Cthulhu Gonfalon Chapter 99

"At first glance, it didn’t seem to have any problems. But a one-time failure in investment can lead to serious damages to countless families. Therefore, shouldering a big debt is not a rare thing. But. . . They must have secured success in your hands to persuade Parn the Knight and others, who had been settled for a long time, to join such a far trip. Anyway, to them, it is a problem when they are only seventy percent sure of winning----even if they had secured aneighty percent possiblity of winning, they would not take the risk! Each one of them has their own family and career. There is absolutely no reason for them to risk their lives for wealth!"

"But....where does the problem lie? The Golden Tower city is clearly not near the shore. But those merchants still wanted to go far from the coast to do business? This is not hard to explain. Maybe, he had secretly connected with Garles City. The nature of the businessman is making profit. As long as they could earn money, it wouldn’t matter if it is a long journey. Not to mention that this time he explored a new trading route; if he didn’t come to the port cities near the coast to seek partners, he would easily get into trouble himself."

"So, his action had clearly drawn many shareholders, and he was still sneakily borrowing and causing such a big debt. No, normally, since it was a long distance trade, it would have at least ten parts of success. Not to mention, it is the most profitable trade. Of course, the more the capital is, the better. It is not normal for him to go borrow money!"

"Or, is the problem in the priest of that Honorable Court Lady’s church? It is not right. His actions are quite normal. . . In order to check on the opponent, he had bought a big quantity of goods on the boat. Then he met Tim Thrall and fought bravely until his death. The entire process didn’t have anything abnormal or suspicious. The only thing that made people doubt the situation was where did the church get this much money? After he had bought such a huge amount of goods, he still had money for lending? But the Honorable Court Lady’s church is backed by many big noblemen. It is not strange to have a big sum of money. . . Maybe because that priest had lent out a big sum of money, he wanted to get on board to see the transaction with his own eyes..."

". . . This is not right! It definitely has problems in some places!"

Lei was drowned in his thoughts for a while. In the end, he wasn’t able to find the key problem, he could only seek help from Sui Xiong.

After dinner, they bid farewell to the Lady Teague, Liv and Agnes, and then came to a hostel to rest. Stelle again sneakily ran somewhere, while Lei started to discuss everything with Sui Xiong.

"This matter certainly has a problem!" Lei said, "Although I can’t find where the problem is, I can still smell the scent of conspiracy!"

"That’s right, this matter doesn’t look right!" Sui Xiong nodded, "There is no reason for the people and Parn the Knight to risk their lives. They weren’t lacking money!"

"If thinking carefully, they were indeed lacking money." Lei said, "The church of the Exploitation Knight (alias of the God of Knight and Exploitation) is fighting with the Honorable Court Lady’s church. They clearly need a large amount of money. The people and Parn the Knight don’t have many assets. They’ve probably barely managed to support themselves in these years. If they see a reliable chance to make money, they wouldn’t let it slip away."

". . . That’s right. This trip would help them strengthen their social relations. No need to be too risky, they just needed to spend around one year away."

"Right, because the priest of the Honorable Court Lady’s church has gone on the boat too, they don’t need to worry that they could be attacked this time. And the reason why that priest had gone on the board is very sufficient; not wrong at all. Lei pondered for a long while but still couldn’t find any possible ways, "Highness, you should definitely use some magic to check on this."

"Black art? No, black art can’t explore the situation in the church of another God." Sui Xiong thought for a little bit then shook his head, "Only a God who has all kinds of ‘Conspiracy’ and ‘Spy’ clergies could have the magic to do such thing."

"Isn’t there magic that can make any eccentric unnamed existence answer all our questions? The accuracy rate is very high too..."

"Ah, are you talking about that series of magic? Although I don’t find that it would be any help at all, it is worth a try." Sui Xiong started to prepare to launch magic as was suggested. After a while, along with a black fog and icy-cold evil breath, a frightful devil mask showed up in front of them. It used its bitting cold and dreary eyes, which could freeze the bones of others, to look at them.

Lei’s hair stood on its ends as he stared at that thing, he hurriedly asked, "Please answer my question. Does the death of Parn the Knight have any conspiracy behind it?"

The expression of the devil mask became a little bit absent-minded. This was because it was using its innate ability to search in the fate river to find the answer for this question.

However, before it could find the answer, its face suddenly became frightened and worried. After that, the devil mask suddenly distorted and began to transform. Following this was a strange shriek, which then exploded and turned into a puff of smoke. All the fog and icy coldness started to spin around as well, forming a whirlpool in the air, suddenly disappearing without a trace.

"... What just happened?" Lei was frightened and skeptically asked.

"Some mighty existence is taking action." Sui Xiong could figure out the problem right away, "I didn’t know he had set up locking magic, which would be automatically activated with all the search-related magic? Or has he already set up an alarm? Whenever an alarm is set up, it will take action on its own."

Lei was silent for a while then asked, "How strong is he approximately?"

"It’s really hard to tell. If it is the first scenario, then he is indeed limitlessly powerful," Sui Xiong said, "Even if it is the second, his strength can’t be underestimated."

"How is it compared to yours?"

"No matter how strong the opponent is, as long as I don’t have to intrude in other worlds randomly, or other schemes like fate to fight against him, in a normal fight in the mortal world, I would not be afraid of any enemies."

Lei thought for a long time, shook his head, and took a deep breath.

"Haizz! Even if I want to continue investigating, there are no clues!" He reluctantly said, "Without a clue, no one will be able to find a solution!"

Sui Xiong also sighed. There was something that a God couldn’t do either.

After a while, Lei said, "Highness, Parn the Knight has already died. Do you still plan to find a Lord for the Holy Land, which is preparing to be built?"

"No doubt. It is just that I have not figured out who to look for." Sui Xiong said, "Finding a political talent who has capability, good dignity, and moreover doesn’t have any conflict with my religion, is not easy."

"I know some people that you can check out." Lei pensively said, "Although it has been a really long time since I contacted them, their capabilities are confirmed. As for the religion aspect,...this problem is not really a big thing either. It is just that I can’t determine how their current dignities are. After all, people change."

"Let’s try if there is hope. Where are they now?"

"They are in the capital of the Tercel Kingdom; the Eagle Wing city." Lei said, "At least fifteen years ago they were all in the Eagle Wing city. These years, I haven’t heard anything from them. Maybe, they are still in the Eagle Wing city."

"Then this is good already." Sui Xiong nodded as they decided the direction for the next journey.

But the next morning, after having been through a night of thinking, he changed his mind again.

"We can’t let this matter pass like this!" He said determinedly, "Parn the Knight had led a group of good people into an unclear death. Their families are still being bullied. If I have already encountered such a matter, there would be no reason for me to ignore it!"

"Like so. . . Do we help them pay off all their debt?" Lei thought for a little bit then said:

"I feel that it is still not fresh enough. . ."

"We need to solve everything step by step. First, we help them solve this trouble right in front of them, then deal with the other things later." Lei said, "Not to mention...if there really are some conspiracies behind this, then we are paying a debt for them. It would destroy our plan if some kind of dark hands are behind the curtain, which will for sure find us to cause trouble. Until that time, I’m sure a clue will present itself."

Sui Xiong nodded nonstop and praised him continuously.

The eyes and scheme of Lei are indeed not bad. If it weren’t for the fact that he is clearly not interested in being a Lord, letting him take charge of the Lord position of my Holy Land is not a bad choice.

After receiving the encouragement from Sui Xiong, Lei became more proactive. As the result of his careful consideration, he then drew out another scheme. He needed to firmly stimulate those evil hands behind the curtain to make them lose their calm and jump out on their own.

After a few hours, they came to the house of Parn the Knight for the second time. Today, Liv had gone out and only Lady Teague and Agnes were at home.

When they knew that mister Lei had used magic to contact the Lord and that the Lord wanted to help those in a predicament to pay their dept, they could not help but be frightened.

"But. . . But, that is a frightful number!" Lady Teague was too surprised that she stuttered.

"Approximately how much?" Lei asked.

"I used to calculate the number, the total is..." Agnes tilted her little head, thought for a long while, spoke out a number that even a somewhat rich family would be startled with. "Ah! As for how is the interest calculated… I don’t know..."

This number was out of Lei’s expectation. He smiled then gently said, "Don’t worry. It won’t be a big problem if it is included with interest. I will go to gather some money. As soon as young lady Liv comes back, please ask her and her friends to get together here. We will talk a little bit, okay?"

"No problem!" Lady Teague answered immediately, but she worriedly said, "But. . . That is not a small number! The taxation that our Golden Tower city could collect is more than two thousand gold coins a year..."

"That is because the majority of the noble businesses don’t pay their taxes." Lei said, "Don’t you worry. Our Lord is a newly-rising nouveau-riche. That number is indeed not small. But to him, it is just a teeth-baring and eye-rolling matter."

Following his words, he showed the posture of baring teeth and rolling eyes, making Agnes laugh.

After deciding everything, Lei then bid farewell and left immediately. He woke Stelle up, who was still sound asleep. The red flame on the back of her right hand had increased to seven flames. She was just a little waya bit away from turning into a pig again. Together, they went to several stores selling magic materials, splurging all their cash and gems to buy magic materials at a low price.

Thanks to the blessing of the Nobility God’s church, which was their pressure on the magic material market, the prices of these things in the Golden Tower city were very cheap these days. They could easily buy a large amount of materials. Even if they sold at a pretty low price in other cities, they could still earn a little profit.

Yet, how can Sui Xiong be satisfied with the low buying price? After getting out of the city, he immediately left the coordinates of Lei behind and performed a transmission magic, bringing Stelle along. They jumped almost half the mainland, back to the Gerton dominion, returning to see the "Black Edge" - Lovell.

Since the last time they encountered the accident, Sui Xiong immediately invested his power into the transmission magic. During these times, he had succeeded in identifying several coordinates of some loyal believers. Although there were still some limits on his transmission magic, sending goods was easily done. He could only transmit a small body with weak strength; not something that was too powerful or too enormous, so the goods were perfect.

They asked to meet the Lord and showed a pile of those magic materials. Olivia immediately gathered a few noblemen and big businessmen in the territory to plan to get rich together.

After several hours of discussion, the materials were sold at a pretty high price. The noblemen and the businessmen joining this transaction were all smiling brightly. Everyone was very satisfied.

When Sui Xiong brought Stelle back to the outskirts of the Golden Tower city once again, united with the boring Lei, who was wrestling with that Copper-Crowned Wyvren, tried to train it into a mount, the space bag had been already filled up with gold coins and gems. .

The profit from this transaction alone was already a few times bigger than the debt!

Chapter end