Chapter 644 — The King's Price

At the sight of those turning treads, those steel plates armor shimmering with shield radiance, and those rail-cannon muzzles glinting cold in the sunlight, Wilse could clearly feel everyone around him tense up, and he heard several audible gulps.

In truth, even he could not help but feel his emotions churn at the sight of those war vehicles.

The magic-drive vehicle escorted in the middle by the war machines opened its door, and Gao Yang stepped out, followed closely by the Northern Duchess Victoria, clad in a white gown, her face cold and aloof.

The nobles and knights beside Wilse stirred slightly, but no one made any greater movement, while Victoria merely stood quietly just behind and to the side of Gao Yang, even though she knew full well what it meant to still stand at his side after he had bombarded Crow Terrace.

She was honoring, in this way, the promise she had once made to Gao Song.

The atmosphere on the scene was subtle and tense, a hard-to-describe awkward silence shrouding everyone. Gao Yang could of course feel this peculiar mood, but he merely offered a faint smile and walked calmly toward the new King of Ansell before him: "We've finally met safely, Your Majesty—but the atmosphere here doesn't seem so good?"

"Because we may need to clear up a terrible misunderstanding," Wales said, meeting Gao Song's gaze and speaking before the other could open his mouth—before any of the other nobles beside them could speak. "We need to talk, Duke Cecil."

Gao Yang studied Wales for a moment, then nodded. "Of course."

The town had already been destroyed, but finding a room where a king and a duke could discuss matters was not difficult. A sturdy little chapel was the only building here that had not yet collapsed; after a simple clearing-out, the chapel became the place where the two would talk.

Apart from Gao Yang and Wales themselves, everyone was kept outside the chapel—including the nobles and guards who had come with the king, and including the commander of the Cecil Legion and Victoria, who had come along with Gao Cen.

The scarred wooden door of the chapel creaked shut. A shaft of sunlight fell through a shattered stained-glass window into the chapel, and before the toppled, broken idol and the pulpit, Gao Yang and Wales stood facing each other.

Gao Yang glanced around at his surroundings. "I never imagined our first serious conversation would take place in a place like this."

"It's a bit cleaner than Silverhold," Wales said with a smile. "At least there aren't so many eyes watching here."

"But there are quite a few eyes outside," Gao Dai said. "I'm curious—what do you plan to do next?"

"And you? Have you considered what you would do if this were a trap—if I merely wanted to lure you into an unjust position and goad you into bombarding Crow Terrace, if I merely wanted to use this to purge dissidents and hold on to the throne? Have you considered what you would do in such a case?"

"There's nothing to consider," Gao Yang said, gazing at Wales. "Because power comes from the barrel of a gun."

Wales looked at Gao Cen's assembly with a flicker of astonishment. He was stunned for two seconds, and then suddenly burst out laughing.

The new king laughed aloud in the abandoned little chapel—laughed without a shred of noble decorum, without any concealment or restraint, laughed until he was gasping for breath, as though he had never once laughed heartily in the first half of his life and had saved it all up to laugh out today. Only after several minutes did the laughter gradually subside. He slowly straightened up, drew a deep breath, and a smile still lingered on his face: "Right, right... you really are that kind of man..."

"Our generation—we were all that kind of man," Gao Heng said, unconsciously adopting the memories of Gao Yang? Cecil, and sighed. "So what about you? What have you decided?"

"Do you know, over the past nearly a year, the Holy Spirit Plain and the Northern and Western Regions have been carrying out all sorts of reforms—we tried all sorts of things," Wales said, now calm, speaking slowly. "New-style factories, town administration, new army drill manuals, even new-style schools, a new system of freeholders... all of it challenged the old order, but the two dukes, Victoria and Baiyu, did their utmost to push them through, because we all believed these things could make Ansell strong again..."

A faint, indistinct clamor came from outside the chapel. It still sounded far off, but it seemed to be drawing closer.

Wales turned to glance at the chapel's tightly shut door, then turned back and continued: "But in the end, almost all the reforms failed... The factories became a new means of amassing land, the army drill manuals had almost no effect, the new system could not be spread, and the schools—the schools were never even built. The only change was that the capital's nobles split into bitterly opposed reformists and conservatives, endlessly quarreling, endlessly consuming each other...

"But do you know? This was not Ansell's only attempt at change.

"Before your resurrection—over more than ten years, even several decades—we tried many times. Of course, I was far from Silverhold then; strictly speaking, it was my father the king and several Guardian Dukes who tried many times.

"Duke Silas Loren brought a reform plan modeled on Typhon.

"My father once considered establishing a parliament.

"The former Duke of the North implemented the Kingdom Constitution.

"The Grand Duke of Baiyu implemented a new commercial policy.

"All of them failed."

The clamor outside the chapel grew more distinct, but it did not affect the conversation between Gao Yang and Wales. Gao Yi nodded slightly: "I know some of it."

"I left Silverhold, but I kept watch over all of it," Wales continued. "Since long ago I have been thinking—thinking about what exactly prevents the kingdom from changing for the better. Is it that we lack people of sufficient wisdom? But before Typhon implemented its new policies, their scholars and advisors were no more numerous than Ansell's. Is it that we lack enlightened nobles? But the king and every Guardian Duke were reformists, and supporters of reform had always existed within the noble hierarchy. Do we lack money? Food? Time? But in fact, when Ansell started out, it was not so very different from when Typhon began its reforms.

"So what exactly do we lack?

"In the course of comparing ourselves with Typhon, I vaguely found some key points. And after the South rose, after we imitated your new order and carried out even more intense reforms, and met with even more intense backlash and conflict, I think I understood...

"The problem lies in the entire Ansell system—headed by the king, framed by the enfeoffment system, with land and serfs as its flesh and blood.

"I did not agree with the methods of Edmund and Duke Loren, but now I have to say... they did me a favor.

"Duke Cecil, do you know what the most difficult part is, if one wants change to proceed from the top down?"

Wales, smiling, quietly regarded Gao Yang.

But before Gao Yang could speak, he had already given the answer himself.

"It is overthrowing yourself."

Wales strode toward the chapel door. When the clamor outside had already turned into a roar of angry shouts and cries, he flung the door open with one push.

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