The Path to Lordship Begins in the North

Although the legend is quite fantastical, in this proprietress's words, the dragon doesn't seem so mysterious. The dragon also has joys and sorrows, it also has a temper, and it also takes on some side jobs to earn a little more silver coins.

These dragons certainly exemplify greed to the fullest extent.

The Shining Gold Merchant Alliance is widely distributed, though it may not be called by this name in other places. Not all of its members are dragons; some are ordinary humans unaware of the truth. And this proprietress is just the one in charge of the Northern Territory region.

It seems that Linde has made her a lot of money. The proprietress, who was originally only in charge of the Champagne Noble trade, has now gradually taken over all the business in the North.

Therefore, the female dragon was very friendly to Lind and even reminded him not to take the dragon's favor too seriously, nor to expect to do anything with the dragon's power. At most, the dragon could only give Lind some preferential treatment in business dealings.

As for the channels, they were all completely legal, and no dragon power was used to take any shortcuts—although it's hard to believe, it's not surprising considering that these dragons have been active in the human world for a long time.

These dragons asked Lind to help build the railway simply so they could transport goods more easily and make more money.

While delivering goods in dragon form is abstract, if there were no restrictions, these dragons might actually do it. According to Margaret, the Tower has signed many contracts with the dragons, forcing them to behave obediently as humans in human society.

Even the number of collaborators who know the dragons' identities is limited, so the dragons are very careful in choosing their collaborators.

It is precisely these contracts of the tower that force the dragons to amass wealth only through commercial means.

The merchants in the North probably never dreamed that their biggest competitors would be a group of dragons.

Generally speaking, even heroes who are written into epic tales, who ultimately gain the friendship of dragons, are only rewarded with the ring in Linde's hand. But this ring is merely a deposit from the dragons to Linde, which shows how much the dragons value this magic train. Linde even suspects that these dragons have been keeping an eye on it for a long time.

To be honest, the idea of ​​helping dragons build railways not only sounds fantastical, but Lind himself doesn't find it very real.

In the end, Lind and Margaret went back to normal business.

"There's so much stuff to deliver this time."

After Margaret finished looking at the list, she looked up at Lind and asked, "You didn't just become our partner and you're already trying to take advantage of us, did you? I just reminded you that taking advantage of dragons isn't so easy."

"Do not."

Linde interrupted, "I will not pay less than the agreed amount. This is indeed the amount of goods to be delivered this time."

"Our saintess, Isa, in Doug's territory has encountered some difficulties, so we're asking for your help this time as well."

Hearing Lind's explanation, and most importantly, that the money wouldn't be less, Margaret stuffed the list into her bosom and nodded, saying, "Alright, at least now our cooperation can be on the table. Consider it a little privilege for you."

"correct."

Just as Linde was about to end the conversation, he suddenly asked, "What do you know about that demon god of the demon race?"

"Demon?"

Margaret's eyes were filled with doubt.

"No, I don't know. We don't know much about the demon race, and we've never heard of any demon gods. They've probably just grafted some false god from some small cult onto them."

After taking a deep drag on her cigarette, Margaret continued, "We are not on the same side as the demons. The demons' methods of making money are simply too unscrupulous. True trade should be an exchange of goods and services. The kind of compound interest that the demons practice is absolutely forbidden here."

“What we enjoy is the process of making money, not the money itself. Otherwise, why would we abide by the contract with the tower? We could just transform into dragons and rob it indiscriminately.”

Although Margaret's words were not very convincing, given the fact that the Shining Gold Merchant Alliance had been making extra money in the past, it was at least clear that these dragons still had some principles compared to the demons.

Margaret guessed that the demons had grafted over some false god from a cult, but Lind was still a little uneasy, so he told Margaret about Isaac's investigation into that demon god.

"We understand the situation and will keep an eye on it for you."

Although Margaret usually speaks politely and respectfully, she still possesses the pride of a dragon at heart and did not take the matter to heart.

Linde also knew that these dragons probably only thought about making money and didn't care about the demons. It was just that the demons also liked money and were even more ruthless in making money, so these dragons disliked the demons.

"Ok."

Linde shook his head regretfully after hearing this and had no choice but to give up and send Margaret away.

After Margaret left, Lind sat alone in the drawing room and asked, "What exactly is this tower? Does it even control the dragons?"

Lucanus appeared at the right moment beside Lind and said, "The Tower existed before the old empire was established. The Tower set many rules, but this is the first time I have heard of a contract between the Tower and the Dragon Clan."

Linde looked out the window and sorted out his thoughts. According to Lucanus's description, the Tower should be a regulatory organization. Although there is no clear record of its actions, it restricts some high-level professionals who can influence the situation on the continent.

Even dragons.

However, according to Margaret, the dragons and the tower should have some kind of cooperative relationship. Although the tower is dominant, the dragons are not particularly afraid of it.

Linde shook his head in the end. This was not something he should be thinking about at this stage. The Tower was too high, and it seemed to only be responsible for supervising high-level professionals. Whether it was the compilation school or the recording school, the Tower did not make a sound when the old empire collapsed.

This shows that the Tower is not concerned with secular countries, even those of the old empires.

The main problem now is the intelligence that Isa sent back, which, combined with some information that Lucanus has gathered, suggests that the demons are now showing a strong tendency to continue cooperating with Doug.

Considering the situation at the front and Doug's recent troop movements, the enemy probably wants to fight a decisive battle. The only thing that Linde can't figure out is that Doug actually wants to hold the decisive battle on the Golden Harvest Plain outside the river valley.

This is indeed a good place to deploy troops, suitable for a large army like Doug's to spread out, but putting the final battle here is just giving Lind's artillery, magic cannons, and machine guns a chance to rack up kills, isn't it?

After fighting for so long, Doug couldn't possibly be unaware of how powerful Lind's artillery was; they'd even blasted down the city walls. And this isn't a video game. Given the quality of Doug's army, they'd probably start to collapse after suffering around 15% casualties, and be unable to fight after around 30%.

Or is Doug confident that he can overwhelm him on the Great Plains with his numerical advantage?

Lin De chuckled self-deprecatingly. Why was he thinking about these things? He was essentially a logistics officer; he should leave these kinds of questions to the generals on the front lines.

Then Linde picked up the letter Isa had written to him. Isa always had an ominous feeling about that demon god. The heroine's premonitions were always quite accurate. Linde glanced at his next arrangements and said to Lucanus, "Let's move up the appointment for the Lantern Dream."