Infinite Reincarnation – Arthur Hurt - Chapter 94



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Infinite Reincarnation – Arthur Hurt Chapter 94

19-The Age of Discord

“Did you say it was two gold coins? It’ll be less of a headache if you just give them away.”

“Thank you for the advice.”

Arthur decided to follow Mark’s advice. After all, Mark, who was in the same industry, would be more accurate in his judgment of Ossarin Conte than he was, who had no information at all.

As Arthur was about to get up and thank Mark, Mark grabbed him.

“Oh, I received this nice gift, can I just send it away?”

“Didn’t you say nice things?”

“No, don’t do that. Let’s go out together. The timing is perfect.”

Mark got up, taking his coat. Arthur was annoyed by his own pace, but he followed him anyway, thinking it was a favor to repay him.

The place Mark arrived at was a bar. The location was right on the edge of a wealthy neighborhood, so the building looked nice and the food seemed like it would be clean.

When I went in, it was early evening, but there were quite a lot of people, and people were sitting at each table and chatting away.

“Is this your first time coming to a place like this?”

“Is it a pub?”

“okay.”

“That is true.”

“Then I guess you frequented the salon often.”

“I’ve been there on business and with friends, but I don’t enjoy it.”

Mark nodded at Arthur’s words and took a seat at the small table.

“But I don’t drink alcohol.”

“The beer here is delicious. What a shame.”

Mark didn’t bother to offer Arthur a drink. Then, a waitress approached him, walking sexily.

“What would you like to give me?”

“Oh! Nancy. I always eat that.”

“Yes. A glass of stout. Who’s the gentleman here?”

Arthur asked, looking at her smiling seductively at him.

“Do you have any hot tea?”

“There isn’t any.”

“What isn’t alcohol?”

“There is milk.”

“Then please give me warm milk.”

“Really?”

Nancy asked, looking at Arthur. Her gaze toward Arthur was like that of a strange creature. After all, it was probably the first time she had encountered a customer in a bar who didn’t ask for a drink.

Arthur nodded as if nothing else was needed, and Nancy moved to deliver the order to the kitchen.

“Wow~ No matter how many times I see it, it’s still a nice butt.”

Mark was amazed as he watched her back. Even the puffy employee skirt couldn’t hide the presence of her swaying hips.

Oh, there is that kind of thing. But Arthur pretended not to hear and changed the subject.

“Why did you bring me here?”

“I just wanted to talk to you. Was it Viscount Cho-Reng? I heard you often hang out with that nobleman at the salon.”

Are you saying you’ve heard such rumors? What a world…

Arthur responded calmly.

“So?”

“It’s strange, it’s strange. Nobles rarely mingle with commoners.”

“It’s because Cho-reng-nim takes good care of me.”

Mark said, waving his hand.

“Ah. I don’t doubt that gentleman’s character. But nobles and commoners are inherently difficult to get along with. That’s because of the system.”

Mark, a lawyer, explained it legally. The fundamental reason why nobles and commoners cannot get along is institutional differences.

The most extreme example was the dignity maintenance subsidy, which was given to the so-called fallen aristocracy and proletariat by the royal family, but it was ultimately money collected from the common people.

But how could a commoner who paid taxes like a fallen noble? Since they were nobles, it was natural to pretend to respect them on the outside, but to curse them as tax thieves on the inside.

Don’t they know that such gazes are from the proletariat? They are so sensitive to the contempt they feel for themselves that they hold on to the facade of nobility and build a wall. And they try to achieve success in any way they can.

But it was a bit difficult for Arthur to understand.

It was because it was hard to say that Madame Zeltni, Cho-reng, and Ten Young-ae were all building walls. If I go back to my childhood memories, didn’t someone like Johan Frant try to run away in the middle of the night with his older sister?

So Arthur nodded to Mark’s words and gave a clue.

“I see. I guess the nobles around me all treat me with special respect, so I didn’t feel any such barrier.”

Mart spoke in a feminine tone.

“That’s because there is no room for conflict between the two sides right now. What if their interests clash? Only then will they truly feel the gap between the nobles and the commoners. And once they feel that gap, there’s no going back to the past.”

Mark’s expression as he spoke seemed to be filled with regret.

“What do you think about equality?”

Ah. Fuck.

Arthur answered carefully, trying to avoid causing any trouble.

“It sounds like a dangerous word.”

“Yes, it is dangerous. And looking at history, it is also something that has never been done. Aren’t people born with different fates and talents?”

Arthur nodded. Mark’s words seemed purposeless. There was a nuance to them that the conversation itself was the purpose.

But the level of the conversation was tense. Arthur was not happy about it.

Mark must have noticed this mood, so he paused for a moment on the topic he was talking about, ‘Is custom really not involved in human inequality?’ and refreshed the mood.

“Do you know why I came here out of all the pubs I’ve been to?”

“well?”

“This pub is a place where a lot of people with ink in their heads visit. You can get a lot of news. Even high-quality information that you can’t get from newsletters.”

As Mark was saying that, a man came in, grumbling. Mark saw him and gestured for him to look.

“I guess something is going on today.”

At those words, Arthur looked at the man with an excited expression. The man climbed up onto a stool on one wall of the pub and shouted.

“everyone!”

Then the people who had been talking and chattering stopped talking and turned their attention to the man.

Mark whispered to Arthur.

“It’s a small platform. Anyone can come up there and say whatever they want. That’s why this pub is popular with people who have a little bit of ink on their lips.”

“Everyone! Your taxes are going up again!”

-Wow!

The man’s words were met with jeers, not at the man but at the rising taxes.

“And our great King revives the Church Land Law!”

-Wow!

The jeers flowed again. The adjective ‘great’ before His Majesty the King was clearly meant to be sarcastic, given the circumstances.

“Finally, the abolition of the nobles’ tax exemption has failed again! From now on, the peasants who own land will pay taxes while the landed nobles enjoy unearned income! Damn it!”

-Fuck!!

At the man’s shout, everyone shouted together and raised their beer glasses.

“The only thing that consoles us in this damned world is this bitter stout! Long live His Majesty the King!”

-Viva!

Everyone hurried to their pints and gave a rather profane cheer. The man hurried out of the pub again, grumbling.

Arthur looked at Mark. Mark spoke at that gaze.

“The name of the guy who just left is Fried Papaka. He’s a member of the Minjoo Assembly.”

“Are you going out without even drinking?”

“That guy isn’t the only one who brings news like that to this pub.”

He was a man who was involved in some kind of political activity. Arthur put the name Fried Papaca on his list of people to stay away from.

But soon Mark’s expression became serious.

“The revival of the Church Land Act… … This is a big deal… … .”

“What law is that?”

“Well… … To put it simply, it is a law that was passed to abolish the power of the clergy because the corruption of the church was so severe that it was detrimental to the country.”

Roughly speaking, are you saying that no taxes are levied on land owned by churches?

The original intention was to ensure that churches secure the minimum amount of land necessary for church operations. However, there was no regulation on how much “necessary” was, and when combined with the church’s blind interest in usury, it became an old evil that drastically reduced the number of self-employed farmers.

Arthur asked.

“Who revived that law?”

“Didn’t my friend who left earlier say that? His Majesty the King said so.”

Arthur’s head was spinning. In other words, the revival of the church land law meant that the religious powers and the king were joining hands.

Then why did they join hands? Arthur had a guess. Perhaps they were trying to use the church to appease the public angered by the increased taxes. Except in the secularized cities, the influence of the church and the clergy was still strong.

Arthur clicked his tongue inwardly. After thinking about it a little more, it seemed that the royal family was planning to properly exploit the peasants. Otherwise, there would have been no need to revive the evil laws to appease the peasants.

Could this be the scenario?

It makes life difficult in rural farming villages. Farmers come to the city to make a living and become workers.

The king’s supporters, the merchants and industrialists, hire cheap labor. This increases profits, collects more taxes, and gains the support of the merchants and industrialists.

In any case, from the king’s perspective, there was a limit to the taxes from the land. In addition, a considerable amount of land was already owned by landowners and taxing the nobles was also a failure. It would have been more beneficial for the king to move the labor force from rural areas to the city and create high value-added industries.

So the revival of the Church Land Law was a very appropriate measure. The revival of the evil law would have troubled the peasants living in the countryside, and the authority of the church and the tongues of the clergy would not have suppressed the peasants’ discontent and caused civil unrest. Since the Church Land Law had been revived, civil unrest was also disadvantageous to the religious community.

It was a very clever move, but from Arthur’s perspective, it seemed like a desperate measure that came after much thought.

Although the member of parliament named Friedland mentioned the failure of the abolition of the nobles’ exemptions at the end, from the king’s point of view, didn’t the failure of the abolition of the nobles’ exemptions come first?

The story was that the national treasury was in dire straits because taxes could not be collected from the nobles, so they had no choice but to collect them from other sources.

In essence, it was not that unusual. It is natural that tax cuts for the rich lead to tax increases for the common people.

The problem was that the damage caused by this was also felt by the urban commoners. Well, it was understandable, since the king could not blatantly discriminate between urban and rural areas.

“What do you think? Is it a fun place?”

“It seems like a good way to get information.”

If it’s fun, you should come often? Are you crazy? You hang around places that are disrespectful to the king?

So Arthur continued speaking:

“But I don’t drink alcohol, right?”

“Oh, that’s right.”

Mark nodded. But in the meantime, another person came in and stood on the podium.

“Everyone! How long are we going to have to live like this! Why are we the only ones paying so much in taxes?! Those land-owning nobles don’t pay a single penny in taxes! I can tell you that if they had just paid their taxes, we could have easily won the last war!”

“Right!”

Is that really true? Was the war entirely funded by the national treasury and taxes paid by the common people?

Arthur did not think so. He probably used the benefits of the war victory as bait to get investments from various nobles. He secretly pressured the nobles who did not invest to buy war bonds.

Otherwise, there would be no reason for the royal family to lead the way in reducing sugar consumption, changing the fashion for banquet dresses, etc.

Arthur probably didn’t hear about it, but there were other policies that curbed the luxury of the nobles and made them have money to invest in the war. If Arthur’s guess is correct, didn’t the nobles also suffer great losses in this war?