novelMungo in a Tough Spot
| ← Ch.1291 | Ch.1293 → |
Translator: Sean88888 Editor: Elkassar1
Sheyan did not perform any further actions after he won against sunglasses man. He only stood in front of the sitting young man, thinking.
His fist that was covered in blood and flesh pieces was very close to the face of the young man, who sat there without any expression on his face — it was probably less than 30 centimeters away.
The nauseouting mixture of flesh and blood dripped down from his fist and gathered on the table, drop by drop. The smell of blood in the air was so thick and the sight so gruesome that those who had not been baptised by the battlefield would surely puke their guts out if they were here.
But to Sheyan's surprise, the young man did not lose his composure in the slightest. He merely stared back at Sheyan with his head slightly raised. He seemed to feel a little cold, causing him to tug his coat tighter. The blue dugong leather coat fluttered like waves under this action, making it seem even more dazzling.
Seeing how calm this young man was – totally devoid of his previous arrogance – Sheyan immediately made up his mind.
"What's your name?" he asked flatly.
The young man sighed and answered in a soft voice, "Arnold Fabian Montsson Lucio... Why... did a small probability event like this happen to me?"
(TL: Arnold is his family name. For some reason, his family name is at the front. )
Sheyan waited patiently for Lucio to finish speaking, then extended his hand to Lucio's neck and gently twisted it. The neck instantly broke! Sheyan had his reasons for doing this. Although Lucio did act like a useless, spoiled rich kid just now, he was already showing some early signs of developing into a good leader. Sheyan could not leave him alive!
After ending the young man's life, Sheyan took off his blue dugong leather coat and gave it to Old Charlie to wear — after making some alterations to its appearance through the Realm, of course. He then kept the special mech suit in his party storage space. He walked about ten meters down the corridor, then suddenly pulled a man out from the corpse pile with one hand.
The man was none other than Crippled Wolf, the boss of this black market. He had to crawl on the ground to deliver the things to Lucio because was disabled, but that humiliation had actually helped him survive the chaos. The sly old fox then tried to fake his death by holding his breath. Unfortunately, Sheyan had exceptional Perceptive Sense, so Crippled Wolf could not escape Sheyan's detection.
Crippled Wolf turned ashen-faced. He was about to say something, but a commotion suddenly rose outside. Soon after, the people who had participated in the auction all came back while cursing Crippled Wolf's ruthlessness.
It turned out that the reason Crippled Wolf could establish a black market like this here was because he was backed by General Arnold from the Andromeda Galaxy. Because he had accidentally offended a descendant of the Arnold family who came to pay a private visit, he knew that his fate was now in the hands of others, so of course he had to find some scapegoats. The more scapegoats, the better!
Therefore, as soon as he saw the crowd running away, he quietly and immediately pushed the emergency button to lock the place down, so that no one could escape! This way, any punishment that came from above would be shared by all of them. It was also a safety measure in case Sheyan and his entourage tried to run away.
However, this arrangement turned out to be great news for Sheyan!
Sheyan was worried that there would be endless trouble after this because a lot of those who ran away recognised Old Charlie. Little did he expect that all of them would be trapped here together with him. He immediately commenced the massacre! These were all the most evil people in the Northern District who had done a lot of bad things to the slum residents, bullying and exploiting them for their own benefits. Old Charlie's family had also suffered endlessly in their hands. Old Charlie did not feel any guilt at all when he killed them.
Next, Sheyan asked Crippled Wolf where the monitoring room of the black market was. He continued silencing any eyewitnesses he encountered while he moved there. When he reached the room, he destroyed all records of his existence. Everything in the room, from the software to the hardware, from big devices to tiny parts, was reduced to rubble.
Finally, he asked Ramtas to summon some Carrion Vines with a level 2 spell (diablo. fandom. com/wiki/Carrion_Vine) to eat all the corpses clean, destroying all evidence.
This was a black market, so the place was quite secluded with few people roaming outside. Besides, not everyone could come to this place. The trade items here, such as the aforementioned "virgins with three breasts", were all prohibited goods that could result in life imprisonment or a death sentence if they were discovered. Therefore, as soon as Sheyan left the building, his path was unobstructed in every direction. All three of them have superb skills, so they easily left the place without leaving any traces behind.
Sheyan then expressed his desire to visit Old Charlie's family. He found that Old Charlie's family was leading a much better life than he expected. They had already separated themselves from the ranks of prostitutes, beggars and thieves at the bottom rung of society.
Old Charlie had two sons and a daughter that survived the ordeal. A large family of fourteen was formed with those three at the core. The entire family lived in a crowded house that was smaller than forty square meters in size. The living environment was really bad, but their quality of life had already greatly improved compared to before. This was because they now had a legitimate occupation — vegetable wholesalers.
Every square inch of land on Alps Base 7 was as valuable as gold, so no one would use the land here for farming, just like no one would farm in a bustling area like Manhattan.
But the people who live here must have a demand for vegetables. So how was this problem solved?
That's easy, just import the vegetables from elsewhere. Of course, the so-called "elsewhere" was not referring to habitable planets hundreds or thousands of light-years away. Instead, independent farms were developed on the nearest terrestrial planet, and the products were shipped here to be sold.
Because of that, transportation costs actually accounted for more than half the cost of agricultural products, so of course the vegetable merchants had to transport as much vegetable as possible using as little space as possible. As a result, 99% of the shipped vegetables were pre-dried and dehydrated.
Luckily, the preservation technology in this era was pretty amazing. The middlemen could restore these dehydrated vegetables to their pre-processed state with a series of treatments, such as soaking them in water, spraying resuscitative agents, spraying restoration hormones and so on. Of course, they would not be as fresh as when they were newly harvested, but restoring them to about seventy or eighty percent of their original state was not a problem.
Old Charlie's family had found a business channel. They would purchase dried, dehydrated vegetables from the transport ships and process the vegetables in their own home. After the vegetables were restored, they would sell the vegetables and earn the price difference as profit.
By relying on their own effort, the family climbed out of the pathetic lives they previously led. They no longer had to survive through humiliation by relying on others' charity.
Sheyan wished to provide a little help to them, but after Old Charlie stared at them for a while silently, he smiled bitterly and refused Sheyan's offer. He understood well the capabilities of his descendants. He was already satisfied to see them able to feed themselves and lead a safe life by selling vegetables. If Sheyan really gave them some Pi element particles, the entire family would probably be wiped out...
***
Old Charlie had no intention of having a reunion with his family. When he saw that they were safe and sound, his biggest concern was finally put to rest.
The group returned to the hotel from before. After a short wait, they saw Archer hurrying over.
Unlike when Sheyan saw him previously, Archer was now riding on the crest of success, as he was now an important man under Mungo. However, he remained very respectful when he spoke to Sheyan, with nary a hint of arrogance. Sheyan knew that this man could probably be trusted, so he told Archer the purpose of his visit honestly.
Archer was now privy to some of the internal secrets of the Empire. After hearing Sheyan's request, he was lost in thought for a while before he said, "Sir, the area you wish to go to is in the Southeast War Zone. It's not that long of a travel if you use the wormholes – the entire journey will probably take less than twenty hours – but one of the wormholes you have to go through has been listed as a military restricted zone. It's being used for transporting weapons to the front line. If you want to go through it, you'll have to apply for approval."
"The other problem is, you'll probably encounter dimensional turbulence when you enter the region where the alternate dimension eroded into and overlapped with ours. The Empire currently do not have the technology to make spacecrafts that are able to resist dimensional turbulence."
Sheyan nodded."Don't worry about the second problem. Since my Noah Realm is the one asking me to take this route, he'll definitely solve the problem of dimensional turbulence for me. He won't let me die so easily. I only need a fast spaceship that's as sturdy as possible. You don't need to worry about the burden on the passenger's body."
Archer nodded."All right. I'll make the preparations immediately. But I can't help you acquire the approval for passing through the wormhole. My authority level is far from enough."
"It's fine, I'll go talk to Mungo, " replied Sheyan with a smile.
Archer visibly hesitated for a moment before he said, "I don't know if I should tell you this, sir, but I heard there's some problem with the Major General's Blood Armour you ordered. I don't really know the details, but General Mungo definitely does. When you see him, remember to ask him about it, or you might be taken advantage of."
Sheyan's face abruptly grew dark. After a moment, he replied, "Okay, I understand. Thanks for your reminder. By the way, what's Mungo doing right now?"
Archer took a sip from the cup beside him and answered with a wry smile, "It's a long story. Let me start from the beginning."
So what happened was, Mungo and Major General Fiji were both originally under the faction of General Arnold from the Andromeda War Zone. After the previous incident involving Sheyan, Mungo managed to establish a connection to Prince Pombaru from the royal family.
Mungo was a very ambitious man. Instead of picking a side, he stayed uncommitted and negotiated with the two powers, thus benefiting from both sides. As a result, he succeeded in securing his current position as the commander of Alps Base 7. However, neither the royal family nor the separatist warlord could allow him to continue doing this.
So, both sides had sent some very important people directly to Mungo to force him to make his position clear. Right now, Mungo was talking to the representatives of General Arnold, and the representatives of Prince Pombaru of the royal family would arrive in an hour. Mungo was naturally in a tough spot at the moment. He had no time at all to meet with Sheyan.
| ← Ch. 1291 | Ch. 1293 → |