"What?!" In a hidden basement, a gloomy-looking young man jumped up, his eyes widened, and he exclaimed, "Say it again!"
Standing in front of him was a middle-aged man wearing a gray robe with a face almost as gloomy as him. He had no expression on his face and answered in a tone without any ups and downs: "Earl Hao Ma declared that from the assassin who killed Something from the capital was found on him, which led him to believe that the assassin was sent by a certain marquis, and asked the marquis to explain this."
The young man was stunned. After a while, he asked with some confusion: "Do you have something with the characteristics of the federal capital of gold coins on you?"
"Of course not. Nothing about us has any origin at all."
"Then... why did he say that?"
"I have no idea."
The young man then remembered that his subordinate was very reliable when it came to fighting, but if he needed to use his brain... that would not work.
Maybe he is actually smart, but as an assassin, he strictly abides by his duties, only doing things and not thinking.
Assassins are swords, and swords should not have a mind of their own.
This is naturally excellent in normal times, but when the person holding the sword himself is at a loss, things become a bit worse.
The young man is the leader of the killer organization. He took over the organization from his father who suddenly died of a sudden illness not long ago. Strictly speaking, he is still a rookie. This can be seen from the fact that he actually accepted such an intellectually challenging task. But being a rookie, he still knows what to do - his mission is to try to provoke a civil war in the Gold Coin Federation, not to provoke a civil war among the aristocrats!
In fact, he was quite smart. After accepting the mission, he did not act in a hurry. Instead, he led his elite troops and lurked in the territory of Earl "Good Horse" on the border, waiting patiently for the opportunity. He waited until the patrol team on the border was attacked before launching the assassination.
According to his estimation, those who attacked the patrols on the border should have the same purpose as himself, but they were much weaker than him, so they chose the meaningless method of attacking the patrols. That might really make the atmosphere between the two sides tense, but it's absolutely impossible to get the merchant faction and the noble faction to fight just by killing a few big soldiers!
What does it matter if a few soldiers die
Not to mention the noble sect, which has tens of thousands of soldiers under its command, even the leader of a mere assassin organization would not care about three or five human lives.
If he wanted to provoke a fight between the two sides, it would be conservatively estimated that hundreds of soldiers would have to be killed.
Putting aside the risks of doing that, the bigger problem is that after killing so many people, the most likely reaction of both sides is not to fight like a cockfight after being provoked, but to find powerful adventurers to get to the bottom of it.
The young man has also been an adventurer. He knows that group quite well and knows that there are some people among them who have unique abilities that no one dares to underestimate.
That's why he chose to take risks and attack an earl, just to make the earl angered by fear and launch desperate revenge.
Unfortunately, it seems that his plan failed and he lost three excellent assassins in vain.
After a long silence, the young man sighed and said, "Keep lurking."
"As commanded."
"Also...contact the 'black intermediary' and tell them that I want to recruit a few necromancers."
"As commanded."
"Go ahead and do it, be more careful."
"As commanded."
After the middle-aged man left, the young leader of the assassin organization frowned and returned to his bed under the ventilation window, sitting in bed and thinking deeply.
He must carefully consider his new plan, and this time he must succeed!
A few days later, another group of people also received news that the Earl was assassinated and injured, and that he announced that the assassin might be from the capital and belonged to the central aristocratic faction.
The middle-aged man who silently killed people that night was a little confused. He frowned and tried to think about what was going on.
Could it be... a coincidence
He shook his head, feeling that things shouldn't be such a coincidence.
The profession of killer is a very rigorous one, and thoughts such as "coincidence" and "coincidence" will never appear in the mind of a seasoned killer.
In his opinion, those who assassinated the earl probably took advantage of the opportunities he inadvertently created for them.
But... why would they take advantage of this opportunity? What do they want to do
The old killer, who had lived a life among swords and swords for many years, was silently calculating. At first, he thought that the other party might have similar ideas to himself, and they all wanted to provoke a war between the merchant faction and the aristocratic faction, but when he thought about it, he felt that something was wrong - If that's the case, why would the other party leave something with the characteristics of the Central Noble Faction
He did not consider the possibility of the count's fraud, nor did he think of this aspect at all, so his thinking quickly fell into misunderstandings and began to get into trouble.
After a long time, he finally made up his mind to go back and contact his employer again.
At this time, assassinating soldiers on the border may no longer have any effect. If possible, he felt that he might be able to change the target and attack the people on the merchant side.
For example, attacking a caravan or something... should be effective.
Even if it has no effect, it can at least plunder some supplies and improve morale.
His subordinates were transferred from pirates. Although they are usually very obedient, they always find it difficult to change their pirate nature. If they don't get enough benefits, morale will quickly sink. If the people's hearts are scattered, it will be difficult to lead the team, let alone complete the mission.
What's more... he also wants to get some benefits.
We are in the middle zone between the noble faction and the merchant faction of the Gold Coin Federation. No matter where you cause trouble, you can run to the other side's sphere of influence to escape. There is no better condition in the world than this. If he doesn't take advantage of this opportunity to make a fortune, he himself will feel very much at a loss!
Instructing his subordinates not to cause trouble for the time being, he set off to contact the intermediary and asked the intermediary to send his suggestions or requests to his employer.
At this time, contrary to the conspirators who had everything going wrong, the situation of the joint exploration team was going very smoothly.
There is indeed a silver mine here, and the reserves are not low. They set out to search on the first day and found several pieces of silver ore, all of which were in good quality.
After returning to the camp to discuss, Hopps and the others compared the map and estimated the possible location of the mineral veins. Then they gathered their manpower and sent them all to the area like casting a net over a school of fish.
Of course, including themselves.
In the days that followed, good news came one after another. First, someone discovered a rock containing a lot of silver ore. Although they dug along these rocks and did not find subsequent veins, at least it greatly boosted everyone's confidence. Then Hopps himself discovered a small silver mine in a natural cave. Although the reserves were not high, it contained a large amount of mithril.
The first news was nothing, but the second news really boosted everyone's morale. Even the person in charge of the Gold Coin Federation was alarmed. Regardless of the rugged terrain, he braved the danger to go to the cave and study the silver mine carefully.
Silver ore isn't a big deal, but mithril is great! A piece of soft armor woven with mithril brushed mixed silk thread is worth at least three thousand gold coins.
Of course, this thing is really worth the money. Although this kind of soft armor, which looks similar to an ordinary long shirt, cannot withstand heavy weapons and is of little use against hammers, axes and the like, as long as you wear it, ordinary daggers, A short sword or even a flowing arrow will never hurt you.
Especially for those big shots, wearing it under their clothes can effectively reduce the risk of being assassinated. Therefore, it is also an indispensable protective item for those big figures who are worried about being assassinated, and it is always in short supply.
After carefully inspecting the silver mine, the senior miner from the Gold Coin Federation came to a conclusion that made everyone excited.
The mithril here is worth at least 20,000 gold coins!