While Huge was carefully assessing the level of "construction" in Iris Street, he was also carefully observing the residents of the area.

As he had glimpsed in the memories of the deceased, most of the inhabitants of this place had a very typical appearance of the Goddess Plains, and for a few moments, Shug even thought that he had arrived in some ordinary town in the Kingdom of Deresa or the Duchy of the Plains.

Including the middle-aged mage who was now leading the way for himself, both his facial features and the accent of the lingua franca were closer to the Plains of the Goddess.

And all of this is in line with what Hug has obtained through the memories of the deceased, as well as Felix's narrative.

Although General Butz's recruitment order was issued to the whole of the city, it was clear that he was more inclined to the plains in this regard, and for this reason, he did not hesitate to distinguish between the survivors of Iris Street by their appearance, ancestry, and language habits.

From the point of view of Siug, this is a very bad tendency at any given moment.

In a way, General Butz's actions and tendencies can even be seen as a continuation of the chaos that preceded the Salem Revolution, but now, due to the complete expansion of the catastrophe and the complete collapse of the old order, it has escaped the identity of "chaos" and has become a potential new order.

In this environment, Xiuge's typical appearance of the plateau aristocracy easily attracted the attention of almost everyone.

He had been a little famous in the city of Salem in the past, and a considerable number of the low-level residents knew him, or at least had heard his name, and even if they were not interested in what Shug had written in the past, they all knew that there was a young man of the Ernst family who lived alone in that terrible old mansion.

Therefore, it was not long before the name "Shug Ernst" began to appear in the mouths of the residents of Iris Street.

Shugg noticed that a considerable number of the soldiers in the uniforms of the independent government of Salem were looking at him with unfriendly eyes, and he could even sense the hostility hidden in these soldiers - it was clear that the tactics employed by General Butz had a very significant impact on the soldiers who followed him, but because of the status of the spellcaster that Shug now had, these soldiers did not dare to express themselves further.

In the face of these strange gazes, Xiuge was quite calm, after all, there was no way to cause any damage or impact on him by looking at him alone, so he followed the middle-aged mage and asked, "How many people are there in Iris Street now?"

"Hah, this ...... I don't know exactly how many people there are, but I'm sure the actual number is close to that, or even more than a thousand!"

There was a hint of pride in the middle-aged man's tone: "Our soldiers went to many places in the city, and wherever there were people, they would visit and send recruitment notices to Iris Street...... So the number of people here will continue to increase."

"Well, I can see that...... And I'm afraid that the current houses in Iris Street are starting to run out of people, right? I see that you are very active in expanding the space around you?"

"That's right."

The middle-aged mage greeted a few passing soldiers, and then replied, "That's why we need more people to join, especially special talents like you, Mr. Ernst...... If you all know that there is a powerful new mage coming in, you will probably be very happy and excited."

"Is that so?"

Shuge let out a meaningless chuckle as his gaze drifted to the right of a shop that had been converted into a warehouse.

There, standing were several Iris Street soldiers armed with crystallized guns, and on their clothing, in addition to the iris pattern that originated in the royal family of Teresa, there was also a special logo.

It was an armband, a tricolor armband.

There are some similarities to the logos used by the Tricolor Brotherhood before, and the soldiers wearing armbands are also very different in temperament from the other members of Iris Street, which is very different from the traditional professional soldiers.

"It's more like a pack of hungry wolves that have been taken in by the army......

Shugg silently made a judgment in his mind, and then he quickly found the corresponding identities of these people from the memories of the dead he had obtained earlier—they could actually be considered General Butz's henchmen.

Or rather, they are "special personnel" who are directly under the orders of General Boots and are able to interfere in the affairs of Iris Street.

These soldiers, who have extremely special status and authority, have a very strange title in the interior of Iris Street.

They are called "gardeners".

These men were actually made up of some of the soldiers of the Independent Government and the Iris guards who remained in the embassy of Deresa, and it was they who formed the basis of the order of Iris Street and the cornerstone of General Butz's rule here.

This mode of domination and management is no stranger to Xiuge, at least he can find a lot of correspondence in the knowledge he has accumulated in the past, although this is not a "healthy" model worthy of praise, but in the current city of Selen, it is enough to have a certain positive effect in the short term.

However, this was one of the important reasons why Shugg was curious and confused about General Butz, and he wondered why the Iris-tailed guards, who were theoretically loyal only to the only goal of the Teresa royal family, would choose to join such a general in an independent government.

Is it because the other party is politically inclined to favor the kingdom of Deresa?

Of course, Schugg doesn't think there is any practical point in the so-called political leanings in the city today......

In the face of the "gardeners" who seemed to be extremely hostile to the non-plains peoples, Xiuge reciprocated as a matter of course, and he did not go too far, but only slightly mobilized his magic and the abyssal power accumulated in his body.

As a result, a streamlined and condensed spiritual shock magic was directly thrown by Xiuge towards his targets, and at the moment the magic hit, these ill-intentioned soldiers were horrified to find that the young man who was standing in the sunlight not far away, seemingly "harmless to humans and animals", seemed to have turned into a huge shadow composed of a large amount of "silt" at this moment, as if he was about to crush in his direction in the next second.

And that's what all the survivors in Salem fear the most.

"Ahh

A soldier who was less courageous and obviously weaker in spirit took two steps back in the illusion that Xiuge had inflicted, and his body slammed against the wall of the building behind him, and he gasped for two breaths in the dull pain that came from his back, and was about to raise the crystallized gun in his hand to defend himself, but he saw that there was no monster in the sunlight in front of him.

The young man with the metal cane still slowly followed the middle-aged mage, and as if he felt the gaze from behind, he turned his head and smiled a gentle, friendly smile.

The middle-aged mage's magic level was too average, he was not aware of what was just happening behind him, and Xiuge did not continue to entangle with these "gardeners", he quickened his pace, and continued to walk towards the depths of Iris Street with his "guide".

As Shug progressed, he finally saw some non-plains inhabitants, judging by their appearance, hair color, and accent, most of them were from the kingdom of Waterl, a small number belonged to the kingdoms of St. Steele and Hain, and a very small number were elves or goblins, who should have been members of some merchant group in the past, and the change in the city of Salem also trapped them here.

The residents were significantly worse off, being concentrated in an area east of Iris Street, which was originally a shopping street dominated by Deland souvenirs, but now the shops below two floors have been emptied, numbered and transformed into a settlement. z.br>

Through the feedback of the rat group, Xiuge learned that each house actually accommodated twenty to thirty people, and the slightly more spacious ones were even forcibly stuffed with more than forty people, and some basic facilities were very scarce.

In this Iris Street, the number of the elderly, women, and children and young children

The number is relatively small, and as Felix has previously said, Iris Street has "integrated" a significant number of slow-moving, or frail personnel into the ranks of those who are about to go out on duty.

Based on the equipment and personnel composition of these teams, Hug came to the conclusion that their goal should be to clean up the neighborhood around Iris Street.

Hugg saw that a dark-haired Wattle boy of about eight years old had been assigned to a team of soldiers, and they had led the boy towards Iris Street, and the task that the boy had to take on in the next operation was obvious.

He was the live bait he used to lure the Descendants of the Abyss into appearing.

The middle-aged mage seemed to sense Xiuge's gaze, and he squeezed out a smile and said to Xiuge, "In this special period, everyone must use various methods to make their own lives...... It's the same with this whole Iris Street, every now and then people die outside, and we need their help, and they need our protection, and it's actually a, uh...... Swap?"

"Uh-huh......

Shuge replied softly, but did not express any personal opinion on this.

What the middle-aged man said is, in some ways, true, and for Iris Street and all the people who live there, it has become a way to ensure that most people can survive effectively.

After a while, the two finally arrived at the destination of the trip.

That is, the "headquarters" of Iris Street.

As Shuge knew, General Butz set up his headquarters in the Nadran Embassy, the so-called Terean Embassy, in fact, can be regarded as a small manor, although limited by the space of the city itself, it seems a little cramped, but compared to those two-story buildings that are often crammed into dozens of people, this place is already spacious and luxurious.

And now, the embassy of Teresa has been completely transformed into a strong fortress.

"Watchtowers, fences, barricades...... There's even a crystallization cannon and a magic ritual?"

Xiuge's gaze quickly swept over the fully armed embassy in front of him, he could understand the magic ceremony, after all, the Deran embassy always needs to take some precautions, but these guys were able to carry the crystallized cannons used in the city defense, and there were several in one go, they must have spent a lot of manpower and time for this.

Here, Xiuge finally saw the Iris guards who had been loyal to the royal family of Deresa, and to Shuge's surprise, these guards did not wear the mixed uniforms like the other Iris Street soldiers, but still maintained their old attire, although their clothes were a little shabby, but the sharp aura exuded by these silent elites was not comparable to that of ordinary soldiers.

The silver swords and crystallized guns they carried with them also showed that the experienced warriors were still in a state of readiness to fight, and when Xiug appeared at the door of the embassy, the iris guards immediately used their gaze to lock him on, perhaps out of instinct, or perhaps because the iris guards were wearing some secret ritual used to identify the caster, in short, Xiug felt a clear threat for the first time after stepping into the neighborhood.

At all times, the guards of group action are a force to be reckoned with in Van'en.

Xiuge clutched the Black Sun Scepter tightly, in fact, since he stepped into Iris Street, he has been trying to "locate" the possible members of the Black Sun Society nearby, and as he expected, the chess pieces left by the Black Sun Society in Salem City have now been completely mixed into this important force, and there are as many as twenty members of the Association who have been successfully found by the Scepter along the way, and even the embassy in front of it is also fluctuating.

"Mr. Ernst, General Butz asks you to wait in the reception room, and he will be here shortly."

The middle-aged mage led Xiuge into the embassy, where there were more guards, and even the soldiers who were in charge of daily affairs and stood guard were the kind of soldiers wearing tricolor armbands.

Xiuge was placed in an elaborate reception room, which had apparently not been in a while

It has been used, and many places have fallen to ashes, and Xiuge even found some residual blood stains in the corner, it seems that some time ago, it happened here***.

Before he could look any further, footsteps could be heard down the hallway, and then the door was pushed open, and a burly figure entered, protected by a mage and two iris guards.

He wore a heavy coat, a standard saber hanging from his waist, and no military cap, but several different medals hung from his chest.

General Butz had a distinctly military appearance, he didn't look like a plain aristocrat or scholar at all, but more like the overseers in the mines, and his slightly wrinkled face showed a hint of exuberant energy.

It was such a man, and he sat heavily on the delicate, dusty soft chair opposite Xiuge.

"Master Shug Ernst...... Ha, I received a gift from you, thank you very much."

General Butz's voice was as rough as his appearance, he took out his pocket watch and looked at the time, and then grinned a somewhat terrible grin: "You came very punctually, which is very rare, and there are fewer and fewer punctual people now!"