Cohen walked down the alleys of the underground streets, blinded by the beggars and homeless people under the eaves on either side, and their hidden eyes.

"Cohen. ”

The scruffy man in front of him to his left covered the blood stains on his clothes, a thug in the distance was sneaking in his pocket, and the beggar under the eaves across from him was vying for ownership of an ownerless ring with another scrawny counterpart.

But Cohen just walked past them in a trance, out of sight, deaf to him.

What does that have to do with him?

"Cohen?"

The sparkle of the stars kept his energy focused on his own world, without distractions, the noise of the distance could not attract his attention, the nearby pickles could not move his mind a little, and the underground streets and even the lower town seemed to him to be just the name of a place on paper.

He seemed to be walking beyond the horizon, above all else, completely selfless—like many of the noble children he knew, who had a vision of the kingdom and the world in his heart, and was destined to achieve a career.

But......

"Cohen!"

Finally, Cohen, who was wandering in the world, stumbled back to his soul.

"What's wrong?"

Cohen subconsciously looked left and right:

Lejok was still ten paces away, his attitude full of disdain and rejection towards them, and Gloveo dutifully stood by the prince's side, blocking all hostile glances with his size and expression.

Cohen lowered his head: the voicer, the Second Prince, looked at him deeply, his eyes full of inquiry.

"Cheer up. ”

Tails' words have an unmistakable flavor:

"You've been a police officer for six years, and what Morris said shouldn't have had such a big impact on you. ”

What Morris said......

Cohen's eyes were blank.

[You're not fighting gangsters, it's not crime, it's not even evil. 】

[You represent the power of this country, stand in the position of the strong, and face the resistance of the weak. 】

Cohen shook his head desperately.

"No, it has nothing to do with that scumbag, it doesn't affect me-"

"It's weird. Gloover interrupted him coldly.

Cohen stared at the zombie in a daze, his face struggling.

Tails sighed:

"Listen, Cohen, you need to know that Morris is a member of the Brotherhood, and everything he says—"

"No!"

Unexpectedly, Cohen suddenly spoke loudly, knocking both Tails and Glover into a beat.

Even Lejock in front of him frowned and looked back.

Tails frowned and looked at the other man: Cohen doesn't react like this often.

"Not his words...... It's not, it's not ......"

At this time, Cohen's face changed, and he muttered in a hurried tone.

"Hey," said Glove, patting Cohen cautiously, glaring back at a few idlers who were attracted in the distance:

"Are you alright......"

Cohen suddenly looked up!

"When you turn the tide in Valhalla and force all sides to retreat, Your Highness. ”

The vigilante officer stared eagerly at Tails, as if looking for some answer:

"Are they—the Exeters, moved by your words?"

Tails was stunned.

Exeter ......

But Cohen shook his head, his expression bitter.

"My old man's reply said, 'Words are only expressions, and actions are only about the heart.'" ’”

"As for 'clever words can confuse the heart', this is just a beautiful fantasy of writers. ”

Tails' expression changed, and he stopped talking.

"He said, it wasn't your words that moved the Exeters, Your Highness," the warden bowed his head:

"It's what they think, what they experience, what they stake—you're just the one who lifts the curtain and sees what they want. ”

Tails was silent for a while.

"After Count Turami Karabiyan deserves to be called 'Wise Minister,'" the prince sighed:

"If I have the opportunity in the future, I should visit Ling Zun. ”

Cohen's gaze struggled, as if he were going through a brutal struggle.

"I wasn't convinced by the old man's words, but ......"

"All the same, Your Highness," Cohen exhaled, "that fat man is very good at talking, but he can't shake me in a few words." ”

"Unless it shakes me, there is something else. ”

He stared faintly down the narrow alleys, as if there was never an end in sight.

Tails looked at him and sighed in his heart.

"I won't admit it, but," Cohen hesitated for a moment, but finally mustered up the courage to speak decisively:

"Yes, my 'Heart of the Sword' is shaken,"

"My moves are getting more and more proficient, and the blade of my sword is sharper every time," Cohen gritted his teeth, "but the man who wields the sword is rusty." ”

"That's why I've been stagnant for six years. ”

Tails frowned.

"Maybe you should go back to the battlefield and roll in the blood one more time. Glovo snorted lightly, a little unaccustomed to his appearance:

"Instead of catching thieves on the streets every day. ”

"Garron!" Tails glanced at Glover warningly, and the latter said no more.

"I'm serious. ”

Cohen didn't look stunned, but his eyes were gloomy:

"But what shakes me is not the nonsense of that dead fat man. ”

"It's myself, my experience in this city for six years. ”

Experiences in the city.

Tails paused for the words, and the memories of the abandoned house were like a dream, wrapping around his feet again.

"You know, Your Highness, that little girl who just stole your money. ”

Cohen walked behind the prince and lost his mind:

"She probably doesn't like stealing money, she doesn't like blackmail, she doesn't like picking up customers like her mom does, or she doesn't like fooling around like her father. ”

But she had no choice. ”

Tails and Glover were stunned at the same time, the former remembering the abandoned house, the latter remembering Red Street.

Cohen tripped over an irregular stone, but he was unaware of it, and continued:

"Following the example of her mother and father—perhaps just her mother's good looks—she had to follow the example of most people on the street: shrewd, vicious, shameless and narrow-minded. ”

"When she grows up, she will only be another insensitive warbler whore like her mother, or an idle scoundrel like her father. ”

"There is no more way. ”

Tails and Glover fell silent together.

Cohen gritted his teeth and pressed the hilt of the sword at his waist:

"Because she was born here. ”

"Like all the people on this street. ”

Glove's head was raised, and with a grim look on his face he interrupted Cohen:

"Then do something. ”

"Do something. Cohen muttered:

"Do something?"

Glover snorted coldly:

"Send her scumbag parents to prison, or gallows. ”

"Isn't it your duty to fight crime and maintain law and order, Qing—Officer Vigilance?"

But Tails shook his head secretly.

Cohen took a deep breath: "Yes, but ......"

"I ......"

His tone paused, his chest relaxed, but the words came to his lips but he was powerless to rush out.

Cohen shook his head in frustration.

"What's going on?" Tails said in a deep voice.

Cohen was silent for a long time, and when Gloover was about to speak up, he finally spoke.

"Six years ago, Your Highness, when I was here for a few months, I was full of confidence and wanted to make some achievements and make some changes,"

"Back then, I thought it was a battlefield, thinking that my opponents were only the Brotherhood and the Blood Vials, their filth and sins, only darkness and evil. ”

"But ......"

Cohen's words froze.

【The ...... you're fighting against Not even evil. 】

Cohen gritted his teeth and shook his head, returning to the present:

"So I worked overtime to fight crime, maintain order, put an end to injustice and illegality, and bring security and the law back here,"

"But ......"

The turning point came to his lips again.

"In the lower city, the criminals have been caught in batches and in batches, and the nests have been cleaned up one by one," Cohen's breathing became more and more chaotic, and the speed of his speech became faster and faster:

"The people caught were released within a few days, and soon the cleared streets were filled with illegal gangs, and the seized warehouses soon became criminal covers, and every year the same number of bodies were transported out of the place for burial, if not more......"

Cohen's words were bitter, even helpless.

"Strict law enforcement, canonical punishment, all these things we learn in political textbooks, don't work here - I don't know, maybe I didn't learn well in politics class, maybe my means of stopping crime are too poor, maybe I have to be like Cousin Dele, every time I get a perfect score in politics class, I can know what to do. ”

Tails listened silently, in a gloomy mood.

But Glofo was unmoved:

"It's useless to just catch small shrimps. ”

Cohen raised his head and spoke urgently:

"I did!"

He stared at Glovor.

"I did, I followed the example of some of my colleagues, raised my eyes, and started to look at big fish, like Morris just now. ”

"I brought down a leader of the Brotherhood and cut off all the chains under him, but within two days a new man came up from below and filled the void in his place—faster than the Vigilante was in vacancies. ”

Gloover snorted disdainfully:

"It's that his level isn't enough, you have to find the source, maybe you have to take that Rausch black sword-"

"Source!" Cohen raised his voice again!

Grove frowned.

At this moment, the vigilante looked at Glofo in a daze:

"You're right, zombies, there aren't enough levels, you have to find the source. ”

"Source. ”

Cohen is like an ascetic in pursuit of his faith, looking into the distance in a trance.

"As a vigilance officer in charge of Xiacheng District, the places I can reach are too shallow, too close, and the symptoms are not cured. ”

"So I thought, I'm going to do more, more, more. ”

"I've got to push a little harder, a little deeper, a little more transparent. ”

Cohen took a deep breath:

So I went down to the source of the evils. ”

But his steadfastness suddenly fell, like the ascetic who pursued his faith, and finally fell in the middle of the road:

"And then I met them. ”

Gloover and Tails were puzzled.

"Them?"

Cohen nodded expressionlessly.

"The one you just met on the street, Your Highness, is just a little girl," the vigilante officer's voice seemed to be absent:

"But here, there, and elsewhere, I've met countless kids like that. ”

Child.

Tails subconsciously opened his mouth.

"The Childhood of the Criminals—Is There a Deeper Source Than This?"

Cohen swallowed a mouthful of saliva:

"Yes, zombie, as you say, I acted, I intervened, like the most competent vigilante officer. ”

"Including banning the gang behind them, punishing their scumbag 'parents', cleaning up their living environment, and threatening the scum who want to take advantage of them - I hate to say that, but thanks to my last name, a police officer of a lower background has long disappeared for no apparent reason. ”

"Those children, I sent them to the orphanage under the jurisdiction of the Discipline Department, or the adoptive family, or even the Grace House of the Sunset Church, and for this, I did not hesitate to face the hostility of the Brotherhood and the Blood Vials, the punishment within the Vigilance Department, and the disgust of my colleagues in the Discipline Department......"

"I even pulled down my head and promised the old man to go to the aristocratic blind date ball, so that I could take out the money from his stingy hands to fund some unaccompanied children and satisfy their lives, so that they would not fall again......"

Listening to Cohen's statement, Tails and Glover looked at him with more and more different expressions.

The more Cohen spoke, the more excited he became, but his feelings suddenly changed:

"But ......"

As if frozen in time, the vigilant officer paused for a few seconds before he spoke again:

"A few years ago, I rescued an orphan. ”

"At that time, he was in his early teens, and I asked the Discipline Department to send him to an almshouse......

Cohen's gaze moved slightly, and the color in it faded away:

"But a few years later, I caught a gang of scumbags of the Brotherhood who tortured his son with red-hot tongs in the presence of the debtor, just for—who knows how many coppers. ”

Glover's face tightened.

Cohen took a deep breath:

"The child, the child I rescued. ”

"He's in the scum, fourteen or fifteen. ”

Cohen said dumbfoundedly:

"He's getting old, and I have to take him to prison. ”

"It's like sending him to an almshouse. ”

Tails closed his eyes and swirled them open.

Cohen exhaled a breath of pain:

"He wasn't the only one, I didn't know until a long time that the children I thought I had saved ......"

"Most of them will reappear on the streets. ”

"Children who originally had parents in the family...... Hehe, their scumbag parents, after being honest for a while, basically always relapse and continue to take them with them...... Like the little girl just now. ”

"As for the others, they couldn't stand it and ran away from the almshouse or the adoptive family. ”

Cohen bowed his head.

"You idiot. ”

Cloover suddenly interjected, and he said a rare long list of words:

"Most almshouses are no different from prisons – except that the cell bosses are worse than the ones who run them – and it is better to let them go there than to let them go back to the streets and steal bread. ”

Cohen shuddered slightly.

"As for adoption, hmph, it's like a blindfolded bet," said Glover's grim tone:

"If you're lucky, you might be able to eat some leftovers in the stables as a voucher for your 'family' to receive orphan allowance from the Discipline Department, isn't that unlucky......?"

The zombie tightened his collar and didn't say any more.

Cohen frowned:

"How do you know—"

Glovo interrupted him coldly:

"I heard!"

Cohen frowned:

"Who's listening—"

"No one!"

Gloufo seemed to be very taboo on the subject, and he raised his index finger in a sharp warning:

That's the end of the problem. ”

Tails sighed softly.

Although Cohen was very confused, he didn't pay much attention to it, just sighed helplessly.

"Yes, almshouses, adopters, I know their condition, I went to see them later—these good governance practices of the age of virtuous kings have long since deteriorated. ”

Cohen bowed his head:

"As for the Church of Sunset ...... Grace"

"More disgusting. A deep voice came.

Cohen and Gloover were both startled.

They turned their heads, and the quiet killer Leyok, who appeared beside them at some point, snorted softly, his eyes vicious:

"I had a friend go in. ”

Cohen and Glover looked at each other, but Lejock ignored them and said coldly:

"There was a very good old priest in the charismatic house, who patiently taught him every day to read and write, to recite sunset scriptures, and to learn manners and morals, and to appreciate the fact that my friend had never received such attention when he was young......

"Until one day. ”

Leyoke snorted softly, as if he was smiling but not laughing, love and hate:

"The kind priest said to my friend that as a devout follower of the setting sun, the grace of the goddess had descended on him......"

"Hidden in his panties under his thick school robes. ”

The others frowned fiercely.

"The old priest untied his belt, and encouraged the boy to break through the obstacles, to find the 'carrier of divine grace,' and then to grasp it, and to cherish it with all his might, and to ponder it with all his heart, until he said, 'Let the mortal body produce a miracle and shoot out the pure white of the divine rain.......'"

Speaking of which, Lejok burst out laughing!

"Hahahahaha-ha

He laughed so exaggeratedly that he even bent down, but there was no smile in his eyes, but there was a frightening morbidity.

However, the others, including Tails, only felt a deep chill and oppression.

"That friend of yours," replied Crofo warily and indifferently:

He relayed it so clearly. ”

Lejok smiled and glanced at him coldly:

"Because he's not the only one. ”

The crowd was silent for a moment.

Until Cohen sighed:

"I didn't expect to say that, but, Lejok: I'm sorry. ”

"You don't have to," Leyok replied ruthlessly:

"For the learned and holy priest had mistaken the oracle for a man who had discovered it with him many years later, on the day he retired. ”

Hearing this, Tails, who knew how much of the quiet killer's heart, looked at him.

"It turns out that the so-called divine grace, the divine rain," Lejok lowered his head and gently pulled out the blade hidden in his waist, his eyes revealing a fierce light:

"It's bright red. ”

Cohen and Glove's expressions changed slightly, and they were silent for a while.

That was until Leyok retracted the blade into its scabbard, waking up the quiet air.

Cohen looked up, sullen:

"In short, these children go back to the streets, or go back to their old ways: begging, stealing, cheating, or even begging behind the scum to make a living, imitate, assist, and even aspire to become them, because the latter at least eats well......"

"Either it's worse – without the organization and protection of the gangs, they're like weeds, no one cares. ”

"I still remember a kid who spat at me, and he said that if he was rescued by the Alert Department, he might as well go back to the Brotherhood, even if he was beaten a lot, but at least he was organized, he had companions, he could survive, and if he was lucky, he would grow up to be as majestic as them and bully other bastards. ”

Tails unconsciously clenched his back molars.

"Because that's the only way to live," Lejok, who unwittingly joined the conversation, said disdainfully:

"The only way for them to find their kind, to find happiness, to find a reason to live. ”

"Not the so-called 'relief' of you superior people. ”

Cohen snorted, depressed.

And almost every criminal — a gambler, a robber, a liar, a prostitute, a thief, a gangster and a thug — has had a similar bad experience growing up: sometimes an irresponsible drunkard dad, sometimes an unscrupulous playmate, sometimes a poor reality that can't survive, sometimes an indifferent and unforgiving society, sometimes just this filthy street. ”

"Compared to these, even the Brotherhood of the Dark Streets and the Blood Vials are not so hideous and hateful. ”

The warden officer's words made the rest of them ponder.

"Pitiful, hateful, pathetic, ridiculous, and in the end, I don't know whether they have become what they are now, whether they have become natural or crooked, free choice or nowhere to go, willing or compelled to do so, deserving of their crimes or being wronged. ”

"Yes," Lejock was the first to speak, and he spat disdainfully on the ground:

"As if we care what you think, Greenskin. ”

But Cohen didn't care about his offense.

"We're just, just putting their scum moms and dads in jail or putting them on the gallows, and then leaving them in a bigger, messier, darker maelstrom of waits for them to absorb the nutrients, recognize the rules, and grow up little by little. ”

The vigilante officer's face was gloomy:

"Become the new scumbag. ”

"Then we'll take them away as scum. ”

"Wait for their newborn children to grow up in the same whirlpool and become newer scum......"

He looked up again and looked into the distance of the ruined street, but there was still no end in sight.

"That's their choice. ”

Croover spoke, with a hint of anger and irritation in his words:

"Suffer the consequences. ”

"Choice, choice?" said Lejork, laughing sickly again, growing from light to severe, and his scalp tingling:

"Hahahaha......"

Cohen didn't answer, he just looked at the zombie bitterly, making the latter even more unhappy.

"But they didn't have a choice. ”

Tails, who had not spoken for a long time, spoke slowly, attracting the attention of the three for a while.

"They don't have a chance. ”

The prince walked up a few steps towards the place he had once known.

"In communities like this, the socioeconomic status of the parents is limited – sorry, I mean, they can't go to school, they can't acquire a skill, they can't see the world at a later level......"

Tails walked around a corner that he had passed countless times as a child.

"They are confined here, they can't find a normal and stable job, they can only oscillate between idleness and adultery, they have no time to care about morality and law, they can only give priority to those things that can support their survival, they cannot understand ideals and dreams, they can only reproduce in the mud of reality the selfishness, narrow-mindedness, cruelty, laziness, meanness, anger and ...... imposed on them by life"

"They don't have the opportunity to feel morality, gratitude, selflessness, solidarity, justice, like us, who claim to be able-bodied, but to learn the true meaning of life in the ruthlessness of the streets and the cruelty and horror of their peers. ”

Tails sighed:

"Their poverty will only be passed on from generation to generation, and so will crime. ”

Cohen's face grew more and more ugly.

Glovover's expression remained the same, only his breathing accelerated, and Leyok crossed his arms and walked unconsciously against the wall.

"And when the well-wishers outside ask: Why is that?"

Tails said sadly:

People will pinch their noses and reply with condescending disgust: because they are scumbags, because they have poor upbringing, because they don't learn well, and even because they are born like this: selfish, narrow-minded, vicious, lazy, mean, angry, and uneducated and traitorous, all their own choice. ”

The boy's statement suddenly accelerated:

"People will say: We didn't force them not to be self-reliant, to force them not to improve, to force them to be immoral, to force them to be traitors and criminals, right?"

The prince's emotions startled Glove, and the zombie hesitated and asked:

"Your Highness?"

"Some words are true," Tails said with a stroke of gravity, "but it doesn't stop there. ”

"More than that. ”

"If we really want to change the status quo, not comfort ourselves. ”

Glouover and Cohen looked at each other, but Lejok remained silent.

Tails slowly raised his head:

"And when their existence and behaviour – all cultivated in this deviant environment – threaten the freedom and security of 'people'. ”

Then people will be filled with righteous indignation and say with righteousness: the criminals must be hanged, because they deserve it. ”

"People will say that as long as such scum is dead, then they will not be able to harm other people, and the future will be better. ”

Cohen bit his lip.

"Haha, if the scum were all dead," Lejok sneered:

"So what else can people use to prove that they are good?"

Tails shook his head, ignoring the other party's extremism:

"As you just said, in the desert, whether it is orcs or humans, they all think: as long as they kill all the enemies, no one will be left. ”

"Peace will come. ”

Glovo and Cohen were stunned.

"But here's the thing," Tails seemed to be back in the Prison of Bones, the Crassus of the Sword of Calamity, and Ricky's words drifted in his ears.

"How are we going to kill those ......?"

Tails said in a daze:

"An enemy who can't be killed?"

The crowd was silent for a long time.

"So like the fat man said, the Brotherhood is everywhere and never dies. ”

Cohen ruffled his hair haphazardly and said bitterly:

"Even if I kill the Black Sword, there will still be countless newborn Black Sword, and they will take up his weapon, speak his language, and even stand up to his appearance. ”

"This is our real enemy, the enemy who cannot be killed. ”

Lejok smiled and tightened the black silk on his arm.

"Punishment doesn't work, prohibition doesn't work, help doesn't work, charity doesn't work......"

There was a deep sense of powerlessness in Cohen's tone:

"That was the first time I understood: my sword can kill. ”

Cohen looked up blankly:

"But it can't save lives. ”

"Even one. ”