When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

#200 - I won’t pay for the upgrade!

"Are you Roger?"

"Yes."

"I remember Roger being very fat."

"Half a month ago, I was indeed fat, but I've been worried and scared because of the war, and it consumed too much of my energy, so I lost weight."

Standing by the Pala River near the castle, Witt said to Horn with certainty.

"You son of a goat, you're not Roger at all! Who are you?"

Horn never expected that the disobedient old stonemason master would pull a switcheroo on him.

This young man, who was obviously taller and thinner than Roger, was someone he didn't recognize at all!

"Alright," Witt admitted frankly, having been exposed, without much explanation, "You guys cut off the Duke's head. Roger, coming from a commoner's background, was too scared, so he entrusted the task to me."

Hearing the reason, Horn felt a sense of trouble. Not everyone had the courage to stand against the Empire and the Church.

"You are?" Horn sized up the young man.

"I'm Witt, Witt Rood, a formal stonemason of the Orthodox Revivalist faction."

What does this mean? Did he get an upgrade because of the temporary replacement? Did that stubborn, eccentric old stonemason change his mind?

Meeting Horn's suspicious gaze, Witt's expression remained unchanged: "If you don't believe me, I can prove it. You can give me some stonemasonry-related questions to answer."

The damp wind blew on Horn's face, making him a little more awake. He turned around and mounted his horse: "How about this, I'm going to inspect a nearby town, come with me."

Since grain stockpiling was progressing steadily, the first thing Horn needed to deal with was housing.

He had asked the previous stonemason, Roger, to plan out the entire camp. Now that he had someone else, there was no point in wasting time with a written test. He'd just have him get hands-on and see how it goes.

"Okay." Mounting a mule, the stonemason named Witt followed closely behind Horn. After about three minutes down the dirt road, the ruined town came into full view.

The once lifeless town was now filled with Salvation Army youths and women, both young and old.

In the ruins of the houses, the young men, wearing short shirts and covered in sweat, struggled to lift stone bricks from the ruins with hemp ropes, transporting them to the main square.

Among the broken walls and weeds, one could still see moving heads. Those were the women, the elderly, and the children searching for usable furniture and materials in the ruins.

Similarly, useless waste was being cleared out and piled on the side of the road, to be pushed away by specialized people using wheelbarrows, dumped into the lake, or split into firewood.

Although these Salvation Army soldiers weren't from the old camp, they were the second batch of refugees who had joined Horn outside of Jeanne d'Arc Castle, with experience clearing river channels and working as trackers, so their discipline was relatively better.

Although the overall picture looked chaotic, the individual actions were quite efficient, after all, they were cleaning houses for themselves.

In just half a day, they had not only cleared a space, but also placed a lot of building materials on the open ground, such as stone, wood, and pit sand.

"I didn't expect these ruins to be so big." Horn hadn't noticed it from the castle before, but now he realized it.

If only the former artisan residential area was counted, it would probably be only two or three hectares in size, but if the ancient Elven and beastman residential areas were included, it would be even around 40 hectares.

Looking around, behind the higher broken walls were layers of slightly shorter broken walls, extending to the nearby forest.

However, many of the areas where beastmen lived were shantytowns on the outskirts, equivalent to urban-rural fringes. Horn estimated that the real ancient Elven city area was about 20 hectares.

"Horn... Your Excellency." Witt thought for a while, still only using the generic term for dignitaries. He pointed to a fork in the road in front of him and said, "This is the entrance to the entire city."

"How do you know that?"

Dismounting from the mule, Witt pointed to the half-remaining gatepost and said, "Look, this is a classic Alniese gatepost made of volcanic ash concrete."

The ruins of the entire city were obviously built according to Alniese city standards. The houses were divided into square blocks by roads, arranged inside the town like a chessboard.

And among them, the widest crossroad ran east-west and north-south. At the intersection of this crossroad, the central area of the entire city, was built a temple of the original Messianic sect (dedicated to the Sacred Tree).

White Alniese marble pillars were covered with moss, supporting a triangular gable. The roof of the temple, however, had collapsed and disappeared.

As Horn walked past, he suddenly felt something under his feet. He looked down and saw a bronze candlestick casually discarded among the weeds.

Picking up the bronze candlestick and stroking its rough texture, Horn softly chanted a line of his hometown language that he hadn't used in a long time: "Palaces of ten thousand rooms have all turned to dust."

Witt, who was beside him, was excited. He even ran to the pillars of the temple, reaching out to hug them to measure the circumference. He explored the entire temple until Horn called him, and he reluctantly left.

Next to the temple was a pond, which had become a cesspool after years of fermentation. Surrounding the pond was an abandoned park.

Opposite the park was a semi-circular theater and a central square composed of official residences.

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"The culture of the ancient Elven Empire, to a certain extent, inherited the culture of the Shepherd of Light clan in the Seven Hills Kingdom." Standing by the semi-circular theater, Witt pointed to the theater in front of him with fascination, "The Shepherd of Light clan believed that houses were just places to sleep, and the real places where elves were active were public spaces.

What distinguishes elves most from other intelligent races is that they engage in a lot of public activities and philosophical speculation.

So the Elven Empire built a lot of these parks, public baths, public theaters... even their public toilets were rows of toilets, so they could debate and discuss philosophy with their fellow toilet users while they were defecating.

It is said that in ancient times, the elves lived on the Sacred Tree, and the rooms carved on the Sacred Tree were very small.

They couldn't even be called rooms, but should be called berths, because they were embedded in the trunk, next to an open corridor.

But the elves set up the public activity space very large. A hall could accommodate thousands of people."

Following Witt's guidance, Horn looked up. The theater should have been built on a natural slope.

Step-like seats rose up in sequence. Every few rows, he could see bronze resonance tanks placed next to the seats.

If they were to hold any major conferences or announce anything in the future, this would be a good place. The only drawback was that it was open-air.

While Horn was still considering the renovation of the theater, Witt suddenly ran a few steps in one direction and shouted excitedly, "Ah! Insula apartment, so classic, so classic!"

"Your Grace, we..."

Watching Witt run away, Horn had no choice but to follow.

He now largely believed Witt's identity. In some of the conversations just now, Witt was not only very familiar with how buildings were built in the Imperial era, but also had a very deep understanding of ancient Elven architecture.

Could it be that he was really a formal stonemason?

He had originally intended to have Witt walk around the entire city with him, but now it had turned into him walking around with Witt.