Chapter 94: The Most Ruthless Stratagem

The Nanmen District, situated next to the Dock District, is a commoners' area that's just a little better than a slum.

But for Li En, living here is quite comfortable—daily food is cheap, and getting to the Dock District is very convenient.

He can't be bothered to move to a more central district and socialize with nobles and merchants; the living conditions here are already sufficient.

The only hassle is that going to the central Radiance District requires passing through at least four checkpoints, and occasionally being checked by patrol teams. Even with Li En being a Holy Knight, the inspectors seeing him still conduct at least a minimum inspection.

Sometimes, when the checks get annoying, Li En does feel a bit envious of the Sudar family's noble carriage.

At the very least, it really doesn't have to stop the whole way, saving at least half the time.

But measuring the length of the earth with one's own two feet back and forth isn't without its benefits.

Along the way, what Li En saw made the surrounding changes even clearer to him; he even smelled the scent before a storm.

From the changes over the past few days of travel, Li En noticed the number of patrol teams had increased considerably, their armament was much more complete, and many knights had entered combat readiness.

Donning and doffing armor is a troublesome affair; being fully armed is exhausting even just for walking. Without orders from above, there wouldn't be so many fully-equipped knights taking part.

Worth mentioning, Li En also saw, along the way, the vast differences between the patrol teams of each district. Each district of the city has its own patrol team, with different formations and personnel, achieving de facto autonomy.

This kind of district-by-district independent armed operation, which looks absurd to later generations, is taken for granted in this overly fragmented kingdom.

The Radiance District is the safest; even ordinary streets have plenty of noble knights and city guards, and each small sub-district within has its own guard force.

For example, the security of the Radiance Religious District is handled by the Holy Knight Order; criminals are basically unseen. A single criminal might make the Holy Knights, who yearn to eradicate evil, compete with each other from within.

And the security force of the Mage Street goes even more extravagant, employing Arcane Knights—magic knights clad in magical equipment from head to toe.

This is an extremely hard-to-train knight branch, a rare class that can use both martial skills and magic simultaneously; they are armored spellcasters.

Just their daily training costs alone, plus their dedicated special-metal medium armor, are outrageously expensive.

It's said that although this medium armor is light, its defensive capability after spellcasting is no worse than heavy armor, and it has very little impact on the wearer's spellcasting. Li En, who has these needs, is very envious.

It's just that he can't afford it, nor does he have a channel to buy it; this set of equipment counts as a technical secret of the mages.

Incidentally, many of its members are former mage apprentices or former warriors—those with talent on both sides but not top-tier. Paired with custom equipment, they are actually very adept at dealing with pure warriors and pure mages. Dual practitioners like Li En, if willing to join, would probably receive training.

Li En does indeed plan to, once he's made a name for himself, go try to cozy up.

Not that he wants to join and become a thug, but to see if he can buy a set of armor.

Most of the time they are the "door gods" of the various famous shops on the street, but they are also the necessary law enforcers of Mage Street, the arbitrators of the various conflicts that frequently occur on this street.

They don't have to give face to any individual archmage, only nominally answer to the mages' joint organization; in the past they were quite famous and imposing.

But clearly, this time they gravely failed in their duty; the shame of being guardians and knights has made them thoroughly furious this time.

Even at night, these elite knights are still on patrol; the magic gems embedded in their armor flicker and glow like LED lights from far away, very eye-catching.

"Uh, does this even make sense? The Radiance District is already absurdly safe. If I were one of those criminals, even if I were still in the city, I'd pick a different district."

The other districts are much more normal; the main forces include militia, mercenaries, and city defense troops, except now quite a few patrol teams have temporarily hired a batch of adventurers, warriors, and the like, reinforcing the original garrison.

Their strength varies; if that district happens to have a large merchant guild or a great noble's property, it'll be a bit stronger, and among the patrollers one can even see noble spellcasters and magic hounds.

But as far as Li En has seen, the military strength of the Radiance District alone should still exceed the combined total of all the remaining districts.

"Some districts' grain prices have risen thirty percent. Tch, these profiteers." Li En sighed; he knew there wasn't the slightest problem with the grain supply, yet those profiteers still raised prices.

Because of this, many people started buying up grain and hoarding, and these "goods" also made the patrol teams coming and going to check posts much more diligent.

But the prices on Li En's side feel okay. The Nanmen District, right next to the outer wall, has nothing else, but all kinds of seafood and low-to-mid-grade grain are excessively abundant.

On one hand, it's close to the city gate, so many merchants trade right here; on the other hand, because it's right next to the Dock District, the cargo traffic naturally piles up here.

A crossroads logistics hub in a sense, naturally with extremely plentiful goods.

Calling the South Bright (Nanmen) District a warehouse district isn't wrong; the purchasing power of the residents here is average, can't support a commercial street, and the main industry is various logistics warehouses.

And the world's grain preservation technology seems pretty mediocre; all sorts of grain nearing expiration are sold right here. Not only people from the Dock District come here to buy grain, people from other relatively commoner districts also come, because it really is the lowest in the whole city.

These little life tips were told to Li En by the maid Young Lady. Because she often asks Li En to help buy some vegetables and grain and such, Li En bringing goods home is much safer than a maid doing it.

And Li En, this knight, has his own little tips for buying vegetables; he generally tosses Detect Evil at the market and picks the stall with the lightest red glow to buy from.

Uh, aren't there any silver-white good merchants? Maybe there are, but Li En really hasn't seen any these past few days.

Don't laugh—playing it this way, not only does he buy decent goods, even when others come to buy vegetables, they wait eagerly for him to cast the divine spell so they can buy along with him.

As for whether the near-expiration, cheap vegetables have any problems—uh, locals actually don't care much; being able to eat their fill at a low price is already a blessing.

Today is no exception; Li En is already used to going out in the morning with a shopping list and coming back in the evening carrying a bag of stuff.

"... It's a bit late." Walking along the way, Li En could already see the stars.

After class today, Li En went to browse some mage shops, bookstores, and a gnome's steam shop; although he didn't buy anything, at least he had a good look around.

As for what Kuku did when he disappeared, and why his own spatial bag seemed to have mysteriously gotten a bit heavier—Li En doesn't know, and can't be bothered to know.

To be honest, when encountering a sudden inspection, and even having a Detect Evil cast on him by a Holy Knight, Li En did feel a bit strange.

But the next moment, the holy silver light flashing on his body directly blinded a whole patch, and made that Holy Knight hurriedly bow in salute.

This made Li En feel a bit guilty.

Clearly, the Holy Knight's Detect Evil isn't very useful in this regard, far inferior to the Law Knight's Judgment of Sin. But because certain races are regarded as evil from the very start, when searching for their traces, it's very convenient.

The Holy Knights at these checkpoints should also have been transferred here for this purpose.

For example, those few dark elves and gray dwarves not far away—they show up as a proper red glow in Detect Evil; even if disguised or hidden in a carriage, they can't escape.

"Wait! How can they be here."

Li En instantly came to his senses and drew his longsword at once, but—

"Boom—!"

The sudden chain of explosions directly stunned Li En.

"Boom—!"

One explosion after another rang out in a chain; within Li En's line of sight, fires broke out in all four directions simultaneously.

And the one burning the fiercest was the grain warehouse he had just passed!

"Damn it... Smite Evil!"

——

Time rewound slightly. As a burgeoning city, Radiant City actually possessed hidden infrastructure found only in major metropolises—a vast smuggling network buried beneath the shadows.

Unlike those ancient or large cities, whose smuggling and black market networks were often rooted in massive sewer systems,

those structures, once built to a certain scale, became underground labyrinths inhabited by kobolds, goblins, giant rats, and undead. But Radiant City, with its extremely short history, had no such thing (no sewer network).

Yet, between the various districts of Radiant City, there existed tunnels and smuggling passages.

This was a result of profit motives, and an inevitable development of the relative autonomy of each district.

Where there is demand, there are passages. In the past, patrol teams and militia would turn a blind eye, but this time, that tacit understanding was exploited, and these underground passages were used for another purpose.

"It's time to begin." Inside the smuggling tunnel, the dark elf Solen glanced at the pocket watch in his hand, confirming that the agreed-upon time had arrived.

Behind him stood a squad composed of two dark elves and one gray dwarf. At the same time, there were the corpses of several unlucky orc smugglers.

These unfortunate souls never expected that their former "brothers," their smuggling partners, would turn on them so decisively.

"Begin, for our homeland." Those committing evil spoke a sacred slogan.

"Create chaos in this city, burn all their rations." That was their mission.

As long as a food shortage crisis emerged, on what grounds could the legions and warriors who answered the Princess's call leave the city to fight?

As for the deaths caused by fire, and the sickness and famine that a grain shortage might bring, did that concern them?

These non-humans treated this war far more seriously than the locals.

When twilight fell, the black underground races began their true war, teaching the people of Radiant City a lesson with the most vicious schemes.

The initial phase went quite smoothly; the defenses of the Nanmen District were negligible. The local police and militia were third-rate at best, and most were easily bypassed.

"Boom!" When the agreed time arrived, explosions rang out one after another. The lurking squad breathed a sigh of relief; their mission was more than half complete.

The warehouses closest to the dock district and the city gates had been ignited, and vast quantities of supplies had turned to ash.

Solen's target was the grain warehouse right before them. Once ignited, the squad's mission would be accomplished.

But he was destined not to proceed smoothly.

"Evil-Cleaving Slash!" A knight in silver armor was already waiting for them here!

(End of this chapter)