Chapter 487 - 426: Act 4 Hidden Reward: Tax Collector
"I’ll offer two hundred thousand Radiant Gold Coins, but it will take ten days to gather the funds and supplies. I also have five hundred thousand well-equipped private soldiers on Jiatai World. The Military Affairs Department can draft four hundred thousand of them first. Over the next month, I will find a way to make up the full one million six hundred thousand new recruits."
The voice of this Local Lord, who was sitting in the last row, broke the oppressive, dead silence of the conference hall.
Everyone hastily turned their heads toward the sound, the sheer shock in their eyes even greater than when Reinhardt had executed the Local Lord who led the opposition right in front of them!
Many of them glared, their eyes wide with fury.
They had risked death to form an alliance against the Administrative Region and protect their private assets, but at this critical, life-or-death moment, someone had jumped out to backstab them, willingly siding with the Vengeful Angels and the Administrative Region?!
A Knight Warlord who recognized the speaker gripped the hilt of his sword, shot to his feet, and pointed at the man in the back row, cursing him loudly.
"Wells! You madman, do you have any idea what you’re saying?! Two hundred thousand Radiant Gold Coins? Don’t think I don’t know your situation. Forget two hundred thousand, you couldn’t scrape together even a hundred thousand if you sold everything you own! You son of a—"
Realizing he had misspoken out of anger, veins bulged on the Knight Warlord’s forehead, and his face turned frighteningly grim.
If not for the many powerful Knightly Auras in the conference hall fixed on him, he swore he would have charged over and cut down that traitor, Wells!
Thinking of who the mastermind might be, he glared with irrepressible fury at the sickly young man sitting beside Wells. His right hand was clenched into a fist so tightly that the skin over his knuckles turned white.
Transk.
’He didn’t even have to think to guess that this man must have secretly funded part of the two hundred thousand Radiant Gold Coins. Besides, without his approval, would that coward Wells, who couldn’t even hold a sword properly, dare to betray them alone?’
To pull off his grand deception, Claudius had forced Cicero to launch a rebellion, then continuously lobbied the Local Lords and Knight Warlords of various worlds, promising them great benefits to join his camp.
In other words, the rebel lords from over thirty different worlds attending Surt’s closed-door meeting were not the monolithic bloc one might imagine.
While some conservatives were willing to openly ally against the Administrative Region to protect their wealth and status,
others were gamblers who smelled an opportunity, ready to burn their bridges and go all-in with everything they had.
And now, with just one sentence from each of those two, the narrative constructed by the executed Local Lord had crumbled on its own.
Reinhardt, of course, knew that the wealth of these lords and warlords in their own domains rivaled that of entire nations. But he hadn’t expected these bastards to still be so rich, even when the front lines were so poor they were eating dirt.
His goal had been to raise fifteen million for military expenses.
’But it seems I haven’t squeezed them nearly hard enough.’
Just then, ethereal blue text from the system abruptly appeared in his vision.
[Act Four Hidden Event: Tax Collector, completed.]
[War and rebellion. The emergence of these two often signifies the collapse of the old order and the establishment of a new one. As the prologue to Act Four states, everyone in the three hundred worlds of the Imperial Administrative Region is searching for their own path forward.]
[The pessimistic betray their faith and pledge allegiance to Wizard heretics; the loyal become martyrs, dying on grand battlefields. But there is another group, whose attitudes have wavered from the very beginning.]
[A counter-insurgency war is never as simple as killing all the enemies and then withdrawing victoriously. Rebuilding order from the ruins of a war stirred up by local powers and external foes is no less difficult than the bloodshed of battle itself. Even though you desperately want to slaughter these traitors, you know full well that they are not Space Aliens or blasphemous heretics. A wholesale slaughter would only create a massive power vacuum in the local regions, dragging dozens of worlds into the chaos of civil war. Not only would you and the Administrative Region gain nothing, but you would also have to expend even greater effort to quell a second rebellion. The tens of billions of citizens across these worlds would be plunged into a mire of suffering because of your iron-fisted methods.]
[The method of compulsory taxation, however, not only maximizes your gains but also serves as an opportunity to weaken the power of the Local Lords, paving the way for the implementation of the World Governor system. Two birds with one stone.]
[In the Emperor’s name.]
[Base Reward: Mechanical God’s Blessing x1.]
[Hidden Reward: Armory·Messiah’s Gift, temporary access.]
[Mechanical God’s Blessing: Upon use, unlocks the Extraordinary Traits of any one Ancient Creation.]
[Use without a blessing is forbidden.]
[Temporary Armory Access: All Special Abilities of your Mechanical God armaments are now unlocked. Portions of the Armory’s contents are now available for use.]
’Mechanical God’s Blessing?’
After reading the system’s description, Reinhardt realized it was clearly hinting that he should use this item to consecrate and bless the ’Wizard Slayer’ in his possession.
Then, a heavy gateway, like a holographic projection, slowly opened within his system’s field of view.
With a thought, Reinhardt’s perspective shifted inside the Armory. Aside from the dim light of three spotlights, the rest of the area was pitch-black, making it impossible to discern the Armory’s true size and capacity.
On a weapon rack to the right of the entrance, two spotlights shone downwards, illuminating the virtual projections of the Explosive Arrow Gun·Messiah’s Gift and the Black War Axe suspended below.
The projection of the Avenger Armor was shown disassembled, mounted on a donning rig built from a full set of mechanical arms.
Unlike traditional Anti-Magic Steel Armor that can be put on and taken off at will, Power Armor—a product of constantly upgraded Imperial Technology Outfits—is a different matter. Once donned, the body sections cannot be removed without mechanical assistance, only the helmet. Forcibly removing them would cause severe damage to the armor itself.
More advanced models in particular were implanted with a large number of Neural Metal Wires. Unauthorized disassembly would basically require them to be sent back for a complete overhaul.
Reinhardt quickly scanned the Armory’s internal structure. If he wasn’t mistaken, the Armory·Messiah’s Gift held immense future potential.
’The areas not illuminated by light mean there are many more items to be unlocked. Its potential is limitless.’
Compared to haggling with the Local Lords below, Reinhardt was far more interested in the armaments. Or rather, the allure of this place was the ultimate distraction for a man of the Empire.
The negotiations were not yet over, so Reinhardt chose not to use the Mechanical God’s Blessing. His expression remained unchanged from start to finish. Even as the Local Lords below descended into a shouting match, he remained silent, merely observing with a cold gaze.
This continued until one Mortal Local Lord, his face red and neck thick with rage, jumped up and punched a colleague he was arguing with in the face, screaming, "Traitor!"
Reinhardt said coldly, "Koller, quiet them."