Revive Rome: Wait! Why not make the empress fall in love with me first?-Chapter 372 - 170: Interrogation and Reward

Inside Falcon Castle, Lu Aelin, under the guise of a visit, quickly intercepted Aske, who was about to collect his payment, and inquired detailedly about the incident.

"I’m not sure," Aske said earnestly, "At that time, I just heard a gunshot from afar..."

"How many shots?" Lu Aelin interrupted him.

"One, I guess? Maybe two, I can’t remember," Aske said, "After all, we were still fighting Green Skins at that time."

Lu Aelin was speechless.

"Then, a fog started to roll in from the distance, a huge fog," Aske continued, "It was the kind where one second it’s clear skies, and the next second, fog billows down from the mountain top, and just looking at it you could feel a kind of uncomfortable cold presence. Hmm, though I don’t know what it was, I’m sure it had to do with Extraordinary Ability, given all the mutants I’ve seen. You know about the Night Watchman team, right? I’ve had quite the jovial conversations with them."

Fog... cold presence... definitely the Ferryman of the River Styx’s ability, no doubt, and it matched the clues we found at the scene. Did the Ferryman use Summon to trap that traitor with the River Styx?

Lu Aelin thought silently to himself and continued to ask:

"And so, Commander Aske, when you saw the fog surge down the mountain, did you not try to go and investigate?"

"Of course not," Aske said solemnly, "First off, at that moment, we of the Azure Longsword were fighting a large number of Green Skin creatures in the city and couldn’t extract ourselves, let alone have the capacity to leave and check it out."

"Secondly, the contract we signed with the Falcon Family was about reclaiming Stuttgart City, capturing the Earl of Totem Fort alive, or confirming his death. As for mutants, what does that have to do with me? If I help them quell a mutation, would the Falcon Family pay extra for that?"

Lu Aelin: ......

Although it was crudely put, indeed from a mercenary’s perspective, the risk of rashly entering mutant areas was too high, and the payoff was unstable. In the absence of a contractual guarantee, it was normal for mercenary groups to retreat when encountering mutants.

Regarding Aske’s mention of fighting Green Skins, the Life School also found traces of battle in the city district, as well as the corpses of infected.

From the clues at the scene, these guys seemed to have been besieged by the infected and ended up trapped in a certain building.

"Does your team have a Sniper?" Lu Aelin suddenly asked.

"Of course," Aske replied without hesitation, "Which team wouldn’t train Firearms shooters these days?"

"Not shooters, Snipers," Lu Aelin corrected him, "The kind with a range of over two thousand meters." ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom

"You’re joking," Aske laughed and pointed at his chest pouch, "I’m into guns, I know some Firearms knowledge. The range for a standard sniper rifle is about 800-1500 meters. Beyond two thousand meters, wind direction, humidity, gravity... they all cause serious disturbances and deviation to the precision of sniping."

"Getting a shot beyond two thousand meters is certainly no issue; you could do it with a gun too. But hitting the target accurately, that’d absolutely depend on Luck. Even with Extraordinary Ability, you can’t continuously Control the trajectory after the bullet has left the barrel, especially not for a two-thousand-meter trajectory. With that kind of Ability, who would still bother with guns?"

Lu Aelin was speechless again. What Aske said matched the conclusions drawn by his subordinates: According to the battle traces at the scene, the building where people from the Azure Longsword were besieged was at least 2600 meters away from the mountain top where the target corpse was found.

According to the experts in the School, a conventional sniper rifle absolutely couldn’t hit from such a distance—it was within cannon range now.

Temple Knights might be capable... but when it comes to the Church Court’s black technology, anything is possible. Don’t mention two thousand meters; even a strike from tens of thousands of meters up an orbital path is possible. What’s there left to analyze?

"Can I meet your Sniper?" Lu Aelin still didn’t give up.

"What are you trying to do?" Aske immediately showed a wary expression, "Trying to poach people?"

"No," Lu Aelin couldn’t help laughing and crying. How could I, a high-ranking individual from the Life School, possibly try to poach a Sniper from his team? "Just wanted to meet them, nothing more, forget it..."

It seemed the Commander had connections with the Weisbach family and Nora in his team was a member of the Lixini Family; he had no way to tie someone up for harsh interrogation.

Moreover, the site of the incident was definitively marked by River Styx traces; the Spiritual Body Sect was bound to be involved, no doubt about it, so there was no need to dig deeper into this Mercenary Corps Commander. If he offended the Lysine Group and the Weisbach Family, that would be bad.

So, he intended to leave, but again Aske stopped him:

"That, didn’t they say there were rewards for reporting information?"

Lu Aelin turned around and sighed, "Money, or magic potions?"

"I heard that your Life School faction has all sorts of Bloodline Sequence magic potions," Aske asked, "Do you have any from the Giant Sequence?"

"Where did you hear that from?" Lu Aelin frowned, becoming alert.

Could this guy know about the Life Essence?

"It’s not exactly a secret," Aske said. "There are quite a few families in West Francia that have traded magic potions with you."

Lu Aelin: ......

Indeed, due to the mutual compatibility between the Life Sequence and many Bloodline Sequences enhancing Physical Power substantially, the Life School faction had collected many rare Bloodline Sequence formulas and magic potions over the years, such as those from Giants and Dragons.

At the same time, since the headquarters were located in Brittany of the West Frank Kingdom, the Life School had close ties with the Great Nobles within the kingdom... Considering that the other party was a mercenary, with a wild way of doing things, it was normal for him to have multiple channels of information.

As long as it had nothing to do with Life Essence, a transaction was no problem, as long as the price was right.

After pondering for a moment, Lu Aelin said:

"We do have some Bloodline Sequence magic potions, but the highest is only Level II. And according to tradition, the provision of information is not worth a bottle of Level II potion, a formula maybe."

"We can make up the difference," Aske indicated this was not a problem.

"Level II Bloodline Sequence potions are much more expensive than others," Lu Aelin reminded him, "And we do not accept bargaining."

"Just quote the price," with the team’s recent windfall, Aske was quite confident.

"The equivalent of 1600 Lorraine Gold Coins," Lu Aelin said, "Your information is valued at 300 Gold Coins."

Gold Coins, that was reasonable. Previously in the game, Giant II Potion transactions among players were about 1400 on average, and considering there were no players in this world and that humanity’s overall extraction and production efficiency of Extraordinary Resources was bound to be slower, a slightly higher price was normal.

As for the information being valued at 300, that was unexpectedly high. Aske had originally estimated that, since they hadn’t captured anyone alive, and the Extraordinary Traits were gone, this information would top out at 200.

It turned out the other party valued it at 300, which indicated Lu Aelin was truly a fair man.

Wait a minute! Aske suddenly realized, where was this fairness? It was clearly a deliberate act of goodwill, the reason for which was self-evident—after all, Nora’s identity was right there!

"Okay," he immediately agreed, "Just bring me the magic potion, and I can pay in cash right away."

"Immediate payment?" Lu Aelin was somewhat surprised. 1300 coins was a hefty sum, both in weight and volume—were you actually carrying that much on you?

"Of course," Aske called in his butler who was waiting outside. "I’ve made a deal with this gentleman here, to pay him 1300 Gold Coins. Deduct it from the second installment you guys owe."

Castle butler: ........

Dear guest, your spending abilities really are on par with your money-making skills! You just earned 2360 Gold Coins, and now you’ve spent half in the blink of an eye!

However, since the transaction was made between the family and the other party, he, being a mere butler, naturally had no place to comment. He merely asked Lu Aelin respectfully:

"Do you wish to come with me to collect it, or should I have it delivered to a location you designate?"

Lu Aelin was momentarily stunned but then realized the final payment would be made by the Sorren Family. He certainly couldn’t go and collect the more than a thousand Gold Coins right then—what, should he leave carrying heavy Money Bags like a donkey?

"I’ll have someone bring the items over, just pay him directly when it’s time," Lu Aelin said in the end.

This chapter is updated by freew(e)bnovel.(c)om