When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist -
Chapter 88 - 86: The Darkest Day of the Senate
Chapter 88: Chapter 86: The Darkest Day of the Senate
After a day of trekking, the vast papal caravan finally reached the campsite marked on the map.
With slopes blocking the cold wind and a creek providing water, they set up a fake camp ten miles away before truly establishing camp.
Calculating the time, Horn returned to the tent in the Pope’s Palace.
According to the regulations set by Horn, every evening when camp is set up, after arranging the campsite, all the elders must come to the Senate for meetings to decide the next day’s arrangements.
The Senate is held in the Stag Chamber of the Pope’s Palace.
This round table from the Gulag Monastery can serve as both a council meeting and a Senate.
At this moment, the Senate is seated with twenty-four elders - twenty each representing ten households, two centurions, and two legion commanders.
And their seating is clearly divided into three factions, each angrily pounding the table.
"Why? Who can judge if a leader of ten households is doing a good job?"
"Back then, the leaders of ten households were selected by voting. Why can’t we, the elders, vote them out?"
"Alright, I get it now." An elder who had been quietly seated suddenly stood up and slammed his fist on the table, "If I don’t go along with your Donkey faction or Elephant faction, I’m surrounded and attacked, is that it?"
"Our ten-household leader, Fink, I was wondering why he’s been helping others lately. He’s your designated successor, isn’t he?"
"Go on, disrupt things, disrupt away! Disrupting our journey, sowing chaos across the country, if you disrupt the race and cause us to lose it, then you’re satisfied."
Seated at the head position, Horn rested his head on his fist, a numb despair showing on his face.
Actually, when Horn heard the intelligence report on the elders from the Cheka manager René, he couldn’t understand it.
How many people are there? How many people are there in this fake papal country of theirs?
Only twenty-four leaders of ten households, and yet they’re split into three factions.
The Donkey faction, represented by Busak, the Elephant faction, represented by Jeska, and the leaderless Neutral faction.
The Donkey faction is named because Busak has a long face like a donkey.
Busak’s supporters are mainly from Old Red Mill Village and include the first batch of ten households that joined.
They always considered themselves from the same village as His Holiness the Saint Grandson, believing themselves to be absolutely local and looking down on Jeska, who came from elsewhere.
The Elephant faction taunts Jeska’s round face, resembling a pig, while Jeska claims war elephants have round faces too, hence the Elephant faction.
Jeska’s supporters are mainly displaced people and later ten households, most coming from the Black Hat Army.
After the daily itinerary meeting ends, they start their usual political battles.
The current scene shows the Donkey and Elephant factions pressuring the three neutral elder leaders of ten households to take sides.
Seeing the situation escalate to near fighting before the Holy presence, Horn picked up the crooked scepter and slammed it heavily on the table.
"Silence! Silence!"
Slowly standing up, Horn scanned around, waited for everyone to quiet down, then slowly said:
"Now, we journey amidst the mountains, enduring great hardships, all for winning the two-out-of-three match and leaving the Old Pope speechless.
But know this, with the outcome yet undecided, if we do not win this time and the Old Pope drags it out until he dies naturally, how will you respond?
Some things need prioritizing, sometimes you must endure grievances, as you are elders, you should bear it for the country, tolerating the dirt and remaining patient.
I established the Senate to ensure the voice of the common people reaches me directly, where we are all equal in the Senate, where mutual targeting has no place."
With a long sigh, Horn called toward Armand: "Announce the votes, regarding the Elder Exile Act, I vote against."
"Ahem." Clearing his throat, Armand read the voting results from his hand, "Elder Exile Act, approved by 14 votes, opposed by 10008 votes, 2 abstained, not passed."
"This is simply the darkest day in the Senate!"
"If this continues, the nation cannot remain a nation!"
"How can we establish a good papal country with these parasitic elders?"
The elders mumbled as they left the Senate, leaving Horn slumped in his chair.
He walked out of the Pope’s Palace, called upon Jeanne and Jia Li, and headed toward the eating area.
He and several bishops randomly pair with a centurion each day to prevent embezzling sacred grains.
Arriving at a dining tent, according to Horn’s own words, should involve queuing.
But most of the time, when the villagers saw Horn coming, they would allow the server to serve him a bowl first, passing it around until it reached His Holiness the Pope.
Horn held the pottery bowl, nodding and smiling to the villagers, asked for Qianqian’s whereabouts, then went over.
"Qianqian."
Qianqian sat beside a fallen log, with a bonfire in front, pounding sorrel into a paste cloth to make sorrel paste.
"His Holiness the Saint Grandson." With a charming gesture, Qianqian wiped the sweat off his forehead with a handkerchief, stood up, "What do you need from me?"
"Today we talked about spell issues, do you think I still have the chance to use spells?"
"From mountain copper, it shows you can’t sense mana but have mana, interacting with alchemy products..."
Qianqian pondered silently for a long time, then spread his hands: "I truly haven’t thought of any passive spells you can perform, but if you were in our Secret Party Headquarters, you might try alchemy."
"Alchemy?"
"Yes, first-generation wizards don’t learn, second-generation wizards study evocation, third-generation wizards play divination, the worst wizards handle alchemy."
"Why am I the worst wizard?"
Qianqian pondered, as if trying to find the words to explain to Horn, after a moment he slowed his speech, said think:
"For witches and first-generation heirs, spell means mana, merely releasing mana directly creates spells, leaving only control issues.
Only from the second-generation onward does the need to learn spells arise, correspondingly, they’re unlocked and can try learning and casting other spells.
However, the more similar to their mother-source spell, the smoother and quicker they learn and cast.
Thus, wizards typically form organizations and families based on faction lines, intermarrying within them to prevent diluted bloodlines that are ineffective at anything.
Alchemy is something those with diluted wizard bloodlines handle, not that it’s unimportant, just there are too many of them, you know rarity increases value."
"I seem to be a first-generation wizard, right?" Removing Jia Li’s filthy hand fiddling with his hair, Horn stood up and sat opposite Qianqian.
"But you can’t feel mana, similar to fifth or sixth generation." Qianqian said helplessly, "No matter what kind of spell, the first element is feeling mana, you can’t sense it."
After scratching his scalp hard twice, Horn sighed: "Then I’ll just honestly use my longbow."
He originally planned to take advantage of the opportunity to enhance his personal strength, but looking at it this way, there’s no chance.
Yet compared to before, Horn’s current equivalent to a small mobile ballista is still much stronger.
At this moment, Jeanne suddenly leaned over: "If those infected by witches are first-generation heirs, then what are the witch’s offspring? Zero generation?"
"There’s no zero generation; witches are almost impossible to bear offspring."
Forcing a smile, Jeanne said while steadying herself on a log: "What are you saying?"
"Witches rarely conceive, no matter how powerful a wizard, with a witch conceiving a child, even first-generation heirs, end up severely afflicted by witch disease and confined bedridden.
Even if fortunate enough to get pregnant after several tries, the born are stillborn, or simply miscarried during pregnancy.
The only exception, about twenty or thirty years ago, a witch gave birth to a living baby, regarded as a miracle, leading all Wizard Secret Faction witches to gather for a fraud check.
It was proved that the reason the baby didn’t die was that she was also a witch.
We speculate witches can’t bear children because ordinary babies are killed by witch disease and mana influence while still in the womb."
Silent, Jeanne gradually retreated and sat back in place.
"The world is cruel to witches sometimes, or rather, fertility is a challenge for all extraordinary beings.
If the witch’s power could be inherited, within a century, churches and empires would’ve been buried under witch and heir armies like vampires once did."
Qianqian seemed to perceive something, sincerely said: "Witches can adopt second and third-generation babies as their own children, many witches do this, treating them like biological children.
Jeanne, I’m afraid I must tell you, everything has a price, your powerful strength is equally your powerful curse."
If you find any errors (non-standard content, ads redirect, broken links, etc..), Please let us know so we can fix it as soon as possible.
Report