“At the moment, His Highness is busy with developing the Western Region, for this, he requires a lot of manpower to cultivate fields, build houses, build roads… he does not charge you anything for the medicine, and he also doesn’t force you to go with us to the West.” The soldier responsible for the propaganda continued to shout as loud as possible, “But His Royal Highness promises, that as long as you are willing to follow us to the Western Region and work for him, you will get food, shelter and payment! No matter what your specialty is, you will get a matching job! If you are willing to take the first step into a new life, just step forward and follow the mercenaries on board, they will take you to your new home! If you are unwilling that is also okay, we will still be here and provide help for the next three days; after that we will leave. During these three days, food will be given out free of charge by the caravan!”
“Is there really a new home and work with salary waiting for us?” Someone asked loudly.
“Of course, that is the condition offered by His Highness!” The soldier nodded in response.
“Please let me on board; I am willing to serve His Royal Highness!”
“Me too!”
“And I!”
“I’m a blacksmith!”
“…”
Brian was very pleased to see that within this group of hundreds of people, no one chose to stay in King’s City and instead they all decided to board the ship to the West. The moment a vessel was full, it would immediately depart and then be replaced by an empty ship. Under Margaret’s command, there wasn’t even the slightest pause between.
Afterward, Brian continued to lead refugees from the camps to the dock, always relying on Echo sound transmission technique to draw in a new batch of Eastern Region refugees. The number of refugees under her control would be between 300 to 400 every time. As he returned with a new team of patients to the pier, he suddenly saw how the First Army stationed in the wheat fields in the south began to move. A team of them rushed out at flying speed into the direction of the northern bank of the canal, while carrying their guns in their hand.
“What happened?” Brian asked into the direction of Iron Axe’s men.
“Scout Miss Lightning said that someone had secretly jumped off the ship and run away,” one of them offered while saluting. “Maybe there’s a rat which had hidden itself between the refugees?”
In fact, there was more than one of those rats, so once again, Iron Axe stood in front of a man they had captured and looked at him expressionlessly, “You are the third person who’s tried to escape by jumping off the ship, the refugees also told us that you haven’t come from the Eastern Region. So, what will be your important last words, will it be a confession?”
The two people who had previously been caught, after using a dagger to cut off a finger, of both of them immediately confessed their origins and purpose in coming. Of course, their corpses were still thrown into the canal afterwards, since Iron Axe had never been a person who had a soft-heart. His experience of struggling for survival in Iron Sand City was that when dealing with an enemy that was hiding the head and showing the tail, the best response was to cut off one exposed limb after the other. However, what surprised him was that the prisoner with his after being pushed down on his knees and getting his hands tied to his back, still looked very healthy, nothing like those other sick people.
“I’m not your enemy,” were his first words when he opened his mouth, and directly stared into Iron Axe’s eyes. “My name is Hill Fawkes, Theo should know my name!“
…
At this time Theo still hadn’t left the dock. After being called, he came over to Iron Axe, looked at Hill Fawkes, and said: “This man is one of the people who belong to Black Hammer.”
“So, he isn’t your man?” Iron Axe confirmed.
“He has nothing to do with me; he is a street rat who only recently joined.”
“You deceived Black Hammer and also the Skeleton Fingers,” Hill suddenly opened his mouth and shouted, “You are not working for Timothy, but rather the Lord of the Western Territory, His Highness Roland Wimbledon!”
“He knows too much,” Theo said as he made a slicing gesture across his neck to Iron Axe. “The best place for this man is the canal.”
Hill, to stop his death, proclaimed: “I have heard everything the mercenary announced, I believe we can cooperate! I am willing to work for His Royal Highness Roland!”
“His Highness does not need the allegiance of a street rat,” Iron Axe said as he pulled out his sword.
“I am not a street rat, I am… I’m a citizen of King’s City! I’m Timothy’s enemy!” Hill cried.
“Wait,” Theo called Iron Axe to stop and went over to Hill. The latter raised his head and looked fearlessly into the guard’s eyes, with eyes which seemed to burn.
