Two weeks had passed.
To put it simply, without the system as a helper, things would have been incredibly difficult.
The fact that I adapted safely was entirely thanks to the system's help.
First off, medieval times are absolutely not prosperous. Sugar and spices were the exclusive property of nobles, used for showing off, and most grains like wheat and meat were taken by the lords. Before the Black Death, commoners survived day to day eating porridge made from barley or oats, never mind bread. Even hard bread was hard to come by.
But after the Black Death, when lords started reducing taxes due to the lack of labor, commoners who had been eating porridge could now eat hard black bread or occasionally white bread, so their standard of living improved. Still, compared to nobles, everything was lacking.
The streets were incredibly unsanitary and the church considered suffering a virtue, so adapting to all this was absolutely not easy. On top of that, living so close to death was the biggest hardship.
People who only heard passing news about wars and civil unrest happening in third-world countries, if you suddenly dropped them in the middle of a battlefield where people kill and get killed, could they even survive? In that sense, I was pretty lucky. At least I wasn't a commoner getting exploited.
I was the 5th family head of the hereditary knight family, the Streit family.
Unlike commoners who paid all kinds of taxes, I didn't need to pay taxes. The Streit family was a hereditary knight family registered on the Duchy of Beren's knight roster and was permitted the title of Ritter. That's why my father's name was Aseldorf Ritter von Streit.
So if I received my knighthood, I would become Wolfgang Ritter von Streit.
My father was recorded as having died in the war with France, so his military service was on record.
Usually, knighthood ceremonies don't happen properly without military service, which is why many knight candidates busily work to earn merit. Why do candidates need to earn merit? Because there are too many knights and knight families within the Duchy of Beren. So they filter them out first through military service.
I could receive the benefits of knighthood just through my fallen father's military service without needing to earn merit on my own. If I applied anytime, the ceremony would happen within a month, but I was putting it off right now.
Right now, I wasn't a proper knight and was just a greenhorn who didn't even know how to fight. So I busily moved around earning points through repeated quests. I think I really worked hard for those two weeks.
My daily routine was packed tight with repeated quest schedules.
I wake up at 6 AM and stretch first thing. After stretching for about 10 minutes, I put on my surcoat and do a 30-minute run. If I go back and forth from Kiessling Avenue to Linz Avenue, I can complete the quest twice. That gets me 100 points.
Running back and forth jogging every morning, I pass by the plaza and in front of the church, where I can easily spot all kinds of beggars. And most of those beggars are using bandages and crutches. It's to look pitiful.
Sometimes the church would distribute food to the beggars, and whenever that happened, they'd swarm in like clouds.
"Sir, please spare a coin for this poor beggar who lost his leg."
"I can't feed my baby because I have no food. Please, just one coin."
Since I jogged back and forth on the avenue every day, the beggars recognized me and begged aggressively. Why? Because at first, I didn't know any better and felt sorry for them, so I gave a few copper coins as charity, and the beggars who remembered that stuck to me asking for more charity. I was flustered at first, but now I'm used to it.
"Hey! Begging in the plaza is forbidden!"
"Damn it, get lost!"
I often witnessed here the same miracle that only happened in subways. Since most of these injured beggars were frauds, I absolutely never gave them charity. Same with beggars carrying babies. They use babies picked up from somewhere for begging.
So I come home, wash up briefly, and eat breakfast at 8.
Originally, Catholics don't encourage eating breakfast, but I ate it as a necessity.
I mainly ate German-style breakfast. Since this is a German region, it's to develop eating habits similar to Germans. Fortunately, the cuisine of the Beren region (Swabia plus Baden) was famous for being delicious enough to represent southern Germany. I mainly ate Schäufele and potato soup.
From 9 o'clock, I repeatedly train by doing lower body, upper body, and body balance repeated quests, then finish morning exercise at 12. The points I earn just in the morning are 200 points. The good thing about repeated quests is that not only points but also copper coins come in steadily.
I could steadily earn 200 copper coins. This became considerable income. The copper coins I earned mainly went to buying firewood and water, and were used for various maintenance costs. I checked to see what level of earnings this was over two weeks, and apparently a day laborer earns 20 copper coins a day.
So I was earning 10 times that just in the morning, so I had no money worries for now.
I mainly ate modern food for lunch.
Ah, the joy of eating modern food in a medieval setting is something only I can enjoy.
I'm basically living day to day for baths and food.
Training repeatedly endlessly every day, it gradually became a habit.
In the afternoon, I mainly train with a wooden sword.
Starting with 100 swings as a baseline, I gradually increased the number, and now I swing about 300 times. When I first started this training, I was surprised by the weight of the wooden sword, and surprised again that simply swinging was harder and more difficult than I thought. With this training, I earned 100 points and 100 copper coins.
And as soon as I collected 1,000 points, I bought the German Swordsmanship Manual.
[German Swordsmanship Manual]
[Level 1 Training Quest]
[Learn 4 Basic Stances (Ochs - Vom Tag - Pflug - Alber)]
[Proficiency 50/100]
[Basic Stance Correction]
[Reward - 500 points, 500 copper coins]
When I first saw this quest, I was a bit flustered by the unfamiliar terms.
It's a swordsmanship style that pursues aggressive defense and specializes in pressing opponents.
German swordsmanship isn't about clanging swords and fighting like in movies or comics, but prefers to close in and cut from a position where swords are touching.
It was unfamiliar swordsmanship I'd never encountered before.
At first, I had quite a hard time adapting.
But something called basic stance correction was a big help.
Thanks to that, my proficiency rose to 50.
It was hard but I think it was rewarding training.
The sun starts setting from 6 o'clock. I eat a relatively low-calorie dinner since I don't train afterwards. In the evening, I light candles purchased with points, which are much brighter than regular beeswax candles. And there's a rental section in the entertainment category where you can borrow books by paying 40 points.
So I mostly spent evenings reading (novels, comics).
Since it's a rental place, there are no professional books.
Sundays when church services are held were rest days for me.
You need to rest your body properly so it can recover.
I think I really trained harder than I ever worked at the company.
Points are very important, and if I didn't earn this much, I couldn't save more than my daily maintenance costs. I earn about 300 points a day on average, and of these, I regularly use 60 points for food and 40 points for the bookstore. So 200 points remain.
This way, I collected 1,700 points over two weeks.
These are the points remaining after buying the swordsmanship manual and toiletries with 1,000 points.
Besides regular food expenses, there were partial expenditures. To have a comfortable bed, I changed to a good bedding set, and to eliminate smells coming from outside, I got fragrant air fresheners. So my life was maintained relatively stably.
The system trained me very cleverly.
If I tried to train myself, I wouldn't feel any fun and would be bored, but it presented the carrot of points and copper coins through quests. Since points were essential to use the shop, I had no choice but to diligently progress through quests for that.
So my body naturally got trained and gradually became routine, and I could develop a habit of training even without quests.
Everyone rests on Sunday.
It was specified in church law to stop labor and gather at church to attend mass. Since it's a law that's been passed down from the Frankish Empire days, it's now become a natural part of life. This church law gave a day off to commoners who suffered from harsh labor.
I also attended church mass.
I visited Breisburg Cathedral instead of the nearby Kiessling parish.
And I gave 50 copper coins as an offering. I followed suit after seeing people who attended giving 50 copper coins as offerings. Mass usually ends before lunch.
What I thought while attending mass was, of course, about the operator.
This world is a created world made based on Medieval Knight. I, an irregular, prove that. Are the Lord that church people believe in and the creator the same person? Or is the Lord ultimately just an illusion created by humans? That's why I had no choice but to become a cynic.
What kind of fate do I have in Medieval Knight?
It was a fundamental question, but ultimately the answer depended on my actions. I have no choice but to become a knight. The choices were very limited, but anything other than a knight is ultimately just a commoner, and climbing up the ranks while looking upward is ultimately the final goal, right?
The [Great Hero] ending that the operator and system presented to me is the same.
The more you look upward, the more fame follows.
So I recalled my goal from that time as a Medieval Knight player. My first goal was clearly to become a lord who could rule and govern in my own way. It was a similar route to the typical play goal. So I set becoming a lord as my goal for now.
And that would ultimately become ambition and the driving force of my life.
At least if I'm going to live in this world.
"Oh, I ran into the thick forest! Into the fragrant flower garden!"
"Maria was waiting in the fragrant flower garden! In that place where no one was!"
When mass ended, the cathedral's courtyard was filled with people singing and dancing to cheerful melodies and songs. There was so much explicit content that I wondered if it was okay to sing folk songs, not hymns, in the courtyard. The bishops and priests watching them didn't look pleased but didn't stop them.
"Oh, Maria! Are you truly Maria!"
"She was waiting for me!"
"She was waiting for me!"
Nobles also enjoyably sang along with their songs, and street musicians excitedly stirred up the mood, creating a festival-like atmosphere. While watching with some interest, I was pulled out by the hand of some unknown girl and ended up dancing. Everyone was excited and everyone was happy.
It wasn't like a folk dance, but the dance was about holding hands and spinning around in circles. But I didn't feel bad. I was flustered and awkward but quickly melted in. Oh, Maria! Are you truly Maria! She was waiting for me! I didn't know what it meant, but I sang along.
"Miss! What vulgar behavior!"
"It's fine, Priscilla! Everyone's singing and dancing happily!"
My partner was a very beautiful girl with short wine-colored bobbed hair. Judging by her clothes, she was definitely high nobility but didn't hesitate to mingle with commoners. I ended up dancing with her too. She smelled of roses and her eye smile was really charming. Who was she?
The girl who was dancing with me was eventually dragged away by her maid.
The rose scent seems to keep lingering around me.
Who is she? My Maria.
The next day, on Monday, I was jogging in the morning and passing by the plaza.
Some official was organizing people in front of the government office, and it looked somewhat chaotic.
I was about to pass by thinking nothing of it when suddenly a quest popped up.
[Repeated Quest: Occupation]
[Street Cleaning Supervisor]
[Manage the street cleaning workers]
[Manager Scouter temporarily provided]
[Reward - 200 points, 200 copper coins]
[Quest proceeds if hired]
A quest? And it's an occupation, not training. I was diligently collecting points to buy a scouter, and I noticed that I could temporarily receive a Manager Scouter through this quest. This might be worth trying?
"You want a job? I'm sorry but right now we only have street cleaning."
Street cleaning is literally cleaning filth from the streets.
But I was curious about how to use the Manager Scouter, so I wanted to try it.
"Sir knight, this isn't work suitable for a knight."
"I urgently need money, so give me the job."
"That's difficult. Hmm, then can you write by any chance?"
"Reading and writing are possible."
I had never learned German but knew German and letters.
I don't know if it's system correction, but it was very natural and I could read even difficult letters without hesitation.
I even knew Latin. Because I understood when the bishop rambled in Latin at church mass. But since it wasn't very useful content (alleluia!), I often dozed off in the middle.
"Oh, then how about working as a site supervisor?"
"I just manage the site and workers?"
I worked as a site manager at an electronics factory for 8 years. From raw materials, production planning, quality control, to finished products, I still have the satisfaction of when products that passed through my hands were sold worldwide. So site management was my most confident area. Though personnel management might be a bit difficult.
Originally, this street cleaning is one of the jobs handled by the executioner clan, they say.
I've seen them on the street once too, wearing noticeable red coats and having distinctive marks, and people absolutely didn't approach them. They had to eat or drink in corners, and activities outside designated areas were strictly forbidden.
Even those who unknowingly sat together with them were fired from their jobs and sometimes took their own lives.
Living with such social discrimination and unable to even reside in the city, living on the outskirts, the executioner clan was surprisingly wealthy. Since they were mobilized for dirty and miscellaneous work, they earned more money than commoners. At least they live without starving, so they might be better off than commoners.
If you can endure contempt and discrimination.
"The execution date is set, so they can't work this week, so we were urgently looking for temporary workers. I didn't expect a knight to come. I was also working double duty as supervisor, so this works out well."
"So it's a temporary job for one week? Did many workers gather?"
"There are many applicants, but the problem is I don't know which guys work well."
Since the executioners aren't visible, poor people flocked out to apply. So I had to pick 10 workers, but since I couldn't tell who would work hard, I was agonizing when I showed up. So I activated the Manager Scouter provided to me.
There were two functions: I could see history (name - age - affiliation - address) and status (health - psychology - tendency - relationship). Since I could check the most basic personal information, I used this function to pick only those with sincere and honest tendencies regardless of origin.
"I want to pick these 10 people. Can you give me that much authority?"
"Even though it's temporary, you're the site supervisor, so I'll acknowledge that much authority."
Since they had to pick personnel anyway, the administrative official hired according to my selection. The workers were bewildered that I picked them directly, but since I picked people mainly with the mindset to work hard, the site I would manage would become quite comfortable and easy. Work is better when it's easy.
"If there's anyone slacking off, deal with them strictly. You can use your sword."
Since I'm a noble knight, there's no problem even if I kill poor people.
That's why the administrative official asked that of me. To rule with fear.
"But from where to where is my area?"
"Alleys 6 through 10 south of Linz Avenue."
Linz Avenue stretches to Breisburg's west gate, and across to the south is where the poor residential area, prostitution street, and slums are located, so it's a very dirty place with poor security. With 10 people, we have to clean 5 alleys, won't we be short on manpower?
So when I asked if I could pick more, the official jumped.
Since they already picked me as supervisor, there's no allocation left.
"When cleaning is done, just send someone to me."
The departing administrative official's steps looked very light. If he was working double duty due to lack of personnel, he would naturally have been struggling. I know well the feeling of passing off work with relief. When I worked in management at the company, when a new employee came, I'd pass off one of my jobs.
That much reduction in work burden is bound to be good.
Still, official, let's not show too much that you're happy.
Anyway, now only 10 workers waiting blankly for instructions and I remained. The fortunate thing is that I have experience as a manager. The power of experience was important. If I had no experience, I would have been flustered not knowing what to instruct. I headed to the cleaning area with them.
Maybe because it's an alley with poor security, it was very dirty and had many beggars. Beggars seem to be in every alley. More than throwing filth out windows, beggars and Gypsies dirtied the alleys the most. Since they live in the alleys, they dump all kinds of filth.
Most beggars aren't from the capital. After checking their history with the Manager Scouter, most are freemen who came up from the provinces. And peculiarly, some of them had something called a beggar's certificate, but the rest had no certificate.
What's a beggar's certificate? A license to beg?
First, I drove out the beggars and Gypsies from the cleaning area. All kinds of complaints came out, but they don't have the guts to rebel against me wearing a sword. Plus, I'm a temporary supervisor and am officially performing public duties. They can be arrested if they disobey instructions, so it's better to obey quietly. I warned them quite kindly.
"Split into pairs and 4 teams collect filth and 1 team picks it up to fill the sacks."
"Wouldn't it be faster to have 2 people per alley?"
"Quietly move as I instructed. Then we can finish quickly."
When I gave instructions forcefully, 5 teams of 2 people formed, and I deployed 4 teams to alley 6 to collect filth. The remaining 1 team transfers the collected filth into sacks. It's called division of labor, and doing it this way made it easy to manage and more efficient. In 30 minutes, the alley was clean.
"Is this enough?"
There were no slacking workers, and since they were workers equipped with honest and sincere tags, they cleaned very diligently. In 3 hours, we cleaned all 5 alleys cleanly. But as soon as cleaning ended, as if they were waiting, beggars and Gypsies flocked in and set up. What the heck.
"What, you already finished cleaning?"
Anyway, the administrative official called by sending someone was bewildered since he was called earlier than expected. The administrative official just blinked at the cleaning area and the sacks full of filth.
Originally, human concentration lasts about 1 hour at most, but I used the scouter to deploy personnel in the right places and systematically and ruthlessly had them clean through division of labor. Naturally, good results had to come out. Division of labor is simple yet effective.
I completed the repeated quest and heavily earned 200 points and 200 copper coins, and received 100 copper coins as work allowance, which was quite nice. The administrative official asked me to take the street cleaning supervisor position for the time being. So I could hold the street cleaning supervisor position until the executioner clan returned.
Originally, I didn't train after 6 PM, but by adding an occupation quest, evening training time inevitably arose. As a result, my reading enjoyment time decreased. However, I couldn't neglect training.
It was only a week, but earning points and copper coins was quite nice. And the biggest harvest was learning how to use something called a scouter. Looking at the approximate exchange rate, 1 silver coin equals 1,000 copper coins exactly.
Actually, the exchange rate in medieval times varies wildly by region, so there's no standard, but the fact that it falls exactly like this seems to have some kind of convenience-oriented something.
By the way, a gold coin is 1,000 silver coins.
Is it because it's a world created based on a game?
Generally, a commoner's annual living expenses are about 8 silver coins. Before the Black Death, it was only about 5 silver coins and life was that difficult, but after the Black Death when labor greatly decreased and became scarce, taxes became lower than before and employment costs increased, making commoners' lives much better.
However, construction was strictly required to receive government office approval, putting in windows collected taxes, putting in doors collected taxes, placing a hearth collected taxes, and digging a well collected taxes. In villages, using the mill and oven also required paying taxes.
They paid taxes on all liquor that could be drunk at taverns, and even collected inheritance tax, marriage tax, and funeral tax. However, the amounts became lower, so the burden on commoners decreased was also true. Before the Black Death, they couldn't pay the marriage tax so they offered their wives. That was one of the misunderstandings about prima nocta.
Nobles have no taxes. However, there's a war tax temporarily collected when war breaks out with other countries or regions. If you participate in mobilization, you pay less war tax, and if you refuse mobilization, you pay more war tax. If war breaks out now, I can't participate in mobilization, so I'll get heavily taxed with war tax.