American Comic Dimensional Trading Device

Half an hour later, Josie and her group arrived at the headquarters of the First Group, located in the western suburbs of Vienna.

The soldiers and officers of the First Army were all familiar with Josie, so they let him pass without any problems.

After being announced by the guards, Josie soon met McGinnis.

"You're asking about this? Well, it's actually a military secret, but it won't hurt to tell you. Captain Rogers' statement about sacrificing himself might not be entirely accurate, since his body wasn't found at the time," General McGinnis said after thinking for a moment, upon hearing Josie's purpose.

"What do you mean?" Josie asked, puzzled.

“According to my information, Captain Rogers chased Schmidt into the deepest part of the Hydra base. When reinforcements arrived, there was nothing there except the Tesseract!” General McGinnis replied.

Josie was stunned when she heard this.

There's nothing there except a Rubik's Cube?

In other words, Captain America didn't die, but simply went missing?

Wait... Holy crap, could it be that Captain America and Red Skull were both teleported away by the Tesseract?

...I dozed off for a bit after typing halfway through...and then I discovered there were several messages from 3 or 4 AM...amazing!

I have to go to work at nine, so I still have three hours to sleep. Time to go!

Chapter 95 Hometown

After several days of inquiries from various sources, there is still no concrete evidence... after all, there wasn't even a single eyewitness at the time.

However, based on Josie's judgment, Captain America was most likely indeed teleported away by the Tesseract.

As for where they were teleported to, that remains unknown.

Although in the original storyline Red Skull was sent to Vormir to act as a guide for another Infinity Stone—the Soul Stone—Josie thought that this Infinity Stone shouldn't need two guides.

Therefore, even if the two were teleported together, the possibility of them appearing together on Vomir is very low.

As for Captain America being teleported away, Josie's personal attitude was a mixture of regret and relief.

The regret is that although I and Captain America are not exactly good friends, we are at least acquaintances.

Fortunately, it's quite simple. Although he hasn't yet gained recognition from the Nine, he has effectively become the head of a Hydra branch and Captain America's hidden nemesis.

While I'm not exactly afraid of the other person, it still feels a bit uncomfortable to suddenly turn someone you know into a mortal enemy.

That's fine now.

After a brief moment of reflection, Josie stopped paying much attention to the matter.

As for that Cosmic Cube... once I truly control the Nine-Person Council, it won't matter.

The following day, in a valley west of Innsbruck, a city in western Austria, a luxury convoy slowly drove into a small town called Obsteiger.

The people in the town looked at the convoy with some curiosity.

Because this town is located in a remote area, war has hardly affected it, and it is rare for troops or important figures to come here. So, seeing a luxury convoy suddenly appear here would naturally seem very strange.

Although it's just a small town, because Austria was the core of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, a former world-class power, the roads here are well-maintained, allowing convoys to easily navigate through the town.

After many twists and turns, the convoy finally arrived in front of a small building with a yard on the northern edge of the town.

The arrival of the convoy caught the attention of a large dog in the yard, which immediately barked twice as a warning.

As the convoy stopped, Josie, wearing a coat, stepped out of one of the cars, followed by Ophelia, dressed in classic attire.

As soon as Josie got out of the car, she spotted the big dog in the yard and her eyes lit up. It was a very robust Alpine spirit—the national dog of Switzerland, the Saint Bernard.

Known for protecting travelers traversing the Alpine trails, this large dog is beloved not only in Switzerland but also in countries and regions surrounding the Alps.

Because it is a very docile breed, it did not attack Josie and her group of uninvited guests except for barking a few times as a warning and watching them warily.

"This is your childhood home? It seems to have a new owner!" Ophelia ignored the barking of the St. Bernard and looked the small building up and down before asking Josie.

“That’s normal. My father sold this place before he left, but I don’t know exactly who he sold it to,” Josie replied.

That's right, this small town, this little building, is the hometown of Josie's body.

About 20 kilometers north of this town is the Bavarian town of Shiwanga.

There stand two castles facing each other across the mountains.

These are the two Neuschwanstein Castles, the old and new castles, where the famous Bavarian King Ludwig II once lived.

This is why Josie suddenly developed a strong desire to visit Neuschwanstein Castle before coming to Europe.

Because when this body lived here as a child, it often rode horses to the border forests to hunt under the guidance of its father, and also to admire the two beautiful castles.

And now, Josie is here to take over these two castles... The ownership of these two castles originally belonged to the Bavarian state government, but in the later stages of World War II, Bavaria was first annexed by the Hydra army, and now it is occupied by Austria, so the ownership naturally fell into the hands of Austria.

During his time in Austria, Josie used a series of methods and acquired ownership of the two castles with almost no money.

However, don't think that Josie really got a great deal.

Neuschwanstein Castle is fine; it's a completed building that only needs minor repairs to be habitable.

Neuschwanstein Castle, however, remains an unfinished building.

At the end of the 19th century, the Bavarian king spent a whopping 620 million marks to build Neuschwanstein Castle.

That was a silver mark from the time of Frederick III (marks at that time were distinguished by gold and silver), not a mark that is now almost worthless.

In Germany, the mark is not only a unit of currency but also a unit of mass.

One Prussian mark was equivalent to 223 grams.

In other words, 1 mark = 223 grams of silver, which is about four taels. If we use the tael system from the Qing Dynasty, that would be six taels.

So 620 million marks is equivalent to 3720 million taels of silver.

Meanwhile, how much did the old witch Empress Dowager Cixi spend building the Summer Palace next door? More than ten million taels of silver!

In other words, Ludwig II, the Bavarian king, was even more incompetent and extravagant than Empress Dowager Cixi.

For this reason, he was deposed by the royal family on the grounds of mental illness and died mysteriously a few days later.

When he died, due to his extravagant lifestyle, not only was the entire Bavarian royal treasury depleted, but he also left behind a deficit of 15 million marks.

It's no wonder that even in the 20s, Bavarians still referred to the king as a madman, a mentally ill man, and considered the construction of Neuschwanstein Castle as foolish.

However, what happened to Ludwig had little to do with Josie. What did matter was that when Ludwig died, Neuschwanstein Castle was not yet completed; only the outer structure was finished.

Of the 360 ​​rooms in Neuschwanstein Castle, only 14 were actually completed.

In the original timeline, it wasn't until the 90s that the Bavarian state government began to gradually restore and improve Neuschwanstein Castle. However, at that time, Neuschwanstein Castle brought Bavaria tens of millions of marks or euros in revenue every year.

If Josie wants to complete Neuschwanstein Castle, it would normally be difficult without spending tens of millions of dollars.

Fortunately, we had just received tens of thousands of free laborers from General McGinnis, and now they're coming in handy.

Thanks to the excellent basic education in the German region, there are quite a few people there who understand engineering, and even the least skilled can be a laborer, right?

For these prisoners of war, Josie only needed to provide them with food and clothing, which immediately reduced labor costs to a minimum.

However, these people are still being screened and recuperated in the prisoner-of-war camp, and will be sent here after some time.

So Josie didn't rush to take over the castle immediately, but instead came to Obsteg, her "old home," to take a look.

While Josie and Ophelia were talking, the current owner of the small house was startled by the noise from the convoy and the barking dogs and came out of the house.

The next chapter will probably be released close to morning, so you don't have to wait; you can read it tomorrow.

Chapter 96 Randolph

The person who came out of the house was a middle-aged man with a kind face.

Looking at the middle-aged man, Josie frowned slightly, because he vaguely remembered this person... but it should be the original owner's memory.

"You are... Josh? Josh Kahn?" Just as Josh was thinking, the other person looked him up and down and called out Josh's name.

“Yes, it’s me… You’re Uncle Randolph?” When the other person called out to him, Josie remembered that he was her father’s friend. He used to be a hunter who lived in the foothills of the Alps outside the town. He was a friend of her father and had even held the original owner of this body when she was a child. So her father had sold this place to him.

"Oh my goodness, it's been years! You've grown so much! You came back from America? Where are your parents?... And who are they?" Seeing the grown-up Josie, the man he called Uncle Randolph was also very happy and immediately asked a series of questions.

“Oh, they’re my men. The war’s over, and I happened to be in Europe on some business, so I thought I’d drop by… As for my parents… well, that’s a long story!” Josie shrugged.

"Is that so... Oh, right, don't just stand here, come in and sit down, I just made some tea!" Hearing Josie's words, Randolph seemed to sense something, so he immediately changed the subject and invited Josie into the house.

Josie didn't refuse; since she was already there, it wouldn't be right not to go in.

So he took Ophelia and Vito into the house, while the rest of the people stood guard outside.

Stepping inside, you'll find a very typical European style of decor, with sofas, a fireplace, a radio, and so on.

Following her memory, Josie noticed that the furnishings seemed almost unchanged, except for a doghouse next to the fireplace, where a Saint Bernard lay, along with four puppies.

The Saint Bernard that had been outside the door followed everyone in and stood guard beside the Saint Bernard and the puppies inside. Clearly, the two Saint Bernards were a pair.

"As you can probably see, the furnishings here are exactly the same as when you left. I always thought that you might come back one day after the war ended, and look, I was right!" Randolph invited the three of them to sit down while making tea for Josie and the others.

Josie and Ophelia sat down on the sofa, while Vito dutifully stood five steps away from Josie.

Randolph was slightly surprised by Vito's actions, but he quickly realized that Josie's status was probably quite extraordinary now.

“Uncle Randolph, you’re so kind. There was really no need to do that!” Josie was quite surprised that Randolph hadn’t changed any of the furnishings in the house over the past few years. Just from this, it was clear that Randolph was a friend worth having. Her father had made a good friend, but unfortunately, he wouldn’t be able to see it.

"It's nothing, I'm all alone anyway, and I don't have any special hobbies, so it doesn't matter whether I change them or not. Come and try this, it's a top-quality green tea that I managed to get from an ancient Eastern country. It's said that only their emperors could drink it in the past, I don't know if you're used to it!" Randolph placed two porcelain cups in front of Josie and Ophelia respectively, and then poured clear tea into the teapot.