On hard masonry roads, it is impossible to trace the traces of people. At this moment, it was close to lunch time, and there were not too many pedestrians on the road, and they were not familiar with the place, so it was not strange that the two of them lost their goals after they came out.

The sheriff named Vega was worried that Ferry would run away like this 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 most likely not do this. Having just lost his mother a year ago, even with the care of a neighborhood, this boy who is not too young to feel like an adult who wants to live alone but does not know how to do it, he will probably begin to lose his future.

In this case, he learned the truth about the murder - or at least the object of suspicion, and made a pact with the sheriff Vega, and within a year he became a green mercenary with his own strength.

Anger and revenge may also be there, but more often than not, after becoming helpless and alone, instinctively trying to grasp something and cling to a goal to keep yourself from getting lost.

So when Vega broke their agreement and wanted to hire Henry and Mira on this mission, what Ferry felt was not anger and hatred, but panic and helplessness similar to that of being abandoned.

The boy who had been striving for a long time had lost his goal, who was in trouble and had been through a lot of things, didn't know what to do next—so he turned and ran away, and the choices people make in such situations are always strikingly similar.

"Let's look for it separately. The alley ahead was crooked, and the newcomers Henry and Mira were unfamiliar with the environment, and after briefly mentioning to the girl where they might go. The sage made such a decision.

"Hmm. The white-haired Luo'an girl nodded, she was able to understand the other party's current thoughts to a certain extent. Therefore, I am quite aware of how warm it can be to have someone else by hand at such a time.

Girls are always more mature than boys of the same age, and this is especially true of Mira, who has been living alone for quite some time. Young boys at this troubled age rebelliously deny the idea of their inner desire to be accompanied. Even if you are very afraid of loneliness, you will still choose to turn around and run away because of your tangled heart, hide in a corner and sobble alone.

The crooked alleys resemble a labyrinth of mischievous gods, as they are all easily shaped masonry, and most of the houses on this side are two or three stories high. The city-state is no longer small, but the close-knit buildings still make it extremely difficult to find directions.

Turn left, turn right.

The lightweight lady's leather boots stepped through the stagnant water on the road, and Mira deliberately controlled her breathing, looking left and right.

The long-handed, one-handed sword made a metallic sound as it clashed with its pace, and many residents poked their heads out of their homes to look at the white uninvited guest. The girl probed intently left and right, and Henry told her that Ferry's conflicting thoughts had led to one part of his current self not wanting to be found, but another part longing to be discovered. As a result, he is likely to hide in corners where he "can be seen at a glance but is not usually noticed".

"Click-" There was a sound in the dark alley to the right, and Mira turned around, but it was just a giant mouse.

"Ah......" The surroundings began to become quiet at some point, the smoke of cooking, the aroma of food, the sound of clattering utensils, and the sound of people talking seemed very far away, and the air here was cold and smelled of rancidity.

The rats became more numerous, and Mira slowed down.

"Slums......" she whispered, her hand gripping the hilt of her sword.

There is such a thing as a slum in any city-state, but the abandoned dwellings in Monroe's northern city are just like ordinary houses. The reason why they were abandoned is evident on the map - this side. Quite close to the Ducal Palace.

Human.

If your neighbor dies miserably every once in a while, it's only natural that you'll choose to move out of this place - or maybe it's more than that? A nearby house had something written in Kranti on the wall in black wood paint, and although Mira couldn't read the contents, there was a scribbled painting on it depicting a group of green-carded mercenaries beating civilians.

She didn't put much attention into it. Keep going.

The unmaintained wooden doors and windows were covered with moss, and a little grass had grown from the dirt that had accumulated on the ground of the half-hidden doorway. On the guardrail of the terrace on the high place, a crow turned its head and looked down at the girl below with emotionless **** eyes, and snakes, insects, rats and ants were rampant in the dark corner.

A soaking wet, homeless homeless man curled up and shivering in a corner, trying to get some sleep. The rumbling of his stomach made the girl feel a little sympathetic, but she looked further away—there were more people.

More than half a year ago, when she was still in the land of eternal spring, Mira would not hesitate to go up and bring the dry food she carried to the other party. But having experienced many things, she has more or less understood the fact that such kindness will cause confusion to the other party to some extent.

She didn't bring enough food to give to all the homeless, so when Mira gave it to one of them. Others are likely to attack the person in order to compete for food.

Justifying herself as a well-intentioned one didn't help in hindsight, and the half-hearted kindness that wasn't capable enough to exert it messed things up instead, and at this juncture when she had something to do—she controlled her impulses, and then vigilantly continued to search.

In addition to the homeless homeless in the second half of the deserted residential area, there are all kinds of outlaws, although the girl has mastered a lot of skills in recent days, and the badge on her chest also has a certain deterrent existence, but those thugs who lick blood from the knife edge do not necessarily deter from this.

Killing people is still a stressful thing for her.

It was a big mistake to focus on the search and get lost without looking at the road, but thinking back to the location of the murder marked by the sheriff on the map, Mira felt that the chances of Ferry running back to his past home were quite high. So she continued to run forward with a rough memory. After getting closer to the area, he slowed down and began to search left and right.

The place seemed to be even more deserted than it was behind, and the girl noticed that many of the wooden doors of the houses showed signs of violent vandalism. Combined with the mess of the overturned tiles of the furniture left and right, she remembered the scribbled murals she had seen before.

"Is that what the mercenaries did......" she frowned. Then he carefully stepped on the blackened and mossy stairs and walked to the second floor to check.

- No one is there.

Tiny beetles and the worms and centipedes common in damp areas made Mira's scalp tingle, and she fought through the sensation and searched from house to house.

Mira didn't shout Ferry's name out loud, she didn't want to draw the attention of the dangerous people on this side, and this low-key style didn't need Henry to teach her to have naturally. Girls who were once at the bottom of society still have the instinct of the weak.

One another, one after another.

Time is ticking by, the ruins of the slums of Nuoda, and the figure of the teenager is nowhere to be found.

Mira paused to catch her breath, she didn't know how many detours she had taken or how far she had come. There is no clock nearby to tell. The sun shines brightly on the unobstructed road. The temperature began to rise, and she walked to the shade next to the street to cool off, and it was at this time that some kind of noise sounded in the side alley.

It's loud, not like a rat or something, at least a human body.

"Ferry?" the girl poked her head out of where she was sitting, and the voice stopped for a moment as she screamed.

"Is that you, Ferry...... You may not know me. It was Sheriff Vega who told us to come to you—" Mira lowered her voice and stood up and turned, but a voice rang out from behind her right after her.

"What are you doing here?" said a somewhat familiar boy's voice, and Mira was stunned for a moment, then turned around.

He had some freckles on his face. The skin is sun-kissed from years of being outside. The short blond hair, the emerald green eyes as the badge on the chest, reflected the girl's own slightly complex emotions, surprise, envy, and hesitation. But all of this turned into panic after hearing the voice in the alley in the next moment.

"Ferry, you're here, there—" "Come with me!" Ferry took Mira's hand and turned to run. And the voice in the alley suddenly became manic, and with a heavy muffled sound, the owner of the sound appeared in front of the two of them in the next second-

"Woo evil—"

She hesitated. Therefore, I saw the person who came clearly. The first thing to bear the brunt of it was not the visual but the olfactory shock, and the stench of not taking a bath for a long time was quite uncomfortable, and the tall man, whose hair and beard were messy and his skin was yellow, suddenly let out a roar of unknown meaning.

"Roar!" his mouth was full of rotten teeth, and the breath he blew from the roar made the girl almost not faint, and Ferry pulled her hard again.

"That's Crazy Mike, he catches whoever bites whom, bites and eats when he bites. Ferry grabbed Mira by the wrist and pulled her staggering, and the girl who reacted straightened up and began to run with him for her life.

They ran a long distance, and the tall tramp was quickly thrown off. But for the sake of insurance, he still pulled Mira to turn left and right and continued to move on, and only stopped when he finally came to a relatively clean place where he could smell the aroma of food and hear the conversation of the residents.

"Whew...... ...... "The long walk before and this short sprint made the white-haired Luoan girl support her legs and began to gasp for air, which made Ferry who was only gasping for breath frown.

"You're such a strange fellow. His use of the term "you" is very polite, and the term "you" has the meaning of "you guy" (1) in the lingua franca. Mira straightened up to calm her breathing, and then asked, "What do you mean?"

"What does it mean to say...... You're obviously a blue card, but you look like you're weaker than me. Not only the words, but the content he expressed was also very polite: "And the hands are so delicate and look like they have not been stormed, you shouldn't be the eldest lady of anyone's family, running out and thinking that being a mercenary is a very fun thing." ”

"I'm telling you, I've come to where I am by my own strength, and I'm not you—" "Look!" Even though she was more mature than most of her peers, Mira still had some childish competitiveness, and she raised her hands to show them.

"Look, what's there to see......" Ferry glanced nonchalantly, and then stopped because of the calluses and blisters that covered her little hands.

“...... I'm sorry. The teenager, who was slightly taller than Mira, scratched his short blond hair, looking a little embarrassed: "I'm just ......"

"It's okay, I understand. The petite girl put on a mature look, crossed her waist and closed her eyes, and said, "You just saw that someone younger than you has achieved higher grades, so you have to find some reason to belittle the other person and regain your self-confidence." ”

"Really, you're still a kid. Mira gave Ferry a blank look and said so, and the other party responded with the same action: "It's a child or something, aren't you yourself?" ”

He replied, and then the two of them looked at each other, and they couldn't help but laugh.

"Poof, haha. ”

"Poofha. ”

The atmosphere was relaxed again, and the two of them sat down on the rocks placed on the side of the shady path, and then began to take a break.

"I'll go talk to my teacher, and he'll probably agree to let you join in. Mira pulled out her dry rations, broke half of them and gave them to Ferry, and then said.

"But, is it okay?" the short-haired boy widened his eyes and the expression of joy on his face was clearly visible, while the girl smiled and nodded.

"There must be no problem!"

The sun is shining at this moment and it is already afternoon, and the girl with bright eyes who is hiding in the shady alley said with confidence.

......

Note: The lingua franca of the West Coast is a Pidgin language that mixes the characteristics of the Chinese languages of various kings, with a relatively simple and easy-to-understand linguistic structure and many choices of words that correspond to the same thing but express different feelings, which is one of the reasons why it has become so popular. In this chapter, if you give an example that a Japanese language reader will understand, there is a difference in terms of titles such as: お前, あんた, and 貴様. The birth of this language is historically related to the westward migration of the Lamanites and the invasion of pirates and the eastward invasion of the Luoans throughout the west coast, and the urgent need to communicate with people who do not have a common language, so the words from the languages of the two cultures are selected to form such a mixed language, and there are many words with the same meaning and different contexts. (To be continued.) )