The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

Did Isha give up her rebellion? No.

Even now, Isa continues to instill the ideas of liberation theology in the children in her classrooms.

However, at Lind's request, Isa removed those theological ideas, which meant secularizing these theological ideas.

No one was surprised by this, because the beliefs in the Kingdom of Cape were diverse. The Goddess of Light was only the most powerful official belief, but in the North, there were actually quite a few followers of the God of Winter and the God of War.

In such a diverse religious environment, it is perfectly normal for Linde to request the removal of some theological content.

Of course, Linde didn't completely forbid it, since divine magic really exists in this world. Linde himself can use the divine magic inherited from the female protagonist's save file. Denying God would be nothing short of idealism.

Furthermore, after removing the theological content, most of the ideas that Isa told became about equality for all and resistance against injustice, and she demanded that the priests and nobles work diligently for the people, which had a reformist flavor.

In extreme cases, Professor Isa teaches these children to rebel against authority, that is, to oppose the nobility.

Overall, it is a more radical form of reformism.

Even so, this would be considered treasonous in any noble territory, yet Isa openly proclaimed it in the Grey and White District.

Linde not only allowed it, but even helped revise the teaching materials, since the students who listened to Isa's lectures were all good candidates to become political commissars.

However, Linde also knew that the so-called reformism was just a compromise with Isa. If Linde really adopted more cruel methods of exploitation, Linde suspected that Isa would not hesitate to launch a rebellion.

After hearing Caroline's answer, Isa did not rush to refute her. Instead, she treated Caroline as her student and recounted what she had seen and heard after leaving the Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation.

Caroline, who had initially been somewhat excited and anxious, gradually became more and more silent.

As Cordick said, the North is now a mess, but is it really all the fault of the Lars family? The Lars family not only mobilized most of their army to resist the invasion of the alien races on the border, but they even actually brought relief supplies, which is even more noble than the despicable Yag.

Isa's view was more radical: rather than saying the Lars family was rotten, it was more accurate to say that the entire aristocratic class was rotten.

Just as Linde taught Isa: "There is no class that betrays the class, but there are individuals who betray the class."

The reverse is also true: there are only individuals who betray their class, not classes that betray their class.

Now, Isa shared her views with Caroline.

"No, it's all the Lars family's fault, it must be. As long as the Lars family surrenders to the demons, everything will be fine."

Although Caroline was still being stubborn, she was clearly wavering. Judging from what Isa had seen and heard along the way, if the Lars family was to be admitted as rotten, then the noble class, at least the nobles of the North, could be said to be utterly rotten.

The Lars family, at least for the sake of their own status and authority, still had to maintain the overall stability of the North. However, many of the lower and middle nobles exploited the common people, colluded with foreign enemies, and committed all sorts of evil deeds. Some even colluded with merchants to sell goods to the demons, yet they still held high positions.

"Especially that disgrace to the nobility, Lena. I heard she's been committing all sorts of evil deeds in the North, causing widespread suffering among the people."

Caroline was somewhat hysterical. One was her idol, a senior student, and the other was the prime minister who had mentored her to become the student council president. For a moment, Caroline didn't know who to believe.

Isa didn't directly refute her, but instead asked, "Caroline, do you know what it feels like to be hungry? Not the kind of hunger you endure on fasting days to offer to the goddess, but the kind where there's really no food."

"At first, you will feel dizzy, weak, and powerless. Then you will feel your body urging you to eat, and at this point you can even bite into a piece of black bread that has been sitting for weeks with your teeth."

"Then, the black bread also ran out. Every day you could only keep searching for edible weeds and tree bark. Then a kind of soil was discovered. This soil was not only edible but also filling, but it was difficult to digest. Many people who ate it died by the roadside with strangely large bellies. But that didn't matter anymore, because your body was telling you that if you didn't eat, you would starve to death. If you ate, at least you could fill your stomach before you died."

"At this point, ethics and morality have vanished, and the gospel of the goddess can no longer reach these people's ears. It's no longer strange for cats and dogs that have been kept at home for several years to end up on the dinner table. But this is not the end. What do you think will happen next?"

Although Caroline had mentally prepared herself when Isa finished speaking, she still couldn't help but cover her mouth and gag when Isa actually said it. Isa's description was so believable, as if she had seen it with her own eyes, and she even described the color of the food after it was cooked in great detail.

Caroline then realized that she and the nobles of the capital knew virtually nothing about the situation in the North.

There's no such thing as mutilation or torture. Given the current situation in the North, there's no need for those nobles behind the scenes to intervene; the land is already full of deformed and disabled people.

Moreover, let alone the practice of mutilation and dismemberment, there are hardly any professional beggars left in the North. If the reason why there are no beggars in the gray and white-collar areas is because everyone is well-fed thanks to Lind's strict control and the large-scale assistance from the Lars family, then the reason why there are no beggars in other parts of the North is simply because they are so poor that they can't even see beggars anymore.

Seeing that Caroline had barely stopped gagging, Isa didn't continue talking. Instead, she took out an application form, which was used to apply for a position in the territory. As long as the assessment was passed, she could take up the post immediately.

"I once heard a lord from the Gray and White Collar tribe say, 'No investigation, no right to speak.' When his territory was just beginning to develop, he even spent a whole day setting up a tent himself in order to establish standards for setting up tents. And you? Don't you want to stay in the North and investigate?"

Caroline accepted the application form in a daze, her mind filled with thoughts of class and nobility. The scene of people being cooked alive, as described by Isa, kept swirling in her mind. Cordick's speech, which now seemed somewhat self-indulgent, and the true plight of the North were all clashing in her mind.

Finally, under Isa's worried gaze, Caroline left the school with the application form in her hand, her eyes vacant.

But just as Caroline left the school, a number of children on the street seemed to have been waiting for a long time.

"It was her! She spoke ill of the lord and his wife!"

As soon as she finished speaking, several eggshells were thrown at Caroline.

Caroline, who had received knightly training, almost instinctively caught the eggshells with her hands, but then stones and mud were thrown at her.

One of the children, while throwing things, shouted, "The lady of the lord just wants to steal my toys! You nobles tried to steal my mother before! Get out of the Grey and White Collar!"

"Get out! Get out!" The children nearby joined in the commotion. Isa's education was clearly very successful. These children had even less respect for nobles than their parents, and they were not afraid at all when they saw Caroline's gorgeous aristocratic clothes.

They even harbored hatred towards nobles other than Lind and Lena.

Feeling insulted, Caroline wanted to cast a spell to retaliate against these lower people, but looking at the children's hateful eyes, Caroline, who was usually able to accurately construct spell models, could not control her mind and mobilize her magic.

Didn't I come to the North to save these people from their suffering? How come I seem to have become the villain who destroys their lives?

Lost in thought, Caroline looked at the eggshell in her hand and seemed to understand what Isa meant by "no investigation, no right to speak".

These kids who attend school in gray-collar and white-collar environments actually get to eat eggs.

Caroline, who had fled in a disheveled state, looked at the eggshell and application form in her hand, as if she had made up her mind.

During their subsequent stroll, Caroline stopped using silver leaf coins to grab people and ask them if the North had really become a living hell as Prime Minister Cordick had said. Instead, she earnestly inquired about their daily activities, earnings, and family circumstances.

Even her initial impatience to prove her point of view disappeared. Caroline listened attentively to the workers in the territory as they talked about their stories, like an observer.

When Caroline heard a worker recount how Linde had led her to escape from a territory conquered by demons, and how Linde had sold all his possessions to feed the people along the way, she suddenly believed that this unknown viscount could indeed have developed the territory to such an extent in such a short time.

After hearing about how she escaped from the Cathedral of Our Lady of Salvation with Isaac, Caroline gained a new understanding of the situation in the North. In particular, when she heard these people describe the demons to her, she realized that the demons were not a peace-loving race at all.

They waged war, abducted human women and property, and trampled on fields. They not only ravaged and captured infants, making them cry loudly, but also attacked humans attracted by the cries. During wartime, they would even use human prisoners as human shields in front of themselves, slaughtering children in front of the garrison and luring the city's defenders out to attack.

There are also many rumors that the demon race is conducting cruel human experiments.

This was completely different from the noble wars that Caroline had been exposed to since childhood, which emphasized dignity and etiquette and where the only requirement for the loser to pay a ransom.

These demons also claimed that because they were born with the ability to cast spells, they were a superior race like the elves, and that superior races could naturally slaughter the lowly human race at will.

Chancellor Cordick had also mentioned this view, but he made no mention of the demons' massacres on the border. He only said that demons, like elves, were born with the ability to use magic and, like elves, loved peace and civilization. He claimed that the demons only began to retaliate after the evil North invaded their territory.

After hearing this, Caroline felt a chill. What exactly had the North been fighting all this time? And how could those demons appear in the capital as peace-loving victims?

Once she stepped outside the perspective of the royal nobles, Caroline finally realized how absurd her previous views were. According to the people of the North, these demons originally couldn't survive in the permafrost of the far north and requested the Kingdom of Cape to carve out a piece of land for them in the North. Because the kingdom was in turmoil during the Blood Mist incident at the time, in order to stabilize the border, the kingdom and the North did indeed carve out a small piece of land for the demons to live on.

But now these demons are constantly encroaching on the originally demarcated borders, and claiming that the northern border originally belonged to them, that their god had divided it to the demons a thousand years ago, and that they want to drive the inferior humans out of their land.

However, a completely different version of this statement circulated in the capital. It claimed that the demons only began to retaliate because the northern border invaded their land. This version removed the demons' claim to be gods and the fact that their current land was given to them by the northern border. It only emphasized that the northern border's retaliation was an invasion, and that the demons were the ones who retaliated.

After listening to the workers' stories, Caroline felt increasingly ridiculous about herself in the past. She could only imagine the worst that could happen to the poor, which was selling their children to lords or rich people. She even thought that the demons were the righteous side, and some people in the capital even thought that the demons came to rescue the people in the North who were oppressed by the evil nobles.

However, if we say that under the rule of the nobility, people in other territories lived a life akin to hell on earth.

What about those who keep fleeing to "hell on earth" just to escape the territory ruled by the demons?

After asking the nearby residents, Caroline finally arrived at the office where she submitted her application. Strangely, almost all the staff in the office were maids and butlers, or people dressed in maid outfits and butler uniforms.

However, those who came to register for work treated the maids with great respect and did not look down on them at all because they were dressed as servants.

People not only called these people dressed as servants "comrades," but many would also bring them eggs, bread, or wild fruits, so much so that a maid came out and put up a sign that read "No Feeding."

Although it was of little use, since most people were still illiterate, they would still happily give all sorts of things to these scribes.

After asking around, Caroline understood that "comrade" meant like-minded companions, a term invented by Isa. It could be used not only among peers but also between superiors and subordinates.

I heard that the lord of the gray-collar workers had a very complicated expression when he heard this word, but in the end he didn't say anything. He even encouraged people to call each other that. Although no one called the lord that, some maids occasionally heard the lord say things like "I am not worthy to be called a comrade." It seems that this word has unimaginable weight for that lord.

"Comrade, comrade..."

Caroline kept savoring the meaning of this word. What exactly did the people of this territory share in their so-called like-mindedness? And what path did they agree on?

"Excuse me, sir/madam, are you here to submit an application form?"

The maid's sweet yet slightly weary voice brought Caroline back to reality. Following the voice, Caroline saw several large words carved on the wall behind the maid. In an instant, Caroline understood everything and found a goal she could dedicate her life to.

On the wall behind the maid, carved with the sharp strokes of a sword, were the words: Serve the People.