Another four years have passed......

The town of Loyan under the Sal Orlanda Mountains in the eastern part of the Kingdom of Jamon. Pen "Fun" Pavilion www.biquge.info

More than eighty years ago, silver ore was discovered in the mountains not far from the town. In an instant, the town became an important resource source for the kingdom.

Thur silver is not only an important raw material for high-end equipment, but also indispensable for ordinary daily life, and often accompanied by a lot of precious metals. As a result, this metal is listed as one of the kingdom's important strategic resources.

More than 70% of the village's annual production was expropriated by the kingdom in exchange for a large grant and funding to the town. The town also prospered for a time, and its largest scale even reached the size of a medium-sized city at that time, with a total population of 20,000 at one time. There was an endless stream of ore merchants, and of course silver ore became the focus of the transaction.

Unfortunately, twelve years ago, since there was no longer a single piece of silver ore in the mountains, the kingdom and the ore merchants gradually lost their attention to the town. In addition, in the past 50 years, the town has only had ore as an economic source, and has not developed any other industries, including smelting, so it has gradually declined. At this time, the town is full of abandoned inns, ore exchanges, etc. Today, the population of the town is less than 500 people, and most of the people who remain are the elderly, women and children, and most of the young men have left the town to find another way.

In the southeast of the town, in a small house made of abandoned ore, like the town, lives four brothers and sisters of the Dorato family. During the town's prosperous years, the family was one of the town's important suppliers of ore, producing more than one-fifth of the ore each year. But ten years ago, the family was completely disintegrated due to the collapse of the ore industry, and the family members parted ways, and only the family of five was willing to stay in the town.

Time has passed, and although there is now a new member, the two eldest are missing.

The eldest brother, Los Angeles, is a 22-year-old man with strong muscles who often helps collect stone from a nearby scrap mine and is the family's main source of income.

The second sister, Suna, is 20 years old and currently teaches in the town and sometimes helps volunteer at the church. Many of the young people in the town have proposed to her, but she has been given a good person card.

The third brother, Ollie, is 17 years old, polite and quick-witted, and often helps the town to copy books and supplement the family. Known as a genius, he was once sent to study at the Royal Academy in the capital. But he cared about the love of his brother and sister, and resolutely pushed down this good thing on the grounds of economic conditions.

The youngest sister, Aceia, is only 9 years old, and she has the same blonde hair as their mother, while the older siblings have the same brown hair as their father. She had a serious illness when she was 5 years old. For this reason, my father spared no expense to hire the best doctors and priests in the country. Finally, under the careful care of his family, he was finally able to recover. But the family's already not wealthy family situation was even worse again, and the family was almost bankrupt.

Although little Acea is young, she has a good cooking skill, and she can make the simplest and ordinary toast very well. She can even sometimes prepare some herbal preparations to heal wounds, and many people in the town have used the cold potion she makes, and are known as little alchemists.

The mother of the four siblings disappeared shortly after giving birth to Achea, and the father disappeared two years ago, leaving the four siblings to rely on each other.

On this day, Los Angeles woke up late and was planning to go to work without even breakfast. However, he found that in addition to Acea cooking as usual, Suna and Ollie were busy cleaning up.

"What's wrong?" asked Los Angeles

"There will be guests visiting at noon today. Ollie replied thoughtlessly. Although this kid often talks nonsense, it is surprisingly accurate.

"Oh. Subconsciously responded. That's when he realized that something seemed wrong. Ollie is packing up her usual belongings, while Suna is sorting out her daily clothes.

Acea was cooking, but it seemed to be a bit much, and she had used up the venison for the New Year.

In the yard, the rabbits and birds that Achea usually raised were gone, and the crops she planted were also uprooted.

"Shall we get out of here?" asked Los Angeles again after returning to the house.

"yes, I don't know when I'll be back again. Ollie stopped his movements and looked up at the ceiling.

Suna, who is chattering on weekdays, is unusually unusual, silently packing up her clothes today.

Luo Shan sighed as well, and went back to his room to start packing up.

Except for the fact that Achea was still the same as usual, the whole room was filled with this oppressive atmosphere that was different from the past. This atmosphere lasted until just before noon.

The mayor brought with him a lord's clerk and 4 lightly armed guards, as well as an old-looking but sturdy carriage.

The clerk read a sternly worded verdict to the siblings: it was roughly their father, Julis Dorato, who had borrowed a thousand gold from the lord four years earlier, when Achea was seriously ill, and had been overdue for a year. The accumulated repayment amount plus the deferred penalty is as high as 2,500 gold coins. Ullis is now missing, and the four siblings must take on this huge debt. Based on the fact that the four siblings are simply unable to return this huge amount of money, but given their good reputation in the town, their private land and all real estate will be confiscated. They will then be "invited" to the Lord's Mansion to discuss how to repay the remaining amount.

After the verdict was read, the original arrangement was to leave for the lord's palace immediately, and the eldest brother Luo Shan wanted the clerk to give them one last time to dine here, and the clerk did not object, but asked them to hurry.

Soon, steaming broth and freshly baked brown bread were served. Los Angeles invited the mayor and the clerk to dine with them. The mayor unceremoniously ate the coal-like black bread in two bites, and after making a "great" gesture to the clerk, he couldn't help but want to taste it. He knew that the mayor, who seemed to be senile, was very picky when it came to food.

When he stuffed the seemingly dark and hard bread into his mouth, the whole loaf of bread melted like cream, and a delicious taste reverberated in his mouth. At this time, he didn't care about his image at all, and devoured it in front of everyone.

The soldiers who accompanied him were also a little surprised, they had followed the clerk for a long time, and had never seen him abandon his usual elegance and turn to vulgarity when he ate. But when they taste brown bread, they also forget about elegance.

Equally delicious is not only brown bread, but also broth. Even with the addition of spices brought from the New World, it is impossible to achieve such a delicious taste.

After a short rest after lunch, the four siblings rushed to the lord's mansion in an old carriage that came with them.

The quarters were sealed by the guards, and they had only one last look before the carriage set off.

The road to Toronto is not long, about 2 to 3 hours at the speed of a horse-drawn carriage. And the road is also smooth. The road was built more than 70 years ago, during the glory days of the town of Loyan. A huge amount of money was spent on the safe transportation of the silver ore.

The trees on both sides of the forest are constantly retreating, and they are getting farther and farther away from Luoyan Town.

From time to time, the guards patrolled around the carriage, not so much as if they were escorting prisoners, but more like they were acting as guards.

Los Angeles was also nervous, unsure of what would happen next. On the contrary, Ollie looked relaxed, and looked at the surrounding scenery from time to time.

At first, Achea was the same as Ollie, looking curiously at the scenery around her, and chattering about this and that, but within an hour, she began to lean on her sister Suna's arm and dozed off. Suna didn't seem to worry much about the forced debt, and quietly took care of her sister.

Ollie seemed to see the eldest brother's thoughts, "Don't worry, big brother." At least I don't feel like this lord is trying to make things difficult for us. But ......," Ollie looked at the sleeping Elchea, "whether we serve hard labor or join the army, but the little sister is always reassuring. ”

"Yes. Los Angeles casually agreed. Ollie's words casually let his hanging heart relax a little. He was thinking about how to deal with the lord and protect the family to the greatest extent, especially his younger sister Achea.

After 2 hours, you can already see the city walls of Torontony.

That wall was very high. It is said that it was built at a huge cost to prevent foreign invasion. At that time, there were more than 30,000 people who were requisitioned. You must know that at that time, all the people of the surrounding area of more than 1,000 square kilometers combined were only 120,000. More than 5,000 people died during the construction process, and tens of thousands more were injured. However, since the Jiameng Kingdom unified the surroundings, it has not been continuously strengthened, but only done daily maintenance work. But now it's just a symbol of the city.

Toronto is an important city in the Affiliate Kingdom, located in an important transportation area, and is also an important port city. Every day, a large number of goods are transferred from here by water or land. In particular, the Port of Toronto is now the only port that has opened up a route to the New World. In other words, the kingdom of Jiameng now firmly controls the throat leading to the new world.

There was an endless stream of people coming in and out of the city gate, and it was orderly. Although there were quite a few soldiers there, they were just maintaining order and dealing with emergencies, rather than charging for entry and exit. As for the foot-picking officer who sat on the side, even the soldier put on an expression that I didn't recognize him.

Like the people around him, not only was the carriage entering the city under any scrutiny, but even the foot-picking officer was so busy that he didn't even have time to put on his boots. It seems that it is not just because the carriage has the lord's coat of arms on it.