The chaotic situation in the Papal State made the continental landscape increasingly clear. Those who had once held hopes for the Church rising from the ashes had now grown pessimistic as well.
As every nation began snatching people, vast swathes of the once-prosperous Papal State directly turned into uninhabited zones.
The most immediate impact was the continual decline in slave prices on the international market.
Those noble lords short on manpower had started doing the snatching themselves, and the pool of buyers rapidly shrank.
In Snow Moon Territory, while everyone else was busy in the Papal State, Hudson, who was quietly making a fortune behind the scenes, was leisurely sunning himself at home.
Recently, good news had been arriving in the kingdom without end.
First, the Beastfolk had voluntarily retreated, yielding vast grasslands and allowing the Kingdom Army to easily advance eight hundred li eastward.
Of course, these lands were only under nominal control. Once the Kingdom Army withdrew, the Beastfolk tribes returned to graze there.
Before the defensive line was completed, the kingdom had no way to truly control these regions.
Still, nominal control was also a great strategic victory, as it meant the offensive and defensive positions of the two sides had been reversed.
The Beastfolk tribes fled at the very sight of the Kingdom Army, something that would have been impossible in the past.
If those benefits were long-term gains, then the noble private armies' operations in the Papal State brought immediate returns.
Massive amounts of spoils were shipped back to the kingdom by the boatload.
In merely two months, the Near East Development Bank had issued fifteen million in physical collateral loans.
What the Kingdom government purchased cheaply from the nobles was appraised even more cheaply as collateral. Most of it was valued at only forty