Chapter 224 (1/2)

Chapter 224 Launching the Rescue plan

After learning that His Highness’ side had a method to cure the demonic plague, Theo’s irritable mood finally calmed down.

Once there was something he could busy himself with, the following days seemed to go by a lot faster.

In addition to his visits to the wine estates at the outskirts of King’s City, he also planned the route for the convoy, while keeping the topography of the area around the canal’s pier and the city gate in mind.

Nowadays, wanting to enter the city had become quite a hassle, using the refugees outside of King’s City as the reason, all the major city gates had been sealed. In this way prohibiting any outsider from entering the city, especially after the Church had begun to distribute the Holy Elixir. After the refugees became aware of this, they began to desperately attack the city gates every day. Hoping to be allowed to go to the church for treatment. However, the guards stationed at the wall responded without hesitation and flocked them with crossbow bolts. The result was, that by now many corpses were lying in front of the city gates and rotting under the scorching sun, spreading an unpleasant odor.

The only open gate was a side gate limited to the use of the nobility and the merchants who brought the food. Fortunately, Theo had worked in the patrol for some time and because of that he was known by most of the guards as a native of King’s City, allowing him to go through the gate with just a simple greeting.

It was precisely because of this quarantine, that both the inner and outer city lost almost all contact, so even when they had transported the refugees away with great fanfare, the news of it had difficulties spread into the inner city. Not to mention that the upper nobility were anxiously waiting for someone to ship all the refugees from the Eastern Region away. And save them from later having to suppress a rebellion.

Theo roughly understood why His Highness had set out on the same day he had received the letter. All these people outside of the city felt as if they had been abandoned by their King. So, in case the Church sent out some priest to heal them, they would become their most faithful of believers.

But if His Highness could arrive before the Church could grab them, these people would instead be pulled to his side. There was no doubt that after healing them and offering them a new place to stay, they would become His Highness most fanatical of supporters.

On the morning of the fourth day, the returning first fleet arrived at the canal’s pier on time. Theo was surprised to discover that His Highness had sent as many as 300 soldiers of the First Army. Who were furthermore all dressed in their standard uniform and armed with revolver rifles. With this powerful contingent as a safeguard, even if the Church came to know about them, he estimated that they would still be unable to prevent the refugees from leaving.

“Lightning!” Margaret who also waited at the pier immediately shouted when she saw the little girl’s figure, unable to containing herself from going forward and hugging her.

“This is…?” Iron Axe asked.

“The owner of the Grand Chamber of Commerce, Ms. Margaret,” Theo explained, “All the ships we need for the transportation will be provided by her or a partner of her’s, without her we would never be able to implement His Highness plan.”

“So, it was like this,” After understanding the situation Iron Axe nodded to her. “Thank you for your help.”

“I’ll deduct all my expense from His Highness fee,” Margaret merely shrugged. “But when you’re thanking me, you should also thank Lightning.”

Lightning crooked head and asked confused, “Why me?”

“Keke, it’s nothing.” Theo coughed twice. “What are you going to do next?”

“Next we will set up a camp in the south of the dock to control the area, and then in the afternoon we will start the rescue mission.” Iron Axe said, “If the ships could be here by then, that would be for the best.”

*

When Brian led his men into the refugee area, he could not help but frown.

Everywhere he looked he saw dying people. Their skin had split open at many places, with black blood continuously flowing out of them and attracting swarms of flies. However, those ill people didn’t even have the strength left to drive the insects off, simply letting these flying insects crawl all over their body and drink of their blood.

Seeing all this, he couldn’t help but think of the Months of Demons, when the people of Border Town were trapped in the slums of Longsong Stronghold. Having to face death by hunger and coldness, but being utterly helpless against it. If all this was really done by the Church, it was a simply unforgivable crime.

“Let’s call the first group,” Brian said. “We depend on you, Miss Echo.”

If they rashly went within the crowd and announced that they were in possession of medicine to cure the ill, it would most likely cause a ruckus. And when a large group of refugees went into the direction of the docks all at once, their small group of dozens of people would simply not be enough to suppress them. Because of this, they had to make sure that the information was always only spread to a select small groups at the same time. Considering this problem, His Highness had decided to specially sent Miss Echo along. With her ability, Echo was able to control the area within which her voice would be heard, or she could also just put her voice next to a person’s ear.