The City of Marronligar

As the incarnation of the Cataclysm, the Lightless Ones have always played an important role in the rumors of the streets and alleys of Maren Riga.The narrator is good at using rich rhetoric and superb rhetorical techniques to describe the horrific episodes vividly (and differently) as if they were there, even the victims themselves.

After decades of being an idler with nothing to do, I have also been fortunate to have heard many such stories, and even went to the "place where the incident happened" to verify some facts.The conclusion is as follows: some of the stories are purely made up, and are given various educational meanings; but other parts did happen, or are happening.

——Miscellaneous Notes of Silver Bay Tower·The Rumor of the "Lightless One"

It wasn't until they approached the unnamed tavern (let's call it the "three-masted ship") that Louis told Adrian what they were going to do: "Recently, there was a serial murder case in Maren Liga. Judging from the scene and the situation of the corpse Look, the murderer should be a lightless person - ordinary people don't eat the internal organs and limbs of the dead like wild beasts. I received a commission to investigate this lightless murderer yesterday, so take the opportunity to see it. Help It’s okay, just don’t hold back.”

"Entrustment?" Adrian repeated in a low voice.

"That's right, do you want to guess who the client is?" Louis bypassed the muddy puddles on the side of the road, and wiped off the black mud on the soles of his shoes with the low shoulder of the road.

Adrian thought as he walked: the religious order has its own armed forces, so there is no need to hire external bounty hunters, and those devout religious policemen have always looked down on "ordinary people" who take money to do things; and the Torreso family has always disdain Entrust outsiders; the rest are ordinary city guards who lack special knowledge and skills and are unable to deal with non-human beings, and the Governor's Palace behind them.

So, he tentatively replied: "Is it Governor Morgis?"

"This is the most normal way of thinking, but unfortunately I still guessed wrong." Louis smiled. "It was a nobleman who paid me a lot of money to help capture the Lightless. To be precise, he was a collector."

--collector?

"It's not out of a sense of justice, nor is it for revenge. He just wants to make a specimen of this lightless man who killed civilians and put it in his own private museum. It seems that a strange technology has appeared in the collection world, which can use special medicine Water treats the dead body of the lightless, and after it is finished, it will not be broken into slag even if it sees the light." Louis said.

There was a trace of fatigue in his expression and tone, as if he felt that both the commission and the client were boring. "It's a disgusting purpose, right? This city is like this, you can always find extraordinary desires and evil thoughts."

This is undoubtedly a big shock to Adrian.He was silent for a long time, until Louis turned his head to confirm that the young Torresso "apprentice" had not been lost, and then asked, "Is this kind of entrustment... very common?"

If Louis' answer is yes, Adrian is sure that he will never become a bounty hunter - he cannot tolerate such bad tastes, and it is difficult to accept the behavioral rule of "only asking about benefits, not morals".

Louis shook his head: "No, most people are still normal, but you have to be prepared for 'the employer is a pervert'."

He looked forward again, and the three-masted ship drawn in charcoal on the signboard of the tavern reflected the warm light of the torch at the door, which was as warm as a dream that would make people miss their hometown.

"I suspect that the noble didn't think about the family members of the deceased at all. He didn't even look at them. He only thought about how to get a novel collection. The death of a commoner would increase the value of this collection. By the way , the Lightless were once human too, and we ignore that in order to justify destroying 'them'."

Adrian pursed his lips and said softly, "I haven't killed the Lightless yet."

Although he personally executed the enemies of the Torresso family, he should have a strong enough psychological quality, but his intuition tells Adrian that even if the Lightless One has no consciousness as a human being, no emotions, no feelings of guilt and guilt, They can't even feel pain, only the instincts of eating and destruction are left in the twisted body, but they are still different from unconscious dead things.

"Believe me, it's much harder to kill the Lightless than to kill someone."

Just as he was speaking, Louis walked into the gate of the tavern, bypassing the benches and stumbling drunks in the middle of the road with ease, and walked towards the counter where the boss was.He is obviously a regular customer here, and he is a generous one, which can be seen from the expressions of the boss and the guys.

"Two glasses of Silver Bay mead, one without salt."

Adrian stood behind Louis and reminded him hesitantly: "Master, I don't drink."

The air smelled of wine, roast meat and bread (and, of course, the seaside salty smell) and he knew he would look out of place if he didn't drink, but it was as close to Adrian's "health principles" as using tobacco borders.

Louis replied quietly: "This is not for you."

"..." Adrian was speechless for a moment.

The boss recognized Adrian's voice.He froze for a moment, his only remaining eye widened a bit, and his eyes moved back and forth quickly between Louis and Adrian, but he didn't say anything about it, but thanked him and accepted the coin that Louis slapped on the counter .No credit - this is the quality that the tavernkeeper values ​​​​most.

The clerk raised the curtain between the front desk and the back kitchen, and brought out two cups of warm mead.The rough metal wine glasses are irregular, with simple patterns rolling on the rim.With a glass of wine in each hand, Louis walked to a broken wooden table by the window.

That table is already occupied.He was an unremarkable middle-aged man, plainly dressed, his brown coarse cloth coat was washed white, and there was nothing on the table except half a piece of bread and an empty wine glass. A fisherman or sailor who works frequently.At this moment, he was sitting sideways on a chair, gagging with a few sailors at the next table, his cheeks flushed from alcohol.

"Is he your informant?" Adrian asked in a low voice.

"It's a friend. Although it doesn't look like it, he is indeed a writer." Louis corrected Adrian's wording. "In our line of work, it is very important to expand the network of people. If you don't make friends with each other, you have to talk about it."

——This is probably one of the rules of behavior for bounty hunters, right?

Adrian remembered this silently, and at the same time thought of the style of the Torresso family itself.The two are indeed somewhat contradictory, but it is always beneficial to have more exposure to a perspective-probably.

Louis sat down at the table, put the wine glass on the table, and tapped the table with his index and middle fingers to attract the other party's attention: "Hey Seamus, please turn around and see who is coming."

The middle-aged man turned around slowly, hiccupped with the smell of alcohol, and said with his tongue out, "Isn't this Louis! Haha, my good brother Louis!"

"It's me. It's a good thing you're not drunk enough to think I'm your creditor." Louis pushed the unsalted glass of mead towards the man. "I ordered this cup."

Adrian stood silently behind Louis, not wanting to find a seat to sit down—even with Louis' guarantee, he still doubted whether the drunken ordinary citizen in front of him could really bring valuable clues.

The writer who should be named Seamus looked at Adrian curiously, lowered his voice mysteriously, and asked Louis, "Is that your student?"

Adrian said nothing, leaving the interpretation to Louis.

And Louis just used vague expressions to perfunctory the past: "Barely count."

For some reason, this made Adrian feel very subtle-as if Louis did not recognize his ability and identity.

Seeing that Seamus drank the glass of Silver Bay mead, Louis knocked on the table again, showing that he came with a serious business: "A few days ago in the fishing village, what happened to the Murder of the Lightless Men? Haven't heard any news?"

——Okay, here comes the topic.

Suppressing the doubts in his heart for the time being, Adrian waited intently for the next conversation.

Seamus shuddered, most of the wine sobered up, and the slightly cloudy eyeballs also shone.He waved slightly, motioning for Louis to come over, "You know, my house is right next to the fishing village."

"I know." Louis nodded.

"When the city guard went to clean up the body, I also took a few glances. Well, not just 'a few glances', I stayed there until the guard who reported the incident came."

Like to join in the fun is a common problem that most Marenliga citizens can't get rid of, and there is nothing to grieve about - Adrian tried to persuade himself, but failed.

"Remember what he said too." Louis turned around and explained to Adrian, then turned to the writer.

Seamus raised his glass, took a big sip, and continued, "Probably because the dead are not important, and the murderer is not a human being, and he doesn't know where to go to catch him, so the guards have to treat it like a 'beast cannibal'." There was an accident—anyway, this is how it was handled in the past, and I even wondered if they would record all the confessions and the situation at the scene. Aren’t the Lightless ones just like wild beasts, they just have empty shells of what they used to be.”

Louis touched his chin, and then asked: "More than one person died there. Do you remember the identity of the deceased and the locations of several scenes? Maybe we can find clues to the murderer."

"Yes, of course!" He immediately reported a series of places and names, speaking very precisely and specifically, without even floating in the sea of ​​memory. "Don't look at me now, I was the favorite student of the director of the Silver Bay Tower Library back then, and I can remember this stuff more than enough—even though it was a long time ago."

The tone at the end of the sentence sank slowly, and he seemed to be caught in an emotion between nostalgia and regret.

Adrian breathed a sigh of relief silently—fortunately, the alcohol didn't damage the head of this "big writer"; Louis also had a good eye for choosing friends.

Standing outside the tavern, Louis stretched his waist and yawned towards the night sky above his head. Even Adrian felt a little tired.

The snoring of a drunk was heard not far away, the waves crashed into the embankment at a roughly constant frequency, and the barking of dogs in the yard seemed to be in rhythm.When the sun rises from the horizon, everything will start again like the tide.Whether it is ordinary life, tedious work, unchanged scenery for decades, or sudden death and slow catastrophe.

"Let's go here first today, I think you are quite tired." Louis took off the pipe pinned to his belt, thought for a while, and put it back in place. "You go back first. At noon tomorrow, wait for me in front of the street sign in the fishing village."

Adrian wanted to say something more, but in the end he left the question to his future self.

"See you tomorrow, Master."

After a simple farewell, he turned around and walked in the direction of the noble district.The full moon hung high in the sky, the sea breeze blew from behind Adrian, and the out-of-tune singing in the tavern gradually faded away from him.

At the same time, Hagrid Sauron, the Chief Inquisitor of the Heresy of the Diocese of Marenlica, was still not resting in the temple opposite the library of the Silver Bay Tower.

As the commander and person in charge of the armed forces of the church here, Hagrid basically devoted all his time to official duties: the first and second floors of the temple were open to the public, and prayers and hymns echoed under the solemn statues; The third floor is the archives and conference room within the church; the fourth floor is the residence of the rector and the church police, and there is an independent office space and bedroom belonging to Hagrid.He ate and lived here, and naturally filled his schedule with work.

Samuel would sometimes come directly to his office to discuss matters, usually in the middle of the night.

Even if a consensus was reached with the order, the Torreso family's suspicion of "heretical beliefs" was still not cleared, and it seemed inconvenient for Patriarch Torreso to haunt the temple of the order.To avoid trouble, Samuel chose not to go through the front door, and Hagrid still doesn't understand how Samuel got in through the window.Of course, he doesn't care about such boring questions.

The window that was concealed was opened, and a familiar figure lightly rolled over the window sill and landed on the floor covered with candlelight, barely making a sound.Hagrid only glanced at the hourglass at hand, without even raising his head, his stern expression remained motionless.

Samuel was used to this attitude from Hagrid.He quietly walked to the bookshelf, and looked up at the title marked in cursive script on the spine.

"What on earth was your purpose in calling that rookie to Marunliga, and stuffing him with Louis Cormac?"

Hagrid closed the file in front of him, staring coldly at Samuel's profile.Thanks to his excellent innate conditions, Samuel has an exquisite appearance that can stand the test, but in Hagrid's view, it is just a disguise of a poisonous snake: "What are you planning?"

After Hagrid's straightforward criticism, Samuel's expression suddenly became very bitter - this is an appearance he has never shown in front of people other than Hagrid, including Sophia.He lowered his eyes and murmured, "It's really not for any bad things this time, trust me."

The author has something to say: bgm: TavernattheEndofWorld-PawelBlaszczak

When writing, I actually unconsciously substituted the perspective of an rpg game, imagining "if there are several options here, what new developments will happen", or throwing dice at critical moments to pass the test