Looking at the man who conducted himself with half-seriousness, Reeva couldn’t help but smile.
"I’m not here to beco a sailor..."
"Oh, then you must be here to purchase a permit, right? Do you want to ship your burgers overseas? I’m sure many rchants would love to have your als on their ships." Hinly interrupted, saying his piece. Truthfully, Reeva was getting a bit annoyed, but he still composed himself. Theia, on the other hand, looked visibly more irritated than Reeva, who was doing the talking.
It was a far cry from the conversation with the jewelry lady. The head of the Sailor Association wielded much more power than the small jewelry shop owner. Where she held most of the information and controlled the flow of the conversation, here, Reeva was just a small fish in a big pond, and Hinly was a very big fish.
Her father often said that if you wanted to deal with overseas distributors, you needed to go through the Sailor Association; otherwise, your shipnt could be raided by pirates.
"While that is in my plans, it’s not why I’m here today."
"Oh? Then what are you looking for?"
"Riche. What do you know about him?" As soon as Reeva ntioned the na, the room seed to grow a little dimr, even though the sun was still up.
"What do you know about him?" Hinly countered with the sa question.
"Not much. I’ve heard he moved to Guragua, and I was just interested in purchasing his land."
"Then you should speak with him, not . Riche only had a sliver of land left after selling most of it to an Eastern investor. I don’t care enough to know that guy’s na since he doesn’t do anything with the land... wait, where was I? Oh, yeah, just go talk with Riche. I’m not that close to him anymore."
"I can’t get in touch with Riche. Guragua is too far away."
"Tough luck, I guess," Hinly said, wholly uninterested in Reeva’s question. "But are you still interested in..."
Hinly was about to continue his pitch, hoping for a rare business opportunity with the burger maker. Reeva was known to make a few business moves, so securing one for his Sailor Association was not a bad idea. However, Hinly stopped mid-sentence when Reeva gently placed an item on the table—a white slate that could suppress mystic power.
Hinly glanced at it briefly before looking back at Reeva.
Here’s a revised version of your passage with improved grammar and clarity:
"What is this?" Hinly asked, trying to appear as if he had never seen the item before. However, the fact that he stopped mid-sentence to address it was an answer in itself. Reeva quickly caught on and led the conversation, eager to find out how much the big guy really knew.
"It’s sothing I recently ca across," Reeva said calmly, leaning back slightly in his chair. "I’ve heard rumors that it’s connected to heretics and such. Soone gave this to ."
"Who?" Hinly asked, suspicion clear on his face.
"You guessed it—the Guragua rchant himself, Riche."
"So, this is about him after all." Hinly sighed. "I’m going to have to disappoint you, kid. I haven’t been in touch with Riche for a while now. My sources have seen him here and there, but that’s about it," Hinly said, his deanor turning inward, reflective.
"What kind of man is Riche?"
Hinly placed his hand on his chin, pondering. "He’s an ambitious guy, grew up on a farm. He’s actually from my generation—I used to see him playing in the fields. But his business sense was never that sharp. He only got rich because his family left him that farm. When he faced a certain crisis, he sold the farm and left for Guragua."
"A certain crisis?" Reeva inquired.
"Yeah, rember that Eastern investor? He ca in and heavily competed in the agricultural industry. Riche couldn’t handle the pressure and eventually left."
"What was your relationship with him? People often see you two together."
"? I just liked drinking with him, haha," Hinly laughed. "He couldn’t stand it when I belittled his wealth and influence. If you take him to a nice bar, he’d buy the whole damn catalog."
Reeva slapped his forehead with that statent. This guy just wants free booze.
"Hahaha, thinking about it, maybe I should’ve egged him on to buy more. That lbonr still tastes heavenly, by the way... Oh, I rember now—sothing’s going on with Riche. Apparently, he’s had so dealings with Landlong."
"Landlong? The hotel owner?"
"The one and only. It’s just a rumor, though. I haven’t confird it myself. You know, Landlong is very secretive in his dealings. But I could tell that the ’snake man’ has sothing up his sleeve."
’Snake Man’ is what the older folks called Landlong. He earned that nickna by being a shrewd businessman in his 20s. However, the na started to fade when he settled into the hotel business.
"What do you know about this?" Reeva asked, pointing to the white slate. There had been a reaction from Hinly earlier; it wasn’t fake.
"I’ve got one of those too, but it’s just nonsense. Landlong ca to talking about joining him in taking over Tumidus or sothing. You know what I said? ’You’re getting old, snake man.’ From his tone, he wasn’t just talking about taking over the mayor’s position but planning a coup to seize control of Tumidus."
Reeva smiled—this was the information he was after.
"It’s simply ridiculous. You know we have people with superpowers, right? If you don’t, well, now you do. The church has like a thousand of them. How the hell are you supposed to take over the church? It’s a suicide mission.
Even if they could pull it off, the other churches in different cities wouldn’t just stand by. They’d launch an assault and Tumidus would be theirs again. Don’t even get started on the Royal Army—they’ve got plenty of those, too, in a rather diverse way. Whatever Landlong’s planning, it’s dood to fail."
Reeva managed a dry smile, knowing that the white demon he saw with [Foresight] might actually be capable of taking over the church.
Reviews
All reviews (0)