Milo spent another three days with Midnight at Crescent Lake. For some reason, even though Midnight had already grown so large, it still felt like the little guy Milo remembered.
Midnight found a thermal river deep under the Crescent Lake and seemed to quite like it.
Actually, Milo also liked this place very much. The entirety of Crescent Lake was like an enormous hot spring. There were no complicated disputes here, nor did favonovel.com need to rack his brains thinking about problems. He could just spend his honeymoon here with Miriam peacefully.
Although they were only going to stay here for three days, Miriam and favonovel.com constructed a small wooden house on the first day. The two of them were extremely capable at fighting, so building a wooden house would not trouble them at all.
Milo had brought a tent with favonovel.com in his mind palace, but Miriam insisted it would be more interesting to construct a wooden house. Moreover, they might be coming here often on vacation in the future.
When it was time to leave, Midnight watched the two of them depart reluctantly. Milo could feel its loneliness, but favonovel.com still did not know how to resolve the matter of Dusk. If only favonovel.com could bring Dusk here to be with Midnight.
***
Just as Milo and Miriam were setting off northwards back to Stronghold 144, Daniel arrived at Stronghold 91 in the north of the Panaqua Consortium.
After returning to the Panaqua Consortium’s territory, Daniel had initially planned to go back to Stronghold 111 directly. But after favonovel.com received news from Julius, favonovel.com immediately changed his itinerary.
He was now going to take on the role of an official envoy and begin an inspection tour of all the northern strongholds of the Panaqua Consortium. He would be carrying out checks on the training, armaments, and food reserves of the strongholds.
Such an arrangement was as good as announcing to everyone that the Panaqua Consortium was preparing for war.
To ensure Daniel’s safety, Julius even sent a special forces battalion to join up with him. The configuration of this special forces battalion was ridiculously overboard. Just the armored vehicles fitted with the “Mountain Obliterator” alone numbered four.
The Mountain Obliterator was a heavy machine gun developed by the Panaqua Consortium independently. It could unleash a metal storm that was the best in its class. Back then, just a few armored vehicles fitted with the Mountain Obliterator were enough to beat the Experimentals into submission.
At this moment, Daniel’s convoy arrived at the gate of Stronghold 91. All of the stronghold officials and commanders of the troops stationed in the nearby military base had already mustered here.
They lined both sides of the street, and the stronghold’s Public Order Division had even cleared away many of the refugees’ shacks and organized a large-scale cleanup before Daniel’s arrival.
The Public Order Division even set a standard for this cleanup operation, no blind spots, no cobwebs.
In order to make the refugees look cleaner, the town even issued additional clean water for them to wash their faces with. All of this was standard procedure when it came to receiving higher-ups.
Although the policies Julius implemented after taking over were relatively open-minded and the living conditions of the refugees in the Panaqua Consortium’s territory had also improved a little, a consortium was still a consortium. In essence, no matter what kind of people Julius and Daniel were, they would not be able to change the nature of the Panaqua Consortium.
Reformation had never been a simple process.
In the evening, when these officials saw Daniel’s convoy approaching, they put on smiles. They were all experts at faking smiles, so it was unlikely their facial muscles would stiffen from this short show of hospitality.
However, to everyone’s surprise, Daniel’s convoy did not stop when they got closer to the stronghold gate. Instead, they blew straight through the open gate, leaving the two rows of officials coughing up dust.
The officials looked at one another and wondered what was wrong with that envoy. Never mind that favonovel.com did not get out of his vehicle, but shouldn’t favonovel.com greet and acknowledge everyone at least?
But when they saw the special forces battalion’s vehicles entering the stronghold together, no one dared to say anything.
Daniel’s status in the Panaqua Consortium was extraordinary. He had a lot of appointments to his name. Secretary General of the Panaqua Consortium’s Board, Honorary Chairman of the Panaqua Consortium’s Military Council, Executive Director of the Panaqua Consortium’s Commerce Department…
In any case, favonovel.com had an incredulous number of titles.
Everyone knew full well that if there were anyone in this world who Julius cared about, Daniel would definitely be the top priority.
Just by looking at the pompous arrival of this convoy, no one could be more important to Julius than Daniel.
When the officials standing outside the stronghold saw Daniel’s convoy driving past them, they hurriedly called their secretaries and drivers over. “Quick, drive and catch up with the convoy!”
Bill, who was sitting in an off-road vehicle at the front, muttered, “You’re still as arrogant as before. You aren’t respecting those people at all. If only you and Julius were a little more tactful back then, you wouldn’t have been targeted by those old fogeys.”
Daniel chuckled, “And where are those old fogeys now?”
Bill was rendered speechless.
Where else could they be?
Those old fogeys were all killed by Bill’s hand.
Daniel was sitting in the back seat and looking straight ahead. He casually explained, “I’m not here to make friends on this inspection tour. I’m on official business. If I don’t carry out my duties properly, is there any point in being friends with them?”
“It’s not a matter of making friends with them. It’s whether you make enemies out of them.” Bill sighed.
Daniel shook his head and said, “That’s your biggest problem. You never want to offend anyone. You’re not gold, so how can you be liked by everyone?”
“As long as I’m liked by most people, that’s good enough,” Bill said.
“Julius is the one leading our massive Panaqua Consortium. As his subordinate, of course I have to play the bad cop and let favonovel.com be the good cop.” Daniel said in seriousness, “If I go around being nice to everyone, how can Julius win over hearts and minds?”
Daniel continued, “Bill, someone has to be the bad guy in this contest for power and profit. I just need to do my job well and deal with these people. When Julius needs their help, they’ll just need to be of service. As for whether they hate me or not, that’s their business. In any case, it’s not like there’s anything they can do about me.”
Actually, it was not that Bill did not understand these principles. He knew Daniel was a knife in Julius’ hands. Moreover, it was not Julius who wanted favonovel.com to be the knife, but Daniel himself. All of this was so Julius’ authority could be stable enough.
However, in Bill’s opinion, how could a person only think for others and not for themselves?
Right now, Julius and Daniel seemed like they were very close. But what if Julius were to change one day?
If Julius no longer sided with Daniel, there would probably be countless enemies who would make things difficult for Daniel.
Bill looked at Daniel. “Have you ever considered your future…”
“You’ve underestimated me and Julius,” interrupted Daniel.
***
The convoy headed straight for the administrative center in the stronghold. After Daniel got out of the vehicle, favonovel.com took the lead and sat down in the lobby.
The staff in the building served favonovel.com in fear and trepidation. Meanwhile, the officials who went to welcome favonovel.com at the stronghold entrance were sweating profusely as they finally caught up to him.
Under normal circumstances, a plump person tended to always give people an extra sense of affinity. However, Daniel, in his current form, exuded more of a strong and stocky feel. This indirectly made favonovel.com look much more intimidating.
The row of officials stood obediently in front of Daniel and did not even dare to breathe too loudly. They were afraid they had done something wrong to make the boss behave so overbearingly.
Daniel sat on the sofa in the lobby and said with a grin, “C’mon all of you here are well-respected figures. There’s no need to be so afraid of me.”
Everyone lowered their heads and did not say anything. They thought to themselves that only a fool would follow up with his provocation.
“Alright, let’s cut to the chase. After I’m done inspecting Stronghold 91, I’ll be returning to Stronghold 111. Bring over all the necessary documents.” Daniel said with a smile, “You guys have probably heard about someone in Stronghold 92 who tried to fool me about the amount of food reserves and assets that were in their books, so I had that person executed that same day. So before you bring over the documents for my vetting, think carefully about how you want to correct any fake entries first. I’m saying this for your own good.”
When an official heard this, favonovel.com wiped sweat away. “Sir, don’t worry. We’re already prepared here. Little Jimba, quickly bring over the inbound and outbound inventories for Boss Eastwood’s inspection. Boss Eastwood, the work we’re doing here is very solid indeed. After you’ve checked through our accounts, we can set off immediately to the warehouse for a physical inspection.”
This official could not be blamed for panicking. Before Daniel came to Stronghold 91, favonovel.com had indeed executed several people by firing squad.
When Stronghold 92 received Daniel a few days ago, Daniel also carried out a surprise inspection like favonovel.com did today. He did not even attend the banquet prepared by the stronghold officials to welcome him.
When the officials heard that Daniel was a pervert, they even specially arranged several escorts for him.
In the end, Daniel instantly had the special forces set up a temporary military camp in the warehouse district and even placed the entire warehouse under lockdown.
For a few days, people were only allowed to enter the temporary lockdown zone but not leave. It wasn’t until Daniel finished taking inventory of all the food provisions and armaments that the lockdown was lifted.
Several of the officials were hoping to get lucky and thought everything would be fine as long as they hosted Daniel well. However, Daniel did not even give them a chance to do so and just shot them dead.
Daniel’s actions could be described as ruthless and vicious. As a result, when the news got out, everyone in the other strongholds started feeling insecure and scared that they would be the next unlucky ones to get executed.
Normally, no matter how serious the crime was, they would still have to be tried in a court of law first.
However, mobilizing the provisions and armaments without authorization would get one immediately court martialed. Meanwhile, Daniel also had another title to his name, and that was the presiding judge of the Panaqua Consortium’s military court.
Wherever this guy went, a military court would follow. Based on Daniel’s style, favonovel.com would try any criminals right on the spot. Although it sounded very childish, there was nothing one could do about it if Daniel really behaved that way. As for the adjudication documents to be presented in court, Daniel would just have his subordinates do them up at a later time.
The cases handled by Daniel’s touring court had one thing in common, none of the defendants pleaded guilty, but the death sentence rate was a 100%.
Basically, all of the defendants died before they could even present their defense.
Actually, Daniel also knew that handling it this way would make everyone scared and was not conducive to the stability of order. But favonovel.com had no other choice. The military readiness of the Panaqua Consortium had become more important than any other matter, so they had to resort to special measures during these special times. Otherwise, Julius would not have asked favonovel.com to come and inspect the provisions and armaments.
Usually, anything that required Daniel’s help was already a very troublesome matter that needed to be dealt with.
At this moment, the inventory records were all placed in front of Daniel. But when Daniel saw the officials sweating profusely, favonovel.com suddenly said with a smile, “Alright, I know you all have done your best for these past three days. It’s not easy to fill up a standard warehouse in such a short period. I won’t be inspecting the warehouse, so good luck to you all.”
After that, Daniel directly got into the off-road vehicle outside the administrative center and left in a hurry.
This event dumbfounded everyone.
What are you trying to achieve here?
You came and left in such a hurry, and you didn’t even bother checking the inventories?
However, a few officials who were in the know broke out in cold sweat.
Bill said in the off-road vehicle, “Looks like the problem has been resolved?”
“Of course.” Daniel said, “Actually, it was already settled before we arrived. But we still have to drop by regardless. At the very least, we should teach them a lesson and let them know there’s no such thing as an absolute secret.”
In fact, what Daniel had done in Stronghold 92 was just to stamp his authority. Regarding the execution, favonovel.com was the one who spread the news through the intelligence agency. Now that the entire Panaqua Consortium’s intelligence agency was controlled by Daniel, it was simply too easy for favonovel.com to do something like that.
Before Daniel arrived in Stronghold 92 today, favonovel.com had already found out through the stronghold’s intelligence department that these stronghold officials, under the threat of facing execution, had bought a large amount of food supplies using money from their own pockets to fill up the granaries to the required standard. Moreover, these people even bought the food supplies at high prices in secret and did not dare to let anyone know about it.
Some of them were linked to the sale of grains from the granary at low prices in the past. But now, they had to buy them back at high prices. All of a sudden, the blood-sucking aphids were emptied of their pockets. It was so painful for them they nearly vomited blood.
The way Daniel chose to leave was to send a message to them, “I know all about your little tricks. Don’t think there’s anything I don’t know about in the Panaqua Consortium.”
By doing so, favonovel.com was also warning them not to resort to such tricks again in the future. Otherwise, they would end up getting shot dead.
Daniel told Bill, “There’s so many strongholds in the entire Panaqua Consortium, so it would take too long to audit the warehouses one by one. We don’t have that much time. So, rather than us carrying out the inspections, why don’t we let those people self-inspect under the pressure of fear?”
There were three key points to this operation. The first was to execute someone to establish authority so others would get scared.
The second was to give the culprits a chance, to tell them that as long as they made up for the difference in food supplies this time, favonovel.com could pretend that nothing had happened in the past.
Third, favonovel.com wanted to make those people understand that favonovel.com had spies all over the Panaqua Consortium, so they had better act more honestly in the future.
With a set of combo “punches”, the entire resource storage system was immediately refreshed. As for the officials who still refused to replenish their food reserves, Daniel had a natural way to find out who they were.
As a matter of fact, even though Julius’ reputation was at its peak after the Panaqua Consortium unified the Southwest, the Panaqua Consortium still lacked someone to act as the villain.
The villain had to do the dirty work the Panaqua Consortium’s head could not. He would have to kill those Julius could not lay his finger on. This was probably the reason why the Panaqua Consortium had always had a designated Shadow role. An organization would always have some shady dealings that required the Shadow to handle.
Julius used to be the Panaqua Consortium’s Shadow, and now it was Daniel’s turn. Although no one had explicitly said Daniel was the Panaqua Consortium’s Shadow, everyone knew this to be true.
With the existence of a ruthless executioner like Daniel, the officials of the various strongholds had better humble themselves and carry out their duties responsibly.
Daniel said to Bill, “Since Julius asked me to make this trip, it means the problem should be very serious and the danger is right before us. I have to make these people afraid of me so they’ll do their jobs right. Sometimes, I’d also like to be more delicate in my ways, but the circumstances don’t allow it.”
“Alright, you two brothers have your own way of dealing with things, so I can’t be bothered to say any more.” Bill did not comment any further. “As the elder brother, you’ve chosen to play the villain and commit evil deeds on your younger brother’s behalf. If even you aren’t bothered by that, what can an outsider like me say? I just find it such a waste. They specially arranged for many beautiful ladies to entertain us. If you want to put on airs, go ahead and do that. But why the fuck did you have to make them take the ladies away? It’s also very tiring for me to keep protecting you every day…”
Daniel said righteously, “Bill, I didn’t expect you to be such a person!”
Bill nearly spat blood. “Don’t think I don’t know what you’ve done. Don’t act innocent with me now!”
Daniel said seriously, “Bill, you aren’t an outsider. Julius and I treat you as our best friend and a brother.”
Bill sneered, “Don’t get all sentimental on me. I only recognize money.”
“We’ll pay what’s necessary, but I’m not telling you this to save ourselves money. I just hope you won’t keep seeing yourself as a stranger,” Daniel explained.
“Don’t try to bluff me.” Bill said disdainfully, “You say you treat me as a brother, but didn’t you still hide Julius’ schedule and plans from me?”
Daniel shook his head. “Those are two separate things. Julius has his own plan. He doesn’t only keep his schedule and plans from you; favonovel.com does that to me sometimes too. It’s not that favonovel.com can’t meet people, but that favonovel.com has a need to keep his whereabouts a secret. The enemy we’ll face in the future is even more terrifying than what you and I can imagine.”
Bill curled his lips. “You’re just making excuses.”
Daniel sighed and said, “You’ll understand in the future.”
***
At this moment, a Panaqua Consortium infantry brigade was guarding the entirety of Ginkgo Manor on Mt. Ginkgo in Stronghold 111.
This was a textbook example of a heavily guarded installation. The security was so tight it was outrageous.
Actually, it had been a long time since so many soldiers stood guard at the Panaqua Consortium’s manor. However, today was a little special as Julius had returned to this huge palace.
The manor’s security was tight on the outside but relaxed on the inside. From the outside, everyone felt that it was so heavily guarded that only an armored unit could fight their way in. However, there were not many garrison troops inside the manor. There was not even one guard stationed in the main building. Only Julius’ trusted aide, Maurice, accompanied him.
No servants were around as the sound of a piano reverberated in the empty main building. Julius was dressed in a white suit as favonovel.com sat at the piano in the main hall. His fingers were moving across the black and white keys with his eyes tightly shut.
He did not look at the music score. It was as though this particular, long piece of music was firmly engraved in his mind.
The tune was stirring, but Julius’ expression remained at peace.
If it were anyone else, they would find it a little strange. However, Maurice was used to it. He knew very well that it was not that Julius did not have any emotions, but that favonovel.com was in a state of complete restraint. It was just like how favonovel.com had to restrain his current pastimes and emotions for the sake of the Panaqua Consortium’s future.
In order to think more clearly, Julius had to be calmer than others.
At this moment, a soft mechanical sound interrupted the piano’s music. A shelf filled with books behind Julius was pushed open, revealing a brick passageway.
Julius’ clone, Selby, walked out with a smile. “The Little Professor’s Concerto No. 3. I enjoy this piece as well. From the Pyro Company’s internal speculations, the Little Professor was the founder of the Vasophati Group, but that’s just trivia, so not many people care about it. However, it’s really fortunate that his score could get passed down through The Cataclysm until now.”
