Clockwork Bride

Page 70

This is too difficult!

So when Karen saw that Hayden didn't speak, she naturally didn't speak first either, but calmly added, "Then I'll figure it out myself."

Is this a threat?! This is a threat, isn't it?!

--------------------------

Nothing more happened on the way back to New Jersey.

But no matter how you look at it, Hayden believes the seriousness of the matter is very high.

So as soon as he got home, he rushed to find Angela, who was making dinner, and poured out everything that had happened that day. It was kind of funny—regardless of whether Hayden trusted others, he certainly trusted this AI with its unknown origins.

However, Angela, who was stewing beef, did not show any signs of tension or fear after hearing Hayden's words.

"Aren't you nervous at all?"

Hayden couldn't help but complain.

"Karen is about to discover your secret!"

Angela looked puzzled: "But I don't think I have any secrets I need to worry about being discovered."

She put the chopped carrots into the pot, thoughtfully washed her hands, and then suddenly said, "To put it simply, Master, you probably want to know more about Miss Karen, right?"

A pause, then silence.

Then Hayden's expression finally turned a little strange: "That's a strange way of putting it."

“Really?” Angela tilted her head. “Master, you’re actually quite pleased with what Miss Karen is doing right now, aren’t you? I mean, she’s opening her shop in a rather benevolent way.”

The wording was rather odd. But Hayden knew Angela well enough to understand what she meant, so he slowly nodded: "You could say that."

“Master, you actually admire what she’s doing now, and you like what she’s doing,” Angela continued, tilting her head. “You’re just worried that Miss Karen might use her power, and now the power she’s gained, to do something dangerous or bad, right?”

The wording was getting weirder and weirder, but Hayden nodded nonetheless: "I guess that's how it is."

Then Angela asked the most crucial question: "So what are your reasons for thinking that way?"

Of course, it's because Kallen is a god.

The so-called "god race" is essentially a class issue, not a racial issue.

“But elves are supposedly ‘gods’, aren’t they?” Angela raised an eyebrow. “You must have known that Miss Karen was a god when you were in university, so why weren’t you worried then?”

Hayden was speechless.

why?

The answer is actually quite simple—because he only found out who Karen's father was last year.

After the "Bo Xun" incident ended last year, during the six-month period of rest, Hayden asked Abigail which Mitra Group executive she had sought help from. Abigail told him that it was Mayila, the Human Resources Director of the Mitra Group, whose title was "Peacock King".

He is one of the true gods of this world. When Hayden heard Abigail say that Kallen's father was actually the Peacock King, he was really shocked - because Kallen had been disguised as a white dragon fish for the past few years, studying at a public university as an ordinary elf, and working in a company like an ordinary office worker. Who would have thought that her father was actually the Peacock King?

While ordinary elves are also gods, there are ranks among the gods. Don't you see that Alicia's maid is also a god? Do you think Alicia treats her with any respect?

Although even the weakest of the gods possessed the fighting power to easily kill three or four mortal experts, they still couldn't frighten Hayden.

Hayden was truly terrified when Karen turned out to be a genuine "High Elf." This is why, during the past two months since he met Karen, he's been constantly worried that she might do something terrible.

In other words,

Although Karen often says that "people don't need to rely on the legacy of their ancestors," Hayden is actually still afraid of her father and the power that her bloodline represents.

Was Hayden afraid that Karen would discover Angela's secret? Actually, he wasn't.

What he was really afraid of was that the executives of the Mitra Group behind Karen would discover Angela's secret!

In that sense, Karen is truly pitiful.

“If I want to stop worrying about this, I need to find out the specifics of Karen’s family background. Just knowing that ‘Peacock King is her father’ is not enough.”

Hayden scratched his head as he spoke.

"But as Abigail said, it's a secret of the gods, not something you can just ask around about. That little old witch even kicked me out of the bar last time because of it."

She definitely didn't kick Hayden out of the bar for that reason, but unfortunately Angela didn't know that.

"Master, you are very interested in learning about Miss Karen, but Miss Abigail is unwilling to tell you such information, is that right? I see, I understand!"

Therefore, Angela's eyes immediately sharpened!

"Leave it to me! The intelligence network I've built for my master over the past few months is precisely for use in times like this!"

...What?

077: Knowledge Has Value

[Connecting to the North American Free Mercenaries Forum...]

…falsifying identity

…encryption key generation

…Original route has been linked

>>>Login: xxxxxxxxxxxx

>>> Enter password: xxxxxxxxxxxx

…Bioluminescence recognition scanning confirmation

Welcome back to the forum, bro.

It has been 2 days, 05 hours, 24 minutes and 09 seconds since your last login.

Unread messages:

3 private messages

11 replies

215 new posts since the last time I went offline

[Post a thread]

Does anyone know of a strange flower shop that opened in downtown New Seattle?

巫师

>You're only asking this now? Where have you been these past two months? In the Stone Age?

Shadow Man

The New Yatu forum has recently been flooded with posts about that flower shop. You can search for keywords yourself instead of creating a new post.

Watchmaker

>A wizard? I heard your mercenary company signed a work contract with that florist?

Headache-inducing tablets

That's not my company.

巫师

Let's calm down for a moment; we should maintain our respect for the wizard. He's already on the path to becoming a capitalist. In a few years, he'll become a god, then drag us out through the screen, skin us alive, and boil us.

Flying Spinning Cat Eats Rice

Hayden seriously considered whether to actually use sympathetic magic to grab them through the screen, but he ultimately refrained. Intruding through the forum's network line would likely be detected by the administrators. Even if Hayden could handle them now, there was no need to actually do it.

So he obediently opened the discussion forum and searched through the posts. Honestly, there wasn't anything particularly interesting. This freelance mercenary forum, though built on the dark side of the internet, was actually quite unreliable. Just look at how much they hyped up Hayden last year; that's how unreliable it was.

Several mercenary communication websites, hidden beneath the surface of cyberspace, had mentioned Hayden's affairs, each exaggerating his exploits from last year. Hayden knew his own limitations; seeing that they were all clueless, he knew their intelligence capabilities were actually quite limited.

However, on the other hand, these posts on the forum mentioning the daisy shop aren't entirely without merit. Many mercenaries mentioned that they initially bought the flowers just for fun, only to discover their amazing usefulness after taking them home. One person said that while working, a ghoul ripped a large chunk of flesh from his arm, but after applying a few drops of daisy essence to the wound, the bleeding stopped immediately, and the wound appeared to have healed for several days.

Some mercenaries also mentioned that they had done several short-term security jobs for the flower shop, with good pay and benefits. Most importantly, those who work as freelance mercenaries know that employers almost always try to take advantage of you. An employer might claim you were just delivering a regular smuggling package, but it turns out to be stolen goods from a large company, resulting in you being chased by company security; you might initially just be helping your employer deal with some thugs on the street corner, only to discover they're lower-ranking members of the mafia.

It's precisely because of these troublesome situations, and because employers often try to pull these kinds of tricks, that freelance mercenaries frequently need intermediaries. This is also why Angela is able to run her "retribution military recruitment agency" business so successfully.

However, Karen's flower shop seems to have a very good reputation in this regard. No mercenaries have complained that she has ever given orders with incorrect details or embellished work. To be honest, this is quite surprising. Many mercenaries say that the shop will eventually be driven down by vicious competition from others, but some well-informed people speculate that the owner has considerable power behind her.

This guess is indeed true, but that's about it. Hayden didn't see anything useful or insightful.

As for Angela, her intelligence network came to similar but different conclusions—but before that, when did Angela ever have such an intelligence network?

In fact, Angela had indeed mentioned this to Hayden. When she told him about the "Retribution" company, she mentioned that she had compiled a list of Hayden's connections and intelligence sources. Now that the company is growing larger, Angela naturally has access to more and more information. Much of this information is related to the smuggling channels in New Yatu.

What they were saying was that recently, even in several major cities outside of New Seattle, people had started buying up Karen's goods. In less than two months, Karen's florist's reputation had spread to other states.

However, many of Karen's herbal products are classified as medicine. Unlike some large, tax-exempt companies, her goods are subject to heavy taxes once they leave the state, naturally driving up prices.

This is why Angela learned about these things through smuggling channels in New Jersey—since legitimate exports are subject to taxes by the state government, why not smuggle!

"On another note, it's really strange that the largest companies, which do the most business, don't have to pay taxes, while small companies are the ones that are taxed."

Angela reported to Hayden while sighing with emotion.

"It's not just a matter of big companies not wanting to pay taxes," Hayden replied casually, while looking at a post on a forum where a colleague was praising the effectiveness of Karen's valerian oil. "They force small companies to continue paying taxes, so that the state government can impose heavy taxes on them, thus suppressing and reducing their competitiveness. At the same time, because the state government can still collect some taxes, the poorest people can still receive welfare."

Although this era is incredibly messed up, those big corporations are still careful not to let all the ordinary people starve to death. As long as someone has a legitimate identity and is registered in the system, even if they are desperate, they can at least go to the relief station to receive synthetic food. When Hayden was busy developing Angela last year, he ate the cheapest kind of food to save money.

Where does the money for these relief stations and the lowest-income welfare programs come from? Certainly not from large corporations. The upper class doesn't want to pay taxes, and the lower class can't afford to pay taxes—in the end, it all falls on the shoulders of the middle class and the petit bourgeoisie.

It's already difficult enough to start a small company, let alone climb to the level of the gods... Putting aside the inherent difficulty, why would the gods be willing to let you climb up there?

However, the issue becomes a different story when it comes to Karen herself.

"In the end, your intelligence network is useless."

After listening to Angela's report, Hayden finally couldn't help but complain.

Upon hearing this, Angela immediately lowered her head obediently: "I'm very sorry, but the former students of [Bo Xun] lack talent in prophetic magic. The more talented ones like Todd are not here, so we can only rely on Yolanda and the others to screen them through multiple divinations."

……ah?

"If only their prophetic talents were like their master's, so quick to understand everything."

Angela even let out a rare sigh as she spoke.

But Hayden couldn't ignore what she had just said, and immediately asked, "How exactly does your so-called intelligence network operate?"

"How does it work?" Angela tilted her head and gestured with her hand. "The saleswoman will help us with market analysis, Dulin will help us with online surveys, and Yolanda and the others will use multiple divination spells to improve the accuracy. That's basically it."

As Hayden listened to her, he couldn't help but break out in a cold sweat. He quickly asked for a copy of the detailed report and examined it carefully. Upon reading it, he immediately understood what had happened.

Imagine you have a million boxes, one of which contains a diamond. You have a set of diamond detectors, each detector alarming if a diamond is present, and with a 50% probability if no diamond is present. If you use twenty different detectors to check all the boxes, on average you'll find one box with a diamond and one box without. Now, with just one or two more diamond detectors, you can find the box with the diamond.

A single divination performed by a single person is probably even less accurate than this kind of detector. Furthermore, you can't have the same person perform divination repeatedly, because that's like using the same detector—the result won't change. But if dozens of people can cast spells simultaneously, the accuracy is obviously different.

[Bo Xun] was, after all, once a hacker organization. Although their most skilled member, Alastor, turned into a bead, and some of the more capable members, Todd and the others, left New Asia to become revolutionary fighters, the remaining twenty-odd members, including Yolanda, weren't useless either. They were, after all, college student hackers skilled in information communication magic. With a few more pointers from Angela, even if they were hopeless, they could still be considered elites.

Conversely, why are super-corporations like the Mitra Corporation able to know almost everything? On one hand, it's because they built today's StarNet, but on the other hand, it's also because they have countless excellent employees and equipment that can carefully cast spells to observe the causal relationships of the interaction and deduce subtle changes.

Furthermore, divination itself requires connection, karmic affinity, or clues; it cannot be done entirely out of thin air. However, clues often accumulate the more you calculate, just like the diamond detector example mentioned earlier.

The ancients said that the most powerful beings could foresee the future with a mere flick of their fingers; the "algorithms" of modern gods are far more advanced than those of their predecessors. However, when they engage in conflict and struggle against each other, the entire situation becomes extremely complex. Therefore, battles between gods are often beyond comprehension.

But that's a digression. Hayden looked at the detailed report Angela had sent him on the screen; it contained everything. It listed Karen's flower shop's competitors, its market potential, and any other untapped opportunities… all the relevant information.

What are these?

It all boils down to one word: "money"!

Market analysis and intelligence, frankly speaking, are nothing more than "business opportunities" and "money," right? Since ancient times, the most important thing for merchants has been to first determine what they can do to have a chance to make money, right?

When did Angela become so capable of leading Yolanda and her group of children to make such judgments in advance and uncover so many business opportunities and intelligence?

Holding the report Angela gave him, Hayden was already in a state of terror when he realized—this was probably the reason why Angela was able to gather a group of college dropout hackers and set up the "Retribution" company.

A group of ordinary magicians certainly couldn't do that, but Angela said she had given those kids some pointers, which is probably why. She had given Hayden a strange spiritual vision in the first two days after she arrived, and Hayden hadn't forgotten it yet.

Following this logic, is Angela planning to create some kind of bizarre cult?

Was it fortunate, or simply inevitable? The only thing Yolanda and her team couldn't uncover was Karen's family background. The secrets of the gods are difficult to investigate, even with Angela's guidance.

But Hayden, upon seeing this, already had an idea in mind.

"Alright, Angela, I'll take back what I just said about your intelligence network being useless."

He put down his phone and rubbed his temples.

"After dinner, let's go find the little witch."