Regain the Holy Light?
Amber's words came out of nowhere, and if Gwen continued to ask, she would not know anything. She only said that Leit had just returned to the territory and was now back in the church.
"Keep an eye on the construction here," Gwen hurriedly told Rebecca, and then grabbed Amber who was about to slip away. "Come with me to see Leit."
"Hey hey, don't pull me... Do you know that I'm the God of the Night's Choice... I'm the God of the Night's Choice... I feel awkward entering the Church of Holy Light..."
Amber's weak protest soon disappeared in the air. Gwen put the short winter melon under his arm and strode straight to the church. Not long after, the two came to the small church built by Leit himself.
At the moment, the church was not open, but the door was not locked. On the half-closed church door, a white Death Heralding Chrysanthemum was quietly inserted in the gap of the door panel.
Gwen glanced at the Death Heralding Chrysanthemum, then stepped forward and gently pushed the door open.
A tall and burly figure stood in front of the pulpit with his back to the door, wearing a scarred Cecil magic armor. The sunlight from the side window fell on the figure's shoulders, rippling a hazy glow.
Gawain seemed to have caught a glimpse of something in the faint, illusory glow. But when he took a closer look, all he saw was the hazy specks of light caused by dust dancing in the sunlight.
Gwen walked towards Leit, and the sudden sound of footsteps echoed in the empty church hall. The figure in front of the pulpit swayed a little. Leit turned his head and bowed when he saw Gwen. "My lord, I was just about to report to you..."
"It's okay. It's the same if I come to see you." Gawain waved his hand and noticed a shocking wound on Wright's face. The wound extended from the left side of Wright's forehead all the way to his cheek. If the wound was a little deeper, it would have taken away one of Wright's eyes. At this moment, the wound had already healed, but it left a deep scar. "… It seems that you have experienced a lot."
"I... have regained the Holy Light." Leit lowered his head and opened his palm. A mass of clear light almost immediately flowed out of the air and gathered above his palm. This mass of light seemed to have triggered the holy energy in the air, shrouding him in a layer of hazy halo. "I have never felt... such a close relationship between me and the Holy Light. It turns out that it has always been by my side, by each and every one of us, just like the magic in nature..."
Gwen quietly watched the Holy Light flowing and slowly dissipating in Leit's hand. Then he asked curiously, "How did you do it?"
"I... don't know all the reasons behind this, but perhaps I have found the true path of the Holy Light." Leit's voice was a little hesitant at first, but then it became firm and powerful. "My lord, do you still remember what you asked me?"
Gwen had a vague feeling in his heart. "About your faith?"
"Yes, you once asked me if I believed in the Holy Light or the God of Holy Light." Leit said as he turned his head and quietly looked at the back of the pulpit. Gwen remembered that there used to be a holy statue of the God of Holy Light, but now there was nothing there. "I think I now understand what you mean..."
The disappearance of the holy statue, the regaining of the Holy Light, and the quietly changing temperament of Leit. Gwen had a rough idea of how the priest regained the Holy Light, but he did not know how this amazing change happened. How did a devout believer suddenly break through his own faith and the influence that was almost like the Soul Steel Seal?
He could not help but ask. After hearing these questions, Leit was silent for a long time. Then he quietly said, "My lord, do you know what those nobles and Holy Light priests did after they were defeated?"
"I can probably guess," Gwen said in a low voice.
"We passed by a village, on the edge of the Consol area... It was completely destroyed," Leit said calmly. His tone seemed to be very indifferent, but when he spoke, Gwen could feel the faint power of the Holy Light floating around him. "There were a dozen survivors in the village. We spent the night there..."
From Leit, Gwen and Amber knew what happened that night in the Consol area. They knew about the starving nobles and the Knight of the Vatican. They knew about the little girl named Emily, and the whole process of Leit regaining the Holy Light.
After listening to Leit's story, Amber's always simple-minded and silly face could not help but show a trace of regret. She frowned and looked up at the gloomy face of Gwen, and then at Leit. Finally, she could not help but mutter, "Those goddamn nobles... and that bunch of charlatans..."
After saying that, she immediately patted Gwen's arm. "Gwen, I'm not talking about you. You're still different from them."
"I know, you don't have to deliberately emphasize it." Gwen looked at Amber, not knowing whether to laugh or cry, and then looked at Leit. "Although you've regained the Holy Light, you should still have doubts... Otherwise, you wouldn't be standing here thinking for so long and not report it."
"I'm just thinking about something... I don't know if I should be thinking about something." Leit frowned and sighed slightly. Then he looked into Gwen's eyes and asked in a particularly determined tone, "My lord, I have a question."
"Ask away."
"Those nobles, as well as those clerics and Knight, they claim to be the protectors of the people, but in the end, they are even more bandits than bandits. Of course, they deserve to die. We can kill hundreds and thousands of nobles and clerics in this war, but... what on earth caused such nobles and clerics? They didn't degenerate to this extent hundreds of years ago, or even decades ago... We've destroyed them today, but decades later, will the people after us go down the same path of degeneration? "
Amber looked at Leit's expression in disbelief, as if she did not expect him to ask this question. In her impression, Leit was just a warm-hearted priest who preached and helped people everywhere in the territory. She did not expect him to suddenly ask such a question after returning. This question was almost questioning whether everything Gwen did was meaningful.
And this question...
Amber could not help but look at Gwen. She thought of the plans Gwen once said about the disposal of the old nobles and the future laws of the territory. She could not help but ask, "Yes, you said at the beginning that there is always greed in human nature. Even in the government office that seems to be orderly and honest now, as the territory develops and becomes richer, there will always be people who are corrupted by power. If that's the case..."
Gwen looked at Amber and Leit. He was not too surprised by the latter's question.
Reforming and establishing a ideology was not something that could be done overnight. Even in the case of continuous education and ideology, even in the core circle around him, there were very few people who could fully understand his ideas. And Leit had seen the battlefield with his own eyes, and the corruption of the old nobles and the old church, so it was normal for him to have such a question.
This had nothing to do with a person's thinking or perception, it was purely the limitation of the times.
He asked the priest who had regained the holy light in front of him, "Leit, what kind of group do you think the nobles are?"
"The nobles..." Leit frowned. "They... are the owners and rulers of the land and the people, and at least in name, they are the protectors of all these... They have a lot of power, and the kingdom basically relies on them to run."
"Then, do you think the nobles are good or bad?"
This time, it was Amber who answered. "The bad ones, Leit has seen it with his own eyes."
"I'm also a noble." Gwen looked at Amber with a half-smile. "There's also Viscount Glen who freed the slaves eleven years ago, now Countess Glen, who has accepted Cecil's law and is ready to swear allegiance to Viscount Andrew Leslie. They are all nobles."
"Err..." Amber froze for a moment and scratched her head. "Then there are good and bad ones."
"Yes, there are good ones among the nobles, but why is the whole group of nobles still corrupted to this extent?"
Amber and Leit looked at each other, as if they did not know what Gwen really wanted to say.
Fortunately, Gwen did not let them be confused for too long. He had something he wanted to say to the people around him, and now was the right time. He took a small breath and said what he was thinking. "The nobles, or more strictly speaking, the land nobles under the current Ansu system, are the absolute owners of the land and the population, as well as the makers and executors of power. From the day of their birth, the nature of this group has determined their way of life. They own almost all the resources, and have absolute authority to use these resources. All the civilians are just renters of their resources, or even a part of their resources. The nobles do not produce anything, nor do they need to produce anything, they only need to parasitize the land and the people, and draw nourishment from the latter...
"Therefore, of course, they won't really pity or care about the lives and rights of the civilians. Also, because the resources come from the land, they don't care about the civilians as much as they care about their own land. Even if they occasionally show that they care about the civilians, it's only equivalent to a person cherishing the coins in his pocket. They will protect their coins, but when the price is right, they can spend those coins at any time.
"They claim to be the protectors of the people, and this is also a fact. In the wilderness era, humans only had limited resources to provide for a limited number of protectors. In order to survive, we had no choice but to concentrate a large amount of resources on a few powerful individuals and let these individuals protect the safety of the whole. And these powerful individuals were the first aristocrats of the land. At least in that era, their existence ensured the survival and development of civilization. But what about after that era?
"Nobody can control the land nobles, because they are the owners, distributors, and users of the resources. They are the makers, executors, and defenders of the law. Therefore, they will inevitably become a group that is out of control, corrupted, and depraved. Leaving morality aside, their 'corruption' is not corruption at all. It is just a natural change of a group that is constantly expanding and growing in an environment with sufficient nutrients, just like a plant that will constantly grow in fertile soil.
"Under such circumstances, the land nobles will always remember that they will never voluntarily give up their resources and privileges, just like how a plant will not voluntarily pull its roots out of the soil. Under such circumstances, even if one or two good land nobles occasionally appear, they will not change the overall nature of the land nobles, because the nature of this group will not change, and their way of survival will not change. As long as they still occupy the land, enjoy the privileges, and control the resources, they will inevitably walk the path of parasitism on the land and the people, and rely on the nutrients of the latter to survive. Their so-called role as the protectors of the people will also disappear when all the land nobles complete the distribution of resources and form a relatively stable ruling structure. Think about those noble wars. Did they pick up their swords to protect the people in the noble wars?
"And when this concept is expanded, the current Church of Holy Light and the land nobles share the same principle. The only difference is that the land nobles own the resources, while the Church owns the faith and theurgy. The land nobles' privilege is the law, while the Church's privilege is the interpretation of the classics."
Gwen paused here. He looked at Wright and Amber, who were deep in thought, and continued, "So, let's go back to the original question of why the nobles are so corrupted. The answer is that they are bound to be corrupted like this. This has nothing to do with the appearance of enlightened lords among the land nobles, nor does it have anything to do with how glorious and great they used to be. This is purely determined by their inherent nature. So, Wright, I can tell you with certainty that we can eliminate hundreds and thousands of nobles and Knight in this war, but as long as the land nobles still exist, then even if we kill this batch of land nobles, the land nobles will appear sooner or later, and even among our descendants.
"So, from the very beginning, this war is not only to destroy the bodies of the nobles, but also to destroy their foundation. We are not waging this war to destroy the land and wealth of the more than 40 feudal lords in the Southern Region, but to destroy the land nobles as a whole, and return the land and freedom to the people. We are waging this war to prevent another village from being burned down by their own lords, and to prevent another Emily from appearing.
"Leiter, if you're interested, you can take a look at the Land Distribution Act that I've enacted, as well as the explanation of the rights of the land and the rights of the people that I've constantly promoted in schools, newspapers, and various bulletin boards. Perhaps you'll understand why Count Hosman gave me eighteen charges when he declared war on Cecil. Eleven of them were related to the laws that I've enacted and the things that I've promoted in my territory. That's because those are the things that will take their lives, and even the lives of their future generations. They've seen this point clearly.
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