282 Mole in the kingdom

After hearing the long scientific talk of how these bulbs work, Don asked Ken the obvious question.

"Providing the light bulbs to Agoria will not be a problem considering the dam is in Agoria, your majesty"

"I sense a but, Ken"

Knight said,

"But, your majesty, transporting the electric energy to Emir and Ishikara is quite troublesome,"

Don couldn't help but rub his chin for a few moments

"If I heard you right, without this electric energy, these bulbs are just glass filled with Nitrogen right?"

"Yes, your majesty"

"Then build your generator and the rotating wheels near where we rooted the water spirit since the place will soon turn into a lake. Dam, lake, you can work around"

"I can work around that your majesty if you tell Amaryll to raise the budget for my works"

"I will tell her, you start the groundwork for producing these bulbs"

Amaryll and Uncle Dior became better at managing the treasury of Everlight as each and every coin and life stones kept accounted for. 

Both of them allocated a certain amount of wealth to the inner circle members of Everlight to manage their unit and work for six months. However, if anyone wanted more than the allocated amount, they had to go through Knight or Don before Amaryll or Uncle Dior to grant whatever amount they needed.

"Speaking of Amaryll, I heard she's planning to start a winery with Amber, I'll go check it out"

"No, I'll go"

When Knight was about to leave the place to meet Amaryll, Don stopped Knight and said.

"I told you to take it easy, Don"

Knight frowned hearing that Don wants to go to Emir 

"Knight, you stay here and start planning the shipbuilding process. I can handle this"

"Alright, but be careful, your body is still healing itself"

"I know, see you later"

**************************

Martin looked anxiously out the window.

From yesterday, it started snowing in Emir and formed knee-high snow banks throughout the kingdom overnight.

Though the sky looked gray and gloomy without a ray peeking through the thick clouds, he still had other ways to tell the hour.

It was the training time of the new recruits to the black army of King Don. Even in the weather like this, they were running through the square in the town center since the early birds first chirped. Of course, after seeing the wages for military personnel, it was even tempted Martin to enlist in the army. Plus, the warm bone soup and whole egg for each of them was something that comments couldn't resist.

Thanks to their early morning training, he was able to estimate the time when he should depart.

Yes, he wanted to flee Emir as fast as he could. Although the orders of King Mattia were for him to keep lurking in Emir, to observe everything that's happening in Emir, and pass the information to Monivelle. But he did not want to stay any longer as he noticed the black-hooded group of King Don arriving at Emir. This meant one thing, that they were here to check the security before King Don arrives at Emir.

He was afraid that if he was found by these devils by any chance, they would make him beg for death.

This was not an exaggeration as everyone knew about the merciless punishments of Don. For a man who ordered the deaths of half of the nobles without a second thought, who knew what he would do to a spy like him?

Since Don took the throne, strange things kept happening, which the others might not have been aware of—it was not surprising as most of the town people were too happy getting their purses filled with coins. Other than food and wages they earned under Don's rule, they did not care about anything and started to worship him like a god. But he was different. He was a trained spy! Inquiring about the news and stealing intelligence was his special skill, so that was why His majesty Mattia hired him for such a job.

As for the water spirit they rooted with the help of Cold Moon Palace, or the free education classes for the peasant kids in the castle, of course, this was not the most amazing discovery he found.

King Don was openly keeping Astrels in his army.

The Emperor may have lifted the ban of letting the Astrels join a Kingdom but not a single ruler in the empire decided to mingle with the cursed Astrels.

Even if the King wanted to play with the Astrels, he could lock them in the castle and have fun anytime. This was not the first time that Martin heard about the noble secretly hiding Astrels like elves or half-elves who nobody would care about if they died suited the strange tastes of some nobles. However, recruiting them into the army and let them roam free like a normal citizen was another thing.

This was not his delusion, for he actually saw it with his own eyes!

Following the order of his majesty Mattia, if the snow didn't reach his knee, Martin would stroll through the streets of the capital and the villages, where he could often see black-armored men. First, he was confused, what made some of them always wear helmets covering their faces, rather than let their face be seen while they laugh and drink with the villagers and their colleagues. But now he fully understood, they were hiding their faces to conceal their real identity.

He saw with his own eyes a group of elven girls removing their armor to take a bath in one of the newly formed ponds. He didn't want to get too close to them in case they spotted him but their pointy ears and golden hair was a dead giveaway that they were elves.

He then heard the rumors of the neighborhood, saying that some black-armored men could drink a barrel of ale and stand straight. The people may have not noticed or chose not to notice, Martin knew that no human could do that. So he started to spend his evenings at the inns to see them in action as one evening, he heard the black-armored man who competed and won the drinking competition speaking with a thick accent, the accent that Martin knew only dwarves had.

What a find that was! How could King Don keep elves and dwarves in his army? was he trying to mingle with Astrels and paving a way to another Great war between Astrels and Humans?

What made Martin determined to return was the incident that happened two days ago. There was a building caught on fire in one village and a few citizens stuck under the rubble. Normally, it would take hours to clear the rubbles and rescue whoever stuck but according to what he was able to gather, someone who was seven feet tall with a muscular body lifted the heavy rubbles like nothing and rescued the people within an hour.

If his guess was right, it was either an extremely mutated human or another Astrel like an Orc, Ogre, or a short giant. With his experience, he could rule out the first, and coupled with the elves and dwarves, it was likely that this it's another Astrel.

There was no doubt that the evil touched King Don and started to turn the kingdom into a cursed land of Astrel. And after seeing the commoners worship him like a god and treat the black-armored men as their family and friends, he realized that the inhabitants of the land were gradually being controlled by him to fall under the rule of Astrels.

MArtin had to flee as soon as possible. Anyway, he knew the secret about the weird design of the buildings and the effectiveness of the archer unit. As long as he passed this information to King Mattia, he would most likely not be punished for fleeing, but would even be rewarded.

The more he thought about it, the more he regretted not evacuating with some of the nobles and returning to Monivelle before the start of winter.

Now that he wanted to leave, traveling by foot would not work, as the snow would have covered all the roads by now. His only chance was to hitch a ride to Mairis and then travel to Monivelle by sea using a merchant ship.

According to Martin's observation, on the first day of each month, carriages of the Pattyn family would leave Emir carrying the construction materials to Mairis. He had to hitch a ride in this carriage, or he would have to wait till the next month.

.

Today was exactly the first day of the month.

"One, two, three, good, 197 sit-ups more! " Right at this time, Martin heard the familiar voice, it belonged to a woman who seemed to be in charge of training recruits. Outside the window, a company of youngsters dressed in black leather vests was running. If he had not been startled by the Astrels, he would have been surprised to see many young girls among the youngsters.

"It's time to go," he thought in his mind.

He put on his fur coat, tightened his belt and walked out of the tavern. People were outside preparing to start their busy day of working with the black-armored men in the construction sites. Looking at him, they greeted him with a wide smile, "You're going out so early in this weather?"

He had to say, although the King of Emir was mingling with Astrels, these fools' lives actually changed for the better indeed. Previously, they would be collecting planks and stones to fix the holes in their houses and amassing snow to melt and drink. Except now, they had new houses, not a normal house either, each house was two-story with a lawn. The king had been giving them vegetables and crops for a price that could be afforded by everyone. Considering their wages, Martin realized that they would soon start cooking meat for every dinner.

Martin did not have time to reply. He looked at the disappearing company of new recruits in the south and went straight towards the direction where the Patyn family carriage would appear. Here the citizens took him for an Iron ore merchant, who came from Vreston to buy ores from Emir and start an iron business, that was all lies spun by him. He was given enough coins to buy iron ore and successfully pretend like he's an iron ore merchant by Mattia. Since he was trained to take another identity in spy training, the citizens had no clue that he's a spy.

The snow on the stone-paved road almost covered the top of the shoes. He kept a firm pace as much as possible to conserve energy as he did not worry about leaving his footprints, for it would take just a couple of hours for the snow to cover them again. Maybe after he reached Monivelle, the citizens would still be kept in the dark.

When he was approaching his destination, he saw the long-awaited carriage of the Pattyn family.

Bags of stones being moved into the carriage as the guards of the Pattyn family patrolled the area. He touched his pocket, and inside there were twenty gold and fifty silver coins, which were the coins he had left after spending to keep his cover. There were six guards, who would be hard to tempt with twenty gold coins. So he had to target the porters. The stacked goods provided a blind spot and also, he was good at knocking out and replacing a porter. If he could smuggle onto the carriage, he believed that with the temptation of the gold royals, the driver of the carriage would very likely be persuaded to shelter him and take him to Mairis.

Tap!

Just as Martin was ready to act, a dagger landed just an inch away from his feet.

His heart secretly assumed the worst. When he turned back, he saw a group of five black hooded figures flying toward him on their words while Pattyn guards also noticed this and started to move towards him. Apparently, he had been surrounded.

Seeing that the attempt to escape was hopeless, he immediately held up his hands and knelt on the ground. In his line of work, it was important not to stubbornly resist, especially in a situation where he was outnumbered and outgunned. Resisting or trying to flee would only raise the suspicions and make him look guilty and even if the push comes to shove, as long as he spilled the beans about his employer, he had a small chance to avoid death.

Nonetheless, he did not understand how they found him?