Chapter 608 (2/2)

Soli Daal waved his hand in dread. The Judgement Warriors immediately dragged Kevan out of the study.

After the archbishop sat on the lord’s chair, he vaguely felt something was wrong. “The lord has obviously been destructed by fear, why did he refuse to confess? Is he so loyal to Roland Wimbledon that he would rather be interrogated in Holy City than disclose the king’s plan?”

At that moment, a chief justice went into the room. “Milord Bishop, Pitsos has sealed the granary, but…”

“But what?”

“There isn’t much food there, probably only enough to last the townsmen for one or two months. There is no way it could sustain a large army.”

“Are you sure?” Soli frowned immediately.

“Pitsos searched every corner of the granary and asked the keepers. They said recently there was not a large amount of grain coming in and the wheat there was just the stock from last year,” The chief justice reported in full detail.

“Why was there news about offering high prices for grains in the town?” Soli meditated for a while. “Go ask the merchants.”

“Yes.” The chief justice nodded. “Besides, we did a thorough search of the garrison camps in the west of the town. Most of the rooms there are empty. The surrendered knights said since the border army was completely annihilated at Hermes, no new soldiers have been recruited.”

“That means Coldwind Ridge isn’t ready for a war, which contradicts the information that Zero supplied.” The archbishop’s brows deepened. After a long silence, he ordered. “There must be believers of the church in this town. Call them together and ask about the changes in Coldwind Ridge in the last two months in detail. Question the local Rats and those who voluntarily submitted to the church. I want to know what’s going on as soon as possible!”

The chief justice bowed and said, “I’ll go ask them right away.”

Soli leaned back on the chair and deeply sighed. The plan of attacking Kingdom of Graycastle had been made a long time ago. The process and the result did not matter, but yet he did not like any accidents.

What went wrong?

The next day, the chief justice put a report on the archbishop’s desk, which was full of information he collected.

Soli opened it and went through the testimonies on the first page. “Two local merchants offered high prices for grains. Did they hoard wheat as much as 5,000 pecks?”

“That’s only the two merchants’ testimony.” The chief justice said in a low voice. “After getting the information, I searched their houses right away. I did find a large quantity of grain, but it sufficed to requirement of only one person. In their basements, there are merely 100 pecks of grain in total. Besides, there was no one in their houses. I guess all fled after they saw the beacon fire.”

“Do you mean… collusion?” Soli immediately got what he meant.

“Yes, my lord. Only when they collude with the peddlers outside the town, pretend to sell grains to those pedlers then secretly transport the grains back, could they create such a false image.”

“Where do these pedlers come from?”

“From all the other towns in the Northern Region, such as Deepvalley Town, City of Evernight, Wuthering Castle… The purchase at high prices started a month ago. At first, not many people paid attention to it. Later on, the trade volume increased so much that it drew merchants’ attention. We’ve put all the pedlers in the town into custody, but failed to find those who were in charge of transporting the grains.”

If they’re in collusion, there is a small chance of capturing them. Yet… what did they do this for? Just to draw the attention of Holy City to make Supreme Pontiff attack at an earlier date?

Soli skipped to the last few pages of the report, and then a piece of information caught his eyes.

“Are the patrollers on the Beacon Tower… dead?”