The commoners who had come to "make trouble" were taken away by the soldiers. They would be assigned to construction sites in Northport's western district, where plenty of jobs requiring little skill awaited them. Their status would be "troublemakers sentenced to labor for provoking disturbances." In light of their actions, they would be sentenced to several hours of labor—and out of the most obvious, most basic needs of survival, they would also receive a hot meal, a hot bath, and a "negligible stipend for diligent labor."
Victoria had never seen anything like this.
"Rules can sometimes be too rigid, so we need to improvise on the spot, especially in a place far from the imperial capital with such distinctive local customs," Byron said with a shrug, glancing at Victoria, who had emerged from the Light Bending Field and was staring at him in stunned disbelief. "These commoners were 'incited' by local minor nobles and estate owners. At first, that was all it was.
"The construction corps building Northport here had obviously provoked certain people—but the Verde Family's influence kept them from acting openly, so they tried other methods to test us. They incited or bribed some commoners who did not know the truth. Those commoners had indeed arrived furious at first, but they soon discovered that we were more 'kind and generous' than the people who had incited them. The construction corps had ample supplies, while the commoners wanted very little. They could do simple work here and receive food that they could once only enjoy on special occasions.
"But what had an even greater effect was the hot water. Our communal bathhouse was the most popular place here—far more popular than I expected. The camp now had two waste-heat recovery centers and a central heat exchange station, while the