Lord of the Frozen Winter: Starting with Daily Intelligence Reports

All of Varius's education, as well as his instinctive legal intuition, resisted this entire line of reasoning.

In the classics he had studied, order came from the bestowal of superiors, and authority came from the endorsement of divinity.

If power could be lent and retracted, then the law would lose its foundation, loyalty would degenerate into a transaction, and the entire world would be left with nothing but naked calculation.

This was fallacy—at least, it had been for the entirety of his past life.

Varius forced himself to calm down, pushing his emotions back into the depths of his heart as if he were in the Imperial Court.

He quickly searched through those familiar arguments in his mind, trying to find a flaw sufficient to pierce through this system.

After a few breaths, his train of thought suddenly stopped.

Not because he fully agreed, but because he had finally caught a crack that he could refute.

Varius finally raised his head, took a deep breath, and spoke again: "My Lord, in the Imperial Capital, I too have seen countless commoners who do not have enough to eat."

"They are slaughtered by knights, yet they remain submissive. If the weak have no power at all to resist the strong..."

"...then why should the strong care about this contract?"

Hearing this, Louis smiled.

The light outside the window cast a cold edge along his silhouette.

"You're right. In this transcendent world, commoners indeed cannot kill an Emperor. Even if a city is slaughtered, the strong still sit upon their thrones."

He walked back to the map and raised his hand to point at the location of the Imperial Capital.

"But resistance does not only take the form of drawing a sword. In this world, when a contract is broken, the weak truly cannot kill the strong."

"So they choose another path: they stop giving everything beyond what is required for survival to the state."

He raised his hand and pointed to the various farmland markings on the map.

"Farmers no longer plow the fertile fields deeply. Because harvesting an extra bushel of grain won't bring lower taxes; it will only bring heavier levies."

"They only sow enough seeds in their own plots for their families to survive the winter and barely cover their taxes. Any surplus harvest can neither be kept nor protected."

Louis's finger pointed to the workshop area on the other side.

"It's the same for craftsmen. Repeatedly honing their craft and forging durable tools requires time, energy, and materials."

"But these efforts receive no extra reward."

"What they hand over is only undervalued by nobles, embezzled by knights, or even forcibly requisitioned."

"So they only do the bare minimum. The tools are usable, but not durable."

Finally, his gaze fell on the areas marked with Legions.

"As for the knights, when they find that charging at the front does not bring honor, but only results in being used as expendables time and again."

"When pensions are delayed, fiefs are constantly reduced, and even their families ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) are not protected after they die in battle, they no longer die for their lords."

"They start to calculate: how much money does this battle pay? Is it worth getting injured? Is there any need to risk their lives?"

Louis lowered his hand: "Order begins to bleed from the inside. It's not a riot, but the entire kingdom quietly withering away."

A red pen was stabbed heavily into the map, right at the Imperial Capital.

"The current Empire has already reached this stage. The strong cannot be killed, but they will slowly be starved to death."

"When the foundation is completely rotten, no external enemy is needed. With a single gust of wind, this behemoth will collapse on its own."

Louis drew a simple circle on the map.

"Establish order, exploit excessively, break trust, decline national strength, collapse and destroy, a new strongman appears, and establishes a new order."

"This is the cycle of death that has never stopped on this continent for a thousand years, and we are now standing at the darkest tail-end of this cycle."

Varius remained silent for a long time.

Those words unfolded layer by layer in his mind, like old archives being re-examined.

He thought of the history of the Empire's rise and fall, and the familiar scenes during the successions of past Emperors: increased taxes, corrupt military discipline, halted workshops, and border rebellions.

When these fragments were placed into the same logical framework, they actually fit together seamlessly.

It wasn't accidental, nor was it moral corruption; it was an inevitable result.

Varius's lips moved as if he wanted to refute, but in the end, he said nothing.

Louis turned to look at Varius, his eyes devoid of pity: "That's why I never intended to be a stronger Emperor from the start. That would merely be the starting point of the next cycle."

He raised his hand and pointed toward the city outside the window, where lights and steam intertwined: "What I want to establish is a system... in Red Tide, the contract is two-way."

"I give them dignity and paths for advancement; they give me creativity and loyalty. It's not about driving them with a whip, but letting them know there really is a road ahead if they run."

Varius felt a chill crawl up his spine.

He had spent his whole life upholding the dignity of imperial power, firmly believing that as long as the Emperor was strong enough, the country would not collapse.

But Louis's words seemed to negate all of that from the very roots.

The most terrifying thing was never the swords of rebels, but the silence of submissive subjects.

That silent, invisible decay was more despairing than a legion's rebellion.

Varius finally understood that the Old Empire was beyond saving.

His legs went weak, and he sank heavily into his chair, as if his last ounce of strength had been drained away.

"So that's how it is..." Varius was now drenched in sweat. "This is why no matter how many knights the Imperial Capital has, it cannot stop the decline. Because the roots... are already dead."

Louis's entire previous line of reasoning was far too heterodox for him, yet it was calm, rigorous, and lacked any obvious logical cracks.

It made him feel a long-lost unease, forced to rethink within the field he was most familiar with.

He raised his hand to wipe his forehead with his cuff, took a deep breath, and finally posed his last core question as a legal scholar and a survivor of the Old Empire's bureaucratic system:

"My Lord, if as you say, the state itself is a contract, then what role should the law play?"

Every word he spoke had been carefully weighed.

"Is it merely a means for you to ensure the contract is fulfilled? Is it, in the final analysis, still a sword hanging over the heads of those who breach it, used for deterrence and punishment?"

That was his most instinctive understanding: law was equivalent to punishment, equivalent to another form of violence.

After listening, Louis shook his head: "A weapon? No. Weapons are for fighting wars, suppressing, and dealing with enemies. Law is meant to solve something else."

Then Louis asked a question: "What do you think this city is like?"

He did not wait for Varius to answer before continuing: "It's like a massive machine. Bakers, blacksmiths, farmers, soldiers... everyone is a gear embedded within it."

"When gears mesh together to operate, there will inevitably be friction, jams, and problems."

"The law is the instruction manual for this machine, and the oil that lubricates it."

Louis held up a finger: "Its purpose for existing is not to kill people, but to reduce friction."

"Why define private property? It's so the baker knows this bag of flour is his, and no one can take it away at will."

"Only then can he bake bread with peace of mind, instead of spending all day clutching a knife at the warehouse door."

"Why emphasize contracts? It's so the blacksmith believes that as long as he forges tools according to the agreement, the other party must pay."

"Only then can he focus on his smithing, instead of constantly worrying about being cheated out of payment."

Louis lowered his finger and looked at Varius: "Ultimately, the law only does two things."

"First, it makes clear what belongs to whom and who should bear responsibility."

"Second, when interests conflict, it tells everyone what rules should be followed to resolve it, rather than relying on fists and swords."

"What the law truly does is draw a line."

"It tells everyone which piece is yours, which step you can take, and which step you cannot cross."

"As long as one stands within this line, they can work with peace of mind and act freely. Only when the line is crossed must a price be paid."

Louis paused, then added: "In the Old Empire, you carved laws onto stone tablets for people to kneel before. But in Red Tide, people are the subject, and the law is merely a tool."

"Since the subjects are people, and people themselves are living and changing, the law cannot be unchanging."

"New ways of production will be created, and new problems that old rules cannot cover will be encountered."

"If the law stands still while people move forward, what will be torn apart is order itself."

Varius stood frozen on the spot. At this moment, the sacred halo surrounding the law in his eyes was fading away bit by bit.

Louis didn't seem to notice the change in Varius's eyes and continued:

"The Old Empire's code of law was used for three hundred years, with almost no changes permitted. But in those three hundred years, lands changed owners, the population multiplied several times over, and the methods of warfare changed... only the law remained stationary."

"If reality has already moved forward a hundred steps while the law remains stationary, then it is no longer a part of order, but an obstacle."

He looked up at Varius.

"So what I need you to do is not to guard a set of legal articles left by ancestors for me, treating them as untouchable holy relics."

"I want you to be like someone repairing a running machine: adjust the gears when the structure changes, replace parts when the load changes, and rewrite the rules when they are no longer applicable."

"Make the law always suitable, clear, and reliable, instead of becoming a burden that slows down all of Red Tide."

Louis finished his discourse on the essence of law and turned his gaze to the map, thinking of who knows what.

Varius did not speak immediately either. He stood there, his gaze passing over Louis and falling outside the massive glass wall.

The city was still in operation.

On the streets, night-shift workers pushed carts forward, patrolling knights changed shifts at intersections, and distant factories spat out white steam, which was then torn apart by the cold wind.

A long silence then fell upon the room.

It felt as though a storm had just passed through; the old concepts that had originally occupied his heart were uprooted, yet no new creed immediately filled the void, leaving only an unsettlingly clean empty space.

Varius suddenly realized that everything Louis had just said was not a negation of the law.

On the contrary, it was pulling the law down from its altar and placing it back among the people.

And this was exactly what he had wanted to do his whole life, yet had never been able to achieve.

During those years in the Imperial Capital, he had participated in the revision of the New Empire Charter, trying countless times to add footnotes, explanations, and flexible clauses to the rigid old laws.

But every time, he would be pushed back by a single sentence: 'The Imperial Code of Law must not be lightly changed.'

Law was treated as a symbol of authority, rather than a means of solving problems.

He had vaguely sensed this wrongness, but no one had ever dissected the problem and explained it as thoroughly as Louis.

More importantly, Louis was not just talking about empty theories; he had Red Tide City, and even the two major provinces of the North and Greystone, as evidence.

It was written in the streets, workshops, mining areas, and the daily lives of countless ordinary people.

Varius slowly exhaled. The reason he felt shaken by these words was that in the deepest part of his heart, he had long ago agreed with them.

It was just that in the past, he had neither the power nor the environment to admit it.

Varius had spent his entire life searching for a moral Saint-King, placing his hopes on a sufficiently noble and wise person to correct the world's deviations through personal virtue.

He had once thought that person would be the Fourth Prince, but that hope was later shattered by reality. In Red Tide City, in this great city, he had once again thought he had finally found the answer.

Until now, he finally realized that what was truly needed was never a perfect person.

But a system that could continue to function without relying on a saint.

But Varius fell into a sense of emptiness after being convinced, because the old had collapsed and the new had not yet been built.

Louis broke the silence. He walked to the desk and picked up the scroll of the draft that had been repeatedly revised.

"Excellency Varius," he began, "the reason the Old Empire decayed was not because it lacked laws, but because its laws were like a fog."

"The power of interpretation was always held in the mouths of nobles and priests. But Red Tide is different..."

He lightly tapped the draft. "The foundation here is the contract, but the contract cannot be vague. It must be written clearly and fixed in place."

Louis turned around and looked the old man straight in the eye: "Perhaps I understand the way power operates, but I lack a sufficiently precise pen."

"What I want you to do is to write down those abstract things using the most rigorous and clear language."

"Let it become a ruler that measures the Emperor above and the commoners below."

Louis pulled a fountain pen from the pen holder; it was a product of the Red Tide Workshop, with a simple body and no extra decorations.

He handed the fountain pen and the draft together to Varius: "The code of the Old Empire has already burned away with that fire of yours."

Louis looked at him: "Now there is a blank sheet of paper here. Are you willing to pick up this pen and write the first line of rules for this newborn land?"

Varius's gaze fell on the fountain pen, its black barrel glinting coldly under the light.

He knew very well what accepting it meant.

It meant he would personally lay the foundation for a new set of rules, and it also meant he would completely bury the old rules he had been loyal to for a lifetime.

His hands trembled slightly.

He no longer needed to argue, and no longer needed to search for profound meanings in old dossiers.

The true legal principle was right before his eyes.

Varius did not reach out immediately. He took a deep breath, stepped back half a pace, and straightened his long-worn collar.

Then, he solemnly knelt on both knees.

"Lord Governor." His voice was raspy, yet firmer than ever before. "I am willing to take up this pen."

Varius raised both hands above his head and accepted the fountain pen.

Louis did not let him kneel for long.

He stepped forward, steadily supporting the old man's arms and helping him up: "Rise. From today on, you are the Legislator of Red Tide."

The two stood side by side before the massive floor-to-ceiling window.

The night had not yet fully receded, but deep within the city, a new round of lights was turning on.

From afar came the low and long whistle of a train.

That sound pierced through the darkness, announcing that a brand-new order was starting up.