118: The right of interpretation rests with the Royal Family! (4000 words)

The sun, nearing noon, hung high in the center of the sky, bringing a hint of warmth.

Due to many unexpected factors during the initial implementation of Ironthorn Town's renovation and road construction, Lister had been busy dealing with these issues.

It wasn't until near lunchtime that he stopped his work upon the arrival of a messenger Soldier from the Tulip Territory.

After giving a silver coin as a tip for the hard work and arranging a place for the messenger Soldier to rest, he returned to the Lord's room.

Sitting in the main seat, he looked at the "new western frontier pioneer order" transcription scroll engraved with magic marks on the table, as well as Daisna's letter.

Lister couldn't wait and first tore open Daisna's envelope.

Envelope content:

Respected Lord Lister (How's that, Lister? Is it formal enough?):

'It has been twelve days since we last met. Are you doing well? (Well, although I think asking is a bit redundant, I still want to ask.)'

"The heavy rain a few days ago came too suddenly. Father didn't have time to take precautions, resulting in the death of many subjects in the Tulip Territory."

'For my safety, Father has kept me in the castle all this time.'

'I feel very sad and want to do something for them, but I don't know what I can do. I can only silently pray for the holy light god to protect them.'

'I think if you were here, you would definitely know what to do. I presume everything is well in the Ironthorn Territory...'

'Actually, thinking about it, with your ability, how could anything happen to the Ironthorn Territory?'

'...This is the first time I've seen rain have such power. Although Father is a Golden Knight and his strength has long reached the level of splitting mountains and severing rivers, the feeling both give me is completely different.'

'Lister, I've found that I underestimated the power of nature too much before. It is truly heartless, so heartless.'

'I even feel that Transcendent beings are just tiny dust before it. Perhaps only gods can conquer it.'

'Forget it, let's not talk about these uninteresting things...'

'By the way, I passed the church's magic talent test a few days ago and have started learning magic. My teacher says I'm progressing very quickly.'

'You'd better be careful. I might surpass you very soon. At that time, if you don't want me riding over you, you'll have to beg me properly.'

'But I am very magnanimous; it's not impossible to let you off, as long as...'

'As long as you can tell me how to make the Curved Plough and Seed Drill, I'll let you off. How about it?'

'Hmm, let me think if there's anything else to say. It seems there's nothing else...'

'Oh right, I really liked the Day Crystal statue you sent me last time. In about ten days, it will be Aetheria's Birthday Grand Ceremony. You must not forget to come.'

'But in case you are busy then, don't force yourself. Anyway, we will definitely have many chances to meet, right?'

Your intimate friend,

Daisna Fland

After reading the letter, Lister shook his head with a chuckle.

As expected of a young girl, she likes to let her imagination run wild and has a bit of a 'petty grudge'.

By the way, there were also some strange wordings. Is this really the daughter of a Count?

'Don't worry, Daisna, I will definitely keep the appointment.'

After murmuring to himself, Lister carefully packed the letter and put it into his storage ring.

Next, he picked up the "new western frontier pioneer order" transcription scroll from the side and slowly opened it to read.

There wasn't much text, and he finished reading it all in a few minutes.

However, the content of the text surprised him greatly.

The core of the entire Pioneer Order was the word 'pioneer', but it was very different from previous Pioneer Orders.

In previous Pioneer Orders, the core requirement was for lords with many offspring to send one child to the Western Frontier to pioneer according to their own wishes.

At the same time, the profits obtained from pioneering needed to be paid in the form of taxes. Based on the 10% standard kingdom tax for ordinary territories, it was tripled to 30%.

Whether it was extracted from the subjects or the lord bled their own taxes to reduce it was up to the lord's arrangement, but not a single penny could be missing.

Such high taxes were collected because the land in the Pioneer Territory was conquered by armies sent by the royal family, and then divided into pieces of territory to be distributed to those pioneer lords.

The reason the royal family didn't send their own people to govern was naturally because the distance was too far; development was time-consuming and laborious, and if trouble arose, it was difficult to provide support immediately.

Therefore, rather than developing it themselves, it was better to distribute it to pioneer lords and just sit back and wait for the money.

The church usually didn't get a share of these taxes because the occupation of the territory had nothing to do with them.

Although the church always wanted to get involved—after all, the countries, tribes, and alien races outside the Western Frontier weren't very strong, and sending a few people could easily reap many benefits.

But due to the royal family's obstruction, it was always difficult for them to get a hand in, and they could only watch anxiously.

So while it was said the taxes were tripled, it was actually just doubled, with the other part being the church's usual share.

But an increase was an increase, and the pressure on the pioneer lords was still very great.

Without the family's initial support and possible subsequent assistance, most pioneer lords could hardly survive on that land.

Moreover, it could weaken the developmental momentum of lords within the kingdom who had inherited their lands for a long time through the inheritance system.

It especially had a good effect on those Viscount and Baron lords, while also causing a rift in the relationship between lords and their offspring.

This method of the royal family desperately raking in money through legitimate decrees had always been criticized by many lords in the kingdom.

But unfortunately, the forces involved were complex and intertwined, and under the governance of King Charlie Augustine VII, the royal family's overall strength grew stronger, reaching an unprecedented level of authority.

So at every supreme meeting of the kingdom, proposals to reprimand and cancel this Pioneer Order were ruthlessly and firmly rejected.

But now, the "new western frontier pioneer order" had undergone earth-shaking changes.

The original kingdom tax was no longer 30%, nor 20%, not even 10%, but had been reduced to 8%.

It was beautifully claimed to be for reducing the burden on pioneer lords so they could easily and single-mindedly pioneer the territory for the kingdom.

All internal autonomy of the territory was led by the pioneer lord, and the royal family still did not participate in any management.

Not only that, if you could develop the territory to a certain level of prosperity and achieve some proud accomplishments...

The royal family would, according to the pioneer lord's wishes, let them choose whether to accept the conferment of a court title and take up a post in the Royal City.

If they agreed, they could escape the poverty, remoteness, and other negative environments of the Pioneer Territory, especially the death threat of a potential foreign invasion at any time.

The above were most of the modifications to the "new western frontier pioneer order." It seemed that no matter how one looked at it, it was for the good of the pioneer lords.

But after reading it, the corners of Lister's mouth curled up slightly, full of mockery.

Because the problems in some of the content were too big, and a few choice words gave him a strange sense of familiarity.

Pioneering territory for the kingdom!

According to the content of previous Pioneer Orders, the distributed territory belonged completely to the pioneer lord themselves.

Although still within the royal family's scope of rule, the royal family no longer had the right of disposal unless the lord died.

Now it was different. Pioneering territory for the royal family—what did this mean?

It meant that the allocated territory might no longer belong to the lord. The lord only had the right of use and management, not the right of absolute disposal over life and death.

Although it wasn't explicitly stated in the new Pioneer Order, combined with the explanation of the court title conferment...

Lister's sixth sense told him that this was very likely the truth of the royal family's scheme, just turned into a trap.

As for how it would be specifically implemented, he guessed it should be through some manipulation of the Pioneer Order's content when allocating territory to the pioneer lords.

When the pioneer lord developed the territory to a decent degree, the royal family would use the signed Pioneer Order to directly take back the distributed Pioneer Territory, snatching someone else's ripe fruit.

At that time, even if the pioneer lord wanted to refuse, they would have no way to do so. In his previous life, there was a saying for that.

All rights of interpretation belong to the royal family!

Of course, the royal family would certainly predict the result of inciting public anger, so the modified content regarding the court title conferment could be brought out for manipulation.

Since they would receive a court title and could live happily in the Royal City, after weighing the pros and cons, few lords would be unwilling.

After all, who would want to stay forever in a place where they might face death threats?

Moreover, pioneer lords were, in the final analysis, offspring who were most likely abandoned by their families; their own abilities certainly wouldn't be that great.

Facing the royal family's threats and inducements, they were far from their family's power, and with the resentment of being abandoned in their hearts, it was naturally difficult to hold out.

But all of this was still just his guess. He wasn't a pioneer lord yet, nor was he in the Western Frontier.

Otherwise, he could learn the details through Kelvin to verify his thoughts.

Why did he say 'yet'? That was because a special clause had been added to the modified content of the new Pioneer Order.

Pioneer lords were no longer limited to those offspring without titles. Now, lords with titles, as long as they were voluntary, could also go to the Western Frontier to pioneer and be allocated corresponding Pioneer Territory.

And after careful consideration, Lister had already decided to go to the Western Frontier Territory.

Although he might face the royal family's traps later, those were all future matters.

The Ironthorn Territory was too small now. Even if developed to the extreme, there was still a limit.

Only by acquiring more land could he have a larger population, and development would be even faster.

He didn't lack means to make money now; what he lacked was territory and population.

Staying in a corner forever, even with divination, his development speed would slow down, and the drive in his heart might gradually fade. Besides... the world is so big, he wanted to go see it!

Of course, he was very confident about pioneering in the Western Frontier. Not to mention his divination ability, even Kelvin could help him.

Furthermore, although the initial territory of a pioneer lord was allocated by the kingdom, 'pioneering' didn't mean you couldn't pioneer new lands that didn't belong to the kingdom yourself.

The kingdom would have absolutely no reason to seize such newly pioneered territory for itself; otherwise, it would violate the core pioneering system since the kingdom's founding.

Although he had decided in his heart, he didn't plan to set out in the coming days. After all, there were still too many things in the territory that hadn't fully formed a stable development.

At the very least, he had to wait until the two important tasks of Ironthorn Territory were completed before he could set out for the Western Frontier.

And before that, he still had to go to the Tulip Territory for the appointment and meet the master of the Tulip Territory, Count Elsid.

Perhaps at that time, he could gain some things beneficial for pioneering in the Western Frontier... Meanwhile, in the Cook Valley, far from the Ironthorn Territory.

"Damn it, why is there a High-Rank Bronze knight protecting Kim's caravan?"

"People of the Benson Family, when you were scouting for intelligence, were your eyes moved to your asses?"

"I'll f*ck your mother..."

At this moment, the narrow mountain road, only two carriages wide, had been dyed red with blood.

The sixth of The Six Bounty Brothers was cursed madly at the Benson Family members present while he and his other brothers resisted Carlyle's fierce attacks.

But the Benson Family members were in no mood to listen to his cursing; every one of them was already struggling to save themselves.

It had to be said that although the strongest eldest of The Six Bounty Brothers only had the strength of a Bronze Tier 3 knight.

But the attacks of the six people working together were extremely coordinated, raising their combat power by several levels.

However, no matter how much coordination improved, the gap in realm remained an unbridgeable chasm.

As a cold light flashed, the longsword in Carlyle's hand, overflowing with dense Battle Qi energy, directly slit the throat of the third brother.

With a 'pshh', blood sprayed out in response.

Seeing this, the remaining five brothers' eyes nearly split from rage, and their attacks became even more frenzied.

But unfortunately, if they were in the same realm, this desperate fighting style would indeed pose a significant threat to Carlyle.

But with such a large gap in realm, their desperation instead became opportunities that exposed various flaws.

Swish—!

Several piercing sounds of breaking air rang out in succession. The second and fifth brothers of the six brothers died one after another, their deaths no different from the third brother's.

Seeing this, the scarred-faced eldest felt a burst of deathly intent. He pulled out a small bottle from somewhere, directly uncorked it, and gulped down the unknown liquid inside.

In the next moment, the special energy he cultivated within his body instantly surged to the extreme.

Then, without any hindrance, it broke through the shackles, reaching a strength equivalent to a Bronze Tier 6 knight.

Feeling the change in his bodily aura, Carlyle's eyes narrowed, and his attacks became slightly more cautious.

For a time, the flashes of blades and swords flickered constantly, and the powerful Battle Qi and another energy escaping created bursts of air explosions.

The surrounding flowers, plants, and trees were all torn apart and overturned by the violent energy and wind.

As the scarred-faced eldest's attacks became more and more desperate, Carlyle's moves also became more steady.

Suddenly, the scarred-faced man roared: "Fourth, Sixth, run quickly!"

As he spoke, he ignored the longsword about to pierce his chest and swung the curved blade in his hand forward with a fierce chop.

Clang, clang, clang!

The special energy attached to the blade, combined with the instantly condensed wind element energy, formed powerful wind blades that went straight for Carlyle.

Hesitating for a split second, Carlyle still avoided the brunt of the attack and retreated backward.

At the same time, the scarred-faced eldest turned around, grabbed the collars of the fourth and sixth brothers, threw them fiercely toward the back of the valley, and then turned back to charge at Carlyle again.

Looking at his blood-covered back, the fourth and sixth brothers, weeping in pain, had no choice but to flee with all their might toward Telris.

Until they had fled several hundred meters, a violent explosion mixed with a shrill, mournful howl came from deep within the valley.

Then, everything returned to silence...