Chapter 482 — The Newspaper Comes First

The clergy of Frostgate knew nothing of what was happening beyond the sealed city walls. In truth, even without the blockade they would not have noticed the infiltration and subversion rising from the lowest of the common folk. Since that day of public burning at the stake in the square, Frostgate had fallen into a temporary calm. The prelates of the Great Cathedral believed that burning those propaganda materials had solved the problem—that at the very least they had halted Cecil's further sabotage in time. In reality, a far more turbulent force was brewing beneath that illusion of calm, brewing in every corner of the blockaded city.

Rumors of uncertain origin began to spread through the city. After nightfall people gathered furtively in their homes, discussing the dwindling rations and the locked gates of the cathedral district. Some said they had seen cartloads of grain hauled into the cathedral quarter; some said the vaults beneath Frostgate Cathedral held enough food to feed the whole city for a year; and other, more disturbing reports claimed that the city's clergy had already begun making preparations to flee. Rumors of every shape and color seemed to sprout overnight, blossoming everywhere, then spreading swiftly through the entire outer city.

And more leaflets and pamphlets still, amid this surging undercurrent, found their way into the city by hidden channels.

The burnings and executions in the square had indeed produced a powerful deterrent effect. A great many commoners were cowed, and when the new leaflets appeared, many promptly chose to hand them in of their own accord—but others chose to secretly keep them. In this second batch of leaflets there was not only exposure of the Daylight Church, but descriptions of another, better life: a more enlightened faith, a more prosperous life, and the Holy Light that belonged to everyone. To the people of Lu'an, already enduring a long life of high-pressure blockade, these things held an indescribable allure.

Thus, even as great numbers of leaflets were voluntarily surrendered, others passed into more secret channels of circulation. They spread through neglected alleys, spread through dim nights, spread among a hungry and frightened people. Their passage may have been harder, yet they left a deeper impression in people's hearts—and in the process, Frostgate was quietly splitting apart in ways almost impossible to perceive.

The prelates in the Great Cathedral would likely never understand why those leaflets held such allure for commoners. But the Military Intelligence agents carrying out sabotage within the city understood it perfectly: before Cecil's rise, no group of extraordinary beings or nobles in this world had ever spoken to the people with the attitude of addressing a "person"—even if that address was only a few lines printed on paper, only a few greetings, a few words of encouragement, a few promises. The warmth they carried was precious beyond measure in this cold age.

The commoners of Frostgate counted among the upper tier of commoners. They were wealthier, more respectable, more literate than ordinary folk—but commoners they remained. In an age where every person knew their rank, they were still the lowest stratum within Myrjade. In peaceful and prosperous times they might live better than people elsewhere, but once times grew hard, their living conditions would plummet—and that vast落差 only deepened the discontent in their hearts, widening the gulf between them and the city's clergy.

Of course, the Great Cathedral was not forever blind to all this. The edges of the cathedral district were bound to the outer city by countless threads. As new leaflets were discovered and handed in, the high prelates finally grew alert. They were astonished by the quantity of these leaflets and the speed with which they were replenished, and at once launched repeated searches and interrogations across every district. In the course of this, Bishop Franbelang of Lu'an went so far as to summon the whole city's residents and preach to them in the square. He told them all that Frostgate's present hardships were caused solely by Cecil's blockade—that Cecil was the true author of their troubles—and he urged them to keep their piety toward the God of Holy Light and their loyalty to the Church, and to face these hard times with the greatest fortitude.

It was a sermon that could be called successful. Franbelang had somewhat restored the confidence of a portion of the commoners. Yet after the sermon ended, dozens of commoners suspected of privately discussing the Church and the leaflets received public floggings. As the lash fell, more people only accumulated further resistance and resentment toward Frostgate Cathedral.

It may have been Cecil who blockaded the city, but it was the monks who wielded the whip and seized the rations. For most ordinary people, the details of this conflict did not matter in the least. They cared only about their own lives.

More image materials were transmitted beyond Frostgate at the first opportunity, sent to Cecil's homeland, sent to the printing factories of the four new industrial cities of the Southern Region, where they became tens of thousands of newspapers and were dispatched across the whole of the South.

With the adoption of industrial printing presses, the Cecil Weekly's circulation and frequency both rose greatly. Now it could be published across the entire territory, and it had gone from one issue a week to two, with an occasional special edition besides.

With its ever-widening audience, the Cecil Weekly now had more and more readers. Merchants used it to sniff out business opportunities, scholars used it to accumulate knowledge, and literate commoners relied on it to learn of grain price shifts and changes in official decrees. Even the illiterate would gather around those who could read and listen as others read the paper aloud, to learn of the changes in this land—for all this information was bound up with their food, clothing, shelter, and travel.

Benny, who lived in Caroll City, was a person closely tied to the newspaper. On the first and sixth days of every week he would arrive early at the place where papers were sold, getting the latest issue of the Cecil Weekly ahead of everyone else—and he would take many, many copies at a time.

Because he was a newsboy.

This was a newly emerged "profession"—not even a proper profession yet. To get the newspapers distributed as quickly as possible and ease the pressure on the Press Bureau, officials of the Administrative Office had recruited a batch of children from the newly established general-knowledge schools. The criteria were poor family circumstances and good grades. These children went out to work on Monday and Saturday mornings when there were no classes. The pay for half a day's work was not much, but for them and the families behind them it was still a hard-won supplement to their income. Benny, having learned some spelling from his father and doing well in school, obtained this precious job.

In the early morning, when the first line of sunlight still hesitated on the horizon and the newly installed mana-crystal streetlamps of the city streets had not yet gone dark, Benny had already arrived at the gate of the Press Bureau. Behind him queued a dozen or so people, half of them half-grown children like himself.

Greeting his companions, chatting about the city's fresh happenings or gossiping about the teachers at the general-knowledge school, the time slipped by unnoticed. Benny greatly enjoyed this relaxed, pleasant feeling. Though he could not have put it into words, he knew that the coming of the Cecil people had changed everything in the city of Mysthold. Many adults seemed anxious about the changes in the city, but Benny rather thought life was pretty good now.