Chapter 774: …to explain the timeline.
“Well, yeah. I wouldn’t have agreed to helping getting that road established without it. That said, If I had known back then just how much business this would bring in and how much money we’d make from just a simple road, I probably would’ve agreed even without your literal seal of approval.”
“Huh…”
In a private chamber on the Goldshire estate, Patriarch Zhen Shi was meeting with Alexander Goldshire in regards to the new road that was built, connecting Emerald Eye City to Stone Claw City.
While the existence of this road wasn’t a bad thing, especially since it made both trade and visitation between the two significantly easier, there was precisely one thing that was bothersome. Namely, the fact that it somehow got associated with the Zhen Clan despite them not knowing anything about it in the first place.
From what Alexander told the Zhen Clan Patriarch, his “approval” came in the form of a series of documents and plans that had been marked with his perianal seal. On top of that, these documents were personally delivered by Miss Aranea.
It didn’t take too much time for Zhen Shi to realize what had probably went down.
‘On the one hand, I feel like I should be infuriated with Aranea because she went behind my back and bankrolled what was certain to be a ludicrously expensive piece of infrastructure…but on the other hand, this wasn’t a case of malicious backstabbing like what happened with Moka…If anything, this is entirely beneficial! But why does it feel…wrong?’
When someone’s signature gets falsified, it’s usually for rather nefarious purposes.
Blank checks, falsified wills, predatory contracts.
Nine times out of ten, the falsified signature is used to screw someone over for someone else’s benefit. This, however, was that rare one time out of ten where that wasn’t the case.
As Zhen Shi chewed over the situation for another minute or so, he eventually let out a sound that was a mix between a heavy sigh and a grunt of frustration.
What done was down at this point, there was no reason to get upset any further. Well…there was no reason to get upset any further, until he figured out the exact cost of everything.
“Alexander, I have to thank you for helping…us…out with the establishment of the road, it may have been under false pretenses, but…”
“Hey, like I said,” Alexander interjected, “the road connecting our two cities have proven to be a boon rather than a burden. So don’t think too much about it.”
“I am aware, but…I feel like i at least owe you workers comp since I’m certain that Aranea couldn’t-”
“Oh, no actually, your secretary actually had that part figured out too. Well, her and Zhen Liu apparently” Alexander interjected once again. “I knew the boy was becoming a prolific aether puppet master, but I didn’t expect him to be able to make create such weirdly elegant ones out of mundane materials. They managed to build that road in under a week!”
‘Oh…it makes sense now…’
At the mention of the name of his anomalous grandson, Zhen Shi had all but concluded that the reason for this sudden change in infrastructure was due to none other than Zhen Liu’s mysterious master.
At least he hoped that was the case.
As Zhen Shi was dealing with this mild mental crisis though, Alexander just kept praising Zhen Liu’s “minion puppets” and how useful they were for laboring in th desert sun. That is until he dropped a detail that warranted more attention and more questions.
“That all said though, I wouldn’t want to fight any of your grandson’s puppets if I can help it. If their performance in the arena is anything to go by, I think even I would have trouble if-”
“Hold up. What did you just say? Their performance in the arena? What are you talking about?”
“Wait, you didn’t get a notification about this either?,” Alexander asked in disbelief. “I’m talking about the biweekly challenge fights your clan has been hosting in Stone Claw’s arenas. The ones where people have to go toe-to-toe against those aforementioned puppets for prizes? Well, it’s either them or the aether beasts your clan have been regularly capturing and training. Rather popular affair despite the sheer amount of people losing against them, and a really good way to advertise your clan’s specialty products, I have to say.”
“Uh…huh…”
At this exact moment, Zhen Shi realized that he needed to go talk to his grandson about all of these strange developments later.
‘Then again, from the way he talked about his master on the past, there’s a very high possibility that he didn’t know anything about these developments either.’
Funnily enough, Zhen Shi wasn’t wrong in thinking that Zhen Liu didn’t know about any of this happening, he was just wrong about who was the instigator for all of these sudden developments.
But now the greater question was…what else had changed while they were away?
“Alexander, under the assumption that we haven’t received any messages about all of this going on while we were in Roaring Tide, is there anything else I should probably know about before returning home? Well, anything that you’re aware of happening?”
“Anything else? Uh…well…remember how you guys managed to secure that wandering ruin from the Wolfe Family after kicking them out?”
“Did it finally move on?”
“Oh, no. You guys have two of them now though.”
“Well that’s good to-wait a minute, two?”
“Yup, two. And I think this one might be a touch more permanent than the other. How do you feel about primate type aether beasts?”
“Oh boy…”
In retrospect, it was a damn good thing that Zhen Shi miraculously became younger all those months ago. He was going to need the newly gained vigor.
‘New road, arena challenges and a new wandering ruin…how the fuck did I not get informed about…any of this ahead of time?,’ Zhen Shi wondered.
Evidently, he wasn’t the only one.
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‘Alright, I’m not mad y’all did any of these developmental changes since it appears to be a net positive gain. I am, however, mad that y’all didn’t tell me. So…why didn’t y’all tell me?’
[Well, part of me thought it would make for a pleasant surprise to get back home and seeing all of the wonderful changes we had managed to implement and adapt to while you and the others were away.]
‘I am fairly certain that will still be the case since I’m pretty sure we’re all in the mindset of wanting to know what has changed exactly.’
[The other reason is actually more substantial. All of this happened during that stint in time you guys were dealing with the main clan’s tournament shenanigans.]
‘Wait, all of it?’
[Well, the road portion was while you guys were dealing with that familial tournament. The bit about the captured fifth tier armadillo beast didn’t happen until a little before that and that wandering ruin didn’t appear until…I think a little before y’all left on the Nimona? Give or take a couple of days.]
‘So…it was a bad case of too much happening at the same time in order to properly report?’
[I know how you get when dealing with unexpected developments, figured it’d be wiser to tell you about it later. Preferably post vacation.]
‘Ah.’
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*Bing-Bong*
Alright, this is a bit unusual since this would normally be where we interrupt the chapter to explain stuff.
This time we’re appending it to the end so that we can explain some timeline stuff…again.
There’s no clean way of presenting this so we’re just going to do line by line sentence summaries.
Ready?
Okay.
At the same time the Zhen Clan left on their voyage on the S.S. Nimona, a new wandering ruin appeared on the Zhen Clan’s estate.
At the same time the Zhen Clan were riding the rivers to get to Willow Scale City, bandits and that fifth tier armadillo started becoming an issue.
When the Zhen Clan’s competition finally got into full swing, the road connecting Emerald Eye to Stone Claw was starting to get established.
A day or two after the attack by the Fallen Clan, the kaijin started coordinating biweekly cage matches between the zakos, aether beasts and any schmuck who wanted to fight them.
By the time the Zhen Clan finally started the journey home, all of these unusual gains started to have an effect on their home city.
Now with all this mind, we are now going to fast forward a bit to the part where-
|Hold up. We actually have some scenes for the return trip.|
Wait, what? We do?
|Yeah. Technically speaking, the Zhen Clan are now travelling through a completely changed route and biome. It’d be a disservice not to at least show it a little.|
What…what could possibly be so interesting about a long stretch of road through a desert?
|You’d honestly be surprised. Now then, Bell guy? Ring us out please!|
*Bing-Bong*
