The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

The Lucky Star is a passenger ship that runs around Joshshire all the year round. Heel Bundy is the owner of the ship. Like most young people in the Kingdom of England, he has been at sea in his early years, but his luck Better, made a fortune, and knew how to advance and retreat, and returned to his hometown in Josh County to start a passenger business when others were still dreaming of making more money.

Although both Josh County and Saab County have fallen into a state of economic downturn, almost all industries have entered a period of depression under the influence of the general environment, but compared with other industries, the river shipping industry still maintains a prosperous trend , in addition to benefiting from the developed mining industry in Sabo County, it also benefits from the Josh people who go out to work in Josh County.

Josh County is a huge swamp. In the early years, the people who settled in Josh County were bankrupt city citizens who couldn't pay taxes, freedmen who lost their employers, and some serfs who fled the lord's territory.

These people gathered in Josh County to form villages. These villages all relied on this swamp to survive. They used their geographical advantages to resist the tax collectors sent by the kingdom and resist the armies of the lords of the surrounding counties. The people of Josh County are tough by nature and full of gangster spirit.

It is no exaggeration to say that at least five out of ten people in Josh County have participated in one or even multiple robberies, the other four are gang thugs, and the remaining one is considering joining a gang or should be a robber .

Even after Josh County broke away from the status of "no matter what" and began to be directly managed by the kingdom, and had its own lord, this habit of gangsters still did not change in the slightest.

The roads in Josh County are definitely the most dangerous roads in the entire Kingdom of England, because there are a large number of robbers waiting on both sides of the road, waiting for those fat sheep to pass by on the road, so anyone who has a little spare money in their pockets will not choose to go from here. Leaving Josh County on the way, and returning to choose a safer boat, even if the ticket is very expensive.

Heel Bondy saw this right, and spent a lot of money to hire professional technicians to change the current Lucky Star into the fastest steam paddle steamer for inland river transportation, and specially traveled the wide river of the city of Migne. This route to Joshburg.

Other ships need a week to complete this route, but his paddle steamer only takes two days, which virtually increases his shipping income by two or three times, and because his ship is more It is smooth and fast, making his ticket much more expensive than others, but this has not affected his business, and the Lucky Star is still the most profitable ship on this river.

This time, Heel Bundy was planning to pull a boat and start a new round of voyage as usual, but he was a little surprised that someone booked his boat, and what was even more weird was the person who boarded the boat. There are only a dozen people.

Although the Lucky Star is not as good as those sea passenger cruise ships that can carry thousands of people at every turn, but here, on the route between Migne and Josburg, his passenger ship that can carry 500 people at the same time is already considered a giant. The bully exists, so few people would be willing to charter the whole boat, and most people would only book a suite as their own private cabin.

But such a large ship has been chartered like now, but there are only a dozen people on board. This kind of thing has never been seen before.

Although Heel Bundy is very curious about what is happening now, he knows the rules, what to ask and what not to ask, and he also recognized a person from the crowd, that person is the wolf of Mines Gang leader Wolf Willis.

When doing business in Mine City, you don't need to know who the mayor is, or who the city councilor is, but you definitely have to know the leaders and leaders of the major gangs in Mine City. Although the Wolf Gang is not the biggest gang in the city of Mines, its strength can still be ranked in the first array, and it directly controls an urban area. It is one of the few gangs with a real foundation.

Willis, the wolf, is definitely a legend in the city. A poor country boy from Joshburg joined the gang, and within a year he became the leader of the gang in charge of an industry. When the leader was around by accident, he killed the other leaders of the gang by himself, and became the unique leader of the gang where he belonged.

Afterwards, he changed the name of the gang to the Wolf Gang, and expanded rapidly, annihilating and annexing several other gangs around, and became one of the largest gangs in Mine City.

It is precisely because of his legendary rise experience that many people from Josh County admire him extremely. If they want to join a gang, the wolf gang is always the first choice.

However, such a gang leader who is famous for his proficiency in fighting is standing on the deck of the ship with injuries all over his body, and he lowers his body in front of a woman very respectfully. Anyone with a discerning eye can see who the two are. Who is the master, and the person who made the leader of the wolf gang bow his head is also very famous in the city of Mines as the proprietress of the Jungle Hotel.

The proprietress, who is famous for her beauty, is regarded as the mistress of the leader of the wolf gang, so under the protection of the wolf gang, the Jungle Hotel can become the safest hotel in Mines, but now it seems that everyone has misunderstood Now, this woman is not a mistress at all, but more like the owner of the leader of the wolf gang.

Compared with these well-known figures in the city of Mine, the other five people who boarded the boat together seemed much stranger. These five people did not look like a group of people, and three of them should be dressed like that. Mercenaries and the like, while the other two are more like nobles, walking together more like bodyguards and employers.

Heel Bondi can tell from experience that none of these five people is a resident of the city of Mine, because it is impossible for such nobles to appear in the city of Mine, and even if there are mercenaries, they have already joined the gang, and those who do not want to join the gang either Became the food of wild beasts in the mountains, or forced to leave the city of Mines.

Heel Bundy is not a hobby of observing people, mainly because he is not only the owner of the Lucky Star on the surface, but also an intelligence collector of a secret agency in the kingdom. He needs to record the passengers on board every day. Every move is needed for the investigation of that secret department.

However, apart from speculation about the identities of those people, there is really nothing worth studying about those people, because after they boarded the ship, they stayed in the cabin and never came out. go in.

In fact, that heel Bundy didn't know, his self-concealed observation method did not escape the eyes of Leo and others, and Leo and others were not prepared to delve into this matter, after all, they had to consider things comparable to dealing with this matter. The eyes and ears of the secret department are much stronger, and the more important thing is to solve this person, who will drive the ship.

The Mines River is normal in Saab County, but after entering Josh County, it becomes weird.

Because of the swampy terrain of Josh County, and the groundwater here will have tidal phenomena, the channel of the Mines River will change with the seasons, which has caused some difficulties in river transportation.

For example, today a boat can drive on a spacious river and finally reach its destination, but if he chooses to take the same river the next day, he will find that the river has been blocked. Even if it is not blocked, there will be some Unexpected reef.

If you want to drive on the Mines River in Josh County, the person at the helm needs to have a deep understanding of all the changes in the water patterns of this river, and also need to have some relationship with the villages and towns along the river, this is the Mines River. The main reason why the transportation on the Si River is basically completely controlled by the Josh people.

So even though Leo and the others knew that Heel Bundy was watching them secretly, they didn't teach each other a lesson. They just stayed in the cabin and didn't give the other party a chance to observe.

After more than half a day, the passenger boat entered a spacious and gentle river after passing through a relatively turbulent river section, and the high mountains around the river were gradually replaced by endless plains and grasslands, which also represented that they had officially entered Josh County.

Originally, everyone thought that the boat would continue to drive directly along the spacious river, but Heel Bondi quickly turned the rudder and drove the boat into an extremely narrow small river, just enough for the Lucky Star to pass through. , and then docked in a lake that is not too big or too small for the river lens.

"What's going on here?" Wolf gang leader Willis sent someone to call Heel Bundy over and asked about the situation.

"Sir, you can't drive on the river at night." Heel Bundy replied quickly, looking very nervous in the face of such a big man in Migne.

"Evening?" Willis turned his head and looked at the sky. Although it was almost evening, the sky had not yet darkened. It seemed that it would be a few hours before evening. Seeing the sky like this, his face was gloomy. Get down, grabbed Heel Bundy by the collar, and said, "Do you think I'm a fool?"

"No, it's not!" Heel Bundy shook his head again and again, and said in a panic: "You are also from Josh, and you should know that Josh's swamp is active, but you may not know that Josh's swamp is nearing evening. If we continue to sail during that time, we will probably encounter reefs formed by swamp activity. And..."

Having said that, he suddenly hesitated for a moment, as if he didn't know whether he should say the next thing or not.

There was a stern look in Willis' eyes, and he asked in a deep voice, "Is there anything else you haven't said?"

Although Heel Bundy secretly works for the kingdom's secret department, he is actually just an ordinary person. How can he bear the threat of a gang leader like Willis? Sweat immediately broke out on his forehead, and he quickly replied: "Yes. Papa, if you sail on the river at night, you may encounter Papa."

"Papa?" Willis didn't expect to get such an answer. He was stunned for a moment, then raised his head and laughed, and the other gangsters from Josh County also laughed, only those who were not Josh The talent from the county looked blank, not knowing what everyone was laughing at.

Someone also explained what Papa was, and after hearing Wan's explanation, the others looked at Heel Bundy strangely, as if they were looking at some freak.

The legends about Papa in Josh County have been circulating for a long time, but these are only circulated in some small villages, and other towns scoff at such rural legends.

Papa is a local Joshshire slang term that originally meant a curse word, but now means a monster in the swamp.

In the past, many people have seen some monsters in the swamp, but they couldn't tell what the monsters looked like. In addition, most of the rumors came from the tavern, so these rumors about Papa were rejected. Thinking it was some drunken hallucination, even the most superstitious Josh people would not take something like Papa seriously.

"It's true, there is Papa!" Heel Bundy, who was being ridiculed, seemed to be very concerned about this matter, suppressing his fear of Willis, and quickly said: "I have seen Papa, I I met Papa twice, one time all the people on board were killed by Papa, the second time I was lucky and found a place to take refuge in time, so I didn't die at the hands of Papa."

"Could you have encountered a river pirate in disguise?" Willis said angrily.

It is true that boats traveling on the Mines River are safer than horse-drawn carriages on the road, but this kind of safety is only relative. Some thieves and robbers saw less business on the road, so they also set their minds on the river.

They used a special reed growing in the swamp to make a reed boat, and they rowed the reed boat in the dark, approaching the cargo ship docked on the river, and carried out robbery.

It's just that after such a thing happened once or twice, the captains of those freighters also learned to be good. Most of them would estimate the distance and sail into the pier of the town before dark, and the few who had to sail late at night would try their best. Keep up the speed so those reed boats can't get close.

It's not that those river pirates haven't thought about robbing ships during the day, but that requires very good and fast ships to do it, but if there are such ships, why would they do this kind of business that will lose their heads at any time, and go straight to Mines The freight and passenger transportation on this line of the river is enough for them to make a lot of money.

Before, when Willis saw that the ship did not continue driving, but docked in this small creek, his first thought was that the owner of the ship was in collusion with the river pirates and wanted to attack them at night.

But after thinking about it, I felt something was wrong, because the owner of the ship knew their identities very well, and those underworlds were not sure who was the wolf and who was the sheep in front of them, so the owner of the ship would not be so stupid as to want to cooperate with the river robbers to rob them .

But now, after listening to the captain's narration, Willis feels that the captain may really be a lunatic, who would take some unbelievable legends seriously, and even if Papa is true, could it be that the ship was docked in a nearby village? Isn't the pier safer than docking on this remote river?

"No, it's not the river pirates! We were docked in the village at the time, and the river pirates didn't dare to enter the village!" Sensing Willis' distrust, Heel Bundy hurriedly explained.

"Were you attacked in the village?" Willis was very surprised, because this kind of thing shouldn't happen according to common sense.