The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

Although the Dodd Group's trade targets in the wasteland are mainly the enlightened tribes of the northern tribal alliance, Sylvia still attaches great importance to the southern tribal alliance, because only the southern tribal alliance can cross the natural barrier of the Great Horn River, which is the edge of the wilderness. , into the depths of the real wilderness, and trade with those real hermit tribes in exchange for the most precious wilderness products in the hands of those tribes.

Even in the current chaotic situation in the world, those rare items from the depths of the wasteland are still the things that the top powers in the world are rushing to. Some items can be exchanged for a huge profit equivalent to the output of the Dodd Group in a month. .

It's just that it is definitely not an easy task to obtain trading rights from conservative tribes like the Southern Tribal Alliance. Except for a few organizations including the Church of True God who can get stable trading quotas, other organizations and forces need to meet. Only luck can get a trading quota, the same is true for the United Kingdom, and the same is true for the Dodd Group.

Sylvia is well aware of the value of those rare items from the depths of the wasteland, so when she first moved the industry to the Mozambique continent, she had already dispatched permanent staff to the holy mountain of the wasteland that had not yet been divided. , established a permanent office.

After more than 20 years of development, although this office still has not been able to help the Dodd Group get a fixed trading quota, it has also helped the Dodd Group to establish a good trade route among the southern tribal alliances. The portable steam engine crossbow produced can be said to be the favorite weapon of these tribes.

It’s just that the only defect of this steam engine crossbow is that it is easy to damage. Every time it is damaged, it needs to be sent back to the Dodd Group for replacement and repair. The group has never met the other party's request. It's not that the Dodd group can't make up for the defect, but it's just unwilling. After all, if this thing is made too strong, it will not break for decades, then who can buy the newly-made steam engine crossbow? ?

However, in order to prevent the people of these tribes from resenting their behavior of not improving the steam engine crossbow, Sylvia asked the research and development personnel of the Dodd Group to improve the special arrows of the steam engine crossbow, increasing the types and functions of the arrows , such as anesthesia arrows and trap arrows for hunting extraordinary creatures, bursting arrows for mutant monsters, and so on.

Although these arrows are expensive consumables, they are not easy to use. Not only people in the southern tribal alliance like them, but even people in the northern tribal alliance want to buy them in large quantities. However, due to the problem of production capacity, Such weapons have always been unable to meet the needs of all forces.

Sylvia will choose to take the risk of expanding the Dodd Group this time because she wants to expand the production capacity of the Dodd Group starting from raw materials.

It is not that there are no other industrial groups that do not spy on this large interest, but the steam engine crossbows manufactured by those industrial groups are far behind in terms of lightness, power and use, but they are stronger and cheaper, and they are more or less It occupies a part of the interests, but it will not cause any trouble to the Dodd Group.

However, this situation has begun to change as the conflict between the Silvermoon tribe and the Tinder tribe has gradually heated up recently. This is also the most troublesome thing for Powell, the director of the Dodd Group's southern holy mountain office.

Powell is a pure member of the French Empire. He joined the secret organization formed by Sylvia a long time ago, and then followed Sylvia to the United Kingdom of France. It can be said that he is an old subordinate of Sylvia up.

When Sylvia moved the industry to the mainland of Mozambique, he hesitated whether to continue to follow Sylvia.

Because in his opinion, although Sylvia Pan apparently betrayed the French Empire and defected to the United Kingdom of France, in fact Sylvia still served under the banner of the Royal Family of France, because the United Kingdom of France The king of the kingdom is still the royal family of Farland. Even if the power in the hands of this king is not great, it is more in name, but for the Farnese, he is still an object of loyalty.

However, if one leaves the continent of Villen and goes to the continent of Mosang, then the relationship with the Faran Dynasty will be completely severed, and the object of allegiance of old Farn people like Powell will really become Sylvia. This is a very difficult choice for many Farnese.

So, like all the other Franks who had difficulty making a choice, Powell also reached the Velen Continent where the last relocation ship left.

No matter how painful the decision was at the beginning, when I thought about it afterwards, I would think that the original choice was extremely correct, because shortly after the last relocation ship left the Velen Continent, a wave of mutated monsters appeared on the Velen Continent. Even the most glorious Faran dynasty in the entire Velen world was completely destroyed by the endless tide of monsters in a short period of time. Those companions who chose to stay in the Velen continent at the beginning, most of them died under the attack of monsters in the end. Those who survived were also lingering.

Because they are the last group of people to make choices, all the good positions within the group have already been filled, and even old subordinates like Powell can only choose some more dangerous and difficult positions.

Going to the Holy Mountain of the Wasteland to establish an office was considered the most dangerous of all tasks, not only because of the bad relationship between the Wasteland tribe and people from other continents, but also because of the tide of monsters that had spread to the Mosang continent at that time .

It was no secret at the time that mutated monsters originated from ordinary creatures in nature, and the wasteland was full of countless natural creatures, so people in the Mosang continent believed that an unprecedented tide of mutated monsters would definitely erupt in the wasteland , completely destroyed everything in the wasteland, and then spread back to the entire Mozambique continent.

So let alone sending people to the wasteland at that time, there were even many locals from the Mozambique continent, as well as people from the Villen continent who had just fled to the Mozambique continent, and they planned to flee to the Minsk mainland by boat again, because if the wasteland really broke out If there is a wave of monsters, then the power of the countries in the Mozambique continent will absolutely not be able to resist such a huge wave of monsters. It will be a matter of time before the French Empire falls like that.

However, at that time, only a very small number of forces still had no idea of ​​moving out of the Mozambique continent, and among them was the Dodd Group that Sylvia had just formed.

Unlike the Church of the Lord of the Sky, which has obtained an oracle and firmly stays in the Mosang Continent, the Dodd Group is completely unable to bear the huge loss caused by the relocation, and has to stay in the Mosang Continent wholeheartedly. Being able to obtain first-hand information about the wasteland, especially whether the tide of mutated monsters broke out in the wasteland, so that she can respond in time, Sylvia immediately decided to establish an office in the holy mountain of the wasteland, and the main work of the office It is not to trade with the tribes in the wasteland, but to collect all kinds of intelligence, so there are some restrictions on the candidates to be sent to the wasteland, and they must be experienced intelligence personnel.

At that time, there were not many people who met this requirement, and Powell was just one of them, but it was different from other people resisting this task. After hearing the relevant content of the task, Powell submitted the application immediately and became the Dodd Group He is in charge of the office in Sacred Mountain, and has been working in this position for more than 20 years.

Powell didn't know why he made such a decision so quickly at the time, maybe it was related to him finding out that his fiancée had moved on, or maybe it was related to hearing that his friend had died in the monster tide. When he was in the holy mountain, he never thought that he could survive, but what he didn't expect was that he not only survived, but also lived for more than 20 years.

In the past two decades, Powell has submitted many transfer applications, hoping that the group can send someone to replace his plant, but the results are not satisfactory. Either the replacement is too incompetent and messed up things, or It's just that the replacement is too capable, trying to play a game of power in the wasteland, and the end result is that he has to continue to stay in the position of director of the Holy Mountain Office.

For Powell, this is nothing. Although more than 20 years have passed, he still has not adapted to the life in the Mozambique wasteland. He is still extremely disgusted with the blood sacrifice rituals of slaughtering slaves in the holy mountain shaman ceremony every year, but he still likes it very much. The peaceful life of the holy mountain in the wasteland, because of the special nature of the holy mountain, even if conflicts broke out among the surrounding tribes, it would not affect the holy mountain.

But this time he felt that the situation was a little different. On the surface, it seemed that it was just a small war caused by the conflict between the Yinyue tribe and the Huorong tribe. In the past two days, not only the Yinyue tribe and Huorong tribe have been looking for him to buy various weapons, but even other tribes that are unlikely to participate in the war have secretly sent people to contact him to buy weapons and equipment.

This situation made Powell immediately think of the period when the wilderness tribes split from north to south. At that time, it seemed that every tribe was purchasing a large amount of weapons and equipment at that time, and a war involving the entire wilderness tribe was imminent.

Faced with so many tribes requesting weapons purchases, Powell was completely caught off guard. The weapons in stock could not be supplied to so many orders, so he had to push down most of the orders, and these orders eventually flowed to the In the hands of other downstream industrial group offices.

Although in terms of the power and sophistication of weapons and equipment, the weapons manufactured by those industrial groups are far from being comparable to those manufactured by the Dodd Group, but those weapons are superior in quantity and cheap enough, and can quickly satisfy most The needs of the tribes have led to the rapid expansion of those industrial groups in the share of arms sales, and several of them can already compete with the Dodd Group offices.

Faced with this situation, Powell naturally wanted to suppress his opponents, but he couldn't find any way to suppress them now, because he knew very well that if he didn't have enough goods on hand to meet the needs of those tribes, then he would suppress them by himself. The actions of those industrial group offices are tantamount to offending most tribes in the southern wilderness, and it will be himself who will be unlucky at that time.

So the only thing he can do now is to seek help from the headquarters of the Dodd Group, asking the headquarters to dispatch a large amount of goods and manpower as soon as possible, to keep the existing share, and then consider the follow-up matters.

For Powell now, the most important thing is time. If the time for the war between the Silvermoon Tribe and the Tinder Tribe can be delayed, and enough people and goods are sent from the headquarters, they should be able to regain the lost land. The order made by the Dodd Group will not shake the position of the Dodd Group office in the southern holy mountain tribe.

But once the Yinyue Tribe and Huorong Tribe go to war, there is not enough weapons in the warehouse of the office, then what he is most worried about will inevitably happen. Afterwards, if he wants to get back the order from the offices of those industrial group forces very difficult.

Powell knew very well that there were very few things he could do. The only thing he could do was to delay the arrival of the steam train from Badisha to the holy mountain.

Because whether it is the Holy Mountain, or the Yinyue Tribe and Huorong Tribe, they all believe that the starting point of the outbreak of this conflict should be the source of the conflict at Sobans.

Although Sobanth is surrounded by the hunting grounds of the Silvermoon Tribe, the resident manpower there can be used to defend against attacks. It is still very difficult to gather them to attack a big city in the jungle like Sobanth.

Therefore, the steam train transporting the mercenary corps from the holy mountain has become intuitively important. The arrival time of the steam train can basically be counted as the start time of the countdown to the outbreak of the conflict.

For this reason, Powell specially took advantage of this sudden storm and sent people to sneak into the middle section of the railway, causing several landslides. This was not too difficult for him, and the effect of the landslides was indeed good, delaying the train. For several days, and the people who cleaned up the landslide did not find anything unusual.

However, on the entire railway line, there are only a few places suitable for landslides. If landslides are made in other places where landslides are not easy to occur, I am afraid it will be easy to be seen through, so Powell did not use this method anymore, he could only watch. Watching the steam train arrive at the platform, the mercenaries who had already prepared boarded the train one after another.

What Powell can do now is to continue to send urgent mail to the headquarters, so that the goods can be delivered there as soon as possible, otherwise, most of the markets of the Southern Tribal Alliance will really be handed over to others.

However, just as Powell ordered the servants who carried the sedan chair to return to the office, a pair of men and women who were dressed completely different from those of other tribes around them immediately attracted his attention. Not many people go deep into the wilderness at this time.

But when he saw clearly the woman among the couple, he immediately jumped off the sedan chair, and under the shocked gazes of his servants, he rushed to the couple in front of them, and then respectfully He bowed to the woman and said, "Powell Tarly, the third intelligence department, has met the Earl."