Surviving The Fourth Calamity

Chapter 1494: Chapter 72: The First Moon Clan in Basia City

When the Moon Clan, long known by reputation, was first seen in Basia City, the castle of the Stelter Family, tirelessly under construction day and night, was finally ready for habitation.

Unfortunately, the cold, imposing fortress was no longer the meticulously ornate structure it used to be. One glance at it now was enough to inspire awe and an oppressive sense of grandeur.

Considering that these Moon Clan members could very well cause more damage than the unrestrained mages of the past, Count Stelter casually unearthed the ancient blueprints for a massive fortress specifically designed to defend against mages, left behind by his ancestors.

Ever since the expulsion of Triton from the continent, the Danboro people believed they would never need such antiquated items again!

To be honest, even if the enemy was the Silk Spider, there was no need to use this thing, as ultimately, in the event of a successful invasion by such a creature, the castle would be the least effective defense.

To deal with such small creatures, having a clear line of sight was the most crucial.

As Count Stelter rummaged through the storage, he couldn’t help but chuckle... Who would have thought there would come a day when they had to rebuild the old castle to guard against allies summoned by their own people?

Fortunately, the nobility were accustomed to preserving all things ancient as proof of their identity.

The only comfort was that, those old structures, which used to consume vast amounts of manpower, material resources, and time, could now be rapidly constructed with the help of new materials and machinery.

Moreover, their resistance to fire, freezing, and heavy hits was even slightly better than a thousand years ago.

Though unsightly, the sprawling fortress, with surveillance posts everywhere, could indeed detect any unusual activities in the nearby mountains at any time and had sufficient rapid response channels.

Most importantly, it allowed more of their subordinates and their families to move into the castle.

Since the emergence of the Great Sage Ismael in Danboro, officials and guards of the lords had increasingly realized they no longer needed to rely on the castle for survival, especially their families who had no need to live in constant fear like servants inside the castle.

Life, of course, was best when living in the city next to ordinary people of similar status!

In fact, many of the higher-status servants had settled in the city... This contributed to one of the reasons why the intelligence from noble castles could no longer be kept as secret as before.

While many nobles could no longer place their trust in such servants, when the Great Sage Ismael supported the first batch of servants wanting to leave their tyrannical masters and granted them protection, the wise nobles understood clearly that to avoid death in obscurity, they could no longer be overly harsh.

Later, the nobles also discovered that although the Great Sage Ismael helped these commoners, he also offered the nobles another choice... Utilizing crystal stone machinery to replace human servants.

As long as they had money, the comfortable life that used to require hundreds of servants could now be lived with just over twenty.

Thus, over the past few centuries, especially in the last century with highly advanced crystal stone technology, nobles have gradually adapted to this lifestyle... True confidants were few, and forcing others held no meaning.

Of course, military merit-based nobles like the Stelter Family were exceptions, but their relationships seemed more like a web of tangled interests... The children of servants and retainers continued to gather around them, for the sake of their future prospects.

Even relationships built from childhood like the one between the steward and Joshua, were maintained because the Stelter Family could offer these talented individuals, and their descendants, a bright future.

The savvy individuals understood that with basic needs met, people would pursue higher values... What used to be out of reach, now when those worse off could achieve it with a simple turn, relying on past friendships to make others continually sacrifice themselves?

Unless they lacked the ability to think, who in the world would be such a fool?

The smooth transition to today wasn’t only because the crystal tools sometimes suited the masters’ preferences but also because those who wished to harm Ismael, whether strong or weak, had long gone crying to the Grim Reaper.

This was why, after the Moon Clan incident erupted, nobles and mages had to either follow in his footsteps or find ways to avoid danger themselves, with no one shouting ’Death to Ismael’.

Unless everyone could be certain that Ismael was entirely abandoned by Aesces, no one in the world would waste their precious life opposing him.

The citizens of Basia City, seeing their own lord’s frantic actions and after witnessing the Earl’s subordinates and their families endlessly abandoning their hard-built homes to move into the castle, also all began to modify their houses up and down.

Even the slums, with the Earl’s sponsorship, wielded pickaxes and chisels to gather stones from the seashore to renovate their humble homes.

Therefore, when the Moon Clan arrived in this new city in their crude wagons, carrying long spears and short swords, with magic wands supported in the crook of their arms, they sensed a strange murderous aura.

Hill, leaning below the clouds, watched the whispering so-called Moon Clan and couldn’t help but raise an eyebrow.

Aesces made a foolish move.

He did not, like William, have the Undead Tribe find materials in the library to create an image for himself; instead, he let them use their own appearance as a base and then optimized their Elemental Body considerably.

The men and women were also robustly built according to their ages...no loli or shota.

Then, although these bodies only had the outer appearance, they could not only embrace each other but also could be intimate.

So, with just a few carriage loads of people, Hill could feel the hormonal atmosphere inside...according to their usual standards; Hill could hardly discern from their body language who was with whom.

And inside, someone was already looking at their companion with a wrong kind of gaze...a penetrating, cold look that could stab.

Tsk tsk~

Hill smiled; Aesces would probably be driven mad by the internal wars among these players, aside from protecting the lives and properties of the indigenous residents.

Ha~ I wonder if they could kill each other?

If not...honestly, just from their roughly predictable faces, the chances of incidents in reality wouldn’t be small either.

Hill didn’t know what kind of agreement there was between Aesces and Ismael’s world, but he thought both sides would soon regret it.

As for which one first...that would surely be Aesces.

After all, the reason those few people were amazed at the clean and tidy yet sparsely populated Basia City before continuing their discussion was that the Danbolo Capital was about to come to an end.

Of course, it wouldn’t be burned down; after all, Ismael could still turn the tide.

In fact, Ismael’s control over the Moon Clan had already begun to show results...he just stayed too long in the Otherworld, thus beautifying his hometown a bit in his mind.

When the Moon Clan first caused trouble, he probably slowly regained the spectator’s mindset from the past of marching with signs, cursing the government for being callous, and became more stable in his actions...even if he continued to summon the Moon Clan in many cities, only large enough cities had a cap of 10,000 people, while in other cities, they recruited according to the population proportion, and small towns probably had only a few hundred people.

Moreover, he sent the Ismael Family members out as overseers.

The kind of situation Ditte encountered was a bit of a headache, but honestly, even though Danbolo already seemed like a country that valued human life, it merely seemed so.

How could Nobles and powerful Professionals care if people in the slums were alive or whether they had enough to eat, drink, and a place to sleep?

Although still a mess, by suppressing the Moon Clan’s Level to 5 and not allowing them to harm people without reason, it was likely that after tormenting each other for a while, they could get on the right track.

After all, their goal was to deal with the Silk Spider, and as long as this target could be achieved without letting Triton find any opportunities, Aesces wouldn’t mind sacrificing a bit.

What is terrifying for individuals, for the World Master, he could only ignore.

Yet Ismael had a quite capable pig teammate; of course, this Great Sage was not innocent since he himself formed this team...to show respect for the Danboro Royal Family, Great Sage Ismael gave the King the power to recruit Moon Clan members for tasks.

Of course, he knew the average nature of the King of Danboro, but he also knew that the King wasn’t brainless, just bad at war and insensitive to politics, and was very adept at manipulation.

Unfortunately, Great Sage Ismael didn’t expect that after discovering the Moon Clan’s lethal ability, the King’s first reaction would be...finally, a chance to get rid of those so-called political enemies who kept causing him trouble!

The King’s own command, coupled with Ismael locking himself in the Magic Tower discussing how to further strengthen control over the Moon Clan with an unnamed figure, out of sight for days, made the Moon Clan, who already loved wild play, naturally follow their own desires.

”Open the door! We have been informed of suspicious hidden dangers here. By the King’s order, we are here to search...resisters will be executed without mercy!”

Moon Clan members yelling such slogans initially rushed into shops and workshops, but under a stealthy nudge from the King, they quickly turned their sights to the Nobles.

Unfortunately, Nobles were not foolish either.

Petty Nobles, Great Nobility, military Nobles, even Mage Nobility with heritage...despite the always intricate relations and life-and-death animosities between them, at this moment, they united!

After the initial panic, the jointly resisting Noble Guard Army soon began to confront the Moon Clan.