Just as Leo analyzed, the negotiations in Tuskin Town about martial law hindering the town's business went smoothly. The militia group enforcing martial law also knew that they were going too far by making money on the pretext of martial law. If they continued,
It will definitely make people angry.
Although the militiamen here are all transferred from other towns in the French Empire, if something happens they can be transferred away from here to avoid disaster, but they are also worried that if they really offend these people in Rabbit Town
, maybe if they are transferred to other places, these people will find an opportunity to kill them, and then they will have money but no life to spend.
However, they are not willing to let these militiamen give up this great opportunity unconditionally.
In the past, the militiamen of Tuskin Town were definitely a group of people at the lowest level in the town. The mercenary guards of the caravans and the hunters who walked in the black forest all year round were not easy targets. Those caravans had a big background.
There are no permanent residents here, so they have no money to make money at all, only the meager military pay.
Now the opportunity has come. With the martial law order issued by the military as their backing, they can use the military as an excuse to negotiate terms with the Tupi Town Council to improve their treatment.
Naturally, the ideas of these militiamen cannot escape the eyes of the cunning members of the town council. Due to military reasons, they do not dare to push these militiamen too hard and are willing to spend some money to end this unnecessary disaster as soon as possible.
The only question is how much it will cost.
The members of the town council said that they would directly give a sum of money to understand the matter, but the militiamen were not stupid. They preferred to keep the water flowing smoothly, so they requested that a sum of money be withdrawn from the commercial tax every month for the construction of the militia group.
The two sides persisted on this issue for a day, and finally reached a consensus when the sun was about to set. The tax officer could collect an additional one-thousandth of the commercial tax from Tuskin Town. This one-thousandth of the commercial tax would be
Used for militia group construction.
As for martial law, although it will not be lifted on the surface, in fact it will no longer be enforced. How it was checked in the past remains the same now.
After reaching a consensus, the militia captain opened the wooden door of the town, and the tax collector and the speaker of the parliament came out together to announce the results of the negotiation. Because it also involves an additional tax of one thousandth, it is necessary to obtain the largest commercial share of the town.
Several large chambers of commerce agreed.
For these chambers of commerce, an additional one-thousandth of a percent of commercial tax is simply a drop in the bucket compared to their daily income from small town business. After all, the bulk of their business has never been a legitimate business that needs to pay commercial tax.
Smuggling all kinds of contraband is the real big profit.
The martial law issued by the military is like a shackle for these chambers of commerce. If it cannot be lifted as soon as possible, their losses will be inestimable, and they may even offend some big shots because some customers' orders cannot be completed.
Based on the past conflicts between the Kingdom of England and the Empire of France, various chambers of commerce feel that this war between the two countries may last for a long time, so they hope more than anyone else that martial law can be lifted.
Because of this, after discussing for a while, the directors of the major chambers of commerce finally agreed to the one-thousandth additional business tax.
As the gate of the town was completely opened, the caravans who had been waiting impatiently at the Carriage Square began to pour in.
Leo and the other three also blended into the crowd and entered Rabbit Skin Town.
I don’t know what the people who built Rabbit Skin Town thought at the time. The houses in the town were built randomly, with no rules such as vertical and horizontal directions. This also made the internal roads of the town very confusing, giving people the feeling of entering.
The illusion of a maze. People who come here for the first time will definitely get lost if they don’t have a guide.
This is not the first time Nelson has come to Rabbit Skin Town. Although several years have passed since the last time he came here, some buildings have been added here, but several main places in the town have remained unchanged, such as the high school he is going to now.
Tower Hotel.
Although the Tower Hotel is called a Tower, it is not high. It has only two floors. The first floor is a tavern and shop, and the second floor is a hotel. The appearance of the hotel is also an ordinary manor-style hotel, and there is nothing special about it.
place, but in fact this is where the black market of Tuskin Town is located, and all contraband flows out from here.
Nelson led Leo and Jason to the hotel, greeted the hotel lobby manager skillfully, and used his status as a doctor to grab a room from other mercenaries who had booked a room.
After arriving at the hotel room, the three of them freshened up, checked the wounds on their bodies, changed their medicines, took a short rest, and left the room after dark, heading to the black market downstairs.
Although it is called the Black Market, it is not really dark here. Instead, it is decorated with a large number of high-brightness oil lamps, making the place light as bright as day.
The black market is located in the small garden behind the first floor of the hotel. Contraband goods are traded in the garden. Neither party takes the money or goods with them. Only after reaching an agreement will they go to the hiding place to view the goods and complete the transaction.
There are dozens of shops around the small garden, and most of the shops here sell high-end items and some special items.
After Nelson brought Leo and Jason to the small garden, he walked directly towards a store with a herbal medicine brand, opened a glass door and walked into the store.
Although the name of this store indicates that it sells herbal medicine, in fact it is more like a grocery store. Except for a medicine cabinet with hundreds of drawers on the right side of the door, none of the other items around it are related to medicine.
The owner of this shop is an old man who wears the badge of a medical herbalist. His clothes are a bit old and he doesn't look like the kind of person who can open a shop in this kind of place.
When the boss, who was originally a little bored, saw Nelson, he felt like meeting an old friend. He stood up, hugged him affectionately, and then asked about his current situation. Nelson also behaved very respectfully, as if he were facing a teacher.
Likewise, they answered the boss's questions one by one without hiding anything, even telling them that they were soldiers of the Kingdom of England.
When Nelson revealed their identities, Jason was about to stop him, but was stopped by Leo. He felt that Nelson was not the kind of person who didn't know the seriousness of the matter. For him, the other party was obviously trustworthy. Moreover, Leo also
He is not worried that the old man will reveal anything. He is fully confident that he can solve the problem before the other party makes any move that is not beneficial to him.
"Damn Duke Devin! How dare he do this? How dare he do this!" After hearing that Duke Devin's army actually used imine gas, the old man became extremely angry. He clenched his hands, gritted his teeth, and had blue veins on his forehead.
It all came out, as if he were a victim of poisonous gas.
Leo was a little puzzled by the extraordinary anger displayed by the old man. Nelson on the side took the initiative to explain: "It was Mr. Pierre who took the lead in adding the ban on the use of imine poison gas in war to the Continental Agreement." Then he lowered his voice.
The voice said: "The teacher's daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter all died from imine gas, so..."
Having said this, Nelson stopped talking and waited quietly for the old man to calm down.
After a while, the old man gradually calmed down, looked at Nelson, and said in a deep voice: "You just said you were going to Milia City to accuse Duke Devin, right?"
"Yes, teacher."
The old man thought for a while and said: "I can help you. I will write a letter and you can hand him over to Lord Vesemir of the Tribunal of the Continental Congress. It should be able to have some effect."
After saying that, the old man walked to the counter, took out a pen and paper, and started writing quickly on the table.
Leo walked around the store a little bored, casually looking at the products placed on the table and in the display cabinets.
"High-energy items found." When Leo walked to a pile of pendants and necklaces that looked like some kind of religious ornaments, the assistant brain system suddenly and automatically issued a prompt, causing him to stop.
"High energy item location display."
A light point appeared in Leo's eyes as he issued the order, and the light point was located right among the messy religious ornaments.
Leo reached out and searched among the pile of accessories, and soon found the high-energy item prompted by the assistant brain system.
This item is a necklace of rough workmanship. The necklace strap is woven from the hair of a wild animal. The pendant is a wooden sign. The wooden sign is engraved with some chaotic lines that feel disordered. This necklace is ordinary.
Even if it was thrown on the ground, no one would pick it up. If it hadn't been prompted by the assistant brain system, I'm afraid Leo wouldn't have given this necklace a second look.
After learning that this rough necklace was a high-energy item, Leo not only wanted to find out what was special about this necklace, so he carefully looked at every part of the necklace, and finally his eyes fell on that piece.
On the wooden sign that is dissatisfied with the messy lines.
I don't know if it was an illusion, but Leo found that when he concentrated on staring at the wooden sign, the lines on the wooden sign seemed to come alive, wandering around on the surface, forming strange patterns, and these patterns
He didn't know why, but he felt an inexplicable nausea, as if someone was stirring his brain with a stick.
"What is this?" At this time, Jason saw Leo holding the necklace and looking at it for a long time. He couldn't help but stepped forward and asked curiously.
"A fun little gadget."
Jason's questioning voice drew Leo's attention away from the ever-changing lines on the wooden sign, and his mind, which was a little confused by the lines, recovered.
At this time, when he looked at the lines on the wooden sign, he no longer had the strange feeling. If the nausea had not dissipated, and if the accessory brain system was still reminding him that the wooden sign was a high-energy item, he might have misunderstood what had just happened.
things as hallucinations.
"Compile the physical activity data from three minutes ago!" Leo ordered the assistant brain system, and soon the data was projected on his eyeballs.
By comparing the data, he found that just now his brain had entered an active period that was thirty times the normal level. Such an intense active period had never happened before.
Moreover, the data also showed that his body had suffered an extremely subtle dose of radiation just now. However, this radiation did not seem to cause any harm to his body. Instead, it had some stimulating effects on the cells in his body, causing
Some of the wounds on his body were completely healed.
"How much does this necklace cost?" Leo took the necklace, walked up to the old man, and asked.
Seeing the necklace in Leo's hand, the old man was stunned, stopped the pen in his hand, took the necklace from Leo's hand and looked at it carefully, and asked: "Why did you choose this necklace?"
"If you like it, just choose it." Leo naturally couldn't tell the truth, so he said perfunctorily.
The old man also knew very well that Leo was not telling the truth, but he didn't care. He handed the necklace back to Leo and said: "This necklace is the priest necklace of the Wezzik people. It is worth fifteen gold flanges. For Nelson's sake
For my sake, I will exempt you from a gold flange."
"What is so expensive for fourteen gold flanges?" Nelson was also curious about what Leo found because of such a high price.
"Deal." Although the price of the fourteen gold flanges was very expensive, Leo had found a lot of money from dead people before, so it would be fine to buy this necklace now. As he spoke, he took out the money from his pocket.
The gold shield of the Kingdom of England, worth fourteen gold flanges, was placed on the table, but he did not leave his hand and said: "However, I have a condition. You must tell me where this thing comes from?"
The old man stretched out his hand to push Leo's hand away, then swept the golden shields on the table into the drawer inside the counter, and then narrated: "This necklace is from the Wezzik people, an ancient race that lives on the edge of the Black Forest.
Made by the officiant, it is mainly used when worshiping the Night Shepherd, the god of the Wezzik people’s belief. It is said that this necklace can allow the owner to see the god of the Wezzik people.”
As he spoke, he paused, picked up the pen, and continued to write a letter: "It's a pity that the Wezzik people refused to surrender to the French Empire and were wiped out by the empire's troops. Now the Wezzik people are almost extinct.
Maybe there are still some Wezzik tribes living deep in the Black Forest."
"Wizzik's ornament?" Nelson also came over with interest, wanting to take a look at this ornament.
Leo handed it over naturally, but when Nelson took the ornament and looked at the wooden sign carefully, he was also observing Nelson's expression. However, he did not see anything strange in Nelson's expression. Obviously Nelson
I didn't feel the mysterious high energy in the wooden sign pendant.
At this time, Jason joined in the fun and took the ornament from Nelson's hand, and looked at it casually, but when his eyes fell on the wooden sign, he suddenly frowned, showing a look of disgust.
"What's wrong?" Leo observed carefully and asked in a timely manner.
Chapter completed!