Clyde single-handedly slaughtering his way into Saka Fortress put Mercenary King Gruz ill at ease. Although Gruz ordered the entire Saka Fortress to enter martial law, they didn’t find any trace of Clyde. This made Gruz extremely angry. With an enemy lurking around after taunting him, Gruz felt deeply ashamed. If he couldn’t catch that fellow, his prestige and dignity as a Mercenary King would be destroyed.
Clyde wandered Saka Fortress. Because of the forbidden magic crystal, his magic was restricted. To avoid exposing his traces, he was cautious and didn’t use dark magic to conceal himself but rather used a more primitive method. He directly killed a war mercenary before taking the other’s nameplate and equipment.
Unfortunately, unlike regular armies, war mercenary groups had much less efficient identity authentication systems. Many war mercenaries came from different mercenary groups, so the flow of new people was very big. Unlike a regular army, it was not easy to manage them, making it easy for infiltrators. After Clyde changed into the mercenary’s equipment, his journey was smooth, and the patrols rarely interrogated him.
Clyde searched for the magician who was a behind-the-scenes supporter of Mercenary King Gruz to destroy their forbidden magic crystal. According to the speculation of Sacred Moon Dragon Knight Princess Verly, that behind-the-scenes magician was a person from the Augusta Wagner Empire. The mages of Ximengsi Continent’s interior human nations had never even seen ab inferior forbidden magic crystal, so it was impossible for them to manipulate one. Only the four frontier super empires could.
It was very difficult to find a magician among the 50,000 defending troops stationed here in Saka Fortress, so Clyde directly went to the most luxurious building first, which was Mercenary King Gruz’s residence. Demon Princess Andrea had previously revealed that the Demon Race had researched Augusta Wagner Empire’s magicians and found them to be a group of very proud fellows, so it was almost impossible for them to live in a simple, crude residence. If he went to Saka Fortress’s most luxurious building, he had a high chance of running into that behind-the-scenes magician.
War Mercenary Gruz’s residence was built in accordance with the standards of an Earl’s residence. As a Mercenary King, although he was a rough fellow, he was still very good at enjoying himself. His guards were all trusted subordinates who would be quite difficult to deceive. Therefore, Clyde found a suitable place near the residence’s gate and secretly observed the people passing through the mercenary king’s residence, looking for a chance to sneak inside.
“Gruz is making a fuss over a trifle. Only one person has snuck in; there is no need to go through all this trouble to look for him!”
“Lower your voice! If those dogs of Lord Gruz heard your words, it would be troublesome.”
“Why fear? Those fellows are just relying on Gruz to throw their weight around. If it weren’t for the money, who would waste time coming to such a desolate place like the Needham Plains with him.”
While Clyde secretly observed the mercenary king’s residence, he heard a lot of rumors about Gruz from those war mercenaries’ idle chattering. A Mercenary King could lead an army of 100,000 troops, but no Mercenary King had enough spare money to raise 100,000 exclusive mercenaries. Generally, a Mercenary King would cultivate only 10,000 or 20,000 exclusive mercenaries. The rest were all free mercenaries temporarily hired to boost their numbers in order to trick their employer.
In the current Saka Fortress, Mercenary King Gruz nominally had over 50,000 troops, but in fact, only 10,000 or so belonged to his exclusive mercenary group. The other 40,000 had not been forced to come here but risked their lives here for higher wages. If something unusual happened, they could abandon Gruz at any time.
Clyde quickly sorted out some useful information. His previous judgment was not wrong: the behind-the-scenes magician of Mercenary King Gruz was in Gruz’s residence. According to these mercenaries’ conversations, that magician wore a thick, grey cloak, intentionally concealing his appearance.
“Stop chatting there! Roll over here to help!”
Just when Clyde was feeling vexed about not finding a suitable opportunity to enter Gruz’s mercenary king residence, a brown-haired handsome youth casually pointed at Clyde’s direction and ordered the mercenaries to come help. The youth had a typical prodigal son’s arrogant attitude
. The mercenaries he pointed at didn’t dare to say anything. They just cursed that fellow’s family in their hearts since this fellow was Mercenary King Gruz’s chief disciple, Sparke. According to the mercenaries’ private conversations, he was the top underling and number one dog of Gruz. However, his combat power was not particularly good, so he relied on Gruz’s prestige to throw his weight around. Many mercenaries didn’t like him, but they were deterred by Mercenary King Gruz’s face.
Under Sparke’s orders, Clyde pretended to help with the other mercenaries. Sparke had returned to Saka Fortress with several horse carriages and needed more manpower to transfer the luggage into the mercenary king residence. The mercenaries ordered by Sparke to come help all looked depressed since they wouldn’t get any extra compensation for working for this fellow, but they still respected Gruz enough to follow Sparke’s orders. Clyde, however, didn’t care, since he could now smoothly enter the residence.
Sparke himself didn’t do any work and simply hugged two maids in revealing dresses. His hands roamed their hot figures as he took liberties with women in public, but the mercenaries didn’t even bat their eyelids.
When Clyde looked at those two maids, he vaguely felt that something was wrong. Although the other party concealed it well, Clyde’s observation skills were quite good, so he easily saw through these two maids. The difference in the color of their faces and necks was obvious; they must have been wearing assassin profession-specific disguise masks that Miss Jenny had once mentioned. It was very likely that Sparke didn’t even realize that those two coquettish maids were not simple.
However, Clyde didn’t shoot his mouth. In any case, he had also snuck into this place. He wouldn’t unethically dismantle a peer’s work. Both sides had their own goals, and it was enough as long as they didn’t disturb each other. Thinking this, Clyde lowered his head and ignored the two maids.
The boxes in the carriages were very heavy and required four people to carry them away. Judging from their heaviness, Clyde guessed that the boxes must have been loaded with precious metals like gold coins and so on. In the eyes of war mercenaries, gold coins were more important than army provisions, and Mercenary King Gruz was fully aware of this principle. Therefore, the provision warehouse of Saka Fortress was casually guarded while all the gold coins and so on were amassed in the mercenary king’s residence. As long as he controlled the gold coins, the temporarily recruited mercenaries would always obey his commands.
Although Clyde could easily move the boxes himself without any problems, to keep appearances, he pretended to need the other mercenaries to carry a box. These boxes were stored in the treasury deep within the residence. Every three to five days, the mercenaries would be paid in cash from this treasury since war mercenaries didn’t like magic debit cards. For them, gold coins in their hands were the only hard currency; everything else was worthless.
The treasury was heavily guarded. If not for Sparke’s lead, it would have taken a lot of time for Clyde to find this place. There, Clyde finally found that mysterious magician. Like the mercenaries had said before, this behind-the-scenes magician wore a grey cloak to disguise their appearance. Glancing over from his conversation with the magician to see the commotion, Gruz ignored it once he saw Sparke.
“Great Master, can you help us find that…”
“Your Excellency Gruz, you yourself can deal with this kind of minor matter. You don’t need my help. I still need to maintain the forbidden magic barrier. If there is nothing else, please leave me!”
“Great Master, ok… fine! Excuse me.”
Mercenary King Gruz with his tyrannical nature didn’t dare to get angry in front of that mysterious magician or even utter a word of protest. After exchanging a few words, he turned around and left. It seemed that Gruz wanted to ask that behind-the-scenes magician to help find Clyde’s whereabouts, but the magician hadn’t accepted it since he didn’t want to bother dealing with a minor matter like finding a person.
While Sparke was not paying attention, he slipped away from the gold-transporting troops and followed that mysterious black-robed magician. He just wanted to follow this magician to destroy the forbidden magic crystal. Like that, Saka Fortress’s magic isolation barrier would collapse, eliminating a major advantage for the defending troop while landing a major blow on the morale of Gruz’s army.
