dognovel Chapter 129 Love Letter
Chapter 129 Love Letter
No matter what season it is, Wyndam is full of life.
Ever since the first king of Midlan established its capital at Windam, the city has not experienced war for hundreds of years. This is partly because it is far away from the front line and will not be affected by the war, and partly because successive Midlan kings have worked hard to govern the city and there has not been any major civil unrest in history.
Since there was no need for war, the city wall became a burden on the development of Wendam City. Some people said that the city wall should be demolished and a new one should be built to accommodate more residents, while others said that a new city wall should be built on the periphery to expand the city area and strengthen defense at the same time.
However, these are just idle talks among the residents on the street. Now the city wall is about to undergo its umpteenth renovation. The wall guards climbed to the top of the wall with ropes, carefully checked for any holes and filled them with special slurry, which would dry in a short time and become part of the wall.
After finishing all these, the wall guards will paint the entire city wall with white paint. Due to the heavy workload and long time, there will always be wall guards who accidentally fall and become seriously injured or killed. However, since the pay is much higher than other civilian jobs, when a wall guard falls, another wall guard will immediately take over his job.
Even the wall workers didn't understand why the nobles asked them to repair and paint the walls every now and then when the walls were obviously in good condition.
Looking at the wall workers going up and down the ropes in the distance, John couldn't help but sigh. As expected, asking for project funds from superiors and then embezzling from them can be found in every world.
After returning from Archbishop Midland, John placed them in the Black Watch camp in a small town outside the city. Archbishop Midland did not keep them, but let his cousin Pros manage the knights. After all, if something went wrong and they were accused of colluding with foreign countries, they might be convicted of treason.
Walking on the streets of Wyndham, John sighed that it was worthy of being the capital, and the infrastructure was good. In the past, whether it was the town of Midland or Yoda, there was basically a peculiar smell as soon as you entered. Wyndham had drainage channels and sewer systems inherited from the Overlord era, and there were also cleaners from the street who were responsible for cleaning. At least on the main road, it could be guaranteed to be much cleaner than other towns.
"Captain John! Captain John!"
At this time, John seemed to hear someone calling him from behind. He turned around and found that it was Anderson and Savile, the current centurion of the White Lion Knights. John had met these two guys before, so John still had some impression of them.
The two centurions stopped their horses next to John, then dismounted and knelt on one knee to salute John.
"Hurry up and get up. If anyone else sees me, they will have to take me to the king to accuse me." John said as he helped the two of them up.
“I really want to thank you and all the instructors of the White Wolf Knights for guiding us this year. It has made us who we are today,” Anderson replied respectfully.
"Where are you going now?" John asked, looking at the long line of White Lion Knights behind him.
"At the request of His Majesty the King, the White Lion Knights' mission this year is to guard Windham and maintain law and order in the surrounding area until their equipment is delivered next year before they head to the southern military camp," Anderson replied.
"Oh, then you guys are busy and I won't disturb you." John was about to leave but was stopped by Savile.
"Count John, I want to ask, have you seen Deputy Colonel Jules? He didn't come back after leaving the camp last night."
"Then you might find it by looking in various bars."
After John finished speaking, he walked towards home. It was almost time for lunch and he had to eat lunch. Just as he walked to the door of his house, he found two White Wolf Knights pressing a man in civilian clothes against the wall.
"What's going on?" John asked.
"Sir, we were about to go out just now when we saw this man throwing something in. After seeing us, he ran away. We chased him for a long time before we finally caught him back." A White Wolf Knight said and handed the thing to John.
This was something wrapped in cloth. When John took it, he smelled a faint fragrance, which felt like perfume. Moreover, the quality of the cloth was quite good and it felt particularly silky. After opening the cloth bag, he found that it did not contain any dangerous items, but full envelopes.
"What do you do?" John asked the man.
"Sir, I'm just a messenger." The man said tremblingly.
"Why didn't you knock when you delivered the letter to the person inside? Why did you just throw it inside?" John asked harshly.
"I...I'm just afraid that you won't accept it." said the man.
"What on earth do you do?" John put the sword against his neck. He knew that this man would not tell the truth if he spoke to him nicely. He had to put him in a desperate situation before he would tell the truth.
When the man saw John pull out the sword, he knelt on the ground, covered his head with both hands and shouted:
"Sir, please listen to me. I'll explain everything clearly. You're cutting me. I really didn't mean to do that."
"Then tell me. If you can't tell it today, I'll send you to the prison and tell the jailer."
When John removed the sword from the man's neck, the man quickly told him everything he knew.
This man was a courier. Every day he would pick up letters sent to Windham from all over the country, search the streets for the address mentioned in the letter, and then deliver the letter to the recipient.
However, for a man doing this, it is only enough to support his family, and he cannot save any money at all. Moreover, he has five children to support at home, and the eldest and second child need to go to school and need money. He has no choice but to take some private jobs to supplement the family income.
The so-called private work means not going through the formal departments of Wyndam, but directly giving letters to couriers to deliver. This kind of work is usually delivered within the city. However, as the capital of the kingdom, Wyndam is larger than other towns. It would be exhausting to run back and forth on foot. Only those professional couriers who are experienced and familiar with the routes can deliver the work. In addition, professional couriers have a good reputation for never opening letters, so many couriers take jobs privately to make money.
The job this man took was delivering love letters. Some adolescent boys and girls came together because of love, but for various reasons, they could not meet each other even if they lived in the same city. Or some men and women had a one-sided love for someone but were too embarrassed to go to that person directly, so they entrusted the courier to deliver the love letters.
There are a lot of these letters, and most people will pay far more than ordinary letters, but as a courier, delivering this kind of letter is very dangerous.
Because the messenger has no idea who the love letter is for. Sometimes it may be to ordinary citizens or businessmen's children, and sometimes it may be to the sons and daughters of high-ranking officials.
If someone just writes a letter unilaterally and asks the courier to deliver it to the children of some ordinary citizen or the son or daughter of a noble, the former may at most refuse and scold "Don't harass my child", while the latter, those hot-tempered nobles may directly have the courier beaten up. After all, the children are prepared for marriage. Are you sending a love letter to destroy the marriage system that has been passed down by the Wendam nobles for hundreds of years?
Therefore, those experienced mail carriers will first look at the address on the love letter to judge the status of the recipient and then choose which letters can be received and which cannot. After arriving at the delivery location, they will first observe the surrounding situation to see if there is anyone guarding it. If no one is guarding it, the mail carrier will try every means to get the love letter into the house, including throwing the letter into the yard, stuffing it into the door crack, and so on.
However, this time the messenger concluded that John might be a businessman or at most a less famous minor nobleman because he chose an ordinary apartment in a medium location instead of the aristocratic area where nobles live or the wealthy area where rich people live.
In order to improve efficiency, the messenger bought all the love letters sent here, and asked a letter-writing lady for a cloth bag so that the recipients could accept the letters more easily, and put all the letters into it. The advantage of this is that the messenger can throw the letters directly into the wall, and because the weight is large enough, the letters will not be blown away by the wind.
As a result, when the messenger was about to throw the cloth bag, he was seen by two White Wolf Knights. The messenger realized that something was wrong, so he threw the cloth bag into the wall and turned around and ran away.
Seeing the cloth bag in the yard, the two White Wolf Knights immediately recalled the shadow left by the cultists on them, and chased the messenger on the spot. No matter how good the messenger's legs were, he could not outrun the White Wolf Knights who could charge on horseback and chase people on foot. After chasing for several intersections, the messenger was pinned to the ground by the White Wolf Knights, and then taken back in full view of everyone.
"Okay, okay, you go back. Remember to knock on the door properly next time you come to my house to deliver a letter. If I find you sending me a letter in other ways next time, I will put you in Wyndam Jail for a few days." John let go of the messenger after he thanked John for his magnanimity and ran away.