As soon as the announcement was made, a slight stir and murmur arose among the crowd.
Most of the villagers' faces showed confusion and bewilderment. Terra? Why? Suddenly changing the name?
They had called it Badov for generations, and while it had no special meaning, the sudden change felt a bit strange.
They whispered among themselves, guessing the reason behind the name change, but did not show much excitement or opposition.
After all, a name was just a designation; as long as the land remained the same and life continued, changing a name seemed insignificant.
Dalton had anticipated this reaction. He paused, preparing to read the next part of the content.
His gaze swept over the final section of the decree. When he saw those few lines of text,
He froze, the hand holding the document even trembling slightly, his eyes filled with incredulous shock.
He even wondered if he had misread it, or if the document had been tampered with during transmission.
But he quickly dismissed his thoughts; the lord's seal on the document was clear and unmistakable.
He suppressed the turbulent waves in his heart, took a deep breath, and tried to make his voice sound as calm as possible.
He continued to read, almost syllable by syllable.
"Furthermore, from the date of this decree, all sales taxes, customs duties, and all other levies within the Terra territory, with the exception of the kingdom's statutory tithe, shall be entirely abolished."
He paused deliberately here, as if needing time to digest the news, and to give the villagers a moment to react.
However, the villagers seemed not to fully grasp the immense significance behind this decree, merely looking at him blankly.
Dalton swallowed, using all his strength to utter the last, and most shocking, sentence.
"This tax exemption decree shall remain in effect until the day of my, Karl El's, death."
Dalton practically roared the last few words.
In an instant, the entire village center fell into a dead silence. All the villagers froze in place, their expressions fixed in a state of bewilderment and confusion.
Their brains seemed to need some time to process this overwhelming information.
Tax exemption? All taxes, except the tithe, are waived? And it's until the Lord's life ends?
What did this mean? It meant that the food they painstakingly grew, apart from the one-tenth of their total income traditionally paid to the lord, would all belong to them.
Their livestock, woven mats, forged farm tools—everything they produced or traded—would no longer be subject to any additional taxes.
They could accumulate more wealth, eat their fill, wear warm clothes, and have a chance to change their generations of impoverished lives.
"Is—is it true?" an old voice trembled, breaking the silence.
"Is what Lord—Lord said true? We don't have to pay those taxes anymore?" A farmwife gripped her husband's arm tightly, her nails almost digging into his flesh.
The next second, a tumultuous, earth-shattering cheer erupted from the crowd, almost shaking the oak leaves from the trees.
"meritelli above!"
"To hell with Badov! Long live Terra!"
"Praise Terra! Praise our benevolent and generous Lord!"
"Long live Lord Karl, long live the Lord!"
Ecstatic emotions spread through the crowd like a plague. People hugged, jumped, and were moved to tears.
They had been suffocated by heavy taxes for generations; how could they have imagined such a day?
That young Lord had bestowed upon them such a great gift.
Although Dalton was mentally prepared and knew that this decree would cause a sensation,
The scene before him, like a harvest festival, still exceeded his expectations.
He saw the excited crowd begin to surge towards him and his companions.
The villagers' eyes gleamed with fanaticism, seemingly wanting to lift and toss those who delivered the good news into the air to express their gratitude.
Dalton was startled. He didn't want to experience that kind of enthusiasm. He quickly and clumsily nailed the decree to the tree.
Then, he gave a look to his equally flustered companions and shouted, "Let's go!"
Taking advantage of the crowd not yet fully closing in, the few of them, relying on their trained agility, somewhat awkwardly squeezed out through the gaps in the excited crowd.
They fled quickly towards the manor without looking back, behind them the deafening cheers and praises.
Meanwhile, inside the manor, the Lord who had triggered the entire territory's revelry, Karl.
He was not handling government affairs or enjoying the villagers' praise. He was in a temporary shed in the manor's backyard.
He had transformed it into a simple yet efficient forging workshop, where a furnace blazed, emitting scorching heat.
Karl was shirtless, revealing his sculpted muscles. In his hand, he held a forging hammer, performing the final shaping on a red-hot steel plate.
The speed at which he wielded the hammer was beyond the limits of normal human vision.
One could only see a blurred afterimage and a continuous, stormy barrage of striking sounds.
"Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!" The rhythmic metallic clangs were so dense they almost merged into one long sound.
Despite being next to the high-temperature furnace and performing such high-intensity, high-energy physical labor, not a single drop of sweat beaded on Karl's forehead.
His breathing was steady and long, as if he were merely doing something easy and ordinary.
Next to him, many finished plate armor components, currently in a state of natural cooling, hung from chains.
Breastplates, backplates, leg guards, etc., they had smooth lines, perfect curves, and still retained the characteristic dark blue luster from quenching.
A quick glance showed that at least several complete sets of plate armor components were piled there, and they varied in size.
Just then, two sets of footsteps approached from a distance.
Karl didn't turn around, but his superhuman hearing and smell had already identified the newcomers as his father, Raymond, and the butler, Hans.
His movements did not pause in the slightest; he continued the final fine-tuning at that inhuman speed.
Raymond and Hans entered the shed, first struck by the overwhelming heat and the deafening clanging.
Then, their gaze was drawn to the rows of plate armor components hanging nearby, gleaming with a metallic chill.
Looking at the astonishing number of exquisitely crafted armor pieces, Raymond's mouth hung open, his face filled with disbelief.
He then looked at Karl's relaxed and effortless posture, and then at the results piled up beside him.
His voice stammered with shock: "Ka—Karl—you—"
"You actually forged all of these—these plate armor pieces—in less than a day?!"
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