I will be crowned king

No. 55, Breman Street, early morning.

Carrying a cup of freshly brewed coffee and wearing pajamas, Anson walked to the top floor loft alone, leaning against the window and looking out at the street.

In the morning, Brayman Street is quite noisy and lively. It is located on the edge of the most prosperous community in the inner city. Middle-level military officers, college teachers, visitors from out of town, Privy Council officials...the group dubbed by the newspaper as the "middle class of society" support the entire community. The housing prices have also enlivened the business of surrounding restaurants, cafes, and department stores.

In a sense, these people are also the group that both Anson and Ludwig are actively fighting for. The current basic positions of both parties are actually very clear; Ludwig has won over the old-school wealthy families and the upstarts who occupy the upper class, Anson and Sophia's camp. It is mainly composed of middle and lower-level military officers, community citizen representatives, and emerging logistics industry groups.

Both sides have clear stances. Apart from physical destruction, there are almost no means to change the strength of the camp. Only the so-called "middle class of society", the group most susceptible to the influence of public opinion, is left, becoming the last weight to change both ends of the balance.

These people cannot be said to be rich, but their quality of life is no different from that of many small nobles. Even relying on the prosperity of Clovis City, they have become the envy of many rural landowners; these people are definitely not poor either. But they have almost no fixed assets, and their relatively good living standards have basically drained most of their income. Once they lose their jobs, they will immediately fall to a situation that is almost the same as that of the bottom class.

In fact, Anson and Sophia have a slight advantage in winning over the "middle class of society"; Minister of War, you have been keen on charity all year round, and you are also well-known in business circles. Both of them are absolute bonus points. With her rich experience in running the media industry, she can easily guide public opinion.

Ludwig's disadvantages in this regard are obvious. First of all, not many people know him, and the circle he is most familiar with is too high-level for ordinary people.

But he had one absolute advantage: the Privy Council and the Whitehall Street Police.

Having mastered the security and administrative power of Clovis City at the same time, Ludwig can of course shape the majority of people's opinion of him by consuming resources, or spending money: repairing roads, solving major cases, and improving community health environment. , increasing investment in welfare homes, can easily and quickly win the favor of the "middle class of society", and make people unable to refute him.

But if there was a body dedicated to supervising the Privy Council, auditing the expenditure of all bills and administrative resources, and making the details of the expenditure public to everyone, Ludwig's situation would completely change.

Therefore, no matter what, he could not allow the citizens' assembly, or even the National Assembly, to appear even if he muddied the waters. Ludwig did not understand how the citizens' assembly system of the so-called "republic city" worked, but he knew very well how to fool a citizen. It's definitely easier to fool someone - like a certain young king, or the Queen Mother - than it is to fool hundreds of people.

This is the so-called bias caused by sight and experience... Ludwig knows how to cooperate and is good at drawing allies to attack opponents, but the premise is that the circle cannot be too large, or that the outcome can be determined by controlling and influencing a small number of people, because the army This is what it is like here - a legion of tens of thousands of people, and he, the commander-in-chief, can never directly order more than twenty people.

He simply doesn’t understand that sometimes having more people in front of you is actually an advantage; because everyone is fair, unlike members of the Privy Council who have differences in status, position, age, gender, strength, wealth, and poverty. It’s all one vote, so as long as there are enough “representatives”, people will support you in whatever you say, not to mention that they may not actually understand what you are talking about...

"It's quite leisurely, Lieutenant General."

A lazy voice came up from below accompanied by the sound of creaking stairs, and Anson knew who was coming without even looking back.

"Yeah, of course."

He raised his eyebrows and looked over with a chuckle: "Anyway, they are already under house arrest by your judge. Even if you don't want to take it easy, it seems... Oh, you, what's wrong with you?"

Looking at the Chief Inquisitor, who was pale, had two dark circles under his eyes, and was shaking when he walked, Anson was stunned: "I'm afraid, I remember that you weren't with..." yesterday.

"Don't ask."

Cole Dorian directly interrupted the topic, walked to Anson and sat down next to him. His whole body seemed to have sunk directly into the chair. While sitting, he did not forget to complain: "You too, why are you running so early in the morning?" Hiding in the attic, you have to climb an extra flight of stairs."

"Lisa is still resting. I don't want to disturb her." Anson was not polite at all: "After all, there is a guest who breaks in without knocking, so he must be more careful than usual."

"Why do I feel that you are becoming less and less awe-inspiring for our Truth-Seeking Cult... Forget it."

The chief judge waved his hands feebly, finally remembering his true purpose today: "Do you know anything about the person who attacked you?"

"The person who attacked me?"

Anson repeated it in an exaggerated tone, and looked at Cole in front of him in confusion: "I said, this should be what you came to tell me - I really abide by the agreement and have not left since yesterday. apartment."

"Yes, yes, thank you for your cooperation, so stop talking nonsense." Cole's eyes were calm, obviously not believing his prevarication: "I need some specific information to decide how many people will be invested in protecting your safety."

"...Then my suggestion is not to accept anyone, including you and Sera."

"Why?"

"We are friends. We don't want to watch and collect your bodies in the end."

Cole Dorian's expression did not change, he just silently took out cigarettes and matches from his pocket; Anson, who was sitting opposite, put down his coffee cup and pushed open the window.

The cold wind penetrated the attic. The Chief Inquisitor, who was chewing a cigarette, was silent for a long time before finally speaking: "Is it so dangerous?"

"I think you use the word dangerous a little superficially."

Anson shook his head: "At the moment of being attacked, I noticed some traces of the law being distorted, but I didn't have any abnormal feelings; you are not a spell caster, tell Sera this, she must know how terrifying this is. matter."

"In fact, she mentioned it once last night." Cole Dorian's expression suddenly became a little abnormal: "I also asked her at that time. In the end, it was caused by using Mace Honard to attack Clovis Cathedral. Give me examples of the impact.”

"Last night? You, you two..."

"I just want to know how dangerous this enemy is compared to the impact caused by Mace Hornard?" The chief judge still made a blunt turn:

"In other words, is there any hope of having a scale similar to the one at Yser Royal Court last time?"

Pretending not to notice, Anson took off his coffee cup again. After pretending to think seriously for a minute, he said hesitantly: "I think...it's better not to have such unrealistic ideas."

"If there was no deviation in my perception at that moment, the other party's 'field' covered a very large area, at least the size of the entire inner city, so that it would not be immediately exposed; it would prevent me from feeling any abnormalities. This kind of fine control of the law His control ability can be described as 'superb'."

"Laws, fields, distortions..." Cole chewed on these keywords:

"So, the other party is a magic...blasphemous mage?"

"At least it's at the level of a blasphemy mage. As for the higher-level apostles..." Anson looked at him: "If I remember correctly, you judges should all have records, right?"

"Of course, not only record, but also responsible for tracking, observing and reporting the situation at any time."

The Chief Inquisitor nodded: "Even if I didn't tell you, Thalia August Rune probably told you that there is a contract between the apostles and the Church of the Ring of Order; they will not leave their territory easily. ', will never directly harm ordinary people, and will be unilaterally transparent to the church."

"In exchange, the church will not invade their territory, such as the Luen family's Lund Manor before, and will acquiesce in their 'normal' social activities and some private behaviors."

At this point, even Cole couldn't help but laugh, his expression somewhat self-deprecating:

"But in fact... the vast majority of the apostles have no interest in humans, or even the Old God Sect; some apostles like the Rune family still care about the glory of the Old God Sect and hope to restore their past glory... But the vast majority, In fact, I don’t care about external connections at all.”

"Then...how many apostles are there?"

"nine."

"Is there only nine now, or was it before..."

"From a long time ago to now, there have always been only nine, and it is very regular that there are three under each magic; if a new apostle appears, then a war between the apostles will soon break out, and one of them will be killed. It ends with being eliminated." Cole Dorian's expression suddenly became a little playful:

"The last apostle war was between August and Rune."

Anson took a sip of coffee silently.

He knew that Cole Dorian opposite him must be thinking about how the Rune family eliminated August, but Thalia and even Rune himself had already told him.

What really aroused his curiosity was the number of apostles.

Nine... Although I don’t know how many were there when the Old God Sect was in its final glory when I last “traveled” to another timeline, but even the apostles in Boridim would definitely not Less than this number.

Rune once mentioned that in the era after the fall of Boridim, a large number of apostles died unnaturally due to various reasons - including August who was killed by him himself - and only a few of them, including him, died due to certain reasons. Some special reasons are still alive.

Is there some connection between the two?

"Voltagora, Yorglin, Machia."

The Chief Inquisitor raised the fingers of his right hand one by one: "This is what the Inquisition currently has. There are only three magic apostles in the world, and their abilities have all been registered - of course, they said it themselves. Yes, but I don’t think these apostles would lie.”

"Voltagora's law is 'exchange'. According to your spell casters, this is a subsystem derived from the 'space' law. Within his domain, everything can be exchanged, but it must be abided by. The rules were set in that moment.”

"For example... if the exchange is by weight, he can exchange the opponent's weapon with anything of equal weight. If it is an exchange of value, then he can use wealth to 'purchase' your armor or even a part of your body."

So don’t apostles need to keep their laws secret, or is it better to let more people know their laws once they become apostles... Anson couldn’t help but smile: "You actually understand this .”

"I am the Chief Inquisitor, and this is a professional quality." Cole put down his second finger: "Joglin, his law is 'existence', and the recorded content about him is the least, and even the church once believed that This apostle did not exist, but the record was later revised several times, and each time there seemed to be evidence for his appearance, but soon more powerful evidence would appear to refute this matter."

"What I know about this apostle is only his name, but I think he should exist. Otherwise, judging from the situation of other magic categories, a new apostle of curse magic should have been born long ago."

"As for Machiavel...his law is rather special, called 'desire'."

Wish... Anson was stunned for a moment: "You mean... He can make all his wishes come true within his own domain?"

"No, on the contrary, if others make a wish in His domain, their wishes will come true." Cole's expression was a little strange: "And this opportunity is also easy to obtain. Generally speaking, He will take the initiative to give you a few A chance to make a wish, and then... make it come true."

"He is also the most dangerous of the three magic apostles. In the early days of the Dark Ages, the name Machiavelli was almost synonymous with titles such as 'miracle', 'magic' and 'god'; he even had his own beliefs and An organization of believers.”

"Of course, these are just casual talks with you. You are unlikely to encounter them anyway - all apostles have a special organization of inquisitors responsible for monitoring them. Just like when Rune left Clovis before, we begged The True Cultivator followed the entire process and forwarded the information to the Inquisitor at Adlan Port, so you don’t need to be too..."

boom--

Before they finished speaking, the conversation between the two was interrupted by the sound of the door being broken downstairs.

Anson and Cole Dorian glanced at each other quickly, got up and walked to the living room below; while still standing on the stairs, they saw Christian Bach standing blankly at the door, holding a dusty letter in his hand. letter.

"What's wrong?"

"No, it's nothing." Christian still had a completely frightened expression. He raised his head and said slowly: "I was complaining just now because the city of Clovis has not been peaceful recently, and the letters from home never arrived, and then..."

"Then……"

Anson's heart suddenly "thumped!"

"Then... an eleven or twelve-year-old kid suddenly came over, stood at the bottom of the stairs, and said to me..." Christian frowned, as if trying to remember the incredible scene just now:

"I...fulfill your wish."