Author: Arion's Dolphins

A magician in a blue robe stood at the top of the city, acting as a deterrent force to intimidate the Castelui family troops outside the city.

A fifth-level magician has set up a magic circle in advance, and is surrounded by multiple spellcasters to assist him. The power he can exert can be very great, and can almost affect the outcome of a war.

Maybe the Castei family is regretting that they did not act in time against the pressure. In short, they dare not attack after this time. Their probability of winning is low and the pressure from public opinion is huge.

Perhaps because they knew that their plan was likely to fail, the other party's attitude softened, and they became less tense and began to withdraw their troops on a small scale. At the same time, they relaxed their scrutiny of the grain trade passing through their territory.

Julia and the mayor were both sensible and did not take any further actions to intensify the conflict. They peacefully besieged the sahuagins in the sea and began to sort out the cause and effect sequence of events.

Judging from the information obtained so far, the cause and effect sequence of events is that the demon believers escaped here, then secretly captured people for sacrifice, summoned the mad fighting demon through the sacrifice, and made contact with higher-level demons in hell.

I don’t know if this demon is a demon lord, but his ability should not be weak. This demon later reached an agreement with demons that can influence the sahuagin, allowing them to increase their harassment of the coastline and cooperate with Yintao.

Activities of demon believers in the city.

Using local folklore and sahuagin as a cover, the devil believers delayed their efforts for a while, but in the end they were discovered and suppressed by the human forces in Yintao City.

Later, the Castei family wanted to take the opportunity to intervene in Yintao City's affairs, but they failed in the end.

The two sides tensed their nerves and continued to be in a stalemate for several days. Finally, they received the appointment letter from the Oran royal family, appointing Julia as the lord near Yintao City. The mayor and others remained unchanged, and then

There are also hundreds of vulture knights coming, which is another great deterrent force.

If you continue to plot evil against Yintao City, you will be defying the royal authority. The Castei family does not dare to risk the disdain of the world.

After receiving the news, the Castei family immediately withdrew their troops and announced that their previous actions were only to prevent demons. After all, there was no bloodshed and the matter reluctantly passed by.

The matter seems to have come to an end. The next step is to divide the interests and arrange the funeral arrangements. Tang Zhao does not play a dominant role. You can just listen to the results later, and there is no need to participate too much.

Previously, the alderman had great power, which was different from most cities in Oran. The purpose was to limit the power of Earl Stirling. They were still in the observation period.

Now that Julia is in power, restrictions on the lord's power are completely unnecessary, so the power of the alderman will naturally be weakened, and the alderman once again becomes an auxiliary existence, helping the lord to do things.

The city mayor himself doesn't have any objections to this. It was originally a temporary right, and now it is natural to hand it back. He himself is not a power-loving person.

The privileges that Julia promised to the Hermes Chamber of Commerce were indeed in place. They were given an area in the port area specifically for business and inventory, as well as various economic preferential treatment. Andrea was very satisfied with these provisions.

, Tang Zhao didn’t understand and didn’t ask too many questions.

In addition, there was also direct financial support - Julia generously helped Tang Zhao directly pay the liquidated damages with Norton Castei, so as not to fall behind the truth, and by the way, she also paid Tang Zhao a large sum of money.

money.

Judging from the current situation, Tang Zhao is bound to the forces of Julia and others in Oran and cannot get off easily. Strictly speaking, this is not a good thing, because for businessmen, they must either remain neutral or stand

If you are on the wrong side of the side that is bound to win, it will cause a devastating blow to your business.

Judging from the current situation, if Julia participates in the future succession war, the possibility of victory is not high.

But Tang Zhao was confident about this. It was more important to win short-term benefits first and expand his influence in Oran as soon as possible. It was best to grow to a level that even the Oran royal family was a little afraid of. Tang Zhao's positioning of the Hermes Chamber of Commerce was very important.

Clearly, you don’t need to become an East India Company, as long as you can make money steadily, you don’t expect anything more.

Karak Solma has no immediate need for Oran's goods. Food is not something that cannot be replaced. They will soon be self-sufficient. It is just that the population of the settlement is expanding too fast and the expansion of food production cannot keep up.

However, Oran has an extremely strong demand for many of Karak Solma's products. Whether it is weapons, equipment or metal ores, they are all things Oran urgently needs.

In addition, Oran is largely influenced by the elves, and the relationship between Tang Zhao and the elves has always been good. Logically speaking, the two parties will not be at odds with each other. Even if there is a problem with Julia in the future, there is a high probability that the force that will replace Julia will

He would turn a blind eye to Tang Zhao's previous actions and continue to cooperate with Tang Zhao.

After listening to the reports from his merchants, Tang Zhao found Ning Fu.

【What do you plan to do in the future?】

"I don't want to go home just yet. Firstly, there are still many sahuagins on the waterways, and the war against them is not over yet. Secondly, you are right. There may be some problems with our attitude towards humans. We should look at the situation in the future.

And make some reasonable changes. I want to visit Oran first, and then maybe visit your city."

[Feel free, as a help I will find someone to prepare documents for you. You should not encounter any difficulties in Oran. By the way, I will go to the finance department to withdraw some money. This is what I can do, and there is nothing else.

It is not part of my voluntary service.]

"Thank you very much. I am very satisfied that you can help so much. As a thank you, please accept these things."

Nymph took out a map from her arms. It was a nautical chart with dense annotations on it: reefs, islands, output resources, special species, danger level of sea areas, monsoon wind direction and ocean current flow direction. Basically everything Tang Zhao could think of was there.

Mark it on this picture.

The Oran people did not have a strong driving force for external exploration, so the development of navigation technology was very average. Naturally, they were not able to make such high-precision charts. The significance of such high-precision charts may be even more important than Tang Zhao imagined.

.

[The value of this picture is very high. You can’t imagine what it represents. Are you sure you want to give it to me? 】

"For us mermaids, this kind of thing is imprinted in our brains, so it is worthless. I also feel that we owe you a lot."

[Okay, I will remember this favor, you can come to me when you need help, and I will help as much as I can.]

Tang Zhao did not refuse. After all, he really needed this thing. With this sea map and the support of Yintao City, he believed that he could quickly develop sea trade in a short period of time.

——

Originally, Tang Zhao was planning to leave directly. After all, the matter had come to an end, but the Laosanda Church approached Tang Zhao again. It was not about Yintao City, but about Sulla.

"In short, we want to gain the same rights as the Church of Helm to operate within your territory, and at the same time, we hope that you can allow us to spread Lathander's views normally within your territory."

To put it bluntly, it means the right to preach and carry out activities. Gods can enhance their power through faith, so increasing believers is also a necessary behavior for gods. For the people of Lathander Church, in this way, they can increase their influence on Karak.

.Solma’s understanding is also a good thing.

However, the power of demons needs to be feared, and the power of gods deserves vigilance. Both of them are untouchable for the current Tang Zhao.

[I'm sorry that I can't allow you to enter the city of Karak Solmar directly, because there are many followers of the nature god Silvanus in my city, and their attitude towards Lathander needs to be corrected. But I am willing to provide a trading post.

It is open, you can preach and preach there, and you can also get necessary supplies there.]

It will definitely open up in the future, but now Tang Zhao feels that he is not ready yet, and it is not too late to talk about opening up until the road connecting the east and west is built.

The underground passages of the dwarves are good, but the amount of work is huge, and it is not known when they will be repaired. Before that, they had limited contact with humans through trading stations. Tang Zhao had discussed it with other races in advance, and this was acceptable.

matter.

The pastor of Lathander Church heard this and smiled: "That's enough. Thank you very much for your approval."

[In addition, I have a question that I am very curious about. The demons in the territory were mainly eliminated by the Church of Lathander. What is the current situation? 】

"Frankly speaking, the situation is not that optimistic. With the efforts of all parties, the situation is under control, but so far they have caused a lot of damage. They are targeting small places that we cannot take care of, and wait for us to react and fight back.

When the time comes, it is very likely that it will be empty.”

Ordinary small groups of soldiers and practitioners cannot deal with demons, and the number of mid-to-high-level beings and large groups of soldiers is not large, so it is difficult to completely solve this problem.

[In this case, we have recently researched a new thing. We accidentally discovered it when we restored the black arrow. It can suppress the power of demons. We don’t have much use for this kind of thing. Does Oran need it? 】

"What is the specific effect? ​​If it is good, we definitely need it, and it can reduce our casualties. Recently, many church clergy have suffered heavy losses."

[You can judge for yourself, I will have the things delivered later. If necessary, go directly to the Hermes Chamber of Commerce in Luford and contact me through there.]

It is said that it is derived from the Black Arrow, but it is actually Tang Zhao's own blood mixed with some common materials, which can cause considerable suppression to weak demons.

Blood is precious. This kind of behavior can basically be equated with selling blood, so the price is not cheap. Tang Zhao just said casually, whether the other party wants to buy it depends on personal wishes. Anyway, the Lathander Church is better than the Heim Church.

There is a lot of money and the possibility of purchasing if you are rich.

After taking care of the last few things, Tang Zhao followed the fleet back to the west of Oran. During this period, he stopped in the royal capital again, bought some things, and took some orders.

In ancient times, traveling between the two places was very time-consuming. With the time spent traveling back and forth, more than a month had passed, and both Karak Solma and Lufford had undergone considerable changes.

Let’s start with Lufford. The conflict between the earl and Norton is still within limits, but anyone with a discerning eye can see the tit-for-tat meaning of the two sides. Neither of them wants to take action yet, but what will happen when problems arise in the Oran royal family?

It's hard to say, maybe there will be a shuffle.

Lufford's armament situation has indeed been greatly improved. The military strength of the earl, feudal nobles from various places, Norton Castei and other forces have been greatly enhanced. The low city wall that the orcs climbed during the last attack has also been rebuilt.

It was reinforced and formed a good line of defense against the swamp. The cities in the rear also began to strengthen their defenses. If the hobgoblins invaded again, their losses would be greater and their advance would be more difficult.

The higher-ups actually knew that there was a black dragon lurking in the Cubango swamp. They were originally worried that the black dragon had reached some agreement with the hobgoblin, which would be detrimental to the defense line, but in fact the black dragon made no move. The humans also remained rational.

I didn't try to go deep into the swamp again, for fear of irritating the powerful dragon.

As for Tang Zhao's territory, the changes were even greater.

The defense of the city fortress has been strengthened a lot. The city wall that was damaged in the last war has been completely repaired, and has been slightly thickened and raised on the original basis. Roads paved with stones have appeared in the forest, connecting

With the woodland dweller settlement, Karak Solmar and the trading post, traveling between these places has become easier.

The city's population has not changed much, and no new kobold tribes or dwarf refugees have been discovered during this period. Only some new faces can occasionally be seen in the city - elves and dwarves from the outside world. The connections between these parties are still growing.

It continues to deepen. Although the mainstream view among several parties is not to have close relations with elves/dwarves, it cannot be denied that trade is indeed an exchange of needs and has brought full benefits to all parties.

During this time, Bourne has been expanding agricultural production, and has opened up a lot of planting land in the river valley and underground. Meat has not yet developed to the level of self-sufficiency, but the progress in food is gratifying, and the entire settlement is basically developing steadily.

, I haven’t encountered any particularly big problems yet.

After Tang Zhao returned, he was not in a hurry to hunt. The giant shark he brought back from the sea has not yet been eaten. Although it does not taste very delicious, he has not eaten anything more delicious.

Enough to last him for a while.

To briefly understand the current situation of the settlement, Tang Zhao's main job every day was to lie on the boulders and bask in the sun, and occasionally return to the ground to help dig soil. His life was quite comfortable.

But this comfortable life didn't last long before something happened to him again.

This time, the beholder personally asked the familiar to come to his territory and asked to meet him, saying that he had something very important to discuss.
Chapter completed!