who was lifting rocks, saw Tom's flustered appearance and turned his head, smirking triumphantly—he was the only one among the three male servants in the castle who was competent enough to be a suitable successor for the butler's position.

On the other side, Jesse, who was digging sand, had dug for a long time without catching a single clam or prawn, as instructed by the lord. He dug randomly without realizing that he should have been following the small holes where the seafood breathed.

"What a pair of good-for-nothings!" he thought to himself.

Delighted, he swung his hammer with glee, tapping away at the rocks to dislodge clams, mussels, and oysters. Occasionally, he would also come across a few small crabs.

"Oysters need to have their meat extracted, like this," Thomas explained as he smashed open an oyster's shell with his hammer and dug out the tender flesh within.

Before they left, Lord had mentioned that oysters were delicious.

Although Thomas didn't find these unappealing, soft creatures particularly appetizing, he would carry out Lord's instructions to the letter.

It was effortless work.

After the tide receded, the exposed rocks were covered in oysters, mussels, and other such seafood.

In just two short hours, Thomas had filled both buckets he had brought, with one of them entirely filled with the extracted oyster meat.

He glanced over at Tom, whose bucket was also full but who had been repeatedly told by Lord not to collect certain items, yet he still persisted.

He mistook identical creatures for being different.

How foolish.

As for Jesse, he could be disregarded. He was drenched in sweat from digging, yet his bucket only barely held a small layer of seafood at the bottom. A few plump shrimp, which Lord Liszt called "peppery shrimp," and some slender clams resembling bamboo clams were all he had managed to find.

He set down his bucket filled with oysters and stood up straight, awaiting the lord's inspection.

...

Most of the time, Liszt, who had been resting under the coconut trees on horseback, called an end to the seashore foraging experiment as noon approached, and the sun blazed like a scorching flame. He rode over to examine each bucket.

"Tom, you need to learn to distinguish between pests and seafood better. Not everything found by the sea is edible. Poisonous creatures can be fatal if consumed," he said.

Tom hung his head in shame. "I'm sorry, Lord. I'm too foolish to tell the difference."

"Don't worry, Tom. It's normal not to have experience on your first foraging trip. There's no need to feel guilty about it," Liszt comforted him before turning to Jesse's bucket. "Hmm, Jesse, I can see that you've worked hard, but clearly, you haven't applied the techniques I taught you."

"Lord, I dug as hard as I could, but the holes always seemed to vanish," Jesse explained anxiously.

"You need to dig along the direction of the hole," Liszt instructed.

"I... I can continue digging here, my lord. I'm sure I'll fill the bucket eventually."

"Staying here means no one else will be diving for water, Jesse. I don't blame you. Catching pipi shrimp and bamboo clams is no easy task."

Finally, Liszt approached Thomas's buckets. One was brimming with oyster meat, while the other was filled with crabs and mussels.

"Well done, Thomas."

"Thank you for your praise, my lord. It's my duty to give my all when serving you," Thomas replied with a beaming smile.

Liszt responded with a dignified smile, acknowledging Thomas's efforts – he was well aware of Thomas's ambitions, as Carter, the butler, had informed him. However, as a lord, he didn't mind, for even if Thomas's aspirations were great, they were limited to becoming the castle's steward.

If Thomas truly had the ability, and old Carter could no longer manage, why not let Thomas take over as the butler?

No servant would ever get away with causing upheaval in front of him.