Chapter 412: The Voyage

Chapter 412 The Voyage
Paul’s bracing dinner ended on a high note.

At dawn the next day, the dock area was almost crowded with people, not only the residents within the port of Fulan, but even the residents of the nearby villages and towns came over to join in the fun and celebrate the departure of the three exploratory flotillas.

Theodore, the mayor of Fullan Harbor, had specially hired a group of bands to blow and play on the docks, baking the atmosphere into a frenzy.

After bidding a solemn farewell to Paul and his party, the three commanders, Stanford, Glenn, and Nigel, respectively walked onto the diving boards of their respective ships.

Then their ships hoisted their sails and anchored, and moved out of their berths amidst cheer after cheer from the shore, and headed out to sea.

Each of the three exploring parties had three ships, and all of them were three-masted sailing ships of the latest construction, with crews of more than 150 men.

Yes, with the improvement and upgrading of technology, the influx of private capital and the introduction of a large number of skilled craftsmen from the Horned Bay, the shipbuilding technology of the Northwest Bay was developing by leaps and bounds, and a kind of three-masted sailing ship similar to the Galley had already appeared in all the major shipyards, and with their longer hulls and larger carrying capacity, they began to become the backbone of the maritime trade.

Judging by their appearance alone, the three-masted schooners Paul equipped for the exploring party were larger and stronger than Columbus’ Santa Maria and Magellan’s Victoria.

However, the European sailing ship is a solid little bit of accumulation of technology to improve out, and Alda’s current sailing ship in a sense is Paul’s “spawned” out, whether it is strong enough to cross the ocean, it is really an unknown, and also do not know the world’s oceans are how big.

“Wish them luck!”

After silently praying in his heart, Paul patted the resentful commander of the Navy’s first fleet, Quirk, and prepared to leave the pier.

“You should have given such a dangerous mission to the Navy, not to those rookies.”

Quirk grumbled to Paul, remembering his own glorious feat of sailing the Southern to Cape Horn in 1990 of the Holy Calendar to open up a sea trade line, and had been moping around at the feat banquet yesterday.

Ah, to have led the fleet to an uncharted sea once more, and then earned great glory once more!

Paul knew how Quirk was feeling right now and counseled, “Quirk, give the young men their chance.”

“What? Lord Gleeman, could it be that you think I’m old? I’m only in my early thirties this year!”

“Uh …… I didn’t mean that ……”

Just as Paul was thinking of what to say to relieve Quirk, a squire pushed his way out of the crowd and hurried to his side.

“Lord Greymane, Miss Sertia has something important for you.”

“Oh? Where is she?”

“Right there, you see!”

Paul looked in the direction the squire was pointing, and saw a beautiful figure standing on the second-floor balcony of a tavern gently beckoning to him.

He quickly found Laddie and was surprised to see the person.

“What’s the matter? Why do you look like you haven’t slept all night?”

“This is not the place to talk, Lord Greymane, please go to the town hall and find a place where no one is around and I’ll fill you in on the details.”

……

“What …… what?”

Compared to the small surprise earlier, Paul was the one who was shocked this time!
“Another wizard …… uh, another mage came to my territory?”

Lardy’s heart clenched when she saw Paul’s reaction, but confirmed to him, “Yes, and one of them approached me to make contact, just yesterday evening.”

Laddie recounted the events of yesterday evening in detail, but omitting the “plot” of Servia.

“Hmmm ……”

Paul closed his eyes and hugged his arms as he sat in his chair, considering something carefully.

“Lord Graiman, what do you intend …… you intend …… to do with them?” Lardy asked cautiously.

“Expel? Or …… imprison them, or …… or turn them over to the Church?”

“No!”

Paul answered without the slightest hesitation.

“They’re just new immigrants! It’s not like they’ve committed any crimes, at least not since coming to the Northwest Bay. Remember what I said? I’ll take the ‘good guys’ among them as they come, and arrest the ‘bad guys’ through and through. So let’s see what they do later.”

“Lord Graiman ……”

Looking at Paul’s sincere eyes, an inexplicable emotion welled up in Lardy’s heart, making her whole body feel hot.

Just now, she had almost made up her mind that once Paul decided to imprison or hand over Servia and the others to the church, she would immediately go and report the wizards to escape, and then she herself would come before Paul to ask for forgiveness.

Now, all doubts had dissipated.

“Hm? What are you blushing about.”

“Uh …… no, nothing.”

Lardy replied with a blink, while turning her face sideways to not look directly at Paul, even though it was a bit rude.

“Lord Graiman.” She steadied herself and resumed, “Be that as it may, there is no guarantee that there are any unsettled elements among them that could pose a threat to the territory or even your safety. Knowing that a spellcaster’s methods are often bizarre and unpredictable even to another spellcaster, have you forgotten about the roadblock assassin?”

Lardy’s words reminded Paul of the mysterious roadblocker from four years ago, he was practically invulnerable to knives and guns, and he was also so powerful that killing someone with his bare hands was easier than killing a chicken, luckily he couldn’t stop bullets, or else his entire team would have fallen into his hands.

“Then what do you think should be done?”

“Please ask Lord Cecil to select manpower to conduct surveillance around their residence, do not disturb them on weekdays, and take action as soon as an abnormal situation is discovered. And I …… even if I am busy with work, please let me see you once a day.”

“This is not a permanent solution.”

Paul waved his hand, “According to their own words, they are fleeing from Horn Bay, they must be very sensitive to everything around them, what if they think that we are going to be unfavorable to them and act excessively?”

“That’s true ……,” Lardy said, internally wrestling with the question of whether or not she should tell Paul about Servia’s “plot”.

“Lord Graiman, I’m very sorry, I was hiding ……”.

Just as Ladi made up her mind to tell the truth, Paul suddenly hammered the table.

“Tell you what, let’s go meet them.”

“What?”

“Go meet them once and get everything out of the way.”

Paul explained, “What’s happening is that they can’t tell if we’re going to turn on them, and we can’t tell if they’re going to turn on us, and then they can’t tell if we’re judging …… Ah, I’ve got myself all wrapped up in this, and in any case it’s creating a …… Well, how can I put it, let’s just use the term ‘chain of suspicion’. Fortunately, we are all human beings, all speak a language that can understand each other, and it is not separated by a distance of millions of light years, huh, really and they are separated by millions of light years I on the contrary do not worry.”

Lardy was a bit confused, what was Lord Gleeman talking about back there, what chain of suspicion, what light years.

But the first words were understandable.

It really was the easiest and most effective way to go to a meeting and get it all out in the open.

I apologize very much for the mistake in the name of Count Larnaca in the previous chapter, it should be Price Parker, not Maltz Kent. Thanks to “Battleship-[Journey]” for pointing it out.

(End of chapter)