"It's actually very simple... and I'm just guessing."
Hitzfeld swung his raised foot and raised his eyebrows.
"Didn't Frick say he couldn't find anything in common with people with aesthesia?"
"You might as well guess what I want to ask Hughes?"
"You don't mean to..."
Xia Yibing frowned.
"He's here." Darent leaned out of the window.
"With Knight Smail."
"Just downstairs."
Chapter 24 Contradiction
If calculated based on last night's rest time, 8:30 in the morning would be just the right time for the visit.
But you have to know that the visiting guests have just traveled all the way from the distant capital, so when Smail was downstairs, he told Hughes to be prepared to wait for a few more hours.
Hughes agreed readily - even if he didn't consider the other party's status, he couldn't openly harass two decent ladies.
But what they didn't expect was that after they had just waited downstairs for a while, a waiter came to the bar and told them that the owner of room 306 wanted to see them.
When he entered the room, Smail saw Darent and Xia Yibing both sitting on the sofa, but the young detective, Aisuen Hitzfeld, was lying on the windowsill with most of her body leaning out.
"Danger! Miss Hitzfeld!" he cried.
“There’s no terrace down there!”
If there is a terrace, you can cushion the fall in the middle, which is equivalent to falling from the second floor at most. But if there is no terrace, it will become a fall from the third floor. Even the most well-trained soldiers can hardly control the injuries, and if you are not careful, you may die.
"Ah, Knight Smail." Hitzfeld turned around and asked him in a brisk tone, "Did you bring a doctor?"
"No." The white-haired knight shook his head, and then said confidently: "I believe I can temporarily play this role."
There were wrinkles on his face, but they were so fine that anyone would have thought he was only about thirty-five years old if they hadn't looked closely.
"May I ask how old you are this year?" Xia Yibing stood up from the sofa and stepped forward to shake hands with the knight. "After all, you look really young."
"Forty-seven, maybe forty-eight or forty-six? I don't pay attention to this, so I'm not sure." Smail shook his head. "Don't think that I have been here for more than 20 years, but I was actually born in Plain Parish. I have been here since I was very young."
There is a sequence for visits and meetings, and when he came in, the businessman Hughes was locked outside.
So they can talk about some more private topics now, and Smail doesn't mind answering such questions.
"You never drink?" Hitzfeld asked him.
"Never."
"And never smoke? Never do anything...that could cause harm to your body?"
"Yes, because I always keep my mission in mind."
Nodding, Hitzfeld had a general understanding of Smail's character.
There was a difference between hearing something and having it admitted in person. She believed more in the results of her own inquiry: Smail was an ascetic knight who devoted everything in his life to his faith and had no chance of enjoying anything.
"I heard from Frick that Unseen is your territory?" Hitzfeld changed the subject and quietly changed the way he addressed him.
"It's not that exaggerated..." Smail shook his head and glanced at Xia Yibing beside him: "I thought you guys knew about the management system of the Plain Parish."
"We only know that the Diocese of Pingyuan is governed by the military and the church, and the diocese accounts for the majority," Xia Yibing said. "As for the details, we don't know."
"Co-governance between the military and the church... Humph!" Smail curled his lips and revealed a sarcastic smile, "Ah! They always like to make bad things sound too good."
"Is there any inside story?" Hitzfeld asked again.
"That's too much." The white-haired knight glanced at her again. "The so-called co-governance between the military and the church means that all towns are governed by the military system... and the diocesan army composed of Bishop Padom and a dozen gold-rank knights."
"This is a privilege granted to us by His Majesty. Some of our powers are indeed very great, but how should I put it..."
"Insufficient manpower?" Xia Yibing asked.
“…About that.”
Hitzfeld listened to this conversation silently, quickly constructing the political structure of the Onsayn Fortress in his mind.
She could understand the riddle these two people were playing, because "they have power but are gradually being sidelined by the lower levels due to the lack of grassroots executors" - this situation is very common in various coup stories.
However, due to the special nature of the clergy and the military power they possess, the military system here has no need and cannot truly sideline them.
There was no need for them to rebel; they probably just wanted to make a little money from the special market in Plain Parish.
Well... just a few hundred million.
This can be seen from Hughes' caravan. Hitzfeld believes that she is quite capable of reading people's expressions. She has always felt that Smail... doesn't actually want to bring this team along.
His attitude towards himself and others is completely different from that towards Hughes, Cark and others, and he treats his own guards even more intimately, which shows that in his mind he has divided them into different classes and does not care if doing so will cause dissatisfaction.
Perhaps having a caravan follow the patrol into the red soil at the beginning was not an outcome the parish wanted to see.
They are guarding here to protect lives, not to make money from the red soil plains that are stained with the blood of countless ancestors.
"As far as I can remember, your parish troops are stationed here all the time, right?" Darent also interrupted. He was quite curious about this question. "And the troops are rotated every three years from the bottom to the top. Is your control over them so poor?"
Every three years, the fortress garrison will be replaced, which means that the military system of Onsin will be broken up and reorganized, and the old order will no longer exist.
Parish knights had no such restrictions - as could be seen from Smail himself, otherwise he would not have stayed for the full twenty-two years.
In this situation, Darent felt that as long as the parish leader had a little political acumen, he could easily take control of the entire fortress. He really couldn't understand why it would be as Smail said.
"It's no use."
It was Hitzfeld who answered this question. She shook her head slightly and said, "The core of the conflict is not in the army."
The army has to be rotated, and no matter how deep the layout of each officer is, it will collapse after three years. This means that they will never be the initiator, that is, the one who actively provokes this kind of confrontation.
no need.
From their perspective, they are just accepting some favors and opening back doors for some people.
This is passive, not active.
After all, as long as it doesn't affect the overall defense of the fortress, who doesn't want to live a better life?
So the root of the confrontation is not in the fortress - not at the top, but in the rear, in those seemingly peaceful canyon towns.
"You are very wise, Miss Hitzfeld." Smail gave her a meaningful look and turned to Darent: "Yes! This is mainly a conflict between us and the Chamber of Commerce."
The chamber of commerce he was referring to was the Red Soil Chamber of Commerce Alliance.
It sounds very much like a conspiracy by evildoers... and with the example of the old royal party, Hitzfeld and the other two were very sensitive when they heard the word "Chamber of Commerce".
But after Smail's detailed explanation, they realized that things were not as they thought.
This is not a conspiracy, and the evildoers did not do anything to promote it.
Because the Red Soil Chamber of Commerce Alliance is a bloated organization composed of dozens of large and small chambers of commerce, it operates slowly, has fierce internal competition, and its personnel are mostly small vendors.
These people may not understand any profound principles, but their past backgrounds are easy to verify.
Most of them are locals.
They are the descendants of ancient soldiers and civilians.
The so-called contradiction itself is nothing more than the conflict between the parish's desire to maintain strict control and the people's desire for prosperity.
There's nothing we can do about it.
This trend did not form in a day or two. It took more than a hundred years to develop, and it is difficult to correct it today.
Smail was quite helpless about this, because he couldn't say that he didn't want to see the people he protected live a better life.
Considering that they really understood the rules and did not affect the defense of the fortress, he did not want to get involved in some things.
"Let's not talk about this anymore."
After talking for a long time, Smail became closer to the three of them. He found an empty sofa and sat down, folding his fingers, "I have consulted many doctors over the years, so I have some medical knowledge... I want to ask Miss Hitzfeld, what exactly is the recovery that Frick is talking about?"
"What did he tell you?" the girl asked him.
"He said that after seeing you, if you would tell me, I would immediately see that I was wasting my time in coming to you."
"Then you are indeed wasting your time."
"……Why?"
"Because she is a divine devourer." Xia Yibing said.
"And the example of the Devourer cannot be applied to normal people."
Chapter 25 Commonalities
Smail was stunned for two or three seconds, then stood up and smiled bitterly.
"It seems that I have indeed wasted my time... Well, sorry to bother you three, I have other matters to attend to—"
"Don't be impatient--" Hitzfeld interrupted him, "Sit down first, Knight Smail. I still have something to ask you."
"in the case of……"
"It won't take up much of your time." The girl met his gaze, "and I promise, you won't regret it."
Smail sat down again in a daze. He was quite heavy, and had a set of chain mail under his clothes, which pressed the sofa so hard that it groaned in pain.
"I want to ask about the cause of what we just talked about... the essence of that result, which is the local red clay market in Onsin." Hitzfeld said to him word by word.
"Shouldn't we look for Hughes..."
"I will ask Mr. Hughes as well, but this matter is more important, so I need to ask more people."
"What do you want to know about?" Smail frowned. "From what I know, this market is quite large...more than half of the merchants in the towns behind are also involved in this business."
"By the way?"
"Of course it's a side job, because red soil cannot be obtained stably, and it would be crazy to make it my main business."
"How do they use red clay? What is it good for?"
"It's the most perfect shaping material." Smail nodded. "There was no such business at the beginning... It was some so-called, um... artists, right? They moved here and bought red clay at a high price to make pottery and sculptures."
"What makes it special compared to ordinary soil?"
"How should I put it?" Smail groaned. "If ordinary clay is easily damaged after being molded, red clay pots rarely have this problem. In addition, there is a chance that they can be burned into special shapes."
"Special shape?" Hitzfeld and the other two were stunned.
"Have you seen the reliefs in the church?" Smail didn't know how to describe it for a moment, so he could only clumsily stretch out his hands to show them: "Those sacred... vague human figures... those incomprehensible symbols... patterns... and various holy elements..."
"These are the special designs?" Hitzfeld's eyes widened. "Do they appear randomly?"
"It's totally uncontrollable." Smail nodded his chin. "They tried to burn out the desired pattern accurately, but it didn't work. It just didn't work."
"What's the principle behind this?" Xia Yibing was still a little confused.
From her point of view, it was really hard to understand that a basically intact clay embryo thrown into the furnace, after being calcined, would spontaneously deform after coming out, and turn into such a "holy element" with a specific meaning? ... Such a pattern? A relief?
Can this be formed naturally?
It’s not an exaggeration to say it’s a miracle, right?
"I know why red clay is so expensive." Darent raised his eyebrows.
"That's right." Smail leaned back in his chair and sighed. "It wasn't so exaggerated at the beginning, but as the news spread, more and more people came here... We had to control all the channels into the canyon, but even so it was useless. The market has long been formed. We can only prohibit people from continuing to come in, but we can't control the people inside from leaving, especially those who take the finished products out to sell."
"As for the principle." He paused when he said this, "There is a saying that this is the manifestation of the will of the ancient knights."
"Can you tell me in detail?" Hitzfeld was very interested.
"It's very simple... It's the blood of the ancient knights who died on the plain. Their blood dyed the plain red, turning the yellow soil into red soil, and endowed this land with special power."
"Do those people think that this force causes the red clay to deform randomly after being fired?" Darent opened his mouth. "Are they all idiots?"
"... You'd better not say this outside, Mr. Darent." Smail's mouth curled up slightly, and he lowered his head and said, "We all know that this statement is nonsense, but there is no way to stop some people from believing this."
"The main reason is that there is really no reasonable explanation for this phenomenon so far." Hitzfeld said tentatively, "So there are all kinds of rumors."
The white-haired knight continued to nod.
"Thank you for your cooperation." Hitzfeld smiled at him, "You can call Mr. Hughes in now."
