"Ulrich wants me to go to Akashi's shop?"
With Prinz Eugen speaking so close to his ear, Lin Lan instinctively leaned to the other side, pressing against Bismarck.
"Oh, I get it. It must be about that Overlord Mecha girl, Suiqiong. I really do need to go there in person."
Lin Lan had a rough idea of the reason. If they were going to awaken Suiqiong, he had to be there himself; otherwise, something unexpected could happen.
After all, this Overlord Mecha, created by the Prime Cube, only recognized him. She wasn't familiar with the other shipgirls, so she would need time to get to know them.
"Commander, I need to meet with Graf Zeppelin to get up to speed on the current affairs and plans of the port. I won't be joining you."
Bismarck spoke calmly, already back to her usual dignified and meticulous self when handling her daily duties.
"Are you sure you can find Graf Zeppelin? Eugen, why don't you escort Bismarck there?"
"No need. I can run into any of our comrades along the way, and they'll point me to Graf Zeppelin."
"You two should go to Akashi's place together. Just keep an eye on the time—don't miss the banquet tonight."
Bismarck stood up from the sofa and said this to him.
Lin Lan thought that made sense.
Since they were all in the port, Bismarck only needed to ask any Iron Blood shipgirl for directions. So, he didn't say anything more.
After all, Bismarck was the flagship of the Iron Blood faction, and she naturally had more responsibilities than the other shipgirls.
Once Prinz Eugen picked up the battle report on Operation Brunhilde that Ulrich had sent over, the group in the office left the command building together.
At the port's crossroads outside the command building, Lin Lan and the others waved goodbye to Bismarck for now.
Then, accompanied by the four sisters of the Hipper family, Lin Lan walked while flipping through the battle report.
Battleaxe Industries had deployed three reinforcement units to Dongyun City via the upper river and land routes.
These units included two mecha-motorized divisions and one cruiser fleet composed of non-shipgirl warships.
However, under the submarine wolfpack ambushes, aerial strikes, and long-range artillery bombardments of Brunhilde and her forces, these three reinforcement units were utterly annihilated.
It was a complete slaughter—Battleaxe Industries didn't even have a chance to fight back.
But Lin Lan wasn't looking at the battle damage; he was focused on where these three units had come from.
"Among the six-city alliance in the East Sea, Battleaxe Industries only has Lanjiang City left under its control. The other two units came from Battleaxe's directly governed cities."
"I'll have Jian Qian'ou send me a detailed report on Battleaxe Industries' headquarters. Since oil is no longer an issue, let's try to wrap up the Western Continent's affairs before the New Year and get out of here."
After finishing the report, Lin Lan made up his mind.
There were still a little over two months before the New Year.
Once Friedrich der Große led the final batch of Iron Blood shipgirls here, he could start preparing to take them back to their home port.
As for the Eagle Union, he wasn't planning to bring the entire Iron Blood faction along. A few shipgirls would be enough to escort him there.
After all, in the Eastern Continent, the Eagle Union also had a corporate vassal, so they wouldn't be lacking in oil. That meant he could return to the old port fairly quickly.
Once he and the Eagle Union shipgirls arrived at the old port, he would decide which faction to retrieve next.
He handed the battle report to his secretary shipgirl, Blücher, who had been smiling sweetly by his side the whole time. Then, he pulled out his phone.
Now that the port was connected to the internet, his phone could access Orlan Continent's network.
Opening a news website, Lin Lan was surprised to find that there was no mention of Dongyun City on the front page.
After carefully browsing and confirming that there was indeed nothing, he logged into a forum to search for keywords.
There were quite a few discussion threads about Dongyun City.
However, these threads were clearly being restricted—not a single image had been uploaded, and many posts disappeared as soon as he refreshed the page.
"Jian Qian'ou really knows his stuff when it comes to media control. He's got this locked down tight."
Lin Lan silently commented, then put his phone back in his pocket.
Battleaxe Industries had suffered a silent loss. At this point, they probably didn't even know what had happened to Dongyun City.
Before figuring out the situation, they definitely wouldn't risk using the media to publicize that Tian'ou had taken over Dongyun City. Otherwise, they'd just be embarrassing themselves.
On the other hand, Tian'ou Group's ability to restrict information flow was even more extreme than what he had seen on Blue Star.
Thinking about it carefully, it actually made sense. Since this world had no satellites, the nodes of the Orlan internet were entirely controlled by the corporate conglomerates.
Even though both Tian'ou Group and Battleaxe Industries were major conglomerates within the Zhu Hai Business Association, Battleaxe Industries was undoubtedly stronger in military matters.
But when it came to soft power, there was still a significant gap between them and the Tian'ou Group.
At that moment, Lin Lan suddenly felt several scorching gazes directed at him from behind.
He stopped in confusion and turned to look.
However, aside from the shrubs on both sides of the road, there was not a single person in sight.
"Hey, idiot, what are you dawdling around back there for?"
Hipper, who was walking at the front, noticed Lin Lan had stopped and turned around. She spoke in a haughty tone, questioning him.
"Strange, have I not been resting well lately? Am I just getting paranoid?"
Lin Lan hesitated. He was certain he had just felt more than one pair of eyes watching him from behind.
Yet, even when he activated his hero's power to scan the area, he found nothing—no hidden demons or anything of the sort.
"I'm coming, I'm coming. Stop rushing me. You know, haste makes waste."
Lin Lan decided to just let it go. After all, there was no way an outsider could sneak into the port area.
The current port defense system, having been perfected by Iron Blood, was not something to be taken lightly.
"Hah? If you dare say that in front of Peter, you'll see if she doesn't use carrier-based aircraft to correct your sense of time."
As soon as Lin Lan walked up to Hipper's side, the tsundere blonde, flat-chested eldest sister glared at him fiercely with her emerald-green eyes.
Beside her, Weser chuckled and added,
"From what I know about Sister Peter, if she heard that, she'd probably schedule your daily agenda down to the minute and personally supervise you."
Thinking about that strict time-management master, Peter, who planned everything meticulously and hated wasting even a second, Lin Lan realized she was entirely capable of doing just that.
"Please, spare me. If that happens, I'd basically turn into a robot."
Under the afternoon sunlight of late autumn, the group continued chatting idly as they made their way toward Akashi's shop.
However, Lin Lan's intuition was not wrong.
Behind him, there were indeed a few little "peeping toms" tailing him.
Once Lin Lan and the others had walked a bit farther away, a few adorable Iron Blood chibis peeked their heads out from the greenery on both sides of the road.
They were none other than the Iron Blood wolfpack submarines.
"U-96, I really felt like the Commander noticed us just now,"
The white-haired, slightly airheaded submarine chibi, U-110, looked at the Commander's retreating back and whispered uncertainly.
"Impossible, absolutely impossible,"
The lively, beige twin-tailed chibi, U-96, watched Lin Lan getting farther away with her golden eyes and declared confidently,
"With our wolfpack's skills, we've never been caught before when tailing the Commander. There's no way he noticed us."
In the port, secretly following and spying on the Commander was a favorite pastime of submarine shipgirls from every faction.
Even though they knew the Commander couldn't detect them, submarines simply enjoyed the thrill of sneaking around unseen, following their target in secret.
It was something they never tired of.
However, just as U-96 finished speaking, she noticed that the red-haired, long twin-tailed, slightly slow-witted U-1206—who was hiding in the same bush as her—seemed hesitant to speak.
"U-1206, if you have something to say, spit it out. No holding back."
U-96 grabbed U-1206 into her arms and pinched her chubby, rosy cheeks, questioning her with mock ferocity.
Feeling the gaze of her wolfpack comrades on her, U-1206 hesitated before sighing and saying,
"U-96, you guys just got here, so you don't know. The Commander has already switched professions to become a mage. He probably noticed us a long time ago."
Hiding in another bush, U-101, who wore a baseball cap, and the underwater knight U-556, also had a realization upon hearing U-1206's words.
"That's right! How did we forget about that? The Commander can use all sorts of amazing magic now—he's not the same as before!"
Hearing this from the three wolfpack members who had arrived at the new port earlier, U-96, U-81, U-37, and the little white-haired shark U-110 were left dumbfounded.
"Hmph, I don't believe it. I'll make the Commander show us his magic later. Seeing is believing!"
The black-haired, red-highlighted chibi, U-37, who wore a black swimsuit, became even more curious about the Commander's magic after hearing this.
"Exactly, seeing is believing! Just hearing about it means nothing. There's no way the Commander actually knows magic. It's not like he's the witch Auguste."
The lively pink-haired chibi, U-81, also expressed her doubts.
As the wolfpack chibis debated amongst themselves, a stern chibi voice suddenly rang out from behind them.
"Hey, what are you wolfpack girls sneaking around here for?"
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50 advanced chapters on p@t re on (.) com/SenatusTheta
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