Clyde originally came to “Moston” Hotel together with “Radiant Saintess” Suhiya and his younger sister. Here, he happened to encounter the other three saintesses of Light Church.
During the dinner, Clyde received an invitation card from the hotel’s behind-the-scenes operator, Morston Clan, one of the three big tycoon clans that secretly controlled Adrian Empire. Morston Clan’s special envoy had delivered an invitation card and said that their Miss had invited him to discuss a matter. Although Clyde didn’t want to have any relations with the tycoon clans, considering that the other party was a lady and had presented him with 10,000 gold coins, he reluctantly accepted the appointment. If she had been a young master, Clyde would have directly rejected the invitation.
Now, the most important trouble facing Steinbeck Fief was Marquis Charles as well as his supporters, the tycoon Douglas Clan that controlled all trade of Adrian Empire, who challenged it for the Needham Plains. Douglas Clan often competed with Morston Clan; otherwise, Clyde would have ignored this invitation.
Before the appointment, Clyde made his little sister, bloodkin Lolita Lucifer, stay to accompany Light Church’s wasted saintesses. If Suhiya or the others asked for his whereabouts, she would excuse him. Lucifer accepted this task with pleasure and pledged not to take advantage of this occasion to lay her hands on the drunken women of Light Church.
Morston Clan had arranged for a beautiful black-haired knight named Luolan to invite Clyde. The commander of Adrian Empire’s Imperial Knight Regiment, she had a deep friendship with Morston Clan’s Miss and was willing to run errands for her as a close female friend. Along the way, Clyde chatted with this beautiful knight who seemed aloof and cold. Although Luolan’s black pupils unintentionally revealed her vigilance, she politely didn’t avoid Clyde’s questions and didn’t hide many matters.
This beautiful paladin had an unexpected connection with Clyde. After chatting, Clyde discovered that Luolan was a schoolmate of Alicia from the same knight academy. Luolan was actually her senior schoolmate. However, this senior schoolmate never suspected that this man who had no outstanding features besides being handsome was bullying her junior schoolmate in private.
“That girl Alicia is too softhearted. I heard she married the Third Young Master Hal, the son of Earl Harrison, a Suzerain of Adelaide’s Atad City. It’s such a pity. All contact was lost after that Undead calamity. In all likelihood, the facts bode ill rather than well.”
“Miss Luolan, don’t worry. Alicia might have escaped. Light Goddess blesses and protects kind-hearted people.”
“Mister Clyde, thank you for your kind words, but I cannot count on that. Due to that Undead calamity, even the idol I admire, Sacred Moon Dragon Knight Princess Verly, is missing. Even a dragon knight met misfortune, junior Alicia is just a paladin. I fear…”
Paladin Luolan had a forlorn look. She didn’t notice that Clyde was struggling to not laugh. If this beautiful paladin knew that her junior schoolmate and idol had shared a bed with him just a few hours ago without a thread of cloth on them and done all kinds of ambiguous things, he wondered what kind of amusing expression she would show. Thinking this, Clyde involuntarily sized up her figure. This beautiful paladin was tall and slender. He felt that she absolutely wouldn’t feel inferior to Miss Paladin Alicia.
“We have arrived. Mister Clyde, what are you thinking?” Noticing his gaze, Luolan hesitated.
“Nothing, it’s just I don’t know Miss Morais. I wonder why she is looking for me.”
“Mister Clyde, there’s no need to be nervous. She just wants to discuss business, very simple.”
Under Luolan’s guidance, Clyde arrived at the secret meeting, “Morton” Hotel’s ninth floor, the top floor a luxurious private compartment was located. At the moment, Clyde was thinking about how to take down this beautiful Paladin Luolan. However, he couldn’t speak of this wicked matter; fortunately, Clyde cleverly responded with some reasonable lies to avoid being seen through.
Clyde walked into this luxurious private compartment, and with the illumination of multiple lamps, he saw Miss Morais. Miss Morais wore golden, alchemist-specific attire. Clyde had seen similar attire on Second Miss Rebecca, but judging from the profession rank badge on her shoulder, Morais was quite a few grades better than Rebecca. She really wasn’t a useless flower vase lady.
Miss Morais had beautiful flax-colored hair and light blue pupils. Out of a professional need to avoid careless accidents that might happen during alchemy experiments, Morias had tied her long hair into a ponytail. She also wore very big golden-framed circular glasses, appearing to be an astute and capable secretary. Unfortunately, she wasn’t wearing an office suit; otherwise, she would have truly resembled one.
Although she had come into contact with mysterious medicaments for a long time, Morais had fair skin, unaffected by her alchemist profession. In contrast, Rebecca, the Second Miss of Earl Harrison’s family, just focused on the study of alchemy and wasn’t as astute as Morias in the practical aspects.
Alchemy was a very expensive profession. In Ximengsi Continent, this profession’s level of squandering money far surpassed most other magic-class professions. Physical professions were simply incomparable. Even for the knight profession that squandered the most money among the physical professions, not counting mounts, the price of a Dragon Knight’s set of equipment might still not match the price of refining a single rare potion.
The alchemist profession was classified as a magic profession, but in reality, most alchemists’ magic levels were very low. They couldn’t even defeat Magic Apprentices who only knew the low-leveled Fireball spell. The human alchemists of Ximengsi Continent didn’t have high requirements for magic; being wealthy enough to purchase various expensive alchemy materials was enough.
“Mister Clyde, please sit here. Luolan should have told you about my commission already!”
“Say, Miss Morais, I roughly understand the concept of proxy warfare. Merely, why choose me… No, our Steinbeck Fief. You should have investigated that our Steinbeck Fief has just over ten thousand troops. Even if you sponsor us, we might not be able to gather even 20,000 troops, which is basically incomparable to Marquis Charles’s army of 120,000 troops.”
“Mister Clyde, you are truly frank. If… if I said I chose according to my intuition, would you believe it?”
“I don’t believe that. Intuition is often inaccurate. Believing in miracles is something for the devotees of Light Church. If I remember correctly, Miss Morias, you don’t believe in Light Church. In addition, an astute merchant like you would not depend on intuition with stakes like these.”
In the luxurious private compartment, Clyde chatted with Miss Morias. Paladin Luolan was sitting beside Morias while quietly drinking tea, resembling a competent bodyguard. Although Clyde cared little about this discussion, Luolan was the commander of Adrian Empire’s Imperial Knight Regiment, so it was impossible for her to not care about this, but she pretended to no care.
“Mister Clyde, then I’ll just say it. Ai, I can’t find anyone else that can help other than you.”
“Miss Morais, I’m a bit unclear about this. Even with the financial resources of your family, you still can’t find a hired thug?”
“No, it’s not an issue of money, but rather…”
Morias was very frank. She didn’t conceal her plans from Clyde. The issue of the ownership of the Needham Plains was a point of contention between Douglas and Morston Clan. After suffering the successive invasions of Augusta and Franconia Empire, most of the grain production areas of Adrian Empire had taken a heavy hit, indirectly destroying Morston Clan’s earnings for this year.
Like the saying “misfortunes never come alone,” Douglas Clan took advantage of their difficulties and demanded Morston Clan to reduce the price of grain when selling to them; therefore, they could sell it later at a higher price and make a hefty profit. If not, Douglas threatened to purchase cheap grain from other empires and rely on their trading abilities to hit the markets of Adrian Empire with cheap grain and suppress grain prices. In that case, Morston Clan would lose even more.
Marquis Charles had received the support of Douglas Clan, intending to forcibly occupy the Needham Plains that had remained discarded for many years. There, Douglas Clan planned to secretly build a large-scale granary to store the cheap grains they had purchased from other empires. As long as the warehouse were established, they could suppress the grain prices at any time, dealing a blow to their rival.
Morston Clan had no choice but to look for a proxy to help them seize the Needham Plains. Douglas Clan had already spent a large amount of capital to build a large-scale granary. Once the ownership of the Needham Plains changed, the situation would reverse. After losing a large amount of capital, Douglas Clan would not be able to pay attention to Morston Clan for a long time.
However, most of the aristocrats of Adrian Empire already had fixed patrons. Unless their original financial backers went bankrupt, those aristocrats would not easily change their financial backers. Near the Needham Plains, only Steinbeck Fief didn’t have a financial backer. Miss Morias had made a special trip to see whether she could become its financer. Her ability to judge such matters was extraordinary. Based on some simple collected information, she was able to easily determine the true ruler of Steinbeck Fief. It was not the public Suzerain Princess Saras, but rather Clyde, who had taken the post of being an administrative officer.
