This young master truly has the ambition of a hero.

Dick has succubus blood, and women who spend too much time with him will be bewitched—Lily already knew this when she was first summoned. Therefore, she always carefully maintained her distance from Dick, carrying a homemade mind-clearing potion with her, which she would gulp down if she sensed anything amiss.

Despite Lily's usual carefree and energetic demeanor, like a clumsy and impulsive girl, she is actually a very innocent and shy young woman at heart. Therefore, when she accidentally stumbled upon Tia, a member of her group, in bed with their boss, Lily was so shocked that she fled in panic.

From then on, Lily deliberately kept a "safe distance" from Dick.

She didn't actually dislike Dick; in fact, she even had a bit of a crush on him. But the thought that if they spent more time together, she might end up like her colleagues, unable to control her feelings, made Lily incredibly shy.

She was only seventeen years old at the time, unlike Tia who was eighteen and mature.

However, children eventually grow up. Before they knew it, Lily and Tia had been in this world for four years. She had grown from an innocent fifteen-year-old to a nineteen-year-old.

Looking at Dick now, Lily realized that her feelings seemed to have undergone some strange changes without her realizing it. Sometimes, even when the young master was not in front of her, just thinking about his voice and smile would make her heart beat faster as if she were under a spell.

But most importantly, she seems to no longer be afraid of this strange feeling.

However, Lily was not Tia or any of the other older sisters in the group. She couldn't be as bold as Tia in confessing her feelings, nor did she have the courage to pursue Blake directly. Just getting close to Dick had exhausted her courage. She even secretly hoped that Dick would realize her feelings and become the one to take the initiative.

If Dick initiates the attack, Lily wouldn't mind occasionally playing the Frenchman.

The author says:

Author's note: The three cowards in the team are Natasha, Momiji, and Lily.

Chapter 059: Territory Turmoil

The day after returning from his spring outing, Dick saw in the newspaper a report that Crown Prince Wales had left the capital and officially begun his northern tour.

He roughly estimated that the other party would take until late August to mid-September to cross the Central Mountains and reach the northern border of the Empire, after a series of inspections and leisurely activities. Dick couldn't help but pray that the other party would not come to his territory.

Dick has been quietly working on development here and has already seen initial results, but he doesn't want to be discovered by his superiors too soon.

The problem is that the Crown Prince's itinerary is not something he can arrange, and Laguge, as a source of cold iron, is almost always a stop on every northern tour. Dick will have to spend the already meager budget to entertain the Crown Prince and his northern inspection delegation, which gives him a headache just thinking about it.

Fortunately, they have at least three months to prepare, so they won't be caught off guard.

Dick recently made some personnel changes to various departments of the Governor's Office. He let Ruby Eyes take over the Farmers' Association and the Merchants' Association from Tia, and appointed Joel as her assistant secretary and bodyguard. Tia, who was freed up, led Lily and the three female ninjas to form a secret intelligence department, codenamed "Forget-Me-Not", which was responsible for collecting intelligence on various territories in the northern region.

The two medical team members didn't need to move, the black and white gunners from the knight team were busy training the newly recruited cavalry, and all that was left in front of Dick were Belfast and Rita from the maid team, as well as Lucoa, who was completely idle after conjuring up sixty tons of corn seeds.

Dick originally intended for Lucoa to go to the Farmers' Association to assist the Demon Queen, but Lucoa stated that she preferred to stay by Dick's side and expressed her desire to switch from the Agriculture Group to the Maid Group.

To be honest, Lucoa is perfectly capable of being a maid; in fact, it could be considered a waste of her talents. However, this incredibly hot dragon girl has a rather unpleasant habit that Dick can't bring himself to admit is terrible: she loves wearing revealing clothes.

On her first day as a maid, Lucoa put on a performance art piece for Dick, swaggering into the study wearing an "Aztec-style maid outfit" that revealed more than 80% of her skin.

Dick was completely dumbfounded!

Later, under the strong intervention of Belfast and Rita, Lucoa had no choice but to reluctantly change to a relatively conservative British style, but it still looked very erotic on her overly voluptuous figure!

Unsurprisingly, on the third night after Lucoa's arrival, she easily "captured" Dick with just a slight move, creating the legend of the fastest free win!

In fact, while Lucoa's behavior was unconventional, she wasn't an indecent woman; she simply enjoyed being an immersive, experiential individual. Having signed the slave contract, Lucoa would unconditionally offer herself, body and soul, until Dick died. Even bearing him several demigod-like hybrid babies wouldn't be a problem, if Dick so desired.

A mere few hundred or a thousand years is but a fleeting moment for Lucoa, who was once one of the creator gods.

Dick wasn't some ungrateful little boy; he had both lust and guts. When Lucoa dared to crawl into his bed naked, he dared to grab the dragon horns on Lucoa's head and use them as a steering wheel to "drive" hard from behind.

To be fair, this car feels great in every aspect. The headlights are incredibly big and white, and the horn is loud but not harsh, giving Dick an excellent driving experience whether he's showing off his driving skills by taking fancy corners or making a full-speed sprint at the last moment. Moreover, this car also has an intelligent driving mode that will automatically take over when the driver gets tired.

The only downside is that the fuel consumption is a little bit higher, requiring six or seven large fillers from Dick's "big gas pump" to satisfy it.

After Lucoa (temporarily) joined the maid team, Dick's daily workspace for handling official documents was moved from the study in the upper part of the main castle to the office area in the lower part.

During the previous winter, heavy snow disrupted traffic, so Dick didn't have many documents to review each day, sometimes as many as seven or eight, and sometimes none at all.

However, as spring arrived and the anti-bandit campaign came to an end, and as the governor's office gradually regained its ability to manage the grassroots within the territory, Dick's workload increased day by day. He had to review dozens of official documents every day, often working in the office all day long. Occasionally, when there were a lot of things to do, he would have to work overtime.

The main reason Dick was so busy was dealing with the mess left by the former governor.

David is not the only one who needs to take the blame; previous governors have all been responsible to some extent. Just as three feet of ice is not formed in a single day!

Besides dealing with the tasks below, Dick also had to carefully handle the pressure from above.

The governor was not a lord after all, and Dick needed to report to his adoptive father regularly. He couldn't pretend to be too incompetent and disappoint the duke, nor could he act too assertively and arouse the suspicion of the eldest son. He also had to be careful of his stepmothers causing trouble for him.

It seems that Dick's dealings with those unscrupulous merchants were exaggerated and passed on to the Duke, causing him to receive a few "verbal reprimands" in his reply.

Dick was reviewing official documents at his desk when Tia knocked on the door and entered. Seeing that everyone in the office was "one of their own," she spoke directly.

"Young master, something has happened in Baron Luca's territory to the west."

"What happened?"

Dick continued reviewing official documents without looking up. The Baron Luca was located on the other side of the northwestern mountains. The territory was small, only one-eighth the size of Lagug, with a population of five or six thousand. The area had also been affected by severe winters in the past, but not as severely as in Lagug.

Baron Luca was a minor regional nobleman whose family owned only this one fief, so it was not managed by a governor but by the lord himself.

Even though it was his own land, the current baron didn't say he cherished it much. He was the kind of person who "didn't eat beef" and hadn't done many anthropomorphic things.

When Tia said something had happened over there, Dick wasn't surprised at all, but when he asked what exactly had happened, he was still slightly shocked.

"Civil war? Who's fighting whom?"

"It was the Baron and his wife who got into a fight."

"what?"

Seeing Dick's bewildered expression, Tia briefly explained the situation she had gathered.

The incident started in a very dramatic way: Baron Luca's wife was pregnant, but the psychopathic and bisexual baron suspected that the child was not his, but the result of his wife's affair with his brother-in-law. So he found a well-trained doctor to kill his wife.

However, the doctor mishandled the situation and the truth was inadvertently revealed.

Upon learning that her husband intended to kill her, the Baroness, in a fit of rage, decided to rebel.

Because of Baron Luca's long-standing "benevolent" behavior in his territory, many of his subjects had long harbored resentment towards him. As a result, these people chose to support the Baroness, or more accurately, they supported the "next baron" in the Baroness's womb.

Whether the child's father is the Baron himself or his uncle, who is the same age but not of the same generation, both are descendants of the Luca family, which constitutes a claim of bloodline.

And so this baronial territory, with only a few thousand people, began a massive civil war!

After listening to Tia's story, Dick's expression resembled that of an old man on the subway looking at his phone.

Based on his understanding of the empire's situation, not to mention that the higher-ups are most likely unaware of what has happened here, even if they are, they will most likely let it go and allow the baron's family to handle it themselves.

Even if the people in a small baronial territory, thousands of kilometers away from the capital, and with a population of only a few thousand, were to kill each other, the emperor would not care at all.

Hesse VII might even applaud this, because he would love for the noble families to become like this, thus weakening themselves and reducing the threat to the Hesse royal family.

The author says:

Author's note: A reversed day-night cycle is the beginning of a vicious cycle.

Chapter 060: The Starting Point of the Covert War

A fight suddenly broke out in the neighbors' house, which presented Dick with a good opportunity to lend a hand.

The territory of Laguge is not small, covering an area of ​​more than 10,000 square kilometers and with a population of about 50,000. Its overall size is equivalent to that of a relatively large earldom.

But compared to the entire empire, it is an absolute "tiny place".

Dick's original plan was to wait until he had completed the integration of resources in Lagug and put the development of the territory on the right track before secretly taking action against the surrounding minor nobles and bringing their lands and populations under his control through economic and political means.

Baron Ruka was the first target on his list because there was a small to medium-sized sulfur mine within the baron's territory, which was considered a strategic resource.

However, before the empire truly descends into chaos, Dick can only use force to suppress bandits or quell popular uprisings on his own territory, but he cannot arbitrarily allow his private army to cross the border into the territories of other nobles.

Unless the other party actively seeks your help.

So when Dick learned that there was an internal strife in the neighboring Baron Luca, he was determined to get involved, but if he really wanted to get involved, he needed a plausible excuse.

Due to its small territory and population, the civil war in the baronies was essentially a village brawl.

The baron's side occupied the castle, with a hundred armored private soldiers and three or four hundred hastily conscripted armed militia. The baroness, on the other hand, escaped to the manor of the baron's uncle under the protection of several retainers, where she also gathered more than three hundred soldiers and raised a banner to support the "future baron" in her womb.

However, despite the fact that the combined forces of both sides numbered less than a thousand, the fighting was fierce.

Although Baron Luca is a two-way player, having enjoyed his affairs with his male lovers for the past few years, it doesn't mean he can tolerate his wife cheating on him. Furthermore, he probably harbored resentment towards his brother-in-law for a long time, and this was a way of settling old and new scores together.

Of course! The Baron's wife and his brother-in-law are no pushovers either!

The baron's uncle was a wealthy manor lord who knew that his eldest nephew, who had inherited the baron's title, was always suspicious of him, so he was always wary of him as well.

His estate was built like a small fortress, backed by a large river, making it easy to defend and difficult to attack. The servants and serfs in his household had all received military training and could be armed as militia.

The Baroness's family was the neighboring Baron Bedy.

It is said that the Baroness has written to her still-living father for help, but it is still unknown whether Baron Bedy will step in to help his daughter beat her son-in-law.

As for Dick, from a practical standpoint, he actually preferred to support the "future baron" who was still in the womb. However, it was undeniable that Baron Luca had a higher level of legal rationality, and the current stage was not the best time to intervene. Dick planned to observe for a while.

So Dick instructed Tia to have the intelligence department closely monitor the civil war in Baron Luca's territory, which could be used as a "training ground" to train their newly recruited intelligence personnel.

In addition to the baronies currently engaged in civil war, the movements of other surrounding territories cannot be ignored. Dick does not believe that he is the only one with such thoughts.

Indeed, as Dick began to closely monitor this village-level civil war, the lord of the Earl of Hoffmann's territory further west of Baron Luca was also keeping his sights on the area.

The current Earl, William Hoffman, is thirty-five years old and in his prime. He is one of the most powerful local nobles in the northern border region, with a private army of three thousand men, eight hundred of whom are cavalry. He has earned the nickname "Snow Wolf" because he often leads his army north to fight against the orc tribes that raid south.

At this moment, Hoffman was holding a banquet in his own castle, where several managers of large merchant caravans who had just arrived from the east were vividly describing the various unsavory aspects of the new governor of Lagug.

According to these people, the current governor of Lagug, Dick Best, is an arrogant, greedy, and incompetent man! He completely disregards the lives of tens of thousands of innocent people under his rule, and unreasonably suppresses grain prices to exploit these kind merchants who have worked tirelessly to transport grain from the south, making the people of Lagug suffer greatly!

The count listened silently, maintaining a polite smile throughout.

Only after the merchants finished speaking and left did the count speak to a gloomy man with black hair, black eyes, and a hooked nose beside him.

"Yzak, what do you think?"

“These merchants’ words cannot be trusted entirely, my master.”

“Dick Best…Yzak, have your students investigate this thoroughly. I need to know about this man’s past in the capital and what he did after arriving in Lagug. David fell into his hands; this man must have some skills. If he poses a threat to us…deal with him the old way.”

"Your subordinate obeys."

The gloomy man called Yzak bowed respectfully, then turned and left the hall.

The count glanced at the departing figure and couldn't help but sigh inwardly.

Although he can't practice martial arts or learn magic, this Earth man who claims to have been an agent in Mossad for eight years is indeed a seemingly simple but deadly weapon!

When Count Hoffman first inherited the title, he spent money to have a magician perform a few summoning spells on a whim, and he actually managed to bring back a very good talent from Earth, namely Yzak.

Using Earth's "advanced concepts" and combining them with the various magical abilities of this world, Yzak helped Count Hoffman train a group of agents perfectly suited for dirty work.

These agents trained by Yitzhak were not only proficient in reconnaissance and intelligence gathering, but also adept at assassination and sabotage. Yitzhak himself was an expert in torture and forced confessions.

Count Hoffman had witnessed Yzak's methods, which were truly eye-opening. It was hard to imagine how many people he had killed on the other side of the world to develop such skillful techniques.

With Ytzhak's help, Hoffman has infiltrated many surrounding minor noble territories over the years. Those who dare to disobey him will become "unlucky" and are particularly prone to accidents.

Only on the eastern side, a few minor nobles sandwiched between the Earldom of Hoffmann and Lagug were spared because they served as a buffer zone.

In terms of political stance, Count Hoffmann belonged to the royalist faction led by the Chancellor, opposing the noble group led by the Duke of Best. However, he believed that there was some overlap in his political spectrum with the militarists of the noble group, namely, he also supported the formation of an "Imperial Legion" to conquer the entire continent.

Hoffman originally didn't want to antagonize the Duke's family, but since Dick replaced David as the new governor of Lagug, the black market channels for the Cold Iron Mine were gone.

This made Hoffman very unhappy with Dick.

Chapter 061: Advanced Technology for Creating Panic

Regardless of the slanderous words of those unscrupulous merchants, at least within the territory of Lagug, most ordinary people held a positive view of the new governor, Dick, because their lives had improved. Especially compared to the previous governors, he appeared particularly wise and capable.

But often, good people are hated more precisely because they block the path to wealth for bad people.

Therefore, starting around the beginning of spring, there were constant attempts to assassinate Dick.

The assassins included remnants of bandits and escaped members of cults. These scum were like fruit flies breeding in a garbage dump. They couldn't cause any real harm to Dick, who was surrounded by experts, but just the fact that they flew past him every now and then was disgusting enough!

Aside from these insignificant characters, there are occasionally one or two guys who are actually quite capable. They aren't necessarily there to assassinate Dick; it's more like they're testing the waters.

This annoyed Dick a lot. Every time he went out, he had to bring a large entourage, and at the same time, he had to strengthen the protection of non-combat personnel such as Ruby Eyes and Shizuka Marikawa.

Dick, who was out on an inspection tour that day, was attacked again, and the enemy's methods had clearly escalated. Their weapons had changed from poisoned daggers to powerful black powder bombs.