Ch.190Rur (2)

After being deeply impressed by the enthusiastic welcoming crowd in many ways.

“Welcome, Lord Alzar! We’ve been looking forward to your visit!”

With those cheers behind me, I entered the castle that was once the lord’s residence… now an administrative office, where I immediately met with an administrative official who served as my father’s representative in this domain.

The official dispatched from the central government to oversee the domain would naturally be deeply loyal to the lord, but perhaps this was a bit excessive. He looked tired, as if he had carried out this ‘welcome’ for reasons beyond his own will.

“Are you alright, Acting Lord?”

“…Yes, well. It’s evidence that the people love the Baron.”

Despite his exhausted state, perhaps his loyalty to my father was quite admirable. He attended to my needs with what seemed to be an inner sense of pride….

Thanks to him, we were able to very easily accomplish our purpose for visiting this Lur Barony.

With the full cooperation of the administrative office in this city of ‘Yester,’ we were able to supply iron goods to the village at affordable prices, and through my father’s reputation and power, we also secured supply contracts with several ‘units.’

In particular, these ‘units’ we contracted with are the basic combat formations in the lord’s army across the Western Continent.

In Tower series terms, one ‘unit’ would be equivalent to one card, and these ‘units’ are granted considerable independent authority.

In other words, military groups capable of ‘independent military operations’ are called ‘units,’ and because they often undertake solo military operations, they naturally possess a certain degree of autonomy.

Anyway, these ‘units’ stationed near the city of Yester are mostly composed of soldiers from the Lur Barony. Their level of fondness for me was suspiciously high.

Thanks to this, I was able to establish contracts to supply ‘fur’—the village’s core product—to some of these units more easily than expected, and I could also take on trial supplies of unfamiliar items like dried tofu and soy protein (soy meat).

However, military supplies other than fur would only be provided on a trial basis. The actual places where I intended to supply these ‘food items’ were elsewhere.

I’m referring to the orphanage and poverty relief center in the city of Yester, operated under the sponsorship of the Debona Temple and the city government.

Truthfully, soy protein may be a meat substitute, but it can never truly compare to real meat…. it has clear limitations in taste, but nonetheless, it’s a perfectly suitable food for orphanages and poverty relief centers.

Mining is such a dangerous industry in this era that many adults die, and in a world where people die too easily, orphanages are always overcrowded.

However, resources like budgets are always limited, and no matter how much support is provided, there are constraints on the funds allocated to orphanages.

Therefore, institutions like orphanages and poverty relief centers prefer foods that can be supplied cheaply and in large quantities. By this standard, soy-processed foods—especially soy protein (soy meat)—seem to be optimal.

“You can provide meat at this price…? Is that really possible?”

“Yes. …It’s not real meat, so it can’t completely replace it, but we can certainly supply it at this price.”

Although it’s a meat substitute, it can serve as ‘something’ similar to meat. Made from soybeans, it’s cheap and easy to produce, can be preserved for long periods, and is rich in plant protein.

Of course, it would be suitable for military supplies as well, but the problem is that production is somewhat limited, and the ‘military’ tends to be a conservative organization when it comes to new things.

Therefore, after deciding to supply soy protein to welfare facilities at a low price as a kind of advertisement and for charitable welfare purposes.

“Lord Alzar, it’s completed.”

“Good work, Administrator Charlotte.”

After confirming that Charlotte had returned after finalizing the iron supply contract, I finally relaxed a bit and decided to look for some information in this suspiciously lavish administrative office in Yester.

Specifically, information about what kind of person the previous Baron Lur had been.

※ ※ ※

In truth, the main reason I wanted to know this was because of the reaction shown by the citizens when we arrived in Yester.

Beyond mere admiration or yearning, their gazes contained something akin to how one might look at a religious leader, and this tendency seemed to grow stronger with age.

And what these reactions implied was that their perception of the previous Baron Lur must have been equally negative.

Therefore, since I had some time to spare anyway, I decided to investigate information about this matter.

What I already knew was roughly that Baron Lur had been a tyrannical despot and a womanizer.

His most notorious act of tyranny was forcing not only serfs but even freemen with no labor obligations into the domain’s mines to work as miners.

On top of that, he was known for changing women several times a day, and rumors suggested he tried to exercise droit du seigneur, making his womanizing beyond deplorable.

There were reasons why rumors circulated back then about him possibly being a cultist associated with ‘lust’ or ‘pleasure.’

This behavior culminated in his actions during the domain war in the past.

He hired mercenaries so vile they couldn’t possibly be defended, and used his regular troops, the men-at-arms, to plunder villages at the domain’s borders.

Additionally, before the domain war, he ignored previously agreed terms, forcibly conscripted subjects to inflate his military numbers, and used them as cannon fodder. I had heard about these disgraceful acts from my father, but….

‘…That was the sanitized version?’

Having completed my investigation, I couldn’t help but be shocked to realize that what my father had told me was actually a heavily sanitized account.

For example, the previous Baron Lur’s rule was something beyond what could simply be called tyranny.

He imposed not only harsh taxes amounting to 80% but also assigned the same level of ‘quotas’ to all subjects regardless of age or gender—monthly obligations to mine certain amounts of minerals.

Of course, the punishment for failing to meet quotas was extremely severe, and officials would even add extra requirements to the existing quotas for their own benefit.

As a result, many subjects had fingers or toes cut off for failing to meet quotas, and as their productivity naturally declined after such mutilations, they would eventually be executed under a three-strikes system.

But the most vicious aspect was demanding the same adult-level quotas from babies as young as one year old. With collective punishment in place, adults had to mine several times the normal amount depending on the number of children they had.

Naturally, many subjects who endured such harsh rule attempted to escape, and one might wonder how the population could possibly be maintained with so many people dying….

This madman solved this problem by simply kidnapping passing people for ‘voluntary immigration’ or capturing those who tried to escape.

In other words, he would kidnap people seen near the domain, bring them in, and use them as slaves—behavior so absurd it’s not even worth commenting on.

I suspect that even if it hadn’t been my father, he would have eventually been stabbed to death by someone.

Furthermore, this lunatic was absolute garbage when it came to his treatment of women.

He would force himself on women and then kill them the next day if there was any chance of pregnancy, claiming it would complicate the succession. His infamy was immense—married women were fair game, and he would violate anyone who caught his eye.

Apart from these disgusting acts, he also became legendary for his extravagance.

He spent all the vast wealth and assets extorted from his subjects solely on luxury.

This unnecessarily large and grand castle was originally the lord’s residence before becoming an administrative office.

Additionally, he would burn through one gold coin per meal, and out of boredom, he would release expensive warhorses just to ‘hunt’ them down—incomprehensible behavior.

‘Wow…. At this rate, he would have died eventually anyway?’

He had accumulated such deep negative karma that, honestly, even if it hadn’t been my father, his downfall at someone’s hands seemed virtually certain.

So I freely heaped criticism and contempt upon this previous Baron Lur, whose atrocities rivaled those of the legendary Belgian wrist-king Leopold II, but….

Until then, I had no idea.

That I would—by chance—actually end up meeting such a person.