Chapter 326 Ross's Decision
"——Captain Ross, are you sure you want to go to Tarantan?"
When the white-robed priest Harris heard from Ross about the investigation team's next move, his facial muscles visibly stiffened.
The church of the Fiery Sun Church was very quiet, with few visitors.
When Innadri's master was still the Bartles family, Harris was not very keen on missionary work - no one knew his embarrassing status of being exiled better than himself. Anyway, there was no hope of returning to the Holy Land, so guarding this church located in the alien god's diocese for the Church of the Fiery Sun until its lifespan was exhausted was his last act of loyalty.
When the Nightmare Butcher took over Innadri, Harris was even less interested in doing anything to provoke that madman.
Ross frowned slightly. He was a little .
Considering that he was a high-ranking priest after all, and had indeed worked diligently for the Holy Land to guard the church of this alien god diocese for many years, Ross suppressed his dissatisfaction and said calmly: "If the Nightmare Butcher is still just a mad dog that causes trouble to the church from time to time, then it is not impossible to ignore his existence when he runs far enough."
"But you can see, Bishop Harris, that the Nightmare Butcher is no longer just a down-and-out mad dog." Ross took out an item from his jacket pocket and placed it on the coffee table between the two of them. "If we allow him to grow stronger... no one can predict how much impact this guy will have on the Kenyan Empire and the Church."
Priest Harris's eyes fell on the things Ross placed on the coffee table, and his expression suddenly became a little ugly.
This item is a self-winding mechanical watch.
A large leather (leatherette) wrist strap, a thick and atmospheric dial, a dial base made of stainless steel, exquisite and intricate decorations on the dial, and a sealed and waterproof clear glass surface.
This beautiful, exquisite, practical mechanical watch is priced at just one gold coin. When Priest Harris saw it at the Town Hall boutique in the bar area a few months ago, he couldn't help but buy two...
Well... this batch of watches that flowed to the other world for sale were actually custom-made in bulk by Yang Qiu from a private machinery factory in City A, his hometown. The main business of this private machinery factory is the production of parts for certain medical devices, and its side business is to secretly make counterfeit luxury watches and sell them online. Anyone who has worked in an upstream processing factory knows the hardships they face, and the "hard-earned money" from OEM and OEM is extremely tragic.
Yang Qiu placed an order, and the factory took on the labor, materials, and proofing. The ex-factory price of a single watch ranged from a few dozen to a hundred yuan. The net profit from selling it to another world started at 1000%, which was as lucrative as TV shopping.
Through such a small watch, China, a monster on Earth with a complete industrial system, can be said to have inadvertently dealt a heavy blow to the magical technology of the Kenyan Empire - even a small private machinery processing factory in an eighteen-tier city, the error of the hardware parts it produces is measured in microns!
Kenyans who have seen the world, such as the investigation team leader Ross and the white-robed priest Harris, can easily understand the technological gap between the "Tarantan Watch" and the pocket watches made in the Kenyan Empire. The dial volume of these mechanical watches, which would be rejected as too heavy if sold on Earth, is about two-thirds of that of the Kenyan pocket watches. For aliens who are accustomed to using heavy pocket watches, this "small" automatic mechanical watch is simply a masterpiece of ingenuity!
The existence of the Death's Cloth had already threatened Kenyan Cotton Cloth and attracted the attention of high-ranking officials of the Empire and the Church. The Nightmare Butcher had recklessly exposed products that were enough to endanger the mechanical creations of the Kenyan Empire... Priest Harris sighed secretly. It seemed that his idea of living peacefully until the end of his life would not be so easy to achieve.
If the leader of the investigation team was someone else, Harris could still persuade the other party to give up the idea by saying something like "This is the parish of the Gold Coin Church after all, and the matter of the Nightmare Butcher should be the concern of the Gold Coin Church." However... Sitting in front of him is Ross Jonathan Mansfield, a leading figure among the contemporary middle-aged and young descendants of the Duke of Mansfield's family.
Although his line of succession was quite low, he was eligible to use his grandfather's name as his middle name; he was valued by the Duke of Mansfield and was regarded as a reliable assistant to the next duke - such a Rhodes was different from Ben Ham Walton, the son of a ruined family, and he was not so easily fooled!
"I must warn you, Ross. Black Mage Yang is crazier than the craziest lunatic you can imagine." Priest Harris said reluctantly, "If you really intend to risk your life and enter his lair... I can only advise you to prepare for the worst."
"I'm not stupid enough to challenge a legendary black magician." Ross's face was not unhappy at all, and he was so calm that people doubted his age. "My team members and I will enter Tarantan as a traveling adventure team. If anything goes wrong, we will immediately enter the Sorensen Mountains, cross the mountains into the Sokri Empire, and return home by sea."
Harris had no more words to say, so he could only say, "Whether the investigation team's actions are successful or not, I will report your actions to the Holy Land after the investigation team sets out."
"Thank you very much." Ross bowed slightly to express his gratitude, put away his watch, and stood up to say goodbye.
Ross did not expect Harris, the gloomy priest, to take the initiative to participate in the investigation. Since he had lived in the Holy Land for a long time, he was actually the one among the Night Watchmen who knew the senior priests best. The senior priests assigned by the Holy See to the monasteries and churches distributed all over the continent were more and more out of sync with the Holy Land the farther they were from the Holy Land.
This is not something difficult to understand, and it has nothing to do with loyalty to the Holy See... If these senior priests had not failed in the internal competition (struggle) of the Holy Land, they would not have been sent to non-dioceses to live out their days.
Harris did not betray Walton - Ross had already investigated the fact that Walton had secretly left the city of Innadri and acted on his own - nor did he interfere with the investigation of the investigation team. In Ross's view, this white-robed priest did not betray the Holy See.
Next, Ross openly took his team members to purchase supplies in the city, and deliberately revealed the news that they were going to Tarantan for an adventure to the store directly operated by the City Hall... He was not stupid enough to think that his group of Kenyans with obvious appearance had been active in the city for more than half a month without being noticed. Since the Nightmare Butcher allowed them to act freely, he might as well be more "open".
When Yang Qiu's projection clone in the Mage Tower heard the news sent by the agent of the Public Security Department, he was very surprised.
"Is there such a good thing as a tool bringing its own dry food to your door?"
Charlie Rex was dug out of the ground by Yang Qiu himself, Hal, Tuttle and the others were coaxed back by Yang Qiu himself, Wagner was tied up by the players, and Walton was also captured - in comparison, this young man Rhodes has a very high level of awareness!
Yang Qiu, in a good mood, felt that this highly motivated performance was worthy of encouragement, and immediately asked the agent to arrange someone to help the group of Kenyans - to show them the way.
There is a train from Westham to the Tarantin border!
There is also a station town on the Tarantan border where you can resupply!
The agent left the City Lord's Mansion with a smile on his face and arranged for someone to approach the hotel where the Kenyan investigation team was staying and bring the news over.
"The Nightmare Butcher is so confident that he thinks the investigation team can't threaten him?" Ross hesitated for a moment after receiving the news, "Or... is this a trap?"
If you think about it carefully, the "local peace" conditions that the Nightmare Butcher came to discuss with Harris in person seem to only cover Innadri, not Tarantan.
After pondering for a long time, Rhodes simply made drastic changes to the supplies that the group members carried - no more horse-drawn carriages, and heavy luggage was also discarded. Everyone only brought two horses and the supplies that the two horses could carry.
He studied the characteristics of the Tarantan Undead for a long time. These undead had high speed and endurance, but weak attack power and quite limited lethality. As long as the mobility of the investigation team was guaranteed, no matter how many undead there were, they would not pose a threat to them.
As for the Nightmare Butcher...if the Nightmare Butcher comes in person, then the investigation team will not be his match in the first place, and any preparations will be useless.
If the Nightmare Butcher is willing to personally stop the investigation team from investigating Tarantan, it is enough to prove that this guy cannot withstand the investigation - Harris reports the news of the investigation team to the Holy Land, and the Holy Land will take countermeasures.
As for the situation of the investigation team after falling into the hands of the Nightmare Butcher, Ross was not worried... He and his team members would definitely not be bewitched by the Nightmare Butcher like Walton. As long as they survived, the Holy Land would always find a way to rescue them.
After several days of careful preparation, one day in late July, Rhodes solemnly handed a letter to Bishop Harris, who sent the letter back to the Holy Land and then took his men and left Innadri.
Half a day later, the group arrived at the train station six kilometers west of Westham Town.
The Kenyans were quite shocked to see the green train which looked similar to the magic steam train of the Kenyan Empire, but had very different details, including the width of the track.
The green train, which is currently only open in Westham and has a total length of less than 80 kilometers, currently serves the purpose of transporting supplies to the Tarantan Desert and providing convenience for local villagers. It can not only accommodate people, but also has special livestock carriages - pigs, cows, horses, and sheep.
More than an hour later, the investigation team arrived at the station town on the border of the Tarantan Wasteland.
It is a bit of an exaggeration to call this place a small town. It is actually just a transit station and a prison for women prisoners. All the female prisoners who have committed crimes in the entire territory of Innadli are detained here.
Of course, it's not just about restricting their freedom... Although there are not many female prisoners, there are still more than a hundred of them; so many people just eat and sleep idle every day, let alone the national team, even Pansy who was assigned to manage the transit station couldn't stand it.
When Rhodes and others came out of the station with their horses, they saw many women in uniform and yellow vests on their upper bodies sweating profusely as they cleared the vast wilderness outside the station.
The members of the investigation team have seen the scene of land reclamation many times in Innadli - from cities to towns, local farmers who were organized to reclaim land could be seen everywhere.
But it was the first time that Ross and the others had seen a pioneering team composed entirely of women.
"Gentlemen, are you curious?" A station staff member saw Ross and others staring blankly at the reclaimed site and said with a smile, "Those are female prisoners from Innadri, serving their sentences here. Many adventurer mercenaries who come to the Sorenson Mountains are surprised when they take our train. In fact, there is nothing to be surprised about. I heard that many places throw prisoners into mines to serve their sentences. In comparison, we are still honest here."
Ross: “…”
No, no, no. Even in the Kenyan Empire, only men were sent to serve their sentences in the mines. Most women were sent to laundries or cotton mills. They didn't send women to open up wasteland like you did.
