Emperor's Bane

Chapter 653 Conrad's Daily Life

[The seal holder told me that when we meet next time, he will give me an unexpected surprise? ]

"Is it related to the Emperor?"

[Hmm... sort of. ]

"Is it? What do you mean by is it?"

The Spider Queen's obviously absent-minded answer obviously did not satisfy her brother, but Conrad did not express his dissatisfaction immediately because he was busy with other things: Midnight Haunter was leaning on his own soft chair, carefully polishing his nails, and his beloved little niece Virgo was sitting next to him, preparing the cleansing essence for him to use later.

And these items, whether it's the soft pad under the Primarch's buttocks, the files that can cause him real damage, or the cleansing serum that costs a lot of money with just a pinch: they are undoubtedly native to Nostramo, just like every object Conrad would use in his daily life.

Midnight Haunter has always maintained such habits, especially when he is in public. He likes to use this method to make his people have confidence in locally produced industrial products: although this sounds a bit of a mobilization, it will not cost him any actual cost anyway.

If this "idol effect" can have even the slightest effect, it will be a win for Conrad, especially at a critical moment when the entire ghoul kingdom is undergoing industrial upgrading: Although Conrad's home planet has made a lot of money in the past few decades because of the export of raw materials and various ancient artifacts, this does not mean that the Midnight Haunter's ambition is limited to making Nostramo a pure raw material export site.

The profits from selling mines may be able to support a prosperous place, but they cannot support a big country.

The Primarch's real dream is to build a complete industrial base in Nostramo. It would be great if a certain internal circulation could be achieved. Of course, ocean trade with other Far Eastern countries and various forces within the empire must not be stopped. After all, these two points are not actually in conflict.

Ocean trade is for [profit-making], while internal circulation is for [gaining a foothold]: the former only needs to be handed over to the invisible hand, leaving the wandering merchants and related industrial chains to bear their own profits and losses, but the latter actually requires real-time monitoring and precise control by the legion or even the primarch himself. It is the lifeblood of the country that cannot be easily handed over.

Especially considering that the current prosperity within the human empire is by no means a permanent phenomenon: Conrad, who can foresee various futures, knows better than anyone that the Emperor's cause is destined to go through some tests, and everything he has built will be destroyed in the flames of war in a few decades.

By then, let alone long-distance trade with Corax, the Maelstrom and various Forge Worlds, even the material transportation routes within the Three Kingdoms of the Far East, and even the communication between Nostramo itself and various agricultural satellites, are likely to be greatly affected, and may even be directly cut off by the warp storm.

By that time, the importance of having a self-sufficient internal circulation system and, at the very least, the production capacity to supply sufficient food, weapons and ammunition is self-evident: Conrad may not have learned any profound secrets under Morgan, but his knowledge of history is still quite good.

He clearly remembered that the main reason why the human civilization collapsed so quickly after the Age of Conflict was that the various developed civilized worlds had completed their respective industrial divisions and mutual dependence long ago, and many basic materials relied entirely on imported routes. When the subspace storms of the Age of Conflict completely blocked the possibility of communication between the various worlds, many of the originally prosperous human civilizations regressed directly to the Stone Age within a few generations due to lack of food or water, a reason that sounded incredible.

Globalization has its pros and cons after all. It is always unsettling to have the industrial chain in the hands of others.

Who knows if there will be some strange bombs in the next shipment of products?
And Conrad didn't want something like this to happen again on Nostramo, just like it happened hundreds of years ago: after all these years of growth and experience, as well as private conversations with many Nostramo recruits, Midnight Haunter now recognizes a fact from the bottom of his heart.

That is: the reason why the people of Nostramo regard Midnight Haunter as a god, remain loyal to him for generations, and implement every one of his decrees so firmly is not because of the so-called law, justice and glory that Conrad originally envisioned, but because Midnight Haunter who returned from the Human Empire really brought [bread and peace] to this star of eternal night.

Bread is even more important than peace.

When they no longer had to worry about their wives and children dying on the streets for no reason one day, or starving to death in front of them, Conrad, who had solved these two thousand-year-old scourges, naturally became a living god in the eyes of the Nostramo people, and his rule was unshakable: but if the Midnight Haunter could not guarantee this in the future, then his kingship would most likely come to an end.

However, the particularity of the Ghoul Kingdom means that if Conrad cannot ensure the stability of Nostramo, the core world, then his entire legion will most likely be stuck in the quagmire of the northeastern part of the galaxy, busy with various repression and defense operations: by then, let alone taking the opportunity to intervene in the chaotic situation within the empire, even ensuring peace in this area will be a fantasy.

Conrad, who understood this point, led his Nostramo without hesitation onto the dual-core path: just like the other two primarch states in the Far East, not only did each have its own internal circulation to ensure its self-sufficiency in times of crisis, but they also had a developed trade network with each other to generate more common interests.

As for how to build this system that sounds simple but is actually complex, Conrad left it entirely to Morgan and Guilliman. He was not worried that they would take the opportunity to do something small. After all, if this internal circulation system needed to work, then his two good brothers would probably not be able to take care of the problem of Nostramo.

Because of this, Conrad developed these strange little habits, such as being paranoid about choosing products with the Nostramo label in various public places. Even if the products from other places are more effective, they will be firmly rejected by Midnight Haunter.

The same is true today: the Night Lord has a complete set of weird but complete cosmetics that he customized from his home planet. Although the quality is far inferior to the imported products from Holy Terra, Conrad is happy to hear that this cosmetics factory has kept thousands of families going.

Perhaps thousands of families were just a negligible number to the Primarch?
Anyway, Conrad felt that this number was enough for him to take it seriously. The mistakes he had made were far more than this: before he walked out of his paranoid illusion, countless innocent people who did not deserve the death penalty had fallen under the ruthless claws of the Midnight Haunter. Everything that happened now was just compensation for the bloody mistakes he had made in the past.

It is also a celebration of his own aesthetics.

However, others might not be able to understand the aesthetics he follows: the Primarch of the Eighth Legion was seen grinding his nails, which should have been round, into sharp claws, until they were indistinguishable from the beast-like teeth in his mouth, and so sharp that they could directly pierce the table top.

It must be interesting to shake hands with his brothers with such nails: his palms happened to be wide enough, just as big as Vorgan and Magnus, and most of his brothers would have no chance of escape.

Conrad smiled with satisfaction.

Then, he reached out and grabbed the cleansing essence that Virgo had just prepared, rubbed it roughly in his palm, and applied it on his face until his entire ugly horse face changed from the flesh color that still had some human aura to the pale color that was no different from the protagonist in a horror story. Only then did the Midnight Haunter seem slightly satisfied.

Conrad needed this expression precisely to confirm the wild rumors about him in the human empire: many brothers, like those ignorant mortals, thought that he was a ghoul who always hid in the shadows, afraid to see the sunlight and noble spirits, and Conrad would never get angry because of such evaluations.

In the past, he would have sadly acquiesced.

And now? He doesn't care!

On the contrary, Night Haunter has been deliberately maintaining the influence of this rumor, causing many Primarchs and ambitious people to be disparaging of his actual mental state and self-control: in time, such contempt will surprise those bastards.

Conrad had learned this trick from his dear sister: he had witnessed with his own eyes how Morgan not only maintained a weak posture in public to reduce outsiders' fear of the Far Eastern Frontier, but also creatively established the brand of Guilliman, which the Macragge people had been using very well until now.

Conrad was happy to imitate her. He didn't even need a signboard like Guilliman. The crazy but pathetic Midnight Haunter in the past was Conrad's best disguise now: anyway, the main force of the Eighth Legion was mixed in the Ghoul Stars and other dark corners, and people actually didn't know the specific situation of this legion.

Many people still thought that the Night Lords were just like before, a gang of hooligans who were only good at street fighting and brawls? Conrad did not deny that his descendants had some biases. He just hoped that those who held these prejudices would have the leisure to laugh at his independent armored force and the independent Terminator formation of up to 4,000 people that he had built with a lot of money.

You know, the Eighth Legion's Terminator is a special product of Conrad after inviting many forge worlds to participate and constantly comparing prices: this new equipment sacrifices strong defensive performance and is extremely expensive, but its mobility and short-term firepower output capabilities are impeccable, and it is the most suitable professional counterpart for the Eighth Legion. How good is it?

It took Guilliman less than three years to imitate the first batch.

But Conrad didn't care much about it. After all, what the Macragge people imitated was just the smoke bomb he deliberately released. The real essence of this new Terminator armor was now stored in the joint weapons laboratory of the Night Lords and Raven Guard Legions: and the legal representative of this laboratory was Morgan's Dawnbreaker.

In their secret base, Corax, Morgan and Conrad are using all their wisdom to try to develop a Terminator armor that can achieve true invisibility through optical means, silencers, new materials and psychic interference rituals.

It will overturn the battlefield: it will revolutionize the combat effectiveness of the Night Lords and the Raven Guard, and the research progress has made gratifying progress. Although Conrad doesn't care much, Morgan has been telling him loyally, not to mention that Sevatar is supervising him.

With this double guarantee, Midnight Haunter naturally had enough leisure time to care about those trivial things that had nothing to do with him: such as the gift that Morgan had not received yet.

"Did Malcador not tell you what gift he was about to give you?"

【The details are unclear: but we can guess it. 】

The Spider Queen snorted.

[After all, he himself has nothing to show for me: after all, he is only a minister of the emperor. Curry's treasures are far inferior to our genetic father in both quantity and quality. He only surpasses him in some very niche aspects.]

[As for the Emperor's private collection, our father always owes me a salary anyway, I can ask for it anytime I want. As long as the items I like are not particularly important, the Emperor doesn't mind being generous: this may be the only good thing about him. ]

"I agree."

Conrad nodded and gently blew the residue off his fingertips.

"So, you want to go to the Emperor's Dream first, and then go to the ground?"

[The Emperor gave me a teleporter that could reach his flagship directly: but it only lasts until next year, and it was specifically meant to be delivered to the guns of two hundred Custodes.]

"Your Majesty is truly gracious."

Midnight Ghost laughed.

"In other words, this time we also need you and Malcador to work together to deal with our Gene-Father first, and then let him deal with the other Primarchs according to your wishes: just like the time in the Perfect City?"

[Almost: But this time the script can’t be completed in ten sentences. ]

"…Seriously, Morgan."

"Don't you think that what you and Malcador are doing is very... a bit like déjà vu?"

The Spider Queen sneered.

[If I took the initiative, it would indeed have a sense of déjà vu, but unfortunately the Emperor was the one who took the initiative: Besides, don't be so pessimistic, maybe our father simply wanted to give me a gift. ]

"For example?"

【…】

[I don't know: can your remaining prophetic abilities provide any clues? ]

"Um……"

Conrad suddenly hesitated. He looked at Virgo beside him worriedly, with a hint of evasion in his eyes. It was not until Morgan waved her eldest daughter to leave first that the Midnight Haunter considered for a moment and spoke slowly.

"I did dream about some unbelievable scenes last night."

Ridiculous?

"Yes."

[Then it is most likely true: fictional things require logic, but real things do not. ]

【Tell me: What did you dream about? 】

"I dreamed about... uh..."

"I dreamed of our genetic father: He gave you a daughter."

【…】

"Looks exactly like him."

(End of this chapter)