In the fortress, among the stars, when the light of the emperor sheltered those people here and now they brazenly forget their honor, time has passed, and power has changed people's hearts.

But the grand narrative and many futures in the asteroid fortress have nothing to do with ordinary people, the false stars cast in metal are hovering in the void, the asteroid belt sounds dense, but to the individual its spacing is quite exaggerated, there is no stellar light, nothing is visible to the naked eye, only pitch black.

In the privacy of a remote port, in a man-made fortress the size of a continent, like a metal tumor jutting out of an asteroid, old Chester looked out the window at the pitch-black void, waiting for his next job.

He worked for the cold trade, but this so-called "illegal" trade was extremely boring for him, and he wore the robes of the imperial clerks, his old skin, his shriveled fingers, holding a pen and brown paper, and then answering in an almost numb voice to the ship's warehouses that transported many supplies one by one. "The 43,769th piece, warehousing, the 43,770th piece, warehousing..."

It was almost suffocating, as long as a ship came into him, or they, the clerks who provided the endless artificial computing power for this huge smuggling agency would constantly count those things in the most primitive way, and Chester did the best in this regard, he was the most numb, not fast or slow, did not ask what the cargo was, did not care about the names on the list, and did not care how the tired sailors, brokers, and captains complained about the business.

He really knows one thing, counting, warehousing, and counting, as if those thrilling smuggling and the battle of wits and courage against the Inquisition do not matter, they do not exist, and he actually does not know that there is no Inquisition in the asteroid fortress now.

The Empire is an incomparably large organization, even at the very edge of the world, larger than any country in Guterra, and for Old Chester, the Red Pirates, the Empire, are much the same, because his job is only to liquidate.

He was as diligent as his father, as precise as his mother, and so loyal and numb as he expected, that the actual owner of the port, Baron Leonard, trusted him so much that he was given the privilege of not having to double count and check for the sake of cost.

It's just that this privilege doesn't matter at all to old Chester, he only has tomorrow to make a punctual list, end, eat fluid food, and continue, so that his fingers bulge on his joints from writing for a long time, his knees are completely bent from standing for a long time, and he looks like he is 1.7 meters short to 1.6 meters.

Ironically, the most recent adventures were in front of him, those scarred barges, orcs passing by from time to time, elven mercenaries, or red book cargo that looked like vellum, if he asked lightly, turned the pages to take a look, or just typed the wrong number on his brown paper, and then took those priceless things to the black market.

It's just that the reputation he has accumulated over the years is the same as numbness, and he is more like a screw and a counter that is constantly spinning in this factory than a human being, even if he does his best, he just can't make mistakes, and no one cares about him.

Only today, Chester saw a small ship docked, but it did not leave the warehouse for a long time, and his thoughts and his unchanged life were disrupted, and he could only wait in place for a long time, like an old screw that had gone wrong.

It was about two hours later that he saw a transport ship appear, but instead of the familiar cargo, he was waiting for him, but from it stepped down a capable woman in a white cloth coat, jeans, and long leather boots, with a white linen collar stretched open, a scimitar at her waist, short brown hair, and a messy hairstyle, and a pirate style.

She spoke, her voice neutral and sharp, her cheeks scarred, and her nose struck like a bolt of lightning from the middle. "I'm a cold trade broker, there's no goods here, leave."

Old Chester had never encountered such a situation in his life, because the cold trading ships would not come to the secret port with empty warehouses, so he only replied as if he were mechanical. "Count."

The cold trade broker sighed and took out from his pocket something that had been prepared earlier, a glittering silver coin, also known as a throne coin, and said. "Good, good, you want this, don't you, leave now."

But the appearance of old Chester made her can't help but be incomprehensible, she was originally treated like a beggar, this has been as smooth as possible, anyway, when the Sun Lord sets foot here or fails, she will drive the boat out of this land of right and wrong, but this is the old beggar now looks at the huge amount of money that can buy a set of inferior civilian bulletproof armor and asks. "What is this?"

"What is this?" The cold trade broker laughed, she looked at the recorder in front of her in amazement, as if she saw something strange, after all, in this place, the throne coin was more influential than the emperor himself.

But old Chester was like that, he was born here, and soon he will die here, for him reckoning is reckoning, eating is eating, for him, the whole world is only an endless void, and this small port, and even such a port he has not explored clearly, because he spends most of his time reckoning.

Probably even if the emperor himself came, he couldn't dissipate his ignorance, the agent thought so in his heart at the moment, and she was so sure that this person was hopeless.

"Ignore him and get straight in!" She judged decisively, but not everyone agreed with such a plan, and when a young man in military uniform stepped out of the transport ship, the lady who was still in command could only bow her head. "My lord, what do you want?"

Alan Baier looked at the old man, he thought it was funny, a soulless and lifeless gear, for him there were many uses, maybe he could let the Imperial Guard blend in with the native troops without losses, and directly capture the master here.

He didn't know the old man, though, and he spoke. "Do you like counting and inventory?"

Old Chester suddenly didn't know how to answer, no one had ever asked him so much for the countless days and months he had spent here, like? What is like, if he really loves this kind of work, he won't be so wooden? He thought for a long time, and could only answer. "I don't know."

Alan Baier just nodded, then confirmed. "Looks like I have the answer, so let's tell you, the goods here have been ordered, a whole 3,460 pieces, fully armed, ready to go, alluvial tincture."

Old Chester wasn't quite sure how it could be described as ready to go, but the emptiness of not being able to count things and the guilt of unfinished work made him more uncomfortable than this, and he spoke. "Please let me see."

Alan Bair could have ignored this poor man like he had dealt with some animal, after all, he was no different from an array of contemplatives to the lord here, so why would he be a dignified Skady lord to pick up something that others didn't like and use it?

But for him, people are not objects, and secondly, this old man seems to be weak and powerless, but he can bring great convenience to the Skadi troops.

Alan Baier just picked up his pistol and pointed it at him. "No, I know this structure, I'm sure I've seen someone killed by it while working here, the concept of death can make you easy, are you afraid?"

Chester froze for a moment, then looked at the dark muzzle, he thought about being pointed at a gun, but soon he couldn't, because most people would ignore him, he was like something that made a sound in the background, not a person, an individual.

He didn't know what to say at the moment, but the fear was real, the feeling of the unknown of death, and such a special event was like a stone smashed into a shackle, and the killing feeling that Alan Bair carried as a man of service did make him afraid.

Like the natural fear of being hungry to eat and thirsty to drink, he spat out a few meaningless bytes, and then quickly broke the rules he followed, writing the list in ethereal characters, and he didn't feel any guilt for being threatened.

At this moment, he looked at the character blankly, the seemingly inconspicuous, worthless character accounted for not much of the entire table, and it was everything about old Chester, he only felt that he was denied at the moment, completely denied by something, he actually plucked up the courage inexplicably, looked at Alan Baier, but quickly deflated, because of the height of almost one meter eighty-five and the muzzle of the black hole.

Alan Bair just looked at his pathetic look and laid down his weapon. "Broker, go through the normal process."

A trace of bitterness flashed on the broker's face, and the reason was very simple, she needed to pay for it, and if the Imperial Guard would directly occupy this place according to the original plan, then the customs duties demanded by the lord of the smuggling port, and the extremely high trade money would also disappear.

Now that she could not ride a tiger, she could only beckon a few brothers to get off the boat with a bitter face, and old Chester could only raise his old fingers and hand in the form normally.

Old Chester's work usually ends here, and the next premiums and discussions have nothing to do with him, but today he wants to see what the fate of his report is, and his feelings are very complicated, and he is afraid of the punishment of the person in charge, and he expects punishment, because he has seen those who neglect their duties being whipped to death.

But if no one pursues it, it shows that his calculations are not very important at all.

That contradiction made him give in, and let him move forward, all the way to the office of the port, and even ignored the clerk who collected the files, and in the surprised gaze of his colleagues, he and the agent side by side, at this moment, it was not at all obvious that he was a cog.

But even so, the small, oak-doored office on the second floor was something he couldn't cross, and old Chester stepped into the office late, that is, the momentary hesitation that made him go from being side by side to following, and with the row of men behind the agent, he was almost instantly ignored and mixed in.

And the owner of the office is not the baron, but a fat man, probably of noble blood in eighteen side houses, and knows this agent, just ask. "Little Wiener, what's the matter, this shipment has arrived?" He glanced at it, confirmed in his heart that it was Old Chester's list, and asked no more.

The agent replied with disgust. "Yes, my lord, the quality is good."

"So, I'll give you a batch privately?"

The richly dressed aristocratic fat man looked ridiculous in this cramped office, but such a person actually controlled the port, he just nodded, and took the broker's list, and lightly changed the points on it, 30,000 pieces, 4,000 fractions were all erased, so that hundreds of imperial coins were saved in terms of customs duties!

And it was only seen by old Chester, who could not help but clutch his cheeks, silent tears flowing from the palms of his hands, and his diminutive body, which had become small by the reports and figures, and the crooked body that held him dead under the tall bodies of his men.

And he was as if his poor record could be altered, ravaged, and ignored at will, and when his emotions were at their peak, and only here they were bewildered and weeping, and the blow that this poor man, who was destined to spin slowly as a cog, was more than usual for years combined, and almost tugged at his worthless soul to the extreme.

And when he came back to his senses, he had left where he was, and arrived at where he was supposed to work, only now, he would no longer take a hard count, but rely on his own visual inspection, quickly calculate those things, and then write down a new number.

And according to his state, it is not impossible to learn how to make a profit in the future, and even if he is much younger, he can start from scratch with this, but those times have passed by in a hurry, but even so, he can provide a lot of help to Alan Baier.

This means that the Imperial Guard has entered the country according to the normal cargo channel, and those soldiers are now painting their breastplates with a coating that can be washed off, and the 4th Infantry Regiment of Old Skady has an extremely high rate of carapace use, and those fully enclosed precious weapons are even more noble representatives in this place.

And in the midst of many swearing, the great insignia that represented the Imperial Aquila was now replaced with the disgusting emblem of Port N'Gili, a corrupted skull.

And even the Levalus tanks and Chimera armored vehicles could not escape from this incident, and many veterans were already afraid to ride on those mechs, for fear that the mechs would be displeased.

But even so, with Skady's loyalty to Alan Bair, the loyal soldiers were now traitors, and the Imperial Guard's war engine was set on the streets of heresy, and even the bewildered local Ministry of Justice had to make way for the Imperial Guard.

It's not a wolf to enter the house, when Alan Baier crossed his legs and bought a local snack with Imperial Coins, salt-baked Glomon, and enjoyed it with his own car, the crew in the Salamander command car, and commented. "This is very good as an outpost, go, the next stop, the Baron's Palace!"

(End of chapter)