Wizard From Afar

"I'm very sorry, this is the result of my poor supervision; I...I didn't expect things to become like this."

He sighed heavily, Corona frowned and said, "By the time I proceed to deal with it, the matter is beyond the control of the Liberty Council."

"It's not your fault, Corona Master." Loren shook his head. , Interrupted the old man’s self-blame: "If it weren’t for the Minister of Military Affairs to withdraw the Empire’s Legion, these mercenaries would simply dare not rebel; no one could have expected this kind of sudden occurrence."

Empty At this moment, he and Corona are the only people in the Liberty Council.

After hearing that Eboden was about to be invaded by foreign enemies, the nobles of the one third had begun to flee, the nobles of the one third were hiding behind closed doors, and the remaining one third was arranged to fill up The posts and positions that were vacated on 2/3/2021 are no longer available for meetings.

After talking to Corona, Loren finally figured it out.

First, Corona, who rushed back to Eboden City, issued a mobilization order for Connold I through the Free Assembly, which caused a frenzy of citizens fleeing, including many wealthy and aristocrats. Fleeing the city like crazy.

Corona chose to acquiesce for reasons similar to Loren's thinking at the time-the probability of Eboden City being able to defend is too low, and there is no need to drag the entire city to death.

But this chaos has given the three mercenary groups in the city a certain kind of hope of "making a fortune".

They pretended to agree to the terms of employment of the Liberty Council, and at the same time controlled several key fortresses and urban areas in the name of "maintaining order in the city"; then, when they were preparing to handover, they suddenly raised their prices and reversed their commissions. Up twice.

Cash, and does not accept credit and substitutes!

At this time, the three mercenary groups have united and controlled the overwhelming majority of the fortresses and city defense facilities in the city. A very small number of city defense forces were also disarmed and driven out without defense, or Turned into a corpse in the resistance.

Things changed at this time.

But it is too late to deal with.

A large number of merchants fleeing cannot take away their shops and goods, but they will certainly take away real gold, white silver, and even lose money to sell everything that can be sold; the result is now in the warehouse in Eboden City , All kinds of materials are abundant, but the storage of gold and silver is very small, which is not enough to pay the amount requested by the mercenaries.

Therefore, although Loren has been constantly comforting Corona; but both of them are very clear in their hearts that this incident is the consequence of Corona’s misjudgment... At least, he has to bear a huge amount. Part of the responsibility.

Corona is a wizard, he is not a politician and businessman like the Bellini family; even if he becomes the consul of Eboden, he cannot change the fact that he is a wizard; this means he When thinking about a problem, you must first weigh the pros and cons of a thing from the perspective of the wizard.

Therefore, he cannot control Eboden's mercenaries like Bellini's family. The direct result is that the mercenaries who lose control rapidly expand to the point where they cannot be easily contained.

In other words, when the Bellini family, which controls trade and the city’s aristocracy and holds military power, fell and replaced the leader of the wizard tower as the governor, the situation today is in a sense It is already destined.

Just as the two were talking, the door of the parliament hall was opened, and an indifferent face of Lucien led three people into the hall, surrounded by five hunters Fiend on both sides.

Three people with different expressions.

The one who is extremely vicious, the one with a gloomy face, and the other who smiles hehe, unaware of it.

The three people were brutally pressed on the chairs by Lucien and Fiend to sit down.

"Well...can you give me a cup?" The mercenary leader who laughed at hehe pointed to his back and looked towards black hair wizard curiously: "I was suddenly woken up early in the morning, and again by this The little brother came in with such an enthusiastic greeting. I was really thirsty."

"Yes, but not now." Loren slightly raised his mouth: "According to Byrne's rules, the negotiating parties can only shake hands and make peace. You can celebrate with a toast when you’re in."

"That’s okay! That means you don’t plan to be polite with us; Lord Corona is here, and you mentioned Byrne again. According to the rules of the empire, so... you are the Duke of Torino of Byrne." With a chuckle, the mercenary leader winked at Loren:

"Then according to the rules of the empire, I also introduce myself. , My name is... Hey, forget it, you probably don’t want to know my hooligan’s name, just call me "poisonous snake"-the bottom of the three mercenary groups, the weakest and the least kind, there is city gate The group of guys you taught me are my people! hahahaha!"

"And the guy next to me that looks scary at first glance, looks like a badass, is the boss of Black Blade. This time the trouble was also his start...Well, I am not the first one anyway!"

The brutal leader of the "Black Blade" is coldly snorted, with the appearance of gnashing teeth.

"And this one who is not easy to provoke at first glance is the head of the silver blood. The strength is the strongest among us, and the man is the best among the three of us-anyway. I am the least able to fight!"

The motionless "Silver Blood" with squinted eyes, the wolf-like eyes looked steadily forward at Loren.

After a few words, the two sides knew each other.

"Very well, the kind words are over, then let us start discussing business." The Corona Master standing in the middle of the two groups clapped his hands, slowly opened the mouth and said: "Three The purpose up to this point should have been known; we emptied the Freedom Council today, hoping to reach an agreement in private..."

"We only have one condition."

The "Silver Blood" sitting in the middle of the three stared at Loren, coldly said: "It's okay for us to fight, but we have to pay twice the commission."

"Otherwise?" Loren Asked rhetorically.

"Otherwise, we will keep occupying the port and the fortress of Eboden, and then when the Azorean elves arrive, hand over the city to them!" The grinning "Black Blade" stared. Black hair wizard with a fierce expression:

"Either you want a city or money... Lord Duke, please pick one!"

But Loren just shook his head, it was unimaginable Look at them three.

"I said...you don’t think that the Azores are a very easy race to deal with, right?"

"Well, even if you succeed in reaching an agreement with them , What's next? Are you planning to leave the city, or for the loyalty of the Azores? I have dealt with them, you don’t need to think about the latter, it’s absolutely impossible."

"As for The former...I can guarantee that as long as your front foot leaves, the Legion of the back foot empire will arrive-even if Eboden is not retaken by then, the empire will do its best to destroy you traitors."

"That is We don’t need you to worry about our affairs!"

Black Blade sneeered: "You should think about yourself first, Lord Duke-I lost Eboden before the elven army came, Your Majesty How would you punish you?"

"So you are going to be hard to the end?"

"Yo, did you find out?!"

The "surprised" Black Blade laughed directly, and even clapped directly.

The gray-eyed boy standing behind Loren looked ugly to the extreme. He was about to directly press this bastard to the ground, but was held tightly by the black hair wizard.

"hehehe... friends, friends; calm down, everyone is calm!" Seeing that the atmosphere is getting more and more tense, the "poisonous snake" laughing at hehe quickly stood up and interrupted: "We are here to negotiate , It’s not here to fight; our purpose is to reach an agreement that satisfies both parties, isn’t it?"

"So please don’t rush like this, Black Blade; then...Hi, Lord Duke And the consul master, you saw it too."

The poisonous snake twisted his waist and rubbed his hands with a sorry smile: "We are just a bunch of hooligans and big bosses. It happens that we still have the money right now. With Eboden’s city defense and the most powerful army, it is enough to defend all fortresses and city walls; and the only thing that can make us gangsters obedient..."

"It’s shiny Little gold coin and shiny little Silver Coin, nothing more."

"But there is not so much cash in Eboden City, the price you opened is too exaggerated." Corona looked at him very much. He simply said: "At most you can only pay you at the first agreed price, or you are willing to use the goods to top it."

"Sorry, but we are not a businessman; silk or High Level wine gave us These gangsters can only be ruined." The poisonous snake shook his head again and again with a smile of "I'm sorry", and then changed the conversation:

"But... if the honorable Duke of Byrne is willing to represent Your Majesty, and use his honor as a guarantee to reach an agreement with us, guaranteeing that we can pay our full commission after the war - our gangsters can still accept only half of the commission for the time being."

The voice fell, and the poisonous snake smiling at hehe continued to rub his hands, but his eyes stopped on the black hair wizard.

Almost at the same time, the other two mercenary leaders also turned their sights.

Loren, who is holding on to Lu Sien, still looks like a reserved.

The other party's thoughts are basically the same as what he expected.

To put it simply, the heads of these three mercenary groups intend to make a "long-term business"-they know that Eboden can't afford so much money, and they also know that Eboden needs their own hands. There were 20,000 soldiers in the army, so they were thinking of raising prices, and wanted to continue to blackmail from this "fat sheep".

If they agree, then in the next battle they will continue to blackmail themselves for various reasons;

and as long as they refuse once, or the war situation changes , This group of people may turn back at any time, join the army of the Azores or surrender out of the city, and turn the line of fire into; anyway, they have already got the first commission, so This "trading" is absolutely profitable without losing money.

"It sounds like a good idea." In the face of the expectant gazes of the three mercenaries, Loren slightly smiled:

"...To the kidnapping bandits and blackmailers Come on."

Black Blade's face was startled, and the blood of the silver narrowed his eyes.

Only the poisonous snake, it still looks like a smile hehe.

"I can promise you some conditions, but not this kind of unilateral blackmail." black hair wizard coldly said: "Don't get it wrong, you and the choppy under your hands, come to me It’s not that important."

"Ah...I don’t agree with this point." Poisonous snake lightly said with a smile: "After all...this is a fair negotiation, and the goal is to reach everyone’s acceptance. The agreement..."

"I said, don't get it wrong."

The black hair wizard stared at him intently, and said sharply: " I am looking for you, not to say that I want to compromise with you, but to make you accept my'agreement'."

"Otherwise?" This time I changed to a poisonous snake who laughed at hehe and asked instead.

"Are you going to shut us here, or do you want one by one to chop off our heads, or use what wizard magic to control our brains?"

"Although so It's not appropriate, but it seems that the idea is too simple, not us big bosses, but you, Lord Duke!"

"You think the three of us walked in so swaggering and ran to the wizard's site Are there any preparations for the negotiation?" tsk tsk smiled, and the poisonous snake shook his erect index finger and pointed behind him:

"Before we came, we had told the people that if one day If we didn’t go back, or suddenly the caliber was inconsistent with the previous one, they would still implement the order we gave before; unless you give out twice the commission, you will never agree to it!"

Corona hearing on the side This, frowning instinctively.

But the black hair wizard was not surprised at all, but showed a very...confused expression.

"Why?"

"Why... Such a simple thing will make it difficult for us big men to handle it, Lord Duke." The poisonous snake shrugged helplessly. Shrugged: "That means no matter if we go back or not, our people will still..."

"No, I mean...didn't we make an appointment?" Loren frowned, staring blankly Poisonous snake, with a confused expression: "At this time... shouldn't you stand up and oppose me?"

Huh?

"You, what are you talking about, we only met today for the first time, Lord Duke; how could I cooperate with you..."

"Ah! I know !" The black hair wizard suddenly realized:

"Is it the guy who was sent back by me, didn’t tell you what I said?"

"What, what?" poisonous snake Pu Chi smiled and spread his hands: "If you mean the scared witless idiot who was scared by you under the city gate, then he did tell me exactly what you said...no! He told us all."

"Everyone?" Loren's expression is even stranger: "How can this kind of thing be told to everyone, it must be known to others...Even if your subordinates know it, it's not good. ?"

"Know what?" The black blade beside him couldn't help but say more.

And Loren pretended to be a poisonous snake and answered him: "Know that I and you are in the same group!"

The voice gradually fell.

Poisonous snake twitched the corner of his mouth, his expression...

lights up.