Chapter 124: Returning to the Town
Translator:Transn
Editor:Meh
When Tylo left, Nightingale revealed herself from the Mist and said, "Today is probably the day that you've told the most lies."
Roland said impatiently, "What can I do when the person was the high priest of the church? Anyway, can you tell if he was lying?"
"No, the scene around him was engulfed by the God's Stone of Retaliation, and I could only see the darkness."
"Unfortunately, the high priest couldn't be treated like the noble," Roland thought with regret. He put the two pills on the table. "Do you think the pills are really as amazing as what he said?"
For pain relief, morphine could do it. But in order to make the soldiers become powerful, it sounded like the effect of the adrenal hormone. The problem was how to extract these two substances to make pills? If the church owned such technology, they should have conquered the world.
"Wait..." Roland suddenly thought of a possibility, "Maybe it has something to do with the magic power?"
"Can you see the flow of magic power?" He looked at Nightingale and asked, "is there magic power in these two pills?"
Nightingale observed carefully. "I can't see the magic power, but it's a bit like the God's Stone of Retaliation."
"The God's Stone of Retaliation?" Roland was stunned.
She nodded. "Well, you've seen the world through the Mist. It's only black and white there, but the darkness is different from that formed by the God's Stone of Retaliation, the latter more like a void that swallows the world around it. I don't know how to describe that feeling..." Nightingale hesitated. "It's better to say there's nothing inside rather than a darkness inside of a hole."
"Nothingness?"
"Yes, that's nothingness." She nodded. "The two pills also have something like nothingness, but they are subtle, and... they're also not a circular hole, but rather sections of the black flowing filaments."
"Does this nothingness affect your ability?"
Nightingale grabbed the pills, entered into the Mist, but soon retreated. "It seems to have no effect."
"It seems necessary to find a condemned prisoner to try these two pills and see what happens." Roland carefully wrapped the pills, and held the pills in his arms.
"I didn't expect the church to be so optimistic about you," Nightingale sat by the prince, and said depressingly.
"If the high priest didn't wear the God's Stone of Retaliation, I'd bet there are lies in nine out of his ten sentences." Roland curled his lips. "The most important thing is what they do. What they ask for is totally different."
"Why?"
"Think about what they want: more churches, more believers, a prince or king who's supported by himself, and deciding the propaganda of the divine right of kings, a stable country that's more conducive to their development of believers and development of power. Otherwise, under an annual war, the church and the cloister will become a target for robbery by refugees and aristocrats."
"What they like is that you can bring a stable life for the people?"
"It's not the case." Roland shook his head. "Stability comes from unity or balance, even if the king eats and drinks every day, the people in the unified country live happier than the refugees in the war. So it's not surprising that they support the Second Prince, and it's not surprising that they support Princess Garcia. But it's so strange to come and support me, especially when Garcia is victorious."
"Now if the church fully supports Garcia, I'm afraid that the king's city and the east side of the area will be swallowed by her in no more than six months." If 70% of the land of the Kingdom of Graycastle belonged to Queen of Clearwater, Roland thought their pressure would also be greatly increased. "If we don't help the strong one but choose the weakest one, it seems that this decision is beneficial to us. It can be assumed that we accept their support, and then the situation of Graycastle will become more chaotic. The direct impacts of the three countries are the sharp decline in the population, the rapid loss of wealth, the wars spread to the whole country, and the date of unification is dragged on.
"What benefits can the church gain? They won't have more believers. Worse still, I'm afraid all the churches will be demolished."
"I don't understand the idea of you nobles. You always beat around the bush." Nightingale sighed.
"Yeah," Roland replied with a smile, "except for me."
"..." The witch narrowed her eyes and stared at the prince for a long time. "It's strange.Why does that sentence also appear to be true?"
Three days later, Roland finally evacuated the castle and the library of Longsong Stronghold, contentedly taking the Littletown on the way home.
While approaching Border Town along the Redwater River, the scenery on both sides of the river had changed. In the open space of the town opposite where Anna burned, many people were busy working. Judged by their appearance, they were the serfs who first arrived in the town. While close to the Impassable Mountain Range, there were many simple wooden sheds that had been put up. Someone was moving in the wooden shed, Roland guessed it was a family member of the serfs.
These people were bound to the land from generation to generation, and their children were born to be serfs. Most people were living a numb life because they could not see hope. What drove them to work was not their inner desires, but the whip and cable set in the hands of the slaveholders. Low production efficiency was a great waste of human resources.
There was no doubt that slavery was the enemy of industrial production and belonged to the system that needed to be abolished. Roland did not intend to let them all become free people easily, but to provide a channel so that they could see the hope that they could be promoted to be free people. There was a precedent to follow—slaves divorced from slavery because of the kindness of their lord. Even if the spread of this approach would not have had much impact, other aristocrats felt that they were just a good person at most.
When the time was right, he would fully implement the abolition of the slavery law. The resistance would be much smaller then.
The wharf was full of sailing ships and it was clear that this small wharf had been unable to bear such heavy transport pressure. Fortunately, the draft of the Littletown was shallow, so it could dock directly without a wharf. "It seems that the expansion of the wharf also needed to be listed on the schedule," Roland thought.
When they returned to the castle, he could not take any rest. The moment he returned to the office he called Barov, letting him report on the situation of receiving the goods.
And the assistant minister was also ready. He took a roll of parchment from his pocket, spreading it out on the big wooden table.
"Your Highness, the things that you're taking back to the castle these days really scare me." Although he said so, his face overflowing with wrinkles betrayed his feelings. "It took the 12 apprentices a whole night to count all the coins, and the total is more than 14,000 pieces of gold royals! Your Highness, it's equivalent to a year's income in an ordinary town!"
Roland thought that it might take more than 20 years for a duke to save those many gold royals. And these gold royals were from the search, plunder, and exploitation of the people in the Western Region. He wanted to turn them into food, steel, and machinery as soon as possible. "What about the gemstones, jewelry, and handicrafts?"
"There isn't enough time to convert it all, but the conservative estimate is also about 10,000 gold royals. If they're sent to the king's city to auction, the price will be higher. Now they're stored in the basement of your castle." Barov stopped a second. "But there aren't enough rooms to be used for food storage, so I suggest that you expand the castle and build more warehouses to store other materials."