Black Iron’s Glory

Chapter 130: The fate of Albert

“Hey, Claude, going home again? ”

Running on both sides every day, the guard battalion soldiers at the southwest corner of town are now familiar with Claude. Of course, that's why Claude became a human being, and he toured the woods early in the morning, and found himself trapped in a frozen hare wild chicken, and threw one or two at the soldiers of those camps. While the soldiers of the guard battalion are under military control in the town and the food is good, they are very welcome to these wild foods, which are free.

Greeting a lieutenant named Abraham, his squad is responsible for the order of the neighborhood southwest of town. When he saw Claude coming down the woodland highway in a carriage in the morning, he waved a greeting and instructed Claude to go to him.

“Good morning, Lieutenant.” Claude drove in the carriage and stopped next to him, tearing the scarf off his face: "It's the last day. Tomorrow is the New Year. Why are you still so busy? What are you doing? ”

Lieutenant Abraham shrugged his shoulders helplessly: "I can't help it. The nearer the New Year, the more vigilant it is to guard against pirates coming to White Deer Town on New Year's Eve, so we have to erect barriers and barricades on the streets of the town. But you see, this cold weather can't dig, we have to sweep the snow, then use the fire to warm the ground before we can dig, today we may not be able to complete this task. ”

After receiving a hot cup of black tea from Ensign Abraham, Claude smiled and said, "Go ahead, I knew you told me not to do anything good. If there's anything I can do to help, just say it. I'll do my best. ”

Lieutenant Abraham beat a thumb: "Aren't you the forest director? I'd like to ask you if you guys have any of those felled timber. If there is one, I'd like to ask you, building walls and barriers out of those timbers is much faster than digging for dirt...”

Claude shook his head with regret: "If you ask, the Normanly Forest Farm has not cut trees or produced timber for more than two decades, although there are still a few pieces of old timber, which are far from sufficient to build walls and barriers. Without the Baroness's permission, we wouldn't be able to cut trees in private, which I can't help. ”

“Alas, it seems we can't escape digging.” Ensign Abraham was disappointed, too: "We wanted to cut down the woods next to the town, but the town council wouldn't allow it, saying it was the town council's property, and cutting down was fine, but we had to pay for the timber. We don't have this budget for timber purchases. We were supposed to set up security facilities around the New Year's Eve. Soldiers have complained that it would be too much if we were to pay for these materials..."

Claude looked at the four or five soldiers surrounding him, and they were digging up the fire-burned dirt with shovels, loading it into a linen bag, and piling it up into a barrier and a half-person wall with these clay-filled linen bags. So far, however, no more than a dozen sacks have been filled with dirt, which is why Ensign Abraham's sad face wanted to borrow wood from the woodlands.

“Is it permanent to build a fortified barrier and fence?” Claude asked.

Abraham shook his head: "How could it be that those assholes on there would never have given such an order again? The repair of permanent preparedness facilities requires engineering design and procurement budgets, as well as professional construction teams to build, not just the soil we accumulate in dozens of sacks. Anyway, when your Bai Lu Town guard unit is formed, our guard battalion will be evacuated, and these guard facilities will be handed over to the guard unit. It's none of our business if it's good or bad. ”

Claude thought about saying to Ensign Abraham, "In that case, you don't have to let your men dig the dirt. It is winter and there is occasional heavy snow. You can actually use the snow to build walls and walls, squeeze the snow, throw it in water, freeze it harder than iron. Such barriers and walls are built at a faster pace and have better defenses, and if there is a real war, the guns will not be able to break through these frozen squares. ”

After sipping all the black tea in the cup and returning the empty cup to Ensign Abraham, Claude smiled: "As for the durability of these snow-capped barriers and walls, I'm sure they won't freeze until the end of February at least. By then, the White Deer Town guard brigade should have been formed. Your guard battalion has been withdrawn back to the county. It's none of your business if these guard facilities exist and are intact..."

Lieutenant Abraham's sudden enlightenment surprised him, and he hugged Claude: “Thank you so much, Claude, you are such a good brother, you are so smart, I don't know how you could have thought of such a good idea, I told the soldiers to stop digging the ground and do as you say! ”

Claude continued to drive his wagon to his house, and Ensign Abraham's praise and compliments made him happy. But he also spits in his heart that the qualities of the Royal Army officers are too low to come up with such a simple solution. The modern army with guns is obviously trained as a wooden head, only obeying orders, but not knowing how to adapt...

Just what I saw when I got home left Claude in a good mood, and my sister Angelina was crying and telling Claude what happened. Early this morning, Albert broke into the house with a wooden stick and knocked the little snow dog over the floor while he was not ready. Then he rushed up to the third floor, turned the case down in his parents' bedroom, and grabbed all his mother's jewellery.

Mother went to stop him and he pushed him away, fell down and couldn't climb up, then Albert ran away with the jewelry...

Claude was so angry that he wanted to turn around and find Albert's whereabouts in town right away, but he had to settle down. Snow Dog's back leg was broken by a stick, and his brother cried in his arms. Mother fell in bed and said she had back pain and couldn't climb up. Sister Anna was fine, but she didn't know what to do. Good thing Claude's back. She's finally counting on it, and she's not scared anymore.

When he arranged for his sister to make some breakfast, Claude drove the carriage to the pharmacy and invited that filthy pharmacist old man home.

Snow Dog is fine, put on a splint and Claude is going to get him a perfect bottle of primary treatment to swallow and apply, and in a couple of days he can jump alive again. The difficulty is that the mother, the pharmacist said that the mother's trauma was fine after diagnosis, that is, she twisted her back and put some ointment on it for two days. Mainly because the heart disease and worries are too heavy, the mind has been tranced, the body is extremely weak, it takes a period of rest to recover, usually eat more good food to make up for the body or something.

After sending away the pharmacist old man, Claude went to the kitchen to steam three egg spoons, one for each mother, sister and brother, then gave Snow Dog a pill, threw him a cow bone so he could eat more, replenish some calcium, save it would not be so easy to be discounted by a stick to the back leg in the future, especially if Albert was the pig who did it, and it would be embarrassing to say it out.

On the pretext of going out and shopping, Claude drove his wagon around town looking for Albert's whereabouts. After questioning the soldiers on duty at the corner of the town, it was confirmed that Albert had not left the town. So Claude went back to the jewelry stores and the grocery stores and asked them if Albert had taken the jewelry to their shop for pawn in the morning.

There are only three jewelry stores in White Deer Town, but there are more than a dozen grocery stores. It took Claude more than two hours to get away, but the news was that Albert didn't go to these stores to pawn the jewelry he stole from his mother.

Where the hell is this thing? Claude thought that Albert dared to break into the house early in the morning and rob his mother of her jewellery, pointing out that he was in short supply of money, otherwise he would not have resorted to such aggressive measures. Eat, drink, just stay with Sir Fox. As Lord Fox's personal secretary, it's no problem to mix things up.

By the way, after his father's arrest, Albert didn't tell him about himself, and he didn't know he was still working for Sir Fox. Claude drove to Sir Fox's estate in the southeast of town, where an old butler came out and said Albert had taken a long vacation to rush for his father's arrest. Now that the Fields are his owners, Sir Fox has granted his leave request.

When Claude returned to the carriage, he spat on the ground with hatred. The goods are still pretending to be serious outside. The excuses for taking leave are so grand, but the owner has done so? Running off for the arrest of my father. Where'd he go?

Perhaps we could use a change of mind to imagine where this shipment would go with the money? Claude's mind sees that night in the old street, Albert bargaining next to the street with the woman who was standing in the street.

Well, with the money, it's possible this shit's been hanging out on the old street. But for the first time, Albert cheated on his mother and took about fifteen or six silver tallers, all of them more than three gold crowns. This money is enough for him to spend a month or two in the wind and moon on Old Street. It's enough for him to fly four or five times a day for most of the month. After all, the price is cheap there. The most beautiful and expensive street girl is only a riazo once...

As a result, after only three or four days, Albert ran home to cheat his mother's jewellery, tear it apart and teach him a lesson, he dared to break into the house with a wooden stick and rob his mother's jewellery in the early morning while he was away. What gave this son of a bitch so much courage to do that?

The only thing Claude can think of when he eats and drinks and gambles is five poisons. However, from what I know about Albert, I don't care much about eating and drinking this product. I would even go to eat food that tastes bad and can only fill my stomach to save money. Drinking is also cheap and cheap. I can say that this product is stingy and cheap when it comes to the cost of eating and drinking.

All that's left is gambling and poisoning, which is a good thing, but fifteen or six silver tallers are enough to keep him happy on Old Street for a while, and it's impossible to spend all the money in three or four days. I didn't feel weak when I taught him last night, so much money shouldn't be the reason.

As for poison, that's all the more unlikely. The world has not yet reached the very rich social stage of the material civilization of previous generations. There is no such thing as hallucinogen ecstasy, nor is it possible to buy it, so this can be ruled out.

The rest is gambling, and only gambling has the greatest chance of letting Albert lose all the money around him in three or four days, and he has to go home and try to fool his mother. It's just that Claude doesn't know where Albert is gambling, gambling in an underground casino, or hanging out with a couple of friends. If it was the latter, then Claude would never have found Albert, who knows where they'd be hiding at night...

But when you think about it, Claude thinks it's still the most likely underground casino, because Albert didn't get the old jewelry from his mother to pawn in the town jewelry stores and grocery stores. Instead of recharging the jewellery if their friends get together, there's a pawn business going on in an underground casino, and Albert is very likely to take his mother's jewellery to the underground casino to cash it out.

Perhaps this shipment also owes the casino a sharp loan, which gives it the courage to break into the house and grab the mother's jewellery… Claude's cold analysis of this possibility.

But the problem now is that Claude doesn't know if there's an underground casino in White Deer Town, and he's never heard of it. In the kingdom of Ovillas, private underground casinos are a major crime, and they are caught going to hang themselves. So, not knowing where Bai Lu Town's underground casino is is normal for Claude, he needs to find an insider first...