Steel, Guns, and the Industrial Party in Another World-Chapter 544: Rebellion 12
TL: Rui88
In the great hall of the Lord’s Manor in Lakeheart Town, all the officials at and above the director level of the Administration Council had gathered. Besides the people from the council, there was also the old butler, Philip. Only three important figures from the army were missing…Chief of Staff Schroeder, Head of Logistics Ron, and Head of Equipment Kelly.
However, no one had time to wonder why the three of them were not there…and in fact, the officials of the Administration Council and the military did not often meet together. Everyone’s mind in the hall was completely filled with an unbelievable piece of news:
Paul Grayman, ruler of Alda and Emden, Count of the Kingdom of Ordo, had been assassinated.
Just four years ago, the previous Count Grayman had departed from them in a pirate attack. And today, the young count who inherited his position had also left them, ascending to the eternal paradise of the Lord of Light.
No one in the room spoke. Every single person stared blankly at the candle on the table.
They had all been hastily woken up in the middle of the night and informed of an important matter requiring them to attend a meeting at the Lord’s Manor. Many were still wondering why, since the lord was away hunting. They never expected that after enduring their drowsiness and groggily rushing to the Lord’s Manor, they would be greeted with such a thunderbolt.
But the hall was not completely quiet; the sound of someone’s sobbing drifted through the air.
It was Philip wiping his tears. The old butler was suffering immense grief at this moment. He had watched Paul Grayman grow up from a child. In a sense, Philip already regarded him as his own child, not just the master he served.
Besides grief, another emotion was tearing at the old butler’s heart…a tremendous sense of guilt towards Paul’s father, grandfather, and the entire Grayman family.
Starting with Paul’s grandfather, the direct line of the Grayman family had been sparse. Both Paul’s father and grandfather were only sons, without even sisters. When it came to Paul’s father, good fortune seemed to have arrived…he and his wife had two boys in succession. But when Paul was just over two years old, fate suddenly took back its gift to the family, with interest…Paul’s younger brother and their mother both left this world due to an infectious disease. Old Grayman, out of love and longing for his wife, never remarried, nor did he produce any illegitimate children. And when the family suffered another misfortune…Old Grayman died in an ambush by the Shark Gang pirates…the direct line of the Grayman family was left with only Paul as the sole heir.
But now, this last remaining heir had also been broken by the fierce winds of fate. Was this some kind of curse?
An immense sense of guilt weighed heavily on Old Butler Philip’s heart. He believed it was his responsibility, that he had failed to fulfill his duty as a guardian. As the butler of the Grayman family, he should have eliminated all dangers from Paul’s reach. Why hadn’t he persuaded him not to go hunting at that time?
Thinking of this, the old butler’s heart grew even sadder.
Suddenly, Philip felt something. He looked up and met the gaze of Old Ford, who was sitting beside him. At this moment, the Administration Council director’s eyes were cloudy, and his reddened eye sockets and trembling beard also revealed the great sorrow in his heart.
Like Philip, Old Ford had also watched Paul grow up. As an old retainer left behind by Old Grayman, he also felt a certain responsibility for Paul.
Upon meeting each other’s eyes, the two old men, feeling the same sentiment, broke down and cried bitterly, tears streaming down their faces.
Seeing the two oldest and highest-ranking men in the hall in such an inconsolable state, the rest of the people became even more anxious and flustered.
Cecil, in particular, as the head of intelligence under the lord, knew nothing about the assassination plot. Whatever the reason, it was a huge dereliction of duty on his part. Cecil’s heart was now filled with despair.
It seemed that among all present, only the Director of the Department of Agriculture, Hansel Abbott, remained calm. However, although his mind was clear, his emotions were complex.
It had to be said, Hansel thought with a sense of helplessness, that Paul’s departure was a huge regret. This count was the most enlightened and progressive local lord he had ever met, perhaps also in terms of ability. Of course, this ability was not the traditional noble’s ability to rule a domain…on the contrary, the young count was slightly lacking in this aspect. In Hansel’s eyes, Paul’s ability was his persistence in technology. Many things that were merely pastimes in the eyes of other nobles were turned into marvels in Paul’s hands, such as alchemy, machinery, and mathematics. Paul had made huge and long-term investments in all of these, and they had all brought rich returns to his domain, such as powerful firearms, pesticides that could prevent pests, factories with amazing productivity, fertile and vast farms, statisticians and surveyors who could provide detailed data on the domain, and many other things that even Hansel did not fully know about.
There was also his long-term vision, such as his strong support for maritime trade and the customs union he single-handedly established. Needless to say, maritime trade had brought huge wealth to the Northwest Bay. Even better was the customs union. In the beginning, this thing was a huge loss in many people’s eyes…after all, so much money was not collected. But after the tariffs were abolished within the union, the flow of goods became more convenient, commerce, freed from its shackles, became more and more developed, commodity prices also dropped, and the lives of the people in the domain visibly improved. The losses in tariffs were compensated for many times over in the prosperous market a few years later. 𝐟𝐫𝕖𝗲𝘄𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝕧𝐞𝚕.𝕔𝕠𝐦
And for Hansel himself, Paul had, in a sense, recognized his talent. Before meeting Paul, Hansel was just a minor tax official in the Kingdom of Ordo and a royal commissioner with an empty title. It was Paul Grayman who gave him a stage to display his administrative abilities. The Count’s support for the royal family also gave Hansel a slight presence in the eyes of the great figures in the capital. Therefore, Sir Hansel Abbott was quite grateful to the Count.
After mourning for a while in his heart, the clear-headed Hansel immediately thought of a question…after losing Paul, what would be the future of Alda, the future of the Administration Council, and more specifically, his own future?
Would the Administration Council continue to operate according to the policies formulated by Count Grayman during his lifetime? Would Alda continue to maintain a good cooperative relationship with the royal family? Would the new lord continue to employ his group of outsiders from Crystal Shrine?
Yes! The new lord!
Hansel immediately realized that the answers to the above questions would depend entirely on the new lord’s attitude.
