094 Clive's Actions

While Karen was busy improving the level of his domain and strengthening his own power, Cliff was not idle either. Though somewhat timid by nature, Cliff was exceedingly clever.

He understood full well that Karen’s situation was still perilous, and that the young lord was, at present, treading a path no less dangerous than plucking chestnuts from the fire.

On the surface, Karen had wiped out the wraiths, crushed the Moonworshipper City legion, and taken control of Goblin Forest, seeming overwhelmingly formidable. In truth, however, matters were not so simple.

If he could not deal with the Silver Hand, Karen’s position would remain dangerous.

After all, Goblin Forest was merely a buffer zone left behind by the Silver Hand and the Kingdom of Bourbon. Even with Karen’s current strength, let alone the Silver Hand, if the Kingdom of Bourbon truly moved to destroy him, there would be absolutely no chance of survival.

By all rights, a coward like Cliff would never have chosen to associate with someone in such a precarious situation. Even if compelled by necessity, he would have kept three or two escape routes ready, prepared to flee separately the moment disaster struck.

Yet regrettably, from the instant Karen branded him with the mark of death, he had become Karen’s man. If Karen died, he would certainly not live. Thus the deathly timid Cliff now had his entire heart tied to Karen.

It sounded somewhat odd, but at this moment Cliff was indeed serving Karen with complete devotion.

As Karen’s trusted confidant and intellectual support, he understood very well that if Karen wished to develop his domain, corpses and the Whisper of the Dead were of the utmost importance.

He had no means of helping Karen obtain corpses. Though the world had changed, the notion that the dead should rest remained much the same, and his position made such matters unsuitable for him to handle.

So Cliff simply ceased wasting effort on that front and turned his attention directly to the Whisper of the Dead.

Ordinary men might simply mobilize people to gather it, but Cliff was different. He spent money with ruthless abandon, going straight to several trade guilds and mercenary organizations in Moonworshipper City, offering a price of five hundred blooms for one silver coin.

One silver coin was roughly equivalent to ten thousand copper coins, about ten thousand yuan in old currency terms. To buy five hundred blossoms of the Whisper of the Dead for that sum, with no limit on quantity, was enough at once to stir the market into frenzy.

This was far more efficient than sending his own people to pick it, and far less troublesome as well. Once the money was thrown out, the Whisper of the Dead came pouring in to him in an endless stream.

Karen had still been worried that after violent harvesting in Moonworshipper City, Cliff would likely be unable to bring in much of the Whisper of the Dead in the short term. Yet once Cliff’s method was put into place, not only had the supply in Moonworshipper City not been completely exhausted, but even if the nearby area were stripped bare, the power of capital would draw the Whisper of the Dead from beyond the city and funnel it in.

And what Cliff did for Karen was not limited to gathering the Whisper of the Dead.

After becoming Karen’s subordinate, Cliff had given himself a very clear position.

In a situation where Karen could not expand by force on three fronts, border-city trade was his only choice. Only by turning Goblin Forest into a neutral commercial town could Karen continue to grow.

And if Karen wished to make border trade a reality, it was not enough merely to control the channel through the wraiths.

Cliff’s plan for Karen to seize that channel was, to a large extent, for the sake of the Silver Hand’s channels.

Moreover, border trade was not simply a matter of mastering the wraith route or the Silver Hand route. Commerce went both ways: while securing the Silver Hand, Karen also needed a commercial network on the side of the Kingdom of Bourbon.

Cliff knew little about the Silver Hand and could not help Karen much there, but in the Kingdom of Bourbon, things were different.

Cliff’s father had been the former lord of Moonworshipper City, and Cliff himself had once served as deputy garrison officer there. Though he had been suppressed by Lyan all these years, and though his own timid nature meant he always put survival first, never holding much power in his hands, his connections were still substantial. If he were to step forward, he could very easily help Karen weave a commercial network.

And Cliff did indeed do exactly that. As soon as he returned from Karen’s side, he began contacting the nobles and powerful families of Moonworshipper City with increasing frequency.

Of course, at this point Cliff did not reveal the slightest intention of building a commercial network for Karen. His frequent contact with Moonworshipper City’s elite served first to accomplish one thing: dealing with Lyan, who had just returned in defeat from Goblin Forest.

From the moment Lyan marched out, Cliff had been one hundred percent certain that his own suspicions were correct.

Lyan had indeed been mixed up with the wraiths. On that occasion when he went to see Karen, he had truly intended to kill Cliff as well.

That alone was enough to make Cliff move against Lyan, let alone the fact that Lyan had also made a move against Karen.

For Cliff now, Karen was his life. Whoever dared touch Karen, he would fight.

Though Lyan had not managed to do anything to Karen and had instead been beaten back, Cliff still had to bring him down. After all, anyone who laid hands on Karen could not be allowed to remain. Besides, given Lyan’s hostility toward Karen, if he remained in the position of Moonworshipper City’s lord, he would be a tremendous threat to the future development of Karen’s border trade.

So after Lyan returned, Cliff joined with the nobility to strike at him.

Naturally, Cliff’s methods were sophisticated; he would never step into the open himself.

Just after Lyan had returned in defeat from the goblins and had not yet recovered from the failure, trouble had already begun to close around him.

First, several of his trusted subordinates were indicted over various matters, and some were even arrested.

Before Lyan could even rescue his men, agents from the kingdom arrived, and soon after, Lyan himself was placed under control by royal officials.

In a matter of a few moves, before Lyan even realized that Cliff was behind it, he was already mired deep in a quagmire.

Yet Cliff also knew that it would not be easy to bring Lyan down completely.

After all, there was a great figure behind Lyan supporting him. At most, this move would weaken Lyan’s power; to uproot him entirely was essentially impossible.

And so it proved. At that very moment, within the lord’s manor of Moonworshipper City, Lyan was not worrying over his own predicament. He was even meeting with Old Jack.

Only, this meeting between the two men was anything but pleasant. Old Jack had come, but his face was cold as ice. “Are you satisfied now, with how things have turned out?”

At those words, Lyan, who had been racking his brain for how to broach the matter of the wraiths with Old Jack, froze in place.