Chapter 96: Old Routines and Departure

"I'm afraid the days ahead will be hard to endure."

Li En did not have all the intelligence; he only saw parts of the burning warehouses and granaries, yet that was enough to make a judgment.

Even though he had many adventurers and the guards of the Nanmen District fought all night, and many local residents displayed amazing Wu De in the crisis, they were still merely reacting passively.

Too many areas fell into a sea of fire from the start; the attack succeeded by more than half from the very beginning.

On the strategic level, this was a nearly perfect surprise attack; the Radiant City was completely unprepared, and they used the tactic of hiding in the light.

Many people knew that the various districts had too many underground tunnels and secret compartments used for smuggling and carrying goods, but no one expected them to become the detonation points for an internal attack by the alien races.

Those smugglers, either taking money to do the job or simply killing witnesses after fraud, became accomplices in this attack.

The point is not why they weren't defended against, but why they should be defended against at all?!

No one expected these outsiders to have such power, to have so many people hidden in the city, to strike so ruthlessly, and to be so well-organized.

Before our side was prepared to fight a decisive battle with the enemy, the enemy had already completed the most vicious surprise attack.

"This is already a true act of war."

Li En sighed; during the battle of that night, he encountered many Dark Elf warriors and Gray Dwarves, who clearly bore the marks of military life.

The most obvious thing was that their weapons and equipment were mostly standardized, likely high-quality products officially procured, and their sword techniques were clearly standardized military routines.

In that case, the opponent is probably not a band of stragglers or wild tribes, but an entire faction.

But the current focus is no longer why they are so crazy, but how to respond.

"I should also hurry up and grab some food supplies."

Although quite helpless, Li En realistically turned around and joined the army of people scrambling for grain.

News of the loss in food reserves had not yet spread; many grain shops and markets were still selling normally.

But before long, prices will likely skyrocket, and the authorities will also begin to impose controls.

"The point is not how much was lost or how long it takes to restock, but these treacherous merchants. Will they let go of the chance to profit from national disaster? No, absolutely not."

Li En sighed; if the situation began to spiral out of control, the final result might be even worse than in another world, because the local nobles and treacherous merchants are two sides of the same coin.

In this world, if there is no noble support, commerce cannot be built, and families that take commerce to a certain level must basically pursue political and religious influence, otherwise they are just fattened pigs.

"And the local royal power is a bit weak; whether it can control the situation..." Li En was not optimistic; he knew the main strength of the royal family was in the New Capital, and the personnel resources here were actually limited, while the local nobles might just be waiting to make a fortune.

Losing one-tenth of the grain doesn't mean a price increase of one-tenth, but a price hike so high that only ninety percent of people can afford it, and the rest might truly starve to death.

And in an era where nobles and treacherous merchants monopolize the market, they could even starve half the population to death; as long as there is an opportunity and a pretext to make money, they will not miss it.

Thinking of the luxurious and inhumane nature of the slave market, Li En would absolutely not overestimate the bottom line of these people.

Bad news often does not end there, and Li En was not so lucky as to happen upon the surprise attack.

Besides the Nanmen District, at least six other districts were attacked, with different focal points; infrastructure such as the city defense army's arsenal, animal pens, and the city reservoir were all attacked, and even...

"At least half of the docks in the Dock District were destroyed, and sunken ships blocked the alleys."

Talia S达尔 had her reasons for working overtime overnight; those guys didn't even spare the Dock District, and their attack points concentrated on the most important maritime infrastructure in the Dock District.

Losing dock freight also meant losing seafood supplies, making the situation much worse.

"But it has already been cleaned up; if the docks are rebuilt, it will probably take three days." However, the words spoken by Talia S达尔 made Li En pause in surprise.

This engineering efficiency is a bit ridiculous; he went to see it himself. Although most of it was simple wooden structures, the scale was not small, capable of docking large ships.

For a deep-water dock of this level, even with large machinery, it wouldn't be easy to build, let alone relying solely on manpower here.

"Several Archmages brought apprentices over. It seems the lords of the Radiant District are also in a hurry this time."

That made sense; others have machinery and engineering, but this world has magic.

In this era, manual labor is more reliable and efficient than large machinery.

Turning stone to mud, communicating with elements, and so on, might get it done in a day; considering some mages also study architecture, the newly built ones might even be better than the original.

The scale of attacks in other districts was also not small, but the losses were not as great as in the Nanmen District, and the timing was slightly earlier, looking more like feints to attract reinforcements and confuse the view.

Obviously, their plan was very successful; on that day, many grain shops closed, and news of food shortages appeared in the market.

Li En now only prayed that Her Highness the Princess would be powerful, and at the same time, that the high-ups of the Shanshen Sect would act like humans a bit... From start to finish, he never expected the local nobles to act like humans.

"How much the grain price rises depends on her ability, but it will definitely rise..."

Although the development of the situation verified Li En's guess, it was much better than expected; the grain price rose by less than twenty percent.

To be precise, this should be attributed to Dai Niya's methods being quite decisive.

"Those who betray the kingdom, spread rumors, or inflate grain prices... Tsk, the little girl's hand is ruthless enough."

On the city gate of the Nanmen District, more than a dozen corpses hung, and the posters below proclaimed their crimes.

No one thought the Princess went too far; passersby, many of whom even hated them, picked up stones on the spot to smash them.

And that alone was not enough; the next day, the Nanmen opened again, and a batch of fully loaded carts and wagons drove in, one following another, with thick grain bags filling the cargo holds.

As they passed, because there was a pothole on the ground, a bag fell off the cart... and full wheat spilled out from it!

When Li En heard this news, he felt it was truly subtle; this old routine was too old, was it really effective?

But seeing others happily discussing it, even raising cups to celebrate, Li En knew he was overthinking it... Most ordinary people in this world, let alone knowing these tricks, couldn't even recognize a few big characters.

If one does not read books or study, then no matter how old the routine is, it is a new story to people; it seems no citizen saw through it.

Li En couldn't help but sigh; although the routine was old, if it works, it works; this should also be a similar anecdote recorded in the history of this world.

On the second and third days following, fully loaded wagons entered again; Her Highness the Princess even came to welcome them personally, and when she waved, it caused waves of cheers from the crowd.

Another day passed, and a squadron of at least fifty Griffin Knights descended from the sky; they must have rushed over from the New Capital, and Li En saw their dusty appearance.

Among them were knights and spellcasters, and there should also be high-level Court Mages; those Griffins were also dragging what looked like heavy cargo holds.

Even some corn and grains were scattered down, landing on rooftops and streets, which further caused cheers and celebrations below.

At this time, the news spread rapidly, and the people no longer had any worries.

Even the prestige of the royal family rose sharply.

And Li En, through other channels, learned that the Paladins were recently slaughtering wildly in the Radiant District; Dai Niya did not trust the local nobles, so she dispatched her own royal spies to gather intelligence and ordered the Paladins of the True God Church to carry out the executions.

The nobles who had been speculating on grain prices and inciting rebellions were considerably fewer; their homes were all confiscated, and quite a lot of grain was actually found, filling the shortfall.

"Looks like I still underestimated her."

Li En knew that the griffin and that fake grain caravan were probably the same trick; griffins doubled as war beasts and were extremely expensive flying mounts.

Having them haul cargo requires massive amounts of meat — they might eat more than they carry; by no stretch is it cost-effective. In an era when technology isn't yet advanced enough, air transport is mostly expensive and offers terrible value.

Li En estimated that, with things developing this way, a famine probably wouldn't happen, but the problem still lay with "military provisions."

The expected three-month timeline for sending out troops no longer seemed realistic; the supply lines on the front wouldn't lie — advancing with insufficient logistics would be a death wish.

Moreover, the morale in Radiance City is unstable right now, and this doesn't seem like a good time to launch an external campaign either.

And since grain prices had only risen slightly, Li En naturally relaxed. He continued stockpiling grain in large quantities, and plenty of his neighbors did the same — nobody was a fool these days.

"I should be getting a grip on Great Stride soon."

These past few days, Li En's learning progress had been quite decent.

He had some idea why Kuku was unwilling to convene the Hall of Heroes — these nightly "dreams" had become Li En's exclusive tutoring evolution; the Archmage's learning memories were a tremendous help to him.

This kind of targeted selection, one-on-one plus a VR-style spoon-fed teaching, saved Li En at least a month or so of effort every day. Some things, perhaps limited by Li En's own talent, he might never have been able to master on his own.

He felt a bit grateful, but couldn't say so openly.

So he took Kuku on two extra trips down Mage Street, and certain "shops" mysteriously lost a few more items.

At the same time, he also bought Kuku some books on foreign races.

During this process, Li En was surprised to discover that Dai Niya was far more mature and seasoned than he had expected; she hadn't directed her hostility at all foreign races, nor had she immediately locked in the dark elves and gray dwarves as enemies.

She even gave a speech, actively lowering the locals' hostility toward the other races, hinting that someone was deliberately stirring up racial hatred.

Undoubtedly, this was a good thing — once racial killing truly locked hatred in place, there really would be no turning back.

And as time went on, with each dark elf captive's intel unlocked, Li En also learned that the dark elves and gray dwarves weren't a single iron block either.

The Princess was right — someone did want to thoroughly inflame the conflict, ideally into a death-match-grade war.

Only now did Li En learn that there seemed to be a city belonging to the dark elves underground, and most of the attackers this time had come from them.

But whether this was actually a war action by that city was hard to say — even the intel leaked by captives couldn't be trusted.

Gray dwarves? Just vassals of the dark elves.

Li En had originally thought these "peaceful" days would last a while, at least until he completed Kuku's Heroic Soul inheritance, but the butterfly effect of the foreign-race attack was transmitted over right away.

"Get ready, we're setting out tomorrow morning." Magical Girl Miss Thornweed suddenly appeared.

The exploration originally scheduled for a week later was moved up immediately.

"I've taken on two more commissions from the royal family, heh — this time we might have to take a bit of a detour." This time, Miss Thornweed seemed to have taken on an escort mission.

Soon, Li En met the fellow travelers, among them an old acquaintance — an old friend of Li En's.

Lari came riding over excitedly on a great sword spider; both her spider-person bloodline and her mount seemed to be products of the Underdark.

But this time, she hadn't just come over to say hello — she also introduced a companion to Li En.

"This is Nocturna, my sister, and the future head of the Labor family." Lari seemed quite proud of this sister.

"Hello, my... brother, thanks for taking care of her." Yet this spider-girl with a flower-like smile gave Li En a completely different impression.

That slip of the tongue seemed to be a probe as well — although her two main eyes were narrowed the whole time, as if she were born with smiling slit eyes, looking very much like an affable merchant.

But the four crystal compound eyes that looked like decorative headbands above her brow stared fixedly at Li En.

She seemed to have seen right through it, knowing that Li En already knew Lari was female.

"Please call me Lorna, my family all calls me that. Lari talks about you at home every single day."

(End of chapter)