Card Apprentice Daily Log

Chapter 3153: Henricks’ Mistakes And Achievements

Date: Unspecified

Time: Unspecified

Location: Myriad Realms, Azorheim, Temporal Cave Valley, Temporal Cave No. ES3030

After making the necessary preparations, I actively helped my clones take care of the various batches of Card Apprentices. Once we finished all the work we had taken on, I retrieved my clones and prepared to leave the temporal cave.

Before leaving, however, I decided to lend the cave to Hendricks as a reward for his commendable service. He was free to use it however he pleased, with the expenses covered by the New Empire.

The old man was thrilled.

He deserved it.

It would not have been easy for him to simply teleport thousands of Card Apprentices to the teleportation hub and then guide them toward the temporal cave without violating any of Azorheim’s rules. He had to keep an eye on thousands of people, many of whom were experiencing Azorheim and its bizarre collection of races for the first time. Some of the Card Apprentices would inevitably become nervous or outright panic when they encountered races they had never even imagined existed, and Hendricks had to calm them down and make sure nobody caused trouble.

Then there were the people themselves.

Many of the Card Apprentices seeking my services were old, sickly, or physically frail. Others were young and inexperienced, with little understanding of how to conduct themselves outside their familiar territories. Simply getting them from the teleportation hub to my temporal cave was not a short journey, especially when Hendricks couldn’t afford to treat the entire group like a pack of experienced adventurers.

He had essentially been acting as a guide, escort, caretaker, and problem solver for thousands of people at once.

And he had done it without causing trouble for Azorheim or violating its rules.

That alone was worth rewarding.

There was also the matter of the Redfoots.

Hendricks had finally reunited Mino Orefoot with Mille Marfoot and taken Mino to the Redfoot settlement in the Yellow Plains Realm. I had purchased the realms rights from the Demon Merchant Code specifically because I wanted the Redfoots to have somewhere they could gather without constantly worrying about being discovered.

I had another reason for being cautious.

The Dark Faction responsible for destroying the Redfoots’ native realm, RedAlps, might have placed tracking spells or other methods of identification on the slaves they captured. I couldn’t rule out the possibility that the same method had been used on the rescued Redfoots. After all, Crown Prince Thalorien had demonstrated that tracking someone after they had escaped or been rescued was entirely possible with the right methods.

I had no intention of leading the people I rescued directly into another trap. Since Henricks was part of the New Empire, his mistakes were mine too, just like his achievements were mine.

While Henricks was in the Yellow Plains Realm, he also brought forward my proposal to the elders of the Redfoot refugee settlement. He explained that as long as they were willing to submit to me and become part of the New Empire, I would do everything within my ability to rescue their remaining people, recover their realm, and preserve their race.

The elders naturally didn’t give him an immediate answer.

They had lost their homeland. Their people had been scattered, enslaved, or killed, and the realm they once called home was being stripped of its remaining resources by the very faction that had destroyed it. Asking them to place what remained of their race under the protection of another ruler was not a decision they could make casually.

So they requested some time to think.

Hendricks accepted their request, but he also urged them not to take too long.

The Dark Faction occupying RedAlps wasn’t going to patiently wait for them to reach a decision. Every day that passed gave those invaders more time to strip the realm of its remaining resources. And once they had extracted everything valuable, there was little doubt they would eventually destroy the realm itself to harvest its Will fragments.

Waiting forever wasn’t an option.

Still, Hendricks didn’t simply pressure them and leave.

To help them understand what they would actually be gaining by joining the New Empire, he offered the Redfoot elders and the last surviving members of Redfoot royalty a tour of the New Empire and the territories belonging to its other vassal races.

That part hadn’t even been my idea.

Hendricks had thought of it himself.

He approached me beforehand, explained what he wanted to do, and asked for my permission before making the offer to the Redfoot refugees. I had to commend him for that. He understood that showing them what the New Empire actually looked like would be far more convincing than simply making promises about what I could provide.

Let them see the other races living under the New Empire.

Let them see their settlements.

Let them see how the people I had already taken responsibility for were being treated.

Most importantly, let them see that joining the New Empire didn’t necessarily mean abandoning their identity as Redfoots.

I gave him permission.

He was still waiting for the Redfoots’ final answer, but regardless of what they ultimately decided, Hendricks had already done everything he could. He had represented the New Empire well, protected the refugees’ interests, and made sure they understood that my offer was more than an empty promise.

For that alone, I felt the old man had earned his reward. Even the Temporal Cave didn’t feel like a generous enough reward for what he had done, but he insisted that it was more than enough.

Still, I gave him a couple thousand merits as an additional reward.

With that taken care of, I made use of the Devil Merchant Code’s Transportation Function to cross the Myriad Realms and travel toward the territory of the True Evil, the creatures whose very existence was enough to make even the Dark Races tremble.

There was, however, a tricky part about using the Devil Merchant Code’s Transportation Function that I had never really cared about before.

Until now.