Chương 167: 164. Duvas

"Uh... what do you mean?" Duvas asked with confusion.

"How is that relevant here?"

"J ust humor me," Kivamus insisted. Duvas took a deep breath.

"I didn't really have a choice in that. I was born as the fifth son of a minor noble in the City of Risalis, in the far north of the kingdom." Kivamus thought about it from the memories he had inherited.

"Yeah, that's one of the four major cities of this kingdom including Ulriga and the capital Dorastiz." Gorsazo nodded at him, probably feeling proud that he had managed to remember it. Duvas continued, "Indeed, the last one being Plumron, which is famous for its luxury soaps made by its soap guilds. But I digress. As you can guess, the oldest son would go on to become the next baron after our father died, while the others wouldn't get any land or title.

We were expected to either join the temple or train to become a knight. But I was never very strong physically, so becoming a knight was never an option for me, and it didn't interest me anyway." He elaborated, "I joined a temple of the Goddess in Risalis as a priest or rather, as a disciple - which I remained for many decades. Later on, I migrated to the south of the kingdom in the process of spreading the Goddess' words to people, and eventually to Cinran.

However, reading the books available in various temples interested me a lot more than providing blessings to the people who visited there." Duvas added, "The previous baron of this village used to visit the temple in Cinran, where I got introduced to him.

And when coal mines were discovered in the south and he was appointed as the first Baron of Tiranat, he invited me to come with him, since he needed someone educated and trustworthy who could take care of his accounts, while also acting as a conduit to the Goddess for him."

"Probably to forgive his long list of sins..." Feroy muttered. Duvas glared at the ex-mercenary but didn't say anything to him. Looking back towards Kivamus, he added, "And that's how I became the majordomo of this manor." Kivamus nodded slowly, thinking about it, then asked, "Now tell me, what would have happened if you weren't educated?" Duvas hesitated before replying.

"Uh... I am not really sure, my Lord. As a son of a noble - no matter how minor - I was always going to get basic education anyway, just like my brothers."

"Yeah, that's one of the privileges of being born in a noble's family," Kivamus remarked.

"But still, try to imagine if you weren't educated for some reason. Then where would you be today?" Duvas gazed into the distance.

"If I wasn't educated... which would probably have meant that I didn't have any interest in reading books, then I wouldn't have tried to join a temple of the goddess. In that case, I guess I would have tried to become a knight." But he immediately shook his head, and added, "No, that would never have worked with how frail I used to be as a child. Then..." The majordomo gave a sigh.

"I guess I would have wandered here and there, looking for work. Perhaps as a laborer, or maybe even as a coal miner..."

"Now you must be getting what I mean," Kivamus said.

"You couldn't have known as a child that you would become a majordomo after thirty or forty years in the future, so there was no real reason for you to get educated at that time, was it?" Duvas nodded slowly.

"If I wasn't born as a son of a noble, then yes, I might not have chosen to spend my time learning to read and write at that young age. Not that I could have afforded it anyway, since I would have had to work every day just to earn my meals." He exhaled.

"Now I see what you mean. Getting educated created an opportunity for a comfortable life for me decades after that decision, and without that, I would probably either be working as a laborer today, or I might have become a slave if I couldn't have paid the debt that I would certainly have taken to feed myself. Or more likely, since I wouldn't be able to do any hard work at this age, I might even have starved to death at some point..." Kivamus gave an understanding nod, recognizing the harsh realities of this world.

"And tell me, when the previous baron chose you as his majordomo, did it matter whether you were born as a noble?"

"Not really, my Lord, though it certainly didn't hurt my prospects," Duvas replied.

"He just wanted an educated man to keep his books, and someone who would be honest enough, which any disciple of the Goddess' temple is expected to be. I have known other disciples in the past who were from a commoner's background but they had still been chosen to become a majordomo or a bookkeeper by other nobles." Kivamus smiled.

"And that's exactly the reason why I want to give an opportunity to everyone in this village to become educated." Thinking about the writing system of this kingdom, he already knew that while the alphabet used here was quite different from those used for English, it was still a similar language which used only twenty-nine characters and didn't use any pictures or logos as symbols for its letters.

The number system used was also a decimal one with base-ten, which meant that once people had the basics of the language well-understood, it wouldn't be difficult to build upon it to teach them advanced concepts in the future, just like it was done in English on Earth. However, that would be far in the future. For now, they had to start from the very basics. This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

He began, "I have many plans for the future which will require a better educated workforce. But even if all they can learn is to write their name and do very basic addition and subtraction, it would still allow the villagers to prevent themselves from getting cheated by a swindling merchant. And who knows, maybe one of them would get an opportunity to become a majordomo to another noble in the future." At this point even Feroy looked thoughtful. Gorsazo nodded.

"I support this idea. I was born as a commoner with nearly nothing to my name, but I was able to teach the son of a Duke only because I got a rare opportunity to become educated and I took it." Duvas seemed lost in thoughts for a while, then he nodded as well, while looking at Kivamus.

"Alright, I agree with you too. Although I don't know where you even get such weird ideas anyway. I would never have thought of trying to educate commoners when they could be working to feed their families." Kivamus glanced at the majordomo and shrugged, trying to deflect the question.

"My mind works in different ways from others, you already know that." Duvas gave a nod and thankfully, he didn't pursue it further. The majordomo asked, "While I understand your reasoning now, I still don't know if the villagers would want to do it in the first place. Like I said, they all would prefer to work more so they can earn more for their families. Nobody would choose to skip a day of work to sit in a... school."

"That could be a problem..." Kivamus muttered with a frown. Gorsazo spoke up again.

"Then why don't we make it conditional?" At everyone's confused look, he elaborated, "We are providing a place to live to the villagers who are staying in the longhouse block, and we are also providing free meals for most of them. We can just make one of those things conditional on attending those classes regularly." Kivamus nodded slowly.

"That could work. Even so, it would be better if the classes are held at a time when the majority of villagers are already gathered there without it disturbing their work hours. So it can't be during the day, and they have to leave early in the morning for work. So evening seems to be the only feasible time for this. We can make it such that the condition for getting to live without rent in that longhouse block is attending those classes in the evening.

And if they don't want to attend those classes, they are free to leave the longhouse block." He shrugged.

"But nobody is really going to do that, so attending those classes will basically become mandatory for them." Duvas nodded.

"That should take care of it. But who will even teach there? Even for a single longhouse block it will take at least an hour if we want to meaningfully teach them anything. And I simply don't have that much time to do it." He added, "Even if I somehow manage to do it for now, but when the second longhouse block is completed, and maybe even more of them as you have planned, then it will simply become unfeasible for me." Kivamus thought about it and even considered doing it himself.

However, while he was easily the person with the most modern knowledge here, he had absolutely no experience of teaching anyone, not to mention the people would basically be at kindergarten level in terms of education, so he wouldn't even know where to start teaching them.

More importantly, as important as it was to make his villagers literate, his time was likely better used to find practical implementation of his knowledge, to make the village self-reliant, as well as to make it strong enough to defend from any bandits or nefarious plants of other greedy nobles. He gazed at the occupants of the room and snorted when he tried to imagine Feroy as a school teacher. The children would run away from him for sure. Or perhaps they won't... since the guy did know how to blend in.

Either way, that only left Gorsazo, who was probably the best option for them anyway with his experience. But before he said anything, his former teacher looked at him.

"Why don't I do this?" Gorsazo asked.

"I have worked as a teacher for a long time, even if I was only teaching a single person in the past." He added with a smirk, "Also, I don't have those uh... otherworldly blueprints in my mind to spend my time on - like you keep drawing on those parchments - nor do I have other supervisory responsibilities in the manor like Duvas. So it's not like there is any other feasible way to teach them other than me, if you really want to do this."

Kivamus was still trying to calm his rapidly beating heart when he thought that Gorsazo was going to spill the beans a moment ago. He nodded, glaring at his former teacher.

"Okay then. You will be the teacher for the long house block in the evenings. Start from the very basics and..." He paused.

"Actually, you know far better than me about what to teach and how to do it. So I'll leave it up to you." Gorsazo nodded, still smirking at his play of words earlier.

"Of course." Duvas asked, "But that's only a small part of the village living in that block. What about the rest of them?"

"Let's take it one step at a time," Kivamus answered.

"The news about free education would spread in the village soon enough, and any other children who are curious can join the classes inside the first longhouse block. For the remaining adults, we will have to wait until the second block is constructed. Then we can provide another class there." He added, looking at his former teacher, "And in the future, if it reaches a stage where it is getting difficult for you to manage your time between different blocks, we can think of another solution at that time."

"That will work for now," Gorsazo agreed.

"I'll start the classes from tomorrow, if Duvas spreads the word by then that getting to live there for free means everyone has to attend the classes." Duvas gave a nod.

"I'll do it myself tomorrow morning before the workers leave for work from the block." Kivamus looked at the ex-mercenary and smirked.

"You wouldn't be interested in joining as a student too, would you?"