System vs Rebirth

Chapter 1458: Four Reforms

Duke Lorelei immediately returned to the castle to discuss Noel’s proposal. The deal had just grown to a scale he had never seen before.

”Is that truly what he said?” Wendy was stunned.

”Yes.” Duke Lorelei nodded.

Wendy shook her head helplessly, as though she had been defeated.

”Marquis Ardagan is extremely clever.” Marquis Nardt was amused. ”Although I have heard of him a lot, this is the first time I’ve seen him in action. To be honest, he surpasses my imagination.

”It looks like Marquis Ardagan wants to create this airport for the airships so that he can expand internationally.

”In other words, it won’t be just people from this kingdom, but also people from other kingdoms can easily enter our country.

”This can create a massive influx of people. They will bring their own culture, which will end up mixing with what we have right now.

”From the looks of it, we need four changes in our system if we want to agree to his request. The first is to reform the current immigration system.

”Since we will be having a lot of people from foreign countries, it will help if we have a system to record them and deal with all kinds of situations. There’s a chance of that kind of person causing trouble, so we don’t know which law will be applied to him.

”The second system will be naturalization. Normally, people don’t travel across countries. At most, they will be moving from one lord to another, but not to another country.

”You need time, effort, and even guards to do such a thing. The administrative process is not something that normal people can easily handle.

”However, thanks to this airport... No, thanks to the new transportation network, more and more people might change their nationality.

”So, we will handle this problem more often. It would be best if we reformed the system before it happens.

”The third thing is the security. We need to have high standards for the security, mainly because we don’t know what they bring into this country. What if there’s a terrorist destroying the ship or bringing weapons of mass destruction? By having a high standard, we can protect not only this country but also other countries. There’s no need to make our relationship sour.

”Last but not least, we require a better family registry. Right now, we might have a system that tells us about the population of the kingdom, but we don’t exactly know the number.

”After all, there are a lot of settlements hidden from plain sight. They manage to self-sustain the whole time, closing themselves off from the outside world.

”Hence, we have to create a better family registry. We need to record every person living in this country, whether isolated or not, every child that is going to be born... All of them. If we know they are our people, we can act depending on the situation.

”Besides, with this new transportation, we will be more connected to other kingdoms, meaning diplomatic relationships will become even more complicated. This is not a reform but a suggestion.

”We need to create a new ministry to take care of international relations. Of course, this is a suggestion only if you decide to accept the deal.”

Duke Lorelei had been thinking about it on his way back, but as one would expect from a marquis who regulated the east. Marquis Nardt’s insight was much better than his, even after several hours of thought.

Wendy listened carefully. It was indeed a good proposal. With the international connection getting stronger, there might be things that weren’t possible in the past that become possible. They might even join hands with another country.

Although it would create a lot of headaches, heading in this direction was something that was bound to happen sooner or later.

Instead, if they didn’t accept the deal, other kingdoms would definitely accept it. At that time, the Muivell Kingdom would be isolated.

Nothing good would happen to an isolated country. They required items from other countries, and bringing the goods through this airport would definitely be something they would love to have.

The benefits easily outweighed the problems. Hence, Wendy nodded her head. ”All right. We will accept the agreement. Marquis Nardt, what do you think is the true intention of Marquis Ardagan for creating this airport? This deal is much more beneficial for us, the person who was directly talking to other countries.”

”This is why I call him clever.” Marquis Nardt raised one finger. ”Do you know the saying, ’A servant shouldn’t shine brighter than the lord’?”

”!!!” Wendy and Duke Lorelei widened their eyes in shock.

Marquis Nardt smiled. ”Right now, Marquis Ardagan has no choice but to shine brighter. Since Duke Lorelei and Marshal Conrad have confirmed the existence of the demon king, Noel Ardagan has to shine brighter to fight against the demon king.

”But due to this one fact, he has broken that taboo, which will cause a lot of inconvenience for him. People will be pushing him to become the new sovereign, and it looks like he doesn’t want that kind of attention.

”Although this sounds quite rude, we truly have no way of stopping Noel Ardagan. If he wants to claim the throne...” Marquis Nardt glanced at Wendy.

”He can easily kill me. Or he can simply ask me to marry him, and I have no way to refuse him, nor do I have a reason to do it.” Wendy shook her head helplessly.

”That’s right. Since the matter of him shining brighter can’t be helped, all he needs to do is to strengthen the royal family in the eyes of people. This will stop people from pushing him in that direction while making us know that everything comes from him.

”In other words, he’s the overlord in the shadow, but he leaves the position in the light to us. If we choose to fight him, he will be showing whose fist is bigger at that time.

”That’s why I call him clever. I have no choice but to accept this proposal even though I know what it truly means,” explained Nardt.

Wendy sighed. ”We’ve got our decision. We’ll accept the suggestion. Do we have enough money for the airport?”

”No, but I have an idea.”