Elder brother's garrison

Page 1008

After all, Xiaobai had personally witnessed the mercenary group leader maliciously raising prices in the village center and deceiving innocent people.

“But here’s the strange thing.” Missouri said to Little White, stretching out her hand and gently drawing a circle in the air. “Admiral, what do you think of this village?”

"This village? Uh... it feels pretty good, just a bit remote..." Xiaobai truthfully spoke his mind.

It's not that Xiaobai dislikes this small village.

She actually quite liked this peaceful little town.

However, as much as I like it, this is still just a small seaside village, with somewhat inconvenient transportation to the surrounding cities, and the nearby train station seems to be in poor condition...

Ok?

Is it poorly located or remote?

Wait a moment.

Xiao Bai opened his mouth.

"Oh yeah...that's so weird." Xiaobai blinked.

"It seems you've noticed this as well, Admiral." Missouri nodded with a smile as she looked at Xiaobai, who seemed to have just realized something.

"...Uh, wait a minute, what are you talking about?" Pompeii looked at Little White and Missouri with a confused expression. She stretched out her hand and waved it around in their line of sight a few times. "After talking for so long, what's so strange about this?"

“That’s right, Pompeii.” Little White looked at Pompeii. “Didn’t you just say that mercenary groups are organizations that really like making money?”

"Yes. What's wrong..."

"But the small village we're in now is a remote and inaccessible place. Although life seems pretty good, the village's overall economy isn't exactly wealthy. So..."

"Is that so?"

"Why would an organization so profit-driven be here?"

Chapter 1313 The rookie garrison has always been all about recklessness.

This is the strangest part.

As Pompeii said before.

Mercenary groups are not charitable organizations. Although their actions are similar to those of the admiral, their core values ​​are vastly different.

The most fundamental difference between an admiral and a mercenary group lies in the fact that when an admiral accepts a mission, his primary purpose is to protect human stability, with money being secondary. Mercenary groups, on the other hand, are driven by the fundamental goal of making money.

The small village where Jinghua is located is situated in a corner of the map. For decades, it has been peaceful and quiet. The sea is calm and the city is ordinary, with a backward scale of development and poor transportation, making it very inconvenient to travel. Logically speaking, an organization that only thinks about making money should never have passed through here.

Mercenary groups that are truly interested in making money should seek opportunities in economically developed coastal cities with more dangerous waters, convenient transportation, and higher potential profits.

But this is just an unknown little seaside village?

Pompeii and Zara, the two traveling ship girls, were only here because they were hired by Kyoka's teacher. Shiro herself was brought here by Kyoka when she traveled a long way to find her family.

Logically speaking, without the existence of Kyoka and her teacher, this small city should not have attracted the attention of any ship girl faction.

That.

That being the case.

How did the mercenary group get here?

Or.

What are the mercenary group doing here?

After Missouri and Xiaobai raised their doubts about the matter.

Pompeii finally realized what was strange about the situation. She opened her mouth and made several "ah ah ah" sounds before nodding in surprise.

"Right, right! I didn't even notice before! How could the mercenary group have appeared here at such a strange time and by such a coincidence!" Pompeii slapped his forehead, looking as if he had just realized something.

"So, Missouri, when you said something was strange, did you also feel that there was something wrong with this mercenary group?" Xiaobai asked Missouri.

“Yes, Admiral, the appearance of the mercenary group is too much of a coincidence,” Missouri said. “Missouri doesn’t think their appearance here can only be explained by coincidence.”

"But we can't rule out the possibility that it might just be a coincidence?"

“Yes.” Missouri nodded. “This is also what makes Missouri feel somewhat helpless. After all, although coincidences are rare, they do exist everywhere in the world.”

“Coincidence… Ah, right.”

Xiao Bai thought carefully for a while, and suddenly had a flash of inspiration. He took out a white business card from his clothes.

"Admiral? This is..."

"This? This is the business card that the mercenary group leader gave me this morning when he invited me to join the group," Xiaobai replied.

"...Invite the Admiral to join the group?"

"He mistook me for a ship girl."

“Oh…that makes sense, after all, the admiral isn’t wearing his uniform.” Missouri nodded, pursing her lips.

"Let's not talk about that for now. Anyway, Missouri, look at this business card." Xiaobai held up the business card in his hand and handed it to Missouri.

This year.

In society, regardless of status, everyone has a business card.

The business card that the mercenary leader gave to Xiaobai was quite simple; it was clearly the kind of low-quality business card.

The front of the business card displayed the mercenary group's name, along with the leader's name and contact information. The back, however, was covered with advertising slogans like "Lightning-fast arrival, deep-sea nemesis," which looked rather awkward.

"If I remember correctly, most of the phone numbers should be district numbers, right?" Xiaobai said to Missouri. "Missouri, could you check which city this mercenary group's contact number belongs to?"

"A phone number?" Missouri picked up the business card from Xiaobai's hand and glanced at it silently. "Hmm, if Missouri remembers correctly, this phone number is located in an area that is quite far from here."

"So, this mercenary group really does specialize in long-distance travel, coming from a very far place?"

“…While we can’t make that judgment directly, considering your speculation just now, Admiral, that’s certainly the case.” Missouri nodded.

Missouri returned the business card to Xiaobai, her gentle expression turning slightly serious.

"This mercenary group... seems to have some problems."

"Okay." Xiaobai put away the business card and nodded.

A mercenary group that should have been in other regions traveled thousands of miles specifically to do business in this seemingly impoverished, remote village, and then just happened to encounter some mutated sea...

Tell the truth.

If money were really that easy to earn, there would be no poor people in the world.

"Our plans seem to need to be changed a little."

After finishing her conversation with Missouri, Shiro spoke to the other ship girls around her.

"Aren't we going to keep waiting around?" Pompeii asked.

"Well, if we hadn't noticed these suspicious points, waiting for the rabbit to run into the tree stump wouldn't have been a problem... but now the situation is a little different."

"Uh...where, what has changed?"

“What started as a business conflict between employers and employees has escalated into a serious public safety issue,” Missouri told Pompeii. “Our regular naval base cannot stand idly by in this matter.”

"A social security issue??" Pompeii exclaimed in surprise.

“This mercenary group is very likely to be closely related to the deep-sea atmosphere in this area, and there’s even a possibility that they’re the ones crying wolf,” Missouri said.

"Waaah..." Pompeii covered his mouth.

"Admiral Xiaobai, what should we do now?" Zara, who had been observing from the side, spoke up. Zara looked at Xiaobai and asked gently.

"Zara, do you have any ideas?"

"As for me... well, after all, we are in a somewhat disadvantageous position right now. Although the appearance of the mercenary group is very suspicious, we should not act rashly. I personally think that we should be cautious in our words and actions. The time before the other side's leader wakes up is an important opportunity for us. During this time, we can balance the unequal situation between the two sides. We can take advantage of the fact that we have already shown our faces in the village and some people are already familiar with our advantages. We can use our preconceived notions to do something."

"Oh... Zara has thought this through very carefully... So, what exactly should we do?"

"I'm not entirely sure either... What about you, Admiral Xiaobai? In the end, we'll listen to you. Do you have any good ideas?"

"Me? Well, like you, Zara, I don't have any experience in this area either... Anyway."

"all in all?"

"Why don't we go and ask the leader in person?" Xiaobai gave Zara a thumbs up.

“… Zara.”

Chapter 1314 I and Pompeii are a match made in heaven

Outside the small fishing village, there is a sizable area of ​​barren land.

Perhaps it was because the villagers in the fishing village tried farming and growing vegetables, but eventually found that catching fish was still the best thing for Lao Tzu.

This wasteland has been somewhat cultivated. At first glance, the land is relatively flat. However, it has been abandoned for many years. At this time, the entire wasteland is covered with weeds and pebbles that grow up to chest height. Small saplings, blown by some sea breeze, are scattered here and there, growing crookedly.

The mercenary group's ship girls seemed to have experience in wilderness survival. After settling in this wasteland, all the ship girls in the group mobilized, divided the work in an orderly manner, and skillfully pulled weeds, cut trees, cooked vegetables, and steamed rice.

Before the sun had even had a chance to rise, a large area of ​​wasteland where the mercenary group had been stationed had been cleared out. Large amounts of weeds and pebbles were neatly separated and stacked into mounds like granaries. Ship girls carrying firewood and coal moved back and forth in the open space. Amidst the shouts of the ship girls, large and small white tents, like yurts, were set up one by one on the muddy ground.

The barren land, which had been abandoned for many years, unexpectedly became vibrant and lively after being reclaimed by the mercenary group.

The edge of the open space, near the narrow path.

Several ship girls responsible for lookout and observing the village entrance stood guard at the junction of the dirt and cement road, squatting on the ground, leaning against a lush tree, staring intently at the village entrance.

Today is an unforgettable day for the entire mercenary group's reunion.

—Because today, their leader was beaten up.

Waiting at the entrance of a village is a very boring thing, especially for energetic ship girls, it is a boring task that can be described as torture.

After enduring hours of tedious waiting, the ship girl, whose life had felt as monotonous as countless long nights, finally couldn't bear it any longer and turned to speak to her companion.

"Hey."

"what?"

"The commander has been attacked!" the ship girl exclaimed, her eyes wide with shock.

"Why are you bringing this up... Doesn't our whole guild already know about this...?" the partner ship girl replied helplessly.

"Knowing is one thing, but speaking of which, did you see clearly who did it this morning?" the ship girl asked.

"I didn't see clearly... This is the first time I've ever seen the captain get beaten up..." the ship girl said, raising her eyebrows angrily. "So, precisely because we didn't see what the suspect looked like, we're here to keep watch in case the suspect runs away!"

"Sigh, you didn't see it clearly either."

"Of course, after all, it happened so suddenly this morning. We were so focused on the captain that we didn't expect the suspect to escape in the blink of an eye." The partner ship girl shrank back and muttered, "As for me, I could only vaguely make out that there were two people, one tall and one short, one big and one small, and that was it."

"It's not your fault. After all, even if we are ship girls, we don't always have our ship girl level senses active in our daily lives."

"That's right. After all, using the power of ship equipment will always consume the resources in the ship equipment... We didn't have many to begin with."

The two ship girls exchanged a glance, both seeing the helplessness in each other's eyes.

"Ugh."

"I'm poor..."

The two ship girls sighed in unison.

"But then again, since we don't know what the suspect looks like, what's the point of guarding this place?" The ship girl who spoke first realized what was going on and looked at her companion with a puzzled expression.

"do not you know?"

"What do you know?"

"Although none of us could see what the suspect looked like, the commander could."

"Wasn't the commander kicked unconscious?"

"The commander has woken up," the partner ship girl said.

"Huh? You woke up so quickly?"

"Our captain used to be a tough guy in the underworld, he got beaten up a lot, so he's really resilient now," the ship girl said. "But although the captain is awake, he's still a bit dizzy and can't go out, so he's resting in the innermost tent."

"Oh... I see... By the way, how come I didn't know about this?"

"Maybe you asked for leave to go to the restroom at that time."

"...So, what did the commander say?" The ship girl's eyes lit up.

Looking at her companion's inquisitive eyes, the ship girl smiled slightly and spoke with a hint of pride.

"The commander said the two people who hit him were a ship girl with orange hair and... what was it again..."