Give them a little funny shock

Chapter 576: Underground Kingdom (I)

"The merchants are coming! The merchants are coming! The merchants are coming!!"

After confirming that the group of twenty or so people did not pose any threat, the news that a group of foreign merchants had arrived in Wangjialing from Wang Ruide quickly spread to various villages in Wangjialing.

There is no small town in Wangjialing. Even the place where Wang Ruide's castle, Wangjiabaozi, is located, can't be considered a "small town". There are more than ten villages in Wang Ruide's territory, all of which are relatively large. The largest village has a population of 2,000 people, while the smallest village often has about 200 people.

The traveling merchants were no strangers to the free farmers of Wangjialing. Apart from the Silicon Crystal City, these traveling merchants from the Duchy of Lorraine or some other countries were the places where they usually shopped.

Although the exchanges between countries have become very rare due to the Dead Sea, you can still see some merchants from other countries from time to time in the rural areas of the Kadra Empire.

They crossed the Sea of ​​Death, the Lightless Belt, and traveled all the way here, bringing a large amount of goods to trade with the people of the Kadra Empire, and then brought the traded goods back to their own country.

In addition to being an extremely powerful empire, Kadra is also a very rich country. In this country, many things that people usually take for granted would be enough to make people break their heads if they were placed in the hometowns of those merchants.

Mineral deposits, alloys, alchemical puppets... The Kadra Empire has too many things that are enough to make other countries jealous. Alloys that can resist the lightless fog in the lightless belt, and the minerals that make these alloys. There are also huge alchemical puppets and war weapons. A considerable part of these things are unique to the Kadra Empire.

Of course, alloys that can resist the lightless fog and the minerals for making alloys also exist in other countries, but the quantity is not large. Unlike the Kadra Empire, this kind of mineral can be found almost everywhere in the territory of the Kadra Empire, and the reserves are extremely rich.

Of course, this does not mean that the Kadra Empire is the only country in the world that possesses such rich mineral resources. In fact, there are also countries of the same level as Kadra.

For example, the Duchy of Lorraine, because most of its territory is underground, the country is even richer in mineral resources than the Kadra Empire.

In addition, the territory of the Kadra Empire's arch-enemy also has abundant resources.

There is no doubt that powerful countries enjoy the most secure land and the most abundant resources.

Merchants from small countries bring their own domestic specialty products to big countries to sell, and then buy some of the big countries' specialty products from them and bring them back to sell.

Generally speaking, if you can return home safely, then making a fortune is almost certain.

This is why even though the world has become like this, there are still merchants walking in the Sea of ​​Death.

People die for money and birds die for food.

The residents of Wangjialing always have a positive attitude towards foreign merchant teams. After all, it is obviously more cost-effective to buy things from traveling merchants than to go to Silicon Crystal City to buy things.

The caravans of the Duchy of Lorraine are definitely the most popular caravans among the farmers of the empire. Their goods are of good quality, low price, and there are many things that cannot be bought in the cities of the Kadra Empire.

After all, the Duchy of Lorraine is an underground country with technology and civilization, and their products are naturally different from those of merchants from small countries.

This group of rogue warriors pretended to be merchants from the Duchy of Lorraine, but they were exposed by their leader Wang Ruide.

But this is not a problem, because the lord of Wangjialing obviously doesn't care about such things.

Although the Mangxu warriors are not real merchants from the Duchy of Lorraine, they do possess magical goods like the merchants of the Duchy of Lorraine.

After all, it is a product of the space, so it must be a high-quality product.

Soon, the team arrived at the first village in this noble territory. *
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Underground, Duchy of Lorraine.

In other words, a country called the "Confederation of Lorraine".

In the hospital waiting room, Chris Baird-Smith grabbed his father's hand, which was resting on the arm of his wheelchair, and gave it a gentle squeeze.

Bergette Smith, a 39-year-old middle-aged man, responded by tapping his fingers, which were so shriveled that they were almost just a layer of skin covering the bones.

It is hard to believe that this skinny arm, which is just a layer of skin wrapped around the skeleton, and the paralyzed and equally skinny body, were once covered with muscles as strong as steel.

Chris Baird's father, Belget, was once a traveling merchant and was quite famous in this industry.

He was as strong as an ox, and was not weaker than the "mutants" of the Kadra Empire at that time.

When facing his fellow Lorraine men, he could even send men much taller than him flying with just one punch.

However, no matter how strong the physique was in the past, no matter how much glory was created in the past.

Now, his life is coming to an end.

Bergette is thirty-nine years old this year. According to the average life expectancy here of forty-five, he probably has six more years to live.

And now, like all his peers, he suffers from various diseases at this age.

To be more precise, it is the various complications caused by congenital genetic defects.

The Federation's advanced biotechnology has delayed the onset of these complications to the greatest extent possible. Thanks to the selfless dedication of the First Family's scientific researchers, the average human life expectancy has been extended from 25 to 45 years.

However, this is already the limit of what current science and technology can achieve.

Bergette knew very well that he would probably die before this year from a genetic disease, perhaps cancer, organ failure, or something else.

Everyone knew it, but no one was sad about it, and no one saw it as a tragedy.

It is a small miracle that he has survived to this day.

Few merchants can live beyond the age of thirty. Yes, most of the merchants who have been active in the fog for a long time, wandering in the sea of ​​death, exchanging their lives for profits, cannot live up to the average human lifespan.

Most of his fellow traders died long before him—perhaps in a foreign land, or lost in the Sunless Belt, the Sea of ​​Death, or the Sunless Mist.

Or, they may fail the medical examination after returning to China and be disposed of harmlessly at the border inspection station.

This is the fate of most merchants, even those from a powerful country like the Duchy of Lorraine.

(End of this chapter)