Chapter 485 Goodbye King Marcus and Goodbye Vampire (Seeking monthly votes at the beginning of the month)

Rand and Marcus, the former Duke of Thorns and current King of Frost Moon Kingdom, haven't seen each other for some time.

"You're still as handsome as ever." When they met again, Marcus looked at Rand and said with a sigh.

"It's been so long since we last met...but you seem to have aged a little." Rand looked Marcus up and down suspiciously. This was a bit strange. Marcus should not be very weak, and he did not have the hidden injuries like the Black and Brown Marquis. How come he looked a little older after not seeing him for such a long time?

Elsa, the accompanying clerk and secretary, leaned close to Rand's ear and whispered something.

Rand suddenly realized that Marcus had deliberately made himself look a little older with makeup.

Seeing Rand's discovery, Marcus stopped pretending and came over to whisper, "If you keep looking energetic, then the people below will just pile more and more work on you. But if you look a little tired, they might be willing to complete more work themselves."

Rand rolled his eyes. He was really lazy. "Aren't you afraid that others will think you are old and confused and fool you?"

Marcus smiled, his dark green eyes flashing with a faint light: "I am just pretending to be old, but I am not really old."

Good, good, Rand gave a thumbs up.

"Let's go. Do you want to see your son and daughter-in-law first, or go to the paper factory first?" Rand asked.

"Go check the paper first, there's no rush for my kid" Marcus wasn't worried at all about anything happening to his son.

Although theoretically, since the person has returned and there is no bad news, that means everything is fine, but as a father, he would always be worried. Marcus is very free and easy and plans to check the paper first.

"Then let's go." Rand invited Marcus to ride in a Centaur carriage.

King Marcus's guards were a little nervous, but Marcus was not worried at all and got into the carriage with Rand.

"How did you teach the centaurs to speak human language?" Marcus chatted with Rand.

"At first, I knew a minotaur who could speak the common language of the continent..." Rand began to talk, "Then I found out that centaurs and minotaurs are intelligent and have tongues, so shouldn't they be able to learn the common language of the continent?"

"Aren't you worried that they will go crazy and cause some trouble?" Marcus asked again.

"I gave them a sufficiently generous and relatively fair life," Rand said. "If they violated the law, they would be punished according to the law, neither more severe nor more lenient."

Minotaurs and Centaurs are indeed terrifying monsters, and it only takes a dozen of them together to make a baron feel troubled.

But to Rand, this monster is obedient and simple, and will honestly accept punishment when it makes mistakes.

Monsters are indeed dangerous, but compared to senior and top professionals, they are still relatively common.

Rand's territory is already very large, and the flow of people is also very large. Compared with these monsters, the crime problem of high-level professionals is more troublesome.

Fortunately, no one has been able to escape the joint pursuit of Inspector Elsa and Detective Karin.

Marcus was silent for a while, then he exclaimed: "I wouldn't be too surprised if I saw dragons willing to work for you one day, my friend."

Rand smiled.

In fact, there are already dragons that submit to him, but they are undead dragons.

Rand took Marcus to the lower reaches of the Crescent River.

Marcus is Rand's staunch ally, and the papermaking technology is actually nothing to Marcus.

But the Burning Land is different.

That is the core of Rand Industries. Even with the presence of dwarves, only part of the plan has been activated.

But when a person like Marcus looks over there, many things become clear.

Yes, although Rand always regarded Marcus as shameless, deep down in his heart, Marcus was a remarkable person recognized by Rand.

If Marcus had been the king of Frost Moon Kingdom from the beginning, eight years ago, the Frost Moon Kingdom would definitely be more prosperous than it is now.

It’s just that there are no ifs in this world.

Now Marcus could probably guess Rand's next development idea, which was why he told Rand that everything was possible to go south.

However, being able to roughly guess and intuitively feel Rand's ambitions are completely different.

Marcus might not necessarily hold a grudge against this, but there's absolutely no need to take the risk, right?

So Rand built a small workshop downstream of the river at Crescent Moon Resort where the production process can be directly observed.

Marcus followed Rand to the downstream of the resort.

The holiday villa is surrounded by mountains and water, and except for its remote location, its geographical environment is relatively superior.

Of course, this remoteness refers to the Crescent Moon Collar hideout eight years ago.

At that time, when the Kingdom of Lensa invaded, they only sent a small baron to garrison here.

Now, as the administrative center of Duke of the Moon, the resort has become synonymous with prosperity.

Places far away from a resort are called remote, and places close to a resort are called well located.

Marcus got off the carriage and smiled as he handed the Centaur driver a silver coin as a tip.

Upon arrival, Marcus looked around the factory.

He felt that Rand was taking too much trouble.

A small factory was built specifically for him that was easy to understand and visit.

Instead of going to a big factory that is dirty and destined to have bad air.

Marcus had indeed never seen a large factory, but he knew that with more lowly villagers, the environment would inevitably be bad.

"Why haven't I seen you think so carefully before?" Marcus walked into the small factory and said with a pout.

"It's been a while since we last met, and I think this industry has great potential, so I plan to introduce further investment. Building a small factory will make it easier to attract investment." Rand explained casually.

Marcus looked around and finally his eyes fell on the finished paper.

After writing a few words experimentally, Marcus picked up the paper and said, "The cost is less than one-tenth of parchment, and compared to parchment, the growth period of bamboo in the south is much shorter."

"You always come up with things to make money." Marcus marveled.

Marcus had visited this small factory and had a general idea of ​​the papermaking process. Overall, it was not complicated. However, if he continued to study in this direction, he would not be able to figure out these processes in a short period of time.

In fact, papermaking is not just a way to make money. In Rand's previous life, after Cai Lun improved the papermaking technique, cheap and easy-to-use paper made knowledge easier to obtain, and to a certain extent gave people from poor families the opportunity to study and take imperial examinations.

To a certain extent, it broke the class stratification.

In this era, it will not have such a big impact, because no matter how smart you are or how powerful you are, it is difficult to become a noble.

In this era, there are only two ways to become a noble: one is to inherit your father's legacy, and the other is to expand your territory.

However, Rand estimated that this would still change some things. Perhaps in the future, the magical power of the world would develop faster because of the cheapness of paper.

The magic in this world is so crude. The person who is best at using magic right now should be the Great Wizard Ellie.

Most other mages only know one spell.

Although a lot of things can be changed on the battlefield with just a magic ball, the magician in Rand's mind is not a grenadier.

Just when Rand wanted to go meet Adrian with Marcus.

Rand frowned, then calmly glanced at Elsa.

After years of getting along, Elsa already knew the meaning of Rand's action.

Elsa gave her subordinates an order.

"Do you want to take a closer look? Or should we set off for Full Moon Territory now? You and Adrian haven't seen each other for a long time." Rand said.

"Then let's go." Marcus already understood the papermaking process and the value of paper.

The two of them got back on the Centaur carriage.

"I think if paper is cheap enough, it can have other uses," said Marcus.

"Oh?" Rand smiled. He was happy to hear Marcus's opinion.

"For example, paper can be used to make armor. Paper is relatively light, and if multiple layers are put together, I feel the strength will not be too bad. If it is cheap enough, then perhaps the rate at which the lord's soldiers wear armor can be increased." Marcus said.

"That's a good idea indeed." Rand had certainly heard of paper armor.

"I actually kind of want to use it as toilet paper," Rand said. "It must be more convenient and comfortable than linen and wood chips."

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Marcus was a little surprised.

A king like Marcus, a duke like Rand.

People of their prominence could even use expensive velvet to cleanse their bodies, and even have slaves to help them clean.

But Rand would never do that.

Such expenses are nothing to people like Rand.

Marcus smiled slightly, and he quickly understood why Rand thought of this.

It is obvious that Rand, a young man who became a grand duke without any noble status, must have suffered a lot in the past due to being poor and without status.

In other words, many frugal habits must have been retained, so Rand couldn't think of anything too extravagant.

Of course, Marcus would not use any extravagant methods. He was used to flushing with water, but it would seem nice to have some convenient and soft paper.

And just after the Centaur chariot had been traveling on the flat road for a while.

Olenna appears beside Rand and Malchus's carriage.

Olenna brought over three pale-faced men with fangs between their lips and teeth.

"It's indeed a vampire." Rand frowned and thought to himself.

He had sensed it before and signaled Elsa with his eyes.

Due to the effect of [Blessing 7: Grand Duke Vladimir's Disgust], Rand can sense the presence of vampires within a certain range.

Then let Crow Coke locate the location and find out the location of the nearby vampires.

As expected, the vampire has found him.

The three vampires brought to Rand and Marcus by Olenna were very confused.

The Blue King intends to deal with Count Dandelion first, but since he has already included Rand in the suspect list, he plans to send a few spies to understand the situation here first.

Duke Rand is a Grand Duke who rose from nothing. If the Blue King does not handle it personally, it will not be easy to deal with him, so intelligence needs to be collected in advance.

Then, the three vampire spies were caught as soon as they arrived near the resort.

The Azure King asks them to proceed with caution.

So they avoided everyone along the way, didn't meet anyone, and they didn't even get close to any towns or villages.

And they were caught like that? How did they do that? Some new type of magic? Or was it that someone powerful had been targeting them when they weren't paying attention?

Damn it.

What strange methods does this Duke Rand of the Moon Phase have?

"I've read your report before, but is it that serious?" Marcus came over and whispered, "You're not putting on a show, are you?"

Marcus had reason to doubt the reasons for the sudden appearance of the three captured vampires.

"No." Rand denied.

Marcus looked back at the vampire: "Then this is a very serious problem."

Rand had written to Marcus before, saying that he had discovered what conspiracy the vampires were carrying out.

Marcus naturally had to believe it, but he could actually see a living vampire today.

Vampires live by sucking blood, and the objects of their blood are preferably intelligent creatures.

Although in theory, there are kind-hearted vampires that feed on animals, no one has ever actually encountered or recorded them from ancient times to the present.

So it is assumed that all vampires are evil and anti-human.

After receiving Rand's affirmative answer, Marcus became serious: "I need more information."

Just as Rand believed that Marcus was a respectable person, Marcus also recognized Rand's ability and character.

Although Marcus thought that Rand was not a very shameless person, he was indeed trustworthy.

Now that Rand said very seriously that there were indeed vampires planning something, Marcus completely believed it was true.

"I guess Grand Duke Vladimir and other demon lords in Purgatory are plotting something to return to this world." Rand said some information, "When I was visiting my relatives in the White Country with Ellie, I encountered a demon, and the one who assisted the demon in summoning was a vampire. In addition."

Rand did have a lot of evidence of real vampire sightings.

Seeing a vampire summoning demons in the White Kingdom is very important evidence, and the White King can personally testify to this.

"Based on this, I have reason to suspect that the vampires really have some conspiracy," Rand concluded, "but I didn't expect to find vampires nearby so soon."

And it's at this time again.

Marcus's guards who were accompanying him received the message from the magic carrier pigeon.

The guard leaned over to whisper in Marcus' ear.

Marcus's expression became more serious.

Rand asked, "What happened?"

"The Dandelion Family of the Kingdom of Lunsa was attacked twice by a mysterious force. They resisted the first time, but they were defeated and fled after trying their best to resist the second time."

"The Count Dandelion who managed to escape claimed that the attackers were vampires. Queen Lunsa pardoned the Count Dandelion for escaping his fiefdom."

"Rand, it seems that the matter is really serious." Marcus had no reason to doubt it anymore.

Obviously, Rand would never allow an earl of the Kingdom of Rensa to go through such a humiliating act as fleeing his fiefdom.

(End of this chapter)