In the spacious carriage, as the team outside gradually stopped, Athir looked at the three people sitting in front of him.
"Okay, now that you've made your decision, go tell the others outside."
Sitting in the carriage and looking at the scenery outside, Athir said calmly: "The mercenaries who came with me this time. Those who are willing to stay with me can follow us into the city. In the future, they will serve as my guards, have a stable job and income, and can move their families here in the future."
"As for those who don't want to follow, you can go back directly after receiving your commission this time."
"Yes!" After hearing Athir's words, the three of them subconsciously stood up and nodded.
With the order, they quickly walked out of the carriage, each gathered their own teams, and conveyed Athir's words to the mercenaries.
After a while, the matter was almost over. Of the fifty or so mercenaries, except for a dozen who refused, most of the others expressed their willingness to stay.
Looking at the remaining thirty or so people, Athir nodded.
This time he plans to live in Gukai City for several years. If he has no one under his command, many things will be inconvenient.
Of course, it is not appropriate to employ all of these people, so after arriving in Gukai City, Atier will recruit a group of people locally and set up some industries to serve him.
After Athir had the commission distributed, the team was divided into two groups.
Because of Athir's promise and the reduction in the number of people in the team, the group's progress speeded up again.
A few hours later, Atier and others arrived at Gukai City. After paying some entry taxes, they entered the city directly.
This place is more desolate than many cities I've visited before. The buildings everywhere seem a bit messy and don't look very well maintained.
In the surrounding corners, Athir also saw many ragged beggars and even some motionless corpses.
It seems that very few people come to this place to do business, and a team of dozens of people is rarely seen.
After seeing them, beggars came from time to time to beg, most of whom were young children and the disabled, and looked very miserable.
"Is this place so messy?"
Looking at this scene, Athir couldn't help but frown.
Beggars are of course inevitable. Even in Athir's previous life, the profession of beggar had not completely disappeared, let alone in this chaotic world.
But it was surprising to see so many beggars as soon as we entered the city, and even several frozen corpses that no one had come to clean up.
"Sir, this is the place." Seeing the expression on Athir's face, a guide came over quickly and said to Athir, "This place borders the surrounding orcs. There are wars almost every year. Corpses and beggars are common."
"Most of those beggars are orphans whose parents died in the war, and soldiers who were disabled after going to the battlefield."
After hearing this, Athir nodded and said, "Take out the remaining dry food and meat. We will have fresh supplies in the city and will not need those things anymore."
Hearing Athir's order, the guards around nodded and swiftly took out some dry food from the carriage where food and other supplies were placed, and gave them to the beggars who came to beg around.
After a while, under the guidance of the guide, Athir and others arrived at a local hotel.
It seemed that there were few outsiders coming and going here. There were only a few guests in the huge hotel, and the remaining rooms were enough to accommodate the more than 30 people brought by Athir.
"I want to buy some property in the city. Do you have any suggestions?"
After settling the guards, in a spacious room, Athir looked at the guide he brought, as well as Elder and the other two and asked.
"I wonder what kind of property you want to buy, sir?" asked the guide standing in front of Athir.
"A manor that can accommodate hundreds of people and some shops that are enough to maintain daily operations." said Athir.
"Manors that can accommodate hundreds of people are basically the property of the nobility. If you want to buy one, according to the regulations of Ancient Armor City, you must have a noble status."
After standing there and thinking for a while, the guide quickly said, "As for the shops, except for the shops selling weapons and armor, other shops are easy to set up. As long as there are enough gold coins and the subsequent operations are no problem, you can handle it at any time, sir."
"Very good." Hearing this, Athir nodded: "Take people to inquire around today, and come back to tell me the situation in the evening."
"Yes." The people in front of him nodded, and when they saw that Athir had no other instructions, they took their people out.
After their figures disappeared from his sight, Athir walked outside silently and looked at the scenery in the city.
"I didn't sense any magical particles. It seems that there are very few wizards in this city."
Looking into the distance, Athir thought lightly in his heart.
On the map, the Kingdom of Gumodo itself is close to a barren area, and the local wizard resources are very scarce. Although it is better than Athir's hometown, the number of spellcasters is also very small, and most of them are knights.
"If you want to find other wizards in this city, you probably have to contact the city lord."
With his head lowered, Athir thought to himself.
Wizards themselves are an aristocratic class, and the ancestors of many great nobles were often wizards, and there are wizard things passed down.
A nobleman with a status like the lord of a city would more or less come into contact with some news about wizards, and should have a clearer idea of the distribution of wizards in the city.
"It just so happens that if we want to investigate those mutant orcs, it will be much more convenient to rely on the power of local forces. Besides, we will have to live in this city for a few years, and I am afraid we will have to deal with these local nobles."
Thinking of this, Athir turned around and returned to the hotel.
That night, Elder and his companions returned to the hotel.
"Sir, we have already found out some information."
Standing in front of Athir, several people looked at each other, and then Elder stood up and reported to Athir: "The situation in Gukai City is very bad. Many nobles in the city seem to be planning to evacuate here, so many industries are being sold."
"We asked around and found out that recently there was a manor for sale that met your requirements. The owner is a local viscount who is preparing to evacuate and the price is 8,000 gold coins."
At this point, Elder hesitated for a moment and then continued, "We discussed it. If you are not in a hurry, you can wait for a while. As long as no one takes over after a period of time, the price of this manor will definitely drop."
Listening to his words, Athir's face was calm, and he didn't seem to have any emotions: "What about the shop?"
"Shops are easy." Elder said, "We looked around a bit. Because Gukai City recently fought a war with the orcs, business is not very good everywhere. There are shops that want to sell everywhere."
"If you want it, my lord, as long as you prepare enough gold coins, there are many people who will be willing to sell it to you."
He said all this in one breath, then quietly retreated into the crowd at the back, returning to his previous taciturn self.
The next day, when the sun shone on the earth, Athir walked into the city with some people.
He first came to the manor, and after some bargaining between Elder and others and the other party, he finally bought the manor for 7,000 gold coins.
Then he went out into the streets and bought some shops.
On the one hand, it was to purchase some properties in the city, and on the other hand, it was also intended to be used to house the families of some of his subordinates so that they could have a stable job.
By the time all the things were done, a month had passed.
··············
Early in the morning, Athir was sitting in the spacious living room, holding a book in his hands and flipping through it quickly.
On the wooden table in front of him, there were a large number of books, all of which looked like they had been read.
"Sure enough, it is extremely unlikely to find some knowledge about wizards from these collected books."
After quickly flipping through the book in his hand and waiting for the chip to quickly transfer the knowledge into his mind, Athir opened his eyes and spoke with some disappointment.
In the wizarding world, there are often records of ordinary people accidentally discovering books containing wizarding knowledge and eventually becoming wizard apprentices.
After arriving at the Ancient Armor City, in order to try his luck, Athir had people collect some books at a high price, hoping to find something about wizards from those books.
After more than half a month, Athir did see some records about wizards in these books, but most of them were just vague descriptions, with very few exact knowledge records, which were of no use to Athir.
"Forget it. Although I didn't find any advanced knowledge about wizards, it's good to be able to enrich the chip's database."
Standing up silently, Atier put down the book in his hand and muttered to himself.
Although the books in front of him did not involve wizard knowledge, after removing those useless poems, there was still a lot of mortal knowledge, which was also useful to Athir.
At this moment, there was a burst of hurried and light footsteps coming from outside.
Hearing the sound, Athir turned around and looked outside the door.
There, a blond old man dressed in a neat formal dress walked in quickly. When he saw Athir, he bowed his head respectfully and said, "Sir, the city lord just sent an envoy here."
Hearing this, Athir was stunned.
When he first arrived at Gukai City, he had the idea of contacting the local nobles in his mind. Unexpectedly, before he took the initiative to contact them, the other party came to him first.
"What did the other party say?" Standing in place, he cleared away the distracting thoughts in his mind and asked the blond old man in front of him.
(End of this chapter)