my armed maid

Chapter 31:30: Storm is coming

The people of Linfeng City were surprised to find that, seemingly overnight, the direction of public opinion in the city had changed instantly.

Before today, there were always gloomy clouds in the tavern: the grassland people were burning, killing and looting on their own land, but Linfeng City had never made a decent counterattack.

Many people have lost their jobs, their hometowns, their relatives and friends, but they suffer from having no outlet to vent their worries. They can only drink to relieve their sorrows every day, and they are even more worried because they are about to run out of wine money.

This morning, everyone was discussing excitedly in the tavern. Last night, Linfeng's mercenary group cleared an entire stronghold of enemy troops. Not only did they regain their own supplies, they also rescued a group of refugees.

No one doubted the authenticity of the victory, for everyone had heard the loud feint outside the city the night before.

Harrison's mercenaries also showed up to speak out, trumpeting the hard-won victory last night.

This gave the already depressed people of Linfeng City a shot in the arm: It turns out that the grassland people are not as scary as the city lord's mansion claimed!
Even the civilian mercenary groups can defeat the grassland people. If the city lord sends out troops to regain the lost territory and destroy the enemy, wouldn't it be easy?
The flames of the Anti-Japanese War spread quietly among the masses through word of mouth.

……

Uptown, the Bayhart family's carriage stopped at the entrance of Nolen's alchemy workshop.

Evelin got off the carriage and saw a strange servant standing in front of the counter of the workshop.

Strange, is that guy Nolen recruiting new people?
She murmured in her heart and stepped forward to ask, "Is Nolen here?"

"Ah, my lord is here." The servant looked a little cautious and replied quickly.

After receiving a positive answer, Evelin went straight into the workshop, and was startled by the scene in front of her.

There were many tents set up in the small courtyard, and a dozen people were resting in total. Where was this alchemy workshop?This is clearly an open-air camp for refugees!

"Ah, Eve!"

Yuna saw her when she was passing by and came over to say hello, "Thank you for the hard battle last night. You weren't injured, were you?"

"No, no, it's a piece of cake!"

Evelin smiled, and then asked, "What's going on with these people? Are they all servants recruited by Nolen?"

"Ah, they are the refugees rescued from the stronghold last night. Nolen felt that it was too dangerous outside the city, so he used his connections to smuggle them into the city."

Yuna clasped her hands together and begged, "Please Eve, please don't report this matter to the City Lord's Mansion!"

"I'm not that free!" Evelin didn't know whether to laugh or cry, "But I didn't expect Nolen to have such a kind heart...Huh, I have changed my opinion of him a little bit."

"What, are you talking about me?"

Nolen poked his head out of the side room and said, "Good morning, Eve."

"You can also call me Eve?" Evelin glared at him, "Do you know how to be polite? Call me Lady Evelin!"

Eve is her nickname, and generally only elders and close friends will call her that.

Nolen took the time to say: "Yuna is mine. If I call you Sir, then she must also call you Sir. Otherwise, wouldn't it be a violation of etiquette?"

"She calls me Eve, you call me Sir, we can do our own thing."

"How dare you!" Nolen glared at Yuna instead.

Yuna could only look at Evelin with watery eyes: "Ms. Evelin..."

"Nolen!" Evelin screamed, "You are not allowed to bully Yuna!"

"Jie Jie, this is not your decision."

He figured out how to kidnap Yuna to get Eve.

Evelin came here mainly to report to Yuna that she was safe. After the three of them chatted for a while, she was ready to leave.

"By the way, Evelin." Nolen finally talked about business with her and said seriously, "I plan to give it one last try to see if I can sway Ivan's mind."

"Just give it a try...what else do you want me to do?"

"Tomorrow morning, a team represented by refugees will go to the gate of the City Lord's Mansion to ask for a fight. At that time, please don't let the guards of the City Lord's Mansion drive them away.

"If possible, I hope you can tell Ivan and ask him to come out and listen to the speech to understand the wishes and needs of the Linfeng people at this time."

“You want to organize a petition for war?” Evelin asked in surprise, “I thought you wanted me to introduce you to Ivan.

"I can help you, but you must discuss the parade with the city guards in advance. Otherwise, even if the guards at the City Lord's Mansion don't chase you away, the guards on the street will chase you away."

"I know it well." Nolen nodded.

"That's right." Evelin seemed to have remembered something, and finally said, "I saw that you and Harrison got closer last night, so I'd like to remind you that he is not a good person, and you'd better keep up with him. distance."

"Ok?"

"Harrison is a profit-oriented businessman, and the City Lord's Palace doesn't have a good impression of him. The main purpose of his action last night was to regain his goods, rather than out of true patriotism to defend Linfeng City."

Evelin reminded, "He is very good at inciting people, so you should be careful not to be taken advantage of by him."

"I'll pay attention."

After saying goodbye to Evelin and watching the Bayhart family's carriage leave, Nolen slowly exhaled and murmured:

“He seems to be sanctimonious, but in fact he is ruthless and will do anything to achieve his own goals... Of course I know very well what kind of person he is.

"But how can we persuade the stubborn Lord of the City to start a war without the help of such a person's radical plan? The matter is now at this point, and we have no choice."

"Nolen?" Yuna looked at him worriedly.

There was something wrong with Nolen when he came back last night. He was very preoccupied and seemed to be making a big decision.

"Nothing..." Nolen shook his head vigorously to clear the distracting thoughts from his mind.

Tomorrow's events have been decided, so he simply stopped thinking about it and started preparing his team plan.

He already has a clear choice in mind as to who will be the leader of his alchemy team.

……

Compared with Nolen Alchemy Workshop, the atmosphere of the doll shop next door is much more leisurely.

Ai Xia is playing with several children in their early teens in the store. Although these children are young, they all have unique skills.

One of the little boys was wearing a large and bloated black robe. He flicked his sleeves and shook his head hard, and suddenly a crying mask appeared on his face.

Then with another flick of his sleeves, the crying face mask immediately turned into a smiling face.

"Dang Dang Dang, Dang Dang Dang -"

While arranging music to himself, he performed face-changing tricks rhythmically. The masks of various colors on his face quickly switched, causing Ai Xia and other children to marvel.

These masks are all adult-sized, making them look even more funny when worn by children, making them laugh out loud in awe.

When the face-changing trick was over and everyone clapped, they realized that there was an extra audience member in the store.

"Hey, Nolen! Why are you here?" Ai Xia's eyes lit up.

"Well, it's been a long time since I've been here. Come and visit us." Nolen smiled, "My little brother's tricks are pretty good. You can tell he's working hard at it."

"Hehe, I learned these from my father. My father is the best busker in the city!"

The little boy was very happy to receive the praise and said, "Brother, let me give you a mask. I brought a lot of masks from home to play with today, and everyone has a share!"

Nolen took a glance, and sure enough he saw that everyone was holding a mask. Aisha had a Shiba Inu mask, and the other children had Ghostface masks and fox masks.

"Okay." Nolen refused, "I want a raven mask. Do you have one here?"

"Raven? I'll look for it."

The little boy flipped through his backpack, "Ah, I found it. Not only are there black ravens, but there are also precious white ravens! Which one do you want?"

Nolen took a closer look and saw that the mask was quite exquisitely made, and the raven portrait painted on it was quite artistic. The two masks had the same pattern, but the colors were different.

"Children make choices, adults want them all."

He took the two masks and took a silver coin from his pocket and gave it to him, "Of course, you never eat Overlord's meal."

"Oh, brother, I am great, brother is in good health!"

The little boy took the silver coin with a playful smile. He didn't expect that he would get an unexpected reward from playing outside this time.

"Hey Nolen, you can't spend it frivolously if you have money. Do you know how many masks you can buy for one silver coin?"

Ai Xia put her hands on her hips and pretended to be dissatisfied, "Since you are so generous now, come and take care of the business here!"

"Must, necessary."

Nolen put away his mask and walked to the studio inside the store with a smile, "I'm going to find Uncle Luo Zhen right now and negotiate a big deal with him worth a few hundred gold coins!"

Seeing that he was about to leave without even talking to her, Ai Xia pouted and muttered: "Huh, bragging..."

Arriving at the door of Luo Zhen's studio, Nolen stopped smiling. He knocked on the door and then pushed the door open and entered.

Luo Zhen was carving the doll's arms in front of the workbench and glanced at Nolen: "Is something wrong?"

"There's something, and it's something very important."

Faced with this eccentric old man, Nolen didn't waste any time. He put the stack of drawings he had prepared on the workbench and said, "I want to customize these alchemy equipment - the sooner the better."

"WTF?"

Luo Zhen stared at the thick stack of blueprints, puffed his beard and said, "What kind of thing requires so many blueprints? What do you want to do?"

"How do you know I'm going to heaven?"

Luo Zhen: "?"

Nolen explained: "There are not only blueprints for one piece of equipment here, but several. In other words, what I have brought you this time is a big list!"

"Then I really thank you!"

Luo Zhen sprayed him in the face, "I'm too lazy to take such a big order, you'd better find someone else!"

"No, these alchemy equipment are extremely special. I wouldn't trust giving them to others."

Nolen said seriously, "Uncle, you are the only one who can be considered one of our own, and I can only leave these equipment to you."

"Special? What can be special?"

Luo Zhen snorted and said disdainfully, "When I was young, I was also an alchemist who traveled around the empire, and I had many fantastic ideas and strange skills.

"Many young alchemists always exaggerate their works in order to earn gimmicks, but in the end they find out that it is just a scrap manuscript. I don't want to be involved in this kind of trouble."

"What I invented is individual flying equipment that can be used in actual combat!"

Nolen reminded, "Since you are also an alchemist, you can know what this invention represents. If you can help me make it, your name will also go down in history and be worshiped by all alchemists in future generations. !”

"Blow, you can blow hard."

Luo Zhen chuckled and said, "I found that your speech is really nice. I was deceived by you before, so I leaked all the family secrets to you.

"But young man, I can advise you as an elder, you have to eat your food one bite at a time, and do your research in a down-to-earth manner, and don't do it just to make a big news..."

Suddenly there was a "pop" sound in front of the workbench, and Luo Zhen's lecture came to an abrupt end.

He widened his eyes and looked at the scene happening in front of him in disbelief——

Nolen reached out and grabbed the arm of the puppet in front of him, and a purple magic circle halo suddenly unfolded on its wrist!
The blue-purple electric current jumped in his palm, instantly charring the puppet's arm and breaking it into two pieces.

“Just because others can’t do it, doesn’t mean I can’t do it.”

Nolen retracted his hand and said calmly, "I never do gimmicks, I only do what I am sure I can do."

"and many more!"

Luo Zhen couldn't care less about being angry about the destroyed doll's arm, he jumped up from his chair and shouted: "Wait, wait... wait - wait!
"What did you just do? Did I read it correctly? You used the magic circle to activate the second-level spell "Electric Shock"!But where did you hide the magic circle?show me! "

"Want to know?" Nolen grinned, "Then help me make alchemical weapons. My secrets are hidden in these alchemical weapons.

"Let us witness the revolutionary moment together and turn this world... upside down!"

His expression and tone showed an almost crazy confidence in himself. This feeling was close to extreme, but it was also quite contagious.

Even Luo Zhen was shocked by his momentum. He swallowed subconsciously and said with difficulty:

"Don't worry, making alchemy equipment is not that simple. First, you need to have forging tools..."

"I can give you a start-up capital of two hundred gold coins for you to build a special manufacturing room, and I will continue to increase capital investment in the future."

"...These are not enough! We also need raw materials for making equipment. Some materials are not so easy to obtain..."

"I have prepared ready-made materials and will transport them to you later."

"...We still need people! I can't handle it all by myself!"

"I have about twenty people here, and I can even arrange for a senior alchemist to be your deputy. There will be no problem with manpower."

"...You kid!"

Luo Zhen gasped, "You've thought about everything. Do you think you've got me?"

To be honest, the feeling of being led by a teenager made him feel a little unhappy.

"Just promise me, uncle."

Nolen said softly, his sight passing through the studio, focusing on the empty distance.

"The war is about to start, and we...have no time."

　Thanks to Youfeng Acridine and Book Friends 20231012104933793 for the reward

　　
　
(End of this chapter)