Chapter 329 The Situation of the Odysseus Family
When the Kenyan investigation team hitched a ride on the Transport Department into the Tarantan Desert, in the town of Westham behind them, Master Parker Chapman Odysseus had just walked out of his hotel room with sleepy eyes.
Master Parker should have stayed in the station town, but that place was too desolate. Master Parker could not endure it for only a week and took the train back to town.
The prosperity of Westham Town is not even as good as a block in Moses Port. If Master Parker had not been stuck in the station town for a week, it would have been difficult for him to live here... It can only be said that the upper limit of human endurance is indeed a very elastic thing.
Master Parker has been in Westham for nearly three months now.
Habit... It's impossible to get used to it. Master Parker dreams of returning to Odysseus every day. After a simple wash and change into casual clothes, Master Parker goes straight to the town post office as usual to check the telegram from home.
"Has the royal family lent us soldiers to defend against the Rose Kingdom?" Seeing the first line of text on today's routine telegram, Master Parker was in high spirits and looked expectantly at the family knight who was always with him. "My crisis is over, right? Can I go back?"
The family knight said nothing, but motioned for Master Parker to continue reading... the telegram sent by Miss Phoenix was still long.
Master Parker had no choice but to look down patiently... and then his face wrinkled .
Phoenix asked him to continue staying in Innadri honestly, not to run around unless necessary, and not to go to crowded places.
"When will this kind of life end--" Master Parker lamented, holding his head.
Before Master Parker could recover from his grievance, the town hall dealt him a fatal blow...
After ten o'clock in the morning, a town hall agent led Hal Maxwell, who had just returned from the royal capital, to the hotel where Master Parker was staying. The officer politely asked Master Parker to pack his luggage and go to the Tarantan Wasteland with Hal.
"Why would you want me to go to such a remote place?" Master Parker was shocked.
Hal waved his hand to signal the operators to go ahead and do their work. He could handle it himself. After the door was closed and only Master Parker and his men were present, Hal dropped a bombshell expressionlessly: "Two days ago, news came from the capital that the Lord of the Ripple Territory sent a letter to the Odysseus Territory, proposing to build a large shipyard together with the Odysseus family."
"What?!" Master Parker jumped up on the spot.
Ripple Territory is an earldom in the north, bordering the Territory of Odysseus. It is rich in mineral resources and has been doing coal and iron ore business with the Odysseus family for many years. The relationship between the two sides is neither good nor bad.
There are no wide rivers or deep-water ports that can accommodate large ships in the Ripple Territory. Suddenly, they mentioned that they want to cooperate with the Odysseus family to build a large shipyard. This behavior is just like the intention of getting something for nothing is written on their face.
Master Parker was furious, and he yelled "outrageous" several times, but he no longer refused to go with Hal, and angrily ordered the butler to pack his luggage...
Hal was satisfied with the young master's wise attitude of cooperation and sat down patiently waiting for him to do his thing.
The covetousness of the Rose royal family dragged the Odysseus family into a very dangerous situation... After all, the rules of the power game in this alien world have no bottom line. If any country or force is targeted by a powerful enemy, then the surrounding countries and forces will quickly turn into hyenas with green eyes.
Even on Earth, similar things are common - on a small scale, if a student in a class is ostracized and bullied by a small group, it can easily turn into being ostracized and bullied by the entire class ; on a large scale, the Qing Dynasty was defeated in the Sino-Japanese War of 1894-1895 and exposed its decline, and the European guys, who were just about to get out of their pig-brains and out of their dog-brains, immediately formed gangs and came to grab the meat.
If it were a hyena, it would follow the lion and pick up (steal) bones; unfortunately, given the size difference between the Rose Kingdom and the Odysseus Territory, the Odysseus family is not the lion.
The Odysseus family knew that they were in a bad situation. In order to save themselves, they quickly prepared for war and took back the eastern territories that had been occupied by neighboring countries. They would use it as a place to "move the capital" when necessary to avoid being caught in a pincer attack by the Rose army from the north and the Rhine army from the northwest. After discovering Innadri's potential, they humbled themselves and were determined to form an alliance with Innadri.
Phoenix strictly ordered Master Parker to stay in the heart of Innaderi. This was intended to allow this little brother to hide under the wings of the black magician Yang, but also had a bit of a "proton" meaning... After all, Yang had already rejected Phoenix's proposal, and Phoenix had to show his sincerity in other ways.
Innadri doesn't care what kind of tool Phoenix uses his younger brother as, but one thing is certain, since Master Parker is in Innadri, the City Hall cannot allow him to get into trouble on its own territory.
Hal himself was born into a noble family. When he returned from the capital and reported to the city hall, Zhao Zhenzhen explained the situation to him, and he understood it all...
To put it bluntly, the City Hall is not worried about someone assassinating Master Parker, but is very worried that this young man will be contacted by someone with ulterior motives, and then abducted in some way. If any force uses this young man to fight a lawsuit with Phoenix for heir, claiming that Phoenix, the rebellious girl, colluded with the evil black magician to deceive her father and brother to seize the title, then both Innadri and Lord Odysseus will be in a passive position.
Master Parker obviously understood his situation very well, and that afternoon he followed Hal out of Westham and headed for Tarantan.
While they were setting off, on the other side, the Kenyan investigation team, who were hitching a ride with the Transport Bureau, successfully arrived at the construction site where the prisoner road construction team was working.
"We can only take you here. The road ahead has not been repaired yet, and our car can't pass through."
Operator Sam happily invited this group of wealthy guests, who had even paid for their horses, to rest in the logistics area outside the prisoner camp. He warmly invited Ross and others to have lunch, presented them with a hand-drawn map of Tarantan by the Undead Engineer, and saw them off in a friendly manner.
After walking a short distance away from the construction site, Ge Jier said with regret: "How could such an excellent talent be willing to serve the Nightmare Butcher? If he went somewhere else, he would definitely be able to do better."
His companions nodded one after another. The operator who called himself Sam Hank was so young, less than 25 years old, but he was already able to properly manage a transport convoy. If such a person were in the Kenyan Empire, he would at least be promoted to the rank of lieutenant.
Ross wanted to say something, but finally felt it was inappropriate and shut his mouth.
It was not just Operator Sam... The prisoner road-building team they had just witnessed had only a hundred or so people who were able to keep thousands of male prisoners in check. There were also many professional-level warriors among these prisoners, and Ross even saw soldiers from Walton's cult.
If the timing was not right, Ross would have wanted to find an excuse to stay and observe these supervisors more closely - Ross could understand that there were one or two people with great management talent, but how could everyone be so good at doing things?
What's even more outrageous is that although these prisoners were doing the hard work of road construction, they were not deliberately starved to the point of being pale and emaciated. Instead, they were all well-fed to be rosy-cheeked and strong...Did these guards really not worry that the prisoners would cause trouble or rebel if they were too full?
What Rhodes didn't know was that he only saw ordinary prisoners and captives serving their sentences, and did not see the work of serious criminals.
The sentences of ordinary prisoners and prisoners are transparent. Every month, the guards will post the list of commutations of sentence from the previous month, making public the commutations of sentence for prisoners and prisoners who have behaved well. For prisoners and prisoners who are about to be released and gain freedom, the guards will also deliberately arrange light work for them and inform them of the labor remuneration they can receive after the end of their sentences.
Not only that, the guards will also ask the prisoners one-on-one about their plans for where to go after they are released. If they want to go back to their hometown, the guards will help them plan their return routes and send letters home in advance; if they want to find a job, the guards will contact employers; if they want to stay in the road construction team, they can even become new guards after an assessment...
In comparison, the treatment of serious criminals is much harsher. Not only does the food they get every day depend on their labor performance, but there is also a very high risk of accidents - if ordinary prisoners perform poorly, there is a certain probability that they will be transferred to the construction site for serious criminals.
With comparison and reference, it is normal for humans, a species with very resilient endurance, to be domesticated.
This set of management methods was not something that any warden came up with on a whim, but was carefully planned by a group of experts from the Earth Plane for the warden team that has been seriously understaffed for a long time. It was compiled into a detailed work manual, and any sane person who follows the procedures will not run into any major problems.
How can the talents of individuals compare to the collective will of a group that has a unified identity and abides by the same rules and regulations?
Two days later, Rhodes and his companions gradually approached the Exile Town according to the map provided by the Undead Engineer.
Yang Qiu, who had been waiting for this group of "voluntary NPCs" for many days, calculated their speed and energetically... immersed his mind in the matrix, searching for players near the east side of Exile Town in the anchor point.
There are quite a few players who meet the requirements - in the mining area map east of Exile Town, there have long been individual players who don't like to join large groups.
“Are they all newbies in the third test? Newbies in the third test can’t form a team quickly…”
Yang Qiu carefully selected the anchor points that met the requirements, and after filtering dozens of people, he finally found an old player.
"I haven't even collected a complete set of high-quality equipment after playing the first test, and I gave up halfway through the second test. I'm such a slacker!" Yang Qiu went through the information of this old player who was lurking at the novice monster spawning point, and threw the hidden quest over to him with a pinch of his nose.
A casual player with the ID "Your teacher is always", also known as Teacher Yuchi, is taking advantage of the lunch break to come up and kill some low-level monsters and collect the materials needed for the second transformation.
Just as she walked out of the mine area teleportation point , a row of yellow words suddenly popped up in Teacher Yuchi's message column, with bold and enlarged fonts, as if she was afraid that she would not see them: "Stephen Bernie seems to have something to say to you."
"Eh?" Teacher Yuchi blinked and stood there for a while before realizing that this seemed to be the name of the zombie NPC who collected slime monster skins in the mining area.
Teacher Yuchi turned her head subconsciously and saw... Stephen, the zombie NPC who had been standing in front of a mud house for a long time, with his neck stiffly bent. His ugly face, which looked like the Red Skull, was facing her, and his gray-white waxy eyes were staring at her blankly.
