Free Web NovelChapter 278: ‘Helping’
Thinking back to those awkward first few days after meeting Kaden, Lucas couldn’t help smiling.
It hadn’t taken long for Lucas to realize that the young lord from the Patterson Family was on guard against him for some reason, but it wasn’t until 5 days later, when the burly boy finally worked up the courage to confront him about the issue, that Lucas understood why.
When Lucas saw the boy, who was nearly twice his size, fidgeting from nervousness, his head lowered almost to his chest, stuttering hesitantly as he asked what he thought about Audrey, Lucas burst into laughter.
The sight was just so awkward and out of place that Lucas couldn’t help himself, much to Kaden’s chagrin and embarrassment.
Only after several minutes of laughter did Lucas manage to regain his composure, reach up high, and pat the older boy on the shoulder, assuring him that he had nothing to worry about.
It was also at that point that Lucas confirmed the feelings between Audrey and Kaden were mutual. Had he not been so distracted and exhausted, Lucas might have noticed this sooner, but the childhood romance of the young pair wasn’t exactly high on his list of priorities to deal with, leading to him not paying much attention to the situation.
Now that he did know, however, Lucas saw no reason not to meddle, even plotting to get Eris and Christina involved.
After all, helping their friends achieve happiness was a noble and praiseworthy cause; it certainly wasn’t because it sounded entertaining...
Certainly not!
Over the following days, Eris and Christina, who needed no convincing to join in on the scheme, made a concerted effort to bring Audrey to places where she could spend more time with Kaden, even going so far as to tease and prod the two of them gently while they were together.
The two girls had long ago figured out that Audrey was in love with the burly young boy from the Patterson Family, and being at an age where they too were beginning to fantasize about romance, Eris and Tina were more than willing to help push the budding couple along.
This, of course, often resulted in both Kaden and Audrey blushing furiously and turning into incoherent messes, bringing no shortage of grins to Eris and Tina’s faces.
There was, however, a fundamental problem that still needed to be overcome if Audrey and Kaden wanted to be together.
Status.
The son of a Viscount and the granddaughter of a Count were, in theory, roughly equal in status, with the former maybe ranking just slightly higher due to being one generation closer to the family head.
In the case of Kaden and Audrey though, that couldn’t have been further from the truth.
Amongst all noble daughters in the Rockwell Kingdom, Audrey’s talent, lineage, demeanor, and looks definitely ranked amongst the top end, while all Kaden had going for him was his rugged handsomeness.
In terms of Innate Talent, Kaden ranked at the very bottom of the barrel for a noble son, and in a world where strength was undoubtedly the biggest indicator of status, this lack of natural aptitude was nothing short of a critical flaw.
Audrey’s parents and grandparents all knew about the young girl’s special interest in the Patterson boy, but while everyone from the Carlson Family doted on her quite severely, there had been absolutely no talk of getting the two engaged thus far.
In fact, the Elders from the Carlson Family had already made several attempts to pair Audrey up with sons from other noble houses, hoping to take advantage of the girl’s youthful naivety and strong sense of responsibility to steer her attention towards a more suitable son-in-law.
Even Lucas had gotten a bit caught up in these efforts, though with the arrival of Marquess Balfour, these subtle overtures were quickly squashed.
In any case, if Kaden wanted to win the approval of not just his own family, but the Carlson Family as well, he would need to achieve something impressive enough to overcome his perceived faults.
And that, is where Lucas decided to focus his efforts.
Rather than take the same approach as his Junior Sisters, who were directly trying to hook up Audrey and Kaden, Lucas decided to help his newest friend improve his status in the eyes of the world.
Not that Lucas didn’t team up with Eris and Christina in locking Audrey and Kaden in awkward situations whenever possible; he very much did.
Still, the bulk of the time Lucas spent with Kaden was teaching him about some of the farming techniques he had been developing back in Redwood Town.
At first, Kaden was skeptical, even a little bit dismissive of Lucas’ knowledge.
The boy had seen Lucas in action for a few days now, and acknowledged his brilliance as both a leader and strategist, but as someone who had spent his whole life around plants, Kaden still felt a sense of superiority when it came to agricultural pursuits.
That, of course, didn’t last for long.
Unlike many noble sons, Kaden was quite familiar with how farming worked and how the food which graced his table was grown, so the more Lucas talked about soil conditioning, irrigation, selective breeding, and many other advanced concepts, the more the young Patterson lordling realized just how much more profound the younger boy’s knowledge was.
It only took a handful of ’lessons’, accompanied by some experiments performed in Audrey’s field, for Kaden to be completely convinced of Lucas’ brilliance. The two of them weren’t even in the same league.
Because he already knew a fair bit about plants and farming, Kaden was able to easily grasp how much more advanced Lucas’ knowledge was, and this understanding was only further reinforced when Kaden began asking all the questions he had been wondering about for years.
To each of these questions, Lucas was able to provide easy to understand and well reasoned answers, allowing the giant boy to feel like he had reached a state of enlightenment.
Realizing the immense gap between them, and comprehending just how valuable the knowledge Lucas was handing over to him for free, Kaden threw out any lingering sense of pride he was holding onto and completely submitted to the young boy, going so far as to refer to him as ’Master’.
Naturally, Lucas vehemently opposed being given such a title, and after several back-and-forth arguments, he eventually got Kaden to take a step back and only call him ’Teacher’.
It still felt a bit inappropriate, but Lucas was too tired to fight about it any more with the oddly stubborn boy.
And so, time passed, with Lucas teaching Kaden some basic biology and a few farming concepts he managed to scrape from his inherited memories, while Eris and Christina did their best to spark some romance between the big boy and their new little sister.
Ultimately leading to today, where Lucas found himself sitting outside the guest villa, staring out into space.
Turning to his side, Lucas let out a chuckle, causing the burly youth sitting next to him to ask, "Is something the matter, Teacher Lucas?"
Shaking his head, Lucas just grinned wryly, "No, nothing. Just remembering the days after you first arrived."
Blushing furiously, Kaden lowered his head and muttered, "Please stop bringing that up, Teacher..."
"Hahaha, you’re going to need to work on your confidence if you really want to be with..." Here, Lucas abruptly paused and turned back to wave, "Eris, Tina, Audrey, you finished already?"
The trio of girls, each wearing light clothes with their hair still wet, smiled and waved, with Eris taking the lead to shout, "En! We’re done! You two can go wash up now."
"Great," Lucas got up and stretched.
It had been another long day, trying to settle the last of the refugee convoys, the ones heading for destinations outside the South-West Province. These convoys required much more planning and logistical support, so they had taken much longer to arrange.
The end of the day, however, was actually spent in Audrey’s field, where Lucas was trying to explain crop rotation and regenerative agriculture to the others.
These concepts, along with a sort of recipe for natural fertilizer, were the final ’gifts’ Lucas was giving to Kaden and Audrey.
Lucas had been trying to introduce these practices in Redwood Town, but his efforts had been cut off due to the recent disaster, meaning he didn’t have a full proof-of-concept, yet. As such, he figured that he could give this knowledge to the two young love-birds and let them experiment with it on their own.
He too would likely be working on these important projects, but having someone else studying the same material, from a different perspective, was always a good thing in Lucas’ opinion.
If everything worked out, together with the new agricultural machines he had designed, Lucas figured the crop yields in the South-West Province would soon explode, more than making up for the lost farmland west of the Belton.
It would also be a huge merit that Kaden could use to dramatically improve his standing and compete for Audrey’s hand, a win-win all around in Lucas’ opinion.
Right now, though, all Lucas wanted to do was head to the bathroom to wash off his sweat from the day, so he turned back to grab Kaden, only to find the older boy desperately trying to avert his eyes from the girls and their freshly washed appearances. ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
Lucas also noted that Audrey seemed to be blushing a bit more than the other two as she kept stealing glances over towards Kaden.
The two of them could not have been more obvious, but despite all the prodding over the past few days, they didn’t seem to have the courage to take that one last step, something that was beginning to irk Lucas, Eris, and Tina. freeweɓnovel.cѳm
Not that the three of them had any right to talk, honestly.
