Chapter 88: The Baron Fario

“No need to doubt, serfs! With our great lord among us, the Scorpion Bandits are nothing!”

“Look at these flags—they were cut down from the Scorpion Bandits’ stronghold’s flagpoles!”

Migen raised another flag: black background with a red scorpion.

This was the flag the Scorpion Boss carried during every raid, carrying similar symbolism to a commander’s banner.

The scorpion on it was originally white, but the Scorpion Boss soaked it in blood, turning it red to display his cruelty and ferocity.

“It’s truly the Scorpion flag! And there are more Scorpion flags on that wagon—the Scorpion Boss is truly dead!”

“Hah! The Scorpion Boss has been killed by our lord!”

“Does that mean we’ll never fear the Scorpion Bandits again?”

“Exactly! The Scorpion Bandits are destroyed—we no longer need to fear them!”

The serfs finally came to their senses.

They hadn’t truly disbelieved—it was just that the news was too shocking, and they hadn’t had time to process it.

“Cheer, people of Stormhold! The Scorpion Bandits are erased from this world!”

“Our lord is mighty!”

“Thank our great lord!”

“Our lord is mighty…”

…

Iron Wolf City.

Inside a luxurious estate in the noble quarter of eastern Iron Wolf City.

“My lord, something’s wrong!”

“What’s happened? Why the panic?”

“My lord, the Scorpion Boss has been killed!”

“Moreover, the Lady has returned—and brought back the Scorpion Boss’s corpse, along with the captured second-in-command, Saigao.”

“Who did it? Did the Kingdom’s army finally intervene? Woren, as border commander of Iron Wolf City, didn’t he send word to the Scorpion Boss the moment he heard?”

Baron Fario frowned deeply.

Besides the Wild Wolf Brotherhood, the Scorpion Bandits were also a gang he funded.

But unlike the Kingdom’s street thugs, keeping the Scorpion Bandits stable long-term was beyond the means of a mere noble like him.

Thus, Woren, commander of Iron Wolf City, was one of the Scorpion Bandits’ pillars.

Fario provided the money; Woren supplied the gear and tipped them off about impending raids.

In past Kingdom border bandit suppression campaigns, other bandit gangs were wiped out or wounded—but the Scorpion Bandits always escaped unscathed, thanks to this.

This time, they targeted the fallen Violet Family.

They ordered the Scorpion Bandits to kidnap the Lady, demand ransom, then kill her.

Of course, this was only part of the plan.

Their true target was the Violet Family’s crystal mine.

Once the Lady was dead, the Violet Family would collapse, its lands reclaimed by the Kingdom—and then they could seize the crystal mine.

With his father, who served as a cabinet official in Eagle City, Fario knew this would pose no real difficulty.

He had believed the plan flawless—until a few days ago, when the Violet Family’s steward came to Iron Wolf City claiming the kidnappers were the Scorpion Bandits.

Though an unexpected twist, it wasn’t yet irreparable.

All he needed was for Woren to delay the border troops’ advance while warning the Scorpion Boss in time—so the Scorpion Boss could escape.

But now came word: the Scorpion Boss was dead, and the Lady had returned.

His first thought was that Woren had failed—that the Kingdom’s army had acted.

After all, the Violet Family alone could never have defeated the Scorpion Bandits.

“My lord, Commander Woren says he’s just as confused—he deliberately slowed the troops, yet the Violet Lady returned unharmed before they even reached the border!”

“When questioned, the Lady claimed it was her own vassal army that annihilated the Scorpion Bandits!”

“Damn it!”

Baron Fario slammed his fist on the table.

“My lord, what do we do now? The Lady still has a live captive!”

“That captive doesn’t know us—but he knows the mole we bribed inside the Violet Family. Send men immediately to eliminate them. Clean it up completely!”

“Yes, my lord!”

The subordinate hurried out. Baron Fario remained seething.

This past month, he felt cursed.

First, Rose the whore fled—and with her, the Wild Wolf Boss was killed on the border, his killer still unknown.

Then, their plan against the Violet Family, thought flawless, had inexplicably gone awry.

“Is someone deliberately working against me?”

Baron Fario’s eyes flickered uncertainly—he could only speculate along these lines.

He suspected other rivals in Iron Wolf City—never imagining it could be some insignificant minor lord.

…

【Ding! Daily Intelligence System has refreshed…】

【Intelligence One: At the southernmost tip of Stormhold, sixty miles offshore, lies an island three times the size of Huoshandao.】

【On this island dwell a herd of second-rank demonic beasts—Black Gold Mountain Sheep—whose population has grown over countless years to over one hundred sixty.】

【Intelligence Two: Fifteen miles east of Black Gold Mountain Sheep Island lies a beautiful coral reef.】

【But for ships, these submerged islets form a deadly danger zone.】

At the reef’s edge rests a sunken ship, lost for countless years—only its mast, less than two meters high, protrudes above the water.】

【All cargo and Sea God’s Feast aboard have vanished.】

【Only inside the captain’s cabin, within a finely crafted iron box, remains an extremely precious magical artifact… a Ring of Spatial Storage!】

【Intelligence Three: This morning, Mil’s Baronial Domain will welcome a “secondhand caravan”—a trading group that buys used goods from the Kingdom’s interior and sells them on the frontier.】

【The caravan carries secondhand longswords, leather armor, and plate armor—and more importantly, secondhand magic potions, magical accessories, and magic scrolls.】

【Of course, secondhand leather armor and longswords are tangible, affordable bargains—ideal for frontier lords seeking to cut costs!】

【But magic potions, magical accessories, and scrolls? Nine out of ten are traps—the merchants profit handsomely from these counterfeit magical items.】

【They’re not outright fakes—but they’re practically indistinguishable from them.】

【Yet for petty nobles who love a bargain, they’re easy to fall for.】

【Of course, nothing is absolute—this caravan carries one genuine item: a third-rank magic scroll capable of summoning “Dance of the Fire Serpents.”】

【The merchant stumbled upon a large cache of expired scrolls from a fallen noble—but this one alone remained active, marked by a fire serpent emblem etched onto its base for distinction.】

【The merchant is unaware of its value and will sell it at a rock-bottom price.】

【Originally worth three hundred gold coins—it now costs only ten!】