BXBX NOVEL Chapter 184
That was the prelude to the war on the continent.
Book 5-6.1
The Silence Empire and the Rojini Kingdom, the two strong nations of the Eastern continent, had never had a good relationship with each other, but that relationship really started to turn bad during the last ten or so years.
Both nations knew very well that them going into war was the equivalent of the entire Eastern continent going into war. Knowing that the damage would be significant, both nations just turned a blind eye to the other.
The problem was that the Rojini Kingdom turned their civil war, the worst possible situation, into an opportunity to reform.
The Rojini Kingdom did not reform too many items, but it was enough to shake the existing societal structure.
If you were to organize and explain those ......
The lords who owned land can only force labor upon the people who live on their land.
The lords may not tax their people more than twenty percent.
Nobles may not kill the civilians unless one of the following situation occurs.
3-1. The civilians put their hands on a noble
... (Rest omitted)
If a civilian has their skills recognized and holds a government position, they must not be killed even if any of the conditions in 3 apply.
Just these four things.
The other nations of the continent all scoffed at the Rojini Reform.
If you could not force people to work and could not put your hands on them as you pleased, who would choose to work hard? In addition, if the tax can only be twenty percent, how will they earn the money to maintain their mercenaries and elegance? They all assumed it would fail.
However, once they saw what was going on, they realized that the opposite of what they were expecting had happened.
The civilians whom everyone thought would not work very hard were working very hard. With a lowly twenty percent - and sometimes even lower if they met a generous Lord - tax rate, it gave them the hope that they would be rewarded for working harder - different than when they were struggling to pay fifty or sometimes even higher percentage.
With efficiency exponentially rising up and production increasing, that twenty percent tax ended up becoming more money for the lords than the higher percentages in the past.
That result led to the country drawing in an unexpected number of refugees, which made the population of the Rojini Kingdom increase too quickly. Their new problem was how to handle this large increase in population.
As time flowed on like that, the Rojini Kingdom started to get stronger and stronger, and they were about to become the leader in almost all aspects over their rivals the Silence. It was no wonder the Silence, as well as the other nations, went into a state of alert.
Since they could not do anything about the internal situation of the Rojini Kingdom, the Silence could only slowly start to enforce an even stronger reform for themselves. In order to fend of the Rojini, they also found a method called heightened tension on the borders.
However, the Rojini Kingdom did not respond as the Silence expected. They had expected the Rojini Kingdom to adequately respond, but the Rojini started to respond in force. There were not many times that they had put this much strength in the border area in the history of the two nations.
This led to the alliances and provinces of the two nations getting involved, and the two nations could only watch with heightened tension as time went by.
They were both waiting until they were certain they would be the victor.
“This is beyond what I was expecting. My belief about the village tribes have been shattered.”
One of the knights let out his admiration for the majestic castle in front of his eyes.
“It is a well-designed castle. It will be very difficult to siege it.”
“We are knights who have come to escort the envoy to create an alliance. We are not here to go into war, so make sure not to say offensive things like that even if it is just hypothetical.”
Everybody shut up once the young knight in charge of the brigade gave a stern warning. This young knight was usually quiet, but continued to come at you if you did something wrong. They wanted to prevent such situation from being targeted at themselves.
The young night was looking at the scene in front of him.
‘The Castle of Storm ... they must have put in quite a lot of work to build this. Are they planning on going against the Silence Empire?’
While the young knight was deep in thought, the Rojini envoy was slowly approaching the Castle of Storm.
“Wow!”
“So cool!”
“It’s a different feel than our warrior-nims.”
The children were shouting with amazement as the knights went by.
Seeing the children look at them with gazes of respect, some of the nobles and knights felt a chip on their shoulder. Receiving this type of admiration in a foreign nation felt a little special.
As some of them started to take out small pouches of coins and silver to hand out, some of the leaders quickly stopped them.
“That type of action can touch on Pareia’s pride, so please be cautious of your actions.”
The nobles and knights stopped their action at the leaders’ words.
The Rojini Kingdom was used to the tradition of handing out coins and silvers when the nobles, especially young nobles with high potential, were walking by.
It probably originated from the nobles wanting to feel superior to the poor people rushing to pick up the coins, but realistically, it was a means of survival for some of the poor.
With that being the case, it naturally became the tradition as the nobles who handed out money started to get a good reputation. This was especially the case for young ladies who were of marriageable age, as such reputation raised their value in society.
Of course now a lot of the poor were doing much better in the Rojini Kingdom, but this tradition had still continued on. That was why some of the young people were about to do the same in Pareia out of habit.
The envoy safely made it into the castle, and two people entered as representatives to meet with Yulian.
“Welcome esteemed guests of Pareia.”
Yulian stood up from his seat and opened his arms to welcome them.
The person in charge of the envoy, the Secretary of Foreign Affairs, Count Pumetrin, respectfully bowed his head.
“It is my honor to meet with the great Glow of Pareia.”
“You have worked hard coming such a far way.”
Yulian happily greeted him and looked toward the knight standing next to Pumetrin.
White hair. Familiar face. Yulian wanted to greet him right away, but held back because he thought it would not be respectful to Pumetrin, who was in charge of the envoy.
“Aizen!”
After finishing his greetings with Pumetrin, Yulian finally called his name.
“Aizen Pon Deviang, Knight of the Rojini Kingdom, greets Pareia’s Glow Yulian-nim. Have you been well?”
“Hahaha. To see you again like this~ I never expected it. I have heard a lot from Edwin.”
Yulian recalled the memory of going to the Magic Tower with Aizen and headed over to give Aizen a hug.
“I was extremely shocked and happy to hear that an envoy had arrived from Pareia. That was why I came along with the envoy.”
Aizen Pon Deviang. The tenth master of the Rojini Kingdom.
He was also the Deputy Chief of the Rojini Kingdom’s pride and joy, the Red Eagle Knight Brigade.
The reason someone like Aizen who should not be leaving the border area took the risk to do so like this was to see Yulian, who had shared life and death with him.
At first, he had no idea what the Glow of Pareia symbolized. It was only much later that Aizen learned that the man he called hyung on their travels was the king of a desert tribe.
Aizen had a lot of affection for Yulian after everything they had been through with each other on their journey. There was no way he could ever forget about it. That was why he quickly rushed back from the border when he heard that an envoy had arrived from Pareia so that he could come along.
Yulian looked around before starting to speak.
“Runa, please lead our guests to their quarters and make sure they have no discomfort while they are here.”
“Yes, Glow.”
Runa ordered a couple of people to lead the Rojini envoy to their quarters while Yulian was speaking with Aizen.
“Did Hwai-nim come with you as well?”
Once Yulian brought up Hwai, Aizen’s expression quickly turned dark.
“She is no longer here. She may be alive, or ......”
Yulian realized something must have happened at Aizen’s answer and did not ask anything else. There was no reason to bring up the remaining scars.
Aizen soon recovered and started to speak toward Yulian.
“My wife has come with me this time. I wanted to show her the mysterious sights of the desert.”
“She must have been bored on the way here. The only thing you can see on the trip is sand.”
“Let me introduce her to you.”
“Of course.”
Yulian followed Aizen out.
“Honey, this is the hyung-nim I was talking about. He is now the king of Pareia.”
Aizen opened the door to the stagecoach and carefully escorted a woman out.
“Hwai-nim?”