Steampunk Era: Mad Abield
Chapter 603 - 419: New Dawn (Part 2)

Chapter 603: Chapter 419: New Dawn (Part 2)

About whether turning into hydroponic fruit is too luxurious or not, Malin did have an opinion—now that there is still some time before the Tide of the Dead, Malin must employ every means to scrape together money, and those who could afford canned fruit are naturally the wealthy upper-class citizens and nobles. As for why canned fruit can be sold across the continent, Malin prepared to add some special effects to this fruit. For instance, casters could strengthen their affinity by consuming the fruit, and Malin was certain that regardless of the caster’s family, they would pay for this.

As for where these fruits come from, that’s easy. Malin’s semi-plane is now full of all kinds of treasures. Malin would pick some and have Dorothy clone them hydroponically in one go. If effective, this would be a win-win outcome.

Fortunately, the current tide of this world is against Chaos. If it were human kingdoms waging war against each other, Malin would definitely open a printing shop and a mint. As for what to make... of course, it would be those universally loved baubles.

Malin sighed, and then a thought occurred to him—wait a second, humans can’t do it, but the undead can!

Soul Coins definitely require a soul, but Malin could forge souls through the World Tree. The Soul Coins made in this way could probably last three to five days, long enough for Malin to swindle a tidy sum in Mark City. When it came to manpower, Malin immediately thought of—Donald.

Indeed, the same guy who accepted a contract from four special agents in Sydney The Capital to kill Malin.

Lately, he’s been doing quite well in Mark City. Although he couldn’t come to this world, Malin could let Ails deliver the goods to him.

Then he would deal with the liches, swindling their coffin planks.

That settled it!

With this idea in mind, Malin contacted Ails, and they hit it off immediately. Malin called Ails to the palace, and then they started to discuss how to forge counterfeit Soul Coins—both Malin and Ails felt that it was too difficult to fake Golden Cakes; instead, they would make coins, using the fallen bark of the World Tree as the base material, combined with bran to look like Gold Coins.

Although named Soul Coins, they were really ’food’ made from souls. The undead couldn’t taste it, but the World Tree’s bark could cause significant holy damage. Ails suggested that if these coins were sold as the souls of knights from a certain world, they could fetch a higher price.

Lulu watched the entire process of making the first batch of coins and then commented that Malin was the most wicked forger she had ever seen.

"So, let’s put it this way; do you think this is a good idea?" Malin asked.

"...If it’s for swindling liches... I think it’s alright." In the end, Lulu couldn’t refuse such a scheme.

Since there was no objection, Malin had Ails take the first batch of forty thousand ’Gold Coins’ and several ’samples’ to Mark City to find Donald, who expressed limited approval of Malin’s idea. Then he saw the actual goods, threw one of the samples to the Bone of Pallor lich from the Realm of the Undead, and watched the fellow rave about the ’taste’ of the coin. Donald immediately decided to join.

The three agreed on a split: fifty percent for Malin, twenty for Ails, and thirty for Donald.

The first mark was recommended by Ails, a rising star in the Realm of the Undead, known as Dominican Gaudini, the Bone of Pallor. Recently, he had made a big score, robbing a small kingdom’s treasury in a certain world, and was now ready to turn all that gold and silver into a good price.

Donald transformed into a representative of a notable figure in the Realm of the Undead. Malin even picked a vulgar yet refined stage name especially for him.

It was Nicholas Cage.

.........

Dominican Gaudini didn’t care about the human called Nicholas Cage. It wasn’t uncommon to see humans selling Soul Coins these days, but he had never seen any sold as made from the souls of paladins.

As a newcomer to the Realm of the Undead, Dominican had never tasted a paladin’s soul, so when that guy named Nicholas showed up, he immediately asked for a Gold Coin.

Nicholas tossed over a coin with a smile, "Just a heads up, it carries a faint amount of holy energy."

·I know.

Dominican didn’t care. He took the coin, examined it carefully—it was a round, golden-colored coin, not very hard. Considering the soul, anything was possible, so Dominican didn’t mind and put it in his mouth, biting down hard.

Uh... In the moment of biting, it gave Dominican a bland sensation, like the ordinary food he ate while alive. But in the next instant, the holy energy exploded inside his mouth, and his soul felt like it was ascending.

This taste... was truly marvelous.

Regaining his senses, Dominican nodded, "Not bad. According to the contract, I must know why the person behind you wants to buy all these mortals’ treasures."

"The boss plans to use this money to buy a way out from the Prairie Elves." said Nicholas.

Dominica glanced at the middleman, who nodded his head, signaling that Dominica’s trading partner was not lying.

Good, whether true or false, this deal would not be a loss, so Dominica completed the transaction, and the goods were exchanged in the trading hall.

Nicholas finished the trade and left the hall without any attachment—he was an agent, and naturally, someone would come to collect the merchandise.

This further confirmed his identity, which greatly satisfied Dominica.

.........

After reaching a deal with Bone of Pallor, Malin confirmed that Dominica was extremely satisfied with the gold coins made from ’the souls of paladins and priests from a certain world,’ as the holy aura could not be faked.

In one fell swoop, Malin earned about four million Mowish—since soul coins are far more valuable than gold and silver wealth, both parties were very pleased with the transaction.

Malin then passed this money to Nameless, who helped to launder it, and eventually found three pieces of goldware with issues—they had coordinates on them, which seemed to be just what Bone of Pallor Dominica and Malin had anticipated.

That very night, Bone of Pallor indeed mobilized its army into Nameless’s Divine Realm, only to be countered by Nameless, resulting in its utter defeat.

For this, Malin received a considerable bounty—Bone of Pallor had about six thousand pounds of gold on its head, with at least seven human worlds eager for its demise. Those human worlds were very happy that Nameless had taken revenge for them and were even more delighted that the cunning undead had inadvertently sought its own death.

Moreover, Ails also jumped to Dominica’s coordinates afterward, obtaining a large amount of spoils from its storage.

The true soul coins went to Ails, all mortal treasures went to Malin, and the lucky survivors of various races rescued went to Nameless, with all three parties securing their profits.

Malin made a tidy sum, and also managed to clear the agent Nicholas Cage of suspicion—after the deal with Dominica, the underworld’s heavy hitter really did trade with the Prairie Elves as he had said, and the Prairie Elves then entrusted those riches to Nameless for safekeeping, with the greedy Dominica leaping into Nameless’s Divine Realm frontier.

The entire Mark City was impressed by its courage—it had not believed the agent’s words at all, suspecting ulterior motives, but its cleverness was its downfall, ending in a tragic conclusion of death and the extinction of its kind.

As an agent, Nicholas Cage’s reputation soared—after all, he was a living human who could work for the big shots of the Realm of the Undead, and because of this status, he was able to thrive in Mark City.

Malin did not rush to do another deal—since he had no further pretext, and processing this wealth also took time. Donald used his 30 percent share to obtain Lady Anna’s forgiveness, finally allowing him to return to Abield.

However, he did not wish to return yet, as business opportunities might be lacking with Malin, but not with Ails, who had a massive amount of resources on hand. With Donald’s new status, Ails could also use him to convert things likely ill-gotten from other places into resources it needed.

In this back and forth, Donald’s new identity became as solid as nails on a board, and he soon received commissions from others, one of which even involved helping a team of adventurers redeem someone from the Prairie Elves—caught pilfering in their territory, the punishment wasn’t death but years of labor. With Nameless’s help, Donald’s new identity facilitated the redemption, and his value instantly doubled—an agent who could speak on their behalf in both the Realm of the Undead and the Prairie Elves, a rarity in Mark City.

Donald was overjoyed—in one week in Mark City, he had earned more than all his previous dirty work combined, and with both the Realm of the Undead and the Divine system backing him (Ails in the undead realm and Nameless in the Divine system), it was much safer than when he was an assassin.

Ails also gave up his 20 percent—with Nicholas Cage helping it deal with resources that couldn’t be directly transferred in the undead realm, it no longer cared for mortal wealth.

It seemed that through these years of subterfuge, it had stored up quite a stash. If it had dealt directly, it would have raised the alarm among its peers, but with agent Nicholas Cage, it no longer had to worry about dispatching its goods.

After all, all the blame went to the Prairie Elves.

With money in hand, Malin increased his investment in the railroad between Carterburg and Naples by adding two more train sets and began setting up material and processing plants suitable for local conditions in each city along the railroad. To avoid making The Capital’s regent, Sydney, feel slighted, Malin also invested heavily in the Carterburg region.

Hydroponically grown fruits had low yields, primarily due to high costs (with a failure rate of up to 50 percent), so Malin sent Clovis with a basket to the Mage Tower for sampling. The feedback was that the Mage Tower intended to purchase fruits from Malin and expressed no interest in any canned goods, preferring the natural quality of the fresh products.

So Malin stopped canning and transferred this production capability to the processing plants—the Semi-Plane began producing livestock, albeit not in large quantities, but due to the enriched environment, this meat had some mild effects on enhancing human health.

The concentration of rich elements was beneficial, so Malin set up a breeding garden in his Semi-Plane and had Lillim bring over some apprentices from the Shepherd Church to manage it—the Shepherd Church had been waiting to board Malin’s ship and was now ecstatic to finally have the opportunity.

Once all this was handled, the summer had passed. Malin said goodbye to Anthony and started to head back to Carterburg with the girls—not by train this time.

Instead, they used a teleportation portal back to Nova’s Royal Palace. As the now firmly established Prince of Farole, Malin truly needed to accompany Nova back to Rongma.

No, that’s not right, it should be Rome—that’s the true name of the city.