When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist

Horn proposed that "people are born equal, people are born free," but this isn't about the later concept of "freedom and equality."

In reality, this simply meant abolishing the three-tier system of farmers in rural areas and the exceptional status of the nobility, advocating that "profit without effort" be seen as the new original sin.

As the saying goes, a step ahead is genius, three steps ahead is insanity.

This political proposition, which seemed extremely primitive and crude in Horn's era, is now considered quite advanced in this era.

Just as Horn stepped out of the Prayer Hall in the small town, he felt warmth at the back of his head. He looked up, but the sunlight made him squint his eyes.

After five or six days of continuous rain, the sun finally shone on Daze Village.

The warm sun pierced through the heavy clouds from behind the mountains and clouds, casting a faint light through the cracks.

However, amidst the gray and cold winter, this light seemed equally murky.

Under the eaves of the wooden roof, water droplets slid down rhythmically, landing on Horn's shoulder.

He reached out to catch the water droplet and the sunlight, placing both in his palm where they felt both warm and cold.

"What should we do next?"

"Uh," Duvalon pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket, "We were supposed to discuss the Monastery with His Excellency Armand, but we ended early, so there's an hour of free time."

"Free time, huh." Horn glanced at the Mechanical Palace on the hill in the distance, "It's rare to have a bit of sun, let's stroll around nearby."

Walking on the grassy field mingled with withered yellow and vibrant green, Horn sauntered lightly ahead.

Earlier, he rode horses here and there, and it rained; he never leisurely admired the island's scenery, only the swiftly retreating blurred images.

Once the Saint Father Order affairs are settled, formal military training will have to start, and Horn will likely have to rush between the town and the military camp, leaving little leisure time.

Even now as Horn strolls, it isn't genuine leisure time; his mind still occupied with matters of the Salvation Army.

Of the six key issues initially raised, with the gap of the pumping machine filled, the food issue was considered resolved.

The second issue was the uniforms, but for uniforms, it's truly hard to perform without resources; the only solution Horn could consider was to dispatch more people to hunt for beast furs.

After all, they have holy guns; with the presence of holy guns and breastplate, they may not have much confidence encountering magical creatures, but their confidence in escape is not only existent but substantial.

Horn commanded that uniforms should be prioritized for Battle Group soldiers, whereas those lacking sufficient winter clothing have to stay at home.

Although uniforms were insufficient, peat fuel was certainly adequate; even the current peat workshops could meet the winter warmth needs of over twenty thousand people.

For those who must stay home, Horn didn't intend to let them idle; at most, let them work on assembly tasks at home.

Moreover, Horn plans to establish a primary school class and literacy class in each neighborhood, using this winter to fiercely reinforce cultural knowledge, first synchronizing knowledge with the primary students.

This involves the third issue from before, the housing issue.

These Insula Apartments are free to move into, without shared expenses, with self-managed property; but if fugitives or deserters are sheltered, the entire building gets implicated.

Despite Vite's deferral of the work timeline, Horn believes that employing star-forged gears on cranes would surely elevate the town's construction speed to another level.

Hilov has been recently sketching crane designs, and within two days the prototype can be built for testing.

Thinking of this, Horn turns his steps and walks to a hill, below which lay a row of newly constructed brick houses emitting black smoke.

This is the temporary mortar workshop district that Horn established.

In the shed outside the brick houses, workers in quilted jackets and short cloaks sat on little stools, hunched over busy in the water tanks.

Wearing leather gloves and wielding small knives, they diligently dissected the Slime, extracting useful parts, ultimately extracting Slime Juice.

This Slime Juice will be transported to the mortar workshop behind them, where Holy Favored Alchemists will refine it into barrels of mortar powder.

Several carts were parked roadside, wheels sunk into mud pits, carrying mortar barrels covered with lids and layers of canvas.

The workers swore and cursed as one pulled from the front while two pushed hard from the back to extricate the cart.

This wasn't Horn being stingy about using horse carts; it's just that while warhorses were abundant on his side, draft horses were obviously lacking.

In coming to Autumn Dusk Island, he had swept clean the horses of Duke Kush at Joan of Arc Castle and those of the Knights, pocketing two hundred forty warhorses.

Warhorses aren't actually suitable for pulling carts; their efficiency and cost are worse than just letting manpower do the pulling.

Every time at such moments, Horn always thought about how nice it would be to have a Spring Machine, not too long, just cute short ones.

The distance from the industrial district to the town is less than two miles, using those small mine carts linked with a spring-coupled front would beat human labor for pulling.

Unfortunately, the critical method for manufacturing star-forged gears is missing; only less than sixty are available for Horn's usage.

Moreover, for some unknown reason, the vampire from the Scales Hermitage, Hilov's mother, when manufacturing star-forged gears, none were smaller than over 1 meter in diameter.

For some of the smaller machinery, such gears simply can't serve as power sources.

"Forget it, let's talk about it later, let Ruo'an Faction pay more attention when the time comes." Horn stretched lazily and continued forward.

The current main three alchemical industries on Autumn Dusk Island: first peat, second mortar, third cuprum.

Currently, cuprum is a major longstanding issue, and it's directly related to the new army.

The main reason is too much usage of refined iron, actually requiring 14 pounds of refined iron.

Although Patrick claimed to compensate for refined iron waste with Mana, until now, the old fellow hadn't calculated the specific formula yet.

When Horn sought him this morning, he obstinately talked nonsense, claiming "This isn't my problem, it's a matter of time" "Life inevitably has regrets."

Compared to Patrick's procrastination, the compilation of "Gallar's Tactics," also vital to new army training, is more than half completed.

Even though Hakuto and Jeska clashed fiercely about the most effective moves, bordering on team dissolution, amidst all the bickering, they managed to illustrate this fully mapped tactic manual.

The recruitment of census registrars and clerks was completed yesterday, training should be finished today, allowing the population survey to commence tomorrow.

During the survey, further ten-household and hundred-household groupings must be executed; coincidentally, the Insula Apartments are constructed and roughly ready to accommodate a hundred households.

Counting on his fingers, Horn summarized; what remains is the march training, requiring the completion of population survey, housing arrangement, tactics compilation, spring gun improvements, and cuprum manufacturing method enhancement.

Horn had completed most of these prerequisites, leaving only them.

The organization of the new army wasn't as effortlessly swift as Horn imagined; it's already close to December, and even the recruitment of new soldiers hasn't started yet.

Horn halted his steps, gazing toward Joan of Arc Castle, as if his sight could penetrate the mountains.

Will there be enough time?