Chapter 51 - Seizing
As the only millennial force of Thousand Sails City, the Monchi Family truly had a frightening amount of influence. Three days after Ryan paid a visit to Granger, the Gilded Rose was notified that the Alchemist Guild would seize their goods.
A small, middle-aged Alchemist who was about forty to fifty years old came to see them. He stood at the entrance of the Gilded Rose, looking up with a condescending expression on his face.
This wasn’t particularly aimed at the Gilded Rose.
This was the normal attitude of a member of the Alchemist Guild. Those of the renowned Alchemist Guild tended to have this attitude toward all the alchemy shops of Thousand Sails City, including the one of the Flashing Gold chamber of commerce of the past.
In their eyes, even if these alchemy shops appeared impressive, they were only puppets of the Alchemist Guild.
Without the Alchemist Guild’s authorization, they couldn’t even recruit one decent alchemist, because the Alchemist Guild had control over the entire industry. The survival of these alchemy shops could be decided by a mere word from the Alchemist Guild.
Just like this Gilded Rose…
The Hope Potion unveiled a few days ago had put the Gilded Rose in the limelight, but now, with just a word from the Alchemist Guild, it was suddenly faced with the danger of having their goods seized.
“Alchemist Molin, what… What is this?” Lin Yun had been at the Sage Tower for the past few days, so only the old butler was left in charge of the Gilded Rose. Hearing that someone from the Alchemist Guild had come to visit, he hurriedly went out to welcome him. But once he got to the lobby, the face of the old butler stiffened.
Ten alchemists wearing black robes were sticking papers marked [Seized] on goods that lined the shelves. Each time they stuck a paper on something, the Alchemist taking the inventory would record it. And the one in charge of this was Alchemist Molin, who the old butler had dealt with a few times.
In the Alchemist Guild, Molin was in charge of market supervision.
When the Gilded Rose was re-opening, the old butler specially paid a visit to this Molin a few times so that the Alchemist Guild wouldn’t make trouble for them. He even gave him a few generous bribes.
At that time, Molin patted his chest and guaranteed that the matters of the Gilded Rose would be his matters, and that if there was ever an issue, he would seek them out personally to resolve it before it became an official problem.
The old butler never expected that a month later, Molin, who had said those words so confidently, would be seizing the goods of the Gilded Rose…
“Please wait, this must be a misunderstanding…” After a quick glance around, the old butler knew that something had gone awry. Flustered, he hurriedly stopped the black-robed men from sticking more papers while requesting help from the person he had bribed. “Alchemist Molin, can we have a few words?”
“You can say what you want to say here.” If it was before, Molin might have still agreed to chat in private because that would mean that he might potentially receive some more profits… but this time, Molin didn’t even consider it and immediately rejected it.
“This…” The old butler suddenly understood how bad the situation was, but he still kept a smiling face. “Okay, Alchemist Molin, can I ask why are the Gilded Rose’s products being seized?”
“Why is it being seized?” Molin snorted, “Don’t you yourself know about what the Gilded Rose did? Old Pave, your Gilded Rose is in big trouble this time. For the sake of our previous friendship, I advise you to not ask too much about it and to quickly help my people take the goods before explaining everything in the upcoming hearing. Don’t think that you’ll be lucky, the problem with your Gilded Rose is very serious.”
“Hearing…”
“This is a decision from above. Finding someone to plead for you is useless.” Molin rolled his eyes and then glanced at the progress of his subordinates. Deciding that it was too slow, he grabbed a few of the seals himself and stuck the papers on some of the goods while instructing his subordinates, “These, these, and these, bring all these back for me.”
The only difference was that the goods that the black-robed alchemists had seized were goods that they had been told might be problematic, while the ones Molin seized were all the most expensive items of the Gilded Rose.
Molin’s favorite activity was closing down alchemy shops because confiscating the stock of an alchemy shop would bring in a large amount of income. Even now, the few goods he chose were worth a few hundred thousand golds. If he brought them back to the Alchemist Guild, they would be personally processed by Molin.
And if some of the goods were damaged and had to be disposed of, that definitely couldn’t be blamed on Molin. Alchemical goods were very frail, so it was normal for some damage to appear, right?
Then again, who could look into that?
The shuttered Gilded Rose? At such a time, they would have to worry about their hearing first…
Molin quickly looked around the shelves. Every expensive item that fell into his gaze made his face expose a hint of excitement and greed.
One item, two items, three items…
In a short period of time, eight expensive items had been seized by Molin, but he still was not yet satisfied. His eyes turned toward the staircase to the 2nd floor. Molin’s intuition told him that the truly precious items were most likely in the alchemy laboratory.
“You, you, you, and you, follow me up.” Molin pointed at a few black-robed alchemists and walked over to the 2nd floor with them.
But, just as Molin stepped foot onto the staircase, a soft sound echoed through the air.
Before Molin could understand what had happened, he was ruthlessly sent flying.
Fortunately, he didn’t go very high.
Thus, he quickly fell down.
However, he landed face first…
“Who! Who is it!” Molin got up from the ground with difficulty, his face in a bad state. It looked sort of like a peach, with red and white mixed together in a mess. “Who dares to sneak attack me! Have the guts to show yourself!”
Molin then saw his attacker come out.
He was a thin, 20-year-old mage with a pale complexion who was dressed in a brand new black robe. He stood there with his right hand still raised after having cast Tornado Whip.
“You are the one who attacked me?” Although the Alchemist Guild had always been relatively low-key unlike the powerful Mage Guild, whose might shook the entire Thousand Sails City, it had the power to rule over the industry. The Alchemist Guild’s members always had a feeling of superiority over everyone else.
Especially Molin, who was able to control the market. In Thousand Sails City, he could be described as harsh and unreasonable. Usually, the alchemy shops having their goods seized would have to sweet talk Molin out of fear that they might be accused of some additional offense. But today, he was actually attacked with a Tornado Whip as he was about to inspect the alchemy laboratory.
This was simply a humiliation!
“I am Mafa Merlin.” Lin Yun didn’t care about Molin’s expression as he slowly walked out of the crowd and entered the lobby of the Gilded Rose, before stopping in front of the bloodied Molin. “The Gilded Rose you are closing down just so happens to belong to me.”
“Mafa Merlin?” Molin was dazed. He then remembered that Locke Merlin indeed had a son named Mafa Merlin.
But so what if it was Locke Merlin’s son? Even if Locke Merlin himself had committed such an offense, he would have had to pay the price, let alone his son.
“You dared to do this to me?” Molin stared at Lin Yun, his voice full of repressed anger. “Do you know what you are doing? Do you know the consequences of interfering with the Alchemist Guild’s market supervision?”
“What consequences?”
“Haha, you’ll know about it after I bring you back.” Molin waved his hand and his black-robed subordinates quickly surrounded Lin Yun. “Capture this individual and bring him back. To dare to sneak attack me, such nerve…”
“Understood.”
Naturally, this group of alchemists wasn’t weak, as they had been sent to seize expensive goods, which could cause conflict. They were all at least 5th Rank Mages, and some of them had even reached the 9th Rank. After hearing Molin’s command, powerful mana fluctuations suddenly filled the Gilded Rose.
“How come it’s so lively?” But at this time, an aged voice came from within the crowd.
“The Alchemist Guild is carrying out official business, unrelated people had better step back,” Molin coldly sneered as his black-robed subordinates got ready to capture Lin Yun.
“The Alchemist Guild seems quite high-handed. Go back and ask Lys if he dares to make me step back.”
“Leader Lys’ name isn’t something that…” Molin stopped mid-sentence. He suddenly felt that this aged voice was a bit familiar…
Thinking of this, Molin couldn’t help turning around.
Then, his face turned deathly pale…
‘Fuck… Solomon!’
At that split second, Molin felt as if he had been struck by thunder, and his eyes filled with fear. He looked at Solomon like he saw a monster appear. The expression on his bloody face was a mix of shock, fear, and loss. Molin almost wanted to cry.
For some time, Molin’s mind was blank. One thought kept appearing over and over again: ‘How could it be Solomon, and what is he doing here?’