This young master truly has the ambition of a hero.

They immediately subdued the count's concubine and dragged the count himself out from under the bed, who was trying to eavesdrop, but they were unable to save His Highness the Crown Prince.

After all, His Highness the Crown Prince is of advanced age. He has reached a point where even a high priest cannot bring him back to life with a resurrection spell, unless a deity himself is present and willing to use his divine power to extend his life.

And so, the first in line to the throne of the empire died in a very undignified manner on his way to the north.

The news spread quickly and at an unimaginable speed. After all, so many eyes were on the Crown Prince, and the delegation was not lacking in traitors loyal to various factions.

Inside the Duke of Best's mansion, the Crown Prince had just died in the first half of the night, and the old Duke received the news before dawn in the second half of the night.

After reading the secret letter that the old butler had woken him up in the middle of the night to deliver, the Duke pondered for a moment and immediately sent a message to the Third Prince, Bailey.

Prince Bailey, the third prince, was supported by the Best family and was second in line to the throne. With the death of Prince Charles, he is now the new first in line to the throne.

It is worth mentioning that the empire has a total of five princes. The second and fourth princes died young, and the eldest prince was 69 years old this year and also passed away at the age of 69. However, the remaining two princes are very young. The third prince is only 28 years old this year, and the fifth prince is only 13 years old. He is the result of the old emperor's successful conception at the age of 77.

It's worth noting that Prince Charles is also a grandfather; his eldest grandson is already seventeen this year, yet this child has to call a little boy four years younger than him "Fifth Uncle."

Logically speaking, the empire now has only two princes left, one twenty-eight and the other only thirteen. By all accounts, the one who has already come of age should be made the new crown prince.

However, the over-ninety-year-old Hesse VII always favored his youngest son. In addition, there was an empress in the history of the Hesse Empire, so among the princesses who married out, there were quite a few ambitious ones.

The empire at present is like a powder keg. While various forces are engaged in political infighting, they are also secretly strengthening their private armies in preparation for possible armed conflict.

In the brutal history of the Hessian Empire, almost every change of imperial power resulted in bloodshed, the only difference being the amount of bloodshed.

Now that the Crown Prince has passed away unexpectedly, his death is very likely to become a fuse that ignites this ever-growing powder keg, causing it to explode prematurely!

While a storm was brewing in the capital, Dick, who was hiding on the northern frontier, was so "grief" about the death of the Crown Prince that he went on a wild drinking spree!

"That's great, now we don't have to worry about receiving the Crown Prince on his northern tour."

On the open-air platform atop the castle, Dick sat at the dining table, basking in the warm midday sun of Lagug while enjoying Belfast's red wine stew. Looking down at the castle below, he could see the "impromptu performance" in the main square.

With the combined efforts of the intelligence agency "Forget Me Not" and the private army, the criminals who sabotaged the cornfield were quickly apprehended.

To Dick's slight surprise, the prisoners were not the henchmen of the unscrupulous merchants, but rather some small local landowners from Lagug.

These local small landowners, like the unscrupulous merchants from outside, were thinking of hoarding grain and making a fortune by driving up prices in the spring, but Dick cut off their source of income.

Therefore, there are those who don't know their own place and want to do something sneaky to get revenge on Dick.

Seeing that Dick was promoting the new crop locally, this group of people did not use the governor's authority to directly force all farmers to switch to this crop (because that would cause public resentment), but they still issued an order requiring each village to plant no less than fifty acres of experimental fields.

So this group first spread rumors that this fast-growing crop would steal soil fertility, causing other crops to reduce their yields, and then took the opportunity to incite farmers to destroy the experimental fields.

The private soldiers who were sent to stake out the area quickly caught several men with sickles who were trying to destroy the fields. They then followed the trail to find the instigators and their financial backers.

Tia, who was in charge of the operation, captured all the criminals and, with Dick's permission, personally presided over a public trial, exposing their crimes to the public.

"Destroying farmland is a capital offense, even under the flawed laws of the empire. Luckily, I'm kind-hearted and can't bear to kill."

Hearing Dick boasting, Black Gun, who was acting as a guard, couldn't help but roll his eyes, thinking to himself, "You can't bear to kill, so you've sent all the able-bodied people to labor camps."

Dick's labor camp is now quite famous in Laguge. Initially, it sent captured bandits and outlaws to the farm, with sentences ranging from three years to a lifetime. Later, they also captured some ordinary criminals. Anyone whose sentence was more than three months was also sent there for re-education. This caused the farm to grow rapidly from more than 5,000 people to 6,000.

Seeing that the labor camp was becoming more and more prosperous, Dick immediately decided to introduce a batch of textile machinery to ensure that the prisoners would not feel too bored when they had nothing to do in the winter when they were not farming.

Dick couldn't help but feel moved. In an empire that was unwilling to even implement basic education, he was teaching a group of guilty prisoners "cutting-edge technology" like sewing machines for free. He was so kind!

Chapter 082: Which side will you stand on?

July arrived in the blink of an eye, and Hammuradi, who had been deliberately left out by Dick, couldn't sit still any longer.

After parting ways with Dick that day, Hammuradi lay in wait in town, acting mysterious and confidently waiting for the other party to contact him. However, he waited for a whole week.

At first, Hammuradi remained calm, thinking that the child was probably too young. He thought that such a legendary figure as himself would take the initiative to acknowledge his grandson as a relative, and that the grandson would be either moved to tears or at least feel extremely apprehensive. He did need some time to process this news.

While waiting, he also secretly observed in order to judge his grandson's abilities.

But as he waited, Hammuradi realized that something seemed off. It was as if his grandson had forgotten about him and hadn't even thought about contacting him.

This put Hammuradi in an awkward position. He didn't want to lower himself to take the initiative to contact them, but he also didn't want to waste time aimlessly. Therefore, he was in a very embarrassing situation.

If it were anyone else, given Hammuradi's usual temperament, he would have chosen a dark and stormy night to sneak into their mansion, gently awaken their sleeping mind with his divine weapon, Shadow Blade, and leave them with a psychological scar that they would remember for a lifetime.

But none of his traditional methods worked against Dick.

Because Dick was more powerful than he had anticipated, with many talented people under his command, including three Saint-level experts. He had witnessed this firsthand that night. If it were a head-on confrontation, even a veteran expert of his caliber would have no choice but to temporarily avoid the fray... that is, to run away.

Hammuradi still remembered the three women he had fought. Two of them were clearly twins, and they had a public identity in Lagug as centurions in the governor's cavalry. It was said that after Dick arrived in Lagug, he organized a tournament to recruit these country bumpkins. The general public assumed that the two women were high-ranking warriors and were unaware of their actual skill level.

You have to understand that Saint-level experts aren't just random cats and dogs on the street. You can't just hold a competition in a remote, impoverished place like Laguge and expect to attract two of them at once.

Therefore, Hammuradi concluded that they and Dick definitely knew each other long ago, and the so-called martial arts tournament was just a formality to give the two of them a public identity without revealing their true strength.

Besides these mysterious and skilled women, Dick also has several Earth elites under his command, including a doctor in a clinic and a retainer in charge of agriculture. Hammuradi wants to bring both of these talents over.

Hammuradi approached Dick with the intention of taking people away. Initially, he planned to kidnap them, but after unexpectedly discovering that Dick was related to him by blood, he changed tactics and tried to deceive them. He not only wanted to take away the talents under his command, but also coveted the "cold iron," a specialty of Lagug.

If it weren't for Dick's usefulness, Hammuradi wouldn't have willingly acknowledged a lowly, tainted-blood person as a relative simply because of a blood relation.

But the kid was so ungrateful that Hammuradi was furious.

Since its inception, the Dead Tree Party has been striving to restore the great Elven Holy Kingdom in their hearts, but despite their efforts over the past few hundred years and their meddling in human society, they have achieved very little.

Hammuradi gradually realized that assassinating high-ranking officials, creating hatred, and instigating war could indeed cause considerable trouble for the human race, but if the elves themselves did not recover, it would be futile to weaken the human race's strength.

Since the destruction of the Holy Kingdom, the Elven race has never recovered. Their remaining population is less than a million, less than one-tenth of what it was during the Holy Kingdom's reign.

In contrast, the human race, which replaced the elves, has a population of nearly 80 million in the Black Forest Empire, the strongest human nation alone. Add to that the more than 30 countries and city-states of varying sizes, such as Maple Dew and Rodia, and the total human population is conservatively estimated at 500 million, which is 500 times that of the elves!

Therefore, many of Hammuradi's elders of the Dead Tree Party believed that in order to restore the Holy Kingdom, it was not enough to just cause trouble among the humans; the Elven population also needed to be restored.

So the Dead Tree Party came up with a so-called "Paradise Project" to accelerate the reproduction of the species.

You should know that elves are not like humans; they are in heat all year round and can give birth after ten months of pregnancy.

Under normal circumstances, a pure-blooded elf will not reach full adulthood until the age of three hundred, get married at the age of five hundred, have a pregnancy that lasts for twenty years, give birth once every one to two hundred years, and can have a maximum of three to four children in a lifetime.

At this rate of reproduction, it might take tens of thousands of years for the Elven race to recover to its peak population during the Holy Kingdom era.

But the remnants of the Holy Kingdom of the Dead Tree Party couldn't wait any longer, so they decided to artificially accelerate the process.

They first found several islands in the open sea far from the mainland to build secret bases, then lured some young elves to live on the islands. Later, they even introduced "Earth technology" and, like breeding livestock, used drugs and coercive means to force these elves to reproduce continuously.

At the same time, they also followed the example of humans, absorbing Earthlings for their own use.

Excellent doctors and agricultural experts, as well as high-yield crops like corn, are exactly what the Dead Tree Party urgently needs right now.

After waiting for eight days, Hammuradi finally settled in Bengbu!

He took the initiative to contact Dick, but instead of going straight to the main map, he used a magic communication card to have a long phone call with Dick. His reason was quite high-sounding: he wanted to know more about his "good grandson" and also wanted to ask about his daughter Yelena's experiences over the years.

Dick thought to himself, "You really know how to find people, but you had to ask someone who should know nothing."

Dick's birth mother died at his birth; she was smothered to death on the delivery bed with a pillow on his father's orders. Dick witnessed her gruesome death but had to pretend ignorance to avoid revealing the truth that he was a transmigrator.

During his years living in the Duke's mansion, Dick didn't even know his birth mother's name. Those around him kept quiet about it, only saying that she died in childbirth.

His third sister, with whom he had a bad relationship, fabricated an even more vicious rumor, saying that Dick's mother was actually still alive, but after the Duke got tired of her, she was sold cheaply to the lowest-class brothel in the capital, where she was abused by countless men every day and had long forgotten that she even had a child like him.

When facing Hammuradi, Dick didn't hide anything and told Hammuradi everything he "should know".

The other end remained silent for a while before suddenly asking a question.

"Dick, do you hate humans?"

I wouldn't say I like it.

Realizing that Hammuradi was trying to steer the conversation in a certain direction, Dick calmly went along with it, while Hammuradi then asked a question.

"Then do you want to avenge your mother? Yelena is my daughter, Hammuradi. Human slave traders snatched her from my hands and turned her into a slave songstress, where she suffered endless humiliation and abuse. I don't believe Yelena died in childbirth; she was killed by Rune Best!"

Hammuradi's tone became increasingly agitated as he spoke, much like an angry father who had just learned that his beloved daughter had been humiliated by a scumbag. But Dick keenly picked up on the underlying meaning.

The other party was trying to manipulate him, wanting him to develop hatred towards humans and thus side with the Tree Party, which represented the elves. This tactic was all too familiar to Dick, who had dabbled in the Earth's internet.

Chapter 083: Money-Making Strategies That Most People Don't Tell

"This old man is trying to fool me!"

After listening for a short while, Dick understood what Hammuradi was up to; the guy was most likely trying to drag him onto the ship of the Dead Tree Party.

The other person is like a distant relative who suddenly appears out of nowhere after you've become successful. After meeting, they force a connection and then mysteriously claim that they have a way to make money that they don't usually tell others, but since you're a relative, they're willing to make money together.

It's gone; like throwing a meat bun to a dog—it's gone forever.

If you don't vote, he might start making sarcastic remarks to you.

Hammuradi is undoubtedly the worst of these relatives; he's the type who'll try to take it by force if you don't give it to him.

Sure enough! As Hammuradi spoke, he began to "invite" Dick to join the Deadtree Party, even offering a hollow promise that Dick could become the Restoration Army's regional leader in the North, and that all the Deadtree elves lurking in the North would be at his command.

Upon hearing this, Dick couldn't help but sneer inwardly.

He didn't know the true extent of the Deadtree Party's power in the northern borders of the Empire, but he was well aware of their notorious reputation worldwide. Even the few remaining elven city-states were unwilling to associate with these extremists.

Dick was about to refuse, but then he suddenly thought of the pirates who had not yet been dealt with, so he changed his mind.

“Grandpa, I am flattered that you have invited me to join your great cause. I am so grateful for your high regard and I must do my best to express my gratitude.”

When he heard Dick say he wanted to express his gratitude, Hammuradi's eyes lit up. He thought to himself that his adopted grandson was quite sensible. Just as he was about to ask Dick for the man, he heard the other man speak first.

“Grandpa, you just said you have great connections and influence in both the legitimate and underworld circles in the North. You must be able to contact the fjord pirates in the north of my territory, right? To tell you the truth, I have a way to make money. I don’t usually tell this to just anyone, but you are my maternal grandfather. If there’s money to be made, I will definitely ask you to make it with me.”

"Uh……"

Hearing the boastful tone on the other end, Hammuradi felt something was off, but he couldn't quite put his finger on it. However, Dick's claim of having a way to make money did tempt Hammuradi, and his Dead Tree Gang did indeed have some connections with the fjord pirates north of Lagug, with both sides cooperating on some shady deals.

The Dead Tree Party isn't actually poor, but that doesn't stop them from needing money. After all, their ultimate goal is to defeat the rising human race and rebuild the elven holy kingdom, and there are simply too many things that require spending money.

So after hesitating for a moment, Hammuradi didn't ask Dick for the man, but instead inquired about "ways to make money." When Dick heard that the fish had taken the bait, the corners of his mouth couldn't help but turn up...

"In short, that's the situation. My plan is to set a trap and wipe out the Northern Deadwood Party and the Fjord Pirates in one fell swoop. Does anyone have anything to add?"

Inside the castle's "secret conference room," Dick, seated at the head of the conference table, crossed his hands and rested his chin on them, mimicking Commander Ikari. On either side of him were his capable retainers.

Tia was the first to raise her hand to speak, and she went straight to the core issue.

"How do we deal with that Hammuradi?"

"Kill him!"

Without any hesitation, Dick's tone was resolute. He had no affection whatsoever for Hammuradi, who had suddenly appeared and claimed kinship with him. Hammuradi was a complete stranger, and one with ill intentions.

However, Hammuradi is, after all, a Saint-level expert at his peak, and an assassin with maxed-out agility. If he were to escape, the consequences would be dire.

Therefore, the core objective of the entire operation was to eliminate Hammuradi, while annihilating the Dead Tree Party members and the Fjord pirates was a relatively straightforward task.

“Lucia, Rita, White, and Black, the four of you form the decapitation squad. Ignore the other small fry and keep an eye on Hammuradi. Don’t let him get away. Belfast, you’ll be needed for this operation. I need you to cut off the pirates’ retreat from the sea.”

"Yes, my master."

Belfast was delighted to hear that she would have a chance to shine in this mission. Previously, as Dick's "secret weapon" that he had intentionally kept hidden, Belfast either did not participate in general operations or remained in the general reserve, watching her sisters take the lead.

Because of the need for naval operations, Belfast had to be involved in this operation.

After the meeting, everyone went their separate ways to prepare.

Meanwhile, Hammuradi summoned Yitzhak and told him about the money-making scheme he had learned from Dick, asking if it was really that profitable.

Upon hearing this, Yitzhak's expression immediately turned one of utter shock.

"Sir, if he really has the ability to produce diacetylmorphine on a large scale, then this is indeed a way to make a fortune, even more so than he claims!"

Itzhak knew that although there were addictive drugs in this world, their irritant effects were nothing compared to the advanced chemical products on Earth. But the question was, where did he get the rice husk flowers, the raw material? And what about the related production technology?

He said that these things were brought from Earth by the female doctor under his command.

"what!?"

Yzak knew that when this world summoned Earthlings, in addition to the clothes and personal belongings of the summoned person, even the things they were holding in their hands, as long as they were not too large, could be brought along.

When Ytzhak was summoned, he casually brought over a pistol.