It is impossible to find someone by following traces on a road paved with hard bricks and stones. It was already close to lunch time, and there were not too many pedestrians on the road. In addition, the two of them were not familiar with the place, so it was no surprise that they lost sight of their target after they came out.
The sheriff named Vega was worried that Ferry would run out and go directly to the Duke's house to seek revenge, but after a little analysis of the other party's psychology, Henry judged that he would probably not do this. He just lost his mother a year ago. Even with the help of neighbors, for this young boy who starts to feel like an adult and wants to live alone but doesn't know what to do, he will probably I started to feel confused about my future.
In this case, he learned the truth about the murder - or at least the object of suspicion, and made an agreement with Sheriff Vega, and within a year he became a green-label mercenary on his own.
Anger and revenge may also be present, but more likely, after becoming helpless and alone, they instinctively try to grab something and hold on to a goal to keep themselves from getting lost.
So when Vega broke their agreement and wanted to hire Henry and Mira to carry out this task, what Ferry felt was not anger and hatred, but panic and helplessness similar to being abandoned. .
The goal he had been working towards for a long time was lost. The boy was at a troubled age and had experienced a lot. He didn't know what to do next - so he turned around and ran away. In this situation, what would a person do? The choices are always strikingly similar.
"Let's search separately." The alley ahead was twisted and twisted. Henry and Mira, who had just arrived, were not familiar with the environment here. After briefly mentioning to the girl where the other party might go, the sage did Such a decision was made.
"Yes." The white-haired Luoan girl nodded. She could understand the other person's current thoughts to a certain extent, so she also knew quite well how warm it would be to have other people's company at this time.
Girls are always more mature than boys of the same age, especially Mira, who has lived alone for quite some time. Young boys at this troubled age will rebelliously deny their inner desire for companionship. Even if they are very afraid of loneliness, they will still choose to turn around and run away because of their tangled inner feelings, hiding in a corner and sobbing alone.
The crooked alleyways resemble a maze of the god of mischief, for they are all made of easily molded masonry. Most of the houses on this side are two to three stories high. The city-state's area is no longer small, but the dense buildings still make it extremely difficult to identify directions.
Turn left, turn right.
Light women's leather boots stepped through the water on the road. Mira deliberately controlled her breathing and looked left and right.
The long-gauntleted one-handed sword made a metallic sound as he walked. Many residents poked their heads out of their homes to look at the white uninvited guest. The girl explored the left and right sides intently, and Henry told her that Ferry's conflicting thoughts caused part of him to not want to be found, but another part of him longed to be found, so he would mostly hide in places "that can be seen at a glance but usually are not." In the corner where no one will notice.
"Click-" There was a sound in the dark alley on the right, and Mira turned her head, but it was just a huge rat.
"Ah..." The surrounding environment began to become quiet at some point. The smoke, the aroma of food, the sound of clinking tableware and people's conversations all seemed very far away. The air here was cold and smelled of rancidity.
There were more rats, and Mira slowed down.
"Slums..." She muttered in a low voice and tightened her hand on the hilt of the sword.
There will be things like slums in any city-state, but the abandoned houses in Monroe's northern city are just like ordinary houses. The reason why they were abandoned can be seen from the map - this side is quite close to the Duke's Palace.
Human nature.
If your neighbors were dying miserably every now and then, it would be natural to move away—or maybe there was more to it than that? There was something in Klant written on the wall of a nearby house in black wood paint. Although Mira couldn't understand the content, there was a scrawled painting on it depicting a group of green-label mercenaries beating civilians. appearance.
She didn't pay much attention. Keep going.
The wooden doors and windows that lacked maintenance were covered with moss, and some grass had grown out of the dirt accumulated on the ground of the half-open doorway. A crow on the high balcony guardrail turned its head and looked down at the girl below with emotionless eyes. In the dark corner, snakes, rats, rats and ants were running rampant.
A homeless homeless man who was soaked was curled up and shivering in a corner, trying to get some sleep. The growling sound from his stomach made the girl feel a little sympathetic, but she He looked further away - there were more people there.
More than half a year ago, when she was still in the Land of Eternal Spring, Mira would not hesitate to go up and give the dry food she carried to the other party, but after experiencing many things, she has more or less understood that such kindness is counterproductive to some extent. The fact that it will cause trouble to the other party.
She didn't bring enough food to give to all the homeless people, so when Mira gave it to one of them, the others were likely to attack that person in a fight for the food.
It's no use justifying yourself afterwards as having good intentions. A half-hearted kindness that you don't have enough ability to display actually messes up the matter. And still at this moment when she had something to do - she controlled her impulse, and then continued to search forward vigilantly.
In addition to homeless vagrants, there are also various desperadoes in the second half of the abandoned residential area. Although the girl has mastered a lot of skills recently, and the badge on her chest also has certain deterrent presence. But those thugs who lick blood from their knives may not necessarily back down.
Killing someone is still a stressful thing for her.
Focusing on the search and not looking at the road, she lost her way and ran to a place like this. It was a big mistake. However, carefully recalling the location of the murder marked on the map by the Sheriff, Mira felt that Ferry might have run back to his past home. Sex is quite high. So she continued to run forward based on her general memory. After approaching the area, she slowed down and started searching left and right.
The level of devastation here seemed even worse than behind it. The girl noticed that the wooden doors of many houses had traces of being damaged by violence. Combined with the fact that the furniture inside was overturned left and right, the tiles were shattered and left a mess on the ground. She thought again of the scrawled murals she had seen before.
"Is this also done by mercenaries..." She frowned, then carefully stepped on the black and moss-covered stairs to the second floor to check.
——No one is there.
The tiny beetles and the common centipedes and centipedes in humid areas made Mira's scalp tingle. She suppressed this feeling and searched from house to house.
Mira did not shout Ferry's name loudly. She didn't want to attract the attention of the potentially dangerous people on this side. This low-key style came naturally to her without Henry's teaching. A girl who was once at the bottom of society still retains the instinct of a weakling.
One house after another.
Time is ticking by, and in the ruins of Nuoda's slum, the boy's figure is nowhere to be found.
Mira stopped to take a breath. She didn't know how many detours she had taken or how far she had traveled. There was no clock nearby to judge by, and the sun's rays were extremely bright on the unobstructed road. The temperature began to rise higher and higher, and she walked to the shade beside the street to enjoy the coolness, and it was at this time. There was some kind of noise in the alley next to me.
The noise was loud, not like something like a rat could make, at least someone of human size could make it.
"Feli?" The Luoan girl poked her head out from where she was sitting, and as she shouted, the voice stopped instantly.
"Is it you, Ferri...you may not know me, it was Sheriff Vega who asked us to come to you -" Mira lowered her voice and stood up and turned around, but followed by her right A voice sounded from behind.
"What are you doing here?" Mira was stunned for a moment by the familiar boy's voice, and then turned around.
He has some freckles on his face. The skin is a wheat color that has been tanned by being outdoors all year round. The blond hair is short, and the emerald green eyes like the badge on her chest reflect the girl's somewhat complicated emotions, including surprise, envy, and hesitation, but these all turned into the next moment she heard the voice in the alley. panicked.
"Feli, if you are here, there -" "Follow me quickly!" Feli took Mira's hand and turned around to run away, and the voice in the alley suddenly became manic, and followed The owner of the heavy muffled voice appeared in front of the two of them in the next second——
"Oh evil——"
She hesitated for a moment, so she could see the person clearly. The first thing that bore the brunt was not the visual but the olfactory impact. The stench from not taking a shower for an unknown amount of time made people quite uncomfortable. Flies were lingering around him, and the tall man with a messy hair and beard and yellow skin suddenly let out a cry. A meaningless roar.
"Roar!" The girl almost fainted from the breath he blew out due to his roar, which was full of rotten teeth. And Ferry pulled her hard again.
"That's Mad Mike. He bites whoever he catches, and eats whoever he bites to death." Ferry grabbed Mira's wrist and pulled her staggering, and the girl who reacted straightened up and started to fight with him. Run wildly.
They ran a long distance. The tall bum was quickly shaken off. But for the sake of the insurance fee, he still pulled Mira and kept turning left and right. He stopped when he finally came to a relatively clean place where he could smell the aroma of food and hear the conversations of the residents.
"Huh...huh..." The long walk before and this short sprint made the white-haired Luoan girl support her legs and start breathing heavily. This made Fei Li, who was just gasping for breath, wrinkled. brow.
"You are such a strange guy." His words were very impolite, and the word "you" he used had the meaning of "you guy" in the common language. Mira straightened her body and calmed her breathing. Then he asked: "What do you mean?"
"What do you mean... You are obviously a blue card, but you look like you are weaker than me." Not only the words he used, but the content he expressed was also very rude: "And your hands are so delicate and look like they are not yet mature." It seems that you are the eldest daughter of some family and thought it would be fun to be a mercenary."
"I'm telling you, I relied on my own strength to get to where I am now step by step. You and I are not -" "Look!" Even though she is more mature than most of her peers, Mira is still in the end. With the competitive nature of some children, she raised her hands and showed them to the other party.
"Look, what's there to see?" Fei Li glanced at it nonchalantly, and then stopped because of the calluses and blisters all over her little hands.
"...I'm sorry." The boy who was slightly taller than Mira scratched his short blond hair, looking a little embarrassed: "I just..."
"It's okay, I understand." The petite girl put her hands on her hips and closed her eyes as she put on a mature look and said, "You just saw people younger than you have achieved higher results. So you have to find some reasons to belittle the other person so that you can regain your confidence."
"Really, you are still a child." Mira rolled her eyes at Fei Li and said, and the other party responded with the same action: "You are said to be a child, but you are not one yourself."
He answered like this, and then the two of them looked at each other and couldn't help but laugh.
"Pfft haha."
"Pfft hahahahaha."
The atmosphere became relaxed again, and the two sat down on the stones placed on the side of the shady path, and then began to take a short rest.
"I'll go talk to my teacher. If he says it, he should agree to let you join." Mira took out the dry food, broke half of it and gave it to Fei Li, and then said this.
"C-is it okay?" The boy with short blond hair widened his eyes and the joyful expression on his face was clearly visible, while the girl smiled slightly and nodded.
"There must be no problem!"
The sun was shining brightly and it was already afternoon. Hiding in a shady alley, a girl with bright eyes said this with confidence.
…
Note: The lingua franca of the West Coast is a pidgin language that combines the characteristics of the languages of various kingdoms. It has a relatively simple and easy-to-understand language structure and many word choices that correspond to the same thing but express different emotions. This is why it is One of the reasons why it has become so popular. The example in this chapter is an example that people who understand Japanese will understand, and it is the difference in names like: お前, あんた, and 贵様. The birth of this language is historically related to the westward migration of the Lamanites, pirate invasions, and the migration of multiple ethnic groups across the entire west coast caused by the eastward raids of the Loans. It is urgently needed. When communicating with people who don’t speak the same language, I picked words from the languages of two cultures to form such a mixed language. The same reason also has many words with the same meaning but different contexts. (To be continued.)
