Seeing Alfred looking over, Klein smiled back and nodded slightly, saying:
I suddenly have a feeling of danger.
After saying that, he calmly turned around and walked towards the carriage that Haggis had pointed to.
"Danger..." Alfred repeated the word under his breath, glancing around warily, but found nothing unusual.
He slowed his pace, constantly watching his surroundings, and cautiously returned to the three-story building not far away.
Pagny glanced at the solemn Alfred and asked with a hint of doubt:
"What happened?"
He was quite a distance away from the arms deal and couldn't hear the conversation clearly.
Alfred walked to the window, looked down at the cavalry that had finished carrying the munitions and were preparing to leave, and said thoughtfully:
" Dawn Dantès suddenly left, saying he had a premonition of danger."
"Danger?" Pagny was not careless and looked around warily, but he didn't realize anything was wrong until Mesangyes's men moved away from the area and disappeared into the darkness.
He immediately laughed:
"Haha, Alfred, you're being too sensitive Dawn Dantès is a coward and doesn't want to stay here any longer!"
Alfred withdrew his gaze, frowning slightly as he said:
"Maybe."
Back at the rented hotel, Klein had Enzo, the " Winner " who had become a mixed-race young man, open the box he was carrying and take out the gold bars and coins one by one, counting them carefully.
There are valuables here worth a total of 30,000 Loen pounds!
"Fortunately, the agreement with Miss Messenger was for gold equivalent to 10,000 Loen gold coins, so there's no need for further exchange..." Klein, leisurely sitting in his armchair, sipped his sweet and refreshing "Guadal" beverage while "supervising" the Marionette's work.
After Enzo finished dividing the spoils, he took out his Adventurer Harmonica, brought it to his lips, and blew on it.
Reinette Tinekerr, immediately stepped out of the void, as if she had always been nearby.
All eight of her eyes darted around, looking at the pile of gold coins and bars that had been separated.
After a few seconds, the four heads that Reinette Tinekerr was carrying spoke in turn:
"Very good... From now on... for missions... the price will be increased..."
... Where's the logic in all this? I paid the fee so promptly and quickly, why is there going to be an extra charge for future missions? Klein paused for a second, then sat up straight and asked:
"What?"
Reinette Tinekerr's four blonde, red-eyed heads nodded very seriously:
"The pricing of this task... depends on... your... ability to... make... money..."
"You can do it like this..." Klein opened his mouth, but couldn't refute it. After all, these kinds of things are decided unilaterally by the person providing help. Moreover, as he advances to Sequence 4 and becomes Demigod, the tasks that require the messenger's help will probably become more and more difficult and dangerous. Raising the price seems reasonable.
After Reinette Tinekerr swallowed the pile of gold coins and bars and disappeared from the room, Klein collected his thoughts and began to mentally calculate his current assets:
"I've spent quite a bit these past few months, and I still have 17,275 pounds in banknotes and 65 gold coins left... This pile of gold bars is worth 25,000 pounds... A total of over 40,000 pounds in assets is not a small amount in the entire Kingdom of Loen; it's enough to buy manors and land... Arms trading is really lucrative..."
Reinette Tinekerr's priority was gold coins, so the rest were gold bars.
After standing up and placing the gold bars on the Gray Fog, Klein walked to the window and turned his gaze northward.
The matter here is now largely resolved, and he will return to Backlund.
After gazing at the horizon for a while, Klein suddenly sighed silently:
" Backlund..."
North Borough, Backlund University of Technology.
Audrey was walking on campus with several staff members from the " Loen Charity Bursary Foundation ".
She wore a simple light green long dress, with a plain white leather belt around her waist. Her long golden hair was styled around a slightly playful gauze hat with ribbon flowers. She wore almost no accessories except for a silver bracelet on her left wrist. She looked no different from a female student from a family that could only be described as middle-class.
In the days that followed, she had visited public elementary schools on the edge of the East Borough and technical schools in the Backlund Bridge Area, and had long since learned what to wear for what occasion, unlike many nobles who treated charity events as social occasions.
With her clear, bright green eyes shifting slightly, Audrey observed the students coming and going with a faint smile.
These days are the time when Backlund University of Technology sends out admission letters and new students come to register.
The latter was originally scheduled for late August or early September, but Backlund University of Technology is a newly established school, and its entrance exams and results are later than those of other universities. This means that students who applied to them may have also taken exams at other universities and may even have already been admitted. Therefore, they brought forward the registration process to verify the number of applicants and determine how many more students need to be admitted.
For this reason, Audrey and staff from the " Loen Charity Bursary Foundation " came here to assist the first batch of approved applicants with their enrollment procedures.
As she looked around, she noticed that the students on campus all had radiant faces, exuded obvious confidence in their demeanor, and their every word and action carried an indescribable vitality, as if they were full of longing for the future and could see the light.
This was in stark contrast to Audrey's experiences in several public elementary schools, where the students were either rude and noisy or silent and gloomy. What they had in common was that they were often confused and anxious, timid and hesitant when they encountered outsiders of status, with dull eyes and a lack of the vigor that teenagers should have.
"I really hope that all those children have the opportunity to receive higher education, and that they can all strive for a bright future like the students here..." Audrey sighed silently, her gaze sweeping over a couple who appeared to be siblings beside her.
The man was clearly already working and had entered the workforce. He was wearing a silk top hat and a thin black suit, and appeared to be around thirty years old, with the air of a government employee.
He borrowed a rather old camera from somewhere, set it on a tripod, and while gesturing for his sister to move and adjust her posture, he searched for the best angle.
The younger sister looked to be seventeen or eighteen years old, with her black hair simply draped over her shoulders. Her brown eyes held a hint of helplessness, but she didn't say anything, attentively following her brother's instructions.
Similar groups can be seen everywhere on campus, sometimes parents and children, sometimes groups of friends.
"This scene is so beautiful..." Audrey withdrew her gaze and walked forward.
There was a square with a retired Steam locomotive in the center. Its huge and complex body stood proudly, adding an industrial touch to the Backlund University of Technology.
Ugh!
The Monster Steam locomotive, billowing smoke, dragged its long body into the station, growing slower and slower.
A seven or eight-year-old, doll-like, mixed-race little girl held her mother's hand and waited in a rather long line, excitedly asking her father, who was also of mixed Loen and Balam descent, about the situation in Desi Bay.
As she moved slowly, she saw a gentleman with graying temples, wearing a top hat, carrying a gold-plated cane, and accompanied by a servant with a brownish complexion, heading towards the location of the first-class carriage.
The servant looked around curiously and said:
"Sir, what I've seen recently is quite different from what I imagined. I originally thought the Balam people would be living a very difficult and miserable life, with chaos, filth, poverty, and oppression everywhere. But that's not the case at all. They can still drink 'Guadal' beverages, smoke East Balam cigarettes, and some can even afford bicycles. Um, you know, although I have Balam blood, I was born in Backlund and have never been to the Southern Continent before. Of course, my Dutanese is quite good."
The very refined middle-aged gentleman chuckled and raised his cane, saying:
"That's because we went to relatively good cities and relatively good areas, while the most miserable Balam people mostly live in the countryside, in those plantations, and the rest settle around factories, forming slums, which we've never had the chance to see."
Seemingly noticing the little girl's gaze, the gentleman with deep blue eyes and his servant turned their heads and looked over, offering a warm smile.
Their lips were noticeably upturned, revealing eight teeth, then they nodded slightly, looked away, and continued walking.
Before long, the little girl and her parents boarded the Steam train and found their seats.
When the "whoosh" sounded again, the little girl saw a man with dark brown skin, soft features, and a small red, swollen patch on the side of his face. He lowered his head, put his hand on his top hat, and quickly passed by, heading straight for the front of the train.
The man then knocked on the isolation door, slipped into the driver's cab, and said to the train conductor:
"All the train conductors have been replaced by our own people. The bridge ahead will be the site of the sacrificial ceremony."
The train conductor, sporting a thick beard, nodded and said:
May God be pleased with this cartload of offerings.
May we find eternal life in His kingdom.
Ugh!
The Steam train crossed one bridge and then another, and after a long journey, it arrived at its destination port very smoothly.
The doll-like mixed-race little girl looked tired and wasn't as lively as before. Led by her parents, she moved step by step towards the entrance, following the flow of passengers.
Several train attendants were standing at the entrance, helping some passengers carry their luggage out of the carriage.
As the little girl and her parents passed by, the train attendants all smiled warmly, revealing eight teeth.
After the little girl jumped onto the platform, she subconsciously turned around and glanced at the Steam locomotive. She saw several figures standing outside the door, discussing something. Among them seemed to be the train conductor and the man with the lump on the side of his face from before.
In less than a second, all of them turned to look at them, their mouths curving upwards to reveal eight teeth.
The little girl looked away and skipped away with her parents as they left the platform.