Stepping on the dirty snow that had not been cleaned in the yard, Daniel walked into the old foyer of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Since almost all the windows were closed and wooden covers were placed, the light inside was very dim. He stood at the door for a while before his eyes could adapt and barely see the surrounding environment.

"Good morning, lord!"

In the same shabby gatehouse, Old Evan, wearing a ragged military uniform, poked out his head full of frostbite and greeted him. Evan was a half-elf sailor who had just withdrawn from the battlefield a few months ago. Because his left leg was blown off by a shell, he was arranged to serve as a gatekeeper in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Among the disabled soldiers of the same fate as him, Evan's retirement was already quite good.

"Good morning, Evan! Why are you lazy, not only not opening the window, but even putting down the cover? The room is dark, what if you fall down?" Daniel knocked on the doorman and said unhappily to the window in the hall.

"Master, the firewood and coal used up for heating are all used up, and there are holes in the glass window. If the cold wind is poured in, it will be too much to bear!" Old Evan complained with a bitter face, "The fuel allocated by the superiors is getting less and less day by day, but the weather never gets warmer. It's not that I'm lazy, there's nothing I can do."

Daniel was speechless for a moment and took advantage of the faint light coming in from the door. He looked at Old Evan's old face because of malnutrition, glanced at his empty trouser legs, hesitated for a moment, and finally took out a piece of bacon that had just been received and stuffed it into the other party's hand that was dry and cracked like a tree bark. Then, he ignored the janitor's gratitude and quickly left.

Groping through the old walls and walking through the narrow and dark porch, Daniel finally stepped on the already decaying wooden spiral ladder. He walked in an irritating silence. He could hear nothing but his own footsteps. All the offices on both sides of the corridor were empty, and a few noble young masters had been slept here before, but they were now recruited to the front line. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which had not had many employees, is now even more gloomy and terrifying, as if they had been sleeping in a haunted house for hundreds of years.

Up the last rattled stairs and arrived at the end of the corridor. Daniel reached out and pushed open the door of his office - it was not locked, because there was nothing worth stealing. Then he took out the rationed food from the space ring and threw it on the only desk in the room. The glass brand on it was carved with ancient style, showing his current official position:

Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Elf Kingdom.

***

When it comes to diplomacy, most people will think of well-dressed diplomats, grand banquets, dances and diplomatic cocktails, witty and fierce rhetoric confrontations, as well as various private political transactions, coercion, and fraud. In short, diplomacy is an art of telling lies, while diplomats are professional liars under the banner of the country. Since they are liars, a decent suit is always indispensable. Generals may be able to show their joys and sorrows with their subordinates by gnawing coarse grains and wearing soldiers' uniforms, but diplomats cannot show their demeanor with shabby entertaining and ragged clothes. Therefore, logically speaking, no matter how difficult the government is, they cannot treat their diplomats badly. Otherwise, they will become an international laughing stock.

But unfortunately, now the diplomats in the Goblin Kingdom are no longer qualified to be a laughing stock.

Since the current elves' main god, the Chevrolet Church, instigated a large-scale attack on the human world, the diplomatic countries of the Elf Kingdom have begun to decrease sharply. More than a hundred years ago, the Elf Army Base Camp secretly replaced the embassy personnel with military suicide squads, and carried out suicide damage to the enemy countries before the war broke out, and the diplomats of the Elf Kingdom were widely regarded as extreme terrorists and dangerous bombs by various countries. Finally, the base camp was dazzled by the hatred propaganda of the Chevrolet Church. It began to kill the enemy diplomats to "demonstrate" before declaring war, and even the foreign envoys stationed in Luxipa disappeared.

Of course, the Elf Kingdom is still intact in the embassies of those vassal states. However, the so-called "ambassador" of the Supreme Emperor is more suitable than a diplomat. Since they are not real diplomats, they are not under the management of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but are directly appointed and governed by the Elf Army Base Camp, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs cannot make any move at all.

Therefore, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Elf Kingdom now has no embassy to manage, and there are no foreign envoys who are permanently stationed in the capital to deal with. Even if there are any treaties to be negotiated and signed, the domineering Elf Army base has always left the Ministry of Foreign Affairs alone.

In this way, it's like

Like the navy of the land country, the Foreign Ministry of the Elf Kingdom was completely reduced to the door. The poor diplomats finally lost the stage to display their talents, and then became without a trace from the political activities of the kingdom.

Daniel's dilapidated building is the last legacy of this poor department, and his subordinates are the only old Evan, the guardian, who is in a miserable situation and has a bright future.

***

After pulling the chair and sitting down, Daniel picked up the miniature kerosene stove on the table and wanted to make some hot tea, but the empty oil pot completely failed his plan - the kerosene he had to use up. In desperation, he had to recite a difficult spell, a faint flame rose from his fingers, and then moved the cup containing water to the fire with magic and began to heat it.

Burning water with magic is a very useful technique Daniel learned in this difficult era. After several times of burning the cup and having to chew ice in the middle of winter, he is now able to skillfully fix the flames under the teacup, and making hot tea with magic water is as skilled as making ice with magic to make cold drinks.

Although using magic to do these trivial facts is neither reputation nor economical, in the elves kingdom that prohibits all commercial trade, even if the mage makes magic scrolls and magic weapons, it cannot become the daily necessities and magic raw materials he wants. Anyway, everything has to be rationed, and magic cannot bring more supply of materials, so what's the point of being stingy? In their opinion, the spells that can be obtained every day are much cheaper than the fuel that is often out of stock.

While waiting for the water to boil, Daniel boredly looked through the newspaper this morning. Under the strict news inspection system, there was nothing to read in the newspaper, it was nothing more than recalling the scenery of the heyday of the elves, avenging revenge on the brutal dark elves and the humans who occupied the homes of their ancestors, advocating the establishment of a world of elves rule, and how many enemies were eliminated wherever they were, and what kind of celebrations were held by several churches. Daniel had been tired of reading the whole story of elves, but over the years, he also learned how to find the information needed from these elves, elves and even lies.

In a large section of articles filled with words such as "major damage to the enemy", "strategic transfer", "glorious sacrifice", and "breaking out of the siege", he pieced together a rather short piece of information: our army was attacked by the barbarians commanded by Tecumse, suffered heavy losses, and was forced to abandon the city of Tikal, the central central Mazka continent, and move towards the coastal area.

"It seems that for a long time, there was no hope for tea and coffee." He put down the newspaper in disappointment. Tikal City is the largest and only tea and coffee production area controlled by the Elf Kingdom. Once lost, in this country without trade, it means that two goods basically disappear from daily life. This really makes Daniel, who likes these two drinks the most, feel discouraged.

The water boiled, Daniel carefully extinguished the flames and took out the tea tube from the drawer and was about to pour it into the cup. However, when he thought of the report he had just read, he sighed and put the tea tube back, and then directly drank the boiled water in the cup, feeling a bitter feeling in his mouth - the dignified Foreign Minister was so poor that he couldn't even drink tea.

The military commander opposite from time to time came out of tune, which made him feel irritated. The military commander who controlled the power of national material distribution was drinking and caring day and night. Several drunk military commanders threw wine bottles into the street, and a strong fragrance of wine suddenly rose, and even Daniel sitting on the third floor could clearly smell it. His stomach, who had not drunk wine for two months, stirred up, and almost couldn't help but pick up the bottle.

This institution, monopolized by the believers of Chevrolets, did not make any contribution to the war, but only knew how to desperately plunder various scarce supplies: sugar, tea, coffee and chocolate from the mainland of Mazca, spirits brewed by dwarves, high-end industrial products produced by Yongju Island factory, anti-seasonal fruits and vegetables cultivated by magic, and grain and cloth forcibly collected from all over the country... They stuffed all decent things into their pockets in the name of military use, leaving all the residents with rags,

Although the grain was piled up in the warehouse and rotten, and the cotton coats were worms in the warehouse, it was difficult for the frontline soldiers to get a little bit of good things from these borers who were corrupt in the name of Chevrolets. They still fought bloody battles with the enemy in the midst of hunger and cold, snatching any food from the enemy for their stomachs. Even the spoils earned by their lives were taken away by the quarantine officer in the name of "unified distribution", but they never saw any separation again.
Chapter completed!