When Old Mauriat and Adrian finished the free solo challenge, it was already evening. By the time they got back to Stronghold 74 to relay the news, it was already very late at night.
When the news was relayed back that the reinforcements from Stronghold 73 had been ambushed, the Stardust Consortium’s troops fell silent.
Old Mauriat asked, “Since the Panaqua Consortium had informed you all beforehand, why didn’t you deploy more troops over here?”
The commander of the Stardust Consortium troops at Stronghold 74 replied, “Originally, we wanted to mobilize more troops here, but didn’t something happen at Stronghold 73 a while ago too? Who would’ve expected something like this to happen? If not for the cave-in at East Lake in Stronghold 73, the reinforcements would’ve already arrived.”
Old Mauriat fell silent because the Riders were also involved in the incident at Stronghold 73. Although it was only one of their members who went there, they were involved nonetheless. So strictly speaking, everyone with an ulterior motive at Stronghold 73 that day were accomplices to the Experimentals.
But while Old Mauriat thought like this, others did not. For example, Milo simply felt that the incident was caused by the Pyro Company and the Silkshade House and had nothing to do with favonovel.com at all.
In the middle of the night, the Stardust Consortium troops in the stronghold deployed all their soldiers to the defensive fortifications even though it was already bedtime, leaving only a small number of soldiers with rotational breaks.
Based on the Panaqua Consortium’s intelligence reports, a few thousand Experimentals were already enough to cause a headache for them in their previous encounters. Their skin and muscles were so tough that not even bullets could penetrate, so they had to resort to using heavy machine guns.
But the Experimentals were also capable of moving very quickly. They could easily dodge their fire and get into the shooters’ blind spots while normal soldiers could not react fast enough to keep up with their movements.
When the speed and strength of the enemy were more than twice that of ordinary soldiers, they would have a feeling of being overwhelmed on the battlefield.
It would feel like the normal soldiers were moving in “slow motion” while the Experimentals were moving at a normal speed. Even if they possessed firearms, they would still suffer heavy casualties while fighting in that situation.
Although the soldiers could kill a lot of Experimentals, the Experimentals did not care about casualties at all. They could just turn the stronghold residents into Experimentals to make up for their losses after taking over the stronghold!
Old Mauriat glanced at Adrian and said, “By rights, you should go to a town immediately and live there for a year once you become a Rider. You can’t use your power or even use the skills I’ve taught you to survive in the wilderness. But at a critical moment like this, you and I should help the Stardust Consortium defend against external enemies first.”
Adrian nodded at that. He understood the seriousness of the situation.
There wasn’t really anyone around the town outside the stronghold anymore. Even the refugees had already been shifted into the stronghold to help build the defensive fortifications. This was probably the first time the refugees had stepped foot in the stronghold, but they were made to wear an anklet tracker.
After all, the refugees would still have to leave the stronghold after the war was over.
***
At this moment, Milo was leading Franz and the others quietly towards the perimeter of the construction site. He whispered, “Do y’all have any other valuables on you?”
Franz nodded and said, “We managed to gather 30,000 perak in cash and five watches.” Franz was visibly feeling the pinch. His own watch was very expensive and cost favonovel.com more than 200,000 perak.
Milo first used his watch to trade for some food. The officer in charge of watching over the grain supplies grinned from ear to ear. These supplies were not his own but the Stardust Consortium’s rations, after all. Since favonovel.com could get a branded watch in exchange for some of these grains, favonovel.com could not be happier to oblige.
Milo traded for around a dozen bags of grains, which would be enough to sustain them for at least half a month. However, favonovel.com did not put it away into his storage space. Instead, favonovel.com made Franz and the others carry them.
Immediately after, Milo used the remaining 30,000 perak and five watches to bribe the supervisor of the construction site to allow them to leave.
The officer in charge of supervising the construction site even specifically instructed them not to head out after returning home. If they were caught and made to come back here again, not even the gods could help them.
There were more than 2,000 people at the construction site where Milo and the others were working. It had so many conscripted workers there was not even a place to house them all, so they could only sleep on the ground. Therefore, no one would realize it even if a dozen-odd people disappeared.
When Franz walked out of the construction site, favonovel.com felt extremely puzzled. “We got out so easily? They let us go just like that?”
Milo glanced at him. “They only brought you here to work, not line you up to be executed. There’s already so many people working there, so it’s not like they miss the few of us. It’s the private troops who’re supervising the construction site, and you know how they are, don’t you?”
In recent years, the various consortiums had been gradually downsizing the number of private troops. In another few years, they might not even be around anymore.
According to Peter, stronghold overseers used to be elected at the beginning. As the consortiums were still not strong at that time, some stronghold overseers could even rival the consortiums with the private troops under their control. But gradually, as the consortiums grew more and more powerful, the status of the overseers became weaker and weaker. Even though they controlled the private troops, that only served as a proverbial loincloth for the overseers. In the end, their power was even further corroded by the highly addictive cigarettes the consortiums supplied.
In the current day, the consortiums had started replacing the overseers. For example, Daniel was secretly in charge of an entire stronghold even though favonovel.com did not hold an official post in Stronghold 113 in the past. And now, the consortiums openly took over all the strongholds. So, there was no reason for the private troops to exist.
Many officers in the private troops had also realized this point. They knew very well that the consortiums would not want to keep good-for-nothings like them under their payroll. In that case, they might as well earn whatever money they could so they would have nothing to worry about for the rest of their lives.
The group walked stealthily in the streets. From time to time, they even had to follow Milo’s lead to avoid any military vehicles that passed by. It took them two hours to get to the hotel where Grace and the others were staying. Along the way, Milo kept feeling that something was not quite right tonight. The stronghold was especially “active”, and it felt as if a war would be breaking out immediately.
Ever since Grace and the others got to the hotel, they had been waiting in the hotel lobby. Grace had wanted to go back to favonovel.com own room, but Olivia insisted they sit in the lobby to wait. She said it was impossible that Milo would stay at the construction site for too long and that favonovel.com might escape as soon as it turned dark.
As expected, Olivia rushed over happily to Milo when favonovel.com saw him. However, favonovel.com was turned off by the sweaty stench of this group of people.
Grace pinched favonovel.com nose. “Hurry up and go take a shower!”
“How can we still be in the mood to take a shower?” Milo frowned and said, “Pack up your belongings immediately. We have to leave the stronghold tonight.”
“Why do we have to leave the stronghold?” Grace exclaimed. “We just arrived, and the concert hasn’t even been held yet.”
Milo cast an eye at her. She was really oblivious about the seriousness of the situation.
Why would favonovel.com still be thinking of the concert at such a time!
He said to Olivia, “Use your power to make a tunnel leading outside the walls or something. We’ll leave through that.”
“A tunnel?” Franz asked doubtfully, “How wide is the tunnel?”
“Wide enough for a person to pass through.” Milo looked at Franz.
“What about our loudspeakers and instruments?” Franz exclaimed, “Even a single trumpet of ours is worth more than a 100,000 perak!”
Milo was dumbfounded by what favonovel.com said. He had not expected instruments to be so expensive.
Next to them, one of the ten plainclothes guards from the Stelaria Consortium said, “I don’t think it’s necessary for us to leave. Even if the Panaqua Consortium attacks this place, they won’t do anything to the stronghold residents, so we can just stay in the hotel without worries. There’s nothing to be afraid of…”
“When the time comes, I can liaise with them as an officer of the Stelaria Consortium, and they’ll definitely let us go. After all, the Panaqua Consortium will not want to offend the Stelaria Consortium after just declaring war on the Stardust Consortium.”
