The Collection of The End

——Marvel, 2015——

Ocean planet.

On the border of the East China Sea Empire, a melee was taking place in a small village whose main source of income was grain production.

The two warring parties are "Imperial Infantry" with a total of seventy or eighty people. Their uniforms are almost identical, only the colors symbolizing their power affiliation are different, but their behaviors are completely the same - while making meaningless roars of filial piety, they greet each other with weapons.

Among the participants in this melee, one side's armor and weapons were more tattered than the other, as if they had just escaped from a tragic battle, while the other side's equipment was almost brand new.

Although they were slightly inferior in terms of weapons and armor, the dilapidated armored side had more experience and were able to barely draw a tie with their opponents, stalemate near the square in the center of the village.

However, on the whole, their defeat is inevitable. After all, in addition to the more well-equipped infantry fighting with them, there are also a group of archers on the highlands around the village, looking down at the battlefield eagerly, and further away At this place, on the empty plain with no place to hide, there was still a large group of green heavy armored cavalry on standby.

"Infantry, retreat, marksmen, free fire."

Before the cavalry formation, the commander of the unit wearing a visor issued an order.

The infantrymen who had been fighting endlessly began to retreat without hesitation. Even if the "deserters" with shabby armor chased and slashed at them, they only used their shields to parry, with no intention of fighting back.

After that, a large number of arrows thrown by the highland archers fell like raindrops, pinning one "deserter" to the ground, and then disappeared into bursts of black smoke, leaving only those seemingly worthless arrows on the ground. worn weapons and broken armor.

From beginning to end, the cavalry on standby on the outside had no chance to take action.

At this time, hundreds of villagers hiding far outside the village began to tentatively approach the village and peer around, as if they wanted to go back and count their belongings, but they were frightened by the murderous heavy armored cavalry and did not dare to approach.

"Thank you, Lord Stephen," a middle-aged man wearing a turban who looked like the leader of the village approached the commander cautiously: "This is the agreed 1,700 Baileys. Thank you for eliminating these people who have been blackmailing us. 'Desert'."

"..." Sherlock opened his visor and glanced at the village leader and the purse in his hand: "Keep your Bailey, you need it more than me."

"——Thank you so much, Lord Stephen! We will always remember your kindness and generosity!" The village leader looked like he was crying with gratitude.

"Take money +3, take half +6, don't take +9," Sherlock looked at the void in front of him: "This is always really cheap."

The leader was still mumbling words of thanks, seemingly not hearing what Sherlock was saying at all.

————

After cleaning the battlefield and leaving the village, Sherlock opened his "mission panel":

Mission: Become the overlord of one party. 】

1. The family level reaches 43/4. 】

2. Have troops of no less than 1,000 134/1,000. 】

3. Hold at least 500,000 Baileys 120,532/500,000. 】

4. Does not belong to any force 1/1. 】

5. Occupy at least one city 0/1. 】

I always feel that... "Ocean Demon" is completely making things difficult for the contestants. He just plainly said, "Quickly find the 'Proof of Dominance' to end the game. Don't worry about becoming the king."

The family level is not bad, as long as you keep doing tasks to increase your reputation, you can always achieve it, but other requirements are very problematic.

Every time the family level increases, the upper limit of the number of troops will only increase by 15. The bulk of the increase is actually in the "Management" skill, which increases by one per point, but even if it can be maxed out, plus the sporadic increase in other special abilities A few of them can only bring about 500 people, so they can either let family members lead new troops, or occupy a town to garrison.

As for occupying the town... Even though he is now in the hinterland of the East China Sea Empire, with robbers and robbers everywhere unattended, it's like a deserted land, but if he dares to attack and occupy the town, a large force of several thousand people will immediately kill him. Come to your doorstep.

Oh, this is not what he tried using "Sherlock's Uncertainty", but what the warning document that pops up after trying to select "Siege" on a town said. The document also pointed out that you can visit all the candidate towns first. , choose the one that is easiest to defend and difficult to attack and grab it.

You said it's easy to defend but hard to attack!

Among these five items, the one that is the most difficult to achieve is holding half a million beli. Even though he started from scratch, the amount in hand now has reached one-fifth of the target. It seems easy, but then again It’s not easy to save money going up, because this powerful army... has to pay wages every day. Speaking of which, it seems that time has passed...

You paid: 1203 Baileys. 】

Yes, that's it. If you maintain the current income and expenditure, you will go bankrupt in a hundred days.

Because this continent is full of robbers and bandits. To protect yourself, you need to recruit soldiers. The recruited soldiers need to be paid. There is no stable source of income. They can only get paid and sell trophies through missions or battles, and soldiers gain experience from fighting. You will be upgraded, and you will be paid more wages after the upgrade, so you have to continue fighting for this...

Even with Sherlock's memory and analytical skills, he can't remember when he fell into this endless loop.

Fortunately, there is an end to the upgrade of soldiers. The end of the infantry is the "imperial elite armored cavalry". Each of them has to be paid 32 beli per day. Gee, if you lead a thousand cavalry... no wonder they always say that war is Spend money.

Of course, the solution is already on its face: "occupy a town", then the town's daily taxes and duties will offset this part of the consumption, and the town garrison only needs to pay half of its salary.

However, defending the city requires garrisoning, and the garrisoning needs to pay wages... It is an endless cycle. Unless he does not go out to explore from the beginning, it will definitely become a situation where he is exhausted and earns Baileys everywhere.

Relatively speaking, it seems easier not to fight for hegemony but to support a certain country. That option has also been listed in the task panel:

Mission: Become a powerful person. 】

1. Have a force of no less than 500 people. 】

2. Hold at least 200,000 Beli. 】

3. The influence ranks first among the affiliated forces. 】

4. Supervise one city or three villages. 】

Simple is simple, but how do you say that?

How can a man live under others for a long time?

That’s what it means anyway.

In short, the current balance of payments is basically balanced, and there is still some surplus. There is still a chance before the real deficit...

'Mycroft Strange' joins your party. 】

A golden light flashed, and a chubby young man with an appearance similar to Stephen appeared in front of Sherlock. As always, he did not attract anyone's attention, as if he was there from the beginning.

The younger siblings can really change their names, but the surname will not be changed unless they change their family name. Speaking of which, his six-dimensional attributes are suitable for——

"Sherlock? Is this you Sherlock?" Mycroft looked at Stephen in surprise: "So your face will be so long when you grow up?"

...? !