Secret: The years I served as a foreign aid for the Aurora Club

Chapter 278: A Corner Revealed

570
East Balam, Gulain.

"Important news."

Soest strode into the Red Gloves' lounge and whispered to everyone, "We found a member of the Church of Death who was in contact with Ince Zangwill. Although he was not the main contact, we still got some information from him."

The Red Gloves perked up, and Leonard and Daly's expressions suddenly became serious.

"He was telling the truth. He said the last time Ince Zangwill wrote to him was in early March."

Soest said, "He also said in the letter that his condition had become abnormal and he was beginning to show signs of madness, and he hoped to get help from the Church of the God of Death as soon as possible. But according to that member, after that exchange, Ince Zangwill never replied again."

"Therefore, the contact person speculated that he might have lost control. After several attempts to contact him failed, the Death God Church gave up on him."

Leonard frowned and expressed his doubts: "Out of control? Why would Ince Zangwill lose control? Even if similar symptoms really occurred, he could use the seal to adjust his condition."

"You have asked a crucial question, one that can only be obtained from Ince Zangwill's primary contact."

Soest nodded and said, "The good news is that we found clues about the main contact from him. Everyone, get ready. After we take out the seal, we will go there immediately."

……

"Your Highness, Archon."

The familiar voice calling with awe brought Azik Eggers out of his thoughts. He turned his head slightly and looked at the subordinate who was kneeling in front of him. He said helplessly: "I said, you don't have to kneel."

The minister who looked like a southern continent man knelt stubbornly: "No, Your Highness, this is the respect given to you, the iron law of the Balam Empire."

Azik Eggers resisted the urge to press his temples with his hands, because he was wearing Balam's traditional gold jewelry and headband on his head. If his head moved too much, it would make noises, which would not only get his hair caught, but also give people a feeling of being restless and noisy.

Before he was caught, he felt that he could not accept these exquisite but complicated decorations, could not tolerate others kneeling at his feet, and could not accept any outfit other than a three-piece suit with a hat and tie. But when he really put on the gold jewelry and the loose robe, he felt a long-lost familiarity, as if he was born to be here, born to sit here.

All he could say was, "You can stand up now."

The minister who looked older than him slowly stood up and said, "Yes, Your Excellency."

"Well, what do you have to report today?"

The old minister handed over a document and said respectfully:

"Our army has achieved a phased victory in the central and western regions. The church has applied to mobilize some members to manage the members who have just taken over."

Azik flipped through the documents and saw that the last page listed the detailed application content. He nodded and left an unforgeable mark on it:

"Just do as it says."

"Yes." The minister took the document handed back by Azik with both hands and hesitated to tell the bad news, "Your Highness, Archon, the church is a little short of personnel. Should we recruit and train new members in the places we have already occupied?"

The Church of Death was originally just a secret organization roughly equivalent to a church in size. Although its overall strength is now similar, the number of talents and resource reserves are completely incomparable.

"Yeah." Azik nodded.

He knew that he was just an empty shell handling simple government affairs. The affairs of the Church of Death were managed by the fanatical high priest, and his father, the great "Emperor of the Underworld" Salinger, paid a little more attention to the affairs of the empire this time - Azik casually guessed that this might be a way of adapting to local customs.

After resurrection, he directly became the enemy of the Northern Continent. Therefore, the God of Death tried to understand the new laws and policies needed by the Southern Continent and the Balam Empire through the memories of "Shia Eggers" and the demands of ordinary people, and to win the help of the real creator by "treating humans well".

Although the Northern Continent claims that under the constraints of their laws, the Southern Continent is a land where everyone except slaves is equal, everyone knows that this is just a cold joke.

Now, the plain cities in the central region have also been occupied. Intis is still watching from the sidelines. The Sonia Island fleet of the Feysac Empire took advantage of the situation and delayed the assistance from the Rorsted Islands, while the Church of the God of Knowledge and Wisdom secretly conveyed some communication intentions. The attitudes of various countries in the colonial war made Azik feel unbelievable, but he also felt that everything was natural and should be so.

According to the export adjustments of the Balam Empire, he learned that many textile factories in the northern continent could no longer receive cotton, a large number of workers were laid off, factories went bankrupt, and the lives of the middle and lower classes collapsed rapidly. However, for the middle class and above, the price of textiles was just a little more expensive.

This situation had already become a hidden danger when the people of the Northern Continent burned the fields of the Southern Continent, forcing them to replace their crops with items with higher economic value such as cotton, and gradually made the Southern Continent the main supplier of raw materials.

Today, only the Northern Continent is tasting the bitter fruit of this action.

The old minister left, leaving behind some other simple government affairs, which basically only required Azik to say "yes" or "no", and to stamp or not stamp.

His days were fairly leisurely, but he couldn't leave.

Because his father was very curious about his resurrection with some soft human characteristics, he thought that Azik, who had wasted more than 1,300 years in the Northern Continent, could also be used as a research subject on "how to treat humans well".

"Death Archon" Azik Eggers, whose strength had recovered to 90%, but was still a little weak, stood up, put aside the few simple unfinished tasks, stood up, and walked around the palace.

He saw servants in the garden planting fresh flowers together, and he saw in the palace in the distance, spiritual creatures holding palettes and painters, painting the walls and ceilings with gold foil and gold powder.

The paintings were unfamiliar memories to him, memories from himself 1,400 years ago, as long ago as legends and dreams.

He stared there, watching the painter finish painting a mural of a feathered serpent with wings covering the sky, then he turned his head and returned to his seat.

571
Mrs. D hired a carriage.

Some of their luggage, mainly the ladies', was placed in the carriage, and Klein's new secret doll served as the coachman.

Klein looked around and said casually, "I thought Balam's carriage would be a huge coffin."

"I thought so too when I first came here." Ms. D smiled. "The climate in the southern continent is too humid and warm, which is suitable for plant growth. In fact, at the beginning, they did not realize the importance of props like the 'wheel'. Because the road opened this year may be overgrown with plants next year. Most relocations are solved by manpower - or zombies and spirit creatures."

Ms. D said goodbye to the man who brought the carriage and said, "In fact, there are very few human coffins in West Balam. This place is deeply influenced by the culture of the Northern Continent. In addition, it is a port city, and many residents can speak and write basic Northern Continent common language. If you go to East Balam, I guess the only way to travel will be lying in a coffin."

Her life experience far exceeds that of an average noble. She is like someone who has lived in the southern continent for many years... Is it because she can rely on the "Mystic Mage" seal to carry out activities very conveniently?
Klein nodded, looked at the coachman who was leaving, and said, "You are more experienced than I thought."

Ms. D was not surprised. She smiled generously and passed over the topic: "You are kinder than I thought."

She looked at the man sitting in the driver's seat of the carriage - a thug who was robbing and bullying women on the street.

Ms. D was born in Intis. Due to the existence of the Secret Society, she understood the "diviners" better than the average Beyonder. Mr. X, who was most likely a "master of secret dolls", should be more careful with his secret dolls instead of just grabbing one and using it.

Klein didn't say much, but he felt that his new image had become more complex and three-dimensional:

"I'll be gone for a while. I might be back in a while."

"Okay." Ms. D did not ask Klein's purpose.

Klein walked into an empty alley and set up a simple spiritual wall. Then, the "Creeping Hunger" on his left hand opened its mouth and opened a "Traveler's Door" in front of him.

He walked into the door according to the address given by the previous divination results.

After passing through the door, Klein appeared on another secluded street. However, this city was much larger than the Caesar Port where he was, and he could hear many chaotic voices nearby. He took a few steps and saw the "human coffin" mentioned by Ms. D.

The divination results showed that the city was called Gulain.

As he was walking on a deserted road, he suddenly heard a woman's terrified cry.

The sound only lasted for a short time before it stopped abruptly.

Although he couldn't understand what the other party was shouting, Klein could feel the fear, terror, and panic. So he took a wrong step and entered a narrower path with fewer pedestrians.

Within ten seconds, he saw a local man in his thirties with brown skin and soft features pressing on the girl and violently assaulting her in a hidden corner.

Klein took a look, slowed down, and stopped in a nearby shadow.

At this time, the girl's face was distorted by extreme panic, but no matter how she struggled, she could not get rid of it and was even beaten.

Her tears and snot were streaming down her face, and her mouth was stuffed with rags so she could only make whimpering sounds.

At this moment, she was shocked to find that the bad guy's attempt to take off her clothes had slowed down.

The brown-skinned local man struggled for a while, and finally calmed down, smiled, and said in Dutan: "Next time you meet someone like me, remember to run to the nearest church or a crowded place."

The girl was stunned for a moment, then suddenly let out a scream and turned and ran away. Klein touched his nose, looked at the two crooked new secret dolls in his hand, sighed, and fed the previous one to the "creeping hunger" - compared to the previous one, this one at least has the advantage of being "fluent in Dutan language".

He could only place his hopes on the answer given by Sefirah Castle: "The location of the new secret doll is nearby."

Using the divination staff, he walked forward for a while and divined once. Following the revelation he received, after many twists and turns, he arrived at a steep staircase.

This staircase connects several levels of roads in Gurain. One has to look up to see the top. At this moment, there is no one there.

No one... Klein did not doubt Sefirah Castle and his own divination ability, but he still sat there without confidence and began to wait. After a while, he heard some faint movement outside, so he exchanged positions with his secret doll and hid in the dark.

Not long after, Klein suddenly heard a steady stream of footsteps coming from above him.

His secret doll was delivered to his door.

……

About an hour later, in the alley of Caesar Port, the "Traveler's Door" opened again.

Klein, who has a new secret doll, Enzo, the "Winner" of the "Monster" Path Sequence 5, appears in the alley.

It was afternoon, the sun was shining brightly, and Klein walked out of the alley and began searching for Ms. D's location.

They saw the horse-drawn carriage they hired parked next to a restaurant on the roadside. The brown horse was eating grass with its head down. Ms. D, wearing sunglasses, was sitting under the eaves, reading a newspaper. In front of her was a cup of warm tea and a snack.

Perhaps she had noticed his gaze. When Klein approached, Ms. D raised her head. She looked at the new secret doll that had appeared beside Klein with some surprise, and then smiled very calmly: "It seems that we have a new candidate for the coachman."

It was easy to talk to someone who understood the "Fortune Teller" without having to explain it separately, but there was no chance to act... Klein nodded, sat down at the table, and ordered a lunch, and also asked for one for Enzo.

Ms. D finished flipping through the newspaper and said:

"Some interesting things have happened. Last night, a bishop from Lenburg claimed that he was attacked by the Intis people, but traces of his activities appeared dozens of miles away. A colony city in Loen said that it was attacked by Lenburg, and the mastermind was this bishop."

She leisurely took a sip of the southern continent's specialty flower tea:
"It looks like changes are about to occur in the Northern Continent."

Klein asked, "Is it because the churches of the three gods are hostile to each other? But this trap is too obvious."

"If Renburg starts to lean towards the Church of Death, then the other two gods will immediately start to target the Church of Knowledge. All they need is an excuse, and they don't need to know whether the excuse is true or false. At least the Feysac Empire clearly wants to get a piece of the pie." Ms. D smiled, "Just like me, if I want to search a civilian, I don't need to make any explanation, I can even say that the other party stole my things."

Ms. D sighed, closed the newspaper, and began to quietly enjoy the snacks she brought.

"The war was a crucial moment in changing the world, but my country was still indulging in decadence and extravagance."

Klein suddenly thought of Isengard Stanton, the great detective of Lombardy who wandered in the gray area between the church and the extraordinary.

It's not just him. If Backlund's church steps up its efforts, how many wild Beyonders will be found?

Lunch was served. Whether in color, aroma, or taste, it was completely different from the food Klein was used to eating in the Northern Continent. It also used a lot of spices for seasoning. It took Klein a few bites to get used to it.

Two servings of fried noodles cost 4 pence, which is shockingly low.

At this time, a skinny boy suddenly appeared next to Klein as if he had crawled out of the ground. The boy did not dare to look at Ms. D, who was obviously a superior person from the Northern Continent. Instead, he looked at Klein, who had a hint of Southern Continent blood, with a pleading look. He held a stack of fairly neat newspapers in his dirty hands and asked in the common language of the Northern Continent, which he was not very proficient in:
"Would you like a newspaper, sir?"

Klein felt really uncomfortable with that look, and couldn't help but think of the kid eating moldy bread on the street. He thought for a second and nodded: "Give me one."

The boy said, "Newspaper, two copies, 1 penny."

Two copies? That's fine...Klein paid the money without hesitation because the other person looked pitiful, and the boy ran away quickly. When Klein finished lunch and unfolded the newspaper, he found that the date and news were all from last week.

Klein frowned, but he wasn't going to catch the boy and argue with him just for a penny, so he just accepted the newspaper.

"You better watch your wallet from now on, Mr. X."

Ms. D said jokingly, "Those kids know who to take money from to avoid being beaten, and they know how to use tears to make others sympathize with them. If you don't need those two newspapers, you can just drop them in front of a house. They will need them."

Klein was silent for a moment.

"This place reminds me of the East Side." He said in a low voice, "Backlund, or any city, is like this. Even their slums are exactly the same."

"So is beautiful Trier."

Ms. D ate the last bite of dessert and suddenly thought of something: "Mr. X, you are from Loen, may I ask how is the follow-up of your "Backlund Great Smog" incident? Have your parliament and church not launched an impeachment against the royal family again?"

The "Backlund Great Smog" incident had a bad impact internationally. The shocking fact that the fog was thick enough to kill tens of thousands of people was reported in newspapers in countries other than Loen for a long time, and was ridiculed and mocked by the international community.

"Impeach the royal family?"

Klein asked back in confusion, and then continued in the same tone:

"The smog incident has ended in Loen. The third prince committed suicide out of fear of punishment. Subsequently, an atmospheric protection and governance bill was introduced, and anthracite was promoted... The environment in Backlund has been significantly improved now."

Ms. D was also visibly stunned for a moment, then nodded as if to convince herself:

"It's over. If this happened in Intis, someone in the Senate would definitely be impeached and leave. Backlund is worthy of being the place where a major plague once broke out in history. Have the government and the people become accustomed to such simple and crude population cleansing..."

This time it was Klein's turn to be shocked: "Population cleansing?"

Ms. D was speechless, and then realized that the two of them might have different understandings of one thing, so she immediately added: "Yes, population cleansing. In the investigation conclusion of the Feysac Empire, the 'Great Smog' was defined as a vicious population cleansing. Official researchers believe that it is pure nonsense that fog alone can kill tens of thousands of people in such a short period of time. There must be extraordinary abilities involved. The newspaper said it was poison gas, poison gas released by the government, but the investigation of the Extraordinary World showed that it was a witch, most likely a high-sequence."

"The official claim of the Feysac Empire is that this was a vicious massacre of useless people in the slums at the national level, and in the end they just randomly pushed a prince who had no right of succession to take the blame."

"..." Klein's eyes widened as the other party spoke.

It was not because the information conveyed by the Feysac Empire was sensational, but because every piece of information was true and credible—yes, the source of the smog was a witch, and Prince Edessac Augustus was just a shield.

There was something strange about his death, as evidenced by his butler Walter and Triss Chick who appeared in the sewer. It was very likely that the royal family was indeed in cahoots with the Witch Cult, but it was definitely not Prince Edessak - it was another faction that masterminded the smog, and then pushed all the blame on the third prince. From this perspective, the Augustus royal family was undoubtedly an accomplice!
Judging from the follow-up of the great smog, the royal family quickly introduced a new bill, the economy was not affected, and the population of the East District decreased so much that many jobs were vacant. Everything was indeed a "population cleansing" as announced by the Feysac Empire.

"...Where did the Feysac Empire get this information?" he asked in a hoarse voice.

"Some of the victims from Backlund fled to other countries, while others went to the Rorsted Islands with a little compensation. In short, they don't want to live in this horrible place anymore."

Ms. D's eyes were a little vague: "I was responsible for settling them, but some of them were taken away by spies from the Feysac Empire. Of course, there were Beyonders among them... Compared with foreign spies, the Storm Church actually chose to prioritize attacking me, a Beyonder from the Sun Path."

Ms. D has been to the sea? Has she spent some time in the Rorsted Archipelago?
Klein suddenly had an idea and remembered the source of the familiar feeling when they first met -

A few months ago, when he was preparing to be promoted to Sequence 5, he once saw a female Beyonder who had a distinct Intis style and a mid-sequence spirituality on his way to a charity hospital to volunteer!
"But...why did the Augustus royal family do this?"

Klein still couldn't understand why the royal family personally took action to do such a thing. Was it just because they felt there were too many people in the East District?
“Maybe there are mystical reasons, but newspapers targeting the general public can’t write too much about it. My family seems to have noticed something, but I’m not qualified to know the truth.” Ms. D shook her head and did not mention the details of her family.

"Newspaper?" Klein was shocked. "These contents are written in newspapers?"

The truth that I have been pursuing so hard actually exists so openly in the newspapers of another country?
"Yes, the newspaper."

Ms. D nodded naturally, and then suddenly understood: "Ah, you are from Loen——"

"——The newspapers of the Feysac Empire have been circulated in Intis and other countries for more than a month. Although the official version has only been published, many influential newspapers have been discussing Loen's population cleansing that disregards human rights."

"Especially in Renburg and Feynaport, it is said that the Church of Mother Earth is very angry about this act of desecrating life."

"...Is there no news at all in your territory of Loen?"

TBC
------

Historically, compared to cotton, which was a necessity, the "high economic value" crop that was truly forced to be grown was hemp.

There is no further description about these items in the mysterious world. They appear as a kind of anesthetic or hallucinogenic drugs.

(End of this chapter)