Mystery Detective of the Steam World

Chapter 323 A Changing World

After giving Dr. Franco a good scolding, Levi returned to the foggy city.

However, upon his return, after greeting Alice and the little mermaid, he sought out Eileen and posed a question to her.

"Eileen, I remember you said before that you wanted to open a doll shop like your parents?"

"Huh? That's what they said..."

Are you interested now?

"Hey?"

It has to be said that Eileen was stunned when she heard Li Wei's question.

"Excuse me, sir, is there something I've done wrong? Or is it that I haven't done my job as a maid properly...?"

"No, no, no, that's not the point."

Li Wei waved his hand. In fact, when he returned to the Fog City, Li Wei was thinking about a question.

Now, my [Puppeteer] skill is already LV7, but this battle exposed a major problem: I still have too few usable puppets.

The reason is—insufficient production!
Eileen is indeed highly skilled, but she is ultimately a single person and also has to take care of the maid's duties. Even if dolls are not as intricate and complicated as robots, it is not an easy task for one person to handcraft a doll.

Then Li Wei remembered that when he hired Eileen, she had said that she wanted to inherit her parents' shop in the future, which immediately stirred something in Li Wei's heart.

What is the greatest benefit of industrialized production? It's the increase in productivity!
I'm still doing manual labor here. Isn't this turning back the clock?
So Li Wei quickly came up with a solution: to let Eileen "go back to her old ways" and run a doll shop, and then acquire a doll factory to manufacture mechanical dolls!
In this way, as long as mass production is achieved, there's no need to worry about supplying enough of their own dolls.
Moreover, this has another advantage.

The doll shop will definitely sell dolls, and these dolls can be manipulated by Li Wei. This means that, theoretically, as long as he sells the dolls all over the country or the world, Li Wei won't even need to carry the dolls with him anymore; he can simply wave his hand anywhere and summon an army of dolls!
Hehehe, when the time comes, we can launch a surprise attack into the enemy's ranks. Wouldn't that be better than anything else?
After hearing Li Wei's explanation, Eileen understood and immediately became happy.

"Of course, I'm willing, sir, I'm very willing!"

"That's settled then. I'll take over the nearby shops and turn them into doll shops. You'll be in charge of acquiring a doll manufacturing factory."

Li Wei wasn't worried about this. In name, he was the lord of this territory and could buy anyone's house he wanted, as long as the money was sufficient. As for things like puppet manufacturing factories, he had no shortage of those.

As we all know, when an industry emerges, countless people will scramble to get in and grab a piece of the pie. But survival of the fittest means that most of them are either swallowed up or go bankrupt. The same is true for doll factories. When the steam revolution took off, many factories that manufactured dolls sprang up, but now they're pretty much at the stage of elimination.

Li Wei recognized Eileen's abilities, so it made sense for her to find a doll factory, acquire it, and then use it to manufacture and sell dolls.

However... there is still one problem.

"Sir, you said you wanted to build a doll shop, right? But what kind of dolls should we sell?"

Eileen's parents were in the doll business, and she had been exposed to these things since she was a child. Naturally, she knew very well that doll shops were more like "rare items," "works of art," or "toys" in many ways.

For example, those steam-powered dancing dolls that can continuously rotate and dance belong to the category of displaying skills, but strictly speaking, this skill is not very useful and is more like a rare work of art.

Therefore, most doll shops are actually more like toy shops nowadays, selling ordinary doll toys for children to play with.

That's why many doll factories have declined in popularity now, because many people have discovered that these dolls seem to be... useless?
Besides using it as a toy or displaying it at home as an art piece?
This is similar to when the internet boom first started. Everyone thought websites could make money, and all sorts of websites sprang up on the internet like mushrooms after rain. In fact, many people who built websites at that time didn't even know what to do with their websites. They just knew that the internet was a hot trend, and that if you followed it, even a pig could fly.

But in reality, after a few years, everyone realized that this thing was a money pit, not a money-making machine…

"Toys, of course."

Li Wei already had a plan for this.

"Toys? But... what kind of toys should we make?"

"Is it even necessary to think about it?"

In response to Eileen's puzzled question, Levi shrugged and then whistled.

"Little guy, come here!"

Upon hearing Li Wei's call, Betty, the little dog who was playing with Alice, immediately barked and rushed over, then jumped headfirst into Li Wei's arms.

"How about it? It's exclusively authorized by the original author. Doesn't everyone love this little guy? Making a doll based on it will definitely make money, right?"

“This… indeed!” Eileen was stunned for a moment when she looked at the puppy Betty, then immediately realized what she meant.

There is definitely a market for this!
After all, thanks to Li Wei's comics, many children in Fog City and even the Empire have fallen in love with puppies. However, not everyone can afford a real puppy. For working-class people, even three meals a day are a problem, and having another mouth to feed is a burden. But with a doll, it's different!

In fact, this was just the first step in Li Wei's plan. Remember when he wanted to create a comic about robots that could combine? Li Wei decided to test the waters by making dolls as toys first!
Everyone probably played with similar robots when they were kids, right? Children have incredibly strong imaginations. Li Wei also recalled that when he was a child, many kids would take their toy giants of light or robots and fight them off with "BIUBIUBIU" sounds. The reach and influence of these things was truly astonishing!

Li Wei had already planned it out: first, use a Betty the puppy doll to attract children, and then introduce robot toys with related features, such as the robot's name, its powers, and how it fights against enemies to protect the empire. Then, the children would excitedly take the toys and play with them.

Li Wei could also build a prototype to see if this toy could affect the real thing through rumors.

After all, even the Imperial Bridge was transformed because of nursery rhymes, so building a prototype shouldn't be too difficult for us!
But the most fundamental reason is that Li Wei... is too lazy to draw anymore.

Just drawing the Betty the puppy comics is exhausting enough, plus the Queen's constant pressure to meet deadlines. Drawing a robot comic on top of that? Wouldn't that be killing me? I might as well just give them a concept and let the kids let their imaginations run wild.

Just like the Empire Bridge, as long as the scope and conditions of its effect are limited by nursery rhymes, it should not affect unrelated people.

I'm a detective, not a cartoonist...

So Li Wei's idea was that Eileen would only need to make prototype dolls in the future, and then let the doll factory people mass-produce them. Eileen had no objection to this. On the one hand, this would fulfill her wish, and on the other hand, it would allow her to do more of the work of a maid instead of spending all her time making one doll after another... After all, it would be a waste of time for her to do it all by herself.

So soon, Eileen began searching for a doll factory that suited her taste, while Levi took a shortcut and simply acquired houses near his tower, converting them into shops. Of course, this didn't come cheap.

Time passed day by day, and while Levi and Irene were busy preparing for the doll factory, the negotiations with Francis in the Empire finally came to a conclusion!
The Empire and the Duchy of Tiris have signed an alliance agreement!
Yes, that's right. The Empire didn't sign an alliance with Francis, but with the Duchy of Tiris!
Here, it is necessary to explain the geographical location between these three countries.

The Empire and Francis are separated by the Mediterranean Sea, also known as the Storm Sea. Only in the northern region is there a land connecting the Empire and Francis: the Duchy of Tiris.

This duchy isn't very well-known, but it has existed since ancient times. The reason is simple: both the Empire and Francis have tacitly regarded the Duchy of Tiris as a land buffer zone between them, so the Duchy of Tiris has always remained neutral.

As for Francis, its borders are: the Storm Sea to the west, the Duchy of Tiris to the north, the Kingdom of Krant to the east, and separated by mountains to the south.

Everyone now knows that a war between the Kingdom of Krant and Francis is inevitable, so Francis has deployed a large number of troops on the border with the Kingdom of Krant, adopting a "Don't come any closer, I'm ready!" stance in an attempt to intimidate the Kingdom of Krant.

However, Francis was not without worries, because the Duchy of Tiris also bordered the Kingdom of Krant. Since Tiris was a small country, if the Kingdom of Krant sent troops to the Duchy of Tiris and then attacked Francis from the flank, Francis's entire strategy would be ruined.

Finally, the empire made its move!
The Queen signed the alliance agreement with the Duchy of Tiris to send a signal to the Kingdom of Krant: "I don't care if you and Francis fight to the death on the front lines, but if you dare to attack the Duchy of Tiris, you are making an enemy of the Empire!"

At the same time, this also preserved Francis's flank, allowing them to focus all their attention on the eastern front.

Upon learning of this, Li Wei couldn't help but admire the Queen's shrewdness in this move...

Signing an alliance agreement with the Duchy of Tiris means that the Empire can threaten Francis directly by land without having to cross the Stormy Sea. In the past, Francis would likely have been unwilling to do so. However, faced with the threat from the Kingdom of Krant, Francis has no choice but to select the lesser of two evils.

At the same time, this can also be seen as the Empire's attitude towards the Kingdom of Krant.

If the Kingdom of Krant is truly intimidated by the Empire's power and dares not attack the Duchy of Tiris, it means that its capabilities are limited. From the Empire's perspective, the best approach is to remain inactive and let Francis and the Kingdom of Krant fight to the death, weakening each other as they go.

But what if the Kingdom of Krant disregards the prestige of the Empire and insists on attacking the Duchy of Tiris?
This child is so terrifying that he must not be allowed to live!
Ultimately, this is still the Queen's old trick. I'll put it this way: both thunder and rain are divine favors. You decide what to do.

In Li Wei's view, this is somewhat like the saying "Don't say you weren't warned".

It has to be said that this suits Li Wei's temperament quite well. The Queen is the epitome of uprightness and justice. She explains to you what she wants to do and why she wants to do it, and then you can choose for yourself.

The queen was like this before in Melisia, and now that it's the Kingdom of Krant, the queen is still like this.

Instead of resorting to surprise attacks or conspiracies, we directly state our position and make decisions, confronting the issue head-on.

This is also in line with the identity of an empire. It is a kingdom that has been passed down since the end of the Golden Age. Naturally, it would not engage in any conspiracies, sneak attacks, or anything mysterious. A king must be upright, make his stance clear, and be transparent.

Neither Francis nor the Kingdom of Krant reacted to the Empire's announcement; Francis was probably too ashamed to bring it up. As for Krant... they're probably still making their choices.

It's a precarious situation, fraught with uncertainty.

After hearing this news, Li Wei sighed silently.

I wonder how long these peaceful days can last.

(End of this chapter)