Hearing the loud noise underground, Huggins hurried with his guards.

Everyone waved their hands to disperse the pungent smoke as they groped their way through the haze. A few minutes later, Huggins saw the king, dressed in disarray, slowly emerging from the underground laboratory.

He exclaimed, "Your Majesty, what happened?!"

Leaning against the door of the laboratory, Todd patted the dust on his body, choked on the smoke and coughed twice, and then looked at the smoky and tattered clothes on his body, shook his head and smiled bitterly: "It's hard to say, in short, let the guards seal the scene first." Also, don't touch all the reagents and samples in it! I'm going to go to sleep first, and I'll talk about anything when I wake up. ”

Todd, who returned to the dormitory, hurriedly washed his body with the clean water brought by the servant, and with a full body of fatigue, he lay on the bed and quickly fell asleep.

When he woke up again, it was nine o'clock the next morning, and the warm winter sun poured warmth through the door, bringing the sound of Huggins outside the door.

"Your Majesty, if you wake up, please come to the council chamber. Today is the day of the Kingdom's weekly meeting, and the officials are waiting to report back to you. ”

Shaking his drowsy head, Todd complained about the king's hard life, and at the same time tried his best to climb out of the warm bed.

Thirty minutes later, the King's Chamber

Todd, who was neatly dressed, sat at the top of the long table, holding the report submitted by Emerson, and the more he read it, the more frightened he became: "The famine in the Holy Acropolis has reached this point?!"

Faced with the king's question, Emerson put on the crystal glasses he had just fitted, and while comparing the reported data, he said: "According to Gordon, the head of the envoys, the famine in the Holy Acropolis has pushed the entire kingdom to the brink of collapse, and now even the royal family has drastically reduced their daily rations, not to mention those nobles and commoners. ”

"For these two years, as one of the conditions for entering the war, food and supplies for the Holy Acropolis came from the Church. It was precisely because they had no logistical worries that they recruited and transferred a large number of young and middle-aged men from the farmland and focused their main energy on warfare. ”

Emerson sighed helplessly when he said this: "The cultivated land has been turned into a wasteland untended, and the treasury has become an empty house because of the war." The people of the Holy Acropolis had always thought that the outcome of this war would be the same as it had been hundreds of years ago. The Church coalition defeated the barbarians, and all the participating parties received a large share of the spoils. But no one thought about what would happen to the kingdom if the battle was lost, or if it turned into a pointless tug-of-war. ”

Todd put down the report in his hand and asked, "The Holy Acropolis is short of food, haven't you thought of asking the Papal States for help?"

Cumberland clasped his arms over his chest and said in a muffled voice, "They did." They did that before the war was over. Not only did they ask for help, but the mission of the Holy Acropolis also ran to the Pope and shouted that their kingdom had paid a heavy price in this war and deserved its due reward. ”

Todd gave Cumberland a puzzled look: "So, did the Papal States agree to give them a reward?"

The old knight snorted from his nose: "The Pope gave them a letter of praise and agreed to give the Silver Ring City referee to the Holy Acropolis as a reward for their participation in the war. ”

Todd suddenly realized that this was how the official document of the Holy Ministry that judged the territory of the Silver Ring City to the Holy Acropolis came about. But if you think about it carefully, this so-called "reward" makes him cry and laugh again.

Just imagine, the kingdom can't open the pot anymore, and the allies don't give food at this juncture, and they refuse to give out the money, and they only send a pennant of "righteousness and bravery", and they actually throw a mess over.

Whoever it is, everyone will be angry.

Emerson added at this time: "It is precisely because of this episode that there is a rift in the relationship between the Holy Acropolis and the Papal States. Later in the war, there was a lack of military orders between the two, and in the end, the Holy Acropolis even withdrew from the war early, which was also an indirect reason for the barbarian army to escape with its treasure. ”

Todd tapped his finger on the table and continued, "What is the domestic situation in the Holy Acropolis now?"

Emerson picked up the three silver cups on the table, turned them upside down, first placed the two cups side by side, and then placed the third cup above the bottom of the first two cups, forming the shape of the word "pin".

Emerson explains: "The nobility of the Holy Acropolis divided into three different factions when it came to how to solve the food crisis. ”

Pointing to the two cups below, Emerson said: "There is a faction that wants to negotiate with the Church, and in order to obtain its assistance, and is even willing to cede part of the Kingdom's interests if necessary, and this faction we will call 'Ecclesiastical faction', and the other faction that wants the state to get rid of the influence of the Church, gain relative autonomy, and mediate with other forces to solve the food crisis, this faction we may call 'independents.'" ”

Using the joint of his middle finger to buckle the bottom of the top cup, Emerson pondered for a while, and said to Todd: "The last faction, which is neither biased towards the Church nor willing to take the risk of independence, and only obeys the orders of the King of the Holy Acropolis, is the so-called 'King's faction'. ”

"The relationship between these three factions is like this, the 'king's faction' oppresses the 'church faction' and the 'independence faction', the latter two are evenly matched, and they seek assistance everywhere for their own political opinions. The "King's faction" did not oppose or support this mission, but just waited and watched the development of the situation. ”

"It seems that the structure of these three factions is relatively solid, but in reality there are big problems. ”

"The two cups below now look like they are the same size and ......balanced in strength," Emerson gently lifted one of the cups below, and the entire structure of the word "Pin" suddenly fell apart: "...... As long as one faction grows stronger, it can upset the current balance of the situation in the Holy Acropolis and overthrow the 'King's faction' above the head. ”

After listening to these analyses, Todd took a deep breath, leaned back in the seat behind him, and asked Cumberland and Emerson, "So in your opinion, should we agree or refuse the food request for the Holy Acropolis?"

Emerson and Cumberland looked at each other, both of them looking embarrassed.

Emerson said: "From the point of view of diplomatic purposes and kingdom strategy, we should provide food aid to the Holy Acropolis, which will help to divide the power of the church and strengthen relations with neighbors, but it is ......"

Cumberland stroked the beard on his chin and picked up the topic: "But now it's almost winter, and even if the Acropolis is sown successfully next spring, it won't be harvested until next autumn, so this kind of protracted assistance is not feasible." And the population of Twilight City has been increasing, and the agricultural development program has only just begun. We don't have enough to eat ourselves, and if we want to feed the Holy Acropolis, we have to buy it from the south at a high price. ”

Thinking of the abundant water system and abundant resources in the Holy Acropolis, Todd asked, "Isn't there any treasure or resources that the Holy Acropolis can exchange for food?"

Cumberland shrugged, "I've asked Gordon about this as well. He said that the treasury of the Acropolis had long been empty, and that the most valuable things in it were the rats that were burrowing everywhere. Last week, the royal family had to borrow money from wealthy aristocrats for their birthdays and a shabby dinner. Even this time on the mission to the Twilight Kingdom, when the entire mission traveled, it only scraped together twenty silver moons. ”

Todd nodded, Cumberland's words, he believed that the scene of that dinner party was the most convincing evidence.

"The coins are gone, and the only thing left in the Acropolis that can be exchanged is a pile of post-war materials. Cumberland wrenched his fingers and counted them one by one: "Sealed blades, discarded armor, broken bows, crippled horses......"

Hearing these almost junk materials, Todd couldn't hide the disappointment on his face, and asked Cumberland, "That's all there is left?"

Cumberland spread his hand and nodded: "That's all they can exchange." Gordon said that as long as Twilight City is willing to provide food, these things will be as much as they want, and the Holy Acropolis can take care of the transportation of all supplies, and not a single copper will be collected. ”

When Emerson heard this, he sneered: "Don't say that these things don't charge money, even if they are upside down, I don't want them." ”

Seeing that Todd was silent and lost in thought, Emerson asked a little strangely, "Your Majesty, ...... you?"

Standing up from his throne, Todd suddenly said to Cumberland, "Tell the Holy Acropolis mission that Twilight will provide a certain amount of food to the Holy Acropolis as far as it can. In addition, as for the discarded war materials, Twilight City took them all as they were, and paid a reasonable amount of money in addition to the food aided. ”