Chapter 354 The Princess in Distress
As an area with frequent exchanges of people, the port has many small restaurants or pubs serving sailors, dockworkers, fishermen, tourists, etc.
Diagonally opposite the Harland Shipyard, there is a small restaurant like this. It opens early and provides a simple and affordable breakfast, including bread, butter, jam, ham, eggs, sausages, tea or wine, etc.
Although the environment is simple, it is full of life.
At the table in the small restaurant, Anna was chewing bread covered in butter unconsciously while staring at the door of the restaurant.
At this moment, a figure appeared there.
The little girl's eyes lit up and she had already put down the bread in her hand.
The figure came straight to the table and sat down. He picked up a piece of sliced bread from the dinner plate and stuffed it into his mouth. After swallowing it in three or two mouthfuls, he smiled and said, "Don't worry, it's done." I wanted to buy a ship from Harland Shipyard, but I didn't have enough money, so I left to prepare it again, and I didn't leave any contact address. "What should I do? If I can't find my sister, the bad guy will also find it here." Although Anna is young, she is very smart and aware of the dangers.
"You don't have to worry about that." Gothe smiled slightly.
“Because I have signed a contract of intent with the owner of Harland Shipyard to acquire his shipyard and ask him to take back all relevant information about the transfer of the shipyard and the sale of ships.”
"When you hear my name, my sister will definitely come. We just need to wait for her at the hotel!" Anna said excitedly.
"That's right," Gothe rubbed Anna's head that shook with happiness, "and we shouldn't have to wait too long."
After all, Haaland has already laid the groundwork in advance, "As soon as possible, there are other guests who cannot keep the ship."
Since the price of the ship is so favorable and Harland has offered conditions that fit Aisha's heart, Aisha will definitely raise money as soon as possible and come back to avoid missing out.
After stuffing all the bread on the plate into his stomach to fill his early stomach, and drinking a large cup of tea, Gothe picked up the little girl and left the small restaurant.
"Brother, where are we going now?" Anna asked.
"Library." Gao De said.
"Oh~ By the way, brother, why do you want to acquire Harland Shipyard?" Anna was curious.
"Because it is very useful for some of the things I want to do." Gao De said honestly.
"Brother, are you rich?" The little girl in his arms raised her head and looked directly at Gothe, her eyes twinkling.
With the little girl's knowledge, she naturally understands the huge amount of money required to acquire a shipyard.
Even if it is just a small and medium-sized shipyard that is about to go bankrupt.
"That's not the case. I'm also worried about how to prepare the money now." Gao De said with a smile.
In Gothe's previous life, most cities had large public libraries.
The collection of books in these libraries often numbers tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of volumes, and covers all fields of human knowledge, from ancient historical books to classic literary masterpieces to modern art albums. They are all available and are open to the public free of charge.
But in this world, this is something that is simply unimaginable.
·Knowledge is expensive, everyone agrees, and acquiring knowledge requires paying an extremely high price.
For many civilians, books are almost equivalent to luxury goods - expensive but "of little use".
This situation also causes all libraries in the world to be privately owned, and all the books in them are extremely valuable assets to the library owners.
It's just that some private libraries are like mysterious treasure houses, accessible only to a small number of people.
Some private libraries are open to the public, just like a potion store or a grocery store. They are an industry. People can pay a high fee to enter and read precious books.
There are three such libraries in Lagos.
And what Gaude was looking for was the Lagos Library, which is run by the Lagos City government.
It is the largest of the three libraries, has the largest collection of books, and covers the most complete fields.
The Lagos Library is located next to a wide square in the center of the city, surrounded by ancient buildings and streets.
Gothe walked into the door of the Lagos Library and was greeted by a spacious hall. The floor of the hall was paved with smooth marble and exquisite paintings hung on the walls.
There is a huge spiral staircase in the center of the hall. The handrails of the staircase are made of carved oak, which looks simple and elegant.
Going up the stairs, you will find the various collection rooms of the library.
The library is neatly lined with tall bookshelves, filled with a variety of books. Each book is carefully protected and exudes a faint scent of books.
A waitress has already come over and handed over a stack of tedious search catalog parchment.
Reading books here is charged per book or volume, so you have to search the catalog in advance to determine the title of the book you want to read, and the staff will send you the selected book later.
This stack of search directories is divided according to the fields covered by the books.
Gothe quickly turned to the geography parchment, then quickly scanned the titles of the books, and quickly determined what he wanted.
The waitress brought Gothe to the front desk and handed the book Gothe selected to the old man at the front desk.
The old man flipped through the large book on the counter, then raised his head and said: "Sir, you have selected four books in total, namely "The Royal Changes of the Principality of Xidian", "The Classification of Nobles and Royal Secrets of the Principality of Xidian", "The Geography and Humanities of the Principality of Ovoga", and "The Geography and Humanities of the Principality of Xidian". These four books are all available for borrowing.
They all belong to the second floor of the library. According to regulations, the borrowing fee for books on the second floor is 5 silver dragons per book. Four books are equivalent to 2 gorse coins. You can freely choose to read in the reading area on the second floor or the first floor for any time until you leave the library. "
Even though he was mentally prepared, Gaode still felt the urge to curse.
Four books are just for reading, and they cannot be taken home. They can only be read in the library. Just reading them once will cost him 2 gorse coins.
In terms of purchasing power equivalent, this is equivalent to one year's tuition for compulsory education in his previous life.
After scolding the street, Gaode still handed over two gorse coins honestly.
"Let's go to the second floor."
"Okay, sir, please come with me."
"This is free," the waitress took Gaode to the reading area on the second floor to sit down, and served a pot of black tea, and then reminded: "Sir, you cannot copy, mark, or damage the book during the reading process, otherwise you will need to pay double the original price."
Subsequently, another staff member delivered the four books selected by Gao De.
Gaode opened the book fiercely and vowed to read it back.
Gothe guessed that Aisha might come to the door soon, but he didn't expect it to be so early or so sudden.
That night, Anna had just finished taking a shower, and Gothe was wrapping a towel in the little girl's head that was shaking because of happiness, and drying her hair.
"Don't move, your hair must be dried first, otherwise you will catch cold easily." Gothe said while "rubbing" Anna's little head with a towel.
"Hee hee." The little girl wrapped in a towel laughed vaguely.
Suddenly, the movement of Gaode's hand suddenly stopped.
At some point, a woman appeared at the bedside.
His whole body was buried in his robe, with a hood covering his head. His face was hidden in the shadows, making it difficult to see his true appearance.
"Brother, what's wrong?" Anna asked puzzledly when she noticed that Gothe had stopped.
Gothe didn't know who the other party was, how he appeared quietly in their room, and what the origin was, but he knew that he had to stay calm.
With one hand, he protected Anna, who was sitting on the bed with her head wrapped in a towel, behind her. At the same time, he kept the towel wrapped around his head, so that Anna would not be scared when she saw this sudden uninvited guest, and also to prevent this uninvited guest from seeing Anna's face.
At the same time, Gothe looked at the opponent with vigilant eyes, and his other hand was ready to cast a spell at any time.
The other party took a deep look at Gothe, and then said: "Ana, it's me."
The next moment, Anna yelled "Wow", and her joyful emotions flew out through the towel.
She lifted the towel on her head.
The cloth turned up in the air.
"Sister!" Anna trotted in two or three steps and threw herself directly into the woman's arms.
The woman reluctantly caught Anna who was throwing herself into her arms, and the hood on her head fell down, revealing a beautiful face that was very familiar to Gao De.
"Elsa?" Gothe asked, looking at the woman in front of him.
This is a very beautiful woman, with golden curly hair like a waterfall, which glows with golden light under the light in the room.
The bridge of the nose is high and the pupils are golden. The overall facial features reveal a mature style.
After a slight hesitation, the woman holding Anna with one arm nodded.
"Is it invisibility?" Gothe asked again.
He was referring to the reason for Elsa's sudden appearance.
Elsa nodded again.
That means Aisha is at least a second-level mage.
Because [Invisibility] is a second-level illusion spell, its effect is to make the creature become invisible and maintain it until the spell ends. The target's clothing and carry items will also remain invisible as long as they remain on the target. If the target launches an attack or casts a spell, the invisibility effect will disappear directly.
It is with this spell that Aisha just performed a "big transformation into a living person".
In fact, it is just a second-level illusion spell. The delusion-breaking ability of Gothic's third-level Mandora's Magic Eye is very likely to see through it.
Under normal circumstances, how could Gothe open Mandora's Magic Eye?
"You are?" Elsa asked.
"Gothe, the Sea Sentinel Mage, met Anna on the airship from Dorne City to Lagos City, and was asked by her to help her find you."
Sister, brother is a good person. I sneaked onto the airship, but the aunt on the airship wanted to catch me. Fortunately, brother." Anna chirped to support Gaode, and at the same time briefly introduced her experiences in the past few days.
After hearing what Anna said, Elsa looked at Gothe as if she were looking at a monster. After being silent for a while, she said in disbelief: "You, a sea sentinel mage, would actually agree to the request of a five-year-old girl?"
This does sound ridiculous.
For ordinary people, if they met Anna on an airship, they would immediately hand her over to the airship staff.
Even if Anna was not exposed at that time out of soft-heartedness, after getting off the airship, Anna should be handed over to the local officials as soon as possible, instead of taking unknown risks and taking Anna with her, let alone helping Anna find herself.
"Why not? She made a request to me, and I could and was willing to help her, so I agreed, even if she was just a little girl."
"You are indeed a good person." Aisha was stunned for a moment, and then praised her sincerely.
"There's no need to give me a good person card, I don't consider myself a good person," Gothe shook his head and added: "Besides, good people are not a good word either."
Aisha didn't understand why "good person" was not a good word, but since the other party didn't like it, she naturally stopped saying it.
"Then you found the Harland Shipyard based on a portrait of Anna, and you wanted to acquire the Harland Shipyard for this?"
"The first half of the sentence is correct, but the second half is not," Gothe corrected seriously: "I want to acquire the Harland Shipyard because I have this need."
"How did you do it?" Aisha was curious.
“It’s actually not complicated.” Gaode briefly introduced his approach and ideas.
"You are really a wise person." Elsa sighed again.
"Mild praise." Gaode expressed humility.
"Anyway, I would like to express my gratitude to you, Master Gothe, for taking care of my sister these days." Elsa put Anna on the bed, then pulled up the corners of her robe, half-crouched down to Gothe, and performed a standard aristocratic salute.
Gaode accepted it calmly.
"Are you going to take Anna away?" Then, he asked again.
"Of course." Elsa was stunned for a moment before replying.
"Where are you going to take Anna? According to what Anna said, there are bad people who have been tracking you." Gothe said again.
"My original idea was to buy a boat, and then take the boat to get rid of the bad guys." Aisha was silent for a moment before speaking.
"If I guessed correctly, you don't have a clear destination at this moment, Princess Elsa."
Elsa's expression changed, and she subconsciously hugged Anna, took a step back, and looked at Gothe with a wary face.
"If I were your enemy, you would have fallen into a trap when you entered the room, and people in ambush would have already swarmed up and captured you." Faced with Aisha's stress reaction, Gothe was very calm and said slowly.
Aisha was slightly startled. After thinking about it carefully, she realized that it was indeed the case, and then she returned to normal.
"How do you know, Anna told you?"
"No, Anna did not tell her brother!" Before Gothe could answer, Anna immediately raised her hand to show her innocence.
"Yes, brother, how did you know?" After proving her innocence, the little girl couldn't help but look at Gaode with wide eyes.
Gaode smiled slightly and slowly explained his analysis process.
After discovering Anna's extraordinary knowledge and talent, he could indeed guess that Anna's background was by no means a simple "good condition", and he also doubted her life experience.
But there was no way he could inexplicably connect Anna's identity to the Duke of Sidian that had just been destroyed not long ago as mentioned on the hand-written parchment, let alone think that Anna would be a "runaway princess."
When did this speculation begin?
In fact, just last night, when I met the "bad guy" who was looking for Elsa at the front desk of the hotel.
He found that the man had a very unique point: his ears were different from the common rounded contours, and were unusually long and slightly curved at the tips.
In the geography class at Sires College, the instructor mentioned this.
The territory of the Principality of Ervoga has undulating hills, criss-crossing valleys, and dense forests covering a large area of land. In ancient times, the elves lived.
Although there was no trace of the elves here later, the people living here, namely the people of the Principality of Ovoga, all have slender and curved ears like elves, and may have a certain amount of elven blood.
This is the distinctive appearance symbol that distinguishes the Russian Voga Principality from other races in other regions. It is the scorpion daddy.
Hence, the "bad guy" is undoubtedly from the Principality of Ovoga.
With this as an introduction, Gothe naturally thought of the briefing about the destruction of the Principality of Sidian by the Principality of Russia and the parchment at the front desk.
Him allowed the Russian Vogants to work tirelessly to pursue them all the way to the Plantagenet Dynasty, and coupled with Anna’s various peculiarities, it is almost certain that Anna must have come from a noble family in the Principality of Sidian.
"That only means that we are nobles. How can we be sure that we are members of the royal family?"
"That's it. The current conditions do not allow me to determine your specific identity." Gothe nodded and continued.
The silver spoon is smeared with Xidian lavender honey, a specialty of the Principality of Dian. This honey has a fragrant taste and can help babies who have just been weaned eat better.”
"Of course, as the age increases, this method of coaxing babies to be weaned is no longer needed, and the fragrance on their fingers will slowly fade away until it disappears completely."
"But." Gothe lowered his head and looked at Anna, who was listening to him attentively, very seriously. Seeing Gothe looking at her, she immediately gave him a sweet smile.
Gothe smiled back and finally said: "Anna is only five years old."
(End of this chapter)