Chapter 244: Identity Registration

Outside the western city wall, under the direction of the First Army, six thousand refugees were moving through an identification inspection unlike anything the Western Territory had seen before.

Barov understood by now that what His Highness prized most was not gold, not land, not weapons. It was people. The Prince had spent more than two thousand gold royals to bring this crowd back from King’s City — charter fees, transportation, provisions for half a month at sea. Barov had nearly climbed the wall when Margaret’s chamber of commerce presented the final bill. That sum equaled four steam engines. If the deposit for two ship conversions had not arrived the previous month, this month’s ledger would have shown a deficit.

And now the cumbersome task of accounting for every one of them had landed squarely on Barov’s desk. Every City Hall official, every literate apprentice, had been dispatched to the wooden sheds and queuing lines. Watching the long columns of refugees inch forward through the checkpoints, Barov felt, not unpleasantly, as though he were watching a procession of moving coins.

His own line — the specialists’ queue — was comparatively quiet. Fifty or sixty people had come through in the time the common lines had processed hundreds.

“I am… a carpenter,” a middle-aged man said, arriving at the table. “I heard that craftsmen receive their own living quarters?”

“That is correct.” Seney Darley — former Wolf Family knight, now borrowed from the Ministry of Agriculture — kept his pen ready. “Your name? Can you read?”

The reassignment had worked out better than expected. The man made no mistakes. Barov approved of him.

“My name is Maser, sir.” A hesitation. “I cannot read.”

“You cannot read or write?”

“No, sir.”

“Very well — as a carpenter, then…” Sirius flipped through the pile of trade-specific question sheets until he found the right one. “Let me ask you a few things.”

The preliminary examination method was His Highness’s own invention. He had gathered craftsmen from every trade, questioned them on specialized knowledge and practical problems, recorded their answers, and produced a standardized set of questions. Compare any claimant’s answers against the form, and deception became visible within two or three questions. Barov had never seen anything like it, and his first instinct — despite himself — had been something close to admiration. Most civilians would not know the specialized vocabulary, let alone the texture of the work.

“What tool is used to flatten a wooden surface?”

“A carpenter’s plane, sir.”

“What are the commonly used saws?”

“Frame saws and two-man saws. Hand saws for smaller cuts.”

Several questions later, Maser’s voice had found its rhythm — each answer coming a little more smoothly than the last. Sirius reached for the register.

“Wait.” Barov spoke before the pen touched paper. Then, to Maser: “Stretch out your hands.”

Confusion crossed the man’s face. He complied.

Barov looked at the palms. Rough and cracked, yellowed with dried earth, thick calluses at the base of every finger.

“A carpenter’s palms should not be this rough,” he said, not unkindly — this was explanation, not accusation, and there was a distinction. “The lower pads especially, from constant contact with wood, should be smooth and hardened, not split like field work. Carpenters also work frequently with black marking paint. Their palms tend to be dark-stained, not yellow.” He indicated the man’s hands. “Beyond that — he paused before each answer, breaking eye contact. Someone recalling unfamiliar knowledge does that. A working carpenter would have answered without thinking.”

Sirius’s eyes went wide.

Barov looked at Maser directly. “You heard the First Army’s warnings when they brought you here. Impersonation, deception, or refusal to register — punished by labor in the mines or expulsion from the Western Territory. With that in mind, are you still a carpenter?”

Maser dropped to his knees. “No, sir, I was wrong! My neighbor was a carpenter — I only watched him work!”

“Go stand in the other line.”

When the man had fled, Sirius asked, with the open wondering expression of someone who has just seen a thing he cannot account for: “Sir. How do you know all this?”

“During the Months of Demons I conducted a census for His Highness,” Barov answered, permitting himself to sound unconcerned about it. “I dealt with every carpenter in the town. I recorded these things at the time.” He turned back to the forms.

He could feel the admiration in the knight’s expression without looking at it, and permitted himself a private moment of satisfaction. The Prince’s examination system was clever. But no system, however clever, could substitute for the kind of knowledge that came only from direct experience and careful observation. For that, one needed someone like Barov.

Though he was honest enough with himself to note, privately, that His Highness’s influence had already changed how he thought about situations like this one. The old response to a fraud was a swift and public punishment — visible enough to discourage others. But now he had to let this one go. Presumably the Prince’s reasoning was financial: every refugee represented a return on a significant investment. Breaking them against a post before they’d contributed anything would simply have been burning his own gold royals.

When the next legitimate craftsman cleared the specialized examination, Sirius glanced up at Barov rather than writing immediately.

Barov sized the man up. Nodded. “Write him in. I’ll bring him to see His Highness.”

Through the passage in the city wall, the last checkpoint was a shed erected for the Prince himself. It was there that each candidate received His Highness’s direct inquiry, and if confirmed, was issued a Resident Identity Card: a sheet of laminated hard paper, palm-sized, with a painted portrait in the upper left corner, the bearer’s name, address, and number in the center, and on the reverse, Graycastle’s crest and Roland’s personal seal.

Barov had his own card. He had examined it carefully when it was issued and could not account for the material — neither soaking in water nor fire damaged it in any way. That was the witch Soraya’s doing, evidently. It appeared His Highness intended to extend the card system to the whole town eventually, using it as the basis for purchases and payments.

The same witch whose young-lady face had appeared on that stage today, receiving a medal in front of two thousand people.

Barov considered this as he walked. Since the Award and Honor Ceremony, the question he had been deferring — the Church or the Devil — had been quietly resolving itself. He had spent years dismissing His Highness as a footnote. He was finding it increasingly difficult to maintain that position. Border Town’s population had already surpassed Longsong Stronghold’s. Next year’s construction plan would connect the two settlements into a single city larger than King’s City — the most magnificent city in Graycastle, if His Highness’s vision could be believed.

And the City Hall Premier Minister would hold his position in the center of all of it.

There was still a long way to go, naturally. Much could change. But within his chest, quiet and persistent, was something he recognized after a moment as hope — for the first time in quite a while.

Chapter 244 Identity Registration

Outside of the western city walls, under the guidance of the First Army, the refugees were undergoing an unprecedented identification inspection.

By now, Barov had naturally come to understand that the resource which His Highness regarded as the most important was people. In order to bring all of these people back to Border Town, His Highness had spent a lot of gold royals and had even sent the First Army on an expedition to King’s City. When Barov had seen the final bill from Margaret’s chamber of commerce, he had almost climbed up the wall.

Adding up the caravan’s charter fees, the transportation fees, and the fees for the food supply after half a month, the Prince had spent more than two thousand gold royals, which was equivalent to the price of four steam engines. If they hadn’t received the deposit for the transformation of two ships by last month, Barov was afraid that the financial report statistics this time would have shown a deficit.

After the evacuation of the people, the task of creating this cumbersome and huge statistics had all been placed on his shoulders. Almost all of the City Hall officials and apprentices had been dispatched to set up the wooden sheds and the related lines for the crowd, so that they could start with writing the classification statistics. Seeing the more than a dozen lines of fugitives all slowly going through the inspection, it was as if Barov was seeing a group of moving coins.

Compared to the lines for the ordinary civilians’ registration, the line for the professionals that he himself was personally responsible for was far more deserted. Until now, there had only been fifty to sixty people come in.

“I am… a carpenter,” a middle-aged man said after slowly walking over, “I heard that any craftsman can get their own place to live?”

“That’s right,” Seney Darley then further asked. “What’s your name? Are you able to read?”

The former knight of the Wolf Family had come over from the Ministry of Agriculture. But he had managed not to make any mistake, which left Barov very satisfied that he chose him for this task. Although this had to do with demographic statistics, the City Hall unfortunately only had a small number of people who had learned how to read and write, so without any better option, they had no other choice but to pull all of the literate people from the other departments together here.

“Uh… to answer Sir, my name is Maser.” The other party paused, “I must admit, I have never learned how to read.

“You can’t read or write?”

“Yes,” the middle-aged men nodded.

“Well, as a carpenter then…” Sirius turned his attention to the pile of questions on the table, looking for the one marked with carpenter, “Ah, found it. Let me ask you a few questions.

The preliminary trial method was an idea His Highness came up with, he had gathered craftsman from all kinds of industries, inquired them about specialized knowledge together with some problems and their corresponding method to deal with them. He then recorded all of their answers and formulated a set of questions. As a result, as long as they compared the given answers with the answers on the form during the audit, they would immediately know if the other party was lying or not. It was the first time that he had ever seen such a method used to detect lies. Barov couldn’t help but want to applaud the devil’s mind, if the other side wasn’t engaged in the industry, most civilians would never be able to understand these concepts. In case someone wanted to feign his occupation, as long as they asked two to three questions, the liar would be choked speechless.

“What kind of tool is used to flatten a wooden surface?”

“It’s… a carpenter’s plane, Sir.”

“What are the commonly used saws?”

“Frame saws and two-man saws, occasionally hand saws when cutting small items.”

Several questions later, Maser could almost answer all of them, and with every further right answer, his voice became more smooth and easy.

“Ah, it seems you are indeed a carpenter,” but the moment Sirius wanted to write down his identity into the register, Barov interrupted him.

“Sir?”

“Don’t be so quick with your judgment, first you have to examine his hands,” then he said to Maser, “Stretch out your hands.”

The moment Maser heard this command he felt startled, but he then spread out his hands with a look full of confusion on his face – the skin on his palms was very rough, fissured and had many traces of earth particles, furthermore below every finger were thick calluses, all in all, they looked very weatherbeaten.

“If he was a carpenter, then his palms should not be so rough, especially those two pads beneath the palm, due to constantly rubbing over the wood, they should be smooth and hard. Furthermore, carpenters often need to use black paint to draw contour lines, therefore their palms will often be stained with a black ink that is hard to wash off, turning their palms black instead of yellow.” Barov calmly explained. “Another point, before he gave you an answer he would always break eye contact – many people who were trying to recall something that they didn’t usually do in the past, would show a similar kind of expression to this. However, if was a real carpenter, he would have given his answers in a very natural manner.”

“Understood… then,” Sirius’ eyes became large.

Barov looked at the astonished Maser, then said with a heavy voice, “You should have heard the warnings of the First Army when they called you over, any act of impersonation, deception or refusal of register will be severely

punished. Either by being sentenced to work in the mines, or being expelled from the Western Territory, so if you understand this, do you still think you are a carpenter?”

“No, Sir, I was wrong!” Maser said, falling to his knees. “My neighbor was a carpenter, I would just often watch him work!”

“Then go over there and line up.”

Seeing the other flee, Sirius asked full of wonder, “Sir, how do you know all these things?”

“During the Months of Demons, I have done a census for His Highness. I had to deal with every carpenter in the town, and at that time I conveniently recorded such information,” Barov answered while pretending to be unconcerned. But when he saw the admiration and shock in the knight’s face, a feeling of pride arose within his heart.

Although the devil’s methods appeared to be clever, in the end, some people will eventually deceive it, and only people like himself, have the talent needed to make up for His Highness deficiency.

But under the influence of His Highness, their recent approach to deal with such problems was no longer the same as it was in the past… Barov couldn’t help but secretly sigh. For example, commoners of the previous kind, in the past it had been important to punish them with in a thunderous manner, in order intimidate those who would otherwise begin to stir. But nowadays he had to let all of them go, this was most likely because the Prince wanted to save gold royals – after all, every fugitive here was worth a lot of money. In case they didn’t live and work in Border Town for several years, they would simply not have been worth the expenses of transporting them over such a long distance by ship.

When the next fugitive passed the specialized inquiry, instead of immediately writing him into the register, Sirius first looked to Barov for his approval.

Who in return seized the man up, and then nodded, “Write his details into the register, I will take him to see His Highness.”

After going through a passage in the city wall, they came to a stop in front of a shed set up for His Highness, which was also the last checkpoint.

Here, they would receive His Highness’s personal inquiry. If it is confirmed that there is no problems, they would be given a “Resident Identity Card (ID)”, and from then would become a formal resident of Border Town. With the current lack of houses in the inner town, they had no other choice than to give priority and provide the first living places to the artisans. While the fugitives with no particular skill, had no other option than to wait outside of the wall for two to three months.

Barov also possessed a ID card – it was a sheet of hard paper painted with color. It was almost palm sized and on the left upper corner was a painting of his head, which looked the same as a real person. While his name, address and number was written in the middle. The back of the card in turn was covered with the Graycastle’s crest and His Highness personal seal. No matter if it was the paper itself or the film it was wrapped into, they were both very strange. Whether it was by soaking it in water or trying to burn it in a fire, nothing could damage the ID card.

There was no doubt that this thing was certainly made by the witch named Soraya. It seemed that His Highness intended to spread the ID card to the whole town, so that in the future whether it was to buy food or pay, they would have to show their certificate.

Since His Royal Highness had awarded the medal to the young lady of the Pine Family during the Award and Honor Ceremony, it had become evident that the Prince no longer intended to hide the existence of the witch. Which in turn meant Barov had finally to come to a conclusion of who was right and who was wrong, the Devil or the Church… unexpectedly discovering that there was a faint hope within his heart that His Highness can defeat the Church and ultimately unify the Kingdom of Graycastle.

There was no doubt, the higher position His Highness could achieve, the greater the reward he could reap would become.

Of course, there was still a long way to go before they reached that moment, so it could still be put aside and considered later on. By now the population

of Border Town had surpassed Longsong Stronghold’s, furthermore, His Royal Highness had also revealed his next year’s construction plan – once the town was connected with the stronghold, more than half of the Western Territory would be turned into one city, with a size that was undoubtedly larger than King’s City, becoming the most magnificent city of Graycastle. And at that time, as the City Hall Premier Minister, what kind of promotion would he receive?

Barov’s heart was full of expectation for the future.