Regarding her inner circle…
The Saintess, Aililan, intended to eventually send the Head Maid, Yarandale, out to gain experience.
This applied not just to Renata, but also several individuals within the Knight Order. One could even say she could never have enough such people.
But that should only happen after they dealt with the Orcs.
She planned to first build a city on the Beastman Plains, appointing Renata as the Governor and Yarandale as the Bishop so the two could work in close coordination.
Once they had gained enough seniority, she would push them into higher positions, such as the position of Archbishop for the Fifth Wing, which currently remained vacant. Having her own people rise to the top was the only correct path.
Of course, those days were still far off.
Outside the carriage window lay what was once the Slums. It was no longer a place of “poverty.”
Instead, it had become a storage hub for countless merchants, filled with workshops of various sizes. It had essentially become a distinct industrial zone.
The first group of merchants who had spent a fortune to purchase land here to build warehouses and workshops had already made a massive profit, as the land prices had increased several times over.
Atester had two hearts that drove the city: the first was the Commercial Street, and the second was the Workshop Street.
“Renata, I have a question for you. Why do you think I place such importance on this place?” Aililan suddenly asked.
“Huh? Um… because this is where you first started after coming to Atester?”
“How is that any different from the nobles in the Inner City? You are only partially correct. Look at those merchants. What do you think is the difference between them and the old nobility?”
“They are all outsiders, and they are extremely supportive of your decrees. They are loyal to the Church and loyal to you, but… I do not quite understand.”
“You only got part of it right. You can view the people currently on Workshop Street as a new nobility—a new interest class that I am fostering. When their wings are fully grown, they will become my solid foundation.”
“But why… the nobles in the Inner City have always been loyal to you…”
“You must take a long-term view. Everything I do is done while trying my best not to touch their core interests, so naturally, they are loyal to me now.”
“Interests…?”
“Yes, interests. Or rather, do you think the Union of Church and State can exist forever? Think back to what things looked like before I reformed the military: the noble armies were the elites, while the Church army was just a bunch of filler. If things continued like that, the separation of church and state would only be a matter of time.”
“I… I do not understand.”
Aililan patted her shoulder and continued, “What do you think of merchants?”
Renata thought for a moment before saying, “They are quite good. They are easy to bully, obedient, and pose no threat. If you choose to support the merchants, it might be a good choice.”
Aililan simply shook her head. “You are wrong. Merchants are a double-edged sword. Their greed can push the Church forward, but it can also push the Church into an abyss of no return.”
“Then you…”
“Fine, that is enough talk for today. Go back and digest this first.”
Why did Aililan dislike the nobles and landlords who were still loyal to the Church?
The root cause was the Feudal Nobility system. Could anyone imagine a situation where thousands of nobles within a single power held their own “territories”?
In principle, they did not need to pay taxes to the Church. They used the tax revenue from their territories to arm their own forces and then provided military service to the Church as an obligation.
This was the fundamental reason why the private noble armies were more elite than the Church’s own military.
Eventually, this would lead to a terrifying situation: the Church Army would grow weaker and weaker, forced to rely entirely on the loyalty of the nobles.
And if one wanted to dismantle the Feudal Nobility, history from her other world provided the answer—use a different power to bankrupt the landed nobility and take their place.
‘Ah, just a little sprout…’
Aililan looked at Workshop Street and sighed, shaking her head.
She had come here primarily to inspect the Blacksmith Workshop and the Sewing Workshop. Both were closely tied to the strength of the Church Army.
Following Aililan’s instructions, both massive workshops had implemented assembly line models. In terms of production capacity, they had made significant progress.
“Saintess, why are you frowning?” the supervisors of the two workshops asked in confusion.
“It is nothing,” Aililan said, shaking her head.
“Are you dissatisfied with the production? But this is already our limit. Currently, the Sewing Workshop produces at least seventy sets of armor every day, which is over 2,000 sets a month. Is that not enough? If you want to increase production further, we would have to hire more people.”
“Our Blacksmith Workshop is also doing its best. The blacksmiths’ hammers are swinging so fast they are practically smoking.”
“Never mind. Each of you should go and recruit elite craftsmen to create a research lab. Have them focus specifically on researching technology to increase production. If there is a major breakthrough, I will give you a massive reward.”
Aililan pondered for a while and sighed. “You… every time I come here, I always feel a bit discouraged.”
With that, Aililan left in a gloomy mood.
The methods used by the two workshops to increase production were basically just hiring more people. It felt incredibly difficult to get the workshops to develop to the level of true capital.
For instance, Aililan had just been thinking that the Blacksmith Workshop could implement Water Forging… but then she realized that while she had read plenty of reincarnation novels, she didn’t actually know how the so-called Water Forging actually worked.
In her previous world, Aililan had been neither an engineering student nor a history student.
She had been a management major. If she was asked to create a planning proposal or handle operations and marketing, that would be no problem. But asking her to handle technical engineering? That was just making life difficult.
As for those individuals who understood agricultural development, salt refining, and iron smelting while also being experts in history—
Aililan had only one word for them: ‘Legends!’
—
Back on the carriage.
“Saintess, where to?”
“Wherever.”
“Wherever… the Administrative Council?”
“My dear Knight Renata, can you not wish for something better for me? This Saintess does not want to work anymore.”
“Then back to the estate?”
“You… you blockhead. Is it that hard for you to take this Saintess out to ‘grab a bite and wander around’?”
Renata scratched her head.
She felt like it didn’t quite fit the mood.
In her memory, the Saintess always woke up earlier than the roosters, worked like a madwoman at the Administrative Council, and then immediately went back to the estate, wanting nothing more than to collapse and sleep.
What she didn’t know was that Aililan was actually more tired than she imagined, because she also had to have long, all-night conversations with the other Saintess.
As they were moving along—
“Saintess! Saintess!”
“There is an urgent matter! Grace, Gareyas, and Lord Alistair request that you return to the Administrative Council immediately!”
Aililan: !!!
Did you know what Aililan hated and feared the most before her reincarnation? The thing that had even left her with psychological trauma?
It was when her phone suddenly rang after she had already finished work for the day.