When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 1015 Battle of Five Armies
"Sylvie, you're reading again. Why don't you take a break..."

Horn opened the study door a crack and asked into the inner room.

"No time! I'm researching!"

The wolf girl, whom we hadn't seen in a long time, lay sprawled on the table, her right hand pressing down on a parchment scroll, her left hand holding a fountain pen.

As the pen trembled, lines of characters appeared on the paper and were then passed to the surrounding graduate students.

This group of elite research monks and alchemists from various universities of the Holy Order gathered in this office, creating a cacophony of sounds.

The sound of beads being turned, the scratching of paper and pen, the murmur of whispers...

There were even comments like, "Flip back through your report, okay, stop here!" or "Is this all you've done in a week?"

Looking at the room full of scholars intently deciphering the "Celestial Maiden's Secret Scroll," Horn didn't want to disturb them any longer and could only leave.

Sylph was completely absorbed in the "Secret Scroll of the Goddess".

She had initially thought that going to Black Snake Bay with Horn would be a trip for two, but it turned into a trip for five, and in the end, it became a trip for four people excluding herself.

Faced with this enormous disparity, the wolf girl channeled her grief and anger into motivation, frantically deciphering and researching the "Celestial Maiden Scroll" and dragon language magic.

Helff ignored him. Horn, who had returned to the St. Regis after Black Serpent Bay, finished his business and could only lean against the window and look out.

In mid-June, the Holy See building should have been stuffy and hot during the sweltering summer heat.

Fortunately, the building itself is made of marble, and each room contains ice stored in winter or made by a sorcerer.

However, those smaller departments and offices don't receive this treatment.

I had no choice but to open the window, close the blinds, and use a wind-up fan to cool it down.

I can't turn this wooden-cased wind-up fan on too high a setting, otherwise it will stop running after two hours.

The Privy Council's logistics department in the trenches only provided each office with a small spring-loaded magazine.

Sweating profusely, the monks huddled at their desks writing, each one gritting their teeth and cursing angrily.

These guys in the logistics department really know how to design things. It's just right—not too hot to burn, not too cold to feel comfortable. It's just perfect.

However, these wind-up fans are expensive to make and are currently only issued as part of the official distribution, circulating in small quantities on the market.

Looking out the window, Horn could see that most people in the market were simply fanning themselves with palm-leaf fans or feather fans.

Even the most boisterous stray dogs were now lying under the shady trees, tongues lolling out, drool dripping all over the ground.

As for the young people on the street, they were all wearing wide-brimmed straw hats, long-sleeved white shirts, and thin woolen vests.

On their shoulders, about a third of the people also wore a fan-shaped half-shoulder cloak made of spider silk blended with silk.

This is a new trend in youth fashion, and it's the work of that fashion designer from the French court.

Wearing long-sleeved shirts and vests in the summer is to avoid being seen as vulgar, while the cloak is a half-shoulder cape passed down from the Holy Alliance cavalry.

Because spider silk blended fabric is soft, cool, and opaque, it has always been a best-selling item in various fabric stores in Saint-Germain.

As for the young people's fondness for wearing cloaks, it was to conceal the rapiers they carried at their waists.

Thinking of this, Horn couldn't help but scratch his head.

After experiencing war and social reforms, he slammed on the brakes and curbed militaristic tendencies.

But its influence lingers, and its martial virtue, having nowhere else to be expressed, has been infused into the common people.

In today's novel market, chivalric and witcher novels have become outdated, and soldier and officer novels are the most popular.

Especially in veteran novels, the story often revolves around a young man who joins the army after killing a bully in rebellion, wins the holy war, returns as a veteran, cleans up the local tyrants, outwits and fights them, and finally marries the girl he secretly loves.

It has a similar feel to the urban super soldier of later generations and the story of a super soldier returning home to find his daughter living in a doghouse.

Many people criticize it for being unsuitable for high-brow entertainment, but it sells well and has great practical significance.

Because a large number of retired soldiers and officers are returning to their hometowns to become centurions and itinerant monks.

When they arrived in different places, they were often also responsible for cracking down on powerful local magnates, eliminating the remnants of noble families, and dealing with criminal gangs.

Regardless of their performance, the most affluent group—retired veterans—will take notice.

Oh my god, that's totally me.

Their reading level and comprehension are perfectly suited to this type of novel, plus their half-shoulder cape outfit is incredibly stylish.

This attracted a large number of teenagers who eagerly imitated it.

Residents in the city are relatively wealthy and can afford cool cloaks, while those in the countryside can only wear thick, coarse linen cloaks.

Even when it was so hot they were about to get heatstroke, they refused to take their clothes off.

Among this group of black-cloaked teenagers, the immigrant youths were the most numerous, resembling a kind of convert fanaticism.

Besides booksellers and clothing merchants making a fortune, various sword-fighting schools and clubs also profited immensely. Many knights whose family fortunes had been confiscated found new employment, using their family's swordsmanship and extraordinary martial arts skills to teach and earn money.

The better-behaved teenagers who received these teachings were hired as swordsmen and traveled with caravans to various places to make trade.

Those who were worse off were often exiled to Black Snake Bay to work as bodyguards or expedition members because they killed someone in a duel.

Horn had to admit that this group of idle and unruly youths were indeed the main force in the development of Black Snake Bay.

They were dissatisfied with the money earned by farmers and laborers through hard work, wanted to become officers but lacked the ability or opportunity, and had no capital to start a business but wanted to get rich overnight.

From the perspective of social stability, they are indeed a destabilizing factor.

From the perspective of colonial expansion alone, they were natural explorers.

Since the opening of the Eastern County waterway, thousands of black-cloaked youths have gone there to make money.

However, the excessive influx of martial virtue also brought many unexpected troubles.

For example, one thing Horn is currently dealing with is the "Battle of the Five Armies" in Mundshire.

Horn rolled up the documents in his hand and clapped them against his palms, unsure whether to be happy or angry.

The story is simple: last year, the canal in Mandeshire was finally completed, allowing water to be drawn from the River Ibe to irrigate the fields.

But soon, a new problem arose surrounding the new canal: the competition for water.

The downstream priestly order feels that the upstream priestly order is also withholding too much water. Is it intentional or unintentional?
The upstream suppliers already feel they don't have enough, so why would they keep too much? Are you just nitpicking?
The two sides initially negotiated, but ultimately failed to reach an agreement.

Then a scuffle broke out because the sluice gate keeper upstream assaulted people, and the people downstream detained the keeper.

People upstream, thinking that people downstream were trying to control the sluice gate, immediately sent men to seize it, and in the process, they also beat up the downstream mountain people who were being held captive.

Seeing this, the already hot-tempered mountain people immediately gathered their forces, preparing to retaliate.

Having gotten wind of the situation, the mountain people upstream also began to gather their forces.

Both sides brought their friends and companions, and eventually, two priestly districts upstream and three priestly districts downstream, totaling more than 5,000 mountain people from five religious orders on both sides, clashed at the sluice gate.

The incident resulted in nine deaths and thirty-three injuries, with both sides also hiding a number of wounded.

It's common for mountain people to fight over water, but usually a fight involves at most four or five hundred people. This time, however, it escalated to ten times the size.

The main reason for this was that the local priests and the captains of the religious guards personally went into battle to collect water, fully demonstrating the conscription and organizational capabilities of the centurion system.

Under the old feudal system, it would have been quite good if they could organize one or two hundred people.

This time, however, the chief priest informed the chief monk, the chief monk informed the wandering monk, and the wandering monk informed the centurion.

Upon hearing this, the head of the household exclaimed, "People upstream/downstream are trying to steal our water, and they even beat up so-and-so! This is outrageous!"
Immediately select able-bodied men from the Hundred Households District, allocate provisions from the Hundred Households District Treasury, and have the commander of the Guardian Army lead his troops to the battlefield.

When it was later calculated, each priest district had organized around a thousand people, and almost one-tenth of the able-bodied men in the entire priest district had come.

Both priests and the captains of the apostolic army were former soldiers, and there were even former soldiers and mercenaries serving as officers in the countryside.

There had long been discord among priestly orders over issues of promotion and performance evaluation, and grain production was one of those indicators.

The brawl was a fierce exchange, with various flanking maneuvers, night raids, central breakthroughs, and inside-outside transitions...

If the local militia hadn't arrived in time to suppress the unrest, the casualties would likely have been even greater.

After the fight, neither side admitted to the mistake, claiming it was a misunderstanding and could be resolved internally.

But Horn dared not let them resolve the issue internally, lest it escalate into a "hundred-regiment war".

At that moment, the door of the clockwork elevator opened, and Jeanne stepped in. As soon as she looked up, she saw Horn waiting with a document in his hand.

"My dear sister Jeanne—"

She asked irritably, "When there's something important, it's always 'My dear Jeanne,' but when there's nothing important, it's always 'Hey! That Jeanne!'"

"Hahaha." Horn chuckled awkwardly a few times, then handed over the documents in his hand. "You can handle this."

Jeanne took the documents from Horn, flipped through them casually, and put them into her personal scroll: "Okay, I'll leave tomorrow morning."

“Jeanne, you’re so kind.” Horn immediately stepped forward and gave Jeanne a big hug.

Jeanne rolled her eyes at him: "I heard you're going to Xia Lucheng?"

"Yes, we're leaving tomorrow morning too."

"Isn't the debate with Grandiva still three months away? Has something gone wrong with the troop movements over there?"

"No, the troop movements are going smoothly."

"I had originally planned to inspect the glass workshop in Suimi Town and review the troops next month, but it was moved up due to some unforeseen circumstances." Horn's words carried a hint of doubt. "You'd never guess who it was..."

(End of this chapter)