The Regressed Princess - Chapter 68

Chapter 68: Thrice to Enlin — Only Upon Setting Foot on this Land Again Did Andra Have a Sense of Reality…

What kind of place was Enlin? Only upon setting foot on this land again did Andra truly feel it: oh, it was genuinely trash.

Rickety fences served as city walls, and a peculiar stench wafted from the low-slung manors even before one got close. To show respect for the Princess, the acting “City Lord” had ordered the construction of a Princess’s Palace on a patch of open ground though it was hard to tell if it was inside or outside the city proper.

Unfortunately, it wasn’t finished yet; only a skeletal frame had been erected.

The carriage door opened. Coral and Jīngjí were a step too slow and failed to support the little Princess’s hand.

Eleanor bypassed the horses and strode forward in her boots.

“Wait, Your Highness! It’s dirty here!” Coral hurriedly chased after her, followed closely by the two slave attendants. According to etiquette, they should have carried the little Princess on their backs; how could they let her noble feet touch such filthy ground!

“It’s fine, it’s fine.” Eleanor turned her head helplessly and waved the others off. “Listen to me.”

Her voice was soft, but her unquestionable attitude made Coral slow her pace. The others were also cowed by this aura, and the group’s movements immediately slowed.

Clip-clop, clip-clop.

The crisp sound of hooves stopped nearby. Andra flipped off her horse, tossed the reins to an attendant, and ran over while saying, “The legion is stationed outside the city. The terrain isn’t great. It’s best to find a place to shelter from the wind and rain quickly.”

“Mm.” Eleanor nodded.

Andra had put it delicately; in truth, the current Enlin had no defenses to speak of—it was essentially leaking wind on three sides.

In the first life, when the two of them had rushed here at age eighteen, they had nearly fainted at the sight of Enlin’s condition. Had the turmoil in the capital not reached this place, even a genius general like Andra would have been forced to keep fleeing.

Andra walked onto the “construction site” and stared blankly at the people passing by.

These people… these people in tattered rags were not slaves, but commoners. They were required to pay taxes to Nolanna and the city of Enlin taxes that weren’t just money and grain; every household had to provide one person for three months of labor service every year.

Andra followed the little Princess, positioning herself to guard Eleanor’s flanks. Once she saw the commoners at work, she couldn’t help but let out a bitter laugh.

What is there to guard against? Their ribs looked ready to slide out of the gaps in their skin.

Few people had a full set of clothes. In a poverty-stricken rural place like this, an entire family might share a single garment—whoever went out wore it. They were currently hauling large, square blocks of stone, using their arms and lower backs to stack them bit by bit. The friction would ruin clothes, so many worked naked, save for a loincloth around their waists.

Andra looked at Eleanor.

As expected, the little Princess issued the command she anticipated: “Stop. Go home first.”

The commoners turned their heads numbly. Some continued hauling, but the clever ones had already set down their stones and were pressing the people beside them to kneel together.

The overseer was the first to move. Upon seeing Eleanor, she tossed her whip aside and stretched her neck out like a fat goose, lying flat on the ground with her hands tucked under her belly, not daring to show them.

“Your Highness, Your Highness, you’ve arrived! We will definitely finish as soon as… uh…” The woman remembered the Princess’s order halfway through and clamped her mouth shut.

Eleanor shook her head. This time, her words were different from what Andra had imagined. She didn’t scold the overseer, but simply waved her hand and said gently, “You go back too. Send someone to call the City Lord; I have something to say to her.”

“Yes, yes!”

The overseer scrambled away, and the guards nearby moved even faster. They straightened their chests and stood by the fence as if it were the King’s palace behind them.

Hmph… Andra looked at them with a mix of amusement and pity: old and young, and were there even cripples among them?

If a Hetuyan warrior was disabled, they would be cared for by the tribe, but more often, they simply walked away with the wolf packs. The Nolannans followed a different tradition, letting the disabled keep working. That sounded nice, but having disabled soldiers guard a city gate was pure idiocy.

She let out a sigh.

“What’s wrong?” the little Princess asked softly.

“Your Highness, this city has no defense to speak of,” Andra said bluntly. “Give me one squad, and I could slaughter my way through half the city.”

As for the other half, it wasn’t that she couldn’t kill them—she just couldn’t be bothered to chase them.

Eleanor neither argued nor responded. She walked to the pile of stones and picked up a hemp rope. This rope was sturdy, specifically designed for lashing stones and boards to a person’s body.

The Stone Age of the Moon-Mist Continent had passed, but humans still used brute force to lift materials when building houses. Moon-Mist people were much stronger than those on Earth; ironically, this advantage had delayed the progress of tools and technology.

“Your Highness, go rest at the City Lord’s manor first. I’ll go talk to her.” Andra touched her sword hilt, her body instinctively angling toward the side.

Eleanor froze for a moment, slipping into a hazy memory.

It was the same in the first life. She had fled to Enlin with Andra in a state of panic, with few followers. At that time, the acting City Lord of Enlin had been quite arrogant, even secretly setting a trap to capture them and hand them over to the eventual victor.

The City Lord had set a feast, serving fragrant unleavened bread and roast meat. Daggers were stuck into the roast meat, while the underside of the table was bristling with swords. Her people were everywhere inside and outside the city; the Princess’s guard and the remaining retinue numbered only a few hundred. There was no escape.

“Princess, go rest first.”

That day, Andra had touched her forehead and said with concern in front of everyone: “You have a fever. Go to sleep. Everything will be fine when you wake up tomorrow.”

The City Lord hadn’t insisted on Eleanor entering the city because her only concern was the Prince Consort before her: once Andra was captured, what did the little Princess matter?

She had a beautiful dream. Her soldiers grinned and drew their swords during the feast, and then the sword light fell like rain.

When Andra’s sword severed the City Lord’s right hand and drew a red line across her throat, the City Lord instantly turned to mush, confessing her pathetic background and ambitions in one breath.

Heh, you still love taking care of the Princess like that.

Eleanor smiled helplessly. Perhaps because of the changes in interests and emotions, the Andra of the second life had never said anything similar.

“Your Highness?” Andra’s voice was cautious. “Please forgive me. I don’t mean to make decisions for you; I’m just worried the journey has exhausted you and might harm your health.”

Eleanor shook her head and said softly, “It’s alright. I know you mean well.”

Besides, this wasn’t bad. Andra’s change showed her that they weren’t far from the path of the first life.

Clip-clop, clip-clop!

A frantic sound of hooves stopped abruptly. A plump City Lord arrived on horseback, pulled the reins, and came tumbling to the ground with a clatter. She pressed both hands to the earth and bowed forcefully, lying flat like she was kowtowing, and shouted: “Princess, forgive me it is my incompetence!”

Her attitude was sincere, but Eleanor didn’t even bother to look. She waved her hand at this two-life acquaintance: “Right, right, right, you’re incompetent. Now go. Remember to hand over the ledgers and seals.”

Everyone was stunned by these words. According to the normal process, shouldn’t there be some pleasantries and back-and-forth? Who removes an acting City Lord who has served for several years right at the start?

The City Lord raised her head with an “Eh?” and sucked air through her teeth: “But, but, but, I… how could I dare delay Your Highness’s affairs!”

“Having you here is delaying things.”

Eleanor didn’t even look back, turning to the retinue and calling out: “Hudora, you take over as City Lord. Let her go back and have a good rest.”

“Yes, Your Highness.” A tall youth stepped down from the carriage, walking with a steady gait to the City Lord’s side to discuss the handover.

Andra raised an eyebrow in surprise: Wasn’t this person one of the scholars bought from the slave market? She had even specifically asked what kind of books this scholar wrote—the answer was something about insects. Why would Eleanor make her the acting City Lord? This “scholar” surely had zero experience in governing a city.

Silence fell. Everyone had doubts, but Enlin was the Princess’s territory, and the Princess had the right to move any position. The former City Lord sighed and hung her head, seemingly resigned.

Eleanor knew she was planning to have the subordinates engage in non-violent non-cooperation, but she had played through that in her previous life. There was no need to counter every move; she could just ignore it. This time, she had packed dozens of talented individuals from the capital and cities along the way; transforming Enlin would be a breeze.

The Princess and her entourage took over the City Lord’s manor in grand fashion. The scholars and commoners she brought seemed to truly have some skill; almost all of them were literate and, under the Princess’s arrangement, systematically replaced various posts.

Andra was also assigned a task. The Princess handed over more than half of the legion and city guards to her, under the pretext of training a “hunting party,” letting her “patrol” nearby city-states and clear out giant beasts and bandits while she was at it.

Andra accepted the order gladly. Fighting was exhilarating, and it allowed her to survey the surrounding terrain along the way what was not to like?

She swept through the vicinity, turning in bandit heads for bounties at neighboring cities and demanding supplies. This was Andra’s first time leading such a large force; in Hetuya, the leader was always Atilla.

When she pulled her sword from a bandit leader, when she cut down the last enemy and turned to see countless gazes filled with admiration, her blood boiled. Andra conquered the entire team with one charge after another and victory after victory. After just a few months, she commanded them as easily as her own limbs.

Autumn ended and winter arrived. When Andra brought her men down from the mountains after finishing the second round of patrols, she encountered helpers on the road who claimed to be from the Marigold Chamber of Commerce. They exchanged their spoils especially the heavy beast bones and skins for grain, fresh water, and clean cloth.

Andra knew of the Marigold Chamber of Commerce; the name was the agreement between Eleanor and Scar-Eye. She hadn’t expected the trade route to be established so quickly.

A simple barracks had been built outside the city, at least providing a roof against the snow. When Andra arranged the garrison and prepared to ride into the city, her eyes widened even further.

She had thought Eleanor would give up on building the Princess’s Palace or just slowly build some warehouses. Instead, she saw a sturdy manor rising from the ground.

So fast. Was Eleanor willing to have those commoners whipped?

Andra looked around. It wasn’t just the City Lord’s manor; the outside fences had been completely removed oh, she understood now. Looking at the small square bricks in people’s hands, she grasped part of it. These small, uniform bricks were certainly easier to stack than large stones. Now the question was: where did the small bricks come from? Such level surfaces probably weren’t cut from stone.

Andra walked over and tapped one with her finger. The material didn’t feel like stone, but it was much harder than dried mud it felt like a substance in between the two.

She followed the brick wall and finally understood why the Princess could build the legion barracks and city houses so quickly and begin the outer wall. Eleanor hadn’t just produced convenient bricks; she had also placed strange devices on the site. There were lifting platforms built from wheels, ropes, and nets or wooden boards, as well as long-handled shovels and one-wheeled carts.

Andra picked up a wheelbarrow and pushed it tentatively, finding it required very little effort.

She had only been gone for three months, and Enlin had completely transformed. This was too… eerie, wasn’t it? In both Hetuya and Nolanna, a year of transition usually showed almost no change. Unless a bad year brought major disaster, destroying accumulated wealth, peaceful times required years and generations to carve a small mark against the power of nature.

How on earth did you do it, my Princess?

Andra flipped onto her horse and galloped toward the City Lord’s manor. She couldn’t wait to hear Eleanor recount the stories of these past months.

How long would the Princess’s whims and wonders last? Whether it was the current Andra or the Andra of six years later, she always eagerly anticipated them.

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