After going up the steep mountain road, turning a few corners, and passing two more passes, it suddenly opened up in front of me and saw a flat land close to the top of the mountain.

This land is not large, but the layout is very special - ordinary towns, all houses are inside, fields outside, but here it is the opposite, houses outside, fields inside. The houses are densely packed, one next to the other, and the scale is not large, which makes Alfiyin can't help but think of his life when he just graduated from college and lived in a shared house in Tongzhou when he was working hard in Beipiao.

At that time, she got up in the morning and went out after washing, went home at night to wash and then went to bed, and was busy chasing hope every day, but finally gave up and returned to her hometown to live a stable life from 9 to 5.

But compared to the people of Raccoon Town, she felt that she must have been happy at the beginning—hard work, but at least safe, sometimes hungry, but generally fed, and hopeful despite the eventual failure.

And these Raccoon Town residents ...... Alfien could not see happiness in their faces, nor could she find hope in their eyes.

Although they are still alive, they are only "alive". This kind of life is no better than the walking dead.

Alfiin sighed secretly and asked the militia who led the way, "You live on this field?"

"Of course not, and hunting and gathering or something. The militia replied, "But this field is indeed our lifeline." Now the whole world is probably the only one that has not been polluted, and it can still produce clean food. Without this food, we would have gone crazy a long time ago. ”

His tone was calm, not a hint of sadness or pain, just a desperate paleness.

The words were too heavy, but Alfien didn't know how to answer. Pratt, who took off his helmet, hurriedly took over and asked, "It's the first time I've seen a field built in the middle of a house, why is that?"

"To resist pollution. The militia replied, "Originally, Raccoon Town was like any other town, with fields outside and houses inside. Later, the pollution became more and more serious, so I had to do the opposite, the house was outside, the field was inside, and the house was used to resist some pollution...... You haven't been to some of the nearby towns and villages, have you? If you do, you'll find that it's basically like this. ”

"When we first came to this world, we used to go to Yanan Town. "According to the ancient books, there should be very good scholars over there who can resist pollution." ”

"That was a long, long time ago, and your books are terribly old. The militiaman sighed, "You really shouldn't have come, this world is completely hopeless." You will not come here in any way, but only in danger. ”

As they spoke, they had already walked into the town, and the militia led a few people into the house, and circled the corridor several times, passing a dozen large and small houses, and finally came to a house that smelled of blood and looked unusually neat.

"Village Chief, you're being approached by people from other worlds. He shouted into the room.

There was a coughing sound from inside the room, and then an old man staggered over with the help of two young men.

Their faces were painted with strange symbols mixed with blood, and there was some magic on the symbols, and their hands were dirty and covered in dirt.

"Outsiders...... Welcome, please come in and take a seat. ”

There weren't many things in the room, so it looked quite spacious, and through the door to the inner room, everyone noticed that there were obvious traces of a magic circle on the floor of the inner room, and there were some things that looked like dirt in the center of the magic circle.

The village chief noticed everyone's gaze, smiled, and said, "Don't be surprised, it's dirt." Our main job every day is to perform magical rituals to purify the soil and replenish the depletion of the farmland. ”

It dawned on everyone that farming would inevitably lose the fertility of the soil, and in the process of irrigation, some soil would also be lost. The so-called "soil erosion" is happening everywhere. In order to prevent soil erosion from abandoning this lifeline, the soil must be replenished. However, almost all of the soil in this world has been polluted, so the only way to get the clean soil is to perform rituals to purify the soil.

Probably really poor, the village chief did not let the two young people pour tea or serve food, but asked straight to the point: "What do you want when you come to this world?"

He didn't doubt the self-introduction of the traversers at all - just by looking at their temperament, they were completely different from the people of this world. It's like the same two people, one is poor and the other is prosperous, even if they are wearing the same clothes, when they stand together, people can tell the difference at a glance.

"We wanted to do something in the world. "Now it seems that it is probably difficult. ”

"Pioneering?" the village chief smiled, "If it had been hundreds of years ago, when pollution had not spread on a large scale, you would have said this, and we would have drawn our swords immediately." ”

Alfien also smiled: "If it weren't for you like this, I wouldn't dare to tell the truth." ”

The so-called "pioneering" is, to put it bluntly, aggression and conquest. If it weren't for the fact that the people of this world had completely lost hope for the future, how could they be indifferent to such an attempt?

People who are dying, of course, don't care about anything.

"What now?" asked the village chief, "seeing the world like this, do you still want to open up?"

Alfien was silent for a moment, and his eyes lit up: "Of course!"

"How?" asked the village chief.

"On the way here, we killed a giant vine monster. "And fought a couple of times with a guy who could sneak into our dreams — and he suffered and ran away." He yelled, 'I'll be back,' but never showed up. ”

What she said seemed to have nothing to do with the village chief's question, but the village chief's eyes suddenly brightened.

"This kind of thing is not something that can be believed by just saying it. He said.

Alfien took out the remains of the "Giant Vine Willy", a gray-green dead branch.

The old village chief suddenly burst out with amazing agility, took the dead branch, first looked at it carefully for a while, then put it next to his nose and sniffed it for a long time, and finally showed a completely different smile from before.

Not the kind of pale smile of a polite nature, but a smile that really sees hope, a pleasant one.