"Lord Pollas, you..."
Roland had not expected Pollas's condition to have deteriorated this far.
Had he been forcing himself to hold on all this time?
"Cough, cough... I'm fine. At least I won't die anytime soon.
Compared with this, there's another matter that's truly serious!"
Pollas waved a hand, stopping Roland from approaching, and spoke gravely.
"I wasn't entirely truthful earlier. It isn't that demonic contamination might appear in the city and cause mutations... it already has!"
"What?"
Roland was astonished.
"If this isn't handled properly, Lainer World is bound to descend into chaos, and Atrelin will have to pour even more funds and personnel into it.
When that happens, we may very well... have no choice but to abandon this world!"
Roland hurriedly asked for the details.
Pollas said, "Although we conquered Lainer World a century ago, there has always been sporadic resistance, some of it even involving high-tier powers.
At stake here is one of the Empire's core interests: the magic crystal mine once owned by the Tiniara tribes, which later fell into our hands!
The Empire fought multiple civilizations and races over it, including devils and forces with ties to those devils from Hell."
"You mean Lainer World has actually received help from those rival claimants?"
"Exactly. Without outside support, they could never have come this far."
"That certainly complicates things."
Lainer World itself had already declined into a low-magic world and could pose no threat whatsoever to Atrelin.
But with outside forces intervening, everything became uncertain.
"I need to root out the agents they've planted here as soon as possible, so I won't be able to remain in the tower for a while. But don't let anything seem out of the ordinary. Ideally, keep up the festivities as usual. Reassure the people while misleading the spies