Chapter 197 Returning to the sea
Chapter 197 The Return Voyage
The capital of the Horned Bay Alliance, Nisborough, has seen several major events recently.
First, the wife and sister of the visiting Grand Duke of the Eaton Duchy, the Duchess Fanny, was kidnapped, almost causing the various agreements that had already been negotiated between the Horned Bay Alliance and the Eaton Duchy to come to an end. Luckily, the robbers who abducted the Duchess were stopped by the royal guards of Eaton when they tried to leave Fort Ness, rescuing the Duchess Fanny who had been abducted for a few days, and the negotiations between the two countries were able to continue. Only the specific identity of the thugs is still a mystery, the Eton side did not disclose to the outside world.
Then there was the wolf howling incident on that day, the wolves in the forest outside the city suddenly howled en masse in the middle of the night, reminding many locals of the old legends from a hundred years ago, and the adults began to scare the children with this incident, if you don’t listen to the wolves, you’ll be taken by the wolves, and so on. Fortunately, the wolf pups only howled twice and did not attack the human village as described in the legend.
But there were still some unlucky people, several pedestrians and their horses were killed by wolves in the middle of the night, and were torn and gnawed to a skeleton, judging from their remaining clothes and armor, they should be the knights of the church, and large-scale wolves were found moving in the area near them.
In order to appease the frightened people and merchants, both the city hall and the church issued a bounty quest, summoning adventurers to hunt wolves outside the city, for a time adventurers from all over the world gathered in Nisborough, and the wolves outside the city were going to be out of luck.
There is another big event, the Horned Bay Alliance has sent invitations to many countries in the region, asking their rulers to come to Fort Ness to hold a multi-national conference, in which a series of political and economic cooperation will be reached, and the conference is now being intensively prepared.
It was obvious to Quiller that his father had been smiling more and more lately.
Marquis Foster was certainly happy that Archduke Eaton’s wife and sister had been found, and initially the Convocation was worried that the Archduke’s family would just walk away, but now it seemed redundant. The Archduke of Eaton continues to stay in Nisborough to start various negotiations with the Convocation, and Ping will participate in the multi-national conference that will be held afterward.
A particularly important point is that Archduke Eaton hates the Church, and was previously hesitant and indecisive about the two countries cooperating against the Church, but when the new round of talks between the two sides began, the Archduke directly cursed at the Church. During the talks, the Archduke revealed two points, that the kidnapping of his wife and sister was the work of the Church, and that it seemed that the plan of the Horned Bay Alliance to unite the countries in preparation for the fight against the Church had been leaked. However, he wasn’t ready to join the alliance on one side yet, and the church had used such an underhanded way to deal with him.
The young and impetuous Archduke Eaton was directly enraged, and decided to stand on the side of the alliance without hesitation, and prepared to persuade the rulers of various countries to rebel against the church together with the alliance in the following multinational meeting.
However, for various reasons, the Duchy of Eton has not yet disclosed to the outside world that the black hand behind the kidnapping is the Church.
The members of the Allied Convocation were overjoyed that the Church had really moved a stone to hit its own feet. The plan was leaked? Let it be leaked, anyway, the conflict between the two sides is growing day by day and it is already a semi-public matter.
The pressure on public affairs is small, Marquis Foster began to shift attention to their own private affairs, but also took the time to meet with Quirk and several representatives of the merchants, and the Northwest of the various commodities everyone appreciated, and hope that in the future to further strengthen cooperation.
Several merchant representatives are flattered, they are still the first time to see the status of such a high nobleman, although in the corner of the bay as long as the money can get themselves a noble title to play, but this time to meet them but a member of the alliance of the Convocation alas, hold the substantive power of the country’s senior.
They warmly curry favor with the Margrave, trying their best to flatter him with the few phrases of Horned Cove language they just learned, which made Captain Quirk, who was accompanying them, bashful for a while.
Several representatives of the merchants could be said to be immersed in an alternating cycle of happiness and loss during this period of time, they examined the business sector of Fort Ness in detail, happy that the business opportunities here were so great, and lost because the business environment of the Northwest Gulf was years behind compared to this place.
After five days in Fort Ness, Captain Quirk decided to return to the ship, all of them hoped to return to the Northwest Bay before the end of the year’s Advent, although the Horn is prosperous, but after all, it is not their hometown, the holiday season is still in their hometown more comfortable.
……
“Lardy, are you sure you don’t want to stay by my side? Corner Bay is also your hometown after all. I’ve heard about that part of Northwest Bay ……”
In the back garden of the Eton Embassy, Grand Duchess Helen once again persuaded her schoolmate to stay.
Lardy had come to say goodbye; she was leaving Horn Bay the next day on the Southern with her mother.
“I’m an advisor to Earl Gladman now, it would be irresponsible to leave after only a few months. And the atmosphere here ……”
“Ugh ……” Helen sighed, she knew that the other party was referring to the oppression of the church, even with her own sister’s identity, they dared to lay hands on her, what else would the others not dare to do.
“I won’t force you to stay, since you’ve found a life that belongs to you, cherish it.”
“Thank you, senior sister. Be careful yourself.”
“Well, I have my own measure.”
“Lardy-san!”
A little pinkish girl ran up to her, calling out to Lardy in a milky voice.
“Our little Fanny is here!”
Lardy picked up the little girl and spun her around, giving her a kiss on her little pink cheeks.
Fanny said petulantly, “Sister said you were leaving. Don’t go, stay with me, okay?”
Helen scowled, “Fanny, don’t be ridiculous. Lardy’s sister has her own business to attend to.”
Seeing the little girl’s reluctant face, Laadi stroked her head and said, “I’ll come back to see you, you have to be good and listen to your sister.”
With the opening of the route between the Northwest Bay and Horn Bay, there would be more opportunities to travel between the two places, and it would be a little safer and quicker to travel by boat than by land.
“Uh-huh.” Fanny nodded her head obediently.
Because she was kidnapped this time, she caused a lot of trouble for her sister and brother-in-law, and sacrificed the lives of a dozen or so guards, which left a considerable psychological shadow on Fanny, and she was always in a state of self-blame inside.
Even though the other party’s methods were unexpected beforehand, there was also her own reason: because of her curiosity, she secretly experimented with her strange ability without her sister’s knowledge, and as a result, it was accidentally known by someone with a heart of gold.
After accompanying Fanny in the back garden for a while, Lardy said goodbye to Helen.
“You still have a group of adventurer friends to say goodbye to, don’t you, are they your companions from previous adventures together?”
“Yes, we all agreed to go to a get-together this evening.”
“Go ahead, I’ll be at the docks tomorrow morning to see you off.”
Helen fondly escorted Lardy out of the embassy herself.
(End of chapter)