The hallway was as dilapidated, cramped, and dim as he remembered, and the dusty planks were covered with holes left by disrepair, and Brando came to a door by impression, and stopped and asked, "Is this the room?" ”

"Hmm." A voice behind him replied softly, it was the voice of Miss Staff.

Freya followed the two, frowning at the place, as they stood in the walkway, the planks creaked and the air smelled of choking dust, and she couldn't imagine anyone living in such a place, even the stables in the country of Buchi were slightly cleaner than here.

"It looks like it's locked." Brando fiddled with the doorknob and said.

"I locked it before I left." Antitina replied softly.

"Do you have a key?"

"Well, I've always had it with me." Antitina fumbled and pulled out a copper key, Brando's memory was good, and he recognized at a glance that the chain hanging the key was her original necklace, he remembered seeing it once or twice, and there should have been a beautiful crystal pendant on it, but it was long gone. He took the key, weighed it in his hand, and was a little surprised: "Why did you take this with you?" ”

"I don't think I'll be able to use it sometime." The staff lady replied with her usual earnestness.

"It does seem to have come in handy." Brando smiled and glanced at her, and Miss Staff smiled back.

He turned the key to open the door, and behind the wooden door seemed to be the huge mouth of a black hole opened by a monster, waiting for the prey to throw itself into the net. The three of them stood in the doorway for a moment before they adjusted to the sudden dimming of the light, and the room was as small and dusty as they had remembered. However, it was very clean, and it was evident that its owner had carefully set it up before leaving. "Antitina, you used to live here?" Freya looked at the room in amazement, even the old warehouse of the militia was much more spacious and bright than this one when she was in Butch, she had always thought that Miss Staff was from a noble background, but she did not expect that she would live in such a place before following Brando.

"Hmm."

"But I heard Brando say that you are the daughter of a noble family......"

"Your Excellency is not wrong. It used to be. Antitina replied: "But after my father disappeared, creditors came to me, and I had to sell my property in order to pay off my foreign debts." I remember that shortly after that, my mother also died of depression, and her life became struggling, and she had to cut back on her expenses. ”

"I'm sorry, Antitina, I didn't expect you to have such a past. I shouldn't have brought it up. Freya replied with some embarrassment.

Antitina smiled, not careless.

Brando came to the desk and lit the remaining candles, which barely illuminated the room like beans. The room was full of dust, but Antitina walked over to the bed and lifted the curtain on the bed, revealing a clean wooden bed, only with a slight musty smell. Brando gave her a look of surprise. His eyes were full of praise. Freya on the side was also from a humble background, and she didn't feel so uncomfortable in this small and dilapidated room. She saw the actions of the two of them, and silently joined in tidying up the house, none of the three of them spoke, since the last time they had left Pragues, it seemed that there had been few such moments, and the room seemed a little quiet for a while, except for some subtle noises. It didn't take long for them to clean the house.

Antitina opened the window facing her desk, she glanced at the lattice, frowned, closed it slightly, and pulled the drawer open again. Suddenly, he said, "Someone has entered the house." ”

Brando was slightly stunned: "What's wrong?" ”

"Someone came into this room after I left."

Brando's brows furrowed: "What's going on?" ”

"There should be more than one person, they came in through the window. "She stepped aside and opened the cabinet, "I should have checked my cabinet too, the books in it were turned over, and they seemed to be looking for something." ”

"Are you sure, Antitina?" Brando asked, somewhat alarmed.

"Well, I put the things myself, I definitely can't be mistaken, someone must have touched them."

"Would you like to ask the people around you?" Freya asked in a whisper.

"No, they won't know anything," Miss Staff shook her head, "Whether it's a thief or some other uninvited guest, they certainly won't deliberately let people find out." ”

"Any clues?"

"It's a little strange, it seems that these people came earlier, we didn't pay attention to footprints or anything else when we cleaned the house before, and the dust in the house is natural, which means that these people have not been there in the past few months, at least."

"A year ago?" Brando thought for a moment, it seemed that they had only just left Pragues, and their reputation was not obvious, and it seemed unlikely that anyone would notice them at that time. He thought about it for a year and replied, "If that is really the time, then it can only be a thief." ”

Antitina smiled slightly: "The thieves and gentlemen are afraid that they will return empty-handed. ”

This sentence made Brando's mind wonder, most of the people who lived on Gravedigger Street were the poorest people in the city, and it was unlikely that the part of the people who mingled in the gray areas of the city would not know this, and in fact thieves rarely frequented such places, because they probably knew that they were not profitable. He hesitated, and suddenly heard Freya say, "There's only one bed here, Brando." ”

Brando was stunned for a moment, and then realized this embarrassing thing, he almost forgot that the previous room was occupied by Antitina alone, and there was only one bed in the room.

Antitina was stunned, obviously aware of this, after all, all the furniture in this room was a desk, a low cabinet, two chairs and a bed, and it was really difficult not to think of how to rest at night in such a humble environment. "The two of you sleep together, anyway, with my current strength, it doesn't matter if I don't sleep one night." Brando thought for a moment and said so.

"That's not going to work," Antitina shook her head, "you are the lord, how can the retainer let the lord suffer for him." Besides, it's because I'm not thinking it through. ”

Antitina disagreed, and Freya naturally didn't agree, she wasn't thick enough to be selfish and enjoy it alone.

Brando seemed to have expected this, he looked at the two of them and sighed: "I'll talk about it later, I'll go get you something to eat first." ”

Antitina nodded slightly.

In the game, there are a lot of places in big cities like Pragus that sell food. If you can afford it, you can buy food even from the workshops on the streets, but here you have to go to an inn or tavern, or a bakery in the city, or further afield, there are only mills outside the city. There are many people in hotels and taverns, and no one knows if they have been planted with eyeliner, so Brando is naturally reluctant to get involved. And there are no bread shops on the avenue near Gravedigger's Street. But this little trouble did not bother him, and the last thing that was lacking in this kind of slum was idlers, and he spent a few tolls to find a young man who was willing to help him run errands, and he showed his hand in front of them, and carved a nightingale's mark on the wall with his sword, so that the fellow would not dare to take money and do nothing.

Of course, with his current status, he is not short of these money, but he can't make Miss Staff and Eruin's future Valkyrie hungry, he is also a nobleman of the kingdom. How could he be so incompetent in front of the lady beside him?

The young man looked shocked when he saw the deep mark he had carved on the stone wall. Brando knew that what the other party was afraid of was not his own swordsmanship, but the symbol he had carved. Most of the people who grew up in such a place had dealt with the Brotherhood of Thieves who walked in the gray area, and even their eyeliner was not lacking, so the boy must have recognized the mark he had left behind as the more advanced form of contact between the Goran-Elson Brotherhood of Thieves, and he had learned the knowledge of the Nightingale in the game, although only at a cursory level. But it was enough to scare this young man who didn't know much.

The young man was frightened by him, and after taking his money, he stood there with some shrunken hands, looked at him and asked cautiously, "My lord, do you have any other orders?" ”

"You live around here?" Brando asked.

The boy nodded.

"Do you know the tenants in that room?" Brando asked, pointing to the window of the second room next to Antitina.

"Yes. There lived a dead old man, whom others called the Night Stalker, who used to be a loan shark, but then he didn't know who he had offended, so he hid here. The boy replied dryly.

Brando raised his eyebrows slightly, he didn't expect that he had caught someone casually and turned out to be a well-informed guy. But then he was relieved, these young people from the lower classes, they have nothing to do and wander the streets all day long, except for a few who can endure hardship, most of them are unwilling to be apprentices and be disciplined. It's just that nine out of ten of the rumors they know are rumors, but some local customs and customs can be found out when they ask them.

"What about this one?" He pointed to the room next to Antitina.

"It's been empty for a long time, my lord."

"And next to it?" Brando's heart moved, pointing to Antitina's. The young man hesitated for a moment, as if he thought for a moment, before he replied, "The owner of this room seems to be a down-and-out aristocratic lady, but I haven't seen her for a long time, and I heard that she is not in good health, probably because she is sick and dead." ”

You're sick and dead. Brando didn't think about it angrily, but when he saw that the boy was talking about it as if it was normal to eat and drink, he knew that the so-called life and death were really commonplace in such a place. In slums like Gravedigger's Street, where many people freeze and starve to death every year, these things are understood by all, and the nobles turn a blind eye to them as if they were supposed to be. Brando sighed, thinking that at least this guy wasn't lying, he knew the place well.

He asked a few more inconsistencies, and then suddenly asked, "Do you often 'frequent' here?" ”

The patronage of his mouth was naturally not to come to visit in the open, but to the thieves, and the boy naturally understood, and he could not help but glance at this very gentleman with some awe, and made up his mind that this was a legendary nightingale, otherwise how could he have drawn the symbol which he did not even know very well—it must have been the kind between thieves, but it was much more complicated than he knew. Now he was talking more about the slang of the Brotherhood, which made him more and more convinced of it.

"Of course not. My lord," replied the young man, hastenedly, "there is no oil and water here, and it is unlikely that they will look up to such a place, and who would be happy to live in such a place except the destitute mercenaries and the old and decrepit prostitutes?" ”

"There's always something out of the eye."

The boy thought about it, and probably understood what Brando meant. He thought hard for a while before he remembered something: "My lord, a year ago, someone from the patrol cavalry came here. By the way, they seem to have come to find the noble lady. ”

Brando remembered that they had dealt with those guys here, and he frowned and asked some more questions, but the boy couldn't say anything about it. As Antitina said, neither thieves nor uninvited guests are likely to be happy to be noticed. At last he shook his head, and threw another silver coin to the young man: "Okay, go quickly, go early and come back early, I'm still hungry." ”

"Don't worry, my lord, I promise that I won't spend any of them." The boy hurriedly replied with sincere fear.

"Not necessarily. You buy food for three people, and most of it is yours. I'm not short of money, but you'd better not get me in trouble. Brando replied with a deliberately cold breath.

He asked the young man's name again, and after the other party answered, he hurriedly ran away, as if he was afraid to stay by his side for a few more moments, Brando couldn't help but sigh, fortunately some of the old tricks in the game had not been completely forgotten. In this world for a year, being a noble lord is already too comfortable, except for the swordsmanship that is the foundation of his life, other crafts are about to be rusty. In the past, these things were handled by Antitina, Flo or Caglis. Today, I rarely made my own moves, but I actually found some of the feeling of the past.

He paused and looked at the scene before evening in Pragues, the western sky seemed to be red, and the clouds were full of golden colors, not much different from a year ago. But it was at this time that he heard a sneer: "It seems that Lord Earl is really well-informed, and he is no stranger to these low-level things. ”

Brando looked up suddenly, Antitina's house was located on the banks of the Buchi River across Pragues, and there was a small courtyard behind the house, next to the Buchi River, which had a downward staircase that led to the river, which was equivalent to a small pier. Those who have a little wealth will tie a small boat to the post on the side of the staircase, which is another way to travel. However, the tenants here are naturally not so extravagant, the stairs outside the courtyard have been abandoned for many years, and the gaps in the stone steps are full of weeds nearly a person high, and there is now a figure in the grass there.

He narrowed his eyes and recognized the other party at once: "Tayster? "That man was Viscount Test, he had met him once at the auction house in Pragus, and although his appearance had changed a lot, his blonde hair had somehow turned gray, and his face was wrinkled as if he had suddenly aged for decades, but he recognized the contours of his face and the distinctive look in his eyes, and called out the other person's name.

"I didn't expect the Earl to recognize me." Tester stood on the stone steps, with some emotion, when he fought with the other party in the underground auction hall of this city, he almost killed this person, but he didn't expect that in just one year, the other party's strength growth had reached this point. He used to think he was a genius, but now he understands what a true genius looks like, but it doesn't mean anything to him anymore, he has only come here to seek relief.

Brando heard the other party's hoarse voice and asked with some confusion, "How did you become like this?" ”

"It's a long story, that experience was a nightmare for me," replied Test, "but it has something to do with you, Lord Earl. ”

"What does it have to do with me?" Brando frowned, he remembered that the only time he had dealt with this guy was in the underground auction house, and there was no intersection after that, he had seen the other party appear before, and thought that he had come to him to avenge the revenge at that time.

"If the Earl has time to listen to me talk nonsense, I can tell you this story slowly, and in return, I will tell the Earl Sù some secrets about the past." Tester replied in a hoarse voice.

Brando wondered in his heart, wondering if this guy had come to him just to tell a story, this guy couldn't be crazy, right? But looking at him like this, he might be crazy, but he was quite interested in the secrets of the other party's mouth, and he vaguely felt that it might be related to the oneness of all things, and the biggest threat to him now was the damn organization. He nodded and asked, "Here?" ”

"It's right here, there's no one left or right, it's all torment for me to delay for a moment, and I really don't have the leisure to find another place." Tester replied.

Brando looked at the guy, wondering what had made him like this, and Teste was silent for a moment, and suddenly said, "It's because of the Lionheart." ”

"Lionheart?"

Tester nodded, and then slowly recounted the story by starting with the search for the Lionheart for the Oneness of All Things.

…… (To be continued......)