Warlords of the witcher world

Chapter 103 The Mirror Master's New Life

The appearance of hot air balloons has undoubtedly become an important publicity point for the Kingdom of Aden.

This kind of thing that can carry people to the sky and is so huge is very suitable as the center of propaganda, for example, as evidence that the gods care for Aden.

So now there is a hot air balloon floating over Wengerburg every day, which is used as part of the publicity of the Lord Protector's government to ensure that every visitor who comes to Wengerburg is left with a deep impression.

Also taking this opportunity, the government of the Protectorate redraws the map of Wengerburg, so there are not many opportunities to observe the city from the sky.

Herme plans to use hot air balloons to draw a wave of maps on the border, update the old maps in the past, and strengthen the control of the border.

But it's just an idea at the moment, and the manufacture of hot air balloons still takes time.

And while Aedirn was busy with new propaganda and plotting plans, and throwing criminals and traitors from hot air balloons, something was happening far away in Nilfgaard.

The city of urns, or more precisely, Nilfgaard.

This is the capital of the Nilfgaardian Empire, and it is also the capital of the Nilfgaardian core area. It is the center of this huge empire, commanding the powerful limbs of the empire.

This magnificent city on the banks of the Alba River was the heart of the empire, and only those living in and around the capital were considered true "Niflgadians."

Residents of the provinces do not enjoy this distinction, and although they are considered Nilfgaardians by outsiders, they never call themselves so.

The City of Golden Towers is another name for Nilfgaard. The northerners say that this name is because Nilfgaard is built of gold.

In fact, this is because the light reflected by the sun on the roofs of the city makes the whole city shine like gold.

The building that impresses visitors the most in the City of Golden Towers is undoubtedly the Gate of the Sun at the entrance to the port.

The national emblem of Nilfgaard is like the sun, facing the many ships entering the port, it also exudes the glory and majesty of the empire, as well as the supreme nobility of the great sun disc.

The inhabitants of this city are undoubtedly proud citizens of the capital, true Nilfgaardians.

But in addition to the citizens of the capital, there are also a large number of slaves here, who are undoubtedly not regarded as human beings.

The superior life of the Nilfgaardians is based on the labor of countless slaves. The slaves do all the dirty work that the Nilfgaardians are unwilling to do.

When the people of Nilfgaard took a leisurely walk on the well-built avenues of the city of golden towers and enjoyed those cheap goods, the slaves were working hard to earn enough for today's meals.

If they can't finish the work, what awaits them will be merciless whipping, don't even want to eat, just be hungry like this.

As for starving to death, just change to a slave. The most important thing in the city of the Golden Tower is slaves.

Many times slaves were thrown into the Colosseum to entertain the Nilfgaardians with their lives.

The most popular program in the Colosseum now is undoubtedly the war between the imperial army and the north. The so-called war replays are one after another.

The slaves captured from the north were replaced with the equipment of the Northern Army and fought with fully armed professional gladiators.

There is no doubt that this is a massacre, and this is a way for Nilfgaard to show off his martial arts.

Whenever the "Imperial Army" wins a "victory", the crowd will cheer enthusiastically. In line with the propaganda that Nilfgaard is moving from one victory to another, no one doubts that it is only a matter of time before the empire conquers the north. Someone is supposed to buy as much as a large number of northern slaves have entered the market.

But today's high-level empire knows that the situation in the north is far from that optimistic, or even extremely bad.

"Ever since Army Group Eastern was defeated, Army Group Central was also forced to retreat from Maribor and return to its original starting position. It can be said that Emhyr has messed up everything this time."

"It can only be seen what results the new offensive in the spring of next year can achieve. Don't screw up again. By then, the situation facing the hedgehogs will be terrible."

"Hey, what are you talking about? Are you crazy? You actually mentioned his nickname. This is the palace, and Lidorick's spies are everywhere. Are you afraid that he will report the information?"

Hearing these words, the whispering Nilfgaardian nobles became quiet. Some looked around in fear, for fear that there might be spies of the emperor.

And the place they were in was the imperial palace of Nilfgaard.

The Imperial Palace is located in the center of the city of urns and is the main residence of the emperor of the Nilfgaardian Empire.

Usually the emperor lives and handles government affairs here, but in summer the emperor usually moves to Locke Grim Palace.

The entire building is guarded by the Praetorian Guards, and their task is to be responsible for the personal safety of the emperor himself, the empress and his concubines.

Now under the escort of the Praetorian Guards, the black-haired Nilfgaardian Emperor ascended to the throne, looking down at the important officials and nobles lined up neatly below.

There is nothing new in today's meeting, mainly about the reorganization of the Eastern Group Army and the recruitment of more troops.

During the whole process, Emhyr's face was very ugly, and his eyes were colder than before, so everyone was quiet, for fear of touching Emhyr's bad luck.

The emperor is like a low pressure vortex, making the whole environment extremely low.

Just because the war situation in the north is really ugly.

The Eastern Army was disintegrated, the Central Army was forced to return to its starting position, and the Weyden (Western) Army fell into the quagmire of local security warfare. The first phase of the combat goal was not achieved, but it was invaded by the northerners.

So how could the emperor be in such a good mood? If he continues to fail, those nobles who were once suppressed by him will also be ready to move, and they may be swallowed up by the Nilfgaardian court like a den of poisonous snakes.

But now, many Nilfgaardian nobles and officials have indeed begun to have different thoughts.

But now it's just a different kind of thinking, only some people have already started to act.

Among them was Steven Skellen, nicknamed "The Gray Owl", coroner and intelligence agent of the Nilfgaardian Empire.

Little is known about Stephen Skellen's life before joining Imperial Intelligence, and he may have been a bandit or Freelancer before becoming Imperial Coroner.

And this kind of gang often wanders around the countryside, doing robbery, murder, and rape.

Through his friendship with Valtier de Lidoux, Skellen's career rose rapidly, until he became a key agent for the Emperor.

But what everyone didn't know was that this agent was actually a supporter of the mism.

Nilfgaardian Protestantism, a faction that dates back to when the usurper was still in power.

In the eyes of the usurper, birth is the least important thing to mention, and it cannot be used as the basis of rule.

Under the influence of the usurper, Nilfgaard naturally produced such a faction that advocates using the votes of the elite to select the ruler-of course, they must say the votes of the entire people to the outside world.

Most of this faction are of humble origins, few even nobles, but come from all over the vast land of Nilfgaard.

Some of them are military officers with high military merits, some are local officials, and some are elite citizens of the City of Golden Towers.

After the usurper was killed by Emhyr and the ancient family's sudden coup d'état, the matriarchs were naturally hit hard. Emhyr didn't like these remnants of the previous dynasty, and the ancient family didn't like these people who "wanted to ascend to heaven".

But after all, they represent the elites of the Nilfgaardian Empire who want to set foot on a higher level, so even if such a blow is made, this group exists, but it has been dormant.

Skellen now agrees more and more with the usurper's phrase "Why can such an insignificant matter of birth determine who will rule us?"

What did Emhyr do besides squandering the national power brought to Nilfgaard by the usurper's reforms?
In 1239, the empire annexed Ebin, and then the usurper used a combination of military offensive and political strategy to take Medina and Nasser.By the 1250s, Mecht was also included in the empire's territory-the vast territory of the empire was the achievement of the usurper, and the powerful imperial army today was also created by the usurper.

And what did Emhyr do?In addition to taking Cintra with the usurper's army, he has been consuming the usurper's inheritance since then.

First, the army was cleaned up after the first Northern War, and then two useless ancient family members were arranged to go to the front line in the second Northern War. As a result, one died directly and the army collapsed, and the other wallowed in the quagmire of the security war.

Moreover, in the hands of Emhyr, the power of the ancient family is expanding without limit. More and more of them are extending their hands to all walks of life in the empire. Continue to infiltrate.

In the era of the usurpers of the past, what the empire was doing was to restrict these ancient families and merchant associations, discuss whether it was feasible to free the slaves, and try to get the empire out of the embarrassing state of the war machine that was constantly snowballing.

Nilfgaard has been carrying out a snowball: use war to find a market-catch slaves to expand production-export goods to conquered areas-there are not enough slaves and markets-continue the war. It is precisely because of this that Nilfgaard has become big country today.

But there are always times when wars can't go on, everyone knows this, so the usurpers began to try to change.

It was also because of this that the ancient family and the Merchant Association stood against him, and then used the coup that led to the overthrow of the usurper.

But now, the empire has become a tool for the ancient families and merchant associations to gain benefits, and they let the snowball of the empire roll down like this without any idea of ​​planning for a rainy day.

As for what will happen to the empire that cannot survive, that is not within the scope of these people's considerations.

At that time, they will probably only think about cutting their swords at the people of the empire and extracting a lot of resources from the provinces—and the resources of the provinces will be drained one day, and they will still have to explode at that time.

If the usurper is still there, how could Nilfgaard be in such a predicament!
Skellen thought so angrily, but even though he was resentful, he still had to compromise with reality, such as cooperating with the ancient family to try to overthrow Emhyr...

After the court meeting, Skellen wandered in the garden of the palace melancholy.

Facing the reality, he really felt rather sad. If it wasn't for Emhyr's failure to satisfy the interests of the ancient family, he wouldn't even have a chance to overthrow Emhyr now.

After all, their Maoist faction is too scattered. Since they were hit, no one can occupy a leadership position—or in other words, all those with that prestige have died.

And he will have to leave the City of the Golden Tower in a while to capture Emhyr's daughter, Ciri.

Thinking of Emhyr's plans made him sick.

That guy actually planned to marry his daughter for the illusory prophecy, bah!
After thinking about a bunch of things, Skellen found a place to sit down and let his mind go. There are too many broken facts recently.

And then, by accident, Skellen walked towards the pond in the palace garden, and he felt that something was attracting him.

He knew that pond, in which lived a long-lived golden carp.Emperor Torres once wore a brooch with his head on the carp.

And when he came to the pond, Skellen saw a bald head feeding the carp. Looking at his posture, it seemed that he had fed the fish countless times here.

Seeing this person, he immediately became vigilant, because this person was dressed like an ordinary citizen, it was impossible for a person dressed like this to stand here, it was impossible to stand at the core of the Nilfgaardian court.

Subconsciously, the gray owl wanted to call the guard, but seeing the man's half-smile face, for some reason, he dismissed the thought in his mind.

Then he had a strange feeling that this person could help him.

"who are you?"

"Gantt O'Dim, known as the Mirror Master, is a very ordinary peddler, at your service, Mr. Gray Owl."

The bald head made an extremely exaggerated salute, although it was exaggerated, there was no sense of abruptness.

"You know my name?"

"Of course, how can a peddler like me who is active in various places not know about a big man like Mr. Gray Owl?"

Skellen had a feeling that this person was mocking him, but he was surprisingly not disgusted.

"So Gaunt O'Dim, what are you doing here?"

When this question was raised, Skellen subconsciously put his hand on the dart at his waist. Although he had an inexplicable affection, his vigilance was still there.

As long as the bald man in front of him said something wrong, he would strike immediately.

"Oh, oh, of course I'm here to help you, please come with me."

A mysterious smile appeared on Gaunt O'Dim's face, and then he made an invitation letter, asking the taupe owl to join him.

And Skellen, just like the previous few times, subconsciously followed.

He knew that his current state was very wrong, but for some reason, he just couldn't get rid of it. He just felt that this person could not harm him.

They came to the ballroom of the palace. To the surprise of the gray owl, he didn't see a guard or a servant along the way, as if the whole palace was just the two of them.

The ballroom of the imperial palace can be said to be extremely famous. Emhyr excavated the tombstones from the graves of all his political enemies and laid them on the floor of the ballroom. Since then, he has won the title of "White Flame Dancing on the Graves of Enemies".

This is Emhyr's victory monument, showing the emperor's power and majesty to all opponents in the empire.

"After Emhyr var Enrith's victory, he placed the tombstones of all his enemies on his ballroom, but what many people don't know is that under these tombstones are the ashes of his enemies .”

Gaunt O'Dim is like a narrator, explaining the things in the dance hall to the gray owl.

Then he made a raised gesture with his right hand, and following his gesture, a pile of white powder rose from under a floor, and they were collected in a small bottle that appeared at an unknown time.

That floor, to be precise, is known to the gray owl who owns the tombstone.

It was the tombstone of the usurper, and the emperor's original name had been erased even if it was on his tombstone, but he just remembered.

"Master Skellen, the ruler of the past will eventually return. However, it's not now, it's not the time yet. Before the return of that one, what you have to do is to protect your life. You can't waste your life so easily. , otherwise it will be very difficult for you to see the scene you desire so much."

Gaunt O'Dim's tone carried a sense of credibility that Skyron could not refuse. He felt that what this man said was true, and that the ruler would definitely return in the end.

"Then what are you doing all this for?"

In the end, Skellen asked like this, and his question made Gaunt O'Dim touch his chin, and the smile on his face made it even more confusing what he was thinking.

"To make the future more interesting."

After speaking, Gaunt O'Dim, or the Mirror Master, left the garden in this way, and disappeared into the eyes of the taupe owl after turning a corner.

Skellen hurriedly chased after him, and next, he found that the figure had disappeared.

But, although in front of Skellen, Master Mirror seemed so confident, but he also knew that this matter was still somewhat difficult.

This involves "fate", and "fate" is an existence that even Master Mirror dare not provoke.

He just finds it troublesome to face the gods, but when it comes to "fate", it's just...

Until Emhyr completes his performance on stage, "fate" will not let him go easily.

So if he resurrects the usurper, it is necessary to blind the perception of "fate", but this is very difficult.

But he has that confidence, nothing more than spending more time, he has the resources and ability to achieve his goals.

He now only hopes that under his operation, the plays that will be staged in the future must be exciting enough, otherwise he will lose his underwear completely.

(End of this chapter)