When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist

With large strides, Horn crossed the long bridge made of rafts and switched to horses at the dock.

Shaking the reins, Horn, whose equestrian skills were quite decent, led Busak and Jeska's group towards the small town on Autumn Dusk Island.

According to the scouts of the Child Soldiers who explored the entire island, Autumn Dusk Island is an elliptical island stretching north-south, narrow on the sides and wide in the middle.

From south to north, it's approximately 20 kilometers, and the widest part from east to west is about 10 kilometers, but the total area does not exceed 110 square kilometers.

The scout said that in the direction a bit north on the island, just below the long bridge, there's actually a land bridge formed by solid rocks and soil.

As for why the El Empire's people didn't walk directly on the land bridge but built a high bridge on it, it might have been because Ruo'an Dam wasn't built at the time, causing the lake water to rise dramatically each year.

When the Ruo'an Dam was constructed, the water no longer rose, and the river mouth from the Blackbone Swamp to the outside was blocked by earthquakes and landslides, rendering it useless.

Whenever Horn's horse trotted from the dock to the town, it always attracted the waves and greetings of the refugees.

"Good afternoon, Your Excellency."

"Good afternoon!"

"Good afternoon, Saint's Grandson."

"Good afternoon, keep an eye on the kids, don't let them lag behind."

Waving at the refugees, Horn held the reins and rode towards the nameless town.

When he reached the opposite side of the river at the nameless town, the cold rain of early winter finally stopped.

By late morning, nearly a thousand refugees had arrived on the island. With the floating bridge gradually stabilizing, more refugees would follow onto the island.

For these first refugees to land, Horn gave them the task of clearing a habitable area in the ruins and collecting usable building materials.

Horn had not had the chance to enter this small town, but through Hilof's Mechanical Theater, he had already gained a rough understanding of the town.

Unlike in the traditional sense, this small town's ruins are the ruins within the ruins, a town within ruins.

On its outermost periphery, amidst the weed infested wilderness, there remain many ruins from the Ancient Aier Empire period and a few villas and churches.

Getting a bit closer, the architecture of the Beastmen and El people blend harmoniously.

However, the architecture of the Beastmen mostly features fierce and angular designs, appearing rougher, whereas the pillars and walls of the El people are softer and abundant with fishbone patterns and rippling carvings.

Even closer, near the small river in front of the Mechanical Palace, lies the true Artisan Town, built by the artisans of the later Divine Ael Empire, but from the altars and tracery windows, it's clear that these were crafted by modern artisans.

The location of the Mechanical Palace is on a mound at the northern end of the town, facing south, providing a clear view to overlook the entire town.

Leading the horse up the slope, Horn stood under the truncated statue of the rooster, handing the reins to a nearby guard at the gate.

"Is everyone here?" Striding into the changing room in the side hall, Horn removed his rain-soaked cloak.

Beside him, Duvalon's voice, calm to the point of coldness, came: "Everyone's here. This is the first audience meeting after landing on the island; they all arrived early, some even waited here since early morning."

Taking a warm and comfortable leather robe from the hook, Horn slipped his arms into the sleeves: "What about Hilof? Has she gotten up yet?"

"Lady Hilof has not woken up yet."

"And she said she wanted to easily change her schedule." Horn laughed and cursed, "Well, forget her. Let's go to the meeting first."

When Horn said to go to the meeting, he truly meant to go and not do anything else.

Since the main hall was Hilof's usual sleeping place, and it housed important research instruments, Horn's group, being rough men, couldn't afford to damage anything.

They walked to an empty room on the second floor of the side hall, where a long table missing a leg was placed in the center.

No one knew who it was, but someone had brought the desiccated dog head specimen from the Stag Chamber of the ancient Gulag Pope's Palace and directly hung it on the wall.

This added a shadow of brawling to the originally solemn conference hall.

That time Tommy and Madlan brawled before the Saint's image, beaten black and blue as if it happened not long ago...

No, that incident occurred just two months ago, indeed not long ago.

Just hoping that in the future, people in this conference room don't honor the legendary Tavern Brawl.

Taking a deep breath, Horn stepped into the meeting room, where the Pope Country's heavyweights, gathered around the long table, stood to greet him.

Among them were Madlan, Chervis, Jeska, and several elders like Chap and Thomas, as well as Haimodin, the locksmith thief.

"Alright, everyone sit down. Do you all know why I called you here?"

"Ah?"

Looking at the utterly sincere expressions of this group, Horn realized they had not read the meeting notice circulated earlier for them to read in turn.

That was just a few hundred words. Horn even assigned Child Soldiers as readers for those who were illiterate, yet they were still unprepared.

Looking at these disorganized bishop elders again, their spirits were high, but they lacked any sense of formality; some were picking their noses and wiping it on the vase, while others had taken off their shoes and placed them on the table.

This wasn't a high-level meeting of a faction; it was more like old men from the village gossiping indoors during the winter.

Everyone present was either a farmer or a beggar. Cultivating good habits in them to handle affairs normally was really too difficult.

But this group of people before us were already the most trustworthy and outstanding among the vagrants.

"Where's the meeting notice I had before?"

Gazing at the sheet of white paper in his hand with a large yellow stain, Horn turned his head numbly, looking at Madlan.

Madlan scratched his head: "Too many words, I fell asleep reading it."

Putting down the white paper in his hand, Horn spoke coldly as he looked at them: "If you didn't read it, let me tell you.

We are here to arrange and plan a series of military administrative and economic tasks for the Salvation Army for the upcoming period.

I initially wanted to discuss with you all, but now I feel there's no need."

The high-level individuals, whether lying or leaning, sheepishly pulled their feet back onto the chairs.

"So, let's get started directly." Horn took out a small notebook from his clothes, "We have six main tasks to go through one by one.

The first task is food.

The entire production process of salted fish must be under control, and we need to collect enough meat before the snow falls. The problem we're facing is the shortage of salt, which is due to insufficient brine.

Therefore, we need to use a star cast gear to create a pump to meet the needs of quickly accumulating salt.

The second task is clothing and bedding.

Winter is coming soon, and our followers need a large amount of clothing and bedding to get through. The fabrics we brought are not enough for everyone, so we need to open up resources, save costs, and carefully plan.

The third task is housing.

The fabric issue mentioned earlier brought up the problem of building warm shelters. The town in front of the Mechanical Palace is quite decent, and there are many usable building materials that are enough for us.

However, we still need to establish a mortar workshop to make adhesives and allocate several gears as cranes to build houses.

The fourth task is ideological education.

Re-training for current officers, legion commanders, and leaders of various sizes in the Salvation Army, and quickly training a batch of military chaplains and basic administrative personnel.

The fifth task is military reorganization.

Establish an organization at the Legion level within the Salvation Army, with a total of four thousand people, called the Battle Group.

During this time, we need to select suitable soldiers to join the Battle Group, and meanwhile compile a manual. The training site for the Battle Group will be in an abandoned El Camp on the southern part of the island.

The sixth task is weapons and equipment.

This includes the construction of the Mountain Copper Workshop, improvements in mountain copper manufacturing, improvements in clockwork guns, and standardization of weapon workshops.

There are also some scattered minor issues that we'll address as they come up, so I won't report them one by one."

Looking at those heads continuously shaking as if their skulls didn't belong to themselves, Horn didn't continue to correct their ways.

He snapped his fingers towards Busak beside him, and Busak immediately handed a stack of white papers to Horn.

It's worth noting that Busak is also semi-literate, but he steadily self-studied all the way and now surpasses these high-level members to an unknown extent.

Distributing the stack of white papers page by page, Horn folded his hands in front of him on the table: "This is my three-day schedule. In these three days, I will visit each of you to discuss these issues in detail.

From now on, every ten days, we will hold regular in-person meetings to report the work of the past ten days and plan the next ten days. This rule will be officially implemented next month."

Horn stood up and looked around the entire Stag Chamber:

"There are still five days from today to the end of the month. In these five days, besides having interviews with me, you have one more important task, which starts this afternoon."

"Huh?" Everyone raised their heads as if awakening from a dream.

"What's that?" Madlan, groggy-eyed, asked, "Your Eminence, tell us sooner; I'm still waiting to eat."

.........

"Left right left! Left right left! Louder, haven't you eaten?" Hakuto mercilessly struck Archbishop of Madlan's butt with a stick as he was running, making him let out a "Oh ho ho" cry.

On the other side of the open area, the elders led by Thomas stood with sweat on their foreheads, balancing a bowl of water atop their heads while holding wood sticks between the gaps of their arms and bodies.

A few other elders sat rigidly and upright in their chairs, and any movement would result in the part being lashed with a fine rod.

Standing on the second floor of the main hall, watching the training of the bishops and elders, Horn shook his head and mumbled: "This looks about right, hopefully, after these five days of military training, there will be some improvement."