The City of Marronligar

As the core of the memory of the Marenlica Republic, in addition to the glory and dreams, the Silver Bay Tower also faithfully records the disasters experienced by this city-state, just like my ongoing work-memory and writing, leaving everything in words.

In the fifty years since my birth, that is, before the fall of Maren Riga, it has suffered only one attack of the plague.At that time, I was still working in Silver Bay Tower, and I saw the whole city put on alert: the Governor’s Mansion issued a foot-restriction order, and the guards closed the city gates and ports; doctors are jointly responsible.

Fortunately the plague came and went quickly, but the townspeople have seen it take their lives.In the face of death, the value of survival appears unprecedentedly lofty.

——Miscellaneous Notes of Silver Bay Tower · Plague and Famine

"Liz, I won't agree easily until you explain your purpose." Louis stood up and observed the overly young client with great interest. "Speaking of how old are you, are you an adult?"

Liz gave Louis a dissatisfied look: "I've already held a 16-year-old coming-of-age ceremony, don't treat me like a child." She took the money bag from her waist and waved it in front of Louis, as if emphasizing that You can afford it yourself.

——Looking at this appearance, he is at most 17 years old, not much younger than Adrian.Wait, if you put it the other way around, isn't Adrian not much older than this girl?

Louis couldn't help thinking about the past, only feeling untimely distress.

He put this feeling to the back of his mind for the time being, and concentrated on dealing with the situation in front of him: "Okay, Liz, then we'd better talk like adults. Come on, what do you want me to do for you?"

Liz spoke quickly: "I'm in a hurry to leave the city, but the reserved carriage is being occupied by some hooligans. Help me get the carriage back first."

Liz's description was ambiguous, as if deliberately concealing something, and Louis noticed this.He crossed his arms and responded slowly: "The property has been taken over, you can go to the guards. It's not that the Lightless are hurting people, they will take care of it."

"I can't go to the guards," Liz sniffed uncomfortably. "Otherwise I won't be able to leave the city."

"Oh?" Louis raised an eyebrow. "You must not have done something bad. You are being wanted by the Governor's Mansion. I don't accept such a job. If you help you smuggle and get caught, the loss outweighs the gain."

Liz frowned: "I'm not a bad person! According to the current Maren Riga law, as long as he can prove that he is ignorant of the client's true purpose and does not cause serious consequences, the bounty hunter is not responsible for the client's actions. , not even a fine. Besides, I just went out to the city, and it’s not like I won’t be coming back.”

Louis smiled: "You are quite familiar with this aspect, have you read the Codex since childhood?"

"Of course, I'm—" Liz hurriedly shut her mouth before subconsciously reporting her house.She cleared her throat, feeling as if she was pretending to be an adult but unable to do what she wanted. "In short, take the carriage back from the hooligans first, and then cover me to sneak out of the city, and your work is over."

"Out of town? Where are you going?" Louis kept an eye out.

Liz was still unwilling to reveal her plan: "Leave it alone."

Louis simply used a means of promoting himself: "There are road robbers outside the city. You don't plan to hire a bodyguard? I can give you a discount. Anyway, no one else shares it with me."

Liz, on the other hand, kept a high degree of vigilance towards Louis: "Then what if you wait for a secluded place outside the city and attack me instead?"

Louis said with a smile: "If I were really this kind of person, I would have been unable to get along in the Tao long ago. You can ask others to verify my credibility, such as Patriarch Torreso at the Flying Lion Mansion. We have been old friends for many years."

In fact, this was just a casual statement. Knowing that Liz would not really run around looking for someone, Louis asked, "Is this Louis Cormac a dangerous and morally corrupt person?"

Liz thought for a while, and after weighing the pros and cons, she felt that what Louis said made sense: "...All right, then I'll hire you. But don't try to be clever! I'll keep an eye on you!"

"Okay, okay, can we go then, 'Boss'?" Louis stretched. "Everything has to be done step by step. There are young rascals in your carriage, right? I'll help you teach them first."

Liz put the flipped hat back on, and led Louis towards the alley deep in the harbor area: "I know where they are, come with me."

The home of the curator and Liz is not far from the Silver Bay Tower, in the transition zone between the central city and the aristocratic district. Its appearance is exquisite and low-key, and the decoration is simple and elegant. It is not difficult to see the owner's aesthetic taste and family background.

When entering Liz's room, besides being nervous, Adrian couldn't help being surprised by the amount of books in her room: books of different thicknesses and themes crowded the bookshelves by the walls, and the wooden shelves in front of the windows The two stacks of documents piled up on the table and the notes spread out are covered with beautiful handwriting, and even the low cabinet next to the bed has a book of biographies describing the kings of the ancient empire turned upside down.

There are so many things like this that it's hard to know where to start.

"Does Miss Liz also like reading?" Adrian asked.

The curator rarely had a look of pride on his sad face: "Yes. She stayed with me in the library since she was a child and took Silver Bay Tower as her second home. In the past two years, she has been with other students, Help me sort out the folk historical materials hoarded in the early days of the city. Liz is very smart and has a good memory, and she is basically half a librarian in Silver Bay Tower."

Alert, eager to learn, full of thirst for knowledge, coupled with the "sensible and well-behaved" mentioned by the curator, this is Adrian's general impression of Liz at present.As a young man, it was inconvenient for him to flip through the young girl's personal belongings, so he had to entrust the maid to check Liz's wardrobe and bed again.

While waiting for the maid to finish checking, Adrian asked the curator: "I heard that she left you a letter when she left, may I have a look?"

The curator took out a letter from his pocket and handed it to Adrian.

The letter Liz left behind was very short, with only one sentence: "I want to get back what should belong to the Silver Bay Tower." There are traces of consecutive strokes between the words, and it seems that the writing was in a hurry.

"'Should have belonged to the Silver Bay Tower'..." Adrian whispered the expression that made him puzzled, and then turned to the elderly curator, hoping to get more information from him. "Curator, is there anything missing from the Silver Bay Tower recently?"

The curator shook his head: "No. If there are books and collections lost, I will be the first to know. So I also find it strange, and I don't understand what Liz is referring to."

On the other end, the maid also checked Liz's closet and bed, roughly confirming the condition of her clothes and other personal items.She stood aside with her hands down, waiting for Adrian to ask her a question.In Louis' absence, Adrian had to deal with people alone.

For him, this is a very difficult problem: whether it is social rhetoric or sensibility, although outsiders usually think that Adrian has done a good job in this area, in fact he does not have the corresponding confidence.

Adrian's mental activity is particularly active when encountering difficulties.

——If it's Louis...

"Compared to before, what's different here? Uh, I mean, did Miss Liz take anything from here?"

The maid thought for a while and replied: "Although her own money box is empty, she still has a lot of clothes. When the lady left overnight, she was wearing a set of ordinary clothes, which was the same as what she usually wore when she was in Silver Bay Tower. Ah, jewelry A string of necklaces and a pair of earrings are missing from the shelf, which are a set of inlaid ornaments brought from the north."

"Liz seldom wears these things, but she buys a lot from merchants—probably just likes to look at them, and her mother also likes these things." The curator added.

The money was taken, but Liz didn't pack her clothes.Either he didn't intend to stay out for too long, or he wanted to avoid being spotted by acquaintances for wearing his own clothes, both of which made sense.

According to the sentence in the contact letter, Adrian thinks that Liz knows exactly what she wants to do and what she should do, and she will probably return home after achieving her goal.But seeing the worried look of the curator, Adrian knew that at this juncture, high-sounding comfort was futile.

He turned his gaze to the slightly messy desk again.Looking closely at the books and notes spread out on the table, Adrian found that Liz was reading the history of the plague in Kuno Continent, and the latest note happened to be about the period when Marenliga was affected by the plague 14 years ago.

When the plague happened, Liz should be only two or three years old, so she doesn't have much memory; He was not infested by the plague, and he only vaguely remembered that the elders seemed to mention such a dangerous plague.

But for the curator, that plague is not a past event that can be easily talked about, but a scar that cannot be relieved.Looking at his granddaughter's handwriting, he was very depressed, obviously recalling painful memories.

"Liz's parents, my son and daughter-in-law, died of the plague," he whispered. "The three of them lived in a villa on the outskirts of the city. At that time, the plague had not yet spread to the peninsula. They just rushed back to Marenliga to participate in the midsummer carnival, but they did not expect to contract this deadly disease after returning to the city."

Adrian knew it was time to stop here: "I'm sorry, but please give me your condolences. You don't have to force yourself to remember these things."

The curator breathed a sigh of relief, and gave Adrian a grateful look: "That was 14 years ago, and I have accepted all of this a long time ago, just like the Silver Bay Tower that contains all the words. History has passed away." What we have to do is to record every aspect of it completely, so that the voice of the past can become a guidepost for future generations.”

"I respect your enlightenment." Adrian nodded slightly to the curator.

"No, it's nothing strange, it's just a little understanding of the librarian's responsibility. Right now, I'm most worried about Liz's safety." The curator waved his hand, and then looked at the contents of the notes.

"During this time, Silver Bay Tower was preparing to compile nearly 200 years of folk historical materials, and Liz also helped a lot. Speaking of which, although her father didn't stay in Silver Bay Tower for long, he was also doing similar work He is an introverted and reticent child, but he likes to collect folk songs and legends from all over the world, and record their origin and genealogy. When Liz was born, he sang to her exotic lullabies that no one else had heard. It was in the house on the outskirts of the city In the past, he and his wife wrote many unpublished works, but unfortunately even I didn’t have time to read them. Thinking about it now, those days are like a long dream, so beautiful that people don’t want to wake up.”

The meandering river in the outer suburbs, the surging waves on the river, the breeze under the grape arbor in the courtyard—if the plague hadn’t killed Liz’s parents, she might still live with them in the villa outside the city, watching every day. Such a beautiful scenery.

"Miss Liz probably doesn't have much memory of the days before the plague broke out."

The curator shook his head helplessly: "Yes. Her memory of her parents is also very vague. I can only tell her what her past life was like like telling a story."

——The old man may also be looking for his son in his granddaughter.

Adrian looked around again, and his attention quickly focused on the wall near the bed.There was a cork board nailed there, with painted patterns floating on all sides, and a few thumbtacks were stuck on the soft board.

"There must be something nailed to it."

He leaned closer to the soft board to observe carefully, and found that apart from the dents left by the nails, there were also some ink stains left through the paper.

The maid immediately replied, "There was a map of the Marenliga area pinned there before."

The curator added: "Ah, that was a gift I gave Liz a long time ago, when she was only five or six years old. The map was drawn by Silver Bay Tower. In order to keep Liz as a souvenir, I am giving it to her The old house was specifically marked on that card. But it’s too far away from the city, and it’s deserted now, maybe it’s become a bandit’s lair.”

Adrian frowned: Why did Liz take away a map?Could she get lost inside Marunliga, or would she need directions outside?

—Think before acting, or thinking while acting.

With some clues already accumulated, Adrian felt that he had vaguely seen a sign leading to the answer.

After finishing his thoughts, he turned around and said to the curator, "I'll ask elsewhere first, maybe Miss Liz has just been in contact with someone else, or someone has seen her in the city before. I will try to find Miss Liz Yes, please also pay attention to your health and wait patiently for my news at Silver Bay Tower."

Adrian didn't dare to speak to death, but his tone was calm and firm, and the curator's anxious mood finally calmed down a little.

"Also, can you give me the same map?" Adrian had a flash of inspiration. "It's best to mark the location of the old house like Miss Liz's."

On the other side of the city, Louis just came out of an alley.He twirls his wrists as he walks, ignoring several painful "ouches" from behind him.

Outside the alley, Liz was sitting on a wooden box and fiddling with the threads of her cuffs.Seeing Louis come back to her, she looked inside curiously, and asked in a low voice, "You didn't beat me too much, did you?"

Although she hated those hooligans, it was against her intention to make a big fuss.

Louis shrugged: "I know how to measure. Even if they complain to the guards, the guards will only think it's an ordinary fight. Of course, they won't be able to get up for a while now."

As a bounty hunter, he already knew the boundaries of the rules.

"I didn't expect that you rented a wagon and brought a few empty wine barrels. What are you going to do next?"

Liz showed a somewhat lonely smile: "Of course it's out of town." She jumped out of the wooden box and looked up at the sky where the clouds had just gathered. "Then, finish that unfinished dream for grandfather."

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