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Chapter 664: Chapter 24

Translator: Nyoi-Bo Studio Editor: Nyoi-Bo Studio

Slightly to the southeast side of the Commonwealth of Gold Coins, there was a place called “Dahl Hill.”

This place belonged to the Dahl family. This family, like most of the other aristocrats within the Commonwealth of Gold Coins, were merchants. Some five or six generations ago, an ancestor had relied on a little wisdom and some flexible approaches amidst wartime—the specifics were no longer testable, but it could be assumed to involve quite a fair bit of deception, violence, and conspiracy. This earned him his first bucket of gold. Then he began to engage in trading and fraudulently buying, selling, and smuggling, as well as money lending.

This ancestor of the Dahl family was very good at business and had very good foresight. He was always able to grab hold of the right chance to accurately strike at the former lord. All-in-all, he had backstabbed two former lords to finally achieve great success in his career as an aristocrat qualified to own a piece of territorial land.

At first, this ancestor was only a knight who had an actual piece of territory. Above him, there was still a viscount presiding over him as a monarch. But for some unknown reason, that viscount and his family were ambushed by bandits on a family trip, and most unfortunately, the entire family was killed. When he learned about this, the Dahl flew into a rage. Not only did he mobilize all the soldiers within his territory, he even forked out a fortune to hire a large number of adventurers, and then he formed a sizable army to investigate the cause of death of the monarch.

As the investigation work progressed, a huge conspiracy gradually surfaced—it turned out that the only baron under the monarch had colluded with another knight and together, they had plotted to murder the monarch.

The furious Dahl and a few other knights joined forces right away and launched an attack against these two conspirators. After a bloodbath, the rebels were wiped out, but from the group the knights, there was also one who had been sacrificed.

As a great contributor to the investigation of crime and elimination of treason, the Dahl was highly commended by the people and received great support from all, especially the big shots from Royal Town, who even extended their friendship to him. Very soon, he became a baron. With a few other knights who had turned to pledge their allegiance to Royal Town, they managed that piece of territory together.

In the years that followed, this area was considered peaceful and calm. There was a dispute over the succession rights within a certain knight family, where the ultimate heir was said to bear a slight resemblance to someone from the Dahl family, but that was obviously slander.

The present Dahl Hill was considered a quiet and remote place.

It was a little far from “Southeast Avenue” that was located along the seafront, where neither adventurers nor trade caravans would pass by. And generations of Baron Dahls had not shown any interest in attacking the Great Marsh to open up new territories. Unable to gain the support they needed, the adventurers and mercenaries naturally would not use this place as their logistical stronghold to set off from to open up or invade the Great Marsh.

On the contrary, there were some smugglers here who engaged in murky business dealings via the black market between the Commonwealth of Gold Coins and the Great Marsh. However, such dealings could only be carried out discreetly, so the business scale could never grow much bigger.

So overall, Dahl Hill was peaceful and quiet, and it was filled with a leisurely atmosphere that gave him a sense of comfort.

Whenever he drank tea on the terrace on the top floor of his castle and looked down at the territory beneath his feet, his heart would be filled with a sense of peace and comfort. He would often exclaim, “Ah ah! Life is really so beautiful!”

However, recently, Baron Dahl was not in his usual good mood, and even the afternoon tea that he usually relished began to taste less delectable.

This was because there were a few unwelcomed figures who had arrived in Dahl City, and they had done certain things that were very unwelcomely.

Those were clergymen that came from a place called the “Church of the Void Mask.” There were around ten of them, where three were priests, one was a pontifex, and the remaining six were Sacred Warriors.

Darn it, all of them had professional-level roles, and not a single one was a wuss!

After these clergymen arrived in Dahl City, they first bought a house in a more remote area. Because that house had been left in that run-down state for years, they basically did not spend much on it.

As a matter of fact, as that house and its surrounding area were inhabited by the poor for a long time, it had practically become a place where many beggars and thieves gathered. It was really a den of iniquity. Unless they needed to find someone to do something that was inconvenient to speak of, or they needed to find some items that were hanging from the gallows outside the city gate, then those prominent figures of Dahl City would never go anywhere near this place.

A formidable group of clergymen, where even its leader was already mid-ranked, why would they come running over to such a place? And they even bought a house for permanent residence there?

Could this be a strange hobby of that god that they believed in?

Recalling that the god they believed in seemed to be a huge jellyfish, Baron Dahl thought that perhaps this conjecture was true.

This matter became a little joke within the upper-class community of Dahl City, and the people often talked about it at gatherings. They would just laugh at these people to pass the time.

But these clergymen were clearly not here to become a joke. After they settled down, the first thing they did was to fork out money to pay those poor people to work for them, renovate their house, and build an altar.

Frankly speaking, the money they took out was not a lot, probably only enough for the baron to hold one small party. But to the poor, this was quite a large sum that was at least enough to buy food and prevent them from starving to death.

Other than their salary, the clergymen from the Church of the Void Mask also expressed that the poor should wear clothes that were too tattered and torn. This was against the teachings of Their Majesty, who was a great jellyfish. So the clergymen also sent the poor people some thick quilted and clean clothes.

Those clothes were not very fitting and were old, too. Anyone could tell that they were probably from someplace where the middle-class people were donating for charitable purposes. But at least, they were well-sewn and could keep the body warm enough.

And those clergymen were obsessed over cleanliness, to the extent of having a morbid pursuit. Every day, there would be two Sacred Warriors patrolling the slums to supervise and urge the people to maintain their cleanliness and hygiene. There was even a priest who would go around every day to catch those poor people as though he was apprehending criminals, to make them bathe and change their clothes. Baron Dahl heard a patrol knight under his command saying that once when he passed by that area, he happened to see a group of poor people bathing. That stench of foul body odor was truly revolting!

After such a period had passed, the slum area gradually started looking better. The poor donned neat and tidy clothes, and the houses and streets were cleaned up. Likely because the people could eat more food, a reddish hue seemed to be returning to their complexion.

So Baron Dahl sent out a tax collector.

Anyone who was living in Dahl City, regardless of what line of trade, had to pay taxes. Naturally, the poor also had to pay.

In the past, when they were penniless, tax collectors did not bother knocking from door-to-door. After all, there was nothing much for them to collect in that stinky place. And also, they could not cut a piece of flesh off those poor fellows to offset the tax, could they? Of course, if there was a little girl, it was possible to use her to offset the tax, but this little girl might likely be sold off or abducted long ago. So generally, the tax collectors would not have their turn in collecting taxes via this method. Most of the time, they would tag along with those human traffickers when they went to the slums.

Now that the poor people had some money, tax collectors went to them right away to make up for the taxes that they owed.

Yes, including the interest.

By right, this was something perfectly justifiable, but those clergymen came forward to say that according to the law of Commonwealth of Gold Coins, if there was no evidence produced to prove that these were taxes accumulated from previously, then these taxes could not be charged with interest.

The Commonwealth of Gold Coins, which established a country via a commercial approach, was most particular about “evidence.”

Not allowed to charge interest?! That was just an insignificant amount!

Just for this matter, both sides were at a loss, and up until now, there had yet to be a conclusion.

This was the exact reason why Baron Dahl was unhappy.

He did not lack money, but that money should belong to him. Even if it was just one missing copper coin, he would still be very unhappy!