Industrial Revolution of the Mage Lords

Chapter 96: Is the Lord born bulletproof?

The ventilation ducts of the underground laboratory in the lord's castle are connected to the complex sewage pipes in the territory.

When initially planning the construction, Harvey and his team had directly set up the domestic sewage outlet downstream of the river. However, as the number of residents in the territory grew, the amount of human and animal feces and sewage produced also increased exponentially. If all of it was dumped into the river, within half a year the river close to the residential area would be polluted beyond recognition.

In addition, as the scale of farm cultivation gradually expanded, the experimental use of natural fertilizers was officially put on the agenda. Reiner simply set up a huge open-air compost pit on the edge of the west city wall, so that most of the human and animal feces in the entire territory were concentrated here for composting and fermentation.

Harvey's laboratory sewage ventilation ducts were built close to the compost pit and connected to the outside of the city wall, discharging all kinds of toxic waste produced by the laboratory directly into the rotten water swamp outside the territory.

Ventilation and sewage pipes need to be cleaned regularly to avoid blockage and backflow.

But this job is not a popular one, so there has never been a fixed person to be responsible for the cleanup. Only those temporary unions that have just joined the territory and do not have stable work contracts are willing to do it.

Yurio had done this many times. As long as he was willing to crawl into the narrow, dirty and smelly pipes, he could earn a generous salary of three gold dollars by cleaning for only half a day.

At this moment, he was being held at the waist with a long sword, and was being led by two men with ill intentions towards an open-air compost pit.

"There are only people working in the composting site during the day. You can't even see a ghost here at night because it's so damn smelly..." Wolfe complained under his breath as he walked.

Yurio walked silently with his head down, but his mind was rapidly thinking about how to escape.

He had no suitable weapon, and he could not handle the attacks of two people at the same time with one hand. There was almost no possibility of escape on the ground.

The only way to escape was to wait and find the sewage ventilation ducts, using the intricate paths within. But how could they alert the lord's guards? Those metal monsters stationed in the castle couldn't understand human language, so shouting alone wouldn't work...

"Is this the exit of the sewage pipe?" Wolfe retched twice, holding his nose as he stood in front of a circular hole that was only accessible by bending over.

The cloaked man holding a long sword pressed the tip of his sword against Yurio's waist, forcing him to answer.

"Yes, this is the exit of the sewage pipe. However, the exhaust pipe leading to the castle laboratory is buried deep underground. Only a few entrances are left in the sewage pipe for easy inspection and cleaning, connecting the two pipes together."

This is also the main reason why they chose to enter the exhaust pipe from the sewage pipe. The real main exit of the exhaust pipe is set outside the city wall, and a solid metal fence is built to block it. Without alchemical explosives or magical bombardment, ordinary people cannot break in.

"You lead the way, and don't leave me more than three steps away, otherwise..." The cloaked man pushed the sword towards Yurio's back again. The tip of the sword pierced through his thick cotton coat, causing him to tremble slightly due to the pain.

Just as the three of them fell silent and were about to bend down and get into the sewer, footsteps suddenly sounded above their heads.

Anyone near the compost pit?
The footsteps soon stopped at the edge of the pit, followed by a rustling sound of clothes rubbing against each other, and then a clear sound of water flowing from the sky, splashing onto the ground not far from the three people at the bottom of the pit.

The strong smell of urine hit me in the face.

The cloaked man tilted his head slightly and found that the person standing at the edge of the pit, humming a tune and urinating leisurely was a young man dressed as a soldier in black clothes and black pants. So he took out a delicate short crossbow from his waist, and with the sparse moonlight above his head, he raised his hand and pulled the trigger of the crossbow to shoot at the man.

A muffled groan was heard, and then the man immediately fell sideways into the pit, hitting the ground with a thud, and died instantly without even a struggle.

"What are you doing? You've alarmed the soldiers patrolling the city wall. Our plan will be ruined!" Wolf was shocked and angry, and cursed at the cloaked man in a low voice.

The cloaked man laughed sinisterly and pointed at the long-handled weapon on the back of the soldier lying dead on the ground.

"Is this the magic weapon you mentioned?" He walked over, took it from the dead man, and handed it to Wolf. "If it's really as powerful as you say, why not use it to add some bigger rewards to our mission?"

Wolfe took the spear in a daze. "You mean... to directly solve the core of the problem for the lord?"

The two seemed to understand each other at the same time and laughed sinisterly together.

……

The three of them walked through the slippery, muddy, and foul-smelling sewer for about a quarter of an hour, and finally arrived at the inspection port that Yurio mentioned, which connected the two pipes.

Sticking my head into the dark hole, I could faintly hear the whirring sound of the blower. "It's here. Climb in about ten meters and you'll be in the ventilation duct."

This time, the cloaked man did not let Yurio lead the way. He left Wolf to watch Yurio with a gun, lifted up his robe and went in first, and then let the remaining two follow.

The space inside the ventilation duct was even narrower. The three of them crawled on their knees and it took a lot of effort before they finally reached the end of the duct. There was a locked iron fence there, and a blazing white light could be seen through the gaps in the fence.

That is the lord’s underground laboratory!
The cloaked man turned and signaled Wolf with his eyes. The latter immediately crept over to the fence, poked a bent wire into the keyhole and began to tinker with it.

Wolf seemed to be particularly good at the despicable skill of picking locks. He didn't have to use any effort at all and opened the lock in just a few strokes.

The man in the cloak went out and slipped to the door along the boxes filled with materials and parts piled against the corner of the wall, and peeked at the outer room of the larger laboratory outside the door.

Yurio was also forced out of the ventilation duct at gunpoint.

At this moment, a chaotic sound of footsteps and voices suddenly came from the stairs leading to the laboratory door.

Yurio's heart suddenly sank. He recognized one of the voices. It was the voice of the lord that was played on the bulletin board in the civic square from time to time using a magical device.

At the same time, Wolfe raised the magic gun in his hand and aimed at the staircase entrance of the laboratory door according to the attack posture of the soldier he had secretly seen.

Yurio didn't care about anything else. Taking advantage of the fact that the two people in front of him were ready for a sneak attack, he seized the opportunity and pounced on Wolf, shouting a warning at the top of his lungs.

"Lord, be careful! There's an assassin in the lab!"

Harvey heard the roar just as he walked into the laboratory. Before he could react, Asdalen beside him suddenly pulled him hard, pulled him behind him and covered him tightly with his solid metal body.

Wolf had never used a magic gun before, let alone the accuracy of his shooting. Who would have thought that after Yurio's pounce, the energy beam that was originally off target actually hit Asdalen by accident, went straight through his shoulder, and hit Harvey who was hiding behind him.

"Damn it!" Asdalen was shocked and angry. He immediately turned around and looked at Harvey who was shot. His heart sank to the bottom. His metal body could not withstand the attack of the magic gun. Harvey's thin flesh and blood body was probably even more vulnerable.

But when he turned around, he found Harvey standing behind him unharmed. The torn robe on the left chest clearly showed that he had been shot, but strangely, there was no trace of blood.

Harvey narrowed his eyes slightly and quickly chanted a spell, and a vague and illusory figure immediately appeared behind the attacker.

A third-ring instant creative spell - Mirror Curse.

The dark cursed mirror suddenly exploded on the spot, and countless black threads that seemed to have life broke free from the phantom's control and rushed directly towards the nearest cloaked man, drilling into his eyes, ears, mouth and nose.

“Ah!!!!” The cloaked man dropped his sword, fell to the ground in pain, and began to roll and wail.

A sticky liquid of the same color suddenly began to seep out from under his dark robe, smearing the ground with a mess along the traces of his rolling and struggling.

After a few breaths, the entire body of the cloaked man melted into black water, leaving only a pile of dirty and greasy clothes on the ground.

The moment Yurio pounced on Wolf, he wanted to knock the magic gun in his hand away, but he didn't expect that he would still fire a shot in the chaos. At this moment, he was wrestling with the opponent on the ground with one hand, and was accidentally stabbed in the chest by the dagger that Wolf took out from his waist.

It seemed that his lungs were injured, causing him to cough up a lot of blood foam violently from his mouth.

The two activated alchemy beasts pounced quickly and pinned the two struggling people to the ground.

"Are there internal conflicts among the assassins?" Harvey approached slowly and muttered to himself in confusion.

Before Yurio lost consciousness from his injuries, the last thought that came to his mind was—

"My Lord, he... he is actually invulnerable to swords and guns?"

(End of this chapter)