You were made to farm, and now you're the emperor of an empire?

Chapter 332 Bearing Its Weight
A light spring rain is falling outside.

The wind, mixed with rain, blew in through the window, making it cold, damp, and the thick moisture made me feel uncomfortable.

Io III sat on the throne, feeling the weight of the crown on his forehead.

The crown, forged from black iron, is neither ornate nor dazzling; it is simple, cold, and incredibly heavy. Seven black iron longswords stand upright within it, both inside and out engraved with magical incantations from ancient ancestors. It is so heavy that it can even be used as a weapon, weighing at least twenty kilograms.

It pressed down on him like a mountain, imprisoning his mind. It was once worn by the conqueror Ionus, and his spirit and will were condensed upon it, passed down through generations.

Did that glorious and splendid former king also feel such pressure?
I think so.

The predicaments they face are completely different.

But the motto of the Black Iron royal family is: with a sword hanging over your head, bear its weight.

However, Io III rarely experienced such a strong sense of powerlessness.

He considered himself a qualified king, but this land was rife with vested interests and deeply entrenched problems; let alone improving it, even maintaining the status quo would be difficult.

Everything is out of control.

Rage Tide is, Sinnoh is, Armor Breaker is, and now even the emerging forces in that corner are.

They've never been well-behaved; each of them has their own damn ideas!
Some outwardly comply while inwardly resisting, some pander to others, and some don't even bother to pretend anymore.

They're all a bunch of traitors and rebels!
"Paine, do you also think his title should be stripped?" The Black Iron King glanced with disgust at Duke Rage Tide, who was lingering in his palace and secretly instigating the nobles to force him to abdicate.

Pine sat at the conference table, his face weathered by time, with fine dandruff flakes of skin that looked as if they could be scraped off a blackboard with chalk.

He said calmly, "Yes, Your Majesty, I advise you to pay close attention to him. Five years ago there was nothing there, but five years later the nobles there are all living in fear. What if we wait another five years?"

The king said, "Even if he has fifty years, he may not be as large as your duchy."

“Then you should be even more vigilant. He commands a large army and has never failed in any operation so far. It wouldn’t be surprising if you woke up one day to find his army at your gates.” Payne’s voice was unique and melodious, like surging tides crashing against the shore.

That's still better than the Papacy's army besieging the city... Is it really better? He hasn't even arrived in Blackburg yet, and he's already offended most of the important officials there.

The Duke of Wrath used this as a weakness, hoping to make him realize the current situation.

The emerging young king is not the point. If we're talking about kings, the Black Iron Lands are full of them. The three dukes are three kings, but they still consider themselves subjects, just like the kings of the valley.

Iolion wondered whether the ambitious and enterprising new king posed a greater threat to him, or the corrupt and treacherous old king who had let the tiger return to the mountain.
They would all threaten his throne.

But at this moment, he had no choice but to win over one faction to attack the other.

But the coercion from the Rage Tide and the Papacy is imminent, while the threat of new life that the Rage Tide spoke of will not be revealed until five years later.

He made his decision. "I will not sign," said the Iron King.

For the sake of the bigger picture, he couldn't let the relationship between the two sides deteriorate to that extent.

Los of the Philin family was horrified. "Gods above! Your Majesty, this man is despicable and wicked. If we let him go unchecked, he will become a tiger that will devour us in the future!"

"They're not eating my people right now," Iolion thought to himself. "I'll deal with that when he gets to Blackburg."

But as the territory expanded, he doubted whether the young king was capable of managing such a vast land—like pirates who killed a group of nobles and then had to support a new group of nobles to distribute the land.

Anyone who has been king before knows that the larger the territory, the more difficult it is to govern, and he often felt mentally and physically exhausted by it. But this decision was not so easy to make; they all had their own political leanings, which had now subtly developed into irreconcilable conflict and confrontation.

“I beg you to rescind your decision. He is an unbeliever, and his land is a breeding ground for evil forces…”

The Black Iron King said to the Grand Duke of Rage, "Then I urge you to hurry and guard the Stone Fortress, for the evil power has already been unleashed by you."

For political reasons, Éolien had to swallow the rest of his words.

The other ministers pretended not to be present and ignored the dispute.

Over the past two or three years, no matter what topics were discussed within the royal court, they all eventually led to the most fundamental conflict between the Black Iron King and the Duke of Rage.

In their silence, Io III felt utterly powerless.

They were his subjects, yet they became accomplices in the coup attempt. Apart from the royal faction, no one stood up to speak for him.

The Minister of Agriculture had no choice but to say, "Your Majesty, Lord Payne, perhaps we should discuss when this rain will end. If it continues like this, we won't have anything to eat."

It's raining everywhere; some places have stopped raining, while others haven't.

Blacksburg was the hardest-hit area.

The damp weather led to crop failure and moldy stored grain. Even worse was watching the court officials argue over other important matters, ignoring the terrible consequences of this disaster.

“Have Gale send over a shipment of grain…” Iolion said with a headache, but he quickly realized that this wouldn’t work, as Duke Gale had a lot of complaints about him.

If Ulster were alive, there would be as much food as needed. The Cracked Armor Territory is the largest grain-producing area in Black Iron. But now that Ulster is gone, he has left behind a huge mess.

"How long can our current food supply last?" The Black Iron King instantly realized that this was a stupid question.

"I don't know, Your Majesty. There are hundreds of thousands of people in Blackburg waiting to be fed. Merchants are driving up grain prices, several times higher than before. The starving people in the slums are either dying from the rain or starving to death in large numbers. The poor people's assembly has also protested against us... They have a lot of complaints. They all say that you changed the way you farmed and used the heavy plow of Prince River Valley, so you have brought punishment from the gods."

"Should we involve the Iron Guards?" The city defense captain was referring to the two thousand Iron Guards of Blackburg.

"No, we cannot use force to suppress them..." That would only give the Vatican an excuse.

He was a fair and open-minded man, and knew that the fault couldn't lie with the plows; that's just how the weather is.

Io III found that whatever he did would bring bad results, and doing nothing and waiting for the long rainy season to pass was the only way.

The people were very dissatisfied with him, and there were huge protests, but what could he do? Did they know the predicament their king was facing?
So what if there's no food? But if he makes a single wrong decision, it could have devastating consequences for Black Iron.

Io III felt the black iron crown grow heavier and heavier, as if a mountain was pressing down on his head.

A sword hangs over one's head, bearing its weight.

He frantically told himself that everyone has a duty to fulfill, and his duty was to protect this vast land and maintain the order of the former king... until the moment he died.

The woman in white beside the Iron Throne gazed at her father with a calm pity in her eyes.

Book Recommendation: "Is Religious Victory in Another World Really That Easy?", a farming novel of the same genre, a light novel with a fantasy background and religious farming theme. It's lighthearted, humorous, and features a cult leader farming surrounded by quirky and beautiful girls. It's already quite substantial and ready to be devoured.

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(End of this chapter)