CHAPTER 476: CHAPTER 454 ROYAL ARMORY AND MECHANICAL PALACE ENGINEERING RESEARCH INSTITUTE

He opened his eyes and it was still the same canopy bed.

His head rested on a plush pillow as Horn twisted his neck, glancing left and right, and only then did he breathe a sigh of relief.

Good, there were no women in bed today. He had thought Jeanne and Jia Li might be lying on either side...

Horn suddenly froze, then chuckled to himself. He was not at the Gulag Monastery but in the Mechanical Palace.

As for the Blood, Sweat, and Tears Journey, it had been almost a year since then.

With a light sigh, he shook his head. Every time he woke up from a hangover, he felt the world was too unfamiliar.

In that fleeting moment, he had even thought it was still September 1444.

He still remembered, after the Little River Battle, he had also gotten very drunk. The next day, Qianqian brought them devastating news—the arrival of Prince Kongdai.

The Horn of that time, that cautious and reactionary Horn, had insanely decided to flee Upper Reif County with nearly a thousand citizens.

They needed to bypass the encirclement, cross the high terrace mountains and the Blackbone Marsh, to reach what was then Joan of Arc Castle.

Compared to the tedious administrative and military affairs after capturing the castle, it was those reckless and childish times Horn remembered most clearly.

What about Jia Li? How come there’s been no news for so long?

Mind you, Diya would communicate with Grampwen every month, but due to blocked roads, she hasn’t been able to return to Langsande County through the Red Copper Fortress yet.

Speaking of which, Horn hadn’t gone to pay homage at Frick’s grave since his return.

Horn suddenly had an inexplicable sense of fate.

At the beginning of the Blood, Sweat, and Tears Journey, he buried his good brother Danji in the high terrace mountains.

In the middle of the journey, he buried another good friend, Frick.

At the end of the journey, he buried a good man and a group of orphans, and the thing they had in common was that they were mostly nameless.

At that time, the Saint Grandson’s Pope Country was still the ignorant rebel army being chased and fleeing in panic, but now it had become a heavyweight force in the southeastern Thousand River Valley.

After the victory, the voices supporting Horn becoming the Archbishop of the Thousand River Valley even surpassed those for Ludvik, the Abbot of Blago Monastery.

Especially Xiaochi City, a staunch supporter of the Juanist Faction, had unilaterally declared Horn the Archbishop of the Thousand River Valley for protection by the stationed Salvation Army.

However, what frustrated Horn was that the Thousand River Valley People still preferred an enlightened monarch over a theocratic republic or a constitutional autonomy system.

Previously, Madlan had conducted a sample survey and found that even the majority in the Savior Pope Country believed the best scenario was for the Thousand River Valley to close its gates, with the Saint’s Grandson as Pope and Grand Duke Moliat as Prince.

In any case, they needed a Great Monarch above them.

The inertia of history is so strong that it can’t be changed in just a year.

In the history of Horn’s homeland, modern Europe had been tugging back and forth between feudal and capitalist forces for hundreds of years, and some countries still have royal families.

Having just started here for a year, if you want to change hundreds or thousands of years of tradition, unless Horn really can control people’s minds as Church propaganda claims.

Even the Salvation Army had to tolerate some remnants of noble forces, trying to reduce the number of enemies, survive first, and then settle accounts.

Could Horn of September 1444 have imagined what he would look like now?

Back then, he was thinking about running away to Black Snake Bay quickly, but a year later, he became the head of affairs for the three southeastern counties of the Thousand River Valley.

Martin sent a message saying that Dean Ludvik would personally visit in mid-September.

From the details in the letter, it seems the Blago Monastery wants to form an alliance of three or four parties.

That is, Catharine’s Lower Reif County Rapids City, Ludvik’s Kasha County, Horn’s Langsande County, and the Secret Faction of Black Snake Bay.

If the alliance could be formed, they’d have more confidence to face possible Crusades from the Church and Prince Kongdai’s commands.

Support with the soft silk-blend sheets, Horn sat up and leaned against the headboard, raising his hands over his head, and stretched with a big yawn.

Halfway through his yawn, it seamlessly turned into a pepper-flavored belch.

Clearly, this was the aftertaste of last night’s banquet.

Though he set his menu to that of an average middle-class, Catharine privately funded it, bringing two cows and buying a dozen sheep on the spot, thoroughly enriching the feast.

Perhaps because the tension in his mind was unusually tight after the two great battles, Horn rarely allowed himself to relax and had two drinks without pulling a grim face.

This drink indeed loosened his nerves, and Horn slept from ten last night until eleven in the morning. Looking at the black oak pointer on the grandfather clock, he rubbed his eyes vigorously before scratching his belly and getting out of bed.

Pulling open the curtains, the intense sunlight shone at the foot of the bed.

He didn’t know what kind of design or materials the Mechanical Palace used, but in such hot weather, the room actually felt cool.

Upon opening the door, there were two faithful orphan attendants waiting, but Horn always disliked being served for brushing and washing; he had perfectly capable hands for such tasks.

But dressing was different. In this world, the Holy Robe was more like soft armor pieced together from different parts than clothing.

Unless Horn grew two more arms on his back and below his waist, he might be able to wear it himself.

After spitting out the tooth-cleaning solution, Horn looked at his lightly yellowed teeth in the clear water, casually put on a cool linen high-collared shirt, and walked out of his room.

Standing in the hallway on the second floor, Horn could directly see the hall next to the Mechanical Theater.

Pens scratching paper made a rustling sound, as the grimacing members of the Orphan Army lay across their desks.

In front of them, Hilov sat upright in her wheelchair, holding a book, occasionally glancing at the clock beside her.

The ticking sound evoked a sense of past fear in Horn.

He tiptoed to the first-floor kitchen, grabbed some cold bread and beef and a pot of warm tea, and returned upstairs.

While chewing on cold beef and sipping warm tea, Horn leaned on the balcony railing, gazing into the distance.

One had to say, Vite’s design was quite artistic, for from here, he could see the distant Mansion Square and the statue under construction.

There was a good crowd on Central Avenue, some buying grain and oil, others trading leather.

Bringing his view closer, most of the trees on the hill where the Mechanical Palace stood had been cut away, revealing verdant grass and shrubs.

In the crescent-shaped clearing between the hill and the Parra River, Jeanne was leading Mitney, Carter, and others in a routine military drill.

These members of the Meigedi Commerce Association ran breathlessly, not even fully recovered from their hangovers. Meanwhile, a dozen elders perched in trees nearby giggled at the sight.

At the two ends of the crescent stood two newly erected buildings.

The southern one was the Royal Armory of the Pope Country, mainly responsible for moving the Holy Gun Workshop previously housed in the Mechanical Palace there.

Besides making Holy Guns, the armory also had the responsibility of developing new spring-powered weapons and improving the Holy Guns.

The northern one was the Mechanical Palace Engineering Research Institute, tasked with developing star-forging gear-related machinery, such as spring-powered stone cutters, sawmills, oil presses...

To prevent the leakage of star-forging gears, these devices were publicly claimed to be spring-powered, leaving ordinary folks unclear if springs could release such energy.

Swallowing the cold bread in two or three bites, Horn brushed off the crumbs from his hands and made his way inside. "Duvalon, come help me change clothes. Raphael, go notify the Armory and Engineering Institute, I’ll inspect them later."

Though he originally planned to rest today, practicing breathing techniques for a number of times, aiming for an early breakthrough to the third segment, or to simply lie in bed reading Demon Hunter novels.

But before he could pay respects to the nameless monk and the blue-blood orphans, he ultimately found himself unable to relax.