Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 631: Section 444: Blood of Kang Cain (Part 1)

Chapter 631: Section 444: Blood of Kang Cain (Part 1)

Tossing aside the pen she had just broken, Lulu stared at the report before her, sinking into despair.

How should she write this report? Would anyone believe what she had written?

A legendary innate career, not yet eighteen years old, with self-igniting spiritual energy, visibly high-tier Sequence of the Oathsworn, very likely a second-tier Guardian of the Oath?

Who would believe that?

Lulu didn’t know how to amend the report—because everything she knew, everything she saw, was already there. But it wasn’t just about others believing it; she herself could hardly believe it.

Unfortunately, these were the facts, this was the truth. A child deemed devoid of psychic abilities ended up igniting their spiritual energy, forging a legend, even having a self-branching high-tier Sequence.

When was the last time she wrote about something she couldn’t believe herself? Oh, right, her brother.

Lulu’s face showed her struggle, but in the end, she decided to throw the document in front of her and pulled out the Night Watcher’s special silver coin. She summoned a messenger from the realm of spirits, and a pallid undead emerged from the howling subspace, snatched Lulu’s report, and vanished into the rift it had come from.

She had to tell the messenger’s housekeeper that next time they needed to use a different messenger when contacting her.

As Lulu was thinking this, the rift opened once again; the pallid undead was torn from it by a World Tree sapling. It wailed, it shrieked, but ultimately could not escape purification. The World Tree sapling placed the report neatly before Lulu, then retreated into the fissure it had opened.

The messenger housekeeper was really like a two-legged Salar beast; what was he thinking?! Why use a pale undead for their correspondence?!

In the end, Lulu flipped the table and took the tied-up report, leaving her room—she was going to find a Union courier to hand-deliver it.

Otherwise, the fools in the Night Watch would take half a year before they realized a certain young lady had not submitted a report for six months.

Upon leaving the room, Lulu saw the shooting competition taking place below in the castle yard. It was the Nobles’ favorite activity in the South, and hunting with firearms was now popular among all the Southern Nobility, with a good firearm becoming their bragging capital.

"Miss Lulu, where are you off to?" Baron Shelton of House Brice took notice of his guest descending the stairs.

"I’m off to send something with a messenger," Lulu replied.

"A messenger, you say? Just past the castle drawbridge, walk forward three hundred meters, then take a left at the block, and you’ll see the Union Postal Center. Funny thing, those folks haven’t been around for long, but they sure are capable. In my information network, they have never failed to deliver a letter."

"Yes, quite curious," Lulu said with a smile—yeah, right! The Union Postal Service was Malin’s doing; its staff consisted of Domestic Fairies recruited by Rewo, skilled in using the safer root zones of subspace for long-distance travel.

The reason the World Tree sapling killed that pale undead was not only because it was an Undead and had triggered its defensive instincts, but also because it was a targeted purging of Undead who dared to appear near its master’s territory.

Next time, she’d ask the housekeeper to find a war pigeon instead. At least the World Tree saplings didn’t eat pigeons.

.........

Malin had originally planned to head south to Rongma, after all, once done with the hunting grounds; it was only right to experience the southern customs with everyone. However, he couldn’t help that House Brice decided to order a batch of equipment from Malin’s workshop—no less than twelve thousand Lee-Ji’s rapid-fire bolt-action rifles, four times the number of firearms in grenades, a combat engineer spade for everyone, fully up to the standards of two division-level units of the Guards Army.

If the Duke of Brice had bought so much weaponry at another time, the entire world would think he harbored rebellious intentions or coveted the neighboring estates. But now, no one dared to utter a dissenting word about his beefing up his armaments—for if anything went wrong in his territory, none of the nearby countries could hope to come out unscathed.

The Dwarves’ master craftsmen didn’t agree; they believed that work orders should follow a first-come, first-served principle, and Malin shared this belief. But the Duke of Brice was truly desperate—with a Chaos invasion looming in just a few years, and the workshop’s orders backed up for four years, who could endure that?

In the end, Malin could only help the Duke of Brice. The long-postponed fourth phase of the workshop was settled; nearly two thousand dwarf craftsmen were recruited, and Malin contributed twelve blueprints as technical partnerships. With the addition of these two thousand dwarf craftsmen, in a year’s time, several hundred more qualified apprentices should be ready, and by then, the Duke of Brice’s order should be queued up for the following year.

It was a win-win-win situation. Malin launched the fourth phase, the Dwarves had even more kinsfolk joining (which they were happy to see; the bigger Malin’s workshop, the more Dwarves it absorbed, and the more glory it brought to them, as the legendary master craftsman Lord Malin placed immense trust in their kin), and the House of Brice gained stronger support. Each party got what they needed.

As for making money, Malin just hoped the Dukes would arm their forces, so he mostly sold the equipment at cost plus a little extra.

However, for those still thinking of stealing blueprints from the workshop, Malin had especially little patience. Seventeen bold individuals had already been hung on the streets outside the workshop this month, caught by the craftsmen.

There was one they hadn’t caught beforehand. Malin brought his team to smash the Thieves Guild, and under the threat of hanging the guild leader’s entire family, they found that person. The blueprints had been duplicated, so they lined up the entire Thieves Guild’s Carterburg branch for a firing squad execution. Meanwhile, Malin led an armed team and attacked the Eastern Kingdom’s merchant association, killing all members who dared resist and snatched the blueprints back from the hands of the association’s boss.

In retaliation, the Eastern Kingdom’s merchant association spoke of revenge, and as payback, Malin burned the entire association to the ground. To this day, the association boss’s entire family still sways on the gallows.

Damn it, not even knowing one’s own strength and daring to provoke Malin’s Concord Group—the Sidney Foreign Affairs and the Dwarves’ Royal Court couldn’t wait to tear into the Eastern Kingdom, claiming that the Dwarven workshops represent the fruit of Sidney Union’s friendship with the Dwarves, and the Eastern Kingdom’s actions were undermining unity, etc., quickly throwing the blame onto them.

Then came the familiar economic sanctions and arms embargo—the Eastern Kingdom was unjust in the beginning, and the Dwarves’ Royal Court along with Sidney were unkind following suit, an exchange of tit for tat between the two.

In the end, the Eastern Kingdom had no choice but to push an earl forward, stubbornly claiming he had masterminded the theft, and that the royal family knew nothing about it.

Malin didn’t care, he just demanded his head to be mailed over.

Then the Eastern Kingdom sent over some unfortunate soul’s head, definitely not noble-bred—who in this day and age has a forty-something noble with all his teeth ground down smooth?

Malin immediately smashed the head onto the messenger’s chest and sent him out of the Church’s main door—literally sending him away.

The messenger was seriously injured on the spot and was dragged away by the Benevolent Church, still lying in the intensive care unit to this day.

Just like that, the feud between the two was set. Malin Group completely embargoed and banned sales to the Eastern Kingdom. They even widely educated and informed all their workers about the issue. Now all workers know that the king of the Eastern Kingdom is a once-in-a-lifetime madman and a thief, as well as a bastard who would kill the innocent to protect a criminal.

Even the workers who fled from the Eastern Kingdom feel that the royal family did something wrong in this matter.

Externally, through Lulu’s channels, Malin also communicated with the northern countries, stipulating that until the Eastern Kingdom admits its wrongdoings, no country is allowed to resell goods purchased from the Malin Group to the Eastern Kingdom.

This morning, Malin received news that the Eastern Kingdom was still uniformly mentioning Malin’s origins, of course, not daring to go too far—given that Malin had just completed the certification for an eighth-circle mage at the Mage Tower.

Nowadays, an eighth-circle mage is a symbol of strength. Unless one’s mind isn’t right, generally no one would think of offending a mage of such a level, because at this point, it often doesn’t even require a face-to-face meeting to kill someone.

Moreover, Malin has more than enough things to determine life and death from five hundred paces away. According to the Church of Justice’s intelligence, the Eastern Kingdom’s minor nobles have been very well behaved recently, fearing that their royal family’s grudge with Malin could spill over to them.

Think about it, besides being an eighth-circle mage, Malin is also a Psychic (though he has never been certified for this), a Sequence five Star Observer (Malin hasn’t made this public), and a high-level elven Sword Dancer (this has recently been spread). In addition to these, there are more identities that these petty nobles dread and would avoid at all costs. In a confrontation between owners of such different magnitudes, you can forget about just being splattered with blood—one slash could end your life without a place to reason it.

Malin’s publicists also smeared the Eastern Kingdom’s royal family in the newspapers as inheriting the throne unjustly—opposed to the Sidney Union’s King dying for the state and the recent kings being designated by their predecessors to inherit the kingdom, a tradition that is so hardcore in all other kingdoms, known as legitimate succession.

But the Eastern Kingdom has changed four dynasties in the last three hundred years, none of which were appointed by their predecessors, meaning civil strife, conspiracies, and coups are the Eastern Kingdom’s main daily events.

The latest dynasty seized the throne ninety-two years ago after the extinction of the former royal line.

As for how the previous dynasty died out, there is so much that can be tarnished, isn’t there?

One thing is sure—when it comes to slandering, Malin’s publicists, after being trained by Malin, are absolutely the strongest verbal artillery of the era.

In this regard, Shelton hesitated somewhat: "We have some ties with the Eastern Kingdom. They asked you what exactly it will take to settle this."

"Who masterminded this theft?" In fact, Malin’s thoughts were simple—if a noble was the mastermind, he would just wait and see; if it was someone from the royal family, then he would lend a hand in looking into it.

"Their eldest prince," Shelton answered after another two hours.

To be honest, Malin had never seen such messiness. In essence, the Eastern Kingdom’s proxies seem to have truly died in vain.

"Tell them, either their prince takes off his left hand, or this isn’t over," Malin gave his condition.

Shelton gave an answer again after another two hours: "They want to know why."

"For the brave souls of the Eastern Kingdom’s merchant association still hanging on the gallows, for those assassins who wanted to kill me and died trying, for that thief from the East who died in the dungeon unwilling to reveal his mastermind..." Malin looked at Shelton as he spoke.

Beyond that, there were many more who were doomed to die because of this. I pity them, pitying their loyalty wasted in the wrong direction, pitying their efforts destined to be buried, pitying their existence doomed to be erased.