The Uncanny: The Knowledgeable Returns From Warhammer

Chapter 80

On Olsner Street in the East District, in the spacious banquet hall of the Upton House, the faces of the nobles who were invited were full of impatience because of Evan Stimson's long absence, like irritated wasps Restless.

And this is not so much a charity dinner initiated by Evan Stimson, but assisted by the Tingen Police Headquarters.

Rather, it is a platform for the aristocrats whose interests have been harmed by the 8-hour work system to put pressure on them after a blatant conspiracy, driven by people with good intentions.

On the sofa in the corner of the hall, after Mrs. Sharon was sent away, Councilor Maynard got his wife from the mouth of the servant, the daughter of the new party boss, and without his own consent, met with Ivan Stimson, and there is no news of his return so far.

The anger that he had nowhere to vent made his expression somber, his thick fingers were scratching over and over again, and the lines on the top of the gold inlaid walking stick.

"After so many years, she has always relied on her family power to go her own way, and she didn't take me seriously at all!"

Sighing secretly, and gradually calming down his restless emotions, Councilor Maynard finally turned his attention to today's charity dinner.

Since Pete, the leader of the bloody hand party he trained, refused to listen to the warning and used the hands of the Razor Gang traitors to kill One-Eyed Walker in a desperate manner, the whole incident began to spiral out of control.

First, there was a seemingly simple gang fight, which caused an MI[-] agent who came out of nowhere to knock on the door of his house overnight.

Later, Ivan Stinson's speech at the school dealt a heavy blow to his career on the bright side, and he worked hard for many years to try to control Tingen from the underground and the government, and then to seek the senator of the Kingdom of Loen. Completely lost.

"The filthy scum of the Bloody Hand Party must have something to hide from me. Now that the leader, Pete, is missing, we must find someone to regain control of the situation and find out the cause of the shooting!"

Thinking of this, Maynard raised his hand and summoned the servant standing beside him, and ordered:

"Find someone you can trust, set up the bloody hand again, and find out what they were doing before."

"Yes, my master!"

The servant was about to leave after leaning over to accept the order. Councilor Maynard cast a glance at the chaotic hall, and suddenly asked unabashedly, "How is Baron James's preparations going?"

Hearing the sound, the aged servant stopped, thought for a while, and then bent down again, explaining in a strict manner:
"Baron James has reached an agreement with the Coal and Steel Consortium of Tingen City, and is going to announce tonight that they will cut off the supply of spare parts and raw materials for the factory owned by Ivan Stinson."

"In addition, they have also arranged manpower in the cargo department of the terminal. All the goods related to Alvin Stimson will be seized and seized until the other party is subdued."

"Of course, we were not directly involved in any of this and reject any allegations related to it."

"Very good!" Maynard nodded with great satisfaction: "Over the years, only you are the most reliable."

"For the glory of the family!"

The aged servant bowed slightly, and Maynard felt very comfortable with his polite manner. Just as he was about to give a few words of encouragement, he suddenly heard that the originally noisy banquet hall gradually quieted down, and then turned his gaze to the center of the hall. .

I saw Evan Stimson who appeared at some unknown time, and greeted the musicians who had been playing the repertoire for several hours, waiting for the melodious music and noisy discussions to calm down.

Then he turned around and said loudly to the waiting crowd in the hall:
"Ladies and gentlemen! Welcome to this hard-won charity dinner. Before the fundraising ceremony begins, please allow me to make some brief introductions."

"First of all, my factory will open soon, and I need your help."

"Secondly, the working hours and physical health of the working class in Tingen need to be guaranteed."

"Well... I've finished my words, who agrees and who opposes?"

After speaking straight to the point, Aiwen put his hands behind his back, looked around calmly, and found that the entire hall was boiling like a pan of oil that had reached a critical point.

"How dare he?"

"Is this bastard drinking too much?"

"I saw him walk into the guest room with Mrs. Maynard before, and he hasn't come out for a long time. Could it be..."

In the noisy discussion, almost everyone was questioning, and some nobles who could not accept it were very sure that the other party must have the support of some big nobles to say such uncompromising remarks.

"I object!"

At this time, a thin middle-aged man wearing monocular glasses suddenly walked out of the crowd with a cane, and said unceremoniously:
"Your whimsical behavior completely disregards everyone's life and death!"

While speaking, he walked quickly to the center of the hall, then stopped three or four steps away from Aiwen, and said loudly with a posture closer to everyone visually:

"Ladies and gentlemen, with the repeal of the Corn Act, a mass of bankrupt farmers flooding the cities, resulting in skyrocketing prices, shortages of raw materials, the state of the market economy has never been worse, the rate of demand for goods has fallen sharply recently, and it has closed down in the last month alone three factories..."

Having said that, Baron James paused for a moment, looked at the whispering crowd, the corners of his mouth curled into a slight arc, and continued to speak loudly:

"And in this difficult situation, this Mr. Inventor is still asking us to increase the cost of labor, completely disregarding how many poor families are starving because of the loss of income after the shaky factories closed down."

"Had it not been for the approaching summer, rather than the severe winter weather, I have every reason to believe that this whimsical and reckless act would have caused hundreds of thousands of innocent people to freeze to death in the streets."

"So in protest, I have decided to refuse to sell any industrial products and raw materials to Mr. Naive Inventor!"

As soon as the words fell, before the nobles who had already negotiated to respond, there was a burst of loud applause behind James.

After all the eyes gathered again, Ivan put down his hands and asked with a smile:
"Who else agrees with Lord James?"

However, it only forcibly interrupted its original process, and presented the problem in a tit-for-tat posture in another way.

The originally high-spirited atmosphere in the entire hall was suffocated in an instant. Under the attitude of most of the nobles who were thinking, only two or three people firmly expressed their support for Baron James' remarks just now.

So far, the compromise and weakness of the nobles due to loose organization, complicated sources of members, and even many internal contradictions among members have been vividly displayed.

At this moment, the aristocratic merchants who turned into wall-riding factions were about to continue to wait and see who would win the battle later, when a burst of messy footsteps suddenly came from outside the hall.

The reporters who were originally blocked on the street rushed in from the door in a sprint of [-] meters. Regardless of the obstruction of the servants, they forcibly moved to the side of the prey they had already found, and roared all kinds of unimaginable things. question.

"Baron James, you have been reported for tax evasion, do you have anything to say about it?"

"Sir, there are still people who accuse you of always abandoning and disregarding the life and death of your illegitimate daughter. Do you have anything to clarify?"

"Mr. Daniel, it is rumored that you have an unknown secret deal with Baron James, is it true?"

The seemingly never-ending sound of questioning like a rotary machine gun brought the confused Baron James back to his senses in an instant, and shouted loudly at the newspaper reporters gathered around him:
"What the hell are you talking about?"

"Guard, where did the guard go? Get these bastards out of here!"

It's a pity that at this dinner organized by the Tingen City Police Headquarters, in order to save enough face for the police department, all the nobles tacitly brought only their personal servants.

And the reporters who fell into a frenzy after smelling the big news had already arranged the servant who was hard to beat with two fists and four hands very properly, and let their companions do whatever they wanted with the protagonist of the incident.

This kind of chaos lasted for about half an hour, and it came to an end when the police officers who were late came to force the reporters who were still not satisfied to leave the banquet hall.

In the middle of the hall, Baron James, who was originally high-spirited, was lying on the ground in a state of embarrassment at the moment, groping for the monocular glasses that he accidentally dropped in the chaos just now.

The fear of being completely shaken out of the secret in front of the public made his whole body almost drenched in cold sweat, and the few hairs on the top of his head, which had been carefully cared for, drooped by his ears like a pheasant after a heavy rain, tightly The tuxedo attached to the body is full of restraint and aggrieved feeling.

It wasn't until he, who couldn't find the glasses, suddenly touched one, like his Mediterranean forehead, with shiny leather boots, that he suddenly raised his head, and with his blurred vision, he roughly recognized the person in front of him Not the group of rude reporters, but a well-dressed inspector.

Immediately, he jumped up from the ground with an excited face, pointed at the surroundings and said: "Mr. Inspector, you came just in time. The mob attacked me just now, please arrest them!"

However, the expectant explanation from the other party made Baron James completely unbalanced.

"Yes, Mr. Baron, I am indeed here to investigate this unexpected incident, so please come with us."

"You must have made a mistake. It was the mob who attacked me. They rushed into the banquet just now and violently overthrew a nobleman to the ground..."

James screamed like a lady who had stepped on a mouse, only to get a colder response.

"So this requires your cooperation in the investigation even more, please cooperate with our work!"

In the silent banquet hall, a group of nobles with different faces watched helplessly. Several people, including Baron James, were forcibly taken away by the armed policemen who filed in for investigation.

During the period, some people were silent, some gloated, and some were furious, including of course Councilor Maynard who almost crushed the gold-encrusted cane.

And Aiwen, who was still standing in the center of the hall with his hands behind his back, said to everyone with a smile on his face again:

"Let's revisit the question just now, who is in favor and who is against?"

"Alvin Stimson, don't you use these self-directed and self-acted despicable methods to try to force us to submit!" Beside Maynard, a wealthy businessman suddenly retorted loudly, but the others did not take any action.

This made Maynard's eyes, which had just raised hope, darken again, and also made the corners of Ivan's mouth raise an obvious arc.

"Sure enough, they will help whoever wins!"

After muttering like a sigh, Aiwen said calmly to the protruding businessman: "If you have any evidence, you can report it to the Tingen City Police Department at any time, but you will receive it before that. I have been summoned for investigation of reputation damage.”

As soon as he finished speaking, the cheeks of the protruding rich businessman turned pale, and Aiwen's seemingly total denial made them guess the role played by the Tingen City Police Department in this.

As the other party said, he sent people to spread those unknown secrets, he asked Upton to find the reporter, and even the inspector who entered the scene to arrest people was old Dirk, a member of the Mechanical Heart Squad. Everything he said was a Hongmen banquet he had set up after getting the reply from Captain Dick.

And his plan is:

The first step is to let the Church of Steam withstand the pressure. I don't expect much assistance, but at least driven by interests, other official organizations in Tingen City can turn a blind eye to their own actions.

The second step is to use this to kill those nobles who are jumping up and down, or use the secret information about the noble merchants in Tingen City that they obtained from Mrs. Sharon's mansion to completely stink them.

The third step is to send people to bars, teahouses, night schools, and even the pier where mermaids are mixed in the East District to make troubles, completely messing up the situation!
Among them, of course, there will be various accidents. The excited people will shed blood and sacrifice due to the strong counterattack of the noble merchants. New ideas will be brutally suppressed, and a large number of awakened people will be imprisoned or massacred on the spot.

"However, all this is the pain that must be experienced on the road to salvation..." Ivan murmured silently:
"May the truth of the empire shine on us!" (Note)
　Note: "There are no ghosts and gods in the stars, no supernatural phenomena, and no magic and witchcraft. Everything can be interpreted through scientific means. Human beings can overcome everything with the light of reason. Nothing should be worshiped. Eliminate the backward concept of religion."

　　— Imperial Truth

　　The true meaning of Imperial Truth is an ideological system that integrates rationality (materialism), science and secularism, and resolutely opposes the perfect conception of all religious superstitions that unite human beings into a community of shared future.

　　In the turbulent years after the fall of the first interstellar civilization, the religions, superstitions and fanaticism spread in many human worlds that fell into darkness.The Emperor declares that "until the last stone of the last cathedral falls upon the last priest", humanity will never be able to move forward freely and fulfill their manifest destiny as the most intelligent race to rule the galaxy.He cleansed all religions and superstitions on ancient Terra (Earth), even after a series of contests with Uriah Aurat Hairi, the last sage on Terra, he witnessed with his own eyes the destruction of its last church.

　　In short, materialism puts human beings first and defeats all ghosts and monsters. ()
　　
　
(End of this chapter)