Er Mu - Release that Witch

At this moment the Bishop noticed that there were a few tall towers erected beside the stone road, but if the guards with their torches hadn’t stepped close to them, it would have been hard for the average person to find these hidden metal towers within the darkness.

The guards climbed the ladders and lit the oil in the basin at the top. It immediately produced several groups of dazzling flames. Mayne first had to narrowly squint his eyes and slowly adapt to the change in lighting, before he was able to look ahead.

In the flickering light, a dusty canvas appeared in front of everyone, it was tall and bulging, and was apparently covering a something large.

“It was originally planned that we would wait two more years before we took this out to help resist against the then even more fierce demonic beasts’ attacks, but it now seems we have to shift its appearance to an earlier date.” O’Brien waved his hand then commanded, “Remove the cloth.”

“This is…” When the canvas fell, Mayne couldn’t believe his eyes. Before him stood a huge, fierce some four-wheeled iron carriage; just its wheels were already taller than he was. It did not have the appearance of an ordinary carriage either. Rather, it had a ferocious looking horn-shaped metal ramp, the frame was made out of beast bones, and the areas between the frames had been closed with barbed bone shields, with a size of three to four large doors.

There were two perfectly straight iron poles with pointed ends, one on the left and one on the right, which extended through the openings in the shield and pointed forward, as if ready to fire off arrows. Moreover, another dozen of these metal poles were hanging from both sides of the iron carriage, each were as thick as his own thigh, with its dark and metallic luster shining under the brazier light.

“The canon called this, ‘Siege Beast’.” The Pope walked to the side of the carriage and patted the hard iron poles, “It relies on magic power to operate, and needs the power of three to four witches for it to run smoothly. The Siege Beast’s striking distance is far beyond that of a trebuchet or ballista, and for the typical city wall, it is very difficult to resist the destructible power of these iron arrows. The giant trees they use to build ships with are the same as thin pieces of paper in front of this. No matter if it is for destroying the strong city walls of Wolfsheart City or to prevent the Black Sail Fleet from advancing further, would both be very easy if we make use of this.”

“This… is it also a weapon developed by the secret temple?”

“No,” O’Brian shook his head, “You should be able to guess, this comes from our enemies — it is from the Devil’s from hell. This is also why the Church hides the Siege Beast here deep within the cave. Remember, when you use it, be sure to hide your whereabouts as much as possible, don’t let any civilian see it.

“I understand,” Mayne said as he lowered his head.

How it is possible for witches to be able to manipulate the Devil’s weapon? Do they possess the same kind of magic as humans? He forced down all of his doubts and did not continue asking. Obviously, only after he became the new Pope would he be eligible to understand these things.

“Also, to avoid Garcia and the Wolf King from fleeing again, I will be dispatching two Purified Ones to aid you during combat,” the Pope said.

“No one can escape from their grasp… Go forth, bring back the blood of those blasphemers for the sake of Heather’s farewell dinner.”

His Holiness is dispatching the Purified Ones! He was shocked to his core, the witches who were both raised and allowed to survive by the Church were called Purified Ones. But to become His Holiness’ subordinate, only the most powerful out of ten thousand was selected, like those who had abilities not even recorded within the Canon of Magic. Comparing them to the troops under Heather, Tayfun, and himself, would be like comparing the sky to the earth! With His Holiness now personally stating that they would be unable to escape, the ending of the two was already fated to happen.

“As you bid, Your Holiness,” Mayne answered in excitement.

Roland held Border Town’s first high-level plenary session in the castle’s drawing hall.

Compared to the time when he had held it with Barov and his ten apprentices in name only, the City Hall nowadays had expanded to a large group consisting of nearly one hundred people. The group contained nobles, surrendered knights, squires, as well some natives who had completed the primary education and received their diploma.

Thanks to the growth of the population, various departments could be formed in succession, which caused the City Hall to finally reach a size the Prince was satisfied with. No longer was it as before, where he had to do everything on his own, at present in the case of a simple policy or program, as long as he explained the concept to them, the new City Hall was able to distribute it according to the department and manage to complete the task, something which filled Roland with a sense of gratification.

The participants of the first high-level meeting were all the heads of departments, namely there was the Minister of Agriculture, Sirius Daly; Minister of Education, Scroll; the Minister of Chemical Industry, Kyle Sichi (temporary); Minister of Construction, Karl van Bate; the Head of the Army, Iron Axe; and finally, the City Hall Premier Minister, Barov Mons. The Ministry of Industry was still personally managed by Roland. After all, except him, no one else knew what industrialization looked like.

A bucket of ice water was placed next to everyone, releasing bursts of cold air — Candle had placed an enchantment on the ice cubes, which preserved them within the water for at least the whole morning. Even though the sun was shining fiercely outside, the castle hall still maintained its cool and refreshing temperature.

“Then let’s start with each department reporting on its recent situation,” Roland took a kettle from the bucket, and poured himself a cup of ice water, “The first one is the Ministry of Agriculture.”

“Yes, Your Royal Highness,” Sirius answered, he stood up and saluted, then spread out a roll of paper he had prepared in advance. “Currently we have acquired around 17’000 hu[10]of grain, which is already enough to satisfy the townsfolk until next year’s last month of summer. In addition, the Ministry of Agriculture has according to your request also purchased the surplus grains in accordance to the market value. However, this amount is far less than the amount we’ve gained, for now, it is only accounts for 4’500 hu.”

The so-called “hu” was a commonly used wheat weighing unit during ancient times, measured by using a deep basket made out of thin bamboo. Therefore, even after he heard these numbers, he still didn’t know how he was supposed to convert them into kilograms or liters. Fortunately, this wasn’t the important point; the crucial point was that they had enough food to feed the all of the townsfolk.

The critical fact laid in the second aspect, if the Ministry of Agriculture took 7/10, it would mean that the serfs had 3/10 which they could sell themselves and accumulated to 7000 hu, but the discrepancy was much larger than the amount of grain needed to set aside as foodstuff and seeds for the next year. In other words, some serfs had not sold the remaining 30 % of the food to the City Hall and instead chosen to hoard it in wooden sheds.

Although he had already anticipated a situation such as this beforehand, seeing it turn out this way still caused him to let out a gentle sigh. Their purpose in hoarding the grain was apparent, they were speculating to resell it at a profit later — for example, if Border Town gave birth to a food shortage, or was struck by a natural disaster. They would be able to sell the food at prices much higher than the market price, an increase of ten times wouldn’t be impossible.

This was also the reason why Roland had decided that the City Hall would hold a monopoly over the grain transaction and also why the buyer must first show their identity card. The grain operation was related to Border Town’s stability, in case the grain transaction was unable to create a surplus during the early period and the sale wasn’t restricted, it would likely lead to speculators acquiring and hoarding the food and in that way artificially increasing the food’s price. However, by using a system of limited sales and only selling to people who had an ID, while at the same time stopping any other sales channels, Roland was able to keep the food price at a steady position.

“Your Highness, why don’t you force the serfs to sell their grain?” Sirius asked puzzled, “In any case, it’s not like the law permits them to give it to other people.”

“Because the grain is their property, how they choose to handle it is their choice,” Roland replied. “I never set a rule not allowing the serfs to hold on to their own food. You can also understand it as, ‘as long as it isn’t prohibited, it is allowed’.”

On hearing his reply, Sirius looked somewhat puzzled by it, apparently not knowing how he was supposed to interpret this sentence. And he wasn’t the only one confused, most of the others were also frowning, the only exception to this was Barov, who was currently showing a thoughtful expression.

“Is there anything else to report?” Roland drank a mouthful of iced water. Only with time would they be able to understand the concept of emphasizing rules and procedure. Or putting it another way, the moment they were able to comprehend it, they could be regarded as a new generation of qualified officials. Of course, this could also easily lead to another extreme, like the emergence of bureaucracy. However, bureaucracy was still better than confusion, disorder, and people behaving unscrupulously.

“Uh… yes,” Sirius Daly flung his head back, “Now that the fields have been harvested, I do not know how to organize next year’s fallow and plow plan.”

“No, the serfs can endlessly cultivate their lands, so we will continue to plant wheat next year,” Roland waved his hand, “Those piles of manure to the side of the fields were gathered in preparation of fertilizing the land. In the following days, you will start to instruct the serfs to shovel it into the fields, and fully mix it into the soil, completely clear it and make place for new piles of excrements.” With the summer’s high temperature and humid weather, it had only needed two months before becoming well-rotted compost, however, during the winter season it will usually take four months. So by the beginning of spring of next year, not only would the soil’s quality be increased by the first batch of compost, but Roland would also have readied a second batch of compost which could be used as base fertilizer. Because of this, there was no need for a fallow plan.

Not speaking about high-end fertilizer, just using human’s and animal’s excrement as fertilizer was already a vast improvement for the agriculture.

“Well, if this is what you order.” He touched his head, “Also… Your Highness, I’m afraid that with such large amounts of wheat it, won’t be enough to only lean on one or two stone grinding mills. So, I want to apply for the construction of a mill next to the Redwater River, preferably a steam powered one.”

“That’s pretty good,” Roland nodded. This was a new breakthrough — there was finally someone other than himself who wanted to try and use the new power. “First of all, you should forward your plan to Barov, and after obtaining the funding for it, you then have to determine a detailed plan together with the Ministry of Construction.”

“All right, Your Highness” Sirius agreed, “The last point is regarding the promotion to freed people. At present, five hundred and sixteen people have obtained the qualification for the promotion. Because the amount of wheat was divided and transferred on the spot, no one has put up any objections. I have already reported the list to Lord Barov.” Then he got up and saluted again, “That concludes my report.”

“Well done,” Roland clapped twice to show his encouragement. It seemed that the former young Knight of the Wolf Family had not only adapted to his new life in Border Town, but also obtained the manners of the City Hall. And so, could be turned into an excellent propaganda model after a little packaging, in that way playing a small role in attracting nobles or knights of Longsong Stronghold in the future.