When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist

In the bedroom on the second floor, Horn lay flat on the four-poster bed, eyes tightly shut, yet he wasn't fully asleep.

The issue of clockwork guns' production, the Moon Pool issue, the military uniform issue, the magic potion issue…

Horn lay on the bed, clearly too tired to keep his eyes open, yet these troubles kept swirling in his mind, preventing him from drifting into deeper sleep.

But half an hour quickly passed, and Horn had no choice but to sit up and face the harsh reality.

"Fuchev, have the monks of the Saint Father's Association all arrived?"

After the expansion of the Child Soldiers, Duvalon, René, and others, who used to partly take on Service Soldier duties, barely had the time to accompany Horn.

After some discussion, Fuchev volunteered to become Horn's Service Soldier.

After this period of training and adequate nutrition, Fuchev's face had become much rounder than before. Perhaps under René's influence, she also showed a near-cold demeanor.

"They are all here, Your Excellency, they are all waiting for you in the courtyard."

Putting on a wool coat, Horn washed his face with cold water, making his nose slightly red before stopping.

Walking into the courtyard, more than twenty monks stood by the flower garden, waiting for Horn's arrival.

After some eliminations, this was the first meeting of the Saint Father's Association; they were to solve what tasks the Saint Father's Association should undertake next.

"...Previously, we have determined that the primary goal of the Saint Father's Association is to overthrow the Church and the Empire's rule, and the secondary goal is to achieve our three main propositions." Horn picked up a few copies of paper and handed them to those present for circulation, "Of course, this is bound to be a long and repetitive process, and we need to be adequately prepared."

The more than twenty monks of the Saint Father's Association present took the documents, either reading them themselves or finding someone to help them read.

These documents recorded Horn's plans for the upcoming tasks.

These more than twenty Saint Father Cultivators were divided into two teams, the first being the scripture singing team and the second the debating team.

The main task of the scripture singing team is to accept confessions and prayers from the Salvation Army soldiers and to propagate the corruption of the Church and Empire to them, letting them understand — the Church, must be eradicated.

During this time, they should try to teach the soldiers literacy and mathematics and focus on the soldiers' mentality and living issues, even organizing entertainment and group activities.

The main task of the debating team is to keep expanding and patching the relatively rough 'Holy Path Salvation Teachings', turning it into a logically closed debate ammunition library.

Most members of the debating team are small intellectuals or artisans; although literate, they have little knowledge of theology.

Therefore, they need the help of the wayward elements of the Holy Trinity to complete the 'Holy Path Salvation Teachings'.

The Great Chant Master of the scripture singing team was taken by Thomas, while the Great Scripture Debater of the debating team was handled by Armand.

The monks report and summarize to the two team leaders every three days, and the two "masters" report to Horn once every seven days.

As for their internal issues, Horn explicitly drafted a rule: when encountering conflicts, vote, the minority listens to the majority, and if the voting results contradict Horn's orders, then listen to Horn.

"Thomas, your main task is to make the soldiers know, what is the Holy Path? What are the believers? What is freedom and equality? Why do we have to defeat the Church?"

Sitting at the table, Horn looked at Thomas, who kept taking notes, and asked softly, "Do you understand?"

"Understood."

"As for Armand, your task is to figure out why it is the Holy Path Salvation? Why are there believers? Why must there be freedom and equality?"

"Understood, Your Excellency." Now somewhat resembling an adult, Armand nodded heavily.

"Speaking of which, we'd better change our internal titles." Horn lightly tapped the table with his scepter and said flatly, "Otherwise, we keep calling me Your Excellency, we're going to overthrow the Pope, and Johnny VIII is a pope, I'm also a pope, it's going to confuse the soldiers."

This indeed was a serious issue; as the saying goes, names are unclear, words are unresponsive, and even a title can have a significant impact.

Upon hearing this, the monks immediately began chattering.

"Then what should we call?"

"How about according to a usual monastery? I remember normal monasteries all call them Abbot or Church Leader."

"Then others may think we're a subordinate of the Church, let's call it Church Master instead."

"I vote for Church Master."

"I vote for Church Master too."

"I think let's call him Big Brother, after all, the Saint's Grandson is our Big Brother, and then we can say Big Brother loves you..."

Seeing them getting more off track, before coming up with any more ridiculous names, Horn quickly intervened: "Church Leader it is, let's call it Church Leader."

"Agreed."

"Then I also agree, Church Leader Your Excellency."

Upholding the principle that the voting result should correspond with the Church Leader, the monks unanimously agreed on this title.

Besides, even if a vote were taken, Horn the Church Leader's ten thousand and one votes would overwhelm all of them.

Armand chuckled on the side: "To show the difference between us and the Church, our monks shouldn't use elevated titles like believers; just call them Church Friends, whether monks or civilians, all are called Church Friends, only this way can reflect the equality in 'Holy Path'."

"Good suggestion."

In the afternoon meeting, Horn implemented the Holy Father's spirit of love, pointed out the current problems in missionary work, arranged and deployed the specific personnel and activity guidelines of the scripture singing and debating groups, and kindly inquired about the families of some stubborn monks.

In solving the hardware material conditions for soldiers' training, soft power arrangements were made with monks of the Saint Father's Association to reinforce the spirit.

What's left is just to do well every day and wait for results to blossom and bear fruit.

Then, Horn's schedule was like a fast-forward button; he'd train with the soldiers in the morning, memorize army regulations at noon, and inspect the soldiers' condition before dinner.

During this period, he also has to squeeze in time to write work plans, brainstorm with the debating team, and scrutinize their own translations of the Leian Gospel and the Saint's Gospel Annotations.

Now and then, he also visited the town to check on the industrial area and residents' conditions, and upon returning to the barracks, he couldn't rest for a moment and had to listen to monks' reports on the soldiers' conditions and activities.

In the evenings, he continued writing military laws and temporary statutes, lectured the bishop officers, and worked with Madlan and others on logistics and industry cost accounting and reconciliation.

There was no choice; Horn and his group had just started, having no experience; everyone could only explore their way.

Almost every bishop and steward needed hands-on teaching, and Horn had to micro-manage everywhere to firefight, almost wrapping half of all Autumn Dusk Island's affairs.

Instead, it made Horn, the deity of the cloud domain, the most prominent one, after all, he could provide suggestions on anything, relying on the knowledge obtained from the developed networks of the past life, and his suggestions were often correct.

One day, Horn calculated the time and found that he had been sleeping on average for only five hours per day recently, similar to when he used to be a top student in high school.

"When will this end?"