Half-step Purgatory

Durin stroked the black cat on the armrest of his chair, sitting on the black leather sofa. Through the glasses perched on his nose, his gaze passed over the long table in front of him and settled on the man kneeling on the carpet:
"I understand, you've made money in Naples, your business has been very successful, and you've led a happy life. You've had those secret police, friends in both the law and the underground, and even the Royal Family speaking on your behalf."
"You don't need a friend like me, I know that. You're afraid of owing me a favor, and you don't want to get involved in troubles."
"But now you come to me and say, 'I beg you, Mr. Durin of the Corleon family, please help me seek justice, so that my life and my family will not suffer and sink into despair.'
Yet, in your eyes, I was nothing more than a second-rate artist involved in movies and music. Even at the brink of death, you still show me such disrespect, not even willing to call me by my title... Keeper of Secrets."

Durin's Diary

Durin received intelligence from the Military Intelligence Bureau of the Austria-Swiss Union, stating that two teams from Farol's Northern Bureau had visited all the villages and towns along the southern coast of the Austria-Swiss Union, investigating records of sailors joining the navy.


Durin found this quite perplexing—now everyone knew that Durin was expanding the army because the troubles in the east were enough to give him a headache.


Firstly, Foresty Land needed at least one hundred thousand soldiers from the Grassland Elf Territory as a mobile force for the past two years—ever since the land route was established, the fleets of green-skinned Orcs had been appearing more and more at Eternal Forge Fortress. Although they were beaten and scattered by the human fleets, owing to their numbers, the green-skins' plundering troops still occasionally landed from the southern part of the Great Wilderness.


Chapter 271: Going Home