Yunzhou.

Francis's shout made Morse grit her teeth. It was bad enough that he hadn't been able to get rid of his bodyguards, and now the knight seemed determined to let everyone in the city know that he, the prince of Yunzhou, was walking the streets.

Moth pulled the wool cloak a little closer and hid in the nearest alley. For a moment, he wanted to slip out of the other side of the alley, but felt that Francis would only catch up with him again. Alternatively, he might also start asking if anyone in the neighborhood saw Murwin's son wandering around.

When Francis appeared at the entrance of the alley, Moth grabbed him by the collar and pulled him to the wall. The knight's hand held the sword, but he quickly relaxed when he recognized Moth's face from under the brim of his shabby fur hat.

"Your Highness," Francis bowed his head and saluted, trying to feign a stiff salute in the narrow alley.

Mo Si rolled his eyes and sighed helplessly. "You know I'm trying not to get noticed." He reminded the knight.

A look of confusion appeared on Francis's stiff face. "Of course, Your Highness." He said. "You made it clear when we left the palace."

"Then can I ask you to stop calling me 'Your Highness'?" Mo Si snapped. "Don't bow every time I look at you. We should be ordinary peasants, that's all. ”

Francis nodded. "Yes, Your Highness."

Moth felt the pain in the back of his head grow stronger. Rumor has it that refugees have been smuggled into the city lord's mansion, and there are rumors that plague events have begun to occur in several impoverished parts of the city. Grandmaster Waltz has sent an army to investigate these rumors, and has even asked Tanadin to send a few highlanders to the city to see if anyone has found their way through the tunnels.

Once he discovers the source of the refugees, his father will stop the influx of refugees, and Moth is determined not to let that happen.

No outsider could sneak into Yunzhou without help, and all the people who had done so for thousands of years had become fertilizer for the weeds in the city. Moth had to warn his father before he intervened to stop the influx of refugees, or no one would survive.

If he can find a refugee and convince them of his sympathy, then Moth might be able to know who is helping them. But so far, he has not found anyone who does not belong in the city. The longer he looks, the more likely it is that Francis's faults will expose his existence.

"Maybe we should visit the Pink Tavern again, Your Highness?" Francis suggested, licking his lips at the thought of the infamous tavern.

Moth closed his eyes and whispered a prayer to Nagam, hoping that he would show him the way, or at least let him restrain himself from strangling his bodyguard.

His pleading prayers for patience seemed to go unanswered, but a cry for help drifted through the alley. It was a call that Moth would have responded to anyway, but when he recognized it as an unfamiliar language, a wave of excitement spread throughout his body. He opened his eyes and stared at the gray sky. "Thank you, Great Father," he said, and sped away in the direction of the shouting.

"His Royal Highness!" Francis shouted behind him.

Moth didn't slow down. The shouting did not ring out again. Instead, there was the crash of steel and the inarticulate roars of the warriors. The righteous prince did not hesitate to draw his sword, he might have worn a simple horseskin sheath as part of his disguise, but it was still the very well-balanced dwarven sword he used in his duel with Yan Fu.

Navigating through a maze of alleys and side streets, Moth followed the sounds of conflict and rushed into a small square with a stone fountain in the center. The square is surrounded by dilapidated wooden longhouses, and the tiled roofs creak crumblingly under the heavy snow. The snow was piled high against the wall, almost all the way to the eaves, and the ground in the small square was covered with a thick layer of snow. He immediately noticed bright red spots on the ground.

Three men lay on the snow, blades and clubs lying next to their bodies. Four gangsters in woolen vests and thick cowhide cloaks surround a lone warrior in a heavy black cloak and wielding broad-bladed broadswords.

It only took him a moment to decide which side he should be on. "It is not a virtue to bully too much," cried the prince. The warriors turned in surprise when they heard his shout.

"They started with six people." The man in the black cloak boasted, his accent sharp and guttural, like that of a Rand.

"Leave it alone!" A cowhide ruffian roared. He pointed an ugly iron rod at the Rander, and then at a third corpse lying in the snow. "This scumbag brought the Black Death into the city!"

The gangsters split into teams of two. As men with large sticks and savage thugs wielding curved swords converge on the Randers, Moth finds himself blocked by a scarred, axe-wielding thug and a skinny villain with a mace. Judging by the way they lunged at him, Moth concluded that the mace-wielding guy was more experienced of the two, and therefore more dangerous. Before his enemies could get to either side of him, Morse stepped forward with an arrow, intending to strike at the scoundrel's hand by surprise.

The villain took a few steps back, but it didn't surprise him as Moth had hoped. Instead of leaving himself defenseless, the man turned away from Moth's sword and brushed the boy's shoulder with a quick flick of his mace. If it landed more steadily and strongly, the blow could throw Moth off balance, exposing him to more lethal attacks. In fact, Moth's body was just pushed to the side, and nothing happened.

If that axe man was a more capable fighter, even such a short interval might be too long. On the contrary, the scoundrel had forgotten about the surprise attack of the embankment Moth. Morse didn't give the man a chance to recuperate, and when his opponent was temporarily on the defensive, Moth spun around sharply and struck a lightning blow at the other gangster's hand. His sword pierced the gangster's knuckles in an instant. The man screamed, blood gushing out of his crippled hands, and severed fingers fell into the snow.

"Ahhhh It hurts me," the man roared, brandishing his weapon at Moth's head. "You're going to pay for it, bastard!"

Mo Si easily dodged the blow and swung his sword downward, slitting the gangster's thigh. "You'd better get away from it before you're really hurt."

The gangster's face was so angry that his face was distorted. He roared and lunged at Moth, swinging his axe and slashing down, powerful enough to cut a grown male in the middle. Unfortunately, his attack was a little too long. As his arm was about to be snapped off, his enemy was rushing forward, plunging the tip of his sword into the thug's throat. The axe fell into the snow when the gangsters covered his wounds with their hands, trying to stop the blood from gushing out of the severed artery. He staggered to the fountain and collapsed into the frozen pool.

Moth wiped the blood from the blade and looked up at the Rander. Now there was a fourth body lying in the snow, and a thug in a cowhide had fled down the alley. Like Morth, the Randers are using their enemy's cloaks to clean the blood from their swords.

"One fell, one fled." The Rand man said, and he could see the frightened gangster crawling down a side street. "Looks like we're evenly matched, friend."

"So you think you'll be able to avoid the plague by participating in a sword fighting competition?" Moth said. He smiled calmly and confidently at the four villains. "Good idea. I'm happy to help those who think six against two is a glorious battle. ”

"Take the nosy people away," the thug with iron rods roared at his two companions. "Hans and I are going to kill the outlander."

Moth shook his head and put away his sword. "You forget, you had two before I got here."

The Rand man frowned. The tip of his boot kicked at the corpse that the gangsters described as a foreigner. "It's mine too. To escape from him, I recruited the jackals. He said with a sinister grin, just as any scavenger smells blood.

Moth looked down at the dead man. His clothes were cut in the south, and his boots were made of coarse wool, which was rare in the north. "Why did he attack you?"

"He's afraid I'll talk to someone I shouldn't be talking to," the Rand replied. There was a sharp flash in his eyes, "He's right, I do plan to talk to someone I shouldn't be talking to." ”

Moth stared at the Rander, who looked like a military man, which was not surprising to a man who had just killed four enemies on his own. The clothes he wore were coarse, with all sorts of furs and wool, like any peasant would put together for the winter, but the sword in his hand was clearly a sword of superior quality, with delicate scroll patterns carved into the surface of the sword. The general impression is that the man, like himself, strives to appear much lower than the class to which he belongs.

"Who could be the wrong person?" Moth asked.

"Is anyone interested in refugees and how they get into the city?" The Rander's body tensed under the black cloak.

"If I told you I was the wrong person, would you put down your sword?" Moth shrugged his shoulders and said, "You may not want to, but I think now is the time when you need friends." "

The Randers relaxed slightly. "I'm grateful for your help with these jackals, but I'm afraid I'll have to go on my own, I have something important to ask to see the city lord."

Before Moth could react to the Rander's astonishing remarks, there was a commotion in the alley behind him. Francis drew his sword, his face contorted in panic, and he rushed into the square. When the knight saw the corpses scattered on the snow, he suddenly stopped. He glared viciously at the Rand, who glared at him as well, and then Francis focused on Morth.

"Your Highness, are you alright?"

Francis's gaffe made the Randers blink in fright, "Your Highness?"

Mo Si ripped off the broken hat from his head, "Please forgive me for hiding my identity. ”

After hearing Moth's words, Rand snapped his heels together, put his hands on his chest, and knelt down on one knee in salute. "Sir Osmar of the Rand is at your service, Your Highness."

"It's good to see you, Sir Osmar." For a moment, Moth didn't think about how and why a knight from Rand Territory had made the long journey from Dragonfall to Yunzhou. For now, he is only interested in finding out who smuggled refugees into the city. More importantly, he needed to find this person before his own father.

"Now that we're done, maybe we should discuss what you're looking for my father about, and why those people want to kill you."