After being forced to step down, the once-annoying nun eloped with me.

Because shaving requires pointing the blade at a person's most vulnerable areas—the chin and neck—to cut the beard with its sharp edge. A blade can easily cut a beard, and naturally, it can easily slit a throat.

In fact, in the early days of the Roman Empire, Yang Hao's subordinates, who were busy with domestic reforms, had already encountered this kind of "shaving assassination".

The bodies were gruesome. The beauticians, after being caught, were even able to be protected by their employers under the pretext of "mistaken procedures." Even the most conscientious judge, due to the imperfect laws, could only charge the killer with "manslaughter" and then imprison him according to the terms of the law. After a few days, it was discovered that he had escaped.

With virtually no cost, and even if the assassin were caught, there were few consequences, the "shaving assassination" was a common assassination tactic used by nobles and landowners.

After being exiled, Yang Hao worried that his enemies would use similar methods to kill him, but in the end he suddenly realized that he didn't need to worry about it.

After all, who would waste money on someone who was already completely dead in the Roman Empire? He scoffed at his own worries, but he felt extremely nervous when Mother Teresa's razor slid across his neck.

If her blade were already pressed against her neck at this very moment, if...

...The bad thing is she only shaved half of her beard. Thankfully, she only shaved half.

He looked at his messy beard and hair in the mirror, which Mother Teresa had clumsily shaved into a ridiculous shape. After confirming, for the time being, that Mother Teresa wasn't intentionally retaliating, he spoke:

"...Is this the first time you've done this?"

"You mean this? How could a nun like me have the opportunity to cut other people's hair and shave them? What, you think I didn't shave you well? You can go to town tomorrow and find a proper barber."

"...No, this is fine. Theresa...what do you want me to do? I'm not belittling myself, but I really have nothing to give you."

When you adopt a stray puppy, do you expect it to bring you food every day?

Mother Teresa's sarcasm left Yang Hao speechless. She then wrung out the towel, soaked in hot water, and applied it to Yang Hao's face once more, thus concluding Mother Teresa's first major haircut and shave.

Mother Teresa then led him to a small room on the second floor of the convent. The room had clearly been recently cleaned; the bed was covered with thick hay, topped with linen, and finally, there was a linen pillow also filled with hay, and the only thing that could be considered cotton was a thick quilt.

A broom and a small shovel full of dust were placed by the door of the room. Mother Teresa muttered, "When you were still in power, I could still buy cheap cotton quilts and candles here. Now that you've been gone for a year, let alone cotton, even hay prices have increased several times over," while indicating that from now on this would be Yang Hao's room.

It's not a good thing to hear from others about the decline of a country that once ruled. But what can you do about it?

This country treated me in the cruelest way in the end, so I don't want to have anything to do with this country anymore.

Yang Hao sat up on the bed. Finally, before Mother Teresa left, he asked one last question:

"...Theresa, what can I do for you?"

His tone was no longer one of skepticism. He wanted to live a peaceful and down-to-earth life here through hard work.

Mother Teresa also noticed the change in Yang Hao's thinking.

A slight smile curved her lips. With light steps, she stepped out of the room and said without turning back:

“We’re running out of firewood. The axe is in the storage room on the first floor—tomorrow I’ll show you around this little house, and then you can do whatever you want.”

"What about you?"

"I have to go to town to help those heretics who believe in the God of Light instead of Light with their worship services, then I have to use the money I earn to buy necessities, and finally I have to keep up with current events. I don't know when this holiday conversion life will end. Sigh."

"...Feel sorry."

"There's nothing to apologize for. This country owes you. And I owe you too. By the way, the Red Cross... thank you so much."

She left. Before leaving, she gently closed the door for Yang Hao.

Yang Hao stared blankly for a while before blowing out the candle, which was probably too expensive for the monastery at present.

Curled up in the warm blankets, he thought back on many things.

The shadow of his former lover Priscilla, those he had helped, the royal family, nobles, landowners, clergy, and General Dreschka who had promised to make this new empire better, and the little empress he was educating at the time.

Finally, these shadows transformed into silent people, those who spit on themselves in the trial square, and those who condemn their enemies in the courtroom.

In the very end, these scenes faded to gray, leaving only Mother Teresa's long white hair and her annoyingly frivolous expression:

"Don't think about that anymore. Don't think about this country. Let's eat first."

What an annoying guy. Why is it that in the end, you're the only one who will take me in now that I'm down on my luck?

Tears streamed down Yang Hao's face as he felt a surge of warmth and the motivation to continue living under the weight of his burdens, even while shackled.

......

At the same time, as Priscilla of the royal palace received orders to lead the procession to welcome her lover's return, she stood for the last time before the former chief justice, who had been demoted to a maidservant:

"...Natalia, are you really not coming with us? If you were here, perhaps..."

“I am different from you, Priscilla. I still have my proud principles as a human being, unlike you beasts.”

You filthy bastards! Even animals know gratitude, but what have you done? Your silence during the Silent War caused his exile, so why don't you continue to remain silent now?

Are you planning to make him clean up this mess only to have him judged a second time?

ha!!

"You beastly bastard! Get out of here now! Or I'll throw the mop in your face—a face that, besides being refined, only disgusts me!"

"..."

The arrogant former judge spat fiercely onto the ground in front of the Night Witch, then mopped it clean with a wet mop.

Priscilla opened his mouth in silence, but in the end he couldn't say anything and could only turn and leave.

A year ago, during the Quiet Exile incident, many people, including her, chose to remain silent for various reasons.

Perhaps it was to prevent this hard-won nation from splitting apart again, perhaps it was for the sake of their families and territories, or perhaps it was simply out of fear...

Their silence forced the regent to step down and be exiled, while the former chief justice was the one who despised them the most.

That's all.

The Night Witch sighed heavily. After leaving the palace, she led the last royal knights toward the capital's portal network, the only reformed building that hadn't been overthrown after the regent's expulsion.

They have to bring him back by February 21st.

Otherwise, this empire will collapse due to both internal and external troubles.

Chapter Five: Ignorance, the Truth Behind the Resignation, Clues

On February 16th, when the Night Witch Priscilla finally arrived at the town less than a few kilometers from her hometown of Shkur through the portal network of Earl Kagard, she and her companions were exhausted and felt the hardships they had endured along the way.

The trend of division within the Roman Empire is now evident not only in its upper echelons but also among its populace.

People in the central agricultural region are crying out in despair because of the drought and are feeling hopeless about the impending famine.

People in border areas unaffected by the drought mocked their "unfilial" compatriots as a result.

They seem unable to understand that this drought is not caused by the piety of one's faith, and they cannot understand that they too will be affected.

At least in Priscilla's eyes, the border regions had no sympathy or sense of responsibility towards the central regions.

"Robert... According to the previous agreement, you take some men to the town to inquire about the situation and keep an eye out for anything strange happening. Aya, you go over there... Wait a minute? What are they doing?"

Before she could even catch her breath, just as Priscilla was about to order the Imperial Knights to proceed as planned, her eyes inadvertently glanced outside the portal and saw what appeared to be residents digging something underground.

The Night Witch frowned involuntarily and gestured for a knight named Robert to inquire about the situation. Soon after, she received a shocking revelation.

The townspeople are dismantling the steel heating pipes that were laid underneath the town before construction was completed and were abandoned due to Yang Hao's downfall.

"What exactly are they after?"

The town's heating system was never completed, so even if the steel heating pipes were removed, the comforting warmth of winter couldn't be obtained.

Priscilla couldn't understand why the residents here would do such a thing. Even considering the unusually cold early spring in the border region, they shouldn't be digging up the ground just for a few steel pillars, right?

Faced with Priscilla's confusion, Sir Robert remained silent for a long time before pointing to a haughty man not far away who was directing the people to dig the ground and said:

"According to the workers on site... a member of the Church of Light who called himself 'Weasel' and had been to the capital assured everyone that 'as long as the underground pipes are dug up and brought home to be fueled by faith, the houses can be warmed'."

"How is this possible?! I've seen the design drawings he left behind... These things are for boiling water to create heating, which is then heated through pipes, not for creating warmth out of thin air with some vague belief?!"

“My lady, but that’s just how it is… The people don’t care about that anymore. Every year, people freeze to death in the border villages because of a lack of firewood. They do this to avoid freezing to death, so they don’t think about whether it’s true or not.”

"..."

Every year, several, dozens, or even hundreds of people freeze to death in villages and towns along the borders of the Roman Empire due to the cold.

Yang Hao proposed the costly and labor-intensive underground heating construction project for the sake of these people. However, since the capital city was the best testing ground, he first laid these pipelines that benefited people's livelihoods in the capital city as a trial, and gained the approval of the capital city in the first two or three years after the founding of the country.

...But unexpectedly, a few years later, this became a "fact" used by the followers of the Church of Light to deceive people—they used the reason that "the faith of the people in the capital is stronger than that of the people on the border" to entice the people to pay tithes, to give up selling their property to buy "Indulgences", and then to confess in the church in order to seek God's grace.

Priscilla had always observed that the people on the border acted this way. Lacking education, the border residents were simply unable to objectively understand the world.

Besides requiring hands-on cultivation, rice paddies also require faith.

Besides firewood, one can also pray in church for warmth—surviving the freezing night is due to faith, and if one freezes to death, it means that one's faith was not pure enough.

Now, there are even more... Priscilla couldn't understand it at all. Neither could the imperial knights under her command.

She faintly heard someone sighing softly:

'Everything started to go wrong after the Regent left.'

This sigh was quickly drowned out by the sounds of the people's hard but futile labor, and finally crushed by the prayers of the believers.

......

Before heading to Shkur village, Priscilla and the others needed to make some final preparations.

While the portal network is convenient, each teleportation causes irreparable nausea and exhaustion. Even the strongest warriors cannot travel long distances quickly after passing through a portal, let alone a witch like Priscilla.

During their break, they searched the town for information, asking the townspeople if they had seen a man who had fled from the capital.

"You mean this? You mean the Regent? — After the news of his resignation spread, the people of Shkul immediately moved away. Nobody wants to have anything to do with that unfortunate fellow. When he was in power, the village chief was still boasting with pride, 'He's someone I trained,' but now... sigh."

"You mean the former regent? Hmm... I don't want to talk about this. Because of his disrespect for the God of Light, our town's harvest is terrible now... Sigh, I heard that in Kagard, because of the massacre he orchestrated, there's no harvest at all! The farmers there are planning to go to the Demon Forest to capture heretics and offer them to the God of Light to prove their piety, hoping that divine rain will fall and the land will recover..."

"...I heard those factories went out of business, that's really good news. What kind of farm tool is it if it's not handcrafted by artisans and doesn't have prayers offered by priests!"

"..."

The residents recounted rumors or their own opinions, the origins of which were unknown. Priscilla, who had just returned from Kagard, knew that no massacre had ever occurred there.

The only thing associated with "slaughter" is the annual livestock slaughter and cured meat festival held in Kaggard.

Even the people here firmly believe this, and even the people in Kargard refuse to acknowledge the truth, numbing themselves with rumors and venting their emotions with non-existent "dead" figures...

The presiding judge had previously told her that all the crimes committed against the Regent were fabricated. But Priscilla did not believe him.

Since entering the palace, she has never appeared in front of the world again and has no way of obtaining real information from the outside world.

That's why she hesitated to speak out when he faced accusations. She didn't know what her lover had done, and therefore lost the right to defend him.

Now, she finally knows the truth—but it's all too late. He has been exiled, and now his fate is unknown. Even if she wanted to make amends for her mistakes, she doesn't know where to turn.