Chapter 19: Tales of Hugo the Wondering Knight Part 1

Since Hugo Carl Templeton, (that is whole name that I just recently learned), has returned to the city of Florentine has spend most of his time, wandering outside the territory and other kingdoms. This is the first time that Hugo managed to take a good look around the place he grew up in.

It is also a huge surprise for him to see that everything within his sight has changed significantly just after a year he was gone.

He didn't expect that he would see this kind of vibrant sight within this place.

As a knight who travels around the continent, he has witnessed and learned a lot of things, and what Florentine city has shown is nothing like the one he has seen before.

He learned that most of the changes in this city has all started with the son of his good friend, and master, who had suddenly changed for the better.

The last time he saw Lucas he still had his haughty attitude and a nasty personality that was not befitting for someone who wants to be a knight in the future, though they both knew it, Hubert, his master, didn't know how to correct it in order to discipline his own son.

He witnessed how his master and friend Hubert greatly protects his family, and from the time that Lucas was born his master has done all he can do in order to keep him safe.

That's why when Hubert found out that the young Lucas have a deadly condition called "Creeping Death". Hugo saw him spend his entire day drinking some wine in his office while reading and collecting more books that had something to do with this illness.

Hubert even sent him into other neighboring kingdoms to check if, they know a possible cure that can treat this illness, but all was for naught as they end up with the same ending.

No matter how much money, time, and power they invested in seeking answers for the cure, all they got is death.

Most of the people they found out who have the same disease have died and very few people survive from this and even if they wanted to ask those survivors they would have no chance at all.

Hubert was devastated for a whole month.

He saw how his friend had grief over his wife's grave and just stared at her tombstone for some time without doing anything before whispering some words in the air. He saw all of this from a distance as he chose to stayed and guard him in silence.

          All of them, from the servants in the mansion to the people in the city, to the knight from the Beaufort family, have tried to give him comforting words, but he still continues to spend his day at his wife's grave.

          After seeing him suffer for an entire month, his father Cedrick, who is Lucas Grandfather, has stepped in and talked to him personally.

This is also the time, where Hubert picked himself up and became more dedicated to his work.

Hugo doesn't really have an exact idea of what they talked about inside the room. Since he could even feel the depressing aura emanating from the door although he was outside guarding it, he figured out that it must have something to do with Lucas condition.

Their talk have lasted for hours before the door opened and Hubert came out with reddish eyes and a little bit of dampness on his nose.

He wanted to ask and comfort his friend, but he knew that it was not the time.

He only followed Hubert silently outside the mansion as he goes again into his wife's grave before laying a bouquet of Florentia flowers on her tombs and lighting up some candles.

He watched all of this from the side as he saw how Hubert promised his dead wife that he would take care of Lucas and find a way to cure his illness.

And from that day on, Hubert spent most of his time looking for possible solutions and running the city with the help of his father, and bit by bit, he finds a small chance for Lucas to survive the ordeal.

Aside from this, Hubert is also greatly concerned with his missing nephew at that time.

Hugo knows about his existence as he help Hubert and his father to hide his existence from the eyes of other people who were after his mother's bloodline.

But In exchange, they can't formally introduce him into the world as a part of the Beaufort Family and Hugo knows how important it is for that young child to keep his identity hidden since he was also part of the forces that help them keep Hubert's nephews existence a secret.

Hugo thought that everything would go well from that time, but the sudden passing of Hubert's father has once again taken a toll on him, but thankfully, Lucas has grown into a strong man despite suffering from that illness once a year.

Hubert have given him a huge responsibility to find a possible solution or any news that might help Lucas condition and look for clues regarding the mother of his nephew outside the city in different kingdom.

He spent most of his time away from his loved ones, and has faced a lot of danger, in order to follow those orders. He only goes back to the city once in a while.

It also helps that he was a strong knight, enough to deter those people with malicious intention while he was on the road.

"A lot of things have changed in this place. The last time I was here it looks a little bit desolate, but look at it now." Hugo said to his wife as they both looked at their surroundings.

"Indeed, my dear, since the young master have started that project. This place has started to become lively, thanks to hiring a lot of people and paying them well. They have begun to buy more things from the merchants." Lisa said as she put her head on Hugo's shoulders.

"How did you spend your day while I was away?" Hugo asks sadly.

"The same routine as usual, except now that we have a child and you know that our son is such a demanding man, he can't live without me even for a moment, or he'll cry very loudly, that's why my mother have to help me take care of him." Lisa said with a little laugh.

"I'm sorry I was not with you when he was born." Hugo muttered in a low voice while sadly staring at her eyes.

"That's okay dear, what is important is you come back home alive and safe. You never know how many times I pray for your wellbeing while gazing at the night stars." Lisa said sweetly.

"I also miss both of you and our son. He even got the same hair color as me, but he got your eyes and smiles, and every time I gaze at the night sky I always think about both of you, my love."

"Are you still going for another mission far from us?" Lisa asked.

"No, my love. Lord Hubert have already told me that this mission is already my last time to venture outside, far away from you."

"Then I'm glad to hear that. I don't want to see our son grow up without your presence. He might not recognize you the next time you come back." Lisa said happily.

"I also don't want that to happen and I know that Lord Hubert knows that as well." Hugo said seriously.

He knew that his lord, Hubert, due to his eagerness to find a cure and manage the city on his own, he often forgot to spend time with his son.

This is also one of the reasons why Lucas has become distant from his father, and Hugo also knows that Hubert is aware about this problem.

That's why Hubert doesn't want Hugo to suffer from the same fate as him being distant to his own son.

"Oh, look, do you want me to buy some pie for you? I know it's your favorite." Lisa said as she pulled him into one of the stalls along the plaza.

"Ah no honey, I'm good. Don't work yourself too much. In fact, I have already had enough of them." Hugo declined her offer as she had been feeding him the same pie since he returned.

"That's unfortunate, but honey I've seen a lot of new foods that have started popping up. You might want to give it some try." Happily said by Lisa as she went ahead to buy some purple soup and bread in one of the stalls.

"Hi Josephine, give me the usual, please." Lisa said to an older woman.

"Okay, coming up, and oh my! Is that Hugo? It's nice seeing you here. Come on I'll add more soup for you." Josephine greet delightedly when he saw her husband.

"That's why I always buy your food. Go on I'll take that."

"What's the name of this dish? I've seen you eating this, since last week" ask by an intrigued Hugo.

"Oh, this soup doesn't have any formal name, but people like to call it purple soup. It's a new dish I'd make using different spices and some purple gerotin" Said by the vendor Josephine.

A/N: Gerotin, is a type of purple vegetable that has a great resemblance to pumpkin.

"I thought people didn't like to eat this stuff, since it's too bitter and some people from other kingdom even said it is poisonous. Are you sure that this is safe to eat?" Hugo said with great concern.

"Of course this is safe. Since young master Lucas have unveiled the use of different spices on food, the entire city have gone mad. And tried a lot of crazy things, and this is one of my price possession. After trying so many times, I finally made a new delicious dish out of this gerotin. That is unique to everyone and look.... I even won the first prize for the contest last month." Boasted by Josephine as she pointed at the award at her back.

"And if you still don't believe me you can go to that store, you'll see that this purple gerotin is quite popular now in the city." She added as she pointed at the store on the other side of the road.

"Don't worry, honey, it's perfectly safe to consume this food and people even find more bizarre ingredients aside from this." Assured by Lisa.

"But we don't know if it's true. This is the first time I've seen a massive consumption of that plant and for many years we avoided eating it and then out of nowhere, it became popular in the city. Who came up with this idea anyway?" Hugo said with grave concern.

"Oh! Of course, it's the great cook of the Beaufort House. Gaspar, the number one cook known in the city. He was the first one to popularize eating those strange plants." Josephine said suddenly with enthusiasm evident in her tone.

"What that Lunatic?" Hugo said in great surprise.

"What Lunatic, he is a genius! okay a genius! Because of him trying out all those exotic plants we now have a wide selection of food to choose from. Besides, no food will taste bad once you use our city's secret ingredients. Our powdered spices do it like magic." Defensively said by Josephine.

"But he is also the one that started that horrendous culture in our city." Hugo said angrily.

"What horrendous culture do you mean, the Dark cuisine? Ha! You don't know anything, Mr. Knight, that is what you called the apex of food art and taste besides dark cuisine is highly respected in our field." Proudly said by Josephine.

"Calm down dear, I know what you mean. Maybe at first dark cuisine is not that appetizing, but look at where Mr. Gaspar is now. He is popular in the city. A lot of people even want to learn from him, to become another great cook. Besides dark cuisine isn't that bad. Once you've got used to it, you'll find that it actually tastes great." Lisa said as she carried the bag of bread.

"But honey, you know what happens to us after we've eaten one of his creations right, our entire house stinks because of diarrhea," Hugo said, still pissed from that memory.

"Ahahaha, yeah I still remember that but Hugo, you also know that it wasn't his intention when he gifted us that food, and he knows he is wrong and he has already said sorry a lot of times and since then his craftsmanship has improved by leaps and bounds." Lisa said as a small smile could be seen on her face.

"Yeah, listen to your wife. Gaspar might have failed at first, but that's how we all achieve our success. We would suffer some failure a few times but eventually, we end up mastering it." Josephine added as she said goodbye to the couple.

"You heard what she says and it's true. Look at this. If their crazy pursuit of cooking the next delicious food using different and unknown ingredients, we won't be able to eat something like this every day." Lisa said as she showed Hugo the soup of Purple Gerotin.

"At the same time, because of what happened several months ago, we now have access to a wide variety of edible plants, unlike before and even our flavoring spices have increased. Such a result is not bad, though the city suffered from a lot of bad food for a month, but after we got all the results. We now have a lot of delicious recipes and food available for everyone." She added before handing him some bread.

"It's all thanks to our young Master, without his insistence to build the waterwheel and canal we wouldn't have all of this by now." Hugo said differently.

          As both of them had returned to their house they kept on talking about things that Hugo had missed while he was away on his mission.

"It is also because of him that prices of food have become stable, with the expansion of farmland and the discovery of new edible plants by Gaspar and employing a lot of people in the new Beaufort industry. A lot of people are thankful for what he has done." Lisa said happily.

"For the first time after so many years of living in this place, we have a lot of food and money, unlike before where all our living conditions can be considered as poor. With your salary, we could even have savings for another baby." Lisa added as she teased Hugo.

"What you want another one? Hero is only 1 years of age. Can we take care of it?" ask by Hugo.

"Since you returned, we've done it a lot of times and last week I started to have cravings for unique foods. The same thing happened to me when I was pregnant with Hero." Lisa whispered to him shyly.

Hugo looks at his wife to see that her face has now turned red and even he could feel that his own face was starting to heat up.

"We-We're going to have another baby?" excitedly said by Hugo.

"It's not confirmed yet but this is the same symptom I had when I found out I was pregnant with Hero." Lisa said happily.

"Th-That I-I he/she would be accepted to our family then." He said as he stammered due to his emotions.

"I know you would be happy with this news, but I don't think Hero wouldn't like any rivals with our attention. He is just too young to understand everything." Worriedly said by Lisa.

"He will be 2 years old by the time his sibling is born. Maybe that time he won't have the same attachment to us. We can teach him to love his siblings instead, because that would be his playmate once they both grow up." Said by Hugo as he tried to console his wife.

"That is also one of my worries. We don't have a lot of children here in our city with the same age as our child. A lot of people have stopped giving birth since taxes started to go out of hand." Lisa added.

"I also noticed that problem. Every time I return from my mission, the number of children I see around the city has become lesser and lesser as time goes by and now when we look around this city we can hardly see any children at all."

"It is also because of the hard news we have learned from other merchants such a terrible blow has brought huge fear to people's minds, especially the laws  allowing civilians to be traded as slaves."

"When I heard that news, I was on the neighboring kingdom of Seiss I couldn't believe that our king would allow such laws to be legalized on our kingdom." Hugo said with anger evident on his voice.

"Yet it does happen and we all know the fact that Turox kingdom hasn't had a great relationship with our lord since their family leaves the capital." Lisa added.

"There are a lot of tales concerning the true history behind that, but none have been proven to be true and yet despite their adamant hate on our lord's none of them have made any moves."

"Do you really think so? I even noticed something strange these past few months. You are gone in the city for a long time and you aren't aware of the things happening inside the city but every door has its own voice and secret to tell." Lisa said mysteriously to Hugo.

"What do you mean by that? Do you know something you didn't tell me?" intriguingly ask by Hugo.