149: Avril's Decision

Since the army's strength had skyrocketed, they no longer needed so many people at their original garrison positions.

The Northern Anti-Orc Legion, the Royal Capital's Guard Legion, and the original garrison armies of Isaac and Monstan.

Each of them detached one-third of their manpower to occupy the new territories.

A total of 1.5 million troops were dispatched to garrison various parts of the kingdom.

With so many troops marching through and garrisoning various parts of the kingdom, countless people witnessed the strength of this new army under Arthur's command.

At first, people couldn't believe their eyes—how could an army composed entirely of Bronze Knights possibly exist!

Shouldn't such a powerful army be something only great noble families could afford to support?

People in small places saw this and exclaimed, "How is it that even a small town of a few tens of thousands now requires hundreds of Bronze Knights to garrison it?"

People in those large cities with hundreds of thousands or millions of residents were even more astonished, because the garrisons sent to their cities numbered in the tens of thousands.

Seeing an army composed of tens of thousands of Bronze Knights, they all dropped their jaws in shock!

The Kate Kingdom's royal Family had never successfully formed an army composed of so many experts, yet Arthur was now sending them to garrison even less important cities.

From this small glimpse, everyone seemed to see the profound foundation of the new king, Arthur.

Of course, at first, people thought that some major event was about to happen in their vicinity!

That was why this powerful army had been sent to their city, but as information began to circulate...

…people slowly realized that an unbelievable army like this, composed entirely of Bronze Knights!

Arthur had actually dispatched over a million of them. Such an astonishing number completely shocked all the various factions within the Lionheart Kingdom.

It made them almost never dare to harbor any disloyal thoughts toward Arthur, the king.

Because the gap in strength between the two sides was too great; when you can only look up to others, you can only feel admiration!

...

Among those countless intimidated factions, the Dawn Merchant Guild, which had been secretly trading with Arthur, was one of them.

The Dawn Merchant Guild was able to operate across several kingdoms because they had several Legendary Experts behind them.

However, regarding Arthur's grand gesture of over a million Bronze Knights, they had only ever seen such things in the top Empires of the Continent of Gods.

From this, one could see that the current Lionheart Kingdom was far from ordinary.

Furthermore, the current Lionheart Kingdom possessed The Three Legends, and among The Three Legends was a Legendary Dragon; this power made it a formidable nation among the many kingdoms.

Even for the Dawn Merchant Guild, the number of Legendary Experts behind them was roughly the same.

Originally, the Dawn Merchant Guild in the Kate Kingdom was merely a branch, without even a single Legendary Expert stationed there, so now they had to take the Lionheart Kingdom seriously.

As the current branch president of the Lionheart Kingdom, Avril deeply understood this logic.

The purple-haired girl stood on the top floor of the Dawn Merchant Guild pavilion in Mad Lion City, her willow-leaf eyebrows slightly furrowed, clearly deep in thought.

Because of the secret trade with Arthur, the headquarters of the Dawn Merchant Guild in the Lionheart Kingdom had long since moved from the Royal Capital to Mad Lion City.

And the monthly transaction volume of tens of millions had long made Avril the most dazzling new star among the new generation of the Dawn Merchant Guild's Family members.

But this was not enough. Avril knew that while wealth could rapidly elevate her status within the Dawn Merchant Guild...

…to become true high-level management of the guild, or even the next leader, she needed the support of experts; otherwise, this so-called rapid rise had a Bottleneck.

And the support of experts was precisely what she lacked!

Because her mother was merely a singer, she was not favored by her father, who was the current leader of the Dawn Merchant Guild.

This could be seen from the fact that even after Avril had achieved such great results, she was still in such a remote corner as the Kate Kingdom.

Of course, the previous Kate Kingdom could indeed be considered both remote and weak, but the current Lionheart Kingdom was somewhat different.

Since the leader of the Dawn Merchant Guild, who was Avril's father, did not like her, the Family's Legendary Experts naturally would not support her.

Because her father was himself a Legendary Expert, other experts had no need to offend a Legendary Expert for the sake of Avril.

Come to think of it, if Avril was so disliked by her father, why did her father let her mother give birth to her!

It was mainly because, as a Legendary Expert, Avril's father—such a powerful expert—had undergone some transformations in his life form, so the probability of them producing offspring with ordinary people was quite low.

It could be said to be almost non-existent!

Of course, due to the transformation of their life forms, the probability of them producing offspring with peers of equal strength was not much higher.

Therefore, after a one-night fling, Avril's father simply left and did not take the matter to heart.

It wasn't until several years later, when Avril's mother came knocking, that this leader of the Dawn Merchant Guild realized he had an extra daughter.

Unfortunately, this leader of the Dawn Merchant Guild was not lacking in offspring, because before he became a powerful expert, he had taken many wives and had many children.

Avril had at least a dozen siblings.

And since Avril's mother's status was that of a lowly singer, she naturally wasn't favored.

Returning to the main topic, without Legendary support, wanting to become the true power-holder of the Family was just a pipe dream.

Avril was certainly not resigned to continuing like this; having lived from childhood to adulthood under the contemptuous gazes of her siblings, she urgently wanted to prove something.

Since she could not obtain support from the Legendary Experts in the Family, she had to seek another way and find external help.

The current Lionheart Kingdom was a good ally; it was powerful but lacked material circulation with the outside world, and the Dawn Merchant Guild could just happen to serve as this transit station.

Moreover, in Avril's eyes, Arthur had already initially demonstrated his ambition; a rapidly developing kingdom required a massive amount of resources, and the Dawn Merchant Guild could provide all of that.

Therefore, after much deliberation, Avril finally decided to go to the Royal Capital to visit Arthur, this king who was about the same age as her, to seek cooperation.

The next day, when Arthur was in the palace thinking with Victor and the others about how to conduct the war against the Orcs...

…a guard suddenly came to report that Avril, the branch president of the Dawn Merchant Guild in the Lionheart Kingdom, requested an audience.

Arthur was aware of and familiar with Avril.

Although the two had never truly met, as someone who could bring Arthur tens of millions of gold coins in revenue every month, how could Arthur not know her?

Arthur was somewhat curious about her arrival, and at the same time, Arthur happened to have matters that needed Avril, this Dawn Merchant Guild executive, to help handle.

After all, Arthur had raided the Kate Kingdom and the Orc Royal Court countless times and had obtained various treasures worth over five billion.

If Arthur wanted to exchange those treasures for gold coins, he really had to rely on the Dawn Merchant Guild.