When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist-Chapter 690 - 648: Soaring in the Sky for 3 Days
Leaving the Mechanical Palace's glass greenhouse, Horn lifted the carriage curtain and glanced outside.
The Holy Barracks still carried a faint morning mist, and above it, the clock tower's muffled and distant bells echoed. On the streets, laborers and workers carried wooden baskets heading to work in pairs or trios.
They tucked towels into their collars for scarves and wore dirty, tattered "specialized" polyester-linen blend uniforms.
After the Ascension Day holiday, single workers on double overtime staggered out of taverns, moving against the flow of people heading home.
If one were a wealthy artisan or engineer, they would generally choose to take a public carriage to work.
Ordinary workers would head to the dock area, boarding small boats for the downstream industrial district.
Due to the shallow waters of the Parra River, large vessels couldn't enter, so they typically used enlarged versions of Venetian-styled gondola boats.
From city residences to the industrial district, it would take about an hour on foot.
Workers from the Alchemy Workshop and Spring Factory weren't willing to walk another hour home after working 10 hours, so they'd rather spend a few coppers on a boat ticket.
Generally, the working hours for textile workers and employees are from 8 a.m. to 7 p.m., with a one-hour lunch break, totaling about 10 hours of work daily.
Sometimes, when goods are backlogged, factory chiefs and supervisors might even cut that one-hour lunch break.
Theoretically, Horn demanded overtime pay, but in practice, it often went unpaid.
At best, he'd patrol more and encourage workers to form committees to elect representatives for oversight.
No matter how pervasive the Cheka might be, they couldn't manage everything.
As an experienced worker himself, Horn didn't want to enforce an 8-hour workday, but industrial capital's harsh accumulation can only rely on competition and hard work.
Beyond offering them housing near the factories for comfort, Horn had no other recourse.
While working 10 hours a day might seem daunting, textile mills and peat workshops among other Alchemy Workshops were still the first choice for workers; others sought 10-hour jobs but found none.
This was a good job with daily wages of 3 to 6 Dinars, 2-3 times what construction and logistics workers earned, second only to City Hall employees and soldiers.
These Alchemy Workshops often prioritized recruiting military families, which wasn't due to Horn's mandate but because many of these workshop stewards were from the Salvation Army.
Surely they preferred recruiting their own over outsiders.
Beyond favoring military families, the biggest reason was the lack of enough trust with "strangers."
In other words, their perception of the Thousand River Valley People lacked imagination as they still relied on primordial kinship to construct entities.
Thus breaking through the Church's ideological barriers was just preliminary deconstruction; now, he needed to gradually construct the Thousand River Valley government entity.
Only by integrating software and hardware could the advanced system's powers be fully realized.
Returning to his office, Horn found yet another pile of paperwork in the unfinished document box. He couldn't help but complain, "Look at these documents, they're almost reaching the ceiling."
Raphael laughed and straightened the almost toppled documents; it wasn't as exaggerated as Horn claimed, roughly reaching Horn's nose.
"Please be patient a bit longer." Picking up documents from the completed box, Petier prepared to leave, "These should be the last batch of documents, and you only need to sign them.
These are signed by Horn Gallar, these are signed by Horn and Jeanne, these by Horn and Catherine, these…"
As Petier rambled on, Horn didn't immediately grab the documents; instead, he picked yesterday's unfinished paperwork from the pending box.
To be precise, this document concerned the establishment of the Truth Court's Health Division.
Following the new planting model's promotion and bountiful harvest, reports from various Priestly Orders suggested Langsande County saw a significant increase in new pregnancies this year.
Two years of peace led to a steep rise in birth rates here, and if dwarf wheat is further popularized, with increased yield, newborn numbers might soar even higher.
This created a classic medical and health dilemma.
Under the Pope's jurisdiction, facilities like Joan of Arc Castle's and Holy Barracks' hospitals existed, but these only resolved urban healthcare, as nearly all a county's medical resources concentrated in the county's ruling city.
Witch Doctors and Monks were already few and couldn't spare manpower for rural regions.
Reports submitted by monks indicated many newborns and pregnant women faced complications due to poor hygiene or birthing techniques.
Moreover, many ordinary people died from headaches and colds, not to mention various post-war epidemics and flu outbreaks.
With distilled potato alcohol, sufficient steel for forceps, ample farmland for herbs, and Alchemy medicines, might this be the time to gradually promote Priestly Order-grade health posts?
Health posts, as seen by Horn, should be responsible for childbirth, selling affordable medicines, providing basic injury treatment—basic services only.
Not only health posts; promoting quality seeds certainly required seed stations, establishing several new institutions again.
Given their essential role for medical service rather than profit, they couldn't operate like shops but must be staffed by Priestly Orders offering fixed salaries.
This meant next year's expenses would increase, inevitably straining the fiscal budget.
Such investment, unlike bridge-building and road-paving, wouldn't enhance commerce overnight; medical investments' returns might take ten years to materialize.
Forget it, better discuss at the regular meeting; if impractical, start with a trial and gradually expand, lessening fiscal strain.
After placing the health system document into the next regular meeting file bag, Horn just opened the first document to sign when Petier again spoke up: "Your Eminence, there's one more matter I think you should know."
"What is it?"
"Meigedi Commerce Association recently sent word, saying they declared excommunication against you due to your claiming to be Pope and expelling the local Church…"
"They've excommunicated me? Isn't he aware of what the Thousand River Valley Church did? Without first severing ties with the Church's crimes, how could he excommunicate me for proven crimes?
Plus, he knows I've expelled the Thousand River Valley Church; how does he plan to excommunicate?" Horn chuckled, "How could his face be so thick, thicker than a city wall's corner."
Excommunication meant "expelling from church membership," barring any church, monastery, or monastery from contact or services, and the crown no longer receiving the Holy Father's sacred support.
In most contemporary lords' hands, this meant nearly all grassroots governance structures halting, and junior lords naturally claiming his crown.
But these were ineffective for Horn. Firstly, his grassroots government was directly under control, not outsourced; secondly, the Great Shepherd's power came from dual assurances of the Saint Master and believers.
Not to mention the believers' views, even just the Saint Master's intent certainly favored Horn.
This so-called excommunication tactic intended more for internal harmony than external defense.
"Your Eminence, you…"
"He's a Pope, and so am I." Swiftly issuing an edict, Horn handed it to Petier: "He excommunicates me, then I excommunicate him."
"Your Eminence." Petier held the edict, speaking helplessly, "I intended to say, besides the northern Pseudo-Pope Puliano, the southern Pseudo-Pope Grandiva also acted."
"He also excommunicated!"
With Horn's command, in the Empire's record officials' history books, 1446's year-end witnessed a remarkable scene.
On the second day of the Ascension Day, besides three Popes existing within the Empire, these three Popes were mutually excommunicating each other!
