Chapter 430: Driving People with Power
The administrative affairs officer in the Night Watch organization is usually someone with connections in the church.
There are two administrative officers for the Night Watch in Lars City, one administrative secretary and one administrative supervisor.
The administrative secretary had retired many years ago - this position was originally used to accommodate "people with connections". The old woman who served as the administrative secretary was the mother of a night watchman who had died in the line of duty. When she reached retirement age, she took her pension and moved to the royal capital.
Captain Donald could guarantee that there was nothing suspicious about the retired administrative secretary. Six years ago, when the old woman moved away with her grandson, she took a passenger ship operated by Donald's relatives.
And that administrative director... Donald clearly remembered this person, but when Stanford asked him about him, he was speechless and couldn't even tell the man's name!
"I'll go check the files at the Sheriff's Department." Agent Stanford said and hurried out.
Yang Qiu looked at Donald, who was sweating profusely, and raised his hand to comfort him, "Calm down, Captain, this is not your problem. You are just affected by external forces. If you can still clearly remember memories that others don't want you to remember, it is not a good thing for you."
Yang Qiu was not so unreasonable as to blame non-professionals for the abnormal phenomena in the city - the fact that others ran away but Donald did not at least proves that this officer of the National Garrison had a clear conscience.
"I'm sorry, I lost my composure." Captain Donald wiped the cold sweat from his forehead and covered his pounding chest with his hands. "Sir, is there anything else I can do?"
"I do need your cooperation, Captain." Yang Qiu sat back in the high-back chair and said calmly, "How many families in Tachia rose to prominence after the National Defense War?"
Captain Donald was stunned.
"Let me put it another way . How many local families are there in total that were not well-known before the National Protection War, but emerged as a dark horse after the war, and have remained strong for at least three generations?" Yang Qiu said.
The Church of Gold Coin is not a dead body.
In the Innad Territory, which has only prospered for a hundred years, the Gold Coin Church has built a church and appointed a diocesan bishop to be in charge. There is no reason why the Gold Coin Church would intentionally ignore the Taqiya Territory.
The Night Watchmen of Lars City were completely wiped out, but the diocesan bishop of Tachia County did not react. It would be difficult to cover up the incident with just a small administrative officer.
The only possibility is... there is another force, perhaps of considerable size, working together to cover up this matter.
And the influence of this unknown force is probably not limited to the city of Lars.
Captain Donald thought for a moment and listed a dozen surnames.
The owners of these surnames were mostly nobles of the Tachia fiefdom, including viscounts, barons, and lords.
One of the viscounts and three barons were nobles from the city of Lars, and they had fled with their families before Yang Qiu got off the ship.
And the viscount who escaped was the lord of Lars City!
Yang Qiu subconsciously cast his gaze towards the north, wondering whether he should call the player army over now and let these two huskies chase after them...
Those guys can't take the boat and can only leave by land. Players will definitely be able to catch up with them.
Considering the next strategic plan, Yang Qiu suppressed this idea - let those guys flee and spread panic, and the army will easily take over wherever they go without bloodshed, rather than fighting all the way. This is obviously more cost-effective than arresting a few suspicious elements now.
Besides, driving all these dirty local tyrants to the capital of Tachia would be more beneficial than harmful to Yang Qiu...
"I still need your help, Captain." Yang Qiu stood up and reached out to take the cloak on the coat rack next to him. "Can you dispatch a group of port guards to accompany me to search the former city lord's residence? I suspect that the conspiracy against the night watchmen in this city is related to the former city lord."
Captain Donald was a little dazed from the fear and responded without thinking much.
When this officer, who was frightened by the truth about the annihilation of the city's night watchmen, ran to the city lord's mansion with a group of port guards and followed Yang Qiu, Captain Donald trembled and came to his senses.
Leading the soldiers and following the Nightmare Butcher to raid the city lord's house - what he paid is not a token of allegiance, but a contract of selling one's body!
Captain Donald came to his senses, his expression changing wildly and cold sweat running down his chin.
Yang Qiu didn't understand the captain's tangled feelings at all. He stood in front of the closed door and turned back to order: "Break the door."
Captain Donald resisted with silence for two seconds, then turned around and shouted, "Didn't you hear me? Break the door!"
The confused port guards had no idea what was going on and rushed forward to break down the door.
While Yang Qiu was unceremoniously using the port guards as house-raiding soldiers, on the other side, Agent Stanford found the information of the Night Watch's administrative affairs officer in the archives of the Sheriff's Department and hurried over to meet up with Captain Mays.
The Night Watch branch of Lars City is located on the east side of the inner city, on Flower Basket Street, just one block away from the dock, in an independent courtyard with a carriage yard and a basement.
The tightly closed door had been pried open by Captain Mays, and when Agent Stanford arrived, Captain Mays and the three night watchmen he brought with him were thoroughly searching the entire branch.
"There are still some moldy tea leaves in the tea room, and there are several sets of changed uniforms in the locker room." Captain Mace sighed loudly when he saw Agent Stanford, "When the night watchmen here were called away, they probably didn't expect that they would never come back."
Agent Stanford understood Captain Mays's feelings very well. When he learned that agents from other cities had encountered accidents, he felt sympathy for them. He did not say anything to comfort them, but simply handed over the information.
"Sam Atwood—?!"
After seeing the name on the file, Captain Mays' pupils shrank slightly and he looked at Agent Stanford in shock.
"I'm surprised too." Agent Stanford said with a wry smile.
The name Sam is very common. There are at least eight thousand people with this name in the entire Rhine Kingdom.
The surname Atwood is very unusual - there are very few people with this surname in the Eastern Kingdoms, and it is more common in Middle-earth.
In the Gold Coin Church, there is only one person with this surname... Cardinal Atwood, one of the twelve priests of the Holy Land Council of the Gold Coin Church!
Captain Mays closed the documents, looked around, and confirmed that his three subordinates were busy searching for clues. Then he pulled Agent Stanford and hurried to a secluded place.
"If he is a descendant of His Majesty Atwood, he would not have given himself such a random name as 'Sam'." Captain Mace lowered his voice and asked, "Is it possible that this person is...?"
"Illegitimate child," Agent Stanford replied.
Just like the name Charlie Rex, whose origin would be suspected after knowing its origin, the descendants of a big and decent family would not use a "nickname" as a formal name - just like the rich people on earth would not name their beloved children and grandchildren Wang Daniu or Ma Xiaoming.
"But there is no evidence to prove that he is an illegitimate child." Agent Stanford said cautiously, "All the police officers in Lars City have fled, and only a few errand boys are left. No one can prove it."
Captain Mays was a little annoyed by Stanford's rigor at this time...
"Of course, considering that his name is too random and he has no middle name, it is against common sense for a descendant of a Holy Land priest." Agent Stanford said seriously, "Plus, his age is too different from His Majesty Atwood, and he works in a small town like Lars, so I think Sam should be the illegitimate son of His Majesty Atwood's descendants."
Captain Mace's mouth twitched slightly.
Agent Stanford was just a strict person, not an unkind one . Seeing how upset Captain Mays was, he tried to comfort him: "Don't worry. From what I've seen, Mr. Yang is very friendly to the Church of the Gold Coin. If you make a sincere request, I believe Mr. Yang will agree to cover up the matter, or at least not publicize this person's last name."
Captain Mace: “…”
Not only did I not feel comforted, I was also a little frightened...
"Anyway, I have to thank you for informing me of this first." Captain Mays knew from Stanford's words that he had not yet informed Yang of the discovery, but had informed him first. He patted the other's shoulder to express his gratitude and said with all his strength, "Let's find this person first."
The files of the Sheriff's Department were not very detailed, and the information that Agent Stanford had found was just a record of a case that the Sheriff's Department and the Night Watch had worked on together several years ago.
Sam Atwood, an administrative officer for the Night Watch, has an address on record.
Captain Mace left his subordinates behind to continue searching the area, and rushed to the address listed in the file with Agent Stanford.
And then...the two brothers found an empty rental apartment.
The owner of the apartment building was a local noble in Lars City, and he had fled with the city lord.
The two brothers did not give up. They went up and down the apartment building and got a lot of information about Sam from the neighbors. They also went to the pubs, cheap restaurants and laundromats that Sam often went to.
After collecting a lot of information, the two returned to the City Hall to meet Yang Qiu, who had just raided the City Lord's Mansion.
After listening to the clues the brothers had found, Yang Qiu nodded and said, "I have something here for you to see."
After saying this, he winked at Captain Donald, who was standing beside him in a daze.
Captain Donald numbly picked up the letter that was clipped to the cardboard on the table and handed it to Stanford and Mays.
When the city lord fled, he destroyed as much written material as possible in his study. This letter was found by the port guard in the bedside table in the bedroom. It might have been forgotten by the owner, so it fell into Yang Qiu's hands.
After seeing the words on the letter, Captain Mays was stunned and Agent Stanford's jaw dropped.
This is a letter from a nobleman in Creek City, the capital of Tachia, to the mayor of Lars City.
In the letter, the word "sacrifice" was mentioned without any concealment.
The sacrificial rituals of the Orthodox sect do not use sacrifices.
“As the city lord and a prominent noble in the Territory of Tachia... he was also bewitched by a cult?!” Captain Mace felt like the sky was falling.
"Captain, you may have got the cause and effect wrong." Yang Qiu said calmly, "Look carefully at the content of the letter. It's not that he was a Taqiya noble who was bewitched by the cult, but that he relied on the power of the cult to gain noble status."
Captain Mace turned his gaze back to the letter with fear.
The nobleman from Creek City who wrote this letter intended to ask for a "sacrifice" from Lord Lars.
Captain Mays felt like the sky had really fallen.
"The Taqiya people have suffered a lot from the war. During the National Defense War, less than 20% of the three million registered population of Taqiya survived until the end of the war." Yang Qiu said in a calm and almost cruel tone, "After experiencing such a hell on earth, the Taqiya people's trust in the Gold Coin Church ... I think it can't be any lower."
"It is only natural that the non-orthodox sects that dare to make verbal promises and are indeed more 'diligent' and 'people-friendly' than the orthodox sects will take advantage of the situation and replace the position of the gold coin lady in people's minds. It is not difficult to understand that there are so-called 'smart people' who take advantage of the situation."
As long as there is profit to be made, there will be gamblers who risk their lives - there are countless people on earth who use the name of cults to make money and abuse power, let alone this world!
Captain Mays felt a little unsteady and reached out to hold on to the back of the sofa next to him.
Even someone with the surname Atwood betrayed the church... Captain Mace couldn't deny that the Tachia people had abandoned the Lady of Gold and turned to the evil god.
"The problem in Tachia is indeed more serious than we thought before. We must summon the undead as soon as possible to deal with the cult problem." Yang Qiu looked at the pale Captain Mays and said, "To avoid misunderstandings from the church, Captain, I need you to contact the Holy Land of the Gold Coin Church on my behalf and explain our attitude and position."
Captain Mays was silent for a long time before he nodded resignedly.
He really got on a pirate ship this time - even though he knew that the other party was trying to catch rabbits while cracking down on cults and was also eyeing the land of Tachia, he could only help out from the side!
