Chapter 69 Charlotte's Reminder
With Jose Mellerfield's return, the situation in the Green Plain Duchy immediately improved. The nobles who had been colluding with each other quickly fell silent, and those with ambitious intentions temporarily shelved their schemes.
However, while things had improved, some issues remained beyond even JJose Mellerfield's control, such as the demon trials.
The Church's demon trials continued to escalate, seriously disrupting the social order of the Green Plain Duchy. Even knights stationed on the border to defend against tribal incursions came to Jose Mellerfield with complaints, stating that the commoners in their territories were finding it nearly impossible to live normal lives.
Jose Mellerfield had discussed this with Bishop Allen Ferenbach several times. Allen Ferenbach simply avoided the issue, claiming it was a divine decree issued by the Oracle and that he was powerless, hoping the Grand Duke of Green Plain would understand.
Whether Jose Mellerfield understood or not, Charlotte didn't know, nor did she particularly care. The next day, she had several cats and dogs known for their mousing abilities brought to Riverside Castle.
At that moment, Charlotte was truly grateful that the religious leader in her territory was Fado, the country priest who only knew about farming and raising chickens.
While Fado was indeed somewhat incompetent as the chief priest – he would lock the church doors and play ostrich at the first sign of a necromancer – the positive aspect was that he wasn't prone to causing trouble. Consequently, the religious trials in the Viscount Territory of Lanwan remained remarkably calm.
Charlotte had heard that Fado had made some attempts, though.
Aside from trying to solicit the necromancer's head from Charlotte, Fado had also ventured into the countryside to arrest a few men for bestiality with chickens, declaring they had blasphemed the sacred. He had them hung up and whipped. That very night, all the chickens Fado raised were taken and eaten by weasels.
The esteemed chief priest wasn't foolish; he surely realized this was revenge from the nearby villagers. Fado was so enraged that he flew into a fit, wanting to gather all his subordinates – probably seven or eight illiterate priest apprentices – for a crusade against those "unruly" country folk.
"Not paying tithes and daring to steal my chickens? You truly wish to rebel!"
But just before setting off, Fado reluctantly abandoned the idea. "Forget it," he likely thought, "poor regions breed unruly people. This chief priest is broad-minded and won't bother with such rabble."
Thus, the slight stir of demon trials that had just begun in the Viscount Territory of Lanwan faded away.
In fact, Charlotte could completely understand Fado's lack of initiative.
As a country priest, Fado had no connections or backing within the Church. The claim of being a student of Archbishop Kong Tao, which he boasted to Charlotte, was merely based on having once seen the Archbishop from a distance. For someone like him, reaching the position of chief priest was the pinnacle; there was virtually no chance of further promotion, a fact Fado was well aware of.
Perhaps, when asking Charlotte for the necromancer's head, Fado had a fleeting ambition to climb the ranks. But after his request was denied, he calmed down, realizing that even if he delivered the necromancer's head, it would only benefit his superiors. Given his background, his chances of being valued by the Church remained slim. So, Fado reverted to his usual work ethic – slacking off and doing nothing.
In any case, in a remote and insignificant place like the Viscount Territory of Lanwan, even if Fado performed terribly, no one from the Church would care.
No praise for doing well, no criticism for doing poorly. Anyone in Fado's position would hardly have any motivation to strive, and it would be better to farm, raise chickens, and collect a salary for doing nothing every day.
This was Fado's personal misfortune, but it was the good fortune of the entire Viscount Territory of Lanwan.
Because there was no interference from the Church, the Viscount Territory of Lanwan was able to smoothly continue on the development path Charlotte had envisioned.
Cecilia, who was responsible for managing the administrative affairs of the Viscount Territory of Lanwan, sent a letter to Charlotte. In it, she reported the main administrative matters from the days after Charlotte's departure.
First, Black Wolf had recruited over thirty fierce wolf warriors and more than a thousand mountain people as slaves for Charlotte from the Canpei Mountains. Soon after bringing them back, Black Wolf returned to the Canpei Mountains.
Although Cecilia despised Black Wolf's vile character and unscrupulous behavior, she had to admit in the letter that the man was truly diligent. The Canpei Mountains in winter were already fraught with danger. The tribal people and wild beasts there had no regard for morality or rules when it came to food. Ordinary people would never want to enter the Canpei Mountains again after one trip. However, Black Wolf had already entered and exited the mountains three times that winter.
"Just like his name suggests, he is definitely that diligent, vicious, cunning old wolf in the pack who refuses to give up his position due to old age," Cecilia wrote in her evaluation of Black Wolf.
It was clear that Cecilia still disliked the man, but the young lady had also recognized the value of someone like Black Wolf. As a leader of civil officials, Cecilia was also gradually maturing.
The second matter concerned the Ivy League.
The Feidi finally reacted to Charlotte's occupation of Ambratu but did not send tens of thousands of troops to reclaim the lost territory as the envoy named Cleon had claimed. Instead, he simply ordered all member city-states of the Ivy League to prohibit trade with the Viscount Territory of Lanwan.
To this, Charlotte could only say it was neither here nor there.
Why did those merchants from the Sokya region come to the Viscount Territory of Lanwan to conduct business? Was it because the Viscount Territory of Lanwan had any unique products? Or was it because the Viscount Territory of Lanwan had a thriving market? Neither was true.
It was solely because the Viscount Territory of Lanwan happened to be situated at a crucial transportation point.
Those merchants who didn't need to pass through the Lanwan Isthmus would naturally never come to the Viscount Territory of Lanwan, and those who had to pass through the Lanwan Isthmus couldn't find an alternative route to bypass the Viscount Territory of Lanwan at all.
The Ivy League was not a unified country, nor did it belong to the territory of a single lord. It was merely an alliance formed by numerous city-states. The administrative order issued by Feidi had very little binding power over the merchants of other city-states.
Just as Charlotte had predicted, Cecilia stated in the letter that after Feidi's order was issued, the number of merchants in the Viscount Territory of Lanwan did not decrease significantly, and even increased slightly. The latter was likely due to the increasing popularity of the casino.
These merchants told Cecilia that even if they were discovered by the Feidi city-state, they would argue that they were doing business with the Earl Territory of Quake Forest or with the Kingdom of Lesare and were merely passing through the Viscount Territory of Lanwan.
The Feidi city-state couldn't do much to these foreign merchants. They couldn't conjure up a second land transportation route from the Sokya Peninsula to the Kingdom of Lesare and the Earl Territory of Quake Forest, nor could they easily punish these merchants, as that would only exacerbate the already growing tensions within the Ivy League.
The third thing Cecilia reported was about Orichalcum.
Charlotte's improved Orichalcum smelting furnace had been tested in practice, and the Orichalcum smelting efficiency in Ambratu County had increased by at least one thousand percent – originally taking more than ten days to produce one furnace, but now at least one furnace could be produced per day. This proved that when the initial foundation was poor enough, any improvement would be revolutionary.
Besides the high production efficiency, the improved smelting furnace had another advantage: the Orichalcum it produced almost didn't require secondary smelting. Charlotte guessed that the pale Orichalcum originally smelted by the Ambratu craftsmen must have been a flawed product resulting from insufficient furnace temperature, leading to many impurities not being removed. Now that Charlotte had produced a furnace with a higher and more stable temperature, she could naturally obtain that golden Orichalcum in a single process.
In this way, the efficiency of Orichalcum production in Ambratu County became even more substantial.
With increased efficiency, the produced Orichalcum couldn't remain in the warehouse indefinitely. In the letter, Cecilia happily informed Charlotte that she had found a buyer for the Orichalcum from Ambratu County – the city of Pinrus.
To the west of the Viscount Territory of Lanwan, there was a roughly rectangular cape, almost at a ninety-degree angle to the Lanwan Isthmus. This cape was called the Pinrus Cape, and a city named Pinrus City was located on it.
Pinrus means "gate" in the Lesare language. Why would a cape be called a gate? Whose gate was it?
To explain this, one must consider the geographical location of the Pinrus Cape. To the south lay the Fish Pearl Sea leading to the ocean, and to the north was an inland sea called the Pottery Pot Sea by the locals.
The Pinrus Cape acted like a gate, blocking the passage between the Pottery Pot Sea and the Fish Pearl Sea, leaving only a narrow gap for the two seas to connect, and this gap was the Pinrus Strait.
The Pinrus Strait was a vital transportation route, only a few hundred meters wide at its narrowest point, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack. However, recently the people of Pinrus seemed to believe this dangerous terrain was still not secure enough, and they planned to build fortresses, pontoon bridges, and chains on the Pinrus Strait for military defense and to collect tariffs.
Such military projects required many extraordinary materials, and Orichalcum was one of them.
Cecilia signed a preliminary Orichalcum trade agreement with the merchants of Pinrus City. Charlotte had no objection to this unauthorized action, as it aligned with the development policy she had set before leaving the Viscount Territory of Lanwan – cooperate to the west and be aggressive to the south.
To the south of the Viscount Territory of Lanwan was the Sokya Peninsula, and to the west was the Kingdom of Lesare. Pinrus City was under the jurisdiction of the Kingdom of Lesare.
Although the Kingdom of Lesare had been in decline since being punished by the Pope, the domestic situation had worsened considerably in the past two years. But after all, it had once been a great power, and its foundation was unmatched by the Viscount Territory of Lanwan. The few hundred people Charlotte currently had under her command would be inviting disaster if they dared to provoke the Kingdom of Lesare.
Therefore, when dealing with the Kingdom of Lesare, Charlotte could only try her best to foster good relations for the time being.
Selling Orichalcum to the Kingdom of Lesare not only provided Charlotte with an additional source of wealth but also served as a positive diplomatic beginning.
Overall, Cecilia's letter brought Charlotte three pieces of gratifying good news.
As for the unstable factor Charlotte was most concerned about – Stanley Mellerfield – Cecilia made no mention of him in the letter, and Charlotte could only assume that there had been no conflict between the two for the time being.
During her stay at Riverside Castle, Charlotte wasn't idle. Besides bringing in some cats and dogs, she also recruited a group of raven keepers to breed messenger ravens at the castle.
Charlotte wanted to establish a messenger raven communication network in areas where she frequently needed to send messages.
Compared to the homing pigeons of Charlotte's previous life, the messenger ravens of this magical world had numerous advantages, such as higher intelligence, easier domestication, greater adaptability to harsh environments, simpler feeding requirements, larger size, and stronger carrying capacity. These advantages made messenger ravens more reliable and capable than homing pigeons, and the cost was also lower, making Charlotte's idea of building a messenger raven communication network feasible.
However, some inherent limitations of animal messengers remained, such as messenger ravens and homing pigeons being restricted to fixed, often one-way routes.
Therefore, to build a messenger raven communication network, it was necessary to set up a raven loft as a node in every location where frequent communication was needed and to train messenger ravens locally.
Riverside Castle was the fourth messenger raven node Charlotte had established. The first and second were naturally in the Viscount Territory of Lanwan and Ambratu County, and the third was near the Oak Castle of the Earl of Quake Forest.
Supervising the craftsmen as they set up the raven loft in a dilapidated watchtower in the southwest section of Riverside Castle's city wall, Charlotte descended the arrow tower with a piece of parchment in her hand and went directly to Jose Mellerfield's study.
Rosie was playing with Sean in the garden. At that time, only Jose Mellerfield was in the study. After the Grand Duke of Green Plain "recovered," Rosie's authority was also reinstated. Rosie had mixed feelings about this, feeling somewhat lost on one hand and relieved on the other. The position of Grand Duke of Green Plain was truly not something an ordinary person could handle.
"Charlotte, is there something you need?" Seeing his daughter enter, Jose Mellerfield put down his work and asked.
"Father, do you recognize these things?" Charlotte handed the parchment to Jose Mellerfield.
Jose Mellerfield took the parchment and unfolded it. He saw a line of strange symbols drawn on it. He studied it for a moment and asked doubtfully, "What is this?"
"I don't know either," Charlotte replied, shaking her head.
"Then why did you specifically bring it to ask me?" Jose Mellerfield asked, puzzled.
"I saw this in the corner of that castle," Charlotte said, pointing in the direction she had come from. "It looks like some kind of secret language, so I specifically copied it to ask you, Father."
Jose Mellerfield frowned upon hearing this. "Take me to see it."
Charlotte led Jose Mellerfield to the abandoned watchtower that had been converted into a raven loft, and the Grand Duke of Green Plain indeed saw the exact same symbols in the corner of the watchtower.
These symbols were essentially the secret codes of the Silver Star Hermitage. Of course, they weren't carved by members of the Silver Star Hermitage but by Renee a few nights prior, at Charlotte's request. Charlotte didn't know what these codes meant. Linda only remembered a few of these symbols. Charlotte thought they resembled words, so she simply arranged them randomly to make them appear plausible.
If someone from the Silver Star Hermitage were to evaluate it, they would likely say, "There are at least seven grammatical errors in this sentence."
However, for Charlotte, the meaning of the code wasn't important. What Charlotte truly wanted Jose Mellerfield to see was only the single symbol at the beginning of the code.
That symbol consisted of a circle combined with a cross of four lines in the upper half and a curved rhombus in the lower half. Charlotte naturally recognized the pattern of the circle and the cross in the upper half; it was the holy emblem of the Church in this world, called the "Wheel Star," symbolizing the sun and light.
This symbol, with its strong connection to the holy emblem, seemed to be the symbol of the Silver Star Hermitage. According to Linda, the Shadowmancer had used this symbol to indicate his identity when contacting Allen Ferenbach.
"Father, do you recognize these symbols?" Charlotte asked again, looking at Jose Mellerfield, who was half-squatting to examine the code.
Originally, Charlotte only intended to offer Jose Mellerfield some subtle reminders through these symbols. However, Jose Mellerfield, while stroking the symbol composed of the "Wheel Star" and the curved rhombus with his finger, gave Charlotte an unexpected answer.
"If I remember correctly, this should be the insignia of Pope Saint Roman," Jose Mellerfield replied in a deep voice.
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