Noel and Dimitri were looking at the people from the top of the building. In front of them were thousands of civilians that had just arrived from the east mountain.
Because of the previous mission, Dimitri and Balott had to wait another night before returning to the city. And by the time they returned, the migration had started.
"She is accompanied by Madam Leysha and Damian. I believe she will be safe during the whole journey. While my strength is above Madam Leysha, our gap isn't that big." Dimitri explained.
"I see…" Noel didn't seem to react when he mentioned his mother's name. Considering she had made her appearance in his territory, he had expected things like this. So, Noel just felt relieved that Anna was accompanied by two powerful grandmasters.
Even if Damian tried to do something to them, Leysha and Anna could combine their strength and defeat Damian. In fact, he was more worried that Damian would be uncomfortable accompanying the former lady and the future lady of the Ardagan Family.
"So, there are indeed a lot of people. It's going to be hard for you to assign them work." Noel couldn't help but squint his eyes, focusing back on the matter at hand.
The soldiers had created a barrier so that the people could enter through the gap to be easily inspected.
"Master. You said you wanted to inspect them and find the spies among them. How are you going to do it?"
"It's pretty simple. I, too, have a unique ability like Anna's instinct. Most people will definitely be neutral toward me or even hold a good opinion of me. However, the spies won't be able to hide their intention from my eyes." Noel smirked while putting on the Affection Medal.
In that instant, numerous system panels appeared in his vision. It would be hard to look at them all at once, so he created that barrier so that only a few people could enter at a time.
What they didn't know was that the barrier of soldiers had been devised in order to trick the people and the spies.
Noel made a gesture, asking Dimitri to follow him.
He built a small post to ask some basic questions. Of course, some soldiers had also prepared some rations outside to pacify the rest of the civilians.
"I am Aerton, one of the Elite Knights of the Ardagan Family." A knight stood up and shouted, gathering everyone's attention. "We'll be inspecting every single one of you before allowing you to enter the city. Don't worry. It's just going to be a basic question like your name, age, and so on. We simply want to record your information for administration purposes. After that, just follow the soldiers."
Aerton paused for a moment before pointing at five people at the front. "You five go first."
The first five people entered. Two of them were young men, while the other three were middle-aged women.
Once they entered, they found five soldiers sitting next to each other. Each of them waved their hands to the people in front of them, asking, "Please come."
These people were nervous but still followed the instructions. The soldiers asked, "What is your name?"
The young man said, "I am Sigurd."
"How old are you?"
"I am 17 years old this year."
"What was your profession before coming to the city?"
"I helped my father on the farm."
"Last question, where do you come from?"
"I come from Levinie Village in the southwest."
The soldier nodded with a smile while handing him the paper containing his information. After that, he pointed at the two doors behind them and said, "Please go to the right door and hand the information to them. Someone will check your belongings just to ensure that you don't bring anything dangerous into the city."
The guy nodded his head. It wasn't that much different from the normal procedure in a big city.
Another soldier opened the door for him and stopped the others since they had to enter one at a time.
Of course, the women felt a bit skeptical as they knew that soldiers often took advantage of this opportunity to sexually harass them. However, the soldier who took care of the left door was a woman soldier.
She looked a bit weird, but the fact that there was a female soldier made it a bit reassuring.
"Please don't worry. We have female soldiers as well. They will check your luggage just to ensure that you don't bring anything dangerous inside. We won't sexually harass you or something." The female soldier smiled while opening the door wide. With a single peek, they could see a few female soldiers inside.
With this, the trust had been established and the people just got checked before entering the city.
"Next!" Aerton shouted.
The next five people entered the inspection room where they received the same question.
"What is your name, age, and previous profession? Lastly, where do you come from?" The soldier asked.
"August, 21 years old, a hunter. I come from Tusk City," A man answered the question eloquently as if he had gotten used to this.
"Got it. Please go to that door for inspection." The soldier handed the paper to August and allowed him inside.
There was nothing scary about these soldiers. But when he entered the room, someone hit the back of his neck, causing him to fall unconscious.
"Is this a spy?" Howard asked. He turned out to be the one who took down August with Noel's order. In fact, there was something different in August's identification paper. The first letter of his name had been underlined. Noel controlled his Spiritual Energy so that he could alarm the soldier and put a mark on the identification.
Once the soldiers noticed the mark, they would knock the person down.
Noel said, "It's hard to determine whose spies they were without any mark of identity in their bodies. But he should be from the Supreme Devil Organization."
"!!!" Howard hurriedly pointed at the man. "Strip him down."
Without hesitation, the soldiers pulled off the man's clothes and saw the organization's mark on his back. He truly came from the organization and since he still had a bold mark on his body, it was clear that he was just a low level spy.
"It's truly a spy." Howard and the soldiers gasped in disbelief.
"See?" Noel smiled. "I could see them, so while it's too much to ask, I hope that you can believe my signal."
Howard nodded. "Don't worry, my lord. If they are spies, we'll definitely not treat them lightly." He turned to the soldiers. "Bring him to jail. I will personally torture these spies once this is over."
The soldiers followed his instruction and cleaned up the place as quickly as possible before the next person came in.
Of course, Noel could find it. After all, the man had a unique affection for him.
Name: Sevren
Affection: Hatred (90/100)
Description: Hate you because you killed his comrades.
Noel had never poked any other nobles, so there was only one organization he had fought the whole time, the Supreme Devil Organization.
Noel had asked the soldiers to differentiate the people in four ways. The first one was a normal citizen. He didn't mark them in any way and just let them go through.
The second one was the underline like earlier, indicating that they were spies. The third one was a dot underneath their names, which indicated that they had lied about their names. The Affection didn't indicate that they were spies, but they still needed to be observed because they lied about their names.
The last one was a special profession like a magician, a powerful expert, and so on. This one could receive a mark depending on their affection as well.
This was Noel's way to stop the spies from entering the city. He didn't have any intention of letting them give any information for the time being.
After all, they couldn't lie to the system medal no matter how genius they were in hiding their emotions and feelings. Unless they brainwashed themselves, they couldn't pass.
However, this kind of process was very taxing. Even after the soldiers refined their method to make it faster, they still needed one minute for every single person.
Since they came five at a time, they could only allow three hundred people to enter per hour.
There were about two to three thousand people in the first batch. Including the time they needed to organize the people and the rest of the inspection, it ended up taking the entire day to finish the migration.
Of course, Noel had given the ration to people who were waiting for their turn. And when they entered, there was also food and water as well as the wonderfulness of this city.
Noel had asked Douglas to create some temporary settlement for these people right at the beginning of the construction.
So, they would at least have a roof on their heads once they entered.
Though, the people would have a hard time living together with the rest of the people. And Noel had asked Dimitri to gather special talents and workers in the first batch so that they wouldn't mind being treated as workers right away.
After a long day, Howard finally came to him to report on the result.
"We have a total of 2,891 people in the batch. 76 of them are spies. I will investigate and interrogate them personally. 210 of them have lied regarding their names, so they might have some hidden intention of entering the city. It's impossible to observe all of them, but we will be careful.
"Last but not least, there are about 89 people with special talents. Of course, the kids that you mentioned are among them. They have been guided to a different place if you'd like to meet them."
Noel couldn't help but smile. He had seen Erica and Eric leading the rest of the group inside. Unfortunately, he couldn't greet them just yet.
"I will meet them later. So, tell me about these special talents."
"Yes, sir. The special talents I'm talking about are high level people in their profession. There are a lot of advanced blacksmiths among them. It seems that Mr. Roel's influence as well as the enticement of Runes have brought them here."
"That's good. We need a lot of blacksmiths. Let Roel take care of them later."
"Understood. There are also twenty experts among them. Three of them are Spirit Masters with two of them being Spirit Magicians. We don't know their intention, but they are not lying about their identities.
"The rest of them vary from Spirit Practitioner to Spirit Wielders. There is also a former mercenary captain, whom I might recruit to help me organize soldiers.
"As for the rest, there are special cases like intelligent people. Douglas's acquaintance is among them. I believe that's all." Howard finished his reports after rechecking them a few more times.
"Let the soldiers cooperate with Dimitri and Charlotte to divide them according to their abilities. The men could work on the construction, the women could help with tailoring and cooking, and the kids could help with some lighter things. As much as I hate to say it, everyone has to contribute. The more they contribute, the higher the chances are for them to be able to live here.
"Don't forget to pay their wages. Since we have nothing right now, just tell them to save their wages. We'll provide them with all the necessities. As for those special talents, I will look at the details later and assign them according to their talents," Noel replied to the reports.
"Understood."
"Also, check the number of people that can be turned into soldiers. We need at least a few hundred normal soldiers if we want to defend ourselves. We'll get more soldiers in the second batch."
"Understood. I will make sure that we have enough soldiers to take care of the city."
"This is the most important thing. Don't mistreat them. The higher their opinion of this city, the better. They are going to be the image of the city and ensure the success of the next migration and everything beyond that."
"Yes, sir. The soldiers know their duty. If they take advantage of this situation, I will be the one to personally punish them."
"Good. Let's go on our way." Noel nodded while waving his hand. It seemed that he was pretty eager to meet the kids.
