Chapter 24 Development Plan
On the next morning, when Roland woke up, he wasn’t served by his maid Tyre. Instead, it was an elderly maid.
When he stepped out of the bedroom, his chief knight Carter was already waiting for him.
“Your Highness, I have bad news to deliver, “Carter spoke with a low voice, “Your maid Tyre died last night.”
“What?” Roland’s eyelids jumped up, although he already knew the result before, in his heart, he still felt a little uncomfortable. After all, she died because of his orders.
“She fell from the balcony in her own room. We couldn’t find any signs of fighting nor the guards saw any outsiders near the scene of the accident. So… it seems that she fell from the balcony by herself, it was an accident.”
The knight reported the results of his investigation, and at the same time, he searched for any weird fluctuations in Roland’s eyes. Roland certainly knew what Carter was looking for. When they were in Graycastle, it was known to everyone that the 4th Prince wanted to take Tyre by force. In this day and age, it was an ordinary affair for a prince and a maid to have a relationship, this kind of matter was of least interest to others. After all, almost no nightlife existed, so there was nothing to do besides eating one’s fill and doing the thing between man and woman. And not only with their own woman, the prince and the other upper nobility would exchange their women, sometimes they would even make an open party, so an affair between a prince and his maid was nothing more than a simple laugh.
The former 4th Prince was already known for being more moderate in this kind of matter, and later he was even replaced with Cheng Yang, who had never touched a woman after he became Roland – with the exception of Tyre, all the other maids could be described as shabby. In addition, after his crossing he directly had to face the Months of the Demons, so his mind was almost only filled with development plans, and he had no chance to enjoy the romantic life of a noble.
“That is really regretful,” Roland put on a look of mourning, “In the future the senior maid who served me this morning should take over Tyre’s position. She is the new head maid.”
Carter nodded and left after saluting.
When Roland stepped into his office, he once more saw that Nightingale sat on his mahogany (redwood) table.
“What are the results of your interrogation?”
“Nothing, she directly killed herself when she saw me,” her frustration was clearly audible, “She acted too fast, there wasn’t even the slightest hesitation.”
“You actually didn’t make her fall?” Roland walked around her and sat in the armchair.
“I tied her up,” Nightingale placed her body closer to him, “but who could have known that she had hidden poison in her teeth. So I had to fake an accidental fall.”
“I thought you were experienced. So, do you think you did enough to get paid?”
“Hey, don’t talk like that! Though I couldn’t get anything directly from her mouth, that doesn’t mean I didn’t get anything.” While chuckling, Nightingale put a folded sheet of paper in front of Roland, “I found this hidden in her room.”
Roland spread out the paper and saw that it was a letter. In the letter, Tyre referred to the recipient as sister, but the content was just plain gossip. However, he noted that the other person repeatedly referred to the sea, such as ‘the scenery was beautiful to view’, ‘her favorite entertainment was staying on the and beach watching the sunset’, and other things like this.
Finally, Tyre asked when she could see her older sister again since she was missing her very much. When Roland thought of the territories his brothers and sisters governed, he was sure he knew who the conspirator was, “It should be my older sister Garcia, right?”
“That is probably the case, since your two brothers cannot see the sea. I guess, 3rd princess Garcia Wimbledon took Tyre’s sister hostage and hid her away. Judging from the decisive style of her suicide, it is unlikely to be a random arrangement. What I mean is, before she was placed as your maid, she had at least two to three years of ample training.”
Roland sighed softly. Indeed as expected of the fight for the throne, it would not end without bloodshed. Even if he didn’t fight, it didn’t mean that his siblings wouldn’t drag him into it. To get the throne, his brothers and sisters would stop at nothing. He was afraid that something similar would happen again in the future.
“Ah, someone’s coming to speak with you. You’ll have to excuse me, Your Highness.”
Nightingale spoke in a teasing tone and blew hot air towards Roland, and then she suddenly disappeared in the blink of an eye.
Although it wasn’t the first time he saw her doing this, but seeing her vanish in broad daylight, left Roland feeling shocked. He hesitated for a moment, and then he stretched out a finger towards the empty table, halfway his finger was stopped by a very soft touch, “Your Highness, you cannot do this, you will make Anna very sad.”
Well, it seemed like her ability was invisibility and not teleportation, thought Roland, otherwise it really would be too powerful.
Soon a knock was heard from the door, “Your Highness, it’s me Barov.”
Roland withdrew his finger and hid any expression that was on his face, “Come in.”
When the Assistant Minister stepped into the office, he was holding a large bundle of files. Even before he had sat down, he began his government report of the last week. Roland also turned his thoughts back, listening attentively to Barov’s report. After living for a month in this world, he found himself able to keep up with Barov’s rhythm, unlike the beginning where he was confused and disoriented, feeling completely out of place.
In general, the finance of Border Town had a certain degree of improvement. The main point for this was the selling of the ore and rough stones to Willow Town. As payment, they had received nearly 200 gold royals. After they had used the money to buy food and to pay off wages, there were still ninety gold royals remaining.
Barov was in good mood, with money to spare, getting through this winter wouldn’t be too difficult.
But Roland was destined to not let him leave in good mood, “I want to pick a group of townspeople to help fight against the demonic beasts and from now on they will only have to concentrate on training. Their instructor will be my chief knight, and I will give him special instructions on how to train them. You will need to make a list of equipment or gear. These people will need leather armor and pikes. They also need to have two sets of winter clothes, so they can change clothes.”
“Your Highness, this… according to the convention, isn’t a temporary recruitment only allowed as the final option ?”
“If you send them to the battlefield without further training, they will only be a chaotic mob. Do you think it’s possible to scare off the demonic beasts with numbers only? After the order collapses, we will only have more trouble.”
“Your Highness, do you really insist on staying in Border Town?” asked Barov hesitantly.
“If we cannot restrain the demonic beasts, of course, I will retreat, but I do not think that we cannot even deal with a few variations mutations? of normal animals.”
“According to your future plans, we will need a greater amount of money.”
Hearing that the other side was such a miser, Roland had to laugh “These are necessary expenses, go and do it.”
In his own treasury were more than 300 gold royals which were mainly used to pay for the construction of walls. The required steam engine materials and components ordered from the blacksmith shop were also paid for from his own pockets. For the first steam engine, he had to spend almost twenty gold royals, and he would need at least three engines.
The invention of the steam engine was a key component of the industrial revolution, this was true, but it didn’t mean that the steam engine was equivalent to the industrial revolution. In history, the United Kingdom was looking for a possibility to replace the people and livestock involved in order to increase the productivity in mining operations . When Watt improved the steam engine, he immediately received a huge amount of orders. This new power was also spread to various industries in a very short period of time.
At this point of time, there was no basis for the industrial revolution in a small Border Town. It could even be said that industry did not exist. So Roland did not expect to make a pot of gold by selling the steam engine, he just wanted to put this machine in the northern mining area to pull ore and gravel. And when the mining production was increased, he would expand the scale of use of the steam engines. It would be the equivalent of the promotion of the industrial development from top to bottom.