CHAPTER 481: CHAPTER 459: THE MARRIAGE BETWEEN BEASTMAN AND HUMAN

Leaving the Arms Factory, Horn didn’t feel hungry because he had eaten late.

Then, with a dozen military police, he followed the Parra River all the way south.

The soles of his boots stepped on the damp cedar plank; on the brown-black wooden path, two or three beastmen carrying bags or pushing carts could be seen passing by from time to time.

Under the shade of the riverside trees, there were couples cuddling together.

"Your Grace, look." Raphael, walking beside Horn, reminded him.

Originally admiring the sparkling scenery of the river, Horn followed his direction and was startled.

They wore human linen robes, whispering sweet nothings to each other or teasing the fluff in their lover’s ears.

Yes, on Horn’s journey, among the couples he saw, five out of ten were human and beastman.

During Horn’s construction of the Autumn Dusk Island base, it gradually became the actual capital of the Beast Kingdom unions.

The King’s Council of the Beastman United Kingdom is located on Autumn Dusk Island, where any disputes between the beastmen are generally resolved by the Senate.

Moreover, compared to rural areas, this rundown small town is like a cosmopolitan city to them, even bigger than the Great Carthage Royal Capital.

Many beastmen kings of small kingdoms simply adopted a monarch-offline system, moving their entire families to the island, and handing over state matters to the Prime Minister.

Horn also fulfilled his promise from back then, granting many beastman nobles estates and allowing them to build houses on their landed properties.

Their migration aside from returning to the old capital, the most important reason was—

Compared to Daze Village’s beastmen, where females greatly outnumber males, Autumn Dusk Island has a large number of unattached human males.

Women beastmen who couldn’t find husbands often worked alongside humans, frequently encountering "Brother, you smell nice" situations.

Beastmen, being a subspecies of humans, have no reproductive isolation; their children inherit either beastman or human traits, not mixed.

Unlike dwarves, who have a certain degree of reproductive isolation with humans.

Dwarf females and human males marrying and getting pregnant often lead to difficult childbirths due to the large size of the baby, while dwarf males rarely impregnate human females, but if successful, a healthy mixed-blood dwarf is highly likely.

Therefore, there are objectively few barriers to intermarriage between beastmen and humans.

For these single men with refugee backgrounds, their criteria for finding a wife are genuinely "female, alive." Two standards.

Although their features were somewhat rough, having someone was better than nothing. The only dispute was both human males and female beastmen demanding dowries from each other.

This was a custom passed down from Ancient Aier Empire, where dowries were required to marry a bride.

However, since both sides were destitute, they often just owed the dowry, went to the chapel to get married first.

Only with the proof of marriage, could they begin to apply for housing allocation, marry early, queue early.

Currently, any official workers within a national workshop under the Pope’s Palace can apply to switch to a larger Insula Suite when getting married.

However, the new batch of apartments is still under construction, so even after marrying, they still have to reside in cramped bachelor lofts.

Not long after walking on this mud-floating wooden path, Horn arrived at the Engineering Research Institute on the south side of the eastern bank of the Parra River.

Unlike the Arms Factory, due to the special nature of the Stellar Cast gears, they did not maintain strict confidentiality as the Arms Factory did.

Nevertheless, the Engineering Research Institute still retains a degree of confidentiality, so Horn saw high and thick walls at its periphery.

As the director of the Engineering Research Institute, Hilov would certainly not be present, and Vite, the deputy director who also holds the position of mayor of Nameless Town, was not present either.

The Engineering Research Institute was, instead, managed by the pharmacist Sessi, who was virtually unrelated to engineering.

However, since Hilov completed eighty percent of the design tasks alone, the institute’s tasks were mainly maintenance and improvement.

Thus, the institute wasn’t actually designing its own research but studying why Hilov designed things as she did.

Fundamentally, the institute wasn’t fulfilling its research role, and Horn was there to offer them something genuine to research.

"Let’s skip the formalities, I’m just inspecting this time." Horn called to Sessi, pulled him by the arm, and headed into the yard.

Several sawmills with prototype saw blades were placed in the yard, slicing a short, thick round log into planks under the drive of Stellar Cast gears and belts.

The scattered wood chips carried a faint warmth and fell like waterfalls from the gaps, accumulating thickly on the ground.

Compared to the crowded, smoke-belching Arms Factory, the Engineering Research Institute appeared particularly tranquil.

Outside a carpenter’s shed, Horn pulled over a small stool and sat down, with Sessi and several other institute leaders gathering around.

Sessi introduced each of them to Horn, who then invited them to sit for a briefing: "You know why I’ve come looking for you, don’t you?"

"It’s about measurement standards."

Sessi pulled out a piece of paper from his pocket: "You asked for standards that don’t use the human body or old lengths, nor specialized tools. We, from the Engineering Research Institute, are too dull and really don’t know how to establish them."

"Isn’t that why I’m asking you to research? Calling you a research institute wasn’t intended for you to study Hilov’s designs but for you to conduct your own research."

Looking at this group of idle clockmakers, watermill carpenters, and toy makers, Horn couldn’t help but laugh.

"Why not treat this as your first research project?"

Several leaders glanced at each other, looking troubled: "But it’s too difficult, we really can’t come up with anything."

"Have you attended your natural theology classes?"

"We did, the class is profound, but we’ve only been learning for a month or two, and we really can’t think of anything."

A clockmaker raised his hand: "Your Grace, could you explain why human bodies, dedicated rulers, or old systems can’t be used?"

Seeing their clear and questioning eyes, Horn thought for a moment and sighed.

If left to their own thoughts, who knows how long they’d take to come up with something. Currently, the solution proposed by Hilov seemed the most feasible.

Couldn’t drag it on indefinitely; without a matching education system, the only solution was Horn giving them Eureka, nothing else.

"The reasons for not using the human body or old systems are simple. Take an elbow; if your arm is long, an elbow is long; if your arm is short, an elbow is short.

Similarly, the old system’s one fathom is not suitable; a mountain county’s fathom is half an elbow shorter than Pingyuan County’s fathom.

Also, dedicated guild rulers can’t be used. If based on a specific man-made item, it’s prone to deformation, wear, or loss over time.

Even if standards crafted with precise technology may still be influenced by changing climate or accidents over time, leading to imprecise standards.

What’s needed is something universally available, unchanged by time, climate, and other environmental factors."

"What is that?" Sessi really couldn’t imagine.

Amidst the puzzled gazes, Horn pointed to the sun in the sky and then to the earth beneath his feet.

"Nature itself is the best, most standard measure created by the Holy Father, constant everywhere."

So, from Horn’s perspective, it’s best to define standards based on natural phenomena.

Natural phenomena are universally present and applicable to all countries and regions.

"Then, what natural phenomenon should be chosen?" Horn intentionally asked these engineering priests.

One of them cautiously queried: "Tree height?"

"That’s no different from an elbow," Horn hadn’t replied yet, when a colleague quickly contested.

"What else? Should we measure by the length of Autumn Dusk Island? Surely that won’t change?"

"That’s lake water, when it swells in summer, recedes in winter, varies year-round." The engineering priests countered similarly.

"Then use hourglass time, along with weight?"

"That’s still no good, since using measuring instruments doesn’t meet the requirements..."

Seeing them finally begin discussing, Horn nodded with satisfaction.

Although a month of lectures in natural theology and mathematics didn’t drive them to innovate independently, their logical and analytical abilities had improved.

However, Horn had discussed this issue with Hilov before.

There is something, Horn uncertain of its specific manifestation, but it’s presumably consistent enough across regions—gravity.