Volume 4: How big is the heart, how vast is the earth Chapter 112 Determination
At the dock, the crew and the vassal races of the elves were busy unloading the cargo. Bags of spices were brought to the shore one by one and were counted and loaded into warehouses by the heads of each family.
Five of the thirty ships were loaded with goods from the sea tribe. The goods packed in wooden boxes were carried down by the sea tribe crew members with blue membrane earlobes and piled on the other side of the dock. Their goods did not need to be stored in the warehouse and would be directly transported into the Forest of Elves after unloading.
"Mr. Darren, this is the fee for this trip." A sea clan noble wearing riding boots, jodhpurs, a puff-sleeved shirt, and a sleeveless windbreaker approached Darren, who was standing in the middle of the dock to maintain order, and signaled his attendant to hand over the box of gold coins. "Please give my regards to His Royal Highness the Prince. We will come again on our return trip."
Darren asked the guard to take the cash box and bowed with a smile: "I wish you all the best, Master Winston."
Master Winston nodded slightly with dignity, turned around and led his men away. A group of forest elves dressed in formal civil servant uniforms were standing outside the dock waiting for the mermaid master.
"The treatment is so different. No forest elves came to greet His Royal Highness the Prince." The prince's guard carrying the money box said sourly, "We used five of our ships to give us such a small amount of gold coins..."
"Keep your voice down, idiot. If there weren't sea creatures in our fleet, do you think our voyage on the sea would be so smooth?" Dali shouted in a low voice. "The Lamia Merchant Corps' fleet will also encounter problems, but ours won't. This is much more cost-effective than borrowing a few ships."
The guard shrugged and dared not say anything else.
"Hi Darren!"
A harsh voice sounded, and Darren cursed inwardly. When he turned around, he smiled sincerely: "Captain Blue, I'm here."
Guard Captain Blue avoided the sweaty crew members unloading the cargo with disdain and ran over with an annoyed look on his face: "What's going on? How can His Royal Highness Anthony get off the ship when the dock is in such a mess?"
"I'm so sorry, Captain Blue, this is a mistake in our arrangement. We should have cleared the area first to let His Highness Anthony get off the ship. However, when the ship entered the port, the port authorities did not have time to prepare accommodation commensurate with His Highness's status, so..."
"That's enough. Where is His Highness Carlisle?"
"Your Highness entered the port and negotiated with the forest elves to clear out the best accommodation for His Highness Anthony..."
Captain Blue stared at Darren for a few seconds, snorted coldly, turned around and ran towards the big ship where Anthony was.
"...You don't want to get off the ship because you think the dock is in chaos. His Highness Anthony is very different from Prince Carlisle. If you hate him so much, why did he insist on following us?" The guard couldn't help but mutter.
Darren didn't bother to care if he was talking too much this time.
East of the port, the Snow Werewolf rental area.
Carlisle and Tim stared at the unlicensed food store that was doing a booming business, and it took them a long time to recover from their shock.
"Huh? Hello?" Mumu raised his hand and waved it in front of them. Seeing that the two of them didn't even move their eyes, he turned back nervously and shouted, "Oh no, Ah Shu! Carlisle and Tim are stunned!"
"Come and help! Hurry, hurry, hurry!!" Ashu was angry and anxious as he was hit in the face by countless hands holding copper coins.
"Oh oh!" Mumu quickly ran back.
"My hot and sour noodles~~Hurry up~~I'm starving~~"
"My skewers aren't ready yet? Hurry up, I'm waiting to have a drink!"
"Who stole the candy I put here?!"
"Hey, asshole, I bought that bottle of hot sauce, and you're pouring it for me? Stop it now!"
"I barely escaped death in the killer bee nest and finally managed to come back to have a good meal. And you, the fuck, are trying to steal my braised pork?!"
"Hey, hey, no fighting at table five! Can't you let others enjoy their meal?"
"Nanfeng, forget about the stew and throw those two who are fighting out!"
“Oh.” Cub Nanfeng squeezed , walked to table number five, and attacked with both hands as fast as lightning, grabbing the two adventurers who had already taken out their weapons, holding one in each hand, and standing where he was, he shouted “Hey!” and threw the two onto the beach...
“Ah—bang!”
The scene suddenly became quiet. The guy who was pouring hot sauce on others silently returned the bottle to the original owner and took out a copper coin to compensate for the loss.
Carlisle & Tim, who were standing not far away: "..."
"Adventurer's business is not easy to do ..." Tim, who had seen the chaos in the slums, said with a twitch of his mouth.
"...That's right." Carlisle wiped the sweat off his face and nodded. If the shop owner didn't have the ability to suppress them, these unruly adventurers would kill someone with the slightest friction.
During the lunch rush, the scene in front of the Snow Wolf Tribe's food store was basically chaotic and noisy. The two stood and waited for more than half an hour. Most of the adventurers patted their butts and left after eating and drinking, and they were finally able to walk in... It was really too difficult for them to use their arms and butts to squeeze others out of the way like the adventurers to get a place to stand.
And then... in order to have a more pleasant seat, the two of them had to clean up the table provided for guests themselves - the adventurers would return the bowls after eating, and the table would definitely not be wiped, not to mention how messy it was.
"Carlisle, what do you want to eat?" shouted Mumu, who was standing behind the noodle pot.
"Of course, to try out the food we haven't tasted before," Carlisle replied.
"Go over there and line up." Mumu pointed at the stewing pot without any hesitation.
“…”
It was a business worth a few copper coins, so one couldn't expect the "shopkeeper" to have a good service attitude. Prince Carlisle comforted himself like this and stood at the back of the line.
Fortunately, most of the customers had left by then, and the remaining ones either ate one by one or rearranged after finishing their meal. After waiting for only ten minutes, Carlisle and Tim tasted one of the best braised pork flavors on the mainland.
"Obviously, our country is the origin of spices, so how come they know how to use them better than us?" Tasting the flavors of dried tangerine peel, cinnamon, star anise, fennel and other elements in the flavorful braised soup, Prince Carlisle was at a loss whether to laugh or cry.
Tim couldn't stop eating...
After sending away the last batch of big-bellied people, the staff were finally able to take a break. Mumu grabbed a pancake and sat down at Carlisle's table, grinning smugly: "How is it? Not bad, isn't it? Delicious."
"Yes, it's good." Carlisle had finished his stewed pork and was eating hot and sour noodles. He used a fork to wrap up the leaves and asked curiously, "The vegetables are very fresh. Have you found a way to preserve them for a long time?"
"No, this batch of vegetables was just delivered yesterday." Mumu Kazi Kazi munched on a pancake, "The vegetables were just picked from the fields yesterday morning, so of course they are very fresh."
Carlisle and Tim stared at her blankly.
"You...are you going to let Green and Balk deliver the food?" Carlisle asked in surprise.
"It's not spicy. It's loaded on wooden boats and floated down the river." Mumu was proud again, "Our small canal has been dug. Now it's very fast to go back and forth to the tribe. Fresh ingredients are delivered every few days."
"Hiss—" Carlisle and Timmy gasped at the same time... They had both been to the Snow Wolf Tribe and knew how far it was from the coast. How long had it been since they dug the artificial river from the tribe? Are you devils? !
Prince Carlisle was not in a hurry to return to the fleet, so he simply followed the Snow Wolf Tribe to make a trip to the small canal. After walking for about two hours, he was more than ten kilometers away from the Elf Port. Standing on the side of the canyon that was cracked by the movement of the earth's crust, looking at the wide river channel that was dug by humans and led directly to the sea, Prince Carlisle was so shocked that he was speechless.
To be fair, the canal dug by the Snow Wolf Tribe cannot be said to be particularly spectacular. After all, it is only an artificial river ten meters wide and two meters deep, and the banks are only paved with a layer of cement bricks. The amount of work is not astonishing.
But considering the total length of the river and the pitifully small population of the Fire Tribe, it is remarkable that a canal of this scale could be built in less than a year. As a prince, Carlisle knew very well that if a river project of the same scale was carried out in St. Bridges, the consumption of manpower and material resources would be enough to bring down the municipal economy of a town with a population of more than 100,000.
"No... If it were St. Bridget's, such a river project without clear benefits would never be passed by any city council... Unless the nobles' estates were submerged during a flood, but that's impossible. Who would build an estate on such a risky and unreliable land? There are more secure lands for the nobles to choose from."
Prince Carlisle's mind turned over, and his hand hanging at his side clenched into a fist subconsciously. What a town with a population of more than 100,000 people could hardly accomplish was accomplished by a grassland tribe with only a few hundred people. The difference between them was not just in the race of the two sides... Ordinary people could only see the surface, but Carlisle could see the inner meaning, and this was what made him feel uneasy.
——Teacher Ayun can gather the power of the Snow Wolf Tribe, the Cat Tribe, the Gray Dwarfs, and the Goblins to complete seemingly impossible tasks, but what about him as a disciple? What about him as a prince of the human kingdom? !
Mumu untied the rope tied to the tree stump on the shore, and he and his cub Nanfeng each grabbed a paddle and jumped onto the wooden rowing boat, waving toward the shore: "Come on, Tim, we're ready to go."
"Okay." Tim and Carlisle nodded, climbed down the earthen steps dug out on the side of the canyon, and carefully jumped onto the boat.
"Let's go~" Mumu waved to Carlisle, and paddled left and right with Nanfeng. Amid the sound of water splashing, the simple rowboat went upstream at a very fast speed.
Carlisle stood at the edge of the canyon and watched the boat go farther and farther away. He let out a long breath, turned around and went back... After several hours of being idle, it was time to go back and face it.
Just as Carlisle expected, the fleet had been in the port for most of the day and a lot of cargo had been unloaded, but his eldest brother Anthony still hadn't gotten off the ship.
"The forest elves warmly welcomed Master Winston of the sea tribe, but no one came to greet the St. Bridget royal family. His Royal Highness Anthony must be angry about this." Darren, who stayed at the dock, accompanied Carlisle on the ship. When there were no outsiders around, he leaned over to Carlisle's ear and said with a sly smile.
"Did you deliberately let someone tell him about it?" Carlisle said with a smile.
"That wasn't intentional. His Highness Anthony's captain of the guard saw it with his own eyes." Darren shrugged.
Carlisle shook his head, straightened his clothes that were messed up by the sea breeze before entering the cabin, cheered himself up, put on a royal smile, and reached out to push open the door.
In the exquisitely decorated main cabin, His Royal Highness Anthony, Grand Prince of St. Bridget, was sitting on the sofa, elegantly sipping rosy wine. On the wooden chair on the other side, a singer in a shoulder-baring long dress and a tulle on her face was humming a southern tune softly. The soft and delicate melody made Carlisle feel drowsy after just listening to two sentences.
His Highness Anthony seemed not to notice Carlisle pushing the door open. His fingers resting on the armrest of the sofa tapped rhythmically to the singer's beat, with a lazy smile of enjoyment on the corner of his mouth, as if he was leisurely indulging in the soft singing.
Carlisle was very fed up with this kind of social "decency" that required waiting for others to speak, so he simply walked over, gestured to the singer to pause, and sat down on the sofa opposite Anthony.
The singing stopped abruptly, and the singer looked at Anthony nervously.
Anthony "finally" saw his brother and tilted his head slightly. The singer quickly stood up, bowed, and took his leave.
After the woman walked out of the room, Carlisle spoke up: "Anthony, the hotel where General Crest is staying is not open to the public. I think we may have to stay on the ship."
Anthony did not hide his dissatisfaction: "When you came here last year, did you also live on the boat?"
"No, last year we didn't have any overly picky guests, so Tim, Dan and I stayed in the same room. It was a rustic cabin, and we could see spiders, centipedes, ants, and lizards in the corners and under the bed, and occasionally snakes."
"Carlisle! Is this how you talk to me!" Anthony swung his right hand hard, and the beautiful crystal red wine glass hit the wall and broke into pieces.
"Excuse me." Carlisle nodded slightly. "I'm just telling you the truth, Anthony. There's no point in lying in a place like this."
Anthony stood up suddenly and pointed his finger at his brother unceremoniously: "Your uneducated words and deeds really bring shame to the surname Ferdinand, Carlisle. Do you forget the manners you should have as a royal family just because you have a barbarian teacher? You are not shy about mixing with a group of inferiors. To what extent do you want to humiliate St. Bridget?"
Carlisle was amused, and smiled as he spread his hands. "Perhaps you have misunderstood something, Anthony. Ferdinand's family is indeed a royal family in St. Bridget, but when we go abroad, royal members are just a kind of status. Just like now, in the port of the forest elves, you and I are just merchants from a foreign country. If you think this is a humiliation to St. Bridget, then why did you board the ship?"
"What rude and stupid things are you saying!" Anthony roared angrily.
"If you think you can be a good crown prince by hiding in a clean and warm room and being treated respectfully by everyone, then I don't think you would try every means to let my father put pressure on me to squeeze into the fleet." Carlisle said calmly.
"Carlisle!"
"The forest elves don't care whether there are one prince or two on board. I am willing to step back and not leave the ship to live there. I just don't want the forest elves to find out that there are two 'Princes of Saint Bridges' on board and that we are too lazy to maintain even the most superficial friendship. This is my responsibility as a member of the royal family." Carlisle nodded slightly, "But at the same time, I have a more important responsibility to ensure that the transaction goes smoothly. So, Anthony, please forgive me for not learning from you and throwing a tantrum just because others don't respect you enough and don't give you the dignity you deserve."
"Clang! Snap! Bang!"
Darren and Captain Blue, who were guarding the corridor, shrank their necks at the same time. They turned their heads to look at the locked door at the same time, and their eyes met inadvertently. Captain Blue glared at Darren and turned his head away. Darren pouted and rolled his eyes calmly.
The two princes quarreled more and more often, which was a headache for their close associates... Fortunately, they knew to quarrel behind closed doors, so it didn't make things too difficult for everyone.
When Carlisle returned to his room, there was a bloodstain on the back of his hand. Darren found some ointment and applied it to him, then hung up his coat for him and opened a can of fruit and poured it on a plate. "Anthony knows to bring a maid to serve him. I think you can consider it, Carlisle. You can't wash your own socks every time you go out."
"Space on the ship is quite limited. There's no need to allow unnecessary people to come on board." Carlisle shook his head. "Besides, life on the ship is so hard. Why should we let the ladies suffer?"
Darren chuckled, "Did you also say this to Anthony?"
"The singer's throat was damaged due to improper maintenance. This is someone else's lifelong livelihood." Carlisle frowned.
Darren spread his hands and said, "I don't think you brothers will ever be able to get along in this life."
"Harmony, is that what you think?" Carlisle raised his eyes.
"I would say this for your sake. But if it were me, I would be offended to say that I really don't want to see His Royal Highness Anthony." Darren said without disguising, "I think it's very disgraceful to use Tim to make a fuss."
Carlisle probably didn't expect Darren to be so direct. He was stunned for a moment before he smiled bitterly and shook his head.
It was already late at night when Tim arrived at the Snow Wolf Tribe. Standing in the square he had been to twice before, he watched groups of people running around in the dim moonlight, his mouth opened and he couldn't close it...
"It's time to harvest alfalfa again." Mumu rubbed her aching arm and looked around. Tim could only see a rough shadow, but she could clearly see that everyone was carrying and holding bundles of grass. "Ayun must be very busy, and it's hard to find him right now. Why don't you sleep with us for one night and we'll talk about it tomorrow?"
"Uh... okay." Tim nodded stiffly.
"I'm not going to sleep. I'm going to find Dahe." said Nanfeng.
"You want to ask Dahe for something to eat, right? Go ahead." Mumu laughed and slapped Nanfeng, "Don't go there, Tim. Let's go this way and don't block other people's way."
Tim hurried to catch up with Mumu.
Tim was quite used to the big dormitory bed that the Snow Wolf tribe lived in, but he had always lived with his own people before. This time, he brought Mumu into the Snow Wolf people's room and even pulled Mumu to sleep together.
When taking off his outer robe, Tim suddenly remembered something and looked down at Mumu stiffly.
Mumu had quickly taken off his clothes and was lying on the side sleeping with his legs spread out in just his shorts.
"Mumu seems to be... a female...?" Tim's eyelids twitched, and his eyes subconsciously moved to Mumu's chest - an inverted triangle figure, with large chest muscles, the same size as Darren, but with more muscles than Darren...
Tim calmed down immediately, took off his outer robe, folded it, and lay down comfortably.
Xiao Yun is a person who pays great attention to efficiency in doing things. Not only does he pay attention to efficiency himself, but he also wants to influence the people around him to improve their efficiency. So... Tim, who had been drifting on the sea for more than a month and on a rowing boat for more than ten hours, did not get the treatment of waking up naturally. He woke Xiao Yun up when it was still dawn.
"Just inform us that you are here and let Mumu and the others pass on the message. You came here specially, did something happen to Carlisle?" Xiao Yun said.
Tim, whose eyes were not fully open yet: "..."
Ten minutes later, Tim completed the process of getting up, washing, and dressing as if he was going to war, and sat in the activity room face to face with Xiao Yun.
"Your identity problem? What kind of problem is that?" Xiao Yun was particularly puzzled after hearing what Tim said, "Aren't alchemists spellcasters? Aren't spellcasters very powerful? Even if you are the son of a serf, you can't affect this place, right?"
"For a spellcaster, being the son of a serf is nothing, but the problem is that I am the Humphrey family's 'adopted son'." Tim smiled bitterly, "I was adopted by the Humphrey family and raised to be a spellcaster's adopted son. According to the spellcaster's rules, I should serve the Humphrey family until the patriarch who adopted me dies. Spellcasters have a long lifespan, and it is impossible for them to serve a family for life. However, giving back to the current patriarch is a must. Otherwise, the patriarch of the Humphrey family has the right to appeal to the Alchemist Association and expel me from the association."
Xiao Yun initially wondered what kind of ridiculous logic this was, but after thinking about it based on the customs of this world, he realized that there was nothing wrong with this logic, and it even guaranteed the interests of the spellcaster to a certain extent. What if a family arranged a group of "adopted sons" with spellcasting talents for their children? Then, after becoming a spellcaster, they would have to take care of a naughty child for decades, which even the spellcaster could not afford. So why not just fix the object of "favor" on the current head of the family? When the head of the family dies, the spellcaster would be free. This was more reliable than the ancient Chinese scholars accepting bets from wealthy businessmen.
To have the ability to adopt and train a spellcaster, the head of the family must be at least 30 or 40 years old. It takes at least ten to twenty years for a spellcaster to become successful, and the head of the family must be at least 50 or 60 years old. At this time, it is completely fine for him to serve for a dozen years.
"I am just a low-level alchemist. My previous service to the Humphreys was to provide a certain amount of alchemical potions every year. This level is enough. I can't do more, and the Humphreys won't make unreasonable demands." Tim said painfully, "His Highness Anthony asked Baron Humphrey to surrender, and the baron couldn't refuse... Because of this matter, His Highness Anthony and Baron Humphrey have already boarded the ship. I caused trouble for Carlisle."
"If Anthony wants to go on board, he can go whether you have anything to do with him or not. After all, he is a member of the royal family and Carlisle's brother." Xiao Yun frowned and said, "Your matter is not as difficult as you think. Carlisle has been preparing for more than two years. Even if he can't say that he will win, his chances of winning are much greater. As long as he and Anthony decide the winner, Baron Humphrey will naturally know which side to choose. The only problem is..."
Tim was excited when he heard Xiao Yun's previous words sounded exactly like Prince Carlisle's. The last sentence made him excited: "What is it about?"
Xiao Yun said coldly in an understated tone: "It depends on whether Carlisle is determined to root out the problem."
