old dream

Chapter 203 Irreplaceable Person
"Someone is following the sound to locate you."

The Grand Duke's sudden reminder made Colin's steps freeze in mid-air, and then slowly and silently put them back to their original positions.

It seemed as if the cold hairs on his back were standing up one by one, and in the moment of silence, his whole body was covered with cold sweat.

As guessed, the Ninth Inning has arrived here.

But I fell into a misunderstanding, thinking that they had to show up in person just like the wizards they met in the past.

After I stabilized my heels, fear came to my mind.Inadvertently, I slipped past the edge of death again.

"Of course it's nothing, just to prevent the gun from going off."

The Grand Duke's voice said indifferently:

"Because they probably still need a little time to understand what happened here."

…………

As the Grand Duke said, the current Goldie has not yet figured out the status quo.

On the roof 50 meters away, she was still listening.But Goldi wasn't that shocked by the thoughtless words from the corpse.

Because she had never heard the Grand Duke's voice.

As for why the ritual on Bohr was invoked, Goldie's first reaction was that there were competitors in the Stade Bureau interfering with him.

It is only the self-assessment of some high-level officials of the Stade Bureau to use the prohibition to grab profits.

Some personnel in the Ninth Bureau could not participate, so they obstructed them everywhere.

The hateful thing is that after the person's reminder, the lieutenant also began to vigilantly stop making a sound.It was difficult for her to focus on the other party's position for a while.

"Why does the whisper of the dead activate by itself..."

On the other end of the communicator, the assistant also fell into doubt.

In his professional career for several years, he has dealt with countless anomalies, but he has never encountered a problem with his own ritual.

After a short period of confusion, he immediately calmed down and said:

"Stand by for a while, it may be that other people in the bureau have moved. I'll go and let the people above..."

"No need."

Goldie interrupted the facilitator with her eyes closed, as her refined intentions were refocusing.Inadvertently, the tip of the tongue licked the fine white canine teeth:

"Now I can sort things out."

Even if the lieutenant ceased to make a sound, his last location lingered in Goldie's mind.

Focusing the intention on the illusion of memory requires only a little imagination.

Intentionally depicting the next moment, he was swallowed by the heart of the black lotus.

The quiet and tender black lotus slowly squeezed its eyeballs, and bloomed from the lieutenant's eye sockets.But that's just the appearance of mildness.Just like the fat white larva infected with spores, as the host, it still retains a good shape, but when the slender and inconspicuous hyphae protrude from its mouth, the inside has actually been eroded.

The imagination is vivid enough, and the focus has been completed.

Goldie's thumb slowly moved the dial on the trigger, making final adjustments amidst the rattling sounds of teeth and gears.

Because there is no need for concealment, the ritual trigger of the ninth game is never disguised as a daily necessities, shaped like a grip, and as ferocious as a weapon, but it allows the user's intentions to be most clearly expressed in the ritual.

Then without hesitation, she pulled the trigger.

But the intention was peeled off from the ceremony, and the feeling was obviously wrong. She thought it was her own mistake, and frowned.

"Goldie..."

At this time, in the communicator, the helper's confused and uneasy voice came:

"The situation is really wrong, just now..."

In the slightly distorted voice, the assistant's larynx could still be heard slipping:
"...you were removed from the ninth inning public field."

I?Removal?

Goldie looked at the ritual trigger in his hand, and stood up from the roof in a daze.At this time, white noise came from the communicator, and then her familiar superior picked it up.

"Don't stay there, come back first." The voice said.

That man's name was Ernst, a senior member of the Ninth Bureau in Stade.In a sense, he is another founder of the bootlegging market in Stade.

"Why?" Goldie asked incomprehensibly, "Leon is not dead yet, we still have a chance..."

"The situation has changed."

Ernst has always been ambitious, but at this moment, his voice seemed infinitely tired:
"After the Linus incident, we did gain the Grand Duke's attention," Ernst said:
"Yes, this is the news we've been waiting for. But, can anyone imagine such a thing?"

He seemed to be smiling, but his tone was extremely bitter:

"The majestic prince of a country... unexpectedly prepared to get involved in this kind of dirty work in person."

…………

"Three minutes should be enough for them to understand the situation."

After all, so much funding every year is not given in vain.

The Grand Duke's voice said softly:
"So you're probably safe."

There are some reservations in the wording, but the Grand Duke has a completely firm tone.Ke Lin still tore off the broken coat first, and threw it far away.

The coat fell on the ground and made a sound similar to the rubbing of limbs. Colin waited quietly for a while, confirming his safety.

He breathed a sigh of relief, and continued to remove the pile of debris on Leon's body.

"Why did you choose me?"

Colin asked the Grand Duke while lifting the broken plank.

In fact, he didn't have much hope for the phone call a week ago, so he is somewhat surprised now:
"I ask a lot of money, but there are many people who can replace me."

"For example, Poll or Leon, controlling any of them can take over the Stade Institute." He said:
"The organization will do just fine without me."

"The Stade Institute?"

The Grand Duke laughed in surprise, as if he didn't expect Colin to mention this matter.

He pondered for a moment and reorganized his language:

"If all I wanted was a bootleg profit from a Stade, I wouldn't have come to you specifically, Colin."

"I said that there are a lot of things to check this week. What do you think will be in it?"

What you are, what you do, and most importantly, your talents.

"I'm thinking about everything, picking and choosing every chess piece. And the final conclusion is: Whether it's the members of the Stade organization or the underwater transportation route, you can actually find a substitute, it's just a hassle to an extent."

"But among these countless factors, there is only one that cannot be replaced. That is you, Colin. People are the real core of a business, so only you are irreplaceable."

Grand Duke said:

"The vision you described to me a week ago can only be realized by you."

Colin, who was moving the sundries, stopped.Maybe the more long-term a person's vision is, the better he will be able to distinguish between the primary and the secondary, and he will not want to greedily grasp everything.He suddenly felt that as a collaborator, Dagong seemed to be ten thousand times stronger than the ninth game.

But is it really that simple?

"Of course, maybe I want to thank Craigie." The Grand Duke said:

"Although that was just a surprise that had nothing to do with the overall situation."

…………

Three days earlier, Craigie had left the airtight warehouse.He was covered with a thick black eye cloth, and Heine found a four-wheeled carriage and drove him back to the Holy One Seminary.

More than a decade ago, seminary was like Craigie's territory.But now he was a little afraid to come back here.But because of some lingering things in his heart, he finally decided to come back.

Heine directly let the coachman drive into the academy, which was never allowed in the first place.After stopping in front of the classic main building of the academy, Heine opened the carriage door, asked about Craigie's physical condition, and carefully helped him down.

As early as the night before, someone specially found a thick black cloth and tied it to the curtains on the first and second floors of the main building.Seeing Craigie get off the carriage, those black cloths were put down one by one. Although it was not so tight, it could relieve Craigie's discomfort to some extent.

Several teachers and priests who have worked here since Craigie's time have been waiting in the foyer, and one of them took the redstone lamp from Heine's hand.Craigie took off his blindfold and saw the current dean of the seminary, who gestured to him to welcome back.The old dean said with some emotion.

In the dim red light, Clay was like a monarch patrolling his domain.

Passing by a few young students, no one knew who this old man Xinxili was, but they were also curious about their hard work.

The decline of talent is always the saddest thing. The group deliberately doesn't talk about the past, and no one asks about the progress of Craigie's research, just like they don't want to touch the unhealed wounds of a hero.

This time Craigie came back here just to talk to the Grand Duke again about the issue of the Stadsincilians.

Some people secretly admire Craigie for this, because everyone knows that he ended up having some unhappy holidays with the Grand Duke.But now Craigie is willing to bow his head to the Grand Duke for the sake of those unrelated fellows.

But the result of this conversation surprised Craigie a bit.

It turned out that Colin had already had a conversation with the Grand Duke, and came up with a perfect solution for the current bad situation.

The root cause of this turmoil is that the principality's garment industry is declining year by year.The competition comes from Senal.It itself is rich in cotton, and it is in the most densely populated area of ​​the Central Continent, and labor is cheaper.

Of course, the more important reason is: the current King of Mortals has integrated Senal into his sphere of influence.So today it is more like the mainland of the Alliance than the Principality of Edmond.

But at this moment, Prohibition came.

The alliance and various churches require that countries must deploy a large number of temperance commissioners.But the Principality, whose economy is on the verge of decline, is actually unable to afford this expenditure at all.

"If you can take out this money, it will just solve the whereabouts of the unemployed in Stade." The Grand Duke said to Craigie:

"In the end, the kid said... Maybe it sounds a little funny, but he is really very imaginative, he said." The Grand Duke suppressed his smile:

"—he will feed these people."

A bootlegger, relying on importing overseas bootleg liquor to the entire principality and even the southwestern region of the alliance.

To feed a Prohibition Commissioner of 2 to [-] people, and digest all unemployed soldiers.

Let the unstable factors that threaten the Sincilians disappear directly from the root.

(End of this chapter)