Chapter 31, Marcel Diocese (1)
The frontier village of Comanceville.
Construction workers were measuring the land and discussing plans for the buildings they were going to construct.
The village chief watched them with a puzzled expression before asking me,
“You’re building a church? All the way out here?”
“Yeah. It’ll be a church dedicated to the God of Abundance. Three priests have agreed to come here.”
Of course, it would not just be the priests.
Including the trainee priests and servants who would assist them, more than twenty people would move here.
“May I ask why?”
“Nothing special. We’re getting more settlers, so I decided to build one. I approved it myself.”
Daniel, the Deputy Director of the Internal Affairs Office at the Holy See, had started building a church in Comanceville using his own money.
It was one of the promises he had made to me.
However, after hearing my answer, the village chief did not look very happy.
“It is certainly a good thing, but I’m worried that the village’s expenses will increase.”
“It’ll be a branch church under the Marcel Church. It’ll receive its budget from there, so don’t worry about it.”
This was also something Daniel had arranged.
He had asked an acquaintance on the Holy See’s Finance Council for a favor and secured the necessary budget.
Only then did the village chief’s expression brighten.
When he realized what I was trying to do, he broke into a wide smile.
“Haha! So this was actually another act of consideration from you, my lord. You truly are a wise and benevolent ruler.”
“What are you praising me this much for?”
Religion played an extremely important role in this world.
Priests, in particular, also served as doctors, so a frontier church was practically the same thing as a hospital in a remote mountain village.
On top of that, if the villagers attended church every week, it would greatly help build unity and stronger bonds among them.
Watching all those Hollywood movies and American TV shows in my previous life is actually proving useful.
The rural American churches I had seen in various forms of media were more than simple neighborhood churches.
They were often the centers of their communities.
I intended to learn from that and make use of it here.
“If possible, try to make the residents gather around the church as the center of the village. You’ll also become an elder of this frontier church.”
“Oh my, what an honor!”
The village chief was overjoyed to receive another title.
Using religion as a tool of governance.
That did not only work at the level of nations or territories.
It was effective even in small frontier villages like this one.
I planned to turn the chief of Comanceville into the leader of the entire frontier settlement region.
From what I had seen so far, he was quite capable, and his loyalty and respect toward me were both satisfactory.
That was why I had already interviewed the priests who would be dispatched here once the church was finished.
I told them to support the village chief both religiously and politically.
There was no better subordinate than a capable person who could still be guided according to my intentions.
The same would probably be true of Bishop Daniel once he took office.
Now, all I needed was for the neighboring lords to agree to the creation of the diocese.
Then everything would be settled.
Thinking about how I could develop my territory through religious projects without spending my own budget made a smile naturally appear on my face.
“Hehehehehe.”
The village chief seemed to be looking at me strangely.
That was probably just my imagination.
The Ronalp lord’s residence.
Countess Karin Ronalp was reading the letter Eric had sent her.
“What is this? He wants to establish a diocese of the God of Abundance in Marcel?”
The head maid approached and read the letter with her.
“Viscount Eric Marcel truly is an impossible man to understand. Now he suddenly brings up the God of Abundance.”
Countess Karin snapped her fingers as though she had remembered something.
“There was that rumor that he had received a blessing from the God of Abundance!”
“Didn’t we dismiss that as political propaganda? Could the rumor actually have been true?”
“Otherwise, this doesn’t make sense.”
“That is true. The Westfalen family brought the Church of the Sun God into their territory, didn’t they? If he’s accepting the Order of the God of Abundance despite pressure from his family, then there must be a reason.”
The people of the Ronalp Territory still mistakenly believed that Eric and the Westfalen family remained closely connected.
“But even if he really was blessed, I doubt the Westfalen family will stay quiet if he goes as far as creating a diocese of the God of Abundance.”
“Right? Why would Viscount Marcel willingly take such a risk?”
“Could it be what we first suspected?”
“What? That Viscount Marcel wants to cut ties with Westfalen?”
“Yes.”
Countess Karin burst into loud laughter.
“Ahahaha! That’s ridiculous! What insane family would simply let one of its territories break away? Viscount Marcel would lose his head before that happened!”
Karin Ronalp had completely misunderstood Westfalen, a territory that barely paid any attention to a place like Marcel.
However, this was the common way of thinking among the nobles of the Franche Kingdom.
They overestimated their own importance while underestimating the scale of the Germania Empire.
Large territories of the Germania Empire, such as Westfalen, had little interest in small territories like Marcel that had low productivity and required large amounts of money to maintain.
Rather than spending money on such a place, it was far better to establish colonies on another continent.
Such a thing was almost unimaginable in the Franche Kingdom, where the royal family restrained the military expansion of local lords and suppressed territorial wars.
“So, what are you planning to do about Viscount Marcel’s proposal?”
“Accept it. Viscount Marcel and I are already in the same boat.”
“Then I’ll write a reply saying that the Ronalp and Ferrand Territories agree to the establishment of the diocese.”
“I’ll write it myself. I should choose my words carefully. Viscount Marcel isn’t an ordinary man.”
In any case, Countess Karin Ronalp decided to accept Eric’s proposal.
During their previous secret meeting, they had agreed to form a marriage alliance, and Eric had also opened a route allowing her to export wheat to Catalonia.
In the end, Karin’s agreement to the establishment of the diocese was merely a casual decision based on goodwill.
However, the consequences would be anything but small.
Yanis Dijon, the young lord of the Dijon Territory.
He was currently handling the affairs of the territory in place of his father, Count Dijon, who had become bedridden.
Naturally, Eric’s letter had also reached Yanis.
Because of its contents, several officials from the administration were currently waiting inside his office.
