"Buy! Buy the damn thing!"
"I want them all!"
"No way, after buying this, I want that too. I'm going to be drinking porridge this month."
Mousilon was once very prosperous. In most cases, a vampire lord ruled over a territory, often more prosperous than that of human nobles. The vampires demanded little from their living subjects—just blood and labor. Vampire lords had many ways to increase their income, and their long and eternal lives allowed them to accumulate vast wealth.
This was why Mousilon was so prosperous.
The buying frenzy rolled in waves. Gerard's sword also thirstily drank the blood of the fallen. Thieves eyed these goods, and the powerful kingdom knights had to catch these thieves and kill them.
Next to a stall, a rather luxurious carriage was gently swaying. The fat merchant from before was inside. Since he entered, the carriage had not stopped shaking. Throughout the summer sale, the carriage shook just as long.
"Hey, you dead man, look at you, you can't even compare to a fatso who weighs several hundred pounds!" A woman in her forties saw the carriage constantly shaking, so she took the opportunity to mock her husband.
"Who knows what kind of drugs that fatso has taken?" The man looked somewhat annoyed: "Enough, if you don't want to buy anything, let's go home."
The carriage continued to sway, emitting moans that led to wild guesses.
"Ying ying ying~"
"Ying ying ying~"
Inside the carriage, the sounds of moaning continued, but what happened under the thick curtains was not as one might imagine.
It was all an illusion created by magic. Ryan sat in the middle of the carriage, observing the hot-selling scene, and said to Veronica sitting on his lap, "Let's think, what do we need to make siege weapons?"
"Ying ying ying~ Ah!" Veronica deliberately screamed, then the witch Garon sighed softly, somewhat annoyed, and lightly punched Ryan in the chest: "Stop it!"
"I'm not joking with you, Veronica, stop playing." Ryan removed his hand from under Veronica's skirt, then turned to Teresa, sitting beside him, and said, "Teresa, what do you think?"
"Firstly, we can be sure that making siege weapons requires a lot of materials and the help of living people. Zombies and skeletons, which are the main labor force of the undead, cannot complete the manufacture of siege weapons," Teresa said, wearing that incredibly ugly hooked nose. The sorceress sat next to Ryan, cautiously said, "Also, siege weapons need a lot of materials."
"You're stating the obvious, Trevelyan." Veronica said impatiently: "Anyone could think of that."
"What's your brilliant idea, Veronica?" Teresa immediately got fired up by Veronica's challenge. The sorceress and the witch's face-off gave Ryan a headache. Their roles beside Ryan were indeed too similar, making their relationship very poor. This enmity had accumulated from childhood, and Ryan had completely given up on the idea of reconciling them.
"To make giant siege weapons, three key points are necessary: sufficient space, a large amount of materials, and skilled craftsmen. Currently, in a state of war, Mousilon's chaos determines that the place where siege weapons are made must be sealed off. So, first, we need to figure out which places in the city are not allowed to enter or exit," Veronica analyzed.
Veronica's analysis was well-organized, and Ryan nodded repeatedly. Then, he gestured for the demon hunter to come over and whispered in his ear.
"Understood." Albert nodded repeatedly, then started trying to chat with the customers in line.
The start was easy, and soon someone told Albert about the places in the city that were off-limits, including the inner fortress of Melun Castle, the docks by the sea, the necromancer's meeting place within the city, and the library.
Albert quickly returned to inform Ryan.
"Albert has clarified for us. There are three places in the city where entry is forbidden: the inner fortress Melun Castle, the docks at the city's port, and the library and several vampire meeting places," Ryan nodded, continuing from inside the carriage, "Obviously, the vampires wouldn't manufacture siege weapons at the library or meeting places. Therefore, the most likely places to make siege weapons are Melun Castle, the docks, or... outside the city."
"Making siege weapons requires a large space, and a lot of people and materials to come and go. The undead cannot hide while building. Ryan, we need to understand the flow of materials, including enough wood, stone, and some magical materials," Teresa sat beside Ryan, continuing her analysis, "So what we need to figure out next is where these materials are going, which will most likely be the place where siege weapons are being made. It's unlikely to be inside the city; it should indeed be outside."
"Good, then it's my turn to take action." Ryan adjusted his mask, waiting for his moment to enter the stage.
"Ying ying ying~" Veronica started again, and Ryan stretched out his hand to gently pinch Garon Witch's silky feet, holding her red nail-polished stocking feet in his hand: "Keep it down, or I'll really try what it feels like to do that kind of thing in the carriage."
Veronica then closed her mouth.
Ryan's carefully prepared "Steam summer sale" didn't last long. Because of the promotion of goods and the shortage of goods, this event was doomed to be short-lived. It came quickly, and those who bought were smiling, but those who queued for a long time were unhappy. They came in waves, cursing and wanting to squeeze in front to see if there was any left, and some wanted to argue with Ryan, asking when the next summer sale would be.
Ryan seized this opportunity, saying to the surrounding people, "Ladies and gentlemen, most of my goods have been sold out. I indeed have a little left, and I am willing to continue selling them to you, but before that, may I make a request?"
"Speak up!" "What does the greedy merchant want to know?" Many people, hearing that the fat merchant had one last bit of goods, shouted loudly, with hatred and greed on their faces.
"It's like this. I'm a merchant. I came to Mousilon to do business. I don't want to return to Marimburg empty-handed. I've always heard that Mousilon produces high-quality hardwood and excellent stone. May I ask where I can buy these things?" Fat merchant Gab-Newell spread his hands, speaking somewhat unclearly, his bearded face shaking.
"Hey~ Merchant from Marimburg, where did you hear that Mousilon is rich in hardwood and stone? This is Mousilon! This is a swamp. Our special products are only the various specialty crops in the fertile swamps, and the snails and frogs in the swamp," one citizen mocked, his face full of disdain and ridicule: "Perhaps you can buy some snails and frogs back to Marimburg? If they don't spoil on the way."
In Mousilon, there are two specialty professions: swamp husband and frog wife. Swamp husband is a professional snail catcher and frog hunter. Their job title comes from a cryptic dialect,
meaning swamp person or frog hunter. All creatures in the swamp are legally owned by the lord. To become a swamp husband, at least the local nobility's acquiescence is required, and some nobles demand a long apprenticeship and oath before being allowed to hunt in the lord's swamp. They are often tenacious finders of snails and frogs, with their work being cumbersome and time-consuming.
Swamp husband is usually male, but some nobles allow particularly observant and agile girls to marry skilled men for hunting, and these girls are called frog wives.
Living in a corrupt environment for a long time, the human hearts of Mousilon have been twisted by corruption—whether chaos corruption or vampire corruption. The residents harbor malice, bloodlust, and depravity in their hearts. They often perform forbidden dark rituals, invoking dark gods banned from worship in the outside world. Ryan thought if the residents of Mousilon were tried in Brittany, then nearly eighty percent of them would probably be sentenced to hanging.
"Oh, my friends, snails and frogs may be your specialties here, but I don't need them. I don't know how to preserve them or how to sell them. Marimburg doesn't have the tradition of eating these things," Ryan looked helpless: "This is not a good business. I think I don't need them."
"So you're determined to find hardwood and stone, foreigner?" some citizens shouted impatiently.
"No no no, I buy everything. I'm just asking, you know, I don't have many chances to come to Mousilon. I don't want to go back empty-handed. Listen, every time I come here, I have to pay a large amount of customs duty. I…" The fat merchant's rambling annoyed people, so soon someone interrupted him: "Enough! Foreigner, we don't have time to listen to your ramblings. If you want to buy hardwood and stone, you should find Old Dyke. He specifically does this business."
"Old Dyke?" The fat merchant immediately signaled everyone to be quiet.
"Give me the goods, or I won't tell you!" the speaker said.
"Deal." The fat hand reached out and shook hands with the man.
The man looked under forty, already in middle age. He and Ryan went to a street corner, and the middle-aged man whispered, "Listen, foreigner, you need to find Old Dyke. He is specifically responsible for buying and selling this. Mousilon here is a swamp. We are very lacking in many resources, so our undead masters have appointed a few people specifically responsible for this, and Old Dyke is one of them."
"Okay, continue, I'm listening, you speak, I listen." Ryan quickly crossed his arms and bowed his head to listen.
"Old Dyke's shop is just three streets away and then turn right. You'll see a huge bat sign. Remember, don't say it was me who told you." The middle-aged man's tongue seemed specially trained, not many people could speak as clearly as him: "But your hopes may be dashed, foreigner. Recently, someone has been buying this on a large scale."
"Hmm~ No problem, we can talk about something else." Ryan extended his hand: "Thank you very much, brother."
"Who's your brother? I just want the goods, sell them to me quickly." The middle-aged man slapped Ryan's extended fat hand away. Ryan didn't mind and gestured for Gerard to take out a bag: "Where's your gold?"
"Hey! Isn't my information worth this much?" The middle-aged man cursed and pulled out a bag of kroner from his body.
"You said sell me the goods, not give me the goods, sir."
"Oh, alright, alright, or you could exchange it for your life?" The middle-aged man suddenly pulled out a dagger from his sleeve, the sharp dagger stabbing straight at Ryan's face.
The cold light of the dagger was already reflecting on Ryan's face.
Ryan instinctively stepped back, his face showing surprise, his bulky body uncontrollably about to fall, and he screamed in pain, looking like he had no training at all.
"Clang!" Gerard's sword was faster. The kingdom knight disguised as a butler pierced the middle-aged man's chest with his sword just as he raised his dagger, with hot blood splattering on the ground. The middle-aged man looked at Gerard incredulously, dying instantly.
"Hey, don't kill people randomly!" Ryan complained discontentedly: "Peace brings wealth!"
Then the fat merchant immediately gestured for two demon hunter guards to come up and strip the middle-aged man bare, taking all the valuable things on him, while brushing off the dust on his body, he continued, "Let's go see that Old Dyke."
After Ryan and the others left, dark creatures and low-level vampires immediately came out from the depths of the alley to fight over his blood and eat his flesh.
In Mousilon, murder often happened openly on the streets, and people had long become accustomed to it.
In the depths of the alley, two figures in black robes stared at the fat merchant's continuing sales figure, whispering, "Are you still doubting him? He's just a merchant. From his performance just now, he obviously hasn't received any training."
"But I just feel something is wrong with him. This merchant, Gab-Newell, arrived too coincidentally." The other black robe revealed his true face; he was Matthew Bard, the young ranger knight who had not chosen to be hastily transformed into a vampire. His human identity was still useful.
Arkaim had left a huge dark magic ritual on him, which would be key to his future destruction of Brittany: "Don't you find it strange? Shortly after the Red Duke and his army departed, this merchant appeared, and after being missing for several years, now he's wandering around, gathering information."
"It's very normal for a merchant not wanting to return empty-handed, my lord." The other black robe countered: "He is a trading partner of the von Carstein family. Manfred is now cooperating with us. If we act rashly, the already fragile relationship between our master and Manfred will be ruined by your recklessness!"
"I know!" Matthew Bard said impatiently, focusing on the fat merchant's retreating figure: "I will make him reveal his true form!"
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