Europa Universalis 1867: Start by inheriting an armory

Sean carried a sack of coal and walked back along the alley on the south bank of the Thames.

The heavy sack of coal weighed on his shoulders, his back was slightly hunched, but his steps were steady. This was the second sack of good coal he was delivering to Serra and her son, paid for with young master Richard's money; one sack was equivalent to three sacks of ordinary coal.

"Now they can have a good winter," Sean thought to himself. He walked across the stone path, turned a corner, and soon reached the dormitory.

Suddenly, he heard footsteps behind him; there was more than one person.

"Hey, Irishman."

Sean paused for a moment, but instead of turning around, he bounced the sack and continued walking.

"I'm calling you, did you hear me?" Another voice came from the left, carrying the smell of alcohol.

Sean quickened his pace; he could sense the tension in their words. Right now, he had only one thing on his mind: to deliver the coal to Sera.

"Why are you running?" a third voice interrupted from the right. "How can you walk this fast while carrying coal?"

Footsteps approached, and Sean looked up to see a man standing at the alley entrance, short but stronger than him, blocking his way.

He stopped and looked around. There were five people in total, all young men in their early twenties, with sturdy builds, but their clothes were all wrinkled and the cuffs were worn with white edges.

Their hands were calloused, and their fingernails were stained with indelible dirt; clearly, they had just come off a factory assembly line.

The leader was a bald man, a head taller than Sean, with a neck as thick as a tree stump. He wasn't wearing a coat, just a dirty white undershirt, his brows furrowed, and his eyes red-rimmed, whether from drinking or not sleeping well for days was unclear.

"Sean McCarthy?"

When Sean's full name came out of the bald man's mouth, he immediately understood that this was aimed at him.

"Get out of the way, I don't want to cause trouble," Sean said calmly.

"The foreman at Brian's Armory is actually an Irishman." The bald man revealed Sean's background bit by bit. "I heard you're doing quite well, and you even stood up for an Irish widow and got her out of the police's clutches."

Sean fell silent, his mind racing as he tried to think of a solution. But with these five people surrounding him, his only way to escape was to grow wings and fly away.

"But we've lost our jobs." The bald man gritted his teeth. "The factory laid off more than twenty people at once. Do you know who they kept? They kept you Irish people. Because you're cheap, you didn't dare to say a word, you were more obedient than dogs."

A blond young man next to him spat and said, "We've been working here for years, and now we're just quitting like that? You Irish people come along and snatch up every job, demanding low wages, which the foremen love."

"Then you should go find your boss," Sean replied, head down.

"We will," the bald man smiled, "but we'll find you first."

A chill ran down Sean's spine; there was no doubt that they intended to use him as a target for their anger.

The bald man took a step forward, his breath reeking of alcohol in Sean's face: "So we're going to let you know that London doesn't belong to you Irish people, it belongs to us."

"Do you think this will change anything?" Sean looked into the bald man's eyes. "To them, we're no different."

The bald man didn't reply, but just smiled sinisterly, clenching his fists so tightly they cracked.

"I heard you have a younger sister." The bald man relaxed his shoulders. "She works at the laundry? What's her name again, Catherine?"

Sean was stunned.

"She's quite pretty," the bald man said slowly. "She comes out of the laundry shop so late every day and walks home at night. Do you think she's a decent girl?"

"Shut up." Sean's voice squeezed out from deep in his throat, like a dog cornered against a wall.

The bald man laughed: "Did I say something wrong? A young woman, out in public every day, with no man to keep her in check, who would know what she..."

Sean threw the coal bag on the ground, turned around and punched the bald man in the face.

A muffled thud echoed through the alley, and the bald man's head snapped to one side, a gash immediately appearing on the bridge of his nose.

He staggered a couple of steps and bumped into the wall behind him, crookedly covering his nose, blood oozing out from between his fingers.

"Hit him!"

The blond young man yelled, and the four of them pounced on him at the same time.

Sean blocked one fist, but not the second. Someone kicked him from behind, his knee bent, and before he could stand up, another fist slammed into his temple, and his vision went black.

He curled up on the ground, clutching his head. He couldn't tell which was a fist and which was a foot, only hearing muffled groans coming from his own throat.

"Get up, Irishman!" someone shouted.

"Weren't you pretty good at fighting just now?"

Sean gritted his teeth as someone stepped on his arm, his fingers digging into the cracks in the stone slabs.

Just then, footsteps came from the alley entrance.

"What are you doing?" a male voice drawled from the alley entrance.

Sean peeked through the gap in his arm and saw two uniformed police officers.

The tall one had his hands on his belt, while the short, stout one had his hands behind his back. They were tilting their heads and looking this way; they were the two policemen who had bullied Sera and been rendered speechless by the young master.

The bald man stopped, panting heavily, and took a few steps forward, using his body to shield Sean on the ground: "Officer, it's alright, this Irishman just fell down on his own."

The short, fat man glanced at him, then gave Sean a mocking look at the ground.

"Oh," the short, fat man said slowly, "it's you again."

The taller man leaned in, arms crossed, looking down at him condescendingly: "Isn't this... Mr. Brian's Irish foreman? How could he be so careless?"

Sean looked up and said in a hoarse voice, "Officer, they hit me."

"You hit him?" The short, fat man bent down exaggeratedly, examined the injury on the bald man's face closely, then straightened up and asked, "You guys hit him?"

The bald man wiped the blood from his nose: "No! We're just helping him up."

As he spoke, the person behind him continued to grind his heel into Sean's arm, the pain causing him to tremble slightly.

"Did you hear that?" the short, fat man said to Sean. "You fell down yourself."

Sean clenched his fists, but his waist was weak and he couldn't stand up.

The tall man walked up to the bald man and whispered something very close enough for Sean to hear: "Don't kill him, or we'll have to write a report, which will be a hassle..."

The bald man chuckled twice, bent down, and watched the two officers, one tall and one short, leave.

He turned around, waved his hand, and four people surrounded him again.

Fists and feet rained down on him, and he could hear his bones creaking and his own heavy breathing.

Then came another muffled thud, and his consciousness vanished into darkness.

Seeing that Sean didn't react, the bald man waved his hand and said, "Carry this bag of coal away, we won't lose out."

After saying that, the group picked up the bag of coal and disappeared down the street at the alley entrance.

The alley quieted down, with only the occasional bark of a dog and the occasional playful banter of a woman.

And Sean? He lay motionless in the cinders and mud, his blood congealing into dark red mud in the cracks of the cobblestones.