Arknights' Lock of Heaven

Of course, having ulterior motives is not a derogatory term nowadays, or rather, Wollemund is eager for others to take notice of him.

You have to have some value for people to pay attention to you.

If it's truly worthless, then this city will probably only exist in history books in the future.

Perhaps Rhodes Island wants to use Wolumonde as an outpost to enter the vast market of Letania. After this incident, they may open a few factories here to maintain their business strategy.

After all, infected people in Letania are treated relatively well compared to those in other countries, so selling medicine here is much more profitable than in countries like Ursus.

For these reasons, the people in the city hall dared not do anything without the people of Rhodes Island, and even wished that Anto would interfere everywhere.

After all that incident, they were feeling uneasy, afraid that their lifeline might abandon them in a fit of anger.

After all, Dr. Anto had heard that he had a powerful backer on Rhodes Island.

Therefore, they needed Anto's approval for almost everything.

Of course, it's not about dumping everything on Anto; that would be creating an enemy.

They had already planned out the inventory and distribution of all the supplies, filled out forms and showed them to Anto, and only began to implement them after she nodded in approval.

Logically speaking, this shouldn't be a difficult task, but the problem is that these supplies are just too damn messy!

To put it simply, gathering all these diverse items from all over the country might be even more difficult than actually procuring a proper batch of disaster relief supplies...

God knows how these things were put together, but there's no other way. At this point, it's good enough to have something to save your life, what more could you ask for?

So there are quite a lot of documents that Anto needs to process...

Moreover, Anto is a doctor who also has to take care of patients, and he's been quite exhausted these days.

If it were someone with even a modicum of political awareness, they would know that the Wolumonde City Hall giving these allocation documents to Anto wasn't for her to make the final decision; it was merely a formality of respect.

Of course, if she asks for anything, the city hall will definitely handle it perfectly.

But Anto had no idea about all those intricacies. She was a doctor, and Kal'tsit hadn't taught her any of this. Her professional habits made her meticulously review every expense...

So I almost died from overwork.

Fortunately, the PhD arrived in time.

After listening to Anto's complaints, the doctor calmly walked to his desk, picked up the documents sent by the city hall, and began to read them.

A dozen minutes later, she put down the documents in her hand. Although her expression was covered by a mask, her slightly trembling hands revealed that she was not at peace.

To be honest, dealing with these supplies is a logistical nightmare.

If Xia Yu dares to bring these things back to Rhodes Island, Kroos will definitely pick up her gun and have a good talk with him.

"It must have been really tough..."

The doctor turned around to comfort Anto, only to find that she had already fallen into a deep sleep on the sofa.

After a two-second silence, the doctor quietly found a blanket and gently covered Anto with it.

Then he took the documents and left the office.

She's going to find the lion scorpion and ask him where all this weird stuff came from.

……

"..."

"So," the doctor's voice trembled slightly, "you've been robbing the whole way?"

"They robbed it all the way from Lungmen to Letania? They crossed the entire border of Ursus and most of Kazdel?"

"You even stole an Ursus warship? An active one?!"

"This isn't robbery!" The Manticore paused for a moment, then wrote on the cardboard to emphasize, "This is robbing the rich to help the poor! This is helping the weak and punishing the strong!"

It goes without saying who taught her that way of speaking.

It's only been a few days! It's only been a few days!

So the innocent lion scorpion was corrupted by Xia Yu's teachings...

Ignoring the Manticore's self-righteous attitude, the Doctor took out a file from his pocket and started writing and drawing on it.

This operator should be given special attention; they could be recruited into management (just kidding).

If you don't want the entire logistics team to hang themselves, then let him obediently remain a combatant for life! Even if he gets promoted, he should still be assigned a dedicated logistics team (triple pay).

Assign elite operators to form a squad (crossed out).

Let's assign all those troublesome children to him! Things can't get any worse.

That's right, this is Xia Yu's file.

120 You weren't sent by the Queen?

While the professor was writing and drawing on Xia Yu's file with a dark expression, Xia Yu herself was quite relaxed.

"At your request, I, the clan chief, have come to see you alone. So, who sent you?"

Old Mainz, his face dark, carefully climbed to the top of the tower. The patriarch, high above, was panting heavily, but his eyes were still wide open.

"I don't care what your purpose is, or who sent you, but you'd better carefully consider the consequences of offending the Mainz and Loren families!"

The powerful air currents high above forced him to do his best to maintain his balance, and he stuck his cane into the glazed tiles at the top of the tower. Old Mainz, who was not proficient in Originium Arts, was clearly struggling.

So while his harsh words were indeed domineering, they were somewhat... laughable when combined with his disheveled appearance.

“Father…” Streich opened his mouth, as if to remind him of something, but was immediately interrupted.

"Shut up," Old Mainz managed to squeeze out two words from his throat, his face gradually contorting as he maintained his Originium Arts.

Upon hearing this, Streich opened his mouth, but ultimately couldn't say anything.

“I did not come up here as the head of the Mainz family.”

He spoke slowly and deliberately, panting heavily.

"Don't think that my good-for-nothing son is that important to the family. It's just a marriage alliance. We can replace him with someone else at any time."

"The family will not pay more for him than he is worth."

"So, I came up here as a father."

“The family will not give everything for a member of the clan, but the father can.”

"What do you want?" Old Mainz stared intently at Xia Yu. "I'll give you anything I can."

Upon hearing this, Streich froze, his eyes welled up with tears, and he clenched his teeth tightly.

He opened his mouth, as if he wanted to say something, but was interrupted by Xia Yu's teasing words.

“Although the words were very well said,” Xia Yu said softly, “how should I put it… well, it was a bit over the top.”

Upon hearing this, Old Man Inz's pupils contracted.

Damn it, why hasn't that brute Reed made a move yet!

He glanced at the spire where his son and daughter-in-law were hanging, his face grim.

"Acting?" Old Mainz scoffed. "Indeed, a daring madman like you has probably never tasted the flavor of family affection, let alone children."

"He is the continuation of my life, my hope for the future. How could someone like you understand?"

Strachey, who was standing nearby, was already in tears upon hearing this. Only Grace, who was next to him, pouted and struggled to make a gesture with her hands, which were numb and powerless from being suspended high on the spire for more than ten hours.

The gestures were only understood by his father and himself.

Absolutely not!

Only her simple-minded, somewhat naive fiancé would believe what Old Mainz said.

If she were truly so worried about her son's safety, would she have made sarcastic remarks about the kidnappers not knowing the meaning of family affection?

Aren't you afraid of encountering someone with a violent temper who might just throw your son down, letting you know what it means to be ungrateful...

Therefore, Mainz must have ulterior motives.

Grace sighed silently. Her fiancé, well… he was kind of adorably stupid…

I'm the one who's been spoiled, so why is it that he's so... obvious about things that even I can see?

That makes sense, though. If he weren't so adorably stupid, his father wouldn't have chosen him for a marriage alliance.

At the same time, Xia Yu's feelings were also very complicated.

Does this person really think he's a fool?

To do this to a kidnapper whose background is unknown... this is not something a patriarch of a large family would do.

Xia Yu originally wanted to give him a look and let him figure it out himself, but then she remembered that she was still wearing a mask. After thinking for a moment, Xia Yu stood up from next to the hostage and went to stand in front of Old Mainz.

This old man, with his frail arms and legs, is really dedicated to his acting in the cold wind. Maybe I should just play along.

"Old man, do you know what you're saying?"

Unlike Xia Yu, who stood effortlessly on a slope of more than 70 degrees, Old Mainz was struggling to stay in place, his hands gripping his cane tightly as he bent over and knelt, desperately resisting the fierce winds from above.

The contrast between the two is like that of a subject paying homage to his king.

Old Mainz's eyes widened, his face filled with indignation at being humiliated. He straightened up and shouted, "Don't go too far..."