After arriving in Yorktown, we first accompanied Marianne to visit the former site of West's Manor, which is now a lake. Due to the lake's proximity to the mouth of the Lechhardt River, the lake is actually a lagoon.

After that, the group did not go to the other houses of the West family or go directly to the West Chamber of Commerce, but went directly to the heart of the flower on the bar street.

Still quiet in the backyard, still familiar people, Jacques felt as if he had just left this place not long ago, and when he turned back, he was the only father missing in the house, oh, barely counting Sammy.

Soon after, two factory directors who kept in touch with Marianne quietly appeared at the flower bar in their hearts, and the news they came to bring confirmed Marianne's suspicion that the West family was in trouble!

When she learned that Graves had not replied in time and had stayed at Mayor Hoffa's house, Marianne had a vague feeling that something was wrong.

It turned out that in the aftermath of the disaster, some members of the city council who were secretly linked together jointly proposed to investigate Graves.

There are two reasons, one is that Graves was seen fleeing from West Manor by a huge black wolf in his mouth, and this black wolf was identified as the culprit behind the destruction of Tavaré City.

The second is that Graves is always tossing some strange things, and there are often huge energy fluctuations and explosions in the manor.

These factors combined, and people suspected that the battle of the Beastmaster in York City was related to Graves' mysterious gadgets.

People tend to attribute their incomprehensible things to magical objects, and perhaps it was some magical object that Graves used to attract the Beastmasters.

Otherwise, it would be impossible to explain why the Beastmaster would save him, considering that there were not many people who could escape from West Manor at that time.

And the testimony of a key witness puts Graves in a very passive position.

A gardener at West Manor claims that the day before the Beastmaster's attack, Graves instructed workers to bury more than a dozen oddly shaped objects deep into the manor's garden, connected with strange rubber threads.

Fortunately, Graves is the brother-in-law of Mayor Hoffa, and claimed to have been injured in the incident and hid in the mayor's house, so the city guards naturally did not dare to go to the mayor's house to arrest people, but this operation inevitably made Hoffa also the target of siege.

The previous atmosphere of collusion between York City Hall and City Council has been broken.

At the same time, there were also problems within the West family, the great butler Gabo died in the attack of the Beastmaster, his son Pittinger was missing, Marianne and Greyfus's uncle Roman took advantage of Greys to avoid trouble, Marianne "eloped", and Griffin, the head of the United Trade House, took all the rights of the West family, and is now greedily transferring assets and shares.

These two factories were spared because they were invested by Marianne alone and never appeared in the West Chamber of Commerce.

After sending off the two factory directors, Marianne sat at the bar and said nothing.

Jacques slipped into the bar, tinkered in the back, and approached Marianne with two glasses of oddly colored wine.

Marianne took the wine and poured it down without hesitation.

"Poof...... Cool!"

Jacques said, "What are you going to do? Have you thought about it? Now we are not the same as before, in fact, we can ignore those guys hiding in the gutter and crush them with our strength." ”

Marianne's cheeks were red, and she shook her cup and said: "No, no, this thing of politics is not about fighting, it's not about who has the strongest combat power, you have to work together vertically and horizontally, find allies to defeat the enemy, otherwise you will be pressed all the way, and you will be hostile to everyone, and when the day comes, when the strength is not enough, everything before will be fed back." ”

Jacques didn't seem to understand, he had never cared about these things before, even if it was the affairs of the Kingdom of Light, he spent most of his time conveying Fat Tangerine's thoughts, and he rarely thought about the complex relationships and the principles of decision-making.

"Accompany me to meet Mayor Hoffa tomorrow, I always feel that their real target is not our two siblings, but may be Mayor Hoffa. ”

"Isn't Hoffa the Invisible Emperor of York, and anyone else dares to trouble him?"

"It's natural, it's because of invisibility that someone will challenge him with this matter. ”

......

The next day, with the help of Fat Orange, Jacques and Marianne quietly appear in Hoffa's office.

"What about my brother?" said Marianne, who was not concerned with anything else, and asked about Graves, completely forgetting that she had had a fundamental disagreement with Mayor Hoffa for Claudia's sake.

With the two people who suddenly appeared, Huo Fa was quite calm, and did not immediately call for help, and asked the grandmasters on duty outside the door to come in to save him.

"Hello Miss Marianne, hello Jacques, oops, your name is so popular these days, I almost thought you were back," Hoffa was the first to break the awkward atmosphere.

"Hello, Mr. Mayor!" said Marianne, sitting down across from her desk.

"It's a bit of a strange title, but now our two families are in-laws. ”

"Wasn't I afraid of you, after all, we had gone against your will to inform the envoy. ”

"Unfortunately, disaster could not be avoided. ”

"Yes, but we were lucky enough to rescue the envoy Claudia at sea, oh yes, we should be called the Crown Princess by now. Actually, we rescued two people, a young man named François Cesar. ”

Hearing this, Mayor Hoffa stood up and knocked over the bits and pieces on the desk.

The door was pushed open with a bang, and three heavily armed guards rushed in.

As soon as Jacques raised his hand, the three of them froze in place as if they had hit a wall.

Mayor Hoffa reacted at this time, and hurriedly shouted: "Misunderstanding, misunderstanding, my own people." ”

Jacques put down his hand, and the three grandmasters regained their mobility, and the three of them were horrified in their hearts, completely unaware of how they were controlled, and the young man did not have the slightest source energy fluctuation when he raised his hand.

Of course, there was no source energy fluctuation, Jacques used his powerful spiritual power to restrain the three of them, and the action of raising his hand was just an action effect to increase the atmosphere.

The guards looked at each other, and only reluctantly exited the office and closed the door at Hoffa's continuous urging.

"At that time, the second prince ...... Ah no, the prince is in the mission?" asked Hoffa, sitting back down.

Jacques replied to him: "That's right, we first sent the crown prince and the crown princess to Zipewa, but it was unfortunate that they happened to encounter the beast tide, and then sent them all the way back to the empire. "I love

No wonder the Marians are not in Yorktown, but the industry controlled by their sisters and brothers is still thriving, especially the short-board sea trade of the original Westtown Chamber of Commerce has grown by leaps and bounds, and now it accounts for almost a quarter of the export volume of the Yorktown area, which turned out to be such a thick thigh!

That's the crown prince and the crown princess!

Hoffa immediately had an epiphany, could his recent encounter be the revenge of the prince for knowing about his behavior at that time?

That's why there are many ways to challenge yourself and oppose yourself at the same time.

The Eleventh Legion, the City Council, and the City Guard all had opponents of Hoffa, many of whom were in key positions, making it difficult for Hoffa's orders to be carried out in these departments.

Before the alliance of tax interception and disguised autonomy was announced, Hoffa fell into a siege from many sides, and the Graves incident was only one aspect, in fact, before that, the city council began to oppose him, and some councillors who had reached an offensive and defensive alliance with him privately also defected, which delayed the plan of the autonomy of the York City Region again and again, and the Zipewa and Medis regions, who had already been convinced, saw that York City had not moved for a long time, and they also did not move, and they would not act until Hofa jumped out first.

Hoffa originally planned to make a desperate bet to force the opposition in the parliament and forcefully promote the issue of autonomy, but he did not expect that there would be another Beastmaster War.

Now the opposition is holding Graves and forcing Hoffa into a dilemma, not only losing control of the army. It also lost the support of most of the West Chamber of Commerce.

Hofa simply poured out the difficulties encountered to the two young men in front of him, and finally asked if Jacques could mediate and stop the confrontation between the two sides at the cost of giving up the autonomy of the New World.

Jacques had no choice but to say that he could not actually influence the crown prince's decision.

Hoffa fell into a state of disappointment and said, "In that case, can you please take Graves and Vanessa and my family away? ”

Jacques smiled and asked, "Mayor, do you think it's safer there?"

Hoffa thought for a moment and said, "Ryo, I heard Graves say that you are doing business with the South now. ”

Jacques said: "Ryo is good, but I don't think it's safe, and if I send them all to Tavaré, I can guarantee their absolute safety." ”

"Tavare? no way, that's ......"

"The territory of the Kingdom of Light. ”

"Yes, yes, are you also in collusion with the Kingdom of Light...... Oh, business. ”

Marianne said: "There is a lot of business, and the trade with the Kingdom of Light occupies seventy percent of the capacity of my fleet. Let's put it this way, I've done all the business between York City and Tavaré in the last year. Half of the sugar in the city of York comes from Tavaret, and the steel used to build the trains, which I also got from the Duchy of Baptiste. ”

Hearing this, Hoffa was surprised and said, "You also have a relationship with Baptiste?"

Jacques replied: "Oh, in fact, we have a better relationship with Robert than François, and we still have interests to discuss with Robert, and we can cooperate with each other." It was more awkward with François, although the personal relationship was good, but there were too many direct conflicts of interest. If I hadn't saved him three times, François would have justified me in prison for treason just because I had held the official position of the Kingdom of Light. ”

Hoffa couldn't digest so much information for a while, and he was speechless for a long time. He didn't want to believe that what Jacques said was true, but Jacques didn't have to lie to him about this information that was very easy to prove. The most important thing is that two years ago, this young man was still a respectful junior in front of him, even if he saved Vanessa, he was not arrogant, but looked very humble.

Now not only is the force terrifying, but even the background has become unfathomable.

However, Hoffa, who was worthy of being an old politician, was surprised and immediately thought of how to extract benefits from Jacques.

"Little friend Jacques, to tell you the truth, I don't want you to send my family away, I just made this request, it was originally arranged by me in desperation, if possible, can you help me hide back in control of York City?

I know this request is a bit presumptuous, but if the Kingdom of Light sends troops, the odds will be greater. In the form of mercenaries, I can't betray the empire in the general sense. ”

Jacques shook his head.

Hoffa's face was filled with disappointment.

Jacques said, "Why bother to transfer troops from the Bright God Kingdom, it's too slow, and the Source Energy Technique of the Light Department is too easy to expose." I'll get you two beastmasters!"

Are you sure it's the Beastmaster, not the Beastmaster?

Hoffa was dumbfounded.

"You just want to subdue the opposition by force and enforce autonomy, don't you? Isn't it better for the Beastmaster to be effective at this time?"

"Could the Beastmaster be uncontrollable?" Hoffa seemed to be affected by Jacques's self-confidence, and didn't even think about the possibility of inviting the Beastmaster, but worried about his actual operation.

"No problem!" Jacques patted his chest and said, "It's just that this guy is a bit picky and a little greedy, so just eat and drink well." ”

Hoffa gradually recovered from his shock and continued to return to his role as a politician, "And what do you want?

Jacques replied, "Allies of the Kingdom of Light, open free trade!, and I am very pleased to see the Empire weakened, from the standpoint of the Kingdom of Light. You see, this has confirmed my treason, and it will be difficult for me to maintain my personal relationship with François in the long run. ”

Hoffa pondered for a long time, but Jacques didn't bother him, leaning back in his chair and communicating with Fat Orange telepathically.

This suggestion was actually made by Fat Orange, and after he heard that Hoffa had a "self-governing" heart and had united the Medis and Zipewa, he couldn't wait to get involved, which, if successful, would seriously weaken the Empire.

In Fat Orange's opinion, the Kingdom of Light has actually never stopped fighting with the Western Sahara Empire on the same continent, and now it has only extended the confrontation to the Western Continent.

Hoffa finally stood up, walked to the window, looked at the bustling crowd in Pioneer Square, clenched his fists and said, "I need to be responsible to the people of the New World, not the insatiable royal family far away in the imperial capital, so, Jacques, let's cooperate." ”

Jacques laughed and snapped his fingers lazily.

Suddenly, there was a little boy in an ill-fitting military coat and snorting snot.

The little boy looked around blankly, and when he saw Jacques, he jumped into his arms, waved his little fist and said, "You called me here and there!"

Jacques was embarrassed, and hurriedly reassured: "Don't make trouble, don't make trouble, we're talking about business!"

Hoffa looked dazed and pointed to the little boy who suddenly appeared, "This...... He...... He ......"

Jacques smiled and said, "Lord Mayor, your No. 1 mercenary reports to you!