Chapter 118: The Living Beings in the Autumn Hunt (Part 2)

That middle-aged man stroked his small mustache, then reached out to take off the folded hat on his head and said: “Bruce and Mannae, you two viewed this Autumn Hunt from your own respective identities and perspectives. But in terms of understanding, Mannae’s view should have more depth. And Bruce, you spend too much time on those socialites. You are going to inherit the family after all; continuing like this is not a good phenomenon!”

“Look at what you said, what does this matter have to do with me inheriting the family!” Bruce, who was named and lectured like this, turned red and white, and white and red several times before opening his mouth to refute.

After all, there were servants following nearby, and they definitely heard the scolding just now. This was the main reason Bruce felt he was losing face. Although he believed these servants would not gossip about today’s events—after all, they were loyal servants who had served his family for at least three generations—but the pride of a Noble still made him feel this was a stain on him. This was the main reason he still spoke out to refute the other party even though he was touched in his heart.

Looking at the other party’s stubborn attitude, the middle-aged Noble pulled a long face. At the same time, except for the middle-aged man who was closely following behind him, and a servant holding a feather fan fanning the Noble, the others formed a circle, facing outward with their backs facing inward. While protecting the few people, they also avoided the awkwardness of seeing things they shouldn’t see.

Of course, this was just a way of covering one’s ears to steal the bell. It was like the sentence ‘I’m sorry! Master.’ shouted by a servant when he opened the door and saw the wife bathing before crossing over. This kind of psychological suggestion could still make the parties involved feel a little better.

The middle-aged Noble stood up from the folding stool, stroked his cane, and spoke somewhat sternly: “With your current mentality and behavior, if you inherit the family, I’m afraid you won’t be able to avoid those open and hidden competitions and blows. Unless you want to just muddle through, but in that case, by the time your son takes power, your family’s industry will shrink by at least half. Karada is not a peaceful sheep pen, and we are not like those powerful Nobles with strong strength and deterrence.”

“We formed this alliance just to deal with such situations, didn’t we?” Bruce probably understood vaguely in his heart, but he still spoke with a dead duck’s tough mouth.

“No one hopes to have an ally who is specifically responsible for dragging feet. If you don’t want to be abandoned outside the alliance later, you should pay more attention to interpersonal relationships and family management matters in the future. As an elder who has a good relationship with your father, I will remind you again. Actually, those socialites who usually hook up with you are also good tools; how to use them specifically depends on yourself. I don’t want your Clan to end up like those families who moved out of the Capola area.” The middle-aged Noble finally couldn’t bear the other party’s performance and broke down all the content.

Bruce’s face changed colors a few times and he completely fell into deep thought. As a family Heir, with normal intelligence, he certainly understood the other party’s meaning. Moreover, between different families, opportunities for such frank communication were probably rare. Perhaps this was the most important reason Bruce’s father let him follow the Lord Manchester in front of him for this Autumn Hunt!

Looking at the performance Bruce revealed now, the middle-aged man felt very satisfied. If the other party couldn’t understand his words and control his own emotions at this time, then the decline of the Clan was already to be expected, and the small group he belonged to would also suffer losses. Neither of these was what he hoped to see.

Immediately afterwards, he relaxed his facial expression and said: “For you, Mannae, we Noble families from the Judico Islands all have different hopes.”

That teenager named Mannae blurted out without thinking: “To become a Knight?”

One could imagine his relatives must have very ardent expectations for him.

The middle-aged Noble reached out to help tidy the other party’s collar and stroked the other party’s head: “That’s right, only when you become a Formal Knight can our small alliance have the opportunity to gamble for greater benefits.”

“But why me? Uncle Tennessee and Brother Bobet are stronger than me, aren’t they?” The teenager’s words were mainly doubtful, but they also revealed a bit of dissatisfaction. It seemed that because of this reason, he had endured great pressure in the past time and also lost many things.

The middle-aged Noble was also a shrewd person; he could hear the meaning the teenager wanted to express in his words. For a teenager who had already entered the rebellious period, guidance was quite important.

He thought slightly for a moment about the teenager’s question and then answered: “That is because of age! Time is a major obstacle on the path of a Knight. Judging by the comparison of their age and strength, the chance of becoming a Formal Knight is really too small. But you are different; you stepped into the Red Iron Rank at the age of thirteen. No matter what, you have met the golden age requirement of a Knight to become Red Iron before the age of fourteen.”

Perhaps it was his own effort and strength being recognized, or perhaps the teenager’s nature felt excited about his own uniqueness. Mannae’s eyes seemed to be burning with flames as he clenched his right hand and said: “Uncle Manchester, I will work hard!”

Looking at the confident look of this young man in front of him, Lord Manchester, who was worried he might get cocky, opened his mouth to remind: “Don’t be complacent, little guy. Although among our Court Nobility’s younger generation, you can already be considered quite good. But among those Knight families, you are probably just barely meeting the requirements. You saw the strength displayed by the juniors of those powerful Noble families yesterday! Compared to them, how do you think you fare?”

Mannae also became somewhat silent. Although because the ladies and misses of those powerful Noble families didn’t follow over this time, those cute lads didn’t show off themselves as hard as peacocks in heat. But even if it was just an inadvertent reveal, under the observation of a person with a mind, conclusions could still be drawn. And Mannae was such a person with a mind; just from a fleeting glimpse, he could understand the gap between the two sides.

Seeing that both of them began to think about their future paths, Lord Manchester revealed a very satisfied expression and sat back on the folding chair. He continued to enjoy this opportunity to get close to nature.

“Flap-flap” a sound of wings flapping rang through the air.

“Get ready quickly!” Lord Manchester immediately jumped up from the folding chair and grabbed the hunting bow handed over by the servant.

Bruce and Mannae, these two young Nobles, also stopped their previous thoughts at the first moment, turned around, and took off the hunting bows from their backs.

At the same time, those servants also carried out their affairs in an orderly manner. Some packed things up, some calmed the hunting dogs…

Of course, there were also servants born as hunters who took out their own bows and arrows. But they did not shoot; instead, they vigilantly aimed at the direction the sound came from. As servants, they could not act without authorization before their masters issued instructions.

After the sound of “Shoot!”, fingers tightened on the arrows, quickly pulled the hunting bows open, aimed slightly at the approximate direction, and immediately fired the arrows out.

After the first arrow was shot, everyone immediately drew the second arrow from their quivers, opened their bows and drew the strings again, preparing to fire the second arrow.

But this time, they didn’t need to be in such a rush. After all, the first arrow needed to be shot quickly, but the second arrow had to be aimed well; this was the experience gained from years of hunting.

The key was that for birds flying in the woods, the hit probability of a single arrow was not very large. Generally speaking, hunting birds was shooting birds in the woods. One reason was that the woods were relatively calm with small wind. The second was that birds stopped on trees; as long as one aimed accurately enough, it was easier to shoot them down. Shooting birds in flight like this was basically done while sitting on a boat. Flying birds generally flew close to the lake surface; even if startled, they wouldn’t be higher than the surrounding trees, which greatly reduced the difficulty.

And shooting an eagle was probably done by sneaking close while the eagle was resting, aiming, and then shooting. Or tying the eagle to a tree with a rope to shoot. You know, for hunting birds now, what was used were shotguns. Birds flying at high altitudes were even less likely to be hit because one couldn’t see them clearly.

So even for birds flying at this height of several tens of meters, coverage shooting was necessary. Of course, this world also had non-humans, but the ones in front of them were obviously not.

The position where the sound disappeared happened to have several pine and cypress trees more than ten meters tall. As one of the few lush plants in this season, its branches and leaves became the best cover for that flying bird just now. Everyone’s eyes were tightly staring at that dark tree crown where nothing could be seen, afraid to miss any movement.

Once there was movement, that row of bows and arrows ready to go below would definitely pour out like raindrops. However, these sharp steel raindrops did not fall from the sky but came from the ground.

Everyone waited patiently; above the tree crown, it was pitch black and nothing could be seen at all. No one dared to be sure whether the arrows just now had hit that unfortunate big bird flying in the dense forest. Those arrows might have nailed onto some tree branch, or perhaps were deflected from their original direction by the dense branches and leaves.

As hunters, they waited for that big bird to make a sound again. If that big bird didn’t move at all, they had no way.

Everyone present had encountered such things before. But if they waited under the tree for more than half an hour and still didn’t find any movement, then, they could only helplessly leave here to find the next target.

But now everyone was guarding there; this was a contest of patience and wisdom. Similarly, after passing that most tense time, the servants who had packed up their things also joined the ranks of the bowmen.

However, everyone hadn’t tightened their bowstrings yet, because holding a bow open for a long time was not only hard for a person’s arm to bear, but also had a greater impact on the lifespan of the bow itself.

Inside the woods, it was silent. Suddenly, there was another sound of flapping wings.

This time, everyone clearly saw that shaking and trembling branch. Those guarding underneath were all experienced hunters. From that shaking blurry black shadow, they could confirm that it was a medium-sized bird called a stork or something similar, just migrating south from the north. This forest was just a place for it to rest briefly.

“Shoot!” Lord Manchester, the leader, issued the order, and several arrows flew towards that unfortunate big bird.

This time there were more arrows, and a series of cracking sounds of small branches breaking and thumping sounds of leaves shattering rang out in the air.

“Ga—” Accompanied by a miserable bird cry, the “puff” sound from the upper part of the woods disappeared after a few moments.

Broken branches and leaves fell deeply from the air. Fortunately, heavy crossbow-like instruments were not used, otherwise, what fell would not just be these fine branches.

When a large patch of broken branches and fallen leaves fell to the ground, the hunters avoided them one after another. They lowered their heads and slightly covered their eyes to prevent dust from falling in.

That thin servant who had already packed up quickly climbed up the tall tree; he was the servant specifically doing this kind of dangerous work.

Among all the servants, only he carried nothing on him. But after the masters finished shooting, he had to quickly climb up the big tree or jump into the river, and sometimes even drill into caves to drag out dead or seriously injured prey.

This job was quite dangerous because there might be ferocious leopards hidden in the tree, water snakes in the water, and caves were the most dangerous places; there could be anything inside—things no one wanted to encounter, such as groups of poisonous snakes, badgers, and bears.

That servant climbed to the top of the tree in two or three moves. He stepped on the thick and sturdy branches with his feet, and his arms were rummaging and searching in the tree crown full of leaves and branches.

When he came down from the tree, he was carrying a not-small White-billed Calling Crane in his hand. This White-billed Calling Crane was still blinking its eyes; on its dark gray feathers with brown spots, there were spots of blood. These bloodstains also made the servant’s hands covered in blood.

Two arrows had entered the body of the White-billed Calling Crane. Although it wasn’t killed with one hit, under such injuries, this bird had already lost its ability to fly.

The tail feathers at the end of the two arrows had two completely different colors, indigo and white feather respectively. The Nobles hunting together defined the ownership of the prey through this.

“A very fat White-billed Calling Crane, this is quite good game.” Lord Manchester looked at the arrow feathers and said, “Mannae, the arrows on this White-billed Calling Crane were shot by you and me together. In terms of results, let’s count it as split between us for now. If the same situation happens with prey later, we will decide then.”

In fact, Lord Manchester couldn’t judge at all who exactly shot this White-billed Calling Crane. Because the tail feathers of the arrows could only distinguish the family. But he didn’t need to know, because in such hunting, all prey belonged to the master.

Bruce, who didn’t achieve anything, shrugged helplessly and said: “My luck is really bad.”

Lord Manchester swept his gaze and said: “Since it’s still early, let’s go a little further inside. Hope we can get some more gratifying results next.”

After letting the three Noble masters admire their Loot, the servants put the White-billed Calling Crane into a bag. The youngest teenager, Mannae, conveniently pulled out a few quite stiff quills from the White-billed Calling Crane and directly inserted them on his hat.

The hunters picked up their gear and continued to move forward; a small White-billed Calling Crane could not satisfy their enthusiasm and competitive heart.

And in the camp at this time, those Noble female relatives were as usual discussing various romantic topics and gossip.

The grill was already piled with apple wood cut into fan shapes, and wooden basins and clear water were prepared at the slaughter point in the distance. And the chefs and butchers waiting for the prey to return were sharpening their tools on the whetstone. The “Srra! Srra!” sounds made by their actions actually affected the mood of the ladies not far away!

“Clack! Clack! Clack!” The sound of horse hooves attracted the attention of those female relatives who were already bored and lonely. They put down their cups or desserts and turned their gazes to the direction the business came from.

As the sound of horse hooves became louder and louder, they could finally see clearly the true face of the hunter who returned earliest today.

A petite figure paired with that innocent and cute baby face and big starry eyes, wasn’t that Craig, the pistachio of the Bolerum Territory?

After seeing the true face of the comer, most young women lost interest; the other party looked really too small and was not a suitable marriage partner. This was not just physical characteristics; more importantly, Craig’s overall temperament made him look even younger than his actual age. Just like a child who developed prematurely. But some mature women’s eyes also lit up with a gleam.

However, Craig on horseback never paid attention to these; he whipped his horse and galloped past the gazebo outside the camp. The iron shoes of the horse’s hooves turned up quite a few dirt clods on the grass, and also didn’t create dust filling the sky. Otherwise, those women downwind would have to eat dust.

When the horse jumped over the guardrail and ran into his own camp, Craig didn’t dismount and just shouted there: “Thomas, hurry up and arrange manpower. We just killed a Fierce Tiger in the woods. That’s a big guy; George said it’s probably 6000-7000 pounds heavy. You arrange people and follow me quickly.”

“Fierce Tiger! Craig, you aren’t dreaming! There is actually such a beast in this Autumn Hunt ground?” Thomas who came out of the tent said in obvious disbelief.

If it were George or Hiren saying this, he would certainly start arranging it without saying a word. But if it were Craig, how did he know he wasn’t just bored and running back to tease people! He had a precedent for this, although mostly without malice.

“How is that possible! You just don’t believe me.” Craig started to speak angrily.

Seeing this, Thomas basically determined that the matter was true. He opened his mouth to soothe: “You come down first, we have to wait a while. That’s 7000 pounds; we have to arrange this properly, otherwise we really can’t handle it.”