The fire in the fireplace burned brightly, dispelling the chill that seeped in through the cracks in the doors and windows. Hanging above the fireplace was a deer head with enormous antlers, their shadows cast on the wall behind them like massive claws in the firelight.

Opposite the fireplace was a long, dark red wooden table, covered with parchment scrolls and books, mostly administrative orders waiting for a signature. Roland usually handled official business here—he had gradually grown to like this place since converting the room on the castle's third floor into an office.

Through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him, he could see the town stretching out in front of him, ending in a range of endless mountains. These were the Impassable Mountains, which ran almost the entire length of the continent, separating the Kingdom of Graycastle from the wildlands to the east and west. North Slope Mountain was merely a spur of the Impassable Mountains.

Below, he could see the garden enclosed by a wooden fence. The wooden shed used for Anna's training had been dismantled, and the brick pool had been turned into a long table, convenient for setting out utensils during afternoon tea. If the weather was good, he would go down to bask in the sun or take a nap in a specially customized rocking chair.

Although the castle wasn't large, it could still be considered a medium-sized villa with its own garden. In his previous life, owning a real stone castle was almost a fantasy; you had to pay just to visit one. But now, he not only owned this castle but also controlled a town.

"Your Highness, the recent costs of recruiting artisans and laborers have been quite high. This money has all come out of your own pocket, and at this rate, I'm afraid we won't make it to next spring," Barov reported to Roland, holding a stack of parchment.

The original income and expenditure of Border Town were very simple, one line being the ore and gemstone trade. This line was monopolized by Longsong Stronghold, which exchanged the output of the North Slope Mine for wheat or bread. There were no taxes in between, and the resource exchange was managed by people sent from the stronghold. In simpler terms, the North Slope Mine was a joint-stock project of the great nobles of Longsong Stronghold. Those nobles stationed in Border Town could be seen as supervisors sent by the shareholders. Their fiefs were mostly east of the stronghold, and they only came here temporarily, with different people coming each year.

In fact, the history of Border Town was less than thirty years, making it like a newborn baby compared to Longsong Stronghold, which was nearly two hundred years old. Duke Ryan originally intended to establish an outpost here to provide early warning of demonic beast invasions. But unexpectedly, the pioneers discovered rich mineral resources in the North Slope Mountains, so they simply set up a town here and named it Border Town. In a sense, the North Slope Mine created the town.

To prevent illegal mining, the Duke did not adopt the suggestion of various nobles sending their own people to mine but instead uniformly hired local residents and nearby vagrants, and even criminals, to work as miners. The output of the ore was distributed according to the proportion of resources invested by each family. The stronghold only needed to provide the employees with food and some commission for the whole year. These rewards were fixed amounts and would not change depending on how much the mining area produced. More than half of Border Town's two thousand residents served the mining area.

The other line was the town's other industries—such as blacksmith shops, taverns, weaving, and so on. Border Town's meager tax revenue mainly came from here, and it was difficult to save much at the end of the year. The previous lord didn't take this barren land seriously. Since Roland was sent here by the King of Graycastle, he simply stayed in the stronghold and didn't come over.

Therefore, Roland could only pay for hiring people to build the city walls out of his own pocket. If it were the previous Fourth Prince, he would definitely not be willing to do so, but for Roland, as long as he could gain a foothold in Border Town, it was worth spending all his property. Anyway, the ore trade would no longer be settled in grain, and in terms of currency settlement, this investment was just a drop in the bucket.

The only question was whether Longsong Stronghold would be willing to give up its monopoly and conduct normal trade with Border Town—this was a bit like snatching food from a tiger's mouth, but the list data provided by Barov showed that, due to low labor mining efficiency and inconvenient transportation, the value of the ore produced each year was only over a thousand gold dragons, which was only a small fraction of the stronghold's total revenue. The only ones who would suffer losses were those nobles who had jointly invested.

For the long-term development of Border Town, this line had to be taken back. Roland knew in his heart that even if those people had recovered all their investments more than ten years ago, they would not easily let go. No matter how small a mosquito is, it's still meat, especially such a good thing as making money while lying down.

He was willing to give the previous investors certain discounts and compensation, such as buying at half price. But the matter of dragging a boatload of ore back only to exchange it for half a boatload of grain was not allowed to happen again.

While Roland was staring at the list and thinking, Barov was also watching him.

In the past three months, or rather, in the past month, some unspeakable changes had taken place in the Fourth Prince. Outsiders might not know it, but he was by the Prince's side every day, and such changes could not be hidden from him.

Back in Graycastle, he had heard of the Fourth Prince Roland Wimbledon's bad reputation. Doing his own thing, acting arbitrarily, without any aristocratic demeanor… and so on. In short, he didn't make big mistakes, but he constantly made small ones, and he was far behind his two brothers.

When His Majesty sent him here, he was full of disappointment. If His Majesty hadn't promised to appoint him as the official Minister of Finance after the battle for the throne, he would have wanted to quit.

In the first two months after arriving in Border Town, the Fourth Prince continued to show extremely childish behavior, offending all the local nobles he could. Fortunately, the town itself was extremely small, and even if all the administrative positions were vacant, he and the dozen or so clerical staff he brought could fill them.

After that, things became different.

When exactly did the change begin? He thought, probably… from saving that witch.

Barov had not ruled out the possibility of demonic possession or the Prince himself being controlled by another hidden witch. But this possibility was extremely small. If demons and witches had such abilities, why would they look for the Fourth Prince? Wouldn't it be better to directly control His Majesty or the Pope? Another point that dispelled his doubts was that he had personally seen the Prince holding the God's Stone of Retribution.

This thing was the church's trump card against witches, and any demonic power would collapse in front of the God's Stone of Retribution, but Roland held it directly. In other words, if he wasn't the Fourth Prince, but a demon king who didn't even need to fear divine power, then was there any need to expose him? Saving his own life was the top priority.

The Prince's style was still to do his own thing and act arbitrarily, but the two gave him different feelings. No, Barov thought about it, it should be the opposite.

The biggest difference should be the purposefulness. He sensed that Roland was planning something, and in order to achieve his goal, he had to adopt some methods that were difficult for ordinary people to understand. Just like how the other party tried to convince himself why he wanted to save a witch, the plan might not be mature and full of loopholes, but the Prince was indeed moving towards the plan and deeply believed in the result.

This was the most perplexing thing. The throne could be born in any one of Roland's siblings, but definitely not the Fourth Prince himself. He himself should be very clear about this. Talk about development in a small place like Border Town? Even the gods can't do it! What kind of crazy plan is Roland conceiving, so crazy that it can make a small town built outside the border defense line develop better than Goldens穗 City, and make himself completely believe that this plan will succeed?

If it was just a madman's delusion, that would be the end of it, but the city walls that Roland was vigorously building indicated that this didn't seem to be the case. He really intended to station himself here and use "cement," an alchemical product, to build a city wall that was almost impossible to complete in common sense.

There were alchemists in Barov's family, but he had never heard of an alchemy workshop making such a thing. Building a wall-building plan on something that no one had ever seen before, was this confidence or recklessness? Extending it to Roland's entire plan, how many things was the Fourth Prince still hiding that he didn't know? He found himself faintly interested in the days to come.

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