I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 448 The boring days are over
Outside, there were drunkards slurring their curses, women arguing sharply, intermittent sobs in some corner, and the sticky, dense, and endless sound of countless bare feet or tattered shoes dragging through the mud and garbage.

Inside the cramped room, the young master sat on a slightly uncomfortable wooden stool, his hands supporting his cheeks, staring blankly at the flickering flame of the oil lamp in front of him.

He regretted it a little.

Home Alone has many regrets. He regrets not joining the Holy Expeditionary Force, not going to the Suwano region to play with the snake people, and accepting the intelligence agency's mission to come to this place called Treasure Island.

He had thought that coming to Taiwan would give him a thrilling 007 experience, but the result was quite the opposite.

My time on the island was neither exciting nor intense; on the contrary, it was extremely dull and boring.

This dullness and tedium doesn't mean that the young master is idle in the city. On the contrary, he is very busy. Almost every day, the intelligence agent responsible for contacting him requests his assistance to beat people up and kill people.

If he were a newbie, he would be very happy to have such a dense number of combat missions, but now he is a veteran player, and the agents of the Taiwan branch of the intelligence agency are not giving him any big missions.

It's not about going to some damp, moldy alley to persuade a gossipy dockworker to cause trouble somewhere, or to provide some intelligence.

It means visiting a petty thug leader who has overcharged you for protection money and intimidating him with your fists.

The worst that could happen was stealing letters from a poor clerk who secretly recorded the misdeeds of tax collectors, and then using those documents to blackmail the tax collector into providing him with favors.

These tasks are like sending a fully-equipped, max-level character back to the starting village to slaughter chickens – utterly futile, and the reputation points are negligible.

For him, his only gain was perhaps the unique stench of mud that clung to the soles of his shoes and lingered in the air, along with the ever-present scent of cheap rice wine mixed with despair.

The flame of the oil lamp flickered violently again, lengthening his shadow on the wall, making it look like a twisted, impatient demon.

He sighed, his nostrils filled with the smell of damp wood and cheap lamp oil burning in the room.

"Damn it, Taiwan..."

He muttered to himself that the name sounded like a joke.

There are no treasures here, only endless barrenness, chaos, and a numbness that seeps into your bones.

Those guys in the intelligence agency treated him like a cheap thug, the kind who specializes in handling junk.

The young man was already thinking about whether he should find an excuse, such as claiming that he had been bitten by a snake-man and needed to have his limb amputated, in order to apply for a transfer from this awful place.

But if he really had to give it up, the kid in charge was still a little reluctant.

Besides the high time cost, the tasks assigned by the Taiwan branch were small but extremely complicated, and they were all chain tasks.

The young master was very familiar with this kind of task, and he almost instinctively felt that behind these tedious little tasks lay a world-shaking mission.

So even though it was very boring, and even though he thought about giving up, he gritted his teeth and couldn't bear to leave.

Even so, the kid was still envious and jealous of those players who were far away in Suwano.

Damn it, those who want to fight have snake people to fight, those who want to build have a new railway project underway, and those who want to be officials have it even better. Little Master learned from offline forums that Chris's decree was issued a few days ago, and the territory of the Kingdom of Bagnia is moving north and east.

In other words, a new era of territorial expansion has begun, and participating warbands have the opportunity to exchange military merits for their own warband territories and towns.

Individual players also have the opportunity to become civil servants, village chiefs, town mayors, city mayors, police officers, judges, tax collectors, and so on. As long as they have the ambition, there are plenty of positions and promotion opportunities waiting for them.

Home Alone was so envious. If he had known about this beforehand, he might not have been willing to accept the offer when Connie from the intelligence agency approached the Ultramarines Chapter to invite and recruit high-reputation players to join her service.

"Ugh……"

The young man sighed. Bored, he reached out and dragged over a plate from the far end of the table. He picked up a fork and poked at the meat, which he had cut into small pieces.

The fork tip easily pierced the dark reddish-brown meat, and an unpleasant, almost gelatinous toughness came from the fingertip.

He picked up a piece and held it up to the light of the oil lamp.

The meat was coarse, with fine white spots interspersed between the grains, resembling scale residue. Even in the dim light, it faintly shimmered with an unnatural, greasy sheen.

This is the flesh of the snake-man.

From the damp, dark corners of the island, these are the things that slip through the fingers of the authorities, things they refuse to acknowledge, from the black market.

It is said that the snakes came from spoils of war on certain battlefields, or from unfortunate snake people who were killed by farmers while hunting outside. These snakes were secretly dragged into the city, and then the audacious butchers in the slums quickly disposed of them like livestock. The snake meat then flowed into this silent supply chain.

The snake meat had a strong, unpleasant odor, a mixture of mud, rotten fish, and the distinctive stench of some indescribable cold-blooded animal. Judging from his culinary skills, the young master believed that the snake meat would need to be marinated with a large amount of spices and then deep-fried or boiled in a large pot for three or four hours before it could become palatable.

Besides its outrageously strong odor, this snake-man is also slightly poisonous. Eating too much of it can cause a sore throat, diarrhea, and the possibility of seeing deceased relatives waving from cracks in the wall.

Even so, snake meat is still very popular because it is cheap, even cheaper than black bread.

So much so that even in the slums of Taiwan, you can sometimes see well-dressed people going into the black market to buy snake meat... these are the city's middle class.

The kid frowned and hesitated for a moment before stuffing the piece of meat from the fork into his mouth.

The chewing sensation was like dealing with a piece of tough, greasy leather soaked in foul odor; it required some effort, and the strange taste quickly filled his mouth and nose. He forced himself to swallow, and a faint, familiar burning sensation rose in his stomach… the irritation from a mild toxin.

This is the very thing that, in this place that is euphemistically called "Treasure Island," is the main source of meat for many people at the bottom of society, who rely on it for sustenance and even compete to buy it.

Normal livestock meat is now ridiculously expensive, a luxury that only gang leaders, tax collectors, and a few wealthy merchants can afford.

And normal food?

Grain transported from the mainland was always prioritized for the military and government agencies. Grain that made it onto the market was not only expensive, but also often contained sand and mold.

Although snake meat is unpalatable and has side effects, it at least provides protein and calories, enough to keep a person alive. Long, silent, and anxious queues always form in front of the butcher's stalls on the black market.

People are willing to spend their meager savings, or even exchange something more precious, for a piece of meat like this.

"Ah, a specialty of Taiwan."

The young man took a swig of cheap beer to wash away the strange taste in his mouth and chuckled self-deprecatingly.

The taste, the feeling, perfectly matched his overall impression of the island... cheap, toxic, full of despair, yet you had to endure it for some vague goal.

He smacked his lips, feeling the faint burning sensation, as if the island's toxins were seeping into his body little by little, becoming a part of his tedious mission.

The flame of the oil lamp flickered restlessly again.

The wooden door, as thin as paper, was being knocked on rhythmically.

Three long, two short.

It was his contact's code.

The little devil rolled his eyes and stood up reluctantly, the wooden stool groaning in pain as he did so.

As he pulled back the latch, an even stronger, more acrid stench and the damp chill of the night immediately rushed in. Standing outside was the very same envoy leader who had appeared in Baron Nehari's study earlier.

His expression was even colder than it had been at the baron’s mansion; the foul air in the alley seemed unable to penetrate the invisible chill emanating from him.

He wasn't wearing the wealthy businessman's coat he had disguised himself in before, but only a dark, practical outfit that allowed him to move around easily. Rain soaked his shoulders, which gleamed with a cold, hard sheen in the dim light.

Before the young master could completely move aside, he squeezed into the room and quickly and deftly closed the door, shutting out all the sounds from outside.

The man's movements were clean and efficient, carrying a professional air that seemed out of place in this slum environment.

His gaze swept quickly across the room: the wooden stool that pricked his bottom, the flickering oil lamp, the dish of nauseating snake meat on the table, and the impatience and boredom that had not yet completely faded from the young master's face.

The leader of the envoys frowned almost imperceptibly, seemingly unsurprised by what he saw, but certainly not satisfied.

"Things have changed."

He got straight to the point, his voice low but cutting through the stuffy air in the room like a knife.

"New information has come from Nehari, faster than expected, and it's also... troublesome."

The little guy's spirits lifted slightly, and the long-standing feeling of boredom was instantly dispelled.

He pulled over another, even more worn-out stool and gestured for the other person to sit down, then sat back down in his original spot, leaning forward.

"Mole, tell me, how big of a problem is this?"
"So I finally don't have to intimidate that idiot who collects protection money anymore?"

The man codenamed Mole didn't sit down; he remained standing, like a sculpture blending into the shadows.

"Some nobles in the Kingdom of Minicia have run out of patience and are planning to take action against Charles, a plan that combines a coup, a military rebellion, and an assassination."

The operation is likely to begin soon; the specific plan is still being finalized, but Nekhari has confirmed that the palace guards and some of the city's defense forces have been infiltrated.

The little tyrant whistled softly, his eyes beginning to gleam.

"Oh? Finally, something decent. So you want us to take advantage of the chaos during the assassination attempt to stab that idiot king in the neck and prevent him from surviving?"

"No."

The mole's voice was cold and hard, without the slightest hint of a joke.

"The intelligence agency needs you, and your particularly capable friends, to be on the scene when the assassination attempt occurs, to protect King Charles."

The excitement on the kid's face froze instantly, then turned into an unbelievable sense of absurdity.

"Protect him? That bastard who sold the country to the snake people?"
Are you kidding me? Wouldn't it be better if those idiot nobles chopped him up? That would give Bagnia an excuse to take over this mess!

"The situation is more complicated than you think."

"That's what the mole explained."

“Now that Charles is dead, the noble class will immediately put forward a puppet. They will quickly consolidate their forces and stabilize the situation, even if it is only temporary. A temporarily stable Minicia, no matter how weak, will bring unnecessary trouble and losses to His Majesty’s conquest plan.”

He leaned forward slightly, the light of the oil lamp casting deep shadows in his sunken eye sockets.

“What we need is a wounded, frightened, and utterly insane Charles, a king who has just escaped death and is filled with suspicion and hatred towards everyone around him.”

He will be like a wounded mad dog, tearing apart everyone he can bite. The conspiracies of the noble class will be exposed, and they will suspect each other and purge each other... The entire upper class of Minicia will be plunged into complete chaos and infighting, bleeding to the last drop of blood.

That will be the time when the kingdom truly and peacefully accepts everything.

The young leader remained silent for a few seconds, processing the cold political calculations hidden in those words.

He smacked his lips, seemingly wanting to savor the fishy smell of snake meat again, but this time he only felt a chilling coldness.

"So, we're going to act as a temporary shield for that mad dog, giving him the opportunity to bite and kill even more people later?"

He snorted.

"This is fucking...creative. But how do we sneak in? Is the royal palace that easy to get into?"

Baron Nehari.

The mole uttered the name.

"He was a participant in the conspiracy, but he was also one of our men. He had the authority to, on the eve of the plan's execution, place a small team of absolutely loyal guards into the designated assassination site under the pretext of strengthening security in specific areas or replacing suspicious personnel."

He will provide the route, the password, and the clothing. Your job is to be a loyal guard, to block the assassin's blade when it's drawn, but only the fatal attacks. It's necessary to make Charles bleed a little and be frightened a bit.”

The mole's gaze fell on the kid's face, carrying an unquestionable command.

"The mission is very difficult, and there is almost no hope of survival, so I can't find anyone else to carry it out besides you."

He paused, lowering his voice even further.

"The king needs your sacrifice."

The little boss leaned against the creaking wooden table, pursed his lips, and then spoke to the mole.

"Okay, okay, I'll arrange it. How many people do you need?"

"How many people do you think could complete this task?"

"Too few people won't do, we won't be able to stop the assassins, but too many people will easily cause problems before the mission even begins."

"Home Alone" offered a serious suggestion.

Five or six should be enough.

"That's it."

"Walk slowly, don't send."

As Home Alone watched the mole's departing figure disappear behind the door, the corners of his mouth finally couldn't help but turn up in a smile.

Alright, he's finally gotten the ultimate mission hidden behind a series of smaller tasks.

He will select the players; there are quite a few players in Taiwan, so gathering five people is a piece of cake.

He'll do the tasks, but how to do them and what they look like... well, hehe.

(End of this chapter)