Chapter 1008: Chapter 566: Laying the Foundations (Part 2)

He’d dared to risk his life against that Fishmen Shaman because Lance was standing behind him, and he knew Lance would definitely save him.

Now you say this kind of thing—who’s standing behind you?

Amanda had originally wanted to curse back, but suddenly seemed to realize something.

Because she’d never been on the receiving end of that kind of beating, hadn’t even had the qualifications to witness that man’s real power.

They weren’t on the same level anymore...

The temper that had just flared up dissolved into a single disdainful snort.

"Heh~ don’t get happy too soon. Nobody knew the truth about the Hamlet Cataclysm back then, but now they’ve found a huge amount of Necromancy constructs in those ruins. That place has been occupied by a Necromancer.

And that place is huge; there’s no way to keep it under wraps, and no way to block it. What you need to do now is use the last bit of time to cash this information out."

She finished and directly stretched out her hand. "Now, do you think this intel is worth it?"

Sela calmed down quickly enough. She looked at Amanda’s outstretched hand, hesitated for a moment, then threw the thing over with a face full of reluctance.

"Take it."

Amanda snatched it out of the air, quick-eyed and quick-handed, and only then realized it was that token. She immediately looked up, and for a moment felt she’d underestimated this girl a bit.

"You’re actually willing to part with this?"

"Hmph! I plan to get that position with my own strength. I don’t need to rely on crap like this."

A token was just a token in the end. What really let her sit in that seat was the people above nodding their heads. Even with this thing, if they didn’t nod, it was all fake.

Sela understood that Hamlet would only grow more important, and with this, both sides could communicate in time, and this flow of intel would become her achievement.

Compared to that, keeping this thing in her own hands was useless. Of course she had to use it to buy Amanda’s favor; after all, only Amanda could provide information this valuable.

At that, Amanda crooked her lips into a smile and slowly raised two fingers.

"Second piece of intel: the Lord has found out who owned that caravan that got hit."

"Who?" Sela was pleasantly surprised. She hadn’t expected more intel!

"Actually, when they found that burned-out caravan, the troops searching nearby also found a heavily injured Transcendent. I didn’t know about that at the time.

It was only because of the Fishmen invasion that I gained the Lord’s trust and asked around, and found out that before that guy died they pried his mouth open and got a lot out of him.

According to his testimony, that group was here to steal grain, and the noble leading them was Captain Michel, son of the Imperial army’s logistics chief."

"So it was the Michel Family—quite the background!" Sela had made plenty of guesses, but hadn’t thought it would be someone on the Emperor’s side.

"I’m not done yet. The really important part is still coming."

"Say it, say it." Sela didn’t have the slightest temper left.

"In that guy’s statement there’s also evidence of the Michel Family’s greed and corruption. They’ve been deliberately prolonging the war to rake in obscene profits, and the one who sold out the princess’s itinerary was him. Even if he’s not the mastermind, he’s at least an accomplice..."

Sela was listening, totally absorbed, when suddenly there was a knock at the door outside, cutting Amanda off mid-sentence.

But everything that needed to be said had already been said; both sides knew it was time to leave.

"Remember: spread the ruins news as far as you can, the messier the better. Otherwise I’m the one who’s screwed."

She tossed out the reminder, then got up to head outside. Just as she turned, Sela still refused to give up and probed one more time.

"You really think there’s no chance?"

The question only made Amanda laugh. She mocked her mercilessly: "You’d better go ask your mother and see if she’ll back that idiotic plan of yours."

Then she didn’t forget another reminder: "Before that, you’d better pay me first, because I don’t intend to go chasing a corpse for my money."

With that she pushed the door open and left, and at that moment the Guard came in to report.

"My Lady, we can set sail."

"Got it." Sela waved him out with a complicated expression, and soon the cabin was just her, sinking into thought.

Those two pieces of intel were a bit shocking, but how much of them she could trust was hard to say. She’d only know after proper analysis.

As soon as Amanda stepped onto the deck she heard violent explosions. She looked over and saw two cannons set up on the shore, firing directly out to sea.

Bombs fell into the water and blew with a dull roar, sending fountains of water shooting up into the sky.

But judging from the direction of fire, they were aimed at the open sea with no target at all.

Even stranger, some people had taken down the warning bells hanging along the shore, half-submerged them in the water, and were hammering away at them.

The sound barely carried before it seemed to get swallowed by the sea; only the splashing water could be seen.

But the ships at the docks were already moving, as if everyone was terrified of being slow and getting snatched by Fishmen. Sails billowed as they caught the wind.

Amanda also noticed Lance up on the shore, but when she saw Grendel at his side, she hesitated briefly and did not go over. Instead, she hurried down the gangplank and left the area...

Up on the shore, seeing this scene, Grendel couldn’t help asking a question.

"This is the prep work you did yesterday?"

"Sound and vibration are how the Fishmen primarily perceive the outside world." Lance watched the departing ships through a monocular, talking continuously to Grendel beside him.

"Dissection and study showed that most of these Fishmen’s eyes don’t have eyelids and can’t close. Their lenses are spherical, and focus is adjusted by moving the lens forward and back, not by changing its curvature. So Fish eyes are extremely nearsighted.

But their hearing structure is highly developed, and they can sense vibrations transmitted through seawater. That’s why ringing the bells before drew all the Fishmen in toward the coast. As long as you make enough noise, you can interfere with their senses."

When he was a kid Lance often went to the river to blast fish; shockwaves in water hit even harder.

The only pity now was that he was missing a few high-tech fishing rods. Otherwise these Left-Zero-Right-Fire bottom-feeders wouldn’t even be worth putting in his eyes.

Lance was observing the situation out on the sea, but Grendel had noticed Amanda’s gaze from afar earlier, and seemed to remember something. She turned back and pressed Lance.

"By the way, how did you know old Michel was involved in the princess’s disappearance?"

"I’m not a god. How would I know?" Lance tossed the words out casually. "I made it up."

"Then you let Amanda leak that intel to the Romani?"

"I never said it came with a authenticity guarantee~ there’s truth and lies mixed in, obviously."

He even laughed as he spoke, but still offered an explanation.

"Before this, I had no idea the Emperor had actually sent the princess to marry into Bastia, so I was just looking for an excuse to stir up conflict between the Empire and the Earl. But after I learned that, the idea stopped being realistic.

Even if the princess really was snatched by the Earl, what we can be sure of is that the Emperor doesn’t have the guts to make a move. And old Michel only handles logistics; he doesn’t have the authority to mobilize troops, and he’s not going to risk his neck for his son.

I don’t want him continuing to dig into this. The Emperor also wants someone to take the blame for the military defeat at the front and the princess’s disappearance. The Earl wants to wash his hands of it and stay out of the war.

In the current situation, purging old Michel is the best outcome for everyone. So Michel’s father is a man that everyone wants dead. I just casually tossed out a few optional rumors; as long as the Emperor isn’t an idiot, he can use them as a pretext to take Michel down.

Besides, it’s not like I’m framing him. The corruption is real, colluding with the Lich is real. As for the princess—this is me handing the Emperor a knife. If he’s even a bit smart, he’ll understand the tacit understanding here."

"So even if he didn’t do it, he has to be the one who did it. Everyone will push all the trouble onto him and let him carry it all away and disappear."

Grendel did feel a bit sorry for this old Michel. The two of them hadn’t even met once, and he’d already been calculated to death.

But his son had pissed off Lance, and dying in ignorance was already the best outcome he could hope for.