Chapter 47: Successful Robbery

When the dust settled, the dust-covered crowd discovered that the originally luxurious and beautiful building had turned into a pile of rubble. The culprit, however, had escaped in the chaos. Not a hair of him could be found!

Suddenly, the poor Manager stood there dumbfounded, then spat out a mouthful of blood and collapsed to the ground. At this moment, everyone knew the Manager was done for. Surprisingly, no one paid any attention to him. Most even showed disdain, secretly cursing, “Serves you right, you bastard for deducting our wages. This is retribution!”

…

The history of the Augustus Family in the Griffin Kingdom could even be traced back to the founding of the Kingdom, totaling several hundred years. In the Kingdom, it was a pivotal Great Noble Family. The current Queen was from their family. They had disciples or clansmen in almost every key department of the Kingdom. The Clan Head of the Augustus Family was the Empire’s plenipotentiary minister for diplomacy and had deep connections with surrounding countries. In fact, their family’s wealth mostly came from trade with other countries.

Now, in the Augustus Family’s main home in the Imperial Capital, the Clan Head, Frank, had just crawled up from his beautiful concubine on the bed. Annoyed, he came to the outer hall and cursed at the Steward who woke him up, “Damn bastard, it is 2 am in the middle of the night, and you woke me up! You better give me a reasonable explanation, or I will send you to the Barbarian Plateau!”

Although Frank was skilled in diplomacy, he himself was a rough and burly fellow, and also very powerful, a Level 6 Warrior. In this day and age, people without strength simply did not get respect. So, the more of a diplomat one was, the stronger one needed to be to get things done. Thus, when he got angry, the Steward below was terrified.

The Steward hurriedly said, “Master, something terrible has happened! Our shop has been robbed!”

“Damn it!” Frank heard this, kicked the Steward to the ground in anger, and cursed, “I have thousands of shops across the country. What is so strange about one being robbed? You woke me up for this crap? Are you an idiot?”

“No!” the Steward hurriedly cried, “This time is different. The one robbed was our highest-level Magic material shop in the Imperial Capital’s commercial district, Planka!”

Planka was the name of that shop, chosen by Frank’s ancestors and passed down for hundreds of years. In the Imperial Capital, and even the whole Continent, it had some fame. The items sold there were all treasures selected by their family from various places. Especially the top-quality materials obtained from the Dwarves, almost eighty percent were there. It brought the family hundreds of thousands of Gold Coins in income every year. So this Planka shop was the lifeblood of the Augustus Family!

Hearing that Planka was the one robbed, Frank immediately became anxious. He went over, lifted the Steward up, and asked urgently, “What happened? Tell me clearly!”

“It is like this!” the Steward hurriedly said, “Someone just came to report. They said a person suddenly broke in during the night, smashed their way in from the front door, went straight into the warehouse, took everything inside, and even demolished the shop before walking away!”

“Damn it!” Frank nearly fainted upon hearing this. He cursed angrily, “You aren’t talking nonsense, are you? One person? I arranged at least dozens of Warriors there. How could one person rob the warehouse? Wait, I remember the warehouse door was foot-thick Refined Steel? How could that be broken by one person? Did those idiots not lock the door?”

“This humble one does not know clearly, but surely they could not have failed to lock the door. It was probably broken by force. Otherwise, those dozens of Warriors couldn’t have failed to stop him, with heavy casualties!” the Steward speculated.

“Broken by force? And easily defeated dozens of Warriors and demolished my shop?” Frank threw the Steward aside and thought carefully, saying, “With such strength, I fear he is not weaker than me. Strange, with skills like that, he could get a good treatment anywhere. Why resort to robbery? And why rob our family’s shop?”

“Damn it!” Frank suddenly shouted, “There must be a conspiracy here. Maybe a big family is behind this. Investigate! Mobilize all the strength the family can mobilize. Find the black hand behind this for me!”

“Yes!” The Steward immediately agreed and turned to leave.

In the following days, the entire Imperial Capital was almost turned upside down. Such a big matter couldn’t be hidden even if they wanted to. The news spread as if it had wings, circulating throughout the capital in a single morning. Even the Emperor was alarmed. All the nobles were shocked by the news, guessing who dared to pull hair from the Augustus Family’s mouth. No, more accurately, this was pulling teeth!

Those who had feuds with the Augustus Family naturally gloated. Some minor nobles tried every way to find the culprit’s origin, hoping to curry favor with the Augustus Family. In short, this incident caused a huge uproar, the repercussions affecting the entire Kingdom.

Of course, those families who also had valuable shops were jittery. They spent heavily to hire Experts to protect their shops, fearing they would be looted like the Augustus Family. One had to know, although the Augustus Family did not say how heavy the loss was, according to industry insiders, the inventory in that shop was worth at least 300,000 Gold Coins. Such a huge loss, even the powerful Augustus Family could hardly withstand it!

…

Old Xie naturally couldn’t be bothered to care about the storm outside. Actually, he knew better than anyone. In fact, the person who did it was him. As a Great Demon Lord, how could Old Xie lack money? If he wanted money, naturally he would rob. That was almost without a doubt.

As for the consequences, Old Xie didn’t care at all. Because when he robbed, he used the Behemoth form. This form was too strange; his arms were so long they could reach the ground. Anyone who saw it would remember it vividly.

Those witnesses would certainly search for the person based on this feature. Who would suspect Old Xie? One had to know, Old Xie now not only had a noble status, but his hands were also as slender and fair as a woman’s, and normal in length. He completely looked like a frail Mage. No one would connect him to that gorilla-like fellow. Unless he foolishly exposed this form himself, which would be a different matter.

Of course, this matter probably couldn’t be hidden from the Old Mage, after all, he knew the secret of Old Xie’s arms. However, with the Old Mage’s protective nature, even if he knew, he would definitely help Old Xie cover it up. And he might even shamelessly ask Old Xie for a share of the loot!

That day, after Old Xie returned, he cleaned up the loot a bit. These things included hundreds of catties of Snow Iron, Black Iron, Dwarf Threaded Refined Steel, over a hundred catties of Mithril and Fine Gold, and dozens of other very rare metals. There were also over a dozen top-quality Magical Beast skins, and over 200 Magical Beast Cores, almost all from Magical Beasts above Level 4. Additionally, there were some special items, such as finished Dwarf weapons and Armor, a few of each, adding up to several hundred catties.

Of course, there was also cash. Five black medium-sized bags filled with Gold Coins, roughly several thousand of them.