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Audrey could tell from Hobert's expression that the Backlund Morning News was probably making up stories again.
As for the reason, she could guess that it was to use Hobert's "heroic deeds" to cover up the fact that this diplomatic mission had been unsuccessful.
Hobert quickly asked Dophis to bring him a copy of the Backlund Morning News to see what he had supposedly done.
At the same time, he thought to himself: These people are too unprofessional. They didn't even say hello or ask for my opinion when they were making things up. I might have even been able to give them some ideas! I'm a professional at bragging!
"The content is basically true," Hobert said after reading the report about himself, "but those spies were actually Beyonders from enemy countries, and the so-called gunfight was actually a battle between Beyonders."
He smiled at Glaint and said, "Ah, and that part that moved you, it was actually Princess Alice who made the choice, not me."
At the time, Hobert was quite surprised that someone who had almost been assassinated by the royal family and the Demoness Sect could still choose to risk maintaining national interests in that situation.
So Hobert didn't even try to dissuade her, nor did he use his power as a demigod to ignore Alice's choice, but instead chose to help her.
Glaint was slightly stunned when he heard Hobert's words, and finally smiled helplessly.
Then Hobert talked to Glaint about hiring another batch of noble children.
Hobert had already read a batch of briefings sent by Fors last night, including Corwin's report, about Longtail Island and the South Colson area during this period.
In his report, he mentioned that the noble children who had accepted "transformation" could enter the working state more quickly, were very motivated, and could infer other things from one instance. With a little experience, they could flexibly handle the affairs encountered in their work.
Of course, Hobert understood that these people had received a very good education and had a strong ability to accept new things.
Moreover, under the influence of their upbringing, they were better at dealing with people, which was almost inevitable. In the future, there would definitely be many such noble children in Hobert's power structure.
Therefore, Hobert had an important requirement for their selection: to fully accept the core idea of "people-oriented".
In the previous assessment, noble children who refused to accept this idea, no matter how capable they were, were all dismissed by Hobert with a salary of 1 pound a day.
For him, a lack of ability could be cultivated, but if the path was wrong, then "people with different ideals cannot make plans together."
Glaint immediately agreed to help Hobert contact another batch of noble children, and said that this time there would definitely be more people applying.
Because Hobert had given the noble children who had passed the assessment and been assigned positions three days off before he went on a business trip.
Not many people cared about their experiences, everyone was staring at the positions they eventually obtained.
Currently, things looked good. They were either grassroots officials in the territory or management in Backlund, which was a very good way out for many noble children.
If this group of people had a good future, then Hobert wouldn't have to actively recruit them. People who wanted to find a way out for themselves would definitely find a way to recommend themselves.
After a good night's rest, Hobert came to Longtail Island and began to implement the second step of his plan.
Two more weeks passed, and Hobert once again paid the planters the second batch of rubber, to the penny, at 1.5 times the market price as previously agreed.
This immediately aroused the enthusiasm of all the planters. They had already begun to plant the new varieties provided by Bishop Jodi on a small scale.
At this time, most of them were determined to take out all their savings to plant rubber trees!
Although these seedlings and potions were very expensive, it was estimated that they could recover their costs in four or five months.
And even if Earl Hobert no longer had such a large demand for rubber and the purchase price returned to the market price, it would only take two or three months to recover the costs.
For the planters, it was already a very profitable crop for this perennial economic crop to recover its costs so quickly.
The most important thing was that after recovering the costs, they could get more than ten times the income of ordinary rubber trees. For them, this was simply a lucrative investment.
But at the third banquet, Hobert gave everyone another stimulant.
Hobert said very seriously: "The rubber you provide is still too little! For a long time to come, I will need a lot of rubber. If you can't meet my needs, I will have to send people to other islands to purchase it!"
At the same time, he also said: "Before meeting the huge demand for rubber, the price I pay will be 1.5 times the market price!"
As Hobert expected, the planters began to complain, saying that they only had so many rubber trees, that the new rubber tree varieties were too expensive, and so on.
At this time, Bishop Jodi explained that those potions and new varieties used many expensive materials, and that they were giving everyone this price because they had a good cooperation with Earl Hobert. There were no such seedlings in other places, and the Earth Mother Church was hardly making any money.
Because the planters didn't understand the mystical logic behind this, they didn't know how to refute Bishop Jodi's explanation.
Hobert pondered for a while before saying: "I will issue you a loan to plant rubber trees, and you will pay it back after you start producing rubber."
Because the Earl had previously advanced a payment, everyone was not surprised by this proposal.
Moreover, planters with connections had already inquired that the Earl was producing a large number of wires in Backlund, and had purchased almost all of the rubber in Backlund, which had caused a certain premium on rubber in Backlund.
So everyone had discussed before coming to see if they could ask the Earl to advance some money to buy seedlings? Even if they paid some interest.
Unexpectedly, the Earl took the initiative to offer a loan, and didn't even mention the matter of interest.
Hobert continued: "The maximum loan for each person is 3,000 pounds, and this loan can be collected from the Governor's Office tomorrow!"
He said: "I have a requirement, which is that this money must be spent on planting rubber trees. This must be written into the loan contract. Once a breach of contract occurs, I will recover the loan in advance!"
3,000 pounds!
Unexpectedly, the Earl would lend them such a huge sum of money. In addition to being surprised, everyone promised that they would abide by the agreement.
The next day, Hobert disbursed the loans as promised, and more than 70,000 pounds were loaned out that day!
For a time, Longtail Island was filled with enthusiasm for planting rubber trees. In order to grab rubber tree seedlings and land for planting, the planters had clashed more than once.
Under Hobert's previous step-by-step stimulation, not only the loan given by Hobert, but everyone's savings, and the money they could borrow, were used to plant rubber trees!
In addition, some people felt that they could buy a large batch of rubber from other islands with such a large sum of money, and then return to Longtail Island to sell it to the Governor's Office.
Someone had calculated that it would be profitable to buy several thousand pounds.
Hobert temporarily had no intention of interfering in the affairs of Longtail Island, and just allowed the situation to develop.
At this time, he was more concerned about the construction of cement plants and other factories. Relatively simple brick factories, gravel factories, lime factories, etc. had been built and started mass production, and cement plants had also begun to be capped.
Only factories such as smelting plants and steel plants, which required higher craftsmanship, were still being built in full swing.
Hobert was very satisfied with this progress. After the completion of his first step plan, Longtail Island would have the ability to build on a large scale!
Returning to the Governor's Office, Hobert glanced at the rubber plantations that were in full swing, smiled slightly, and returned to Backlund.
...
Before you knew it, the harvest season had arrived.
For the farmers of South Colson, this year's harvest season was especially happy. The dozens of villages around Jeffrey City had long known that all the harvests in their fields belonged to them.
They would look at the golden wheat ears under the scorching sun, then "hehe" smile and continue to bury themselves in harvesting.
The people in the area west of the West Bank that had once been ruled by the Blood Sanctify Sect were told when they were about to harvest that if they did not continue to believe in demons, did not carve statues for them, and did not perform any sacrificial actions, the wheat in the fields would all belong to the owners of the wheat fields.
But if they wanted to continue to believe in demons, they could continue to believe, but all the harvests in the fields would be taken over by the town government.
For several months, the people had not been exposed to anything about demons. Most people's spirits had returned to normal, and even those whose mental bodies still had some problems had calmed down and regained their enthusiasm and hope for life.
So they basically chose to leave the wheat behind and chose a future that looked pretty good.
So the town government on the west bank of Full Moon Lake seized the opportunity to strike while the iron was hot, and the policy of redistributing land was not so difficult to implement.
The East Bank also took advantage of the harvest season to tell everyone that they would not collect any agricultural taxes, but because the city government had a large shortage of food, it would purchase the excess grain from the people at market prices.
Most areas completed the process of land distribution in an atmosphere of joy.
This made Hobert feel that his potion had been digested a lot, which proved that everyone felt the huge changes in this area, and also proved that his rule over the South Colson area was more solid.
In this harvest season, on the west bank of Full Moon Lake, when everyone was resting at noon, an old man found a corpse in the wheat field, but when the old man went to ask the village chief Mike to come, the corpse was gone.
If it weren't for the traces of the corpse pressed out in the wheat field, everyone would have thought that the old man was mistaken.
In the end, people thought that maybe a passerby was tired and lay down in the wheat field to rest, but was awakened by the old man, so the passerby left.
This Mike was directly sent down from the town government. He had undergone many trainings and was a relatively knowledgeable person in the local area.
He found that the place where the wheat was pressed down was under the scorching sun. If someone wanted to rest, they should be in the shade of a tree. Who would rest under the scorching sun?
The key was that Mike also found a clump of fishy and smelly mucus in the wheat field that had been pressed down, which seemed like blood but not blood.
Mike found a leaf, collected the mucus, and then told everyone that someone was tired and lay down in the field.
He also asked everyone to continue to harvest the wheat to avoid rainy weather.
But Mike took the mucus to the town government and handed it over to the security officer of the town government.
To Mike's surprise, one of the security officers told him that it was corpse fluid, and similar things had happened in several surrounding villages, and some people had seen people digging graves at night.
The security officer took Mike to a small office, where three young people, one woman and two men, were sitting wearing uniforms that were similar to the security officer's, but also different.
Two months ago, the Lord's Mansion had unified and standardized the uniforms in the territory, and even Mike had received two sets of uniforms for village-level cadres.
This made Mike feel that he was more energetic than before, but the uniform manual did not have the uniform style worn by the three people sitting opposite him.
The leading man smiled and said: "It can be seen that you are a careful grassroots worker. You have even discovered that our uniform styles are a little different.
"We are a special department in the Lord's Mansion, specializing in solving the strange things you encounter."
Then he introduced himself: "My name is Monet, and I will ask you a few questions now. Did it happen at noon? Were there any other traces found around? Was that corpse a dead person from your village? Are there any other witnesses?"
Mike found these questions a little strange, but he still answered them one by one. After that, Monet thanked Mike and asked him to pay attention to the movements in the village after he went back. If he encountered similar situations again, he must report them in time.
The captain of the security team praised Mike a few words and told him that he would report his initiative to report this matter to the town government and record it in his monthly assessment.
Mike left very happily. On the way back, looking at the scene of harvesting wheat on both sides of the road, a heartfelt sense of pride once again arose from the bottom of his heart.
Turning over the mountain pass ahead was the village where he worked. He saw that some villages had already finished harvesting wheat. He felt that his village should also work harder and strive to finish harvesting tomorrow and start drying the day after tomorrow!
Mother Earth is above! It must be sunny these two days!
Crossing the mountain pass, the expression on Mike's face gradually stiffened. He saw that his village was lifeless, and some people had fallen at home! Some people had fallen in the fields!
Mike seemed to realize something and raised his foot to rush over.
"It's too late!" Monet's voice suddenly appeared behind Mike: "We were already too late when we found something was wrong."
Mike pointed to the people in the wheat field in the distance: "They..."
"Are all dead!"
Mike burst into tears: "Are all dead? Why? The young man Clee at the entrance of the village just got married, and Conra's wife just got pregnant. I also promised old Vit that I would invite him to drink in the town after I got paid..."
"Those demons just left a few months ago! Everything just had new hope!"
As he spoke, Mike slowly squatted down and cried with his head in his hands.
Monet sighed with emotion: "Some things are so hateful, they always give people a blow when there is just hope!"
He took out a bottle of wine: "I heard you like to drink, drink it, it's on me!"
Mike opened the bottle cap and took two gulps.
Raymond persuaded: "Take two more sips."
Mike was slightly stunned, feeling that the wine was not bad, so he took a few more sips.
Raymond crouched down, patting Mike's shoulder and saying, "There's something I have to tell you. Actually, you're already dead!"
Mike's eyes widened, and he finally remembered everything that had happened last night: "A... a cloud of black mist, enveloping the entire village!"
After saying that, Mike fell to the ground, motionless.
Raymond sighed and then said to the female officer, "Quick, go get Sir Dunn. This case is too strange; we can't handle it."
...
Hobert rested for half a day in Backlund and made some preparations. On the night he had agreed upon with 'The World' and 'The Hanged Man,' he put on his mask and used 'Travel' to arrive at the entrance of a cemetery in the suburbs of Bayam. This was their meeting place.
'The Hanged Man' Alger, with his rough blue hair, had already arrived. He smiled and said, "Long time no see!"
Hobert also smiled and said, "Long time no see."
At this moment, the space beside them was torn again, and Gehrman Sparrow, also known as Klein, with a cold expression, arrived last.
Hobert smiled and said, "Look, our great adventurer has arrived!"
"I'm not an adventurer anymore," Klein said, his face unchanging. "Are you all ready?"
Alger was slightly stunned: Didn't you say 'The Emperor' is a demigod? Isn't it impolite to not even smile?
Hobert wasn't angry, but said, "You should smile more, my friend. Is the burden of life about to crush you?
"How about I invite you to Feynapotter for a trip in a few days to relax?"
Klein glanced at Hobert, this time with some warmth in his eyes: "If I have time, I will go."
Alger immediately realized: They knew each other before, and they seemed quite familiar. That's right, they each represent two allied gods and should communicate often.
Then, Hobert and Klein both looked at Alger.
Alger immediately understood: "I know, I'll lead the way."
Klein put his hand on Alger's shoulder, the meaning was obvious, to have Hobert put his hand on his shoulder.
Hobert didn't do so: "The way we look, it's a bit like blind people traveling together."
Alger was stunned, it really did look like that: "Then you can put your hand on my other shoulder."
"That would look like we're escorting a prisoner," Hobert said. "How about this, I'll use 'Travel' to push you into the spirit world."
After discussing the formation, the three of them entered the spirit world together and quickly arrived at the target island.
Walking in front, Alger lit a lantern and explained, "If you come during the day, it's quite lively here. You can even see some bird-like creatures that only exist in myths and legends.
"But at night, the 'power' that dominates here seems to change, and many supernatural creatures hide themselves."
While listening to Alger's explanation, Klein also lit a lantern and asked Hobert, "Didn't you bring a lamp?"
"My night vision is very good," Hobert smiled. "When you become a demigod, you'll understand this feeling."
If it were before, he definitely wouldn't have said the second half of the sentence because it was very annoying.
But when Hobert realized he had to break through the rules he had set for himself, he consciously changed some of his habits.
After hearing Hobert say this, Klein and Alger smiled strangely one after another.
Alger cleared his throat, forcibly skipping the previous topic, he pointed to the front: "We follow this road into the forest, straight ahead, and we will reach the ancient ruins of unknown age.
"Along the way, we hunt supernatural creatures that we encounter and are capable of dealing with. The materials corresponding to those killed alone belong entirely to the killer. Those completed in cooperation are kept by Mr. Emperor, and after leaving here, they are distributed by means of rotation.
"And the order of selection is adjusted according to the specific contributions made."
The members of this team include a demigod and a crazy adventurer.
Alger, who had just been promoted to Sequence 5, was the weakest of them, so he first explained how to distribute the spoils to avoid unnecessary trouble during the trip.
Hobert nodded and said, "No problem."
He patted the leather bag hanging around his waist: "With it, the harvest this time can be handed over to me to the fullest."
Klein nodded indifferently, indicating that he also agreed with this way of distributing the spoils.
So the three of them, holding lanterns, began their exploration.
Klein walked in the front, Alger in the middle, and Hobert at the end.
The reason for this formation was that most of the dangers at night came from behind, so the only demigod in the team was placed at the rear.
After walking for a while, they saw that the trees in front became sparse.
Alger wondered, have we arrived at the ruins so quickly?
After walking a few more steps, they saw hunched or crawling figures.
These figures included humans, baboons, goats, and tigers. They were either holding stones or using their claws and teeth, constantly grinding the accumulated trees and rocks, seemingly building a palace.
Suddenly, these figures seemed to sense something, and at the same time, they stopped their movements. The next second, they turned around in unison and looked at the three outsiders.
Under the light of the lanterns and the moonlight, their faces were pale, their fur was withered, or their bodies were ulcerated. None of them looked alive.
Klein immediately realized that supernatural creatures were driving corpses to build a palace for themselves.
Then his gaze passed over them and saw a dark cave that sloped deep into the ground. The weeds around it were fallen, and several white feathers with pale yellow oil stains were scattered.
Hobert held the head of his staff in one hand and the body of the staff in the other: Did we encounter this guy right away?
Alger, who had also carefully observed for a while, hesitated for two seconds before suggesting, "I haven't seen a similar situation before, and I don't know the level of this Beyonder creature. How about we bypass it..."
Just as he was saying this, the ground suddenly trembled, as if something was turning over below.
Without thinking, Klein and Alger turned their heads and were about to run.
Hobert slowly drew his thin sword: "It seems that there are also Beyonders or Beyonder creatures among those corpses. They are left to you."
This made the two who were about to escape slightly stunned: That's right, we also have a demigod on our side, why are we running!
Then Klein looked at the thin sword in Hobert's hand. The material of the thin sword made him feel very familiar, and it seemed to have some connection with Azik's copper whistle.
Before he could take a closer look, a giant snake that a single person could not hug emerged from the dark cave. It had huge scales that were dark green and black, and exaggerated eyes that burned like flames.
In the gaps between the scales, white feathers covered with single yellow oil stains grew, and there were even a pair of thick wings that could be unfolded on its back.
The giant snake raised its body, watching the three figures who had broken into its territory.
Hobert smiled and greeted, "Quetzalcoatl, please hand over your Beyonder characteristics. I need a demigod butler!"
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