The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

Clodesa is a small town located in the middle-east of the Mosan continent. It was originally a small town on the border of the Panier Kingdom, but after the fog disaster, it lost contact with the capital of the Panier Kingdom due to the barrier of mutant monsters. , and then formed self-government, and then became independent from the Kingdom of Paneer. Ten years ago, it turned to join the Sakt city-state autonomous alliance.

Although the Sakt City-State Autonomous Alliance claims to be a country, in fact, the countries in the Mozambique continent have never recognized it. The city-states that make up the Sakt City-State Autonomous Alliance are all border towns of various countries, because they are all located in the central and eastern regions. The Saket Plain happened to be cut off from the political center of the original country, and was in a semi-autonomous or fully autonomous state, so it simply and completely broke away from the original country and united to form a new country.

Although the original countries of these towns opposed the establishment of the Sakt City-State Autonomous Alliance and did not recognize its existence, they did not take further actions to take back these towns.

This is mainly because during the period when mutant monsters were rampant, it was very difficult for the armies of various countries to guard the main urban areas, and it was almost impossible to form an army to attack the cities, not to mention that the autonomy of these border towns was a challenge for the central governments of various countries. This is a good thing, because if there is no self-government secession, they still need to try to provide personnel and material assistance to these towns, and they cannot collect corresponding taxes, which means that these towns have become a burden for all countries at this time.

Now that these towns choose self-government, the central governments of various countries have not only reduced their own burdens logically, but can also use these towns’ illegal autonomy as an excuse to take back these towns by force or other methods at any time when the time improves.

These town mayors or mayors who choose to be self-governing and join the Sakt City-State Autonomous Alliance are well aware of what will happen when the timing improves in the future, but for them, immediate survival is the most important thing. In the case of the city-state autonomous alliance, it is difficult for a single town to survive in this world where mutant monsters often appear.

Among the towns that joined the Sackett City-State Autonomous Alliance, Clodessa should be considered one of the last towns to join, because the mayor of Closade and the city councilors were all at that time because they should join the Sackett City-State Autonomous Alliance , should join the Kingdom of America.

The vast majority of people think that it would be better to join the Kingdom of America, because the Kingdom of America is the largest country in Mozambique and has a strong military theory. Joining the Kingdom of America can get good protection, unlike the Kingdom of Panier That would be discarded indiscriminately.

But those who know the upper echelons of the country know very well that it is definitely not better to join the Kingdom of Megalica than to be in the Kingdom of Panier. These outsiders who have just joined are likely to become members of the Kingdom of Megalica in a certain battle against mutant monsters. A decoy or pawn for the kingdom's army.

Although many people are well aware of the disadvantages of joining the Kingdom of America, the more powerful Kingdom of America is the best protection for ordinary citizens, so most of the members of the city council follow the public opinion and feel that they should join the Kingdom of America.

Faced with this situation, the mayor and the few sober people in the town could only try their best to suppress the matter of joining the Kingdom of America, until they felt that they could not suppress it any longer, and a rumor helped them get out of their current predicament.

The rumor is that the Seventh Legion of the Kingdom of America used the people of a nearby village as bait to lure the mutated monsters into the ambush in an annihilation battle against the mutated monsters. It caused some damage to several large nearby towns, but the village and the villagers living in it either died under the attack of mutant monsters, or were accidentally killed by the attack of the army. In the end, only a few people survived and escaped. The Kingdom of America, announce this matter.

At that time, this matter caused a lot of trouble, and the Kingdom of Megalica naturally refused to admit it, but there were too many participants in the war and it was impossible to silence it, and the traces on the battlefield could not be covered up, so in the end, they could only find an excuse to kill the seventh Several generals of the legion were dismissed, but they didn't deal with it further, and muddled through it in a very perfunctory manner.

After this rumor was transmitted to Clodessa, everyone who heard the rumor instantly changed their minds about joining the Megalica Kingdom. After all, the Megalica Kingdom can use its own people as bait today, and use them as pawns tomorrow.

So in the next meeting that decided to stay with Clodesa, the decision to join the Sackett City-State Autonomous Union was almost unanimously passed.

To this day, the congressmen who participated in the meeting that decided Clodessa's whereabouts were very grateful that they had made an extremely correct decision. In fact, not far from Clodessa, only a hill away A small town was also deciding which side to fall to. As a result, they made a decision that was diametrically opposed to Clodesa's and chose to join the Kingdom of America.

However, during a wave of monsters that almost spread to the entire Sarok Plain, the town asked for help from the Kingdom of Megalica, but received no response and was swallowed by the wave of monsters, while Clodessa was assisted by other autonomous alliance city-states, and finally Withstood the tide of monsters and survived till now.

In the following years, the city-states of the Autonomous Alliance also relied on this kind of mutual assistance, successfully surviving in this chaotic era, and the lives of several large cities in the center of the Autonomous Alliance have become as stable as the years of fog disasters old days.

It's just that another decision related to Clodesa's whereabouts has once again appeared in front of Clodesa's top management, and the difficulty of this decision is no less than that of the original decision.

The main reason for this decision is the news from the headquarters of the autonomous alliance. It is said that the headquarters of the autonomous alliance is already discussing whether to change the current system of the autonomous alliance.

The current system of the autonomous alliance is actually very loose. Basically, each town and city is doing its own thing. Political, military, and taxation are all in charge of each city. Every month, each city only needs to pay a part of the alliance membership fee to the headquarters as an emergency. the mobilization funds required.

It can be said that before joining the Autonomous Union, how much power the mayor, city councilors and government officials of Clodesa held in their hands, and how much power they still have after joining, without any change.

But now the headquarters of the Autonomous Alliance has decided to change this state of complete autonomy, unify all city-states into subordinate towns of one country, and divide the land under the jurisdiction of the Autonomous Alliance into four counties to control different numbers of autonomous city-states.

The reason for this is to improve the work efficiency of the Autonomous Union, unify resources, avoid unnecessary waste, strengthen cohesion, etc., and more importantly, it can make the Autonomous Union a real country, a real country recognized by other countries .

For a long time, the Sakt City-State Autonomous Alliance has not been recognized as an independent country by neighboring countries. There are many reasons, the most mentioned of which is this loose system. After changing the system, the surrounding countries can have one less reason for refusing to recognize it, and it can also be more justified in resisting the invasion of various countries in the future.

This restructuring policy, which is being discussed and will become a reality, has now been agreed by several large cities in the center of the Autonomous Union and the first few cities that joined the Autonomous Union. The towns on the fringes expressed strong opposition to the reform, because this reform not only weakened the power held by the top leaders of various towns and cities, but also made these towns worry that if the reform, their towns and cities would Like the border cities of those countries, they also become bait and pawns in certain events.

"I don't agree with restructuring," a young member of the city council said loudly, "We should unite with other towns that oppose restructuring to put pressure on the headquarters instead of discussing it here. .”

The population of Klodessa is only 20,000, and 20,000 members of the city council were elected by the 20,000 people. These members also hold some secondary positions in the city government. The post of guard captain of the city defense army.

This young councilor was not from Klodessa. Like one-third of the town's population, he was a refugee. The village he originally lived in was used as a pawn by the Kuishan Allies. In the end, his family only consisted of himself and his younger brother. After escaping, he joined the city defense army after fleeing to Klodessa, and gained a lot of fame after his military exploits. Finally, he became a member of the city council election last year.

It is precisely because of his experience that he strongly opposes all centralized systems, and because of his high prestige among young people, he quickly became the first initiative in parliament to oppose reform. Or, when other people are only dissatisfied with the restructuring, he has already begun to propose in the parliament to use a tough attitude to oppose the headquarters' restructuring decision. Rebels for emergencies.

After seeing that the proposal to establish an emergency resistance army was not brought to the meeting, the young councilor immediately proposed to unite other towns that opposed the restructuring.

Regarding this proposal, none of the working councilors expressed any objection, because it just fit their ideas. They knew very well that it was impossible for the people in the town of Clodesa to resist the decision to restructure the headquarters, because after After these years of integration, the power of the headquarters has penetrated into all aspects of Clodesa, not only food, clothing, housing and transportation, but even military supplies have a great impact. No matter how long it takes, Clodesa will plunge himself into civil strife.

As for leaving the Autonomous Union like leaving the Kingdom of Paneer, these councilors didn't even think about it, because they had to leave the Kingdom of Paneer at the beginning, and the Kingdom of Paneer had no influence on Clodesa. , which is completely different from what they are facing now.

As a result, all the members of the Clodesa Council quickly passed the proposal to unite other towns to resist the headquarters restructuring, but when they further discussed how to unite other towns and how to deal with the countermeasures of the headquarters, the gate of the council was blocked. People bumped away from the outside in various ways, and then saw a middle-aged soldier in full armor rushing in.

Before the people in the parliament opened their mouths to accuse the other party of disturbing the order of the parliament, the man panted heavily and said first: "It's not good! A group of mutated monsters is forming in Tebas Mountain outside the city and moving towards this side. Return here by tomorrow morning at the latest."

"What!" All the councilors were stunned by the news, and some of them even accused the patrol team of not discovering such a large group of mutant monsters in advance.

In order to avoid sudden attacks by mutated monsters, the Autonomous Alliance, like other countries, established patrol points in the border area a long time ago. These patrol points can help the border city-states of the alliance to detect mutated monsters three to five days in advance. The headquarters can also mobilize manpower from other towns during this period to support the town that first encountered the mutated monster group.

In the past, Clodesa had encountered a few times in the past when he happened to be in the way of the mutated monster group and confronted the mutated monster group head-on. Those times, without exception, he discovered the mutated monster group four or five days in advance. Gathered together, and made preparations for battle in advance, although there were a lot of casualties, they survived without any danger.

However, this is the first time that the situation of the mutated monster group is only known one day in advance like now. Everyone who heard the news is very sure that there is no time to ask for help from the headquarters in such a short time, even if it is to a neighboring city. It is also very difficult to ask for help, and it will take time for neighboring cities to form reinforcements, at least three days before they arrive.

As for the pre-war preparations in the city, it is also a very difficult thing, because the armaments in the city are not sufficient, only enough to equip one or two city defense troops of 1,000 people. If you want additional equipment, you need to ask the responsible Apply for the alliance equipment library in this area.

The reason for this situation is entirely because the equipment of the Autonomous Alliance is provided for free. Since it is free, the cities and towns will naturally not be willing to spend a lot of money to stock up on weapons.

Just when everyone was expressing their opinions and asking for help as soon as possible from various places where they could ask for help, someone suddenly said: "I remember that the patrol team at the headquarters conducted a routine patrol on Mount Tebas two days ago. If there is really a group of mutated monsters gathering, it is impossible for them not to notice, unless..."

Before this person finished speaking, the entire meeting hall fell silent instantly, and everyone's faces became extremely ugly, and it could even be said that they were covered with ashes.