Above the mage!

Chapter 352: Grab time

Palm Tree Hotel.

Gao De came to the front desk.

He had only booked the room for three days, and now things here would obviously take some time, so he wanted to renew it for another week.

Handing over two plantagenet coins and a silver dragon coin, Gao De reviewed today's itinerary while waiting for the proprietress to write him a receipt.

After the Rose Hotel, he went to all the other mid-range hotels in the city, but to no avail.

Apparently, apart from staying at the Rose Hotel on her first day in Lagos, Aisha has since found a new place to stay.

This is somewhat untraceable.

Fortunately, it was the waitress at the Rose Hotel who provided the key clue - the shipyard.

Although Elsa didn't know anything about shipbuilding, since she asked, it was likely that she wanted to find out what the shipyard needed.

But it was already late, so Gao De decided to wait until tomorrow to visit each shipyard in the city one by one.

As a traditional fishing city, Lagos has well-developed supporting industries related to fisheries and a large number of shipyards, more than twenty in total.

So, this is obviously a big project.

More importantly, those small shipyards are still okay, but the large shipyards are basically backed by the nobles in the city.

In this situation, he fell into the same dilemma as before - his identity as a Sea Sentinel apprentice mage was most likely not enough, and those large shipyards might not necessarily give him this face.

This made Gao De a little annoyed.

But no matter how worried you are, you still have to leave tomorrow. In short, just take it one step at a time.

Gao De thought so.

"Hello." Just then, a hoarse voice came from the side.

"Excuse me, has the hotel received this woman recently?" Goder subconsciously turned his head to look, and saw a man hidden in a black cloak appear in front of the counter. He pushed a piece of parchment to the proprietress.

There was a portrait on the parchment.

Gao De glanced at it casually, and then his mind was shocked.

Because he was extremely familiar with the portrait on the parchment.

It’s the sister Anna is looking for, Elsa!

Besides myself, is there anyone else looking for Elsa?

Is he an old friend of Anna's father?
This was the first thought that came to Gaode’s mind.

However, it was quickly ruled out by Gaode.

"Never seen it." The proprietress who was writing a receipt answered decisively without even looking up.

The corner of Gao De's mouth twitched slightly: Aren't you even going to be perfunctory?

"Cough cough." The man was very calm. He just coughed twice in a low voice and knocked on the table lightly. A silver dragon coin appeared on the portrait at some point.

Obviously, the man knew very well that if he didn't give some benefits, the proprietress would not tell him anything even if she had received the woman in the portrait.

Nothing can be accomplished without spending money to pave the way.

Unless you are like Gao De, who comes to inquire in a sea sentry uniform, you can save a lot of expenses by borrowing this "tiger skin".

The proprietress was clearly concentrating on writing the receipt, but she seemed to have a clairvoyant eye and knew that the man had used the "Silver Coin Technique". The next moment, she raised her head, looked at the silver dragon coin on the portrait, smiled, and casually swept her finger and swept the silver dragon coin into the drawer.

Afterwards, she carefully examined the portrait for several times before giving a firm answer: "I have never seen it."

"Thank you." The man didn't react much. He put away the scroll, thanked him and left the hotel.

After the man left the hotel, the proprietress also wrote the receipt and handed it to Gao De, "Mr. Sir, your receipt."

"Thank you for the trouble." Gao De put away the receipt and thanked him.

After the man left the hotel, he couldn't help but look back at the Palm Tree Hotel.

Only when he saw Gao De going upstairs did he look away.

For a moment, he felt that the other party seemed to care about him.

However, nothing was found wrong afterwards, and the other party looked like an ordinary guest - after returning to the hotel, Gode had changed out of his sea sentinel uniform, and there was not even any trace of a wizard.

Therefore, he didn't think about it any more.

The matter at hand is important.

It’s not that he wasn’t vigilant enough.

The main reason was that this was his first time in the Plantagenet Dynasty and he didn't know anyone here, so under normal circumstances, who would care about him?

Open the door.

The little girl was looking at her clothes with a frown on her face.

When she came out, she brought nothing with her except herself.

So I have actually been wearing this set of clothes for several days.

Normally speaking, in this world, for most people, it is quite normal not to change clothes for a week, let alone a few days.

But Anna used to change her clothes at least once a day, so now she felt a little uncomfortable looking at the “dirty” clothes which were not that dirty, and her nose wrinkled.

"Brother!" Hearing the door opening, Anna immediately raised her head and called out obediently with her big eyes.

What a lovely little girl. As Gao De thought about it, he came to the bedside, squatted down, and was on the same level as Anna who was sitting on the bed, and then said very "sternly":

"Anna, what else are you hiding about your sister? You must tell me today."

Looking at the little girl's face changing from surprise to depression, and her eyelashes trembling slightly, Gao De felt helpless and his heart softened. He sighed and softened his tone: "Just now downstairs, I met a guy who didn't look like a good person. He was holding your sister's portrait and investigating your sister's movements."

"Ah?!" Anna's little face was stunned, and then she lowered her head, as if she didn't dare to look directly at Goder's face, looking extremely pitiful.

"Brother, help me. We can't let him find me." Her voice became pitiful: "He is a bad guy!"

Gao De squatted down a little more and looked at the little girl's delicate face from below. Her beautiful big eyes were already filled with tears.

He pursed his lips and said gently: “So, Anna, you have to tell me what you are hiding, so that I can help you.”

Perhaps it was because of this brief time with God that Anna had built up enough trust in God. The little girl raised her head again and said seriously:
"It is true that my sister brought Anna here to escape disaster. However, we did not actually owe any debts. There were bad guys who wanted to steal our treasures. Even though we escaped here, the bad guys chased us all the way and did not give up."

"It's just that my sister didn't come to Lagos to make a living," Anna looked at Gao De cautiously, her voice became inaudible, and she whispered, "It was to find a way to avoid bad guys. Anna lied to her brother, Anna is a bad kid." Gao De looked at Anna deeply, his eyes revealing a scrutiny, as if he was trying to figure out whether what she said now was true or a new set of lies.

He looked carefully for a while. He had always been good at judging people, but for a little girl, it seemed that this ability did not work very well.

Gao De didn't look at it for too long, and soon said, "So it seems that the reason your sister asked about the shipyard's news was not to work there to make a living, but to buy a ship?"

Asking about the location of the shipyard and ruling out the possibility of deliberate confusion means that the purpose is naturally to go to the shipyard to do business.

And if a foreigner comes to Lagos specifically to look for a shipyard, besides working, isn't the only thing left for him to do is to buy a ship?

In addition, buying a boat happens to coincide with what Anna said, "finding a way to avoid bad guys."

If the "bad guy" was really chasing you so closely, what would you do if you put yourself in his shoes?
At the beginning, Gaode's choice was not to take any means of transportation, but to rely on his own [adaptive] ability to leave the city of Saint Sean by ship, so as to be truly untraceable.

Elsa doesn't have the ability to [adapt], so it is impossible for her to not rely on any means of transportation.

But there is another way to be traceless in a certain sense: make the vehicle your own property.

This is what is called buying a ship and going to sea.

Of course, going to sea is not something that can be done by one person, and one needs to hire crew members, etc. But in general, once on board, as long as the captain does not reveal the specific destination, it can at least be guaranteed that for a considerable period of time, no one will know where the ship will go.

A very reasonable and smart approach.

"Maybe." Anna blinked and said uncertainly, "Brother, what do you think we should do now?"

"That should be it," Gao De thought for a moment and said, "You don't have to worry too much. At least we have two advantages now."

"Hey, two?" Anna tilted her head and looked at Gode, tears still wet on her little face. Her puzzled look was pitiful yet cute.

"First of all," Goder raised a finger and explained patiently, "The Palm Tree Hotel is a hotel in the central location of Lagos. This bad guy has just entered the Palm Tree Hotel to investigate your sister's movements, so it is very likely that he has just begun the investigation."

"Because in an unfamiliar area, a hotel that is easily visible in the center should be the priority target of the pursuer's investigation. If nothing else, at least it is certain that he has not asked about the Rose Hotel and has not obtained any further information."

"And now," Goder looked up at the sky outside the window, "it's already night, he can only wait until tomorrow to continue the hotel inspection."

This world is different from his previous life. The service industry has developed to a certain extent, and it is common for hotels to have a 24-hour front desk on duty.

In most hotels here, the front desk staff are the boss themselves. Even if there are specially hired staff, in order to save costs, given the limited passenger flow at night, few would hire an extra person to staff the front desk all night.

Most of the time, guests arriving at night need to ring the bell or call to wake up the resting staff for service.

It would be fine if you wanted to stay in the hotel, but waking someone up just to ask for some news, do you think anyone would be nice to you?

Therefore, the man must wait until tomorrow morning to continue checking the hotel.

“This is a time advantage for us.”

"The second is that we have finished the hotel inspection phase and entered the next phase," Gao De took out a piece of parchment from his arms, "We can determine the target tonight, which will give us nearly a day's time difference."

As he spoke, Gao De unfolded the parchment.

On the parchment was the information he had collected about the shipyards in Lagos, including their size, main ship types, addresses, etc., which were listed in order of size.

"Then how do we determine the target?" Anna opened her eyes wide, puzzled.

"Look, if your sister really wants to buy a boat, it's for the purpose of escaping to the sea. The bigger the boat is, the more manpower is needed. And your sister is just trying to avoid the bad guys, not for any business, so she naturally doesn't need to buy a big boat."

"In that case, these large shipyards can be ruled out first." Gode's fingertips slid across the large shipyards at the front row of the parchment.

"And since you guys are fleeing here, I'm sure your sister won't be well-off. When buying a boat, she'll naturally look for the best value for money."

"Another point is that she is from another place, so she will most likely look for some relatively informal small workshops to purchase the boat. These small workshops attach great importance to the transaction of each business, so naturally the identity verification is not so strict."

Anna kept nodding, feeling that everything God said made sense.

"So," Goder pointed his finger at a name on a piece of parchment, "the main ship type of this shipyard is the two-masted sailing ship, which is a small transoceanic ship suitable for small traders and explorers. In addition, they have gone bankrupt and stopped building ships. Now they are clearing out and selling the backlog of ships in the shipyard, and transferring the shipyard at a low price."

In this case, their ship prices will definitely be the most affordable.

Moreover, they will no longer care about the buyer's foreign identity. After the ships are sold, the factory will be closed anyway. Even if the authorities want to punish, there is no punishment.

"Yes, that's right." Anna narrowed her eyes, looked at the shipyard that Goder pointed out, and read out its name word by word.

"Harland Shipyard."

"Then get up early tomorrow and go straight to the Harland Shipyard." Godard has always been a decisive person and made the decision immediately.

"Sir, yesterday a lady from another place wanted to buy our last remaining Harland brig, but she didn't have enough money and said she needed a few more days to prepare, so she left first."

After a slight hesitation, the fat boss Haaland glanced at Godd's neat sea sentinel uniform, and finally revealed some information.

The Sea Sentinel's apprentice wizard is not a particularly important figure, but he is still a wizard of the Sea Sentinel after all. There is no need for him to provoke a bankrupt shipyard owner for no reason.

It's not important news anyway.

"The money was not enough yesterday." Gao De's eyes lit up slightly, and he was almost certain that he must have found the real culprit.

"Then do you know how to contact her?"

Harland shook his head. "This lady didn't leave any contact information or a deposit, so I reminded her to hurry up. Otherwise, if she runs into other guests, I won't be able to keep the boat for her."

"So." Gao De fell into deep thought.

Obviously, Elsa was very alert.

But this vigilance also prevented Gao De from finding her any further.

As Gao De was thinking, he unconsciously looked around the shipyard.

The Harland Shipyard is located around the port of Lagos City, so that ships can be launched directly into the water and put out to sea after they are built.

There are also a large number of sawmills, rope workshops, and canvas workshops in the surrounding area, forming a relatively complete shipbuilding industry chain.

Therefore, the air is filled with the fragrance of wood, the pungent smell of tar and the salty smell of sea water.

The dock is the largest and most core facility in a shipyard.

In addition, there are corresponding wood processing areas, workshops and other work areas, but because the Harland Shipyard has gone bankrupt and stopped building ships, they are empty and very deserted at the moment.

As Gao De smelled the unique scent of the shipyard in the air, an idea suddenly popped up from the depths of his mind.

"Boss, are you trying to sell the shipyard at a low price? Have you found a buyer?"

"There are several potential buyers, but they are all unscrupulous businessmen. The prices they offer are so low that no one would even look at them!" When Haaland mentioned this, he suddenly became excited and couldn't help but complain.

"What is your target price if I want to take over the shipyard?" Gao De suddenly asked.

(End of this chapter)