Chapter 22 [Predominantly from Lex's Perspective]
It was that time of the month again when Hall would deliver food to the Dark Forest.
Over the years, he has consistently arrived as promised, rain or shine, and has never been late even once.
Lex remembers one year when the first snow came early, with howling cold winds carrying large snowflakes as they fell. In just two days, the ground was covered with a thick layer of snow.
Tomorrow is the day Hall will deliver the food. Lex looked at the open space in front of the cabin, where the snow was thick enough to cover half of his calves, and couldn't help but worry whether Hall would be able to bring the food on time.
After all, with such thick snow, it's difficult for people to walk on it, let alone push a wooden cart loaded with grain.
Don't worry.
Mela, on the other hand, acted as if nothing had happened. She walked over with her teacup, stood next to Lex, and calmly took a sip of tea. "Hall will definitely come. He still needs to get the transformation potion he needs next month from me."
Really?
With a skeptical attitude, Lex arrived at the tree where he had first met Hall, and from a distance he saw a black dot actively approaching in his direction.
As he got closer, Hall's familiar face came into view.
It seems Mela was right; these three bottles of transformation potion are indeed very important to Hall, Lex thought to himself.
Upon seeing Lex already standing under the tree, Hall immediately quickened his pace, and several veins bulged on his forehead as he pushed the cart full of grain.
Lex didn't just stand there waiting; he quickly stepped forward and helped Hall, and the two of them together pushed the wooden cart under the tree.
"Huff, huff." Finally able to stop and rest for a while, Hall panted heavily, clearly exhausted.
No wonder Hall was so tired.
Lex clenched his fist, weighing the weight he had felt while pushing the cart, and figured that if he were in Hall's shoes, he probably wouldn't have fared much better.
Then he thought about how Hall had come all the way from the village to here by himself, pushing a wooden cart, with such thick snow on the ground. He probably had to get up and start his journey before dawn.
Of course, for Hall, all that hard work vanished the moment he saw Lex pull out the three bottles of transformation potion.
Hall hurriedly took the potions from Lex's hand, carefully stuffed them into his pocket, and even moved them around to prevent them from accidentally bumping into each other and cracking when he moved around.
Seeing how much Hall treasured these few bottles of transformation potion, it would be natural for a normal person to be curious, and Lex was no exception.
The Transformation Potion, as the name suggests, is a potion that can change one's appearance. But looking at Hall's face, which was as plain as his name, Lex felt that this shouldn't be the face he created after drinking the Transformation Potion.
In particular, Hall was neither a notorious master thief nor a fugitive who needed to change his appearance to evade capture. He was just a villager born and raised in a nearby village. Therefore, Hall's behavior of going to great lengths every month to exchange shapeshifting potions with Mela seemed extremely strange to Lex.
"What's wrong? Is there something dirty on my face?"
Noticing that Lex's gaze was fixed on his face, Hall instinctively looked for the reason within himself.
"No, I just spaced out for a moment," Lex said calmly, offering a casual excuse to brush it off.
He knew Hall would believe him.
Sure enough, Hall nodded without raising any questions.
Even though he clearly felt that Lex's gaze was focused rather than scattered, and didn't seem to be daydreaming as he claimed, Hall figured Lex must have his reasons since he said so.
Hall's personality was as honest and simple as his appearance; he was the kind of person that people would trust just by looking at him.
It was precisely because Hall was a kind-hearted man that when he met Mela on the road late at night, he did not doubt her identity. He even thought that a young girl like her alone was likely to encounter danger, so he offered to give her a ride in his wooden cart.
Even after learning that the place she wanted to go was a dark and dangerous forest, Hall gritted his teeth and agreed.
*
This time, because there was neither a sudden downpour nor heavy snow to hinder him, Hall arrived even earlier than Lex.
He stood under the tree, with a cart full of grain beside him, and greeted Lex with a smile when he saw him appear.
"You seem to have grown taller in the month I haven't seen you."
Hall remembered that when he met Lex last month, Lex was only half a head taller than him; now, Lex was more than half a head taller.
It grows even faster than wheat that has been fertilized.
“Hmm.” Lex heard Hall’s words and remembered that Mela had said the same thing.
Because she saw him every day, Mela didn't initially notice that Lex had grown taller, since Lex's height didn't suddenly increase overnight.
As Mela gradually raised her head, until she finally had to crane her neck to speak to Lex, she was surprised to realize how tall Lex had grown.
It's almost catching up with Ducwato.
"I didn't secretly add any growth potion to your water, so how come you've grown so tall?" Mela muttered, looking down, in a voice she thought only she could hear.
Of all the adult men Mela had met over the years, someone as tall as Ducwato was a rare find; most were only half a head taller than her. And since Mela was a woman of exceptionally tall stature, she had seen many men shorter than her.
Mela once used this as an excuse to reject many suitors who were shorter than her. But then again, what woman would like a husband who is shorter than herself?
At the very least, Mela could not accept it.
Lex, who had overheard Mela's mutterings perfectly, was speechless.
So, did Mela once think of secretly adding strange potions to his drinking water?
He thought Mela wouldn't do something so childish.
It now seems he overestimated how wicked Mela was.
Mela has an endless interest in playing pranks.
"By the way, Mela said that starting next month, she's going to double the price of the transformation potion." Lex relayed Mela's words to Hall as he handed over the three bottles of transformation potion for the month.
In fact, Mela had been thinking about raising prices for a long time. Ever since she learned from Ducwato that prices outside had skyrocketed, with one gold coin now worth one hundred silver coins and one silver coin worth four hundred and eighty copper coins, Mela could no longer hold back.
"Price increase! Price increase is a must!" Mela said, one hand on her hip, her voice full of conviction.
Although the raw materials for refining the transformation potion were all gathered by Mela from various parts of the Dark Forest, requiring almost no investment, it could be described as a highly profitable business.
But with prices soaring, Mela felt she was being taken advantage of if she sold things to Hall at the old prices.
"I may not take advantage of others, but others must never take advantage of me."
All these years have passed, and Mela is still as stingy as ever.
For some reason, Lex felt a sense of peace, as if no matter how the outside world changed, Mela would never change.
However, when Lex told Hall the unfortunate news, Hall frowned as Lex had guessed and fell into a brief silence.
After all, a single bottle of transformation potion isn't cheap; three bottles together could buy a whole cartload of grain. Now that Mela is raising prices, he'll have to bring at least two cartloads of grain next time.
Even Hall, who owned a large tract of fertile land and whose annual grain production could fill warehouses, couldn't help but feel a pang of heartache.
Lex had expected Hall to try to negotiate with him or ask him to plead with Mela, but Hall's actions took him by surprise.
Hall relaxed his furrowed brow and nodded in agreement. "Miss Mela is right. She's already sold me so many bottles of transformation potion at this price. I'm the one who's getting a good deal from her."
Not only that, Hall also showed a very annoyed expression.
It's normal that Mela, who lives a secluded life in the Dark Forest, is unaware of outside prices. However, Hall, who has always lived in the village and dealt with grain merchants year-round, never thought of this earlier and has taken advantage of Mela for so long.
This is absolutely wrong.
Lex's first reaction was that he must have misheard. Otherwise, how could anyone be as considerate as Hall, thinking so much about the people who wanted to make money off him?
But then he thought about it again, and realized that it was Hall who did this, and he felt that it was no surprise that Hall would react this way.
"Speaking of which, has anything happened in the kingdom lately?" Lex asked Hall casually.
Lex sensed something was wrong when he heard Ducwato say that prices in the kingdom were skyrocketing.
Since Fernando became prime minister, he had been deliberately stabilizing the exchange rate between gold, silver, and copper coins to prevent large fluctuations.
It's good that the price of gold coins rises occasionally, because it means that the same gold coin can be exchanged for more things. But if the price of gold coins keeps soaring, that's a bad thing.
Perhaps for wealthy nobles, they can grit their teeth and maintain their noble dignity in the short term, but for commoners who may not be able to save a few gold coins in a year, this is a sign of impending bankruptcy.
Once commoners went bankrupt, they would become slaves of the local nobles for free, which was a perfect thing in the eyes of the nobles, as they gained a lot of capable laborers without spending a single copper coin.
However, as prime minister, Fernández could not allow such a thing to happen.
If the number of commoners decreases, the taxes paid to the king each year will also drop sharply.
After all, slaves were not allowed to own their own property; everything they had, including their bodies, belonged to the nobles.
Nobles, on the other hand, were responsible for guarding the territory for the king and were not required to pay taxes to His Majesty the King.
Without the large influx of gold coins into the royal treasury, how could the king afford to maintain his army? The armor and warhorses needed by those knights were anything but cheap.
If a king loses the knights who protect him, he will most likely lose his throne.
Fernando was insightful and decisive in his actions.
Under his leadership, a gold coin could be exchanged for sixty silver coins, and a silver coin for two hundred and forty copper coins, a situation that had persisted for at least five or six years.
If nothing unexpected had happened, this stable situation could have lasted for many more years.
At least Lex thought that this wouldn't change until Fernand's genes became too old and ineffective.
When Lex left the palace, Fernando was only forty years old.
If you count the time, Fernando is only forty-five years old now, which is the prime of his life. How could he suddenly lose control of the situation?
"Recently? No." At Lex's question, Hall scratched his head, racking his brains to think if anything noteworthy had happened recently.
After a moment, he nodded firmly, "Yes, no."
It seems this didn't happen recently.
Lex's heart sank.
That's the downside of living in the Dark Forest—it's isolated from the world, almost completely cut off from all outside information. So much so that even with such a significant change in the kingdom, Lex was completely unaware.
"When did the exchange rate between gold, silver, and copper coins begin to change?" Lex rephrased his question.
Hall understood now; this was what Lex wanted to ask, and he quickly gave Lex the answer he wanted.
"Oh, you mean this? It probably started changing about a year ago when His Majesty the King got a new prime minister."
Hall recalled what Lex had said.
"At first, everyone was happy when a gold coin could suddenly be exchanged for seventy silver coins, after all, they had more money in their hands. But they didn't expect that the more money they had, the less valuable food became. Even though a gold coin can now be exchanged for a hundred silver coins, a bag of beans costs twenty copper coins!"
In other words, you now have to pay more money to buy a bag of grain than before.
It would be better not to exchange so much money at all!
Such thoughts kept popping into the minds of ordinary people like Hall who held land in their hands.
After all, they might not be able to exchange thirty copper coins for a bag of beans in the future, but if they kept the bag of beans at home, they could actually fill their stomachs and satisfy their hunger.
At the same time, because food became more expensive, the prices of other things also rose accordingly.
Supporting a large family was already a struggle, and now many commoners are going bankrupt as a result, forced to go to the estates of lords or other nobles to become their slaves and work hard for them.
Like a man from another village whom Hall knew, who once owned more land than him and raised seven or eight children, but for some reason, he suddenly ran out of money. Not only was all the land taken back by the lord, but he also owed the lord a large debt.
However, since his entire family had become slaves under the lord, this debt no longer needed to be repaid. After all, slaves cannot own their own property. Debt is also a form of property.
When Hall heard the news, his heart skipped a beat. He has been living more and more cautiously lately, afraid that he might end up like this person.
Hall couldn't bear to let his frail wife go with him to become a slave.
Moreover, once you become a slave, becoming a commoner again is harder than climbing to heaven.
Unless the lord shows mercy, or the slave makes a great contribution to the kingdom, he, his children, and his children’s children will remain lowly slaves for the rest of their lives.
Lex had forgotten what Hall was muttering about, or rather, he simply didn't care anymore. All that remained in his mind was the phrase, "His Majesty the King appointed a new prime minister a year ago."
Was Fernanki replaced?
Why?
Even though he was still in the palace, and Fernando pleaded for him so many times despite Nurenger IX's wrath, Nurenger IX, no matter how much he hated Fernando, never found another nobleman willing to obey him to replace Fernando as prime minister.
After all, there are many obedient nobles, but those with the real talent and ability to manage a kingdom well like Fernangi are extremely rare. In fact, even if you searched the entire kingdom, King Nurenger IX would not be able to find another Fernangi.
"What's the name of that newly appointed prime minister?" Lex heard himself ask calmly.
“Antonio Jude.” Hall racked his brains, pulling the name of this important figure from the corner of his memory.
Although he was the prime minister, second only to the emperor, such a powerful figure was someone Hall would never encounter in his life; his name was less important than the neighbor's cow.
They were from the Jude family.
A dark fire burned in Lex's eyes, but deep down he had a feeling that he had just expected this.
Because the name of the queen who had so captivated King Nurenger IX that he couldn't wait to marry her shortly after the former queen's funeral was held was none other than Ilya Jude.
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