Lord: My Shop Connects to Modern Times

The walls of Gray Rock Town gleamed with a cold, hard gray-white hue under the spring sun, and the framework of the newly erected watchtowers at the four corners was beginning to take shape.

On the open ground, the shouts of the ballista team and the creaking of the winches rang out every day on time. The heart-pounding vibrations of the bowstrings and the sight of targets exploding in the distance had become the unspoken source of confidence for the townspeople.

Lynn was sitting on a small stool in front of his house, reading a book he had redeemed from the system called "Basic Crop Care Knowledge." The residents working in the distance were already used to their usually overly easygoing lord.

The more they looked at their lord, the less he seemed like those noble lords. He would often sit at the door with a book he couldn't understand, studying it, and occasionally he would let out a strange laugh.

It's strange, shouldn't noblemen stay in their castles drinking tea and eating pastries, with maids serving them?

But Miss Martha spent most of her time at the public treasury with Ada, and the other maids were also helping her, so she had no time to serve the lord.

In addition, the lord recently acquired a "wooden monster" from who-knows-where. That thing can smash stones from a great distance. Before this, only legendary mages could do that.

The residents found many things strange, but no one disliked the new lord. After all, it was he who gave them the motivation and hope to live on...

"My lord! My lord!"

From afar, a clear, crisp sound began to ring out. The sound carried a hint of urgency.

Lynn's thoughts were interrupted. He closed the book, looked up, and saw a short figure hopping and skipping toward him.

"Oh, it's Martha. What's up?"

Martha suddenly stopped in front of Lynn, kicking up dust that almost covered Lynn's face.

She covered her face a little embarrassed, but seeing that Lynn didn't mind, she crossed her arms and bowed slightly to Lynn.

"My lord! A new group of refugees has arrived at the north gate! About 30 people. We've already processed them according to procedure. But..." Martha's face was slightly flushed, and she hesitated slightly, seemingly because she had run over.

"But two of them seem a bit off!"

Lynn was taken aback at first, then immediately stood up and put the book on the stool.

Aside from the occasional hunting party that brought back a few poor souls, Lynn had rarely encountered large groups of refugees, which had resulted in a somewhat slow population growth.

Upon hearing this, Lynn immediately became restless.

Tell me in detail what happened.

……

Just now, a new batch of refugees, guided by the hunters, entered Grayrock Town.

They were met with the usual routine: quarantine, inspection, and registration.

At that moment, Martha was sitting at the entrance of the hastily cleared stone house, holding a wooden board and a charcoal pencil, while Joel was maintaining order beside her.

The refugees came forward one by one, stating their names, origins, and skills. Martha took notes carefully, occasionally glancing up at their faces and hands.

Most of them had blank stares or expressions of gratitude for being rescued, their hands calloused from hard work or fresh abrasions. They were simply saying that their village was destroyed, their families were gone, and they had followed the crowd here.

Until the two men walked up to her one after the other.

One was an honest-looking old man named "Arthur". He said he had been farming all his life, but when asked about the crop rotation methods for several common barren crops in the south, his answer was somewhat vague, unlike the honest words that a real farmer who had toiled in the fields would readily utter.

His palms were calloused, but the calluses were too evenly distributed, unlike the appearance of someone who had been holding a hoe for a long time.

The other was a young man named "Tom," who hardly spoke, answering only one out of every three questions asked, with his eyes downcast.

But Joel felt that the lowered gaze seemed to be wandering around uncertainly.

When he rolled up his tattered sleeves to help carry water, the exposed half of his forearm showed strong lines, and there was a sense of restrained strength in his movements.

Martha remained calm and kept these unusual occurrences in mind. She then made a tiny charcoal mark next to the two people's names that only she could understand.

After initial registration, the refugees were assigned to clear a gravel area on the west side of the town, where new shacks were to be built...

"My lord, these two... something's not right." Martha finished recounting what had happened and pointed to the marks she had made: "I don't think Arthur is a real farmer, and Tom doesn't seem like a refugee..."

"They're in cahoots," Lynn said, looking at the notes with certainty.

"I just don't know which force came to test us."

"Should we have Brother Leon arrest them?" Martha asked, looking up.

"No," Lynn shook his head, "If we catch these two, other rats will just crawl in. Let's keep them for now, and it'll be good to see whose side they really are."

He told Martha to tell Leon and Bray to keep an eye on the two men, but not to alert them.

At the same time, they deliberately revealed some "information" to them: such as that there was actually not enough food to feed these refugees, etc.

Martha nodded vigorously, then turned and ran away.

For the next two days, Arthur and Tom were assigned to different groups. Arthur was assigned to clean the ditches by the fields, his eyes constantly glancing at the fields and the sheds where fertilizer was stored.

On the third day, he "accidentally" found a small bag of fertilizer that had been "left behind" on the edge of the field and quickly hid it.

Tom was assigned to carry pebbles from a more distant creek to pave part of the road.

This job was tedious and laborious, with a fixed route that allowed him to see almost no core area of ​​the town.

Aside from occasionally hearing his fellow workers complain about insufficient food and silently noting down the approximate intervals and routes of the patrol shifts during transport, he made almost no other new discoveries.

However, the two had heard that large numbers of monsters would attack them every few nights these past few days. Since they were newly arrived "refugees" and didn't need to participate in the battle, the two didn't know exactly how these people fought the monsters.

All they knew was that the monsters came almost every three to five days, but they had never managed to breach the wall...

A few nights later, Arthur, unable to contain himself any longer, attempted to deliver the hidden intelligence and the packet of powder to a pre-arranged tree hollow outside town. He had barely reached the base of the wall when several torches were lit. Bray and two hunters watched him with enigmatic smiles.

"Good evening, so diligent!"

Arthur was caught red-handed, and intelligence and the bag of fertilizer were found on him.

Lynn briefly questioned Arthur that night, and Arthur couldn't take it anymore. He confessed that he was hired by "a businessman" to gather information, but he knew nothing about the mastermind behind it.

"Lock him up." Lynn waved his hand.

With Arthur arrested, Tom immediately became extremely nervous. He noticed that surveillance seemed to have intensified, but strangely, there was always a brief gap in the night patrols near a low wall where timber was piled up in the southwest corner.

He sensed it was a trap, but also his only chance. The intelligence was scarce, but he had to bring it back nonetheless.

With a determined heart, on a misty morning, he took advantage of a gap to climb over the low wall and rushed into the wilderness without looking back.

Watching his disappearing figure, Bray withdrew his gaze from the watchtower and nodded to Lynn beside him.

"Sir, let them go."

"That's fine."

The bait has been cast; now we just wait for the fish to bite...