Chapter 868: The Black Pearl
Translator: TransN Editor: TransN
"This feeling... is so great."
Edith took a deep breath while savoring the tang of blood in the air.
She was intrigued by the panic spreading among the crowd.
The God's Punishment Witches were rapidly tightening the ring of encirclement. The so-called resistance lasted only for a short period of time. For the Taquila survivors, these nobles were no different from the common people that had no titles, and they would never hesitate to kill these self-satisfied common people who had no magic power.
Edith was clear that they killed those nobles because another common person ordered them to do so.
She was also confident that under the influence of this common man, these God's Punishment Witches would also follow her commands, even though she was just a common person like him.
This was the charm of power.
Through bonds and negotiations, a common person could manipulate people's interests, goals, desires and aspirations to create a force which was much more powerful than his or her own strength.
When the last rebel was struck down, No. 76, Phyllis, dropped her sword which had many breaches now and reported to Roland. "Your Majesty, the filtering procedure is completed."
The floor was littered with over 60 corpses. Their blood solidified into dark red blocks, looking like red wax in the flickering light of the bonfire.
There was a dead silence. All the remaining nobles clenched their teeth and were afraid to make any noise. None of them wanted to become the next corpse. All the three "unsteady" nobles had already collapsed to the ground and were trembling with fear.
Even without Nightingale, Edith herself could guess the replies of the remaining nobles if they heard the same question again at this moment.
Fear was a guarantee of loyalty.
And none of the nobles killed in the filtering procedure was innocent. During the first half of the banquet, Isabella had wiped out all the effects of their God's Stones of Retaliation in order for Nightingale to use her lie-detecting ability. By doing so, she could make those nobles believe that Roland had a mind-reading skill.
The biggest mistake of the dead nobles was that they had overestimated themselves.
These great nobles who had wielded absolute power over thousands of subjects turned out to be vulnerable in the face of greater power. The new king took back over half of the domains around the Redwater city through this fight. As compared to such a great achievement, Edith thought her success in eliminating the two great noble families in the City of Evernight was not worth mentioning.
Fortunately, this plan worked. His Majesty had shown her enough trust, and the witches had followed her commands. The king had even adapted all the five statements she had composed without changing a word.
The only thing different from her original plan was the glass cup he had tossed.
She did not understand why His Majesty had insisted on sending the signal by dropping the glass. Judging by common sense, she believed that this step would have been unnecessary, since this action would have been noticed by the enemy and the sound of it would have been drowned by some other noises. She had doubted this decision and had considered the preparation of the wine and glass as a waste. However, together with the lie about Roland's mind-reading ability, she realized that smashing the glass had indeed constituted a mystery atmosphere which had really scared the nobles.
She had to admit that the king was better at tactics.
She licked her lips in excitement.
Choosing to serve Roland Wimbledon was really a right decision.
With this thought in mind, she could not help looking at the king and was hoping to share with him the joy of success. However, she failed to find any excitement in his face and could even see a vague attitude of exclusion and boredom in his eyes.
"Is there any other banquet hall in this villa?" Roland asked in a deep voice.
"The-There's one next door," said Earl Delta, swallowing hard.
"Let's move next door. I've something to say." He nodded. "As for these insurgents, please ask your men to count and make a name list for me. I want to see this list, tonight."
"Yes, Yes... Your Majesty!"
"By the way, please open all the doors and windows in this hall and get rid of these dead bodies as soon as possible. This smell of rust is really disgusting."
"I'll send my servants to take care of these things right now!"
"I see." Pearl of the Northern Region thought in her heart. "The king was not looking forward to this massacre. What he desires is a city managed by a well-operating City Hall when the nobles relinquish their power. For the king, killing is just a more effective way to intimidate the bystanders as compared to sending the rebels to the mines. Now it seems that he doesn't like killing and even gets disgusted by the smell of blood."
Her excitement suddenly died down. She even started to doubt herself...
Was my plan too cruel?
If I had killed half of the rebels inside the hall and the other half outside, would it have looked any better?
Though it was largely a matter of personal preference, she was still afraid that such a difference in attitude between her and the dominator with regards to killing would block her advancement in Roland's government.
When everyone moved to the hall next door, the new king finally stopped knitting his brows. He cleared his throat and said in a cheerful voice, "Don't worry. Only the insurgents would be severely punished and their rebellion has already been suppressed. Now the top priority is restoring the order of the Redwater city and I need your help to do this."
"Your Majesty, please let us know what you want us to do!"
All the nobles knelt down together.
Roland nodded with satisfaction. "Please get up. This is the first task I am giving you. Now that you've returned your manors to the kingdom, it'll be meaningless for you to stay in your previous domains. I hope you'll gather in the Redwater City. This includes letting your freemen, serfs and their livestock immigrate to the city, and not just the members of your mansions."
"But... Your Majesty, where can we find enough food for those people if they all move to the city," Earl Delta felt that he had no choice but to voice his objections. "And we don't have that many fields around the city, if you're planning to make them work the land. I'm afraid that we may cause famine and riots if we drive them into the city..."
"First of all, you'll get new wheat seeds called 'Golden Twos'. The yield of this kind of wheat is ten times higher than that of normal wheat. Secondly, what Redwater city can't accommodate can be moved to the Western Region. I'll take in all of them, no matter how many they are."
All the nobles gasped in astonishment.
"Ten, Ten times higher?"
"Is there really such a kind of wheat?"
"But our subjects..."
Roland interrupted, "When you give up the fiefs, those people will naturally no longer be your subjects. They can decide to stay or leave by themselves. The efficiency of land usage in the past was too low, and all your lands were sparsely populated. A domain which was nearly 7 square kilometers could only support several thousands of people at most. Such a widely dispersed population is extremely inconvenient for the implementation of policies. Therefore it's inevitable to compress and move the people into certain big cities. I know you're still uncertain about the reform, but I can tell you it's the exact reason for the prosperity of Neverwinter. Don't worry if you still don't know what to do. I'll send some people here to teach you how to profit in the upcoming change."
"Teach... us?" Earl Delta stuttered.
"Yes, some officials who've been well trained in the City Hall of Neverwinter will come to build a new administration system here to replace the former lords and manage these regions for me. You can join them to gain power and status, but by doing so, you can only get limited salaries. Alternatively, you can seek opportunities in the development of mass production to create endless wealth for yourselves, but if you choose to do so, you won't be allowed to interfere in government work and will have to follow all the government decrees and finish all the tasks given by City Hall." Roland explained slowly. "You don't need to make a hasty decision. This managing department will be set up tomorrow. You can consult them first before making a decision, but keep in mind that whichever choice you make, you'll achieve much more than the value of a piece of land."
Half an hour later, the nobles started to leave the hall.
Roland heaved a sigh of relief. "Now the situation in the Redwater City is stabilized."
"And next, we're going to the Silver City and the old king's city. We've finished the filtering procedure in the latter, so all we need to do is send some officials to manage it," said Edith.
"I wonder how everything's going in the Eastern Front." He looked out of the window and saw a bright moon hanging in the sky and the glassy surface of the lake shimmering with silver light. "If nothing goes wrong, Iron Axe will arrive at Valencia tomorrow."
"Ugh... probably," said Edith. When thinking about what she had told Iron Axe before the battle and how the king had reacted to the bloody killing today, she felt her heart suddenly skip a beat. She was somehow unsure of herself now.
"I hope that everything goes well." Roland shrugged. "Go back to the Adviser Department. You still have lots of work to do tonight."
According to the plan, after getting the name list of the insurgents, the First Army would go to clean up these rebels' domains at night as quickly as possible. That was why the troops had been stationed outside the city.
"Yes... Your Majesty, I'll excuse myself." Edith replied absent-mindedly.
"By the way," he suddenly spoke when she was at the door of the hall, "your plan was very clever. Good job."
Good... job?
Did I hear that right? His Majesty didn't mind what I did.
At that moment, Pearl of the Northern Region felt an unprecedented sense of gratification.
She suddenly realized that her worries were completely unnecessary and this was actually a correct choice for her to gain greater power. As His Majesty did not like these devious plans and tricks, he needed someone like her to do this stuff for him.
This was exactly the part she was adept at.
Edith bowed her head to salute the king and then quietly walked into the darkness.