Chapter 298 Mage Player Professional Mission
Operator Ron is not much different in age from Patton.
He usually admired Patton very much. After all, among so many operators who came from the city defense army, Patton was the only one who had witnessed Charlie Rex's rise from a commoner to the lord of Everlook Town who was on equal footing with the nobles. Most of the time, he was willing to listen to Patton and do things according to Patton's wishes.
But this matter... Even though Patton had explained it to this extent, he knew that Patton was right, but he still felt suffocated and a little uncomfortable.
It showed on his face, and he couldn't laugh and correct his small mistakes as he did in the past. Instead, he lowered his head and turned away, unwilling to look Patton in the eye.
Patton sighed.
He knew Ron still didn't realize the seriousness of the matter.
"You may think that I am just taking care of a boy I know and I just need to keep it a secret from other people. I shouldn't make a big deal out of this. It's simply inhumane." Barton said to his friend sincerely 'little secret' you think it is."
"To allow that young man who is no better than others to get a position beyond his capabilities is not just a question of whether you and I can keep it secret. Instead, everyone who comes into contact with this young man at work will discover the problem in the days ahead."
"To give you a simple analogy, can you imagine that you or my wife could blend in with the clerks at City Hall and never be discovered?"
Operator Ron's reluctant face finally showed a hint of surprise...
Obviously not.
The dozens of clerks in the City Hall were outstanding individuals who had emerged from thousands of former red-light district practitioners. When Ron was at the City Hall, he often could not keep up with the speed at which the clerks handled affairs, and had to rely on Barton to help him interpret and analyze.
"If you force a plank of insufficient length to be put together with a plank of qualified length, the water in the bucket will flow out from above the short plank. This is an obvious fact and cannot be concealed by anyone willing to do so." Barton took a half step back, looked directly at Ron, and said solemnly, "The more people discover the problem , the more people will doubt it. One day, someone will doubt you and me."
Barton simply couldn't understand how Ron could have such a stupid idea of destroying his peaceful life and making himself live in fear every day for the sake of someone he had only a slight acquaintance with - of course he couldn't say this directly.
Barton knew that he was a very selfish person at heart, and he also knew that no one would like an extremely selfish person, so he would always carefully conceal his true self and not let anyone find out, not even a long-time friend like Ron.
"What will happen when more and more people in Everlook know about this?"
"There will only be two results. First, you and I will report our abuse of power to the city hall, and Mr. Rex will be embarrassed and demote you and me and transfer us out of Everlook. Second, everyone will follow suit and abandon the rules and regulations of the city hall, and everyone will do things according to their own preferences."
Barton looked compassionate and said to Ron in a sad voice, "If things develop in the former direction, it's fine. At most, we brothers can move to another place and start over. But if it is the latter... then it will be dark and gloomy, Ron. Innadelli may be corrupted from you and me. Your children and my children, grandchildren, may have to live in a world where no one is willing to talk about rules and regulations anymore, and only talk about connections."
"You can also say that we can use the power at hand to manage our own power. In the future, you will be Master Ron, and your son will be Young Master Ron. We will use Yongwang Town as our foundation to slowly develop our own people. We will have absolute control over everything here, and no one can compare to us in terms of connections."
"But for a family like us who has no foundation to speak of, we must at least prosper until our great-grandchildren arrive to avoid being regarded as nouveau riche... Do you really think we can compete with those respectable families with many generations of wealth for family status, heritage, and connections? Can we afford it? Can my children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren afford it?"
Ron's face turned pale and he staggered back two steps until his back hit someone's desk.
Patton revealed the unspeakable secrets hidden deep in his heart... He did have similar ideas and ambitions!
——Who made the lord of Everwatch Town, and who made him Patton's trusted "confidant"?
With power within reach, how could Ron, as a normal adult male, be satisfied with being just an ordinary operator!
The Lord Baroness of Everlook left the stage in disgrace. Everlook was their territory and they could use it to their heart's content and take whatever they wanted - Ron had such delusion more than once in his dreams at midnight!
Pleading for the young man with whom he had a slight acquaintance was the first step Ron took, consciously or unconsciously, to realize his delusion.
And now, Barton, the person Ron thought could serve as a stepping stone to power, personally crushed his delusion.
Patton, who was able to become a lord, indeed had a longer-term vision than him who was just an operator - he and Patton, civilians whose most impressive identities were just privates, were destined to only be able to stand out in Innade, where rules and regulations dominated the order!
Even though the Bartles family, which has been rich for four generations, was once the great lord of Innader, they were still considered nouveau riche!
Even in the family of Viscount Darcy, whose entire family was tragically wiped out by vampires, the only surviving female Viscount China Darcy, if she lived in a world where personal connections dominated the order, she would be tied together with Ron and Barton and would never be able to look at each other on an equal footing in their entire lives!
Seeing how distraught he looked, Barton knew that he had revealed his thoughts.
This made Barton sigh... It's not that he is so good at pretending to be a moral role model, but there are too many idiots in this world who have no vision and can't even figure out their own accounts.
If you don't even understand where your own foundation lies and the basis of your own interests, then what have you been spending your time on in all your life?
Mr. Rex doesn't even recognize his father, the Viscount, and just stays content to be a puppet lord without a title in Innadelli. Is he more stupid than you?
Or, who is confident enough to challenge the dark magician who hides behind the scenes but cannot be ignored? !
Patton himself wouldn't dare to do that anyway, he knew it better than anyone else - whether it was the undead who could kidnap the enemy prince on the front battlefield, or Innadri who re-established a new order, they were all the work of the black magician!
Obey the wishes of the black magician, pretend not to see the huge and terrifying shadow, and be a tool that knows how to follow the rules of the game and is knowledgeable and interesting under the protection of this terrifying existence... Work for whoever gives you the bowl, shouldn't this be the most basic survival wisdom that all adults should have?
Even if one day, the black magician is no longer able to maintain the new order of Innadili he established, and this land is replaced by the old rules of the game, Patton is still confident that he can be reused by the new lord - the governors, butlers and deacons used by the Bartles family, their work skills are much inferior to those taught by Ms. Zhao!
Patton had already considered paving a reliable and secure way out for himself!
...Well, this is still the truth that you absolutely cannot tell anyone.
"Let's just pretend that this incident never happened. You just sympathize with a good young man who needs a job and feel a little sorry for him. There's nothing else to worry about." Barton adjusted his tone and said to his friend in a gentle manner, "By the way, I heard that your son's grades are very good?"
Ron didn't know what to think. He just tried very hard to squeeze out a dry smile and replied with all his strength: "That brat...is not that good. He is much worse than Lieutenant Pete's son."
"That's for sure. Among all the kids in our group, who can compare to the outstanding young boy from Lieutenant Pete's family?"
Barton smiled and sat back, chatting with Ron while continuing to stare at the recruitment scene in the yard.
Like Tattle Joe, he is the town lord second only to Rex. The development of Everlook Town cannot be compared with Westom, who has innate advantages, but at least in terms of personal performance of the lord, he cannot lose too much to Tattle Joe - this is related to whether he can be successfully taken over by the next owner after the collapse of the new regime of Innadri. Patton will definitely pay great attention to this matter.
Nothing is more important in life than death. Patton has always been very serious about how to survive more safely and securely.
While Patton, who was extremely attentive to survival, was working hard for his family's future, the atmosphere in the Innadeli City Lord's Mansion was quite solemn.
In other words, the atmosphere between Brother Lowell and Kingsley Jean seemed to be quite tense... and Yang Qiu just sat there and laughed.
"Have you laughed enough?" Kingsley became impatient first and turned to scold Yang Qiu.
"You should be more polite to me, Kingsley." Yang Qiu said calmly, "In less than ten days, your debt has risen to forty-seven gold coins and eight and a half silver coins. If this continues, I will consider increasing the interest. After all, you are really a wasteful person."
"I ate so much?!" Kingsley was shocked.
"Have you forgotten that you tried to dismantle my tablet yesterday?" Yang Qiu said with a smile, "This kind of purely technological creation cannot be repaired in this world. I only charge you ten gold coins because of the friendship between us."
Kingsley was silent for a while, then suddenly pointed at Rowell and said, "This guy can eat and drink for free, but you ask me for money and say that there is a relationship between us?!"
"That's not the case. Brother Lowell has helped us a lot and is a common friend of Tarantan and Innadelli. Look, he is helping you now and is also your friend. Logically, you should express your gratitude to Brother Lowell in the form of material things." Yang Qiu said calmly.
Kingsley was about to explain himself when Brother Lowell spoke helplessly, "Please try to control your emotions, Kingsley. Your excessive emotional fluctuations will make it more difficult for me."
Kingsley had to shut his mouth, sit up straight, and try his best to calm down...
Kingsley Jean was annoyed by the nagging of a creditor every day. During this period of time, he was trying hard to find the collapsed demon world that he had accidentally stumbled into.
Searching aimlessly for a specific dimension of the demon world like this is undoubtedly a very dangerous thing. In just a few days, Kingsley suffered several mental attacks and was even marked by a powerful demon creature in his mental realm. He had to ask for help from his roommate Lowell.
Because the sacred white magic is harmful to the black magician, Kingsley needs to open his mental field and accept Lowell's "entry", allowing Lowell to explore and search for the remnants left by the attacker in his flawed mental field...
"Found it, pay attention." After a long time, Lowell suddenly spoke.
Kingsley's expression hardened, and his open mental field shrank towards where Lowell's aura was.
Once Kingsley was ready, Lowell quickly retracted the mental energy he had released and released a white magic aura before "retreating".
The "foreign object" lurking in Kingsley's spiritual realm was stimulated by the white magic and instinctively resisted.
Once he resisted, this "outsider" emerged from Kingsley's mental realm...
"Go to hell!" Kingsley gritted his teeth viciously, and the surging mental power of a high-level spellcaster was concentrated on the same point, which separated the hateful "outsider" from his own spiritual realm and strangled him on the spot without mercy.
Brother Lowell and Yang Qiu, who both had extremely high perception, vaguely heard a vicious and tragic roar.
"It seems to be some kind of curse. Judging from the aura of this mark, is it a cursed demigod from the demon world?" Lowell frowned.
"It does look like the mark of a demigod." Yang Qiu nodded, "It seems that Kingsley has entered an unfriendly demon territory."
"Too dangerous." Rowell disagreed, "Not all demon kings in the dimensional demon world will show kindness to black magicians. As far as I know, even in the tenth-level demon world, only half of the demon kings are friendly to black magicians in the material plane."
"Kingsley, can't you recall carefully which dimension of the demon world's coordinate point the door to the collapsed demon world that you opened was closer to?" Yang Qiu said.
"Are you listening to what I'm saying!" Lowell shouted at Yang Qiu.
"We need to find the collapsed demon world. This is very important to Kingsley and me." Yang Qiu said seriously, "Think about it carefully, Kingsley. The closer the coordinates are, the safer we will be."
"Stop talking nonsense. I'm already trying my best to recall." Kingsley, slumped on the sofa, grinned.
Lowell raised his hands to cover his face. Communicating with this master and disciple made him very tired.
Yang Qiu was about to say something to dispel Lowell's misunderstanding when he suddenly sensed a warning message from the matrix.
After finding an excuse to leave the hall and go up to the second floor, Yang Qiu got out of the sight of the two highly perceptive old guys downstairs. Only then did he separate his consciousness and immerse himself in the matrix.
Soon... Yang Qiu found an anchor point belonging to the indigenous people. Just like Ms. Shirley who was kidnapped, they could not share the vision.
Yang Qiu quickly found the anchor point closest to this one and put his mind into it.
Seeing the situation of the Aboriginal anchor, Yang Qiu's face turned cold.
This native anchor's view was oblique.
He was very tired and his eyesight was somewhat affected. The scene he saw was very blurry. He could only barely make out that it was the ceiling of an old house.
He struggled to sit up but failed, only making unhealthy wheezing sounds and slight coughs.
Through the matrix imprint on the anchor point, Yang Qiu immediately transmitted information to the consciousness of the native: "Osrian, what happened to you?"
In a small, closed room, the orc male who was struggling on the bed felt his eyes warm and trembled as he groaned: "Mr. Yang, Mr. Yang..."
"Keep your voice down and tell me where you are and your situation."
“Okay, okay…”
This anchor point belongs to Ossirian King, the first adult orc rescued by the players and the key figure who triggered the large-scale expansion of the Westram map... ahem.
Five months ago in the Otherworld, Ossirian King and several of his orc companions temporarily left Westram, with the ostensible excuse of going to look for their scattered families.
A month later, the young boy Brook, who was rescued at the same time as Osrian King, also left with his former adventure companions, taking samples of some Tarantan products with him, under the pretext of "looking for sales channels."
These two indigenous people who voluntarily joined the matrix and became true "insiders" left with Yang's orders to carry out an important mission.
The mission is... to investigate and contact the hidden population in Innadri, whose total number is close to 200,000 but is not registered in the city hall's household register!
Zhao Zhenzhen discovered the existence of this population when she took over the affairs of the City Hall. Yang Qiu, who had lived in this world for three hundred years, naturally knew about this cruel reality a long time ago.
The orc girl Lika did not participate in the execution, but Yang Qiu was worried that she would suffer secondary harm during the investigation... after all, she was an underage orc child.
According to Yang Qiu's request, Osrian King and his orc companions will leave Innadri and go to the Adler territory north of Innadri. This earldom located in the center of the Rhine Kingdom is the most rampant place in the Rhine Kingdom's underground slave market. Whether it is slaves from southern countries transported through the Moses Port in the Odis Territory, or orc slaves from the north, most of them are transferred through the Adler territory and transported to all parts of the country.
In the border city where the Adler Territory meets the Innadri Territory, Osrian King and his companions pretended to be citizens of the Kenya Empire whose identities were recognized. In order to find their lost family members, they contacted local slave traders, paid a large amount of money to find the whereabouts of their family members, and verified the concentration of orc slaves in the Innadri Territory in order to facilitate their unified rescue.
With money paving the way, slave traders didn't care whether they betrayed the buyers or not, and everything went smoothly. During the period of change of the Inadri regime, Osrian King also found a large number of orc compatriots who were forced into slavery and were hidden in several areas that were not marked on the map.
According to the plan, Yang Qiu would launch a rescue operation after the spring plowing was over and the control over the slaves was relaxed, giving this group of hidden laborers legal status as citizens of Innaderi, and then arranging them into the large infrastructure plan for the entire Innaderi territory... Unexpectedly, something went wrong at this critical juncture.
"...My identity may have been suspected." Osrian King, who was in a small hotel room, said slowly to the black magician's will that "descended" upon him in a very subtle voice, "Three days ago, I started to get sick... It was a very inexplicable disease. I couldn't move, and I couldn't even go out..."
"Yesterday, Brooke took the risk to come and visit me... I was worried that he would be exposed, so I quickly let him go... But, but for some reason, after Brooke left, I have been very uneasy..."
"Something really happened to Brooke." Yang Qiu put on his robe and hurried out while talking to Osrian who was connected to the matrix. "I'll be with you now. Don't let anyone know that you can contact me. Just be a patient first."
"Okay, Mr. Yang." Ossirian King responded weakly, and then he fell asleep because his tense nerves finally relaxed.
Before leaving, Yang Qiu thought about it... and immersed himself in the matrix again, controlling the projection clone in the town hall of Exile Town, and issued a professional task for wizard players.
A few minutes later, the online wizard player received a professional task from his professional mentor, Lao Yang:
"Finding Brooke"
"Brook, a young man who had bravely escaped from the red-light district of Westram, suddenly lost contact while looking for a sales channel for the Undead Chamber of Commerce."
"Someone saw Brook heading north before he disappeared. Could he have disappeared near Everlook?"
"If anyone can find him, they will receive a reward from Yang."
Entropy Bu Zeng, who was squatting in front of the Spider's Nest tunnel with Yang Ying and other friends, saw this task and turned around to complain: "An NPC related to the Undead Chamber of Commerce has disappeared, and Lao Yang has issued a reward to find him. This guy doesn't even bother to hide the fact that he is the boss of the Undead Chamber of Commerce."
"Then let's not kill monsters and go do this quest? Do you want to call Xiaotang?" Yang Ying said.
"Forget it, she's having a great time playing around with the business model with the orange cat boss and the others." Entropy said, "Just call Huahua. Oh, and call the mage players in the Blood Alliance who are willing to come."
After all, it is a mage professional mission, and all the mages are more or less interested in it. Soon, the mage players who had done many missions together before, such as Runlu Goldfish, Wowoguai, Sunfish and other girls, all actively came to join the team leader Entropy Buzeng.
Players have not been to the Everlook map yet, but it doesn't matter, as players have already mastered various skills in hitchhiking with NPCs...
When Yang Qiu rode to Everlook by himself, many wizard players, either with large groups or with small groups of their own relatives and friends, were teleported to Inadelli one after another, and then took the public carriage of the Transport Department from the main city to Everlook.
If the task "Finding Brook" is given to a walker warrior, it may not be able to attract so many people quickly. It is much easier to give it to a mage - which nanny player doesn't have a group of relatives and friends behind him!
On this day, on the road from Innadri to Everlook, countless villagers working in the fields saw carriages of the dead heading to Everlook in a bustling manner...
