CHAPTER 279: CHAPTER 277 THOMAS GREGORY

The time was morning, and the weather in Nisk was clear.

It was another good day for tourists to travel.

However, inside the garrison headquarters on the north cape of the mouth of the "Leiden River," the atmosphere was somewhat tense.

Compared to the luxury of the bankers, this was a pitifully simple meeting room.

The roughly polished raw stone walls and floors ensured that even the ceiling was overly low to maintain the fortress’s strength, and there were only a few narrow windows through which an adult could barely look out.

Even during the daytime, gas lamps were necessary for illumination.

A patched long table covered in green velvet, with two rows of heavy wooden chairs on each side, made up the entirety of the meeting room, in the same frugal style as Major General Koverdale’s office.

Oh, at least the decorations on the walls were slightly better than those in his office today.

On the uneven walls hung a flag of the Tyrone Kingdom, a navy ensign, and a Tulip Cross Banner of the alliance, specially hung due to the complex nature of the attendees.

Here.

A military meeting, including domestic garrison officers, representatives of reinforcements from six countries, and church Iron Wall Knights, had been ongoing for a long time.

"Report to the Commander, as of this morning’s intelligence.

There have been no abnormalities observed at the six fixed maritime observation points from Nisk to the far sea boundary.

Additionally, our two battleships and twelve cruisers, divided into four groups, conduct a full route patrol every six days, with similar findings.

The news of an attack in the ’Leiden River Valley’ and by Hawkins has apparently spread far, and most of those who need to know already do.

We even have records of more than ten consecutive days where no pirate ships have been sighted at sea."

A colonel adjutant responsible for addressing maritime threats in the garrison headquarters completed his report, saluted, and sat back down.

"Hmm!"

Seated at the head of the conference table, with a command saber in hand exuding authority without anger, Garrison Commander Major General Koverdale nodded slightly and then looked at another officer next to him with pressure-laden light blue eyes.

"Colonel Wilde! Your United Mobile Forces have been stationed in several major cities for some time, and I want to know what achievements you’ve had during this period?

Especially since the intelligence agency has confirmed the presence of Hawkins’s elite subordinates active in the cities along the line, how many of these rats have you caught?"

Upon hearing the command, Colonel Wilde immediately stood up, saluted the commander, and reported:

"Reporting, Sir!

We assembled a mobile force of kingdom garrison officers and alliance reinforcements, composed of 28 extraordinary individuals and 120 peak apprentices.

The force is divided into three groups: one stationed in the capital, Brandenburg, another in the City of Wealth, Golden Lion City, and the last one is maneuvering along the ’Leiden River Valley.’

During this period, many new faces have appeared in each city, proving that many forces are focused here.

We didn’t interfere with those who voluntarily identified themselves. In recent days, in collaboration with the city defense armies, we’ve captured a total of twenty-three pirates exposed by their actions.

After interrogation, it was confirmed that the five captured in the small towns of Como and Macerata are direct subordinates of the Pirate King."

The colonel paused, showing a hint of shame on his face:

"However, despite the severe torture, we could not extract the locations of other hideouts from them, nor their purpose for coming here.

It can basically be determined that all subordinates of the Pirate King use passive single-line contact, and they have no awareness of the purpose of their mission from their subjective standpoint.

Moreover, even with the use of all available methods by the military’s advisory group, including hypnosis, divination, and psychic communication, we failed to gather any more information from them."

Major General Koverdale frowned, evidently dissatisfied with their performance.

As the highest-ranking military officer in the "Leiden River Valley" region, not knowing the enemy’s target after so long was indeed a discredit to His Majesty the King’s trust.

It’s understandable if the naval patrol units were not the priority, but the garrison officers and elite extraordinary unit he had placed high hopes on couldn’t even capture the sole lead of the "rank-and-file pirates of the Pirate King."

Still, the general knew that losing his temper was of no use, so he continued patient questioning: "And how about Golden Lion City and Brandenburg?"

As the largest and most vital cities in his jurisdiction, these locations could not afford any loss.

Even though "Golden Lion City" always had a Tier 3 Church Bishop and a Senior Grand Knight from the Netherlands Bank Group stationed there. The Governor of "Brandenburg," Earl Mars, was himself a seasoned Senior Grand Knight and one of the guardians of the Tyrone Royal Family’s White Swan Crown.

Their strength was formidable, far surpassing that of the reinforcements.

Anxiously glancing at the general’s expression, Colonel Wilde braced himself and said:

"Earl Mars allowed us to station in the city and dispatched his guard to assist with our search, but we have temporarily found nothing.

Additionally, the Netherlands Bank Group claims they have the capability to protect themselves and their clients’ assets, and they refuse to allow us to disturb the city and its citizens.

Furthermore, Bishop Jasper of the Golden Summit Cathedral also sided with them, making it difficult for our investigations to proceed smoothly even though we have stationed there.

Bam—

Upon hearing the feedback from "Golden Lion City," Major General Koverdale was instantly incensed and slammed his command saber heavily on the table.

Even though he knew that Golden Lion City, this peculiar "country within a country," was difficult to deal with, to think they would still play this game at such a critical moment when they might be attacked by the Pirate King! Aren’t they afraid of death?

However, those big bankers don’t even respect the King, much less consider someone like himself, the garrison commander, as worth noticing.

After seething with anger for a while, the Major General snorted and spat out two words:

"Incompetence!"

Yet, it was unclear to whom this ’general’ was referring...

At this moment, a very small voice was heard in the meeting room, but most of those present were at the Extraordinary level of Official Knight and above, so they heard the words clearly.

"How can one blame us for not catching the big fish? It’s still uncertain whether there might be a mole covering for those rats."

The officers present easily identified the source of the voice and turned their gaze, including Captain Aiven, who sat nonchalantly in the corner of the meeting room, listening.

Sitting in the United Mobile Forces’ position, is a young officer with ice-blue short hair, holding a black-hilted, black-sheathed long sword. Under everyone’s gaze, he held his neck stiffly, as if he didn’t care about others hearing his words.

Already displeased, the Major General looked up and saw this troublemaker, making his face grow even longer.

"Mr. Thomas Gregory! Do you suspect that there are Hawkins’s inside agents in the cities along the line?"

As the second place in this "Navy New Star," his original arrangement for him was to join the sea patrol fleet with the first place Aiven Galliot and the third place Bertram Solomon.

This arrangement both showed importance and didn’t entail too much risk. Haven’t they noticed there are no pirates at sea right now?

However, perhaps feeling that his "Snow Lake" was just a Level 5 Cruiser, and not wanting to appear inferior to the other two driving battleships, Captain Thomas directly abandoned the ship and went ashore to join the mobile forces.

Now, look at this.

The mobile force he was in didn’t perform well, yet he dares to start finding excuses to shirk responsibility.

Since the time he reported and directly defied his arrangements, Major General Koverdale had already preconceived notions about him: flamboyant, impetuous, arrogant... dislike!

Hearing the General’s question, Thomas unyieldingly insisted on his point:

"It’s not just suspicion, I think the current situation is difficult to explain with common sense. Without substantial inside help, it’s impossible for numerous elite pirates to stay hidden so effectively."

The General was not angry but laughed, and asked again:

"Oh, common sense?

Do you know how much energy it would take to hide the hundreds to thousands of pirates said to be distributed among the cities along the line in the hidden intelligence? Do you also know what the outcome is, in the entire Tulip Alliance, when colluding with pirates is viewed as the same crime as being a pirate?

In the ’Leiden River Valley,’ what kind of major force would risk discarding everything they have in the Tulip to follow a Great Pirate who can only drift at sea to the end?"

Seeing Thomas dissatisfied and wanting to argue again, the General raised his hand to stop the words already on the tip of his tongue:

"Alright then, what you said isn’t entirely impossible.

I’ll assign you an independent intelligence squad responsible for finding that mole behind the scenes, how about that?

You can even freely select personnel from the garrison’s intelligence department. Our time is tight, I’ll give you no more than half a month, and if you don’t find him, you’ll obediently return to your ’Snow Lake’ to carry out patrol duties at sea!"

Clatter—

Thomas pushed back his chair and stood up, the General’s words exactly hitting the mark for him.

Feeling that his talents have nowhere to be displayed, he immediately answered loudly:

"No problem, Commander! After these days, I am sufficiently familiar with the Leiden River Valley. Just give me an assistant, and my crew is my team."

Saying this, he looked around the officers in the meeting room in a calculated manner and finally fixed his gaze on someone he had been especially paying attention to since entering the room.

"Hehe, I told you so, being targeted by a troublesome guy, what was bound to come has finally come."

As Aiven heard the schadenfreude laughter from Bertram Solomon sitting beside him.

He looked up just in time to meet Thomas’s gaze, which was looking over, and naturally saw the smugness in his eyes, just as he heard Thomas casually say:

"Commander, why not have Mr. Aiven Galliot serve as my deputy? Belonging to the same cohort of ’Navy New Stars,’ we can take this opportunity to learn from each other."