A Core Ship From The Start

Chapter 77: Chapter 63: The Next Plan_1

The journey to the Fragmented World had brought Duanmu Huai many benefits, but it had also revealed his greatest weakness.

Right now, Duanmu Huai’s team consisted of an MT (himself), DPS (Ogis), and Lorena (Healer + DPS), so…what was missing?

A Magician.

If initially, Duanmu Huai didn’t particularly want a Magician, his need for one now was extremely urgent.

After all, although Duanmu Huai was a Psychic, he specialized in summoning. One could say that apart from Soul Cards, Duanmu Huai knew absolutely nothing about supernatural abilities like magic. Therefore, he was in desperate need of a Magic Assistant who had dipped into and understood psychic magic.

In this respect, Ogis and Lorena were just the same- each specializing in attack and displaying absolute unfamiliarity with magic. Duanmu Huai had originally hoped to find a Magician in the Holy City, but regrettably, according to Lorena, there were almost no Magicians in the Holy City…

Though there were jobs like Mages in the Major Material World, Duanmu Huai dared not employ them — he didn’t want his companions to suddenly turn into heretics corrupted by demons.

So it was best to find a Mage from a Soul Shard, on the one hand, they also had powerful magic, and under the protection of the Soul Shard, they wouldn’t get corrupted by demons.

The next question was…where to find one.

At this time, Lorena did indeed provide Duanmu Huai with a clue; she had heard of a Magic Nation in the north called Manaria. She had heard that this country’s Magic Civilization was highly developed and that it even had a specialized Manaria Magic Academy. If you could find a reliable Magician anywhere, this would be the prime choice.

Nevertheless, there were no records of Manaria in the Holy City, so Duanmu Huai had only one choice…to return once more to the Empire…for clues.

By the way, the Crown of Witchcraft was stolen by Duanmu Huai from the treasure vault and used to increase the analysis speed of the Tribunal Library by 10%.

Also, by the way, the treasure chamber in the ruins, which the Chaos warriors guard like a precious treasure during the Holy City era, was a big bathhouse — fortunately, not a women’s bath.

Basically, Duanmu Huai walked into the bathhouse, then returned to the main world, and then saw a pile of treasure under the goddess statue in the middle of the bathhouse, along with the Crown of Witchcraft. Duanmu Huai simply took the Crown of Witchcraft and then opened the door back to the Holy City and had a bath before leaving.

However, the present Empire was not a good place either.

According to the refugees found by Duanmu Huai, perhaps because they were fed up with the Ratmen and devotees of the Plague God wreaking havoc on their land, the Three Emperors finally decided to temporarily put aside their old grievances and unite to deal with the Ratman Army and Evil God Cultists.

Under their maintenance, the situation in the Empire’s territory has somewhat stabilized for the time being.

By the way, there was also an incident related to the City of Silver — when Duanmu Huai took Elisa and her mother and ran away, leaving the territory to fall into the hands of the Evil God Cultists. The remaining two princes seemed to use this as an excuse to blame the Great Crown Prince for being unfit to be the Emperor. After all, he had even lost his territory. Shouldn’t he resign as a result?

If this happened in Japan, they would probably bow deeply and say, “I am very sorry for inconveniencing you,” and the matter would be over. But this Great Crown Prince seemed to be quite stubborn. He personally led an army, intending to take back the City of Silver…But this had nothing to do with Duanmu Huai.

According to Lorena’s suggestion, he found two places that might have a relationship with Manaria.

The Imperial Capital Aldorf and…the Cursed City Modheim.

Duanmu Huai had heard an interesting story about Modheim from the mouths of refugees who had fled there.

During the Three Emperors’ War, Modheim remained neutral, thus escaping the ravages of war. Consequently, it became a city favored by many nobles and rich merchants. They gathered there, using their wealth to indulge in hedonistic pursuits and keep the war at arm’s length.

Then, a two-tailed comet emerged from the sky. (Duanmu Huai didn’t see this, presumably he was asleep at the time.) But some idiot decided that the comet symbolized the grandeur of the divine emperor, declaring Modheim the chosen city. The city’s nobles began to live even more extravagantly, spending their days lost in pleasure and debauchery.

Of course, there were priests who warned that this was a path to ruin. They saw the comet as the war hammer of Sigma, the imperial guardian god, declaring it would utterly destroy this city of vice!

Then, as if some divine joke was at play, the comet actually did strike Modheim during a frenzied celebration. It was an act of divine justice.

The city was reduced to a wasteland, a playground for ratmen, thieves, adherents of evil gods, and other unsavory elements.

However, just recently, Great Crown Prince Rudolph announced his intent to reclaim this fallen, cursed city. But with most of his forces pushing towards the City of Silver, how would he deal with Modheim?

The prince had a cunning plan. He intended to recruit a group of mercenaries to work alongside the Imperial Army and execute a comprehensive sweep of Modheim, eliminating the cultists, ratmen, and other oddities infesting it.

His call attracted the attention of many mercenaries. Even though Modheim now looked worse than Hiroshima and Nagasaki overrun by mushrooms, it had once been one of the richest cities in the empire. The tales of wealth buried beneath the ruins and formidable divine artifacts filled with mystic power held a lethal allure for these hired swords.

But Modheim was also incredibly dangerous.

The fragments of the comet possessed a terrifyingly potent and bizarre force that could warp the human mind and body, turning people into unimaginable monsters. Additionally, the Great Crown Prince was not the only one interested in Modheim. Other factions were gravitating towards the city, trying to exploit the situation to sow discord, weaken adversaries, or fish in troubled waters.

As expected, the Great Crown Prince’s first operation ended in failure.

Now, he was once again raising the stakes, recruiting brave warriors to venture into Modheim. But perhaps due to the gruesome fate of the first wave of eager volunteers, hardly anyone was ready to blindly rush into Modheim to meet their death.

After compiling this information, Duanmu Huai quickly devised a plan.

He would masquerade as a mercenary and join the prince’s Modheim recovery force. He had two reasons for doing this.

Firstly, Modheim was now a ruin, and the chances of finding any useful information about Manaria were slim to none. He had already circled over Modheim several times in his cannon boat but still couldn’t locate the entrance to the fragmented Manaria. The only option left was to proceed on the ground and search for clues.

And of course, as the prince was planning to reclaim Modheim, he must have extensive intelligence on the city. That’s precisely what Duanmu Huai needed.

Secondly, even if he didn’t find any useful information in Modheim, working for the prince would grant him the credentials to enter the royal city Aldorf. Due to the Three Emperors’ War, all major cities were under martial law, making it impossible for someone as conspicuous as Duanmu Huai to sneak in like a spy or thief. He couldn’t enter Aldorf without the empire’s trust, which he could only earn via official channels.

Another reason was that Duanmu Huai was still interested in the holy artifact in the prince’s possession. After all, having found out that the Water God’s gift was indeed a holy object, the Fire God’s Warhammer held by the prince was likely the same. If he could get his hands on that artifact, it would be perfect.

So, shortly after making this decision, Duanmu Huai immediately set off.

Heading for his next destination — Modheim.

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