Chapter 24 - Capital

Chapter 24: Capital

Translator: Wuxia Dog Editor: Wuxia Dog
When Han Jin could walk again under the help of Steelberg, it was already ten days later. As an old saying goes: once injured in the sinews or bones, a hundred days needed to recover. Thus it was nearly a miracle that Han Jin could stand up again in such a short time since he was so seriously injured.
In the past ten days things changed a lot, among which the most important and influential change was that the relationship in this group had gone through fundamental shift.
If it was not these ten days and had Han Jin not been hurt, they were likely to leave this woods for Beitman as soon as Miss Keeley recovered from her grief. And if they got to their destination, they would depart from each other without doubt. Cessacioun might have no clear plan, but Sunier was sure to leave them. She had her own mission, that was to find an answer for herself and for the whole race of Elves. The answer was beyond the intelligence of Han Jin or Moxinke. Miss Keeley would also walk her own way to deal with her own business. They might one day meet again, but who knew when that day came, they were still friends or not.
During these days Sunier often debated with Cessacioun heatedly concerning future of this world. And later on Miss Keeley also joined their debate. Now everyone knew that Sunier was an elf from the Wild Willow City. She was grown up under and unconsciously influenced by elvish civilizations. Cessacioun was a bardlet who was used to traveling among cities and towns and understood deeply the suffering of the lower class such as ordinary civilians and slaves. While Miss Keeley was the spokesperson of the high class of humans. In other words, they had different statuses, and they held different outlooks on life and on the world. They often argued fiercely and none could convince another. Sometimes two of them would gang up on the the other, and when one topic ended, the league would disbanded immediately and a new union would be formed. What a changeable situation it was as though they were three countries confronting each other.
Their friendship also deepened along with those debates. In Han Jin’s opinion, what they argued was actually very childish and useless. The three could not even change the destiny of a small town, let alone the whole world and the future of all creatures. But he had to admit that it was the young that enjoy discussing the situation of the world with encouraging words. The saying that ‘newborn calves afraid of no tigers’ best described it. If even the young lost their vigor and invincible spirit, the world would be really past remedy.
Moxinke didn’t took part in such debates, he was the most boring guy. Just as Han Jin had said, he had some petty tricks, but as for any lofty ideal or thought such as making the world more peaceful, he was not interested. In Moxinke’s mind, he just wanted to be a swordsaint that can defeat anyone else in this world. If there’s one god asking him to make a wish, he would choose to be so without hesitation.
Seeing that Cessacioun, Sunier and Miss Keeley sitting by a stone in silence, Han Jin felt it was strange. He clicked Moxinke with a finger and asked: “What’s wrong with them? Shouldn’t they be arguing at this time like usual?”
“Shhh…” Moxinke put up his index finger to his lips and whispered: “They mentioned something about Miss Keeley just now and she is shedding tears.”
“What’s it?” Han Jin asked with his brows frown.
Moxinke restated what had happened in brief. According to Miss Keeley, it was a family test for her to open a smith’s shop in Radon Town. The period of the assessment was one year, during which she would receive no help from her family and the initial capital for her was fixed. The test aimed to chose a prime candidate as the responsible person of the whole family. In fact Miss Keeley should receive such test two years later, but she knew that her family advanced it and let her leave the Holy Crown City to avoid the entanglement of someone.
Things after Miss Keeley arriving the Radon Town were known to both Han Jin and Moxinke. Then she received a letter that night. It was from an old friend of her father, the high grade fighter Hoffman. In the letter her father told her to leave the town immediately and to go as far as possible and never return to the Holy Crown City.
Miss Keely was not a sophisticated girl. Thus she could only guess but not making the accurate analysis. Cessacioun and Sunier made up for her shortcomings and made things clear. The Black Raven City and Depew City formed an alliance to attack Dismark, and the reinforcements requested by the owner of the Holy Crown City was rejected by the Wild Willow City, this made Dismark have no choice but to expand his armies immediately by himself!
The first issue of military expansion was fund raising. The family of Miss Keeley was the richest well-known in the Holy Crown City, and it undoubtedly became the target of Dismark . But due to some reason, the family didn’t want to have connection with Dismark through marriage, thus they made the arrangement to let Miss Keekey leave the city for some time.
But they didn’t know that Dismark was already at stake and had no energy or time to deal with a businessman. He finally chose an extreme way. That’s why Miss Keeley received that letter.
Although these were all guesses, they had great impact on Miss Keeley. Besides, she couldn’t think of any other reason except this.
Han Jin fell into silence too, and after a few seconds he said slowly: “Come on, let’s have a sit there.”
“I’m not going, they always talk about boring things!” Moxinke’s head shaking.
“You…..” Han Jin didn’t know whether to laugh or to reproach him, he said: “come on, we should also think about what shall we do next.”
Hearing the sound of footsteps, Cessacioun turned around and said with surprise: “Raphael, why do you come out? Your injury… ”
“It’s all right.” this answering, Han Jin sat down on a small square stone.
Miss Keeley forced a smile at him and lowered her head again. Sunier looked at Han Jin up and down and asked doubtfully: “Are you really all right?”
“Of course I am.” Han Jin shook his arm hardly to prove that he had recovered. “We’ve stayed here long enough. Shall we change a place to somewhere else?”
“Where do you want to go?” Sunier was startled.
“Everywhere is okay. At least we need to know what was happening outside.” Han Jin looked around and continued: “What do you think?”
“I am easy to please.” Cessacioun replied.
“I agree.” Miss Keeley looked at Han Jin with a grateful expression. If it was not the wounds of Han Jin, she had put forward the same idea earlier. It couldn’t be better since now Han Jin mentioned it himself.
“But where to go? We gotta have a place, don’t we?” Sunier asked.
“How about the Eleventh Town? It’s a prosperous town and I am quite familiar with it.” Moxinke scratched his scalp.
“The Eleventh Town? What a strange name.” Han Jin said curiously.
“Beitman has four acropolis, they are the North City, the South City, the East City and the West City, each city’s divided into four towns, thus there are totally sixteen towns in Beitman, all are named by numbers.”
“Seems that the owner of Beitman is a very intelligent and rigorous man.” Han Jin thought to himself.
“In Beitman, there is no owner of the territory, but just one leader. And every three years, the leader will be re-selected.” Cessacioun laughed: “In fact the whole Beitman is controlled by the four owners of the four acropolis. The leader is always one of them.”
“I see…” Han Jin thought for a while and asked: “Sunier, we should have made a lot of achievements these days, haven’t we?”
“Eh? You are afraid that I will pocket all the profit?” Sunier sneered.
“I didn’t mean this…but we gotta to know…”
Sunier opened her space ring and the magic crystals all appeared on the square stone, totally twenty or more. But none of them were high grade magic crystals. All were fourth or fifth grade.
“How much can we get by selling them, Cessacioun?”
“More than one hundred golden coins I suppose. If someone need them in a hurry, we can sell them with a higher price.” Miss Keeley replied before Cessacioun.
Cessacioun shrugged his shoulders. In fact if Miss Keeley was there, there’s no need for Han Jin to ask him.
“That’s enough.” Han Jin signed with relief. All of them were poor guys at present. Although Miss Keeley was a rich girl once, her money had all been stolen by the traitor Villar. Thus for them, all they could do to realize their dreams was to work by themselves.
“What are you going to do?” Sunier asked.
“You will know.” Han Jin narrowed his eyes: “If the war has broken out in the Holy Crown City, we may sell them with a higher price. ho ho…”