Chapter 878: After Twenty Months… I

CH0878 After Twenty Months... I

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Alex and the expedition party boarded the Wyvern Carriage with the rest of the Silver Fang honour guard.

Unlike what Commander Holst expected and was ready to provide answers to, Alex didn’t ask any questions. Instead, he just rested his head comfortably on the backrest of the seat he sat on, surrounded by his wives.

"Are you really okay?" Eleanore asked, worried. "Your forehead is twitching."

"It’s nothing just a minor inconvenience." Alex replied.

"Something I didn’t consider when I made ORION my second mind was the fact that it used my mental energy and Spiritual force to establish a connection to a plane’s Rune network.

"Pangea’s current Rune network has expanded in the eighteen months we have been away," Alex said.

He looked to Commander Holst for confirmation. "It has been eighteen months since we left, right?"

"It has been twenty months, sir," Holst replied.

His answer surprised Alex and his wives, who had expected, by their calculations, to have only spent eighteen months away, since they spent two years and three months on Verdantis.

"Is it possible we drifted in the void of space for two Pangean months before we landed in Verdantis after the accident?" Zora wondered aloud.

"That... that makes sense." Eleanore nodded.

Udara also nodded from the side.

"Whatever the case, Orion is taking time to complete the link and re-establish my full Admin control over the Rune network due to the limits of my Spiritual force," Alex expressed.

Thinking about it, it did make sense that it took some effort for one person to claim control over a network that spanned an entire domain—especially one as large as Pangea’s—within a short period of time.

The group let Alex quietly rest as the reconnection occurred.

One thing Alex didn’t feel the need to mention was that the reason the reconnection was taking time was because of the changes to his Rune-Tech platform.

Not only had the former OmniRune now evolved into Orion, the Rune-Tech platform itself had undergone some sort of metamorphosis in the aftermath of the Rune Sage spell.

The Sigil ’logic’, which was now part of the Rune-Tech platform, created a minor misidentification that Orion was sorting out in real time, which consumed more of Alex’s mental acumen.

But this was only a one-time thing, and he didn’t lose anything besides the effort he was currently passively putting in.

After about two hours into the journey, the reconnection was complete, and Alex’s eyes snapped open.

For a moment, he felt he heard faint magical singing around him. He felt everything click into place, and his mind came to a strange, peaceful rest.

His mental fatigue seemed to recover instantly, as though it had never happened.

However, in the next moment, the singing vanished like an illusion.

Alex pondered over the phenomenon for another moment or so before giving up.

’Let’s just take it as another phenomenon happening as a result of Rune-Tech’s interaction with the natural order that I don’t fully comprehend,’ Alex decided.

Alex was always the first to admit that he didn’t fully understand how Rune-Tech worked.

He understood the basics of how he programmed it to work, but perhaps due to the fact that the platform was based on Magical Glyphs—which no one person could claim to completely understand—there were still aspects of the platform that remained mysteries to him.

Fortunately, he saw himself as an engineer at heart. He didn’t feel the need to completely understand a phenomenon as long as he understood it enough to put together something functional and safe. He was okay with it.

This had admittedly put him in some minor trouble—Tribulation lightnings and such—but for the most part, this approach worked well for him.

"So, what happened after our departure? I hope Father didn’t do anything drastic?" Alex finally asked the questions Holst was expecting.

"Surprisingly, Sir Earl didn’t do anything," Holst revealed. "Initially, after you went missing, we heard rumours that Lord Merlin Pendragon advised the Earl not to make any rash moves. But then, Ashen Castle also received an edict from the Imperial Sun not to act due to the incident, removing the Earl’s justification."

"Someone probably petitioned the Emperor, claiming the incident was the ’Interplanar hazing process’ allowed by aristocratic etiquette, so the Mad Earl shouldn’t be allowed to retaliate due to it," Eleanore said.

"It is such a sickening practice," she added.

"Well, I am back. And this ’hazing’ gives me the justification to strike once at all the parties involved at my leisure without the need for justification." Alex smiled.

"Sounds like you have a plan in mind," Zora said.

"Maybe," Alex replied.

Commander Holst’s eyes flashed.

"The autonomous Silver Fang Unit is ready to move at any time, Young Master," he said.

"Silver Fang is now an autonomous unit? That means Father approved of my contingency plan?" Alex inquired.

"Yes, Young Master." Commander Holst nodded. "After the Earl’s inaction continued, Lady Alpha confirmed to me that the Earl’s inaction was actually due to your contingency plan. Since then, Silver Fang has also been acting based on the plan."

"The False Flag operation?" Alex asked.

"Yes, sir," Commander Holst nodded. "We have spent the last half a year or so operating between Holt and Herzog lines, simmering the conflict between the two fiefdoms. With our most recent operation, which we just concluded a few hours ago, we believe we can push the two houses into open conflict at any time."

"That confidence is good, but don’t let your guard down. The Holts might be just a collateral branch of the Machholts, but they are still related, nonetheless. The unexpected attack on me during my Interplanar departure should be proof enough of how treacherous the Machholts are," Alex cautioned.

"Did the Palace embed itself in the conflict?" he then asked.

"No, the Palace Head decided not to use the Palace name directly. Instead, we used a couple of the subsidiaries the Palace acquired in the region," Holst reported.

"That’s good. Keeping the Palace out of it was indeed a wise choice. In retrospect, it could have been a fatal mistake amongst the plans contained in my contingency strategy. Haggleworth handled it well," Alex smiled.

"In that case, I can expect Haggleworth to have leveraged your covert successes to achieve active victory on the economic front as well," he added.

"To the best of my understanding, that seems to be the case, but you might have to confirm with the Palace Master himself, Young Master. However, I can confirm Dark Water aided the Palace in covertly acquiring businesses within the two fiefdoms that I believe position us favourably to influence things within the two domains.

"Despite my lack of expertise on the matter, even I could tell that the two domains, or at least the Holts, wouldn’t have allowed this to happen if their attention wasn’t drawn away by the shadow conflict we’ve instigated for them with the Herzogs," Commander Holst revealed.

Alex smiled. "There’s nothing better than using the enemy’s own money to facilitate their undoing."

"Aside from our Silver Fang Unit, we have also trained a unit of operatives from Dark Water in your Ungentlemanly warfare doctrine. They’ve been responsible for the other aspects of the Contingency strategy you left behind.

"However, I don’t understand the full picture, so you’ll be better served speaking with Lady Alpha. She has kept in charge of everything."

"That’s good." Alex nodded.

He added inwardly, ’I would actually be worried if you, a unit commander, had a clear understanding of everything my intelligence outfit was doing across multiple units.’

"Anything else I should know?" he asked.

"Well..." Commander Holst said with a bit of hesitation. "There is a small situation going on within the Fury Family."

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