The burly guard nodded after hearing the knight's order. "At once! Just give me a moment, then please follow me." The brawny guard had a hushed conversation with another man wearing leather armor, who gave a nod in reply and started running at full pace towards... the village.

Ustaimo gave a sigh of relief only now noticing the usual dilapidated huts and shacks in the distance. Yes, the village of Tiranat was still there, alright. Although... Why did it look like someone had set the village on fire? Most of those huts looked like burnt husks at best, and even the rest of them looked damaged in some way. In fact, he could barely see any movement near those shacks. Where were the villagers anyway?

Maybe he will find out soon. Looking around him, he hadn't expected this many guards standing ready just to defend a single gate. They also didn't look like the usual slobby, plump men guarding other similar villages and baronies like this. All of these men looked extremely fit - probably more than any guards he had ever seen, including those employed by the Count in Cinran - other than the knights and their squires, of course, and it looked like they would easily be able to take on anything coming to attack them. They certainly looked confident enough for that.

Soon, the burly guard walked ahead of them and gestured to them to follow him. The knight nodded, and began riding his horse slowly next to the guard, while their wagon followed behind them.

Ustaimo heard the sound of the gates closing behind them once again, making him exhale in relief. They were safe from adzees, at least for tonight. Then he looked in front of him, and noticed something unexpected. Again.

The huts and shacks were still visible ahead of them maybe a hundred yards away in the light of the setting sun, but there were some new wooden buildings here on the left side of the road which didn't exist the last time he was in Tiranat. And these buildings were... huge.

There was a plume of smoke visible from inside the building, probably from some kind of cooking, while a wide dirt road ran in front of it, with... He squinted for a moment. Were those gutters running parallel to the building...? Yes, they were! Amazing... Tiranat had gutters now! He hadn't heard of any baron's village in the domain of Count Cinran having these drainage gutters! Even Cinran only had them in the affluent section of the town, while the rest of the town still had to deal with some occasional flooding during the rainy season.

Ustaimo shook his head in wonder. He did realise that this new baron had lived in Ulriga for all his life, and that was a big city - which was much, much bigger than Cinran, and had proper drainage gutters running around throughout the city - without which it probably wouldn't be possible to handle the rainwater in such a large city. Maybe this Kivmaus Ralokaar was trying to emulate Ulriga's drainage system here...?

Well, it seemed at least something good came out of the Duke sending his son to Tiranat, even if the new baron seemed to be a tyrant. The Tyrant of Tiranat - the title suited this baron. He scoffed. Even if this village's people starved to death like in all the past winters, at least they wouldn't have to worry about drowning to death under their new baron's rule! He snorted thinking about it, making the other guards in the wagon look at him in curiosity. Perhaps the Goddess' ways really were incomprehensible to mere mortals like him.

As the wagon reached closer to the first huge building, he still wasn't sure what it was, since it kind of looked like it was a small walled compound made of logs, although there was also a roof above it. Soon he saw an open gate in the wall, where a steady stream of villagers were going inside and out. Most of them seem to be men returning after their days' work was done, while there were also many women carrying infants and entering the building. Hmm... this building had to be some kind of living place then.

Although it was weird how so many people could live in such a cramped place. It looked more like a giant barn than a proper house, but none of those people seemed to be dispirited. If anything, most of them looked happy in some way, and were chatting merrily with others walking near them. Weird... This didn't make it feel like their new lord was a tyrant. This was the look of a village with a very benevolent lord. He sighed. It was hard to make sense of anything here.

As their wagon moved ahead, he noticed a small group of kids passing nearby while snickering at something. Feeling glad to see those kids laughing merrily, he strained to hear their conversation, knowing that most kids didn't know how to lie, which meant they were often the best measure of how a new lord was ruling a village.

One of the kids seemed to be boasting to his friends, "See? I told ya'll, didn't I? Right from the morning I knew that I was going to gather the most sawdust today. I can't wait for the winner's cookie! Once again!"

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Ustaimo frowned. To gather sawdust? Why would they even do something like that? He strained his ears trying to hear their conversation and hoping to learn more about the changes in this village.

"Yeah, yeah..." another of the kids grumbled. "We all know you're the winner. It's not like you haven't told us a dozen times already!"

"But how did ya know that in the morning before we even went to gather it?" a girl asked curiously.

The winner seemed to bask in his victory for a moment, before he leaned closer to the others. "What I am telling ya'll is a secret, 'kay? Don't tell anyone else, 'specially you, Elsie! I don't want Lucem and Clarisa's group to find out 'bout this trick and start winning again." Once the other kids nodded enthusiastically, he pointed at something in the distance, "Ya'll see that watchtower? That's where I got the extra sawdust to take to the wood press machine!"

"But how?" The girl frowned. "We pass near that watchtower every morning when going to work! There is no sawdust there... I saw it this morning too!"

"Yeah! You work with us all day in the south anyway."

The winner snickered. "Of course there isn't any of it left in the morning, since I already swipe it every evening. Ya see, some carpenters work with wood there all day, so by evening there is a good stack of sawdust gathered there. So I just go to wait near them before our work time ends, and on the days when there is enough sawdust there, I swipe it from here to take to that machine. It's easy work, and that's why I've been winnin' for the last few days!"

Others in that group oohed and aahed hearing that trick.

"So that's where you disappear every evening!"

Another girl glared at the winner. "But you told us that you were tired and were just going to take some rest!"

The winner shrugged with a grin. "That's how I won, Maisy!"

"Wow..." another boy muttered. "I'm going there too from tomorrow!"

The winner smirked. "Sure you can. But this watchtower will be completed by tomorrow, and there will be no more sawdust to collect after that." He laughed loudly. "Why else do ya'll think I told ya 'bout my secret?"

The other kids grumbled about selfish friends, as their group moved too far away from the wagon for Ustaimo to hear clearly.

Suddenly, something he had heard in the kids' conversation popped in his mind. Work time? These kids had work times?

He exhaled, pitying the villagers and their kids. This new baron really was a tyrant then. Child labour was far from unheard of in Reslinor. In fact, outside of nobles' families and those of some rich merchants, there was hardly any village or town in the kingdom where at least some kids and children didn't have to work. Whether it was to support their families, or just to earn a few coppers to buy some food for themselves if they were orphans, most of the kids often had to do some simple work. But that was always a choice for them. This was the first time he was hearing kids having regular work hours like adults! It felt heart-breaking to hear that. He wondered if he should have a word with the new baron about it.

Then he shook his head in dejection. No, there was no point in that... He was just a commoner doing the work allotted to him by the count. There was no way any noble would hear anything he had to say to them, especially if said noble was a son of the Duke...

Most likely this tyrant would just get angry at him, and might even try to punish him in some way. His old body really couldn't take another round of lashing. He gave a deep sigh. No, as much as he disliked this, it was probably better to just keep his head down and turn his eyes away from anything like this happening here if he wanted his head to remain attached to his body.

Soon, their wagon moved ahead of this huge building, and they passed another wide dirt road set in a grid layout with the building, ahead of which another similar wooden structure was located. It seemed to be a similar kind of building like the previous one, going by the stream of people entering and exiting it. This time he even saw a weird kind of cart being pushed by a man, but it just had a single wheel! The man had to lift it from the other side to move it, so it made sense that this weird cart didn't just fall over, but how could the baron be this much of a miser? Why couldn't he have just attached another pair of wheels to this cart to make it easier for the villagers!

He sighed once again. It really was hard to make sense of anything here.

Their wagon and the knight's horse kept following the guard when he noticed the beginning of another wooden palisade wall in front of them, this one much smaller than the outer one. Oh, so this was the baron's manor! Finally, he would get to meet this enigmatic Lord Kivamus... Was he a tyrant, forcing workers to work beyond the sunset to fulfil his wishes? Or was he a benevolent leader, doing his best for the villagers by providing housing for them after their huts were burnt? It was time to find out.