A City Hall That Wasn't Particularly Bad
After arranging for two team members wearing Inscription accessories to escort Herbert away, Lin En did not lead his team away. Instead, he turned to Walter, the Second Level treasurer, and Connor, who was in charge of city defense, and said coldly:
"Now I need all the city renovation and repair projects that Herbert has handled in the past six months. I want to take all of these documents with me!"
"Furthermore, I need the documents signed by the lower-level personnel who handled these renovation or repair projects, as well as the documents for review by higher-level officials and the allocation of funds. I need to take all of these documents with me. Anyone who cannot produce the original copies will be treated as harboring Heretic. Now, immediately, take us to the archives!"
Upon hearing this, Walter's expression changed. He opened his mouth to say something, but Lin En had already pressed his face against him with a cold expression. The three squad members behind Lin En had also stepped forward expressionlessly, subtly surrounding Walter and Connor.
Walter looked at the three people who had surrounded him, hesitated for a long time, opened his mouth but ultimately said nothing, and could only lower his head and say:
"... Follow me."
Walter and Connor turned around and led the way, taking Lin En, Lu Yuan, and the three team members to a room at the very end of the corridor, a room specifically for storing documents. Pushing open the door, they entered, where a vast amount of municipal documents were neatly categorized and stored.
Walter pointed to the rows of filing shelves, then turned to Lin En and said:
"This place contains the project files of various departments of the City Hall, categorized according to each person's assigned projects. The information you need regarding the projects Herbert personally handled can be taken away now."
"But you need to retrieve the complete list of our superiors' approval, financial approval, and subordinates' signatures for completing the task. This requires approval at each level. If Herbert wants to do something, he definitely needs financial approval and superiors' signatures before he can start working. He also needs the signatures of the subordinates who participated in this task."
"If you want to get a complete list of upstream and downstream entities, you have to report to your superiors. This is something I, a Second Level councilor, can't decide on my own, and I can't give you that authority either. You have to find someone higher up. Don't come to me."
After hearing Walter's words, Lin En immediately and decisively replied:
"Alright, now take my men and gather all the information we can here!"
Lin En immediately left Connor, who was in charge of city defense, in the archives, while he and his three squad members searched for and collected information on Herbert's project. Then, Lin En turned to Walter, the Second Level finance councilor, and said coldly:
"Take me and Consultant Lu Yuan to your superiors right now. Whoever can approve it, take me to them!"
Walter had no choice but to lead Lin En and Lu Yuan out of the archives and up the stairs to the second floor of the castle to find Edmund Webber, a first-class councilor of the City Hall. The journey to the second floor required passing through a strict internal checkpoint, where outsiders were not allowed to enter. Walter quickly stepped forward and announced that he was looking for first-class councilor Edmund, Lin En also showed his credentials and negotiated before they were allowed to pass.
As Lu Yuan followed Walter to the second floor of the castle, he kept subtly scanning his surroundings, using the Gray-White Text in his vision to observe the guards along the way and the people passing by.
After looking around, Lu Yuan found that the situation inside the City Hall castle was better than he had imagined. Neither the guards nor the people passing by had Believer Transcendent listed in their personal profiles, nor did he see any obvious signs of Contamination.
After quickly passing through numerous checks and audits, since Councilor Walter, Second Level finance councilor, was not allowed to go up to the second floor unless there were special circumstances, he had to stop below and was specially introduced and allowed to pass by a guard on the second floor. He quickly led Lin En and Lu Yuan to the second floor of the castle.
Upon stepping onto the second floor, Lu Yuan immediately noticed that the environment was completely different from the first floor. The atmosphere here was noticeably more relaxed, there were far fewer sentries in the corridors, and there were many more defensive Inscription on the ground than on the first floor.
Guided by the guards, the two arrived at the door of a huge, independent office facing outwards. This was the working environment of Edmund, a first-class councilor of the City Hall. Pushing open the door, they found the office to be in a large space. The floor was covered with a thick carpet interwoven with red and gold, and several huge chandeliers hung above. Copper lamps were installed around the room, their light flickering softly.
Behind Edmund's desk and chair was a huge stained-glass window with a floral mosaic pattern. Snow was falling outside. On one side of the room was a stone fireplace. He didn't use steam heating, but a fireplace. The roaring Flame inside the fireplace made the whole room very warm.
Edmund, sitting behind his desk, saw Lin En storm in. Clearly, he knew Lin En, so he immediately looked up and asked:
"Captain Lin En, what can I do for you?"
Lin En strode forward, threw the piece of paper with the problem in his hand directly in front of Edmund, and said coldly:
"I need to gather all the mission data handled by your water conservancy chief Herbert, including the names of all those in charge, superiors and subordinates, and all participants in the past six months regarding the repair, restoration, and maintenance projects of Watch City!"
"I need to know who was involved in this mission. I strongly suspect that your water resources chief Herbert, is colluding with Heretic!"
Edmund looked down at the paper, his expression stiffening for a moment, but he quickly regained his composure, frowned, and said:
"Captain Lin En, could this be a mistake? Perhaps Herbert himself doesn't know the truth and has just been used?"
Lin En looked at him coldly and said:
"Whether he knew or not, I don't know, but we will investigate impartially. If he was truly used, we will give you justice. Anyone found to have betrayed the Empire will be beheaded!"
Edmund's expression stiffened again upon hearing this. He looked at Lin En, who was staring intently at him, and after a moment of silence, he finally nodded, picked up his pen, and said:
"Okay, I'll sign it for you here."
After receiving Edmund's signed warrant, Lin En immediately turned around and left with Lu Yuan, heading downstairs to the first-floor archives room to retrieve the complete list of upstream and downstream approval and participation personnel.
At this time, the massive amount of archival materials in the first-floor archive room had been almost entirely transported to the carriage outside with the help of the team members they had brought.
Because Herbert had handled so much material, the original carriage was not enough to hold it all, so a new steam carriage was specially brought in to transport the files. Including the carriages that everyone else was riding in and the Inscription carriage that Herbert was being held in seclusion, there were three steam carriages in total, fully loaded with prisoners and files, which returned to the Iron Furnace Street workshop base.
Three steam carriages drove back to the heavy steam forging workshop on Iron Furnace Street, one after the other. As soon as the doors opened, the staff left inside the workshop rushed forward and quickly got to work.
As soon as the carriage covered in Sealing Inscription came to a stop, the workshop's interrogation personnel took Herbert, the captured water conservancy official, directly to a separate room for interrogation. Meanwhile, Lin En and his team carried the massive amounts of files piled up on the other two carriages into the hall and quickly began to examine them by category.
Since Lu Yuan didn't need to be involved in the interrogation of the water conservancy official, he returned to his pharmaceutical analysis station on the west side of the workshop and had nothing else to do for the time being.
When Lu Yuan left the North Campus for Watch City, he didn't bring much luggage because he had too many miscellaneous things to carry.
The Lantern Knight and the String Knight specially arranged for someone to deliver Lu Yuan's luggage to the workshop. Just as Lu Yuan went out with Lin En to capture Herbert, the water conservancy official, his entire set of luggage had been delivered safely and was neatly stacked in the corner of the wall inside the workstation.
Upon hearing that his things had been delivered, and since he had nothing else to do, Lu Yuan thought for a moment, then went over to open his suitcase, took out the alchemy manual that the String Knight had given him, and sat back down at the table to read it.