Shadow of the Evil God

"It's too lonely here. I can't do anything except beg her for things, and she..."

Seeing her momentarily lost for words, Cesar spoke first, "If there are things you can't say yet, you can take action first and put everything in Noien behind you. After a few years, when you've settled down in Itris, some of these difficult emotions will naturally pass."

Phils fell silent, biting her nails almost unbearably to relieve her anxiety.

"How did you realize you had other options?" he asked again.

"Every few years, tax collectors would come, always accompanied by Sean's nephews and nieces. The first one was a court painter, who told me a lot about the heartland of the Dominican Kingdom. I thought a lot during that time, and later I wanted to ask other listeners in the castle for their opinions, but none of them..." Firth's eyebrows were knotted, and it seemed that she had difficulty organizing a specific description. "I don't quite know how to put it, it's like..."

It seems that they are going through similar changes over there.

Cesar thought for a moment. "You wanted to discuss many things with them, about how the world would change. But they didn't understand. They just remembered a few fragmented words and snippets, and made a lot of unkind comments based on their own ideas."

"Yes... that's it. Either some nobles over there are protesting the kingdom's laws and should all be hanged in the market. Or the earl's nephew is clearly a court painter, but he doesn't paint religious paintings honestly, most likely because he's not good enough and is causing trouble. There are also claims that it's a cult causing trouble over there, tempting the ignorant to fall into depravity, and that associating with them will destroy your soul. In short, it's a similar reaction. Can you imagine?"

"So, you think the court painter was right? You place a lot of hope in the world over there?"

She was silent for a moment, smoothing her fluffy flaxen hair with one hand.

"I don't really remember it. I wasn't even ten at the time, but I'm a... mage myself. I know better than they do where souls go and what becomes of them. I think those things are wonderful. Those places sound like dreams, different from the numb place of Noyen, and even more different from being with Corini."

There was a bitterness in Phils's tone. It was already late at night, and the biting cold wind howled outside the window, creating a desolate and piercing sound. The moonlight filtering through the narrow window illuminated her face, which was pale and mysterious in the darkness, sad and beautiful. Through their nighttime conversation, Cesar gradually brought her into his own rhythm, calming her emotions while also understanding her understanding of the world from her mouth.

Although none of this directly helped him get out of the city, the more different perspectives and viewpoints he gained, the less confused he would be in the beginning.

......

Feng Shui turns, since Phils uses animal blood and grass

The drug kept Cesar alive, so he had to take on the task of finding a way out. Now she stayed in the house, devoting her energy to paper and pen, intending to make a detailed map analysis of the terrain of Lower Noyen, but later he discovered that the bigger reason was that she hated going out.

Cesar wanted her to go out too, but she just slumped against the wall, not saying anything in return. She just stared at him with her unblinking eyes, a creepy blue, like glass artifacts embedded in human eye sockets. There was no expression on her face, but it was clear that she was expressing resistance. Combined with her pale face, it was like the dead were using an oppressive gaze to drive away the living.

During the days when Phils was in charge of the field trip, her daily routine was relatively normal. But ever since she pushed the responsibility of the trip onto him, he had never seen her close her eyes while she was awake.

Before leaving home in the wee hours of the morning, Cesar would see her covering the bed with notes and blueprints, scribbling away with a pen. Returning at night, she would also, by kerosene lamp, seize the other two surviving men in the room and interrogate them relentlessly, attempting to discover any possible escape route. In the middle of the night, as he was about to fall asleep, she would still drag the Faceless One, who cared nothing for day or night, and pepper him with endless questions.

Over time, her dark circles became more and more obvious.

Over the past few days, in order to cope with Fils's interrogation and also to save his own life, Cesar memorized the topography and building layout of each area in the lower city. Although he had never been to Upper Neuen, Lower Neuen no longer left him as bewildered as it had been at first.

In the wee hours of the morning, when the miners were about to enter the mines, Cesar dressed as a local and walked out with his dog, who was looking around like a real dog. Although he had changed into the image of a young worker, considering his habits and self-awareness, he still gave her the nickname of the last person he remembered from his previous life.

They relied on brute force to squeeze forward with the crowd, letting the crowd surge around them.

The houses on either side of the road were too high, cluttered with scaffolds and wooden poles, hung with damp, tattered clothing. He could barely see a sliver of the overcast sky. The streets were narrow and dirty, and a stench of decaying dampness rose from beneath his feet. Smoke from cooking fires and steam from boiling water hung in the air on either side. Everywhere he looked, people were eating and traveling, and the crowds were so crowded that he actually sweated profusely walking through the freezing cold of Noyen.

These people shouted loudly and rushed around. Anyone who was physically weak would be pushed to the edge of the crowd and stare blankly while waiting for the miners to pass.

However, it is just right for them to blend into the crowd.

After the mining rush passed, Cesar and his dog headed for the port area, which was said to be more practical than the city walls. The long, north-south river, called the Joshua, carried the majority of cargo transportation within the Noyen Fortress. If they could find a way to hide aboard a long-distance merchant ship, they could sail upstream, eliminating the need to trek through the wilderness and reach the heart of the Domini Kingdom.

However, the security in the port area was no less relaxed than at the gate to the wasteland. The person he had abducted from the earl was of great importance, and they would not give up the search easily.

Even though he's hiding deep enough now, if he dares to approach a place that allows him to leave the city, someone will be watching and waiting. This is simply catching a turtle in a jar.

Soon after, Cesar found a high-rise restaurant overlooking the harbor, a place where ordinary people with a little extra money would go when they wanted to enjoy themselves. Of course, since it was located near the dog pit in Lower Neuen, don't expect this so-called restaurant to be very good. To the west lay the rambling slums, to the north the canal that drained Upper Neuen's sewage to the dog pit, and to the south, a mountain of iron filings and coal slag. The nearby streets were covered in muddy roads.

Not only was the place dirty and smelly, the food was also extremely difficult to swallow, and the crowd was filled with a numb and meaningless sense of just getting by, as if as long as they suffered hardships while alive, they would be able to enjoy blessings in the abode of the gods after death.

People like them are essentially the appendages of each era. Regardless of whether gods exist, wizards exist, or industrial civilization develops, brilliant achievements and accomplishments will create diverse slums. Those afflicted with various diseases and prematurely aged individuals gather in droves, wandering from morning till night until they become unattended corpses.

While thinking, they went to the upper floor of the high-rise restaurant. After spending Phils's savings to get a small private room, Cesar finally felt that the smell was not so bad here.

He took a plate from the middle-aged proprietress in a canvas apron. On it were a few slices of incredibly thin bacon, an oil-free fried egg that seemed to have been fried on a stone, a piece of salty cheese with a slightly smelly taste, and two or three slices of hard bread that had been cut the previous night and spread a little butter on it. It looked like it had been taken out of an even more suspicious jar covered in dust.

After the proprietress left, Cesar found that the dog was missing and the half-open window was creaking.

He lowered his head silently and ate the most normal fried eggs. When he looked up, the girl jumped in from the window and sat down next to him with her blooming face. She licked the blood from the corner of her mouth while closing her cheeks, then sneezed, and several bird feathers flew out of her throat and flew into his face.

Seeing Cesar staring at her, she also

Staring at Cesar, his glassy red eyes were filled with innocence. His tongue, wet and bloody, had not yet been retracted, but blood had already dripped onto the suspicious salty cheese.

Chapter 9 Living off a gigolo is life

一环

"I jumped out and ate two birds, Daddy," the dog said in a childish yet serious tone, "they were almost flying away."

"Who's talking?" Cesar asked.

"It's the way the noble lady dealt with her father when she was little."

Cesar felt his expression darken. This guy couldn't even use a name. "First, put your tongue away, and then eat this bloody cheese," he said.

She still stared at Cesar and blinked with a childlike question: "But the feather..."

"Deal with it however you want, don't ask me."

As soon as Cesar finished speaking, before he even realized the underlying meaning, she leaned forward toward him. Her tongue, as nimble as a snake's tongue, curved and stretched, licking from the corner of his lips to his ear, pulling the bird feathers stuck to his face back into her mouth. She seemed quite satisfied with licking his face, her cheeks flushed like a drunken blush, and her eyes narrowed, as if savoring the feeling just now. She looked adorable.

Then the lovely face split open, and several strange limbs opened in all directions, closing in on the bowl of soup. The sharp little claws on the edges tightly grasped the edge of the cheese, like a humanoid spider grabbing a human head. This was a scene that only appeared in nightmares.

Just as the Faceless One was about to pour the stuff in, Cesar rapped the table with his knuckles and said, "Eat like a human, you know what I mean?"

Gouzi blinked in confusion, seemingly not understanding the meaning of his request. Still, she obeyed, sitting back like a well-behaved girl, pursing her cheeks, picking up the knife, and cutting the cheese with flawless movements. It had to be said that her movements were much more graceful than his; she was definitely imitating the unfortunate exiled noble from the Shattered Empire.

So, why is it that this person can impersonate someone so vividly, recounting their experiences from childhood to adulthood, yet has no understanding of the person she is impersonating? Why is it that as long as she is not imitating others, she is like an extremely ignorant child?

Those impersonated people clearly performed extremely perfectly in conversation and communication, and were more like themselves than they were in life.

Perhaps Cesar shouldn't have bothered her, shouldn't have tested her shallow mind, should have let her imitate and pretend to be dead as needed. However, since she has shallow thinking ability and extremely limited self-awareness, and also has the thoughts and memories of so many people from birth to death, she should be able to understand something.

However slowly, this realization should accumulate as long as she is forced to be herself and not imitate the dead.

Cesar believed that when a child turns away from their parents and moves towards independence, they begin to think about themselves. If the Faceless One wasn't allowed to take one more step forward, she would remain an unreasonable minion of the Other God, staying by his side for no other reason than a baffling contract.

Contracts are written to be broken, especially when the other party is an unreasonable Esgod. Compared to those inexplicable mandatory constraints, Cesar always prefers to believe in free will.

"What do you think of that port over there?" he asked.

"The inspections over there are very strict," Gouzi said as he ate cheese. "They say they haven't been as strict as they are these days in recent decades. The Count has ordered that every cargo ship must be inspected from beginning to end before it leaves because of a fugitive murderer. I think he's referring to you, Master."

"Don't make a big hole in your chest and pour food into it."

She closed the large hole on her chest, which was surrounded by limbs, and said, "But I can't eat with my mouth and talk to you at the same time, can I?"

"You have the memories of so many people, why don't you know how they handled this?"

“But you don’t let me imitate at this time…”

"Cut a small piece and eat it, then say something to me. After you finish speaking, cut another small piece." Cesar said patiently.

Gouzi nodded, a childish, joyful smile on his face, like a child who has been unable to figure out the solution to a math problem and has received the answer from his parents. But Cesar's expression darkened. He suddenly felt that the memories and personality recorded in her body were like academic tomes on a bookshelf, while she herself was a toddler who couldn't even reach the bookshelf.

She could transform herself into one of the books at any time and recount all the academic entries, but she had no idea what she was saying or doing at that time.

Of course, the Faceless One itself is complex and difficult to understand, and the things behind it are even more unpredictable. With his current knowledge, he can't actually come up with any conclusions.

Cesar put the dog's matter aside for the moment and looked out the window at the port area.

Since the grassland people come every now and then to rob people and food to make up for the lack of labor and resources, most of Noien's population is concentrated in the city, and some live in the suburbs outside the city, and rarely spreads further away.

In Lower Neuen, the dog pit provides the most livelihoods, has the largest permanent population, and the most crowded streets. The port area is second, but it is also quite impressive. Looking from this side, all kinds of unplanned, dirty and dilapidated brick houses are crisscrossed, surrounded by sewers.

The narrow alleys also cut up the residential area into a disorderly manner, like a bizarre maze.

The roads used to transport goods to the port are paved with fine stone slabs, but the paths for locals to walk on are all paved with slag and coal slag. If you walk a lot, you will find that most of these paths are exactly the same, narrow, damp, and full of sewage.

There was snow and mud, piles of stinking garbage, and hangings of dirty clothes that no one even wanted to steal.

Generally, such deplorable conditions are taken for granted. People have no idea what a normal home is. They take it for granted that a large number of people are crammed into a small room, regardless of rotting floorboards, papered partitions, or holes in the ceiling that let in bedbugs. Even if the stench of garbage and sewage seeps into bedrooms and permeates the kitchen, they simply carry on as usual.

这就是最折磨塞萨尔的地方。群x6#999四:9&三6壹!999

Of course, Noyen always had access to incredibly cheap coal to keep the entire city warm and safe, a fact that was truly unmatched outside the city. Excluding issues like tuberculosis and asthma, and the possibility of mining accidents that didn't affect them, it was still generally more stable than trying to make a living in the wilderness.

After confirming that the searchers would only be searching the area out of the port, Cesar plotted a route, deciding to seek out any traveling merchants who had recently arrived, or perhaps just try their luck. This search might take a long time, and there was no telling if he could accomplish his mission before the steppe people laid siege to the city.

"What do you think?" Cesar turned around and sat down, picked up the bread, picked up the bacon, stuffed the dry stuff into his mouth, and forced himself to chew and swallow.

"The search attitude depends on the status of the traveling merchant," Gouzi said thoughtfully. "Ordinary traveling merchants won't be of much help to us, but if we can bring along some distinguished guests, the search will be more lenient, and our chances of escape will be greater."

The man's voice was childish, yet his tone was serious and profound, hitting the nail on the head. Cesar couldn't help but stare at him a few more times. Even without considering her true nature, her face was truly flawless, carrying his last memory from another world.

"Who's speaking now?" Cesar asked.

Without blinking, she stuffed cheese into her puffy cheeks and said, "It's the white eyes that are talking."

"So what do you think?"

She replied cheerfully, "I don't know what to think!"

Cesar felt his expression darken again. "Your honesty is truly rare."

......

The main channel of the Joshua River is extremely wide, flowing from north to south, passing through the heart of the Kingdom of Domnimi and extending into the empire. As long as they can leave the port by ship, they can avoid trekking through the wilderness and reach other cities together with the goods.

Besides being a convenient place for trade, the Joshua River also supports a large number of fishermen. Cesar was currently standing near the fishing recruitment team, observing the locals leaving the harbor to fish. He wondered if he could take advantage of the opportunity to enter the water when the fishing boats left the harbor.

Unlike rural fishing villages, the local fishing boats were all exceptionally well-built and valuable, controlled by a few large shipowners, each registered with the Noen tax collector. As far as he knew, fishing in Noen was essentially a monopoly. Upper Noen provided the finest fishing boats, market access, and the most efficient port access, which, over time, had effectively crushed the traditional fishermen.

The main reason, of course, was that the river from the lower reaches of Noyen to the estuary was filthy, black and smelly. All sorts of metallurgical, coal, and household waste were discharged into the sea through the Joshua River. It was so dirty that even using it for flushing was considered dirty, let alone fishing. Fishermen who wanted to catch fish had to rely on large boats sailing upstream for a long time to find their catch, and a single voyage taking one or two days was not uncommon.

Whenever a fishing boat is about to leave the harbor to fish, the boat owner will come to the harbor to recruit experienced temporary workers. It's not that they can't hire fishermen for long-term cooperation, but the cost of this method is much higher than hiring temporary workers.

Taking cost into consideration, local ship owners would only hire a few experienced workers for long-term employment, such as hiring an experienced captain for a fishing boat. The rest were all temporary workers - in other words, poor people who could not easily afford their next meal and could be replaced at any time. No one cared where they died, so their asking price was naturally very cheap.

People took this for granted, nothing surprising. It was also considered natural that the vast majority of houses were actually owned by wealthy owners, with each household paying regular rent. As for the remaining houses, they were simply ordinary people who had saved their entire lives to buy several houses and collect rent.

The main difference between the two is that the latter provides cheaper housing, but the living conditions are much worse, because they have already spent their entire lives buying a house to rent and usually don't spend a penny to fix rotten floors, leaky walls or stuck windows.

内脏店隔出来的小单间就不是个能住人的地方。群6#999四:9&三;6壹!999除了小老板给自己留的一层，其他几层的环境都恶劣至极，塞萨尔本人深受其害。

"I can eat the owner of the house to the east, replace him, and give us a better place to live!" Gou Zi suggested to him at the right time.

"No," Cesar replied.

"But you always complain about where you live, master." The dog said, "You complain every time you go out, eat, or even look at the harbor. Isn't this unbearable?

? ”

If this guy's mind wasn't almost blank, Cesar would have felt that she was mocking him.

Cesar held her shoulders. "I still hope to live as a human being, you understand? Unless it is absolutely necessary, some things

I don’t want to do it.”

The dog blinked. "Well, if I did it, would you blame me?"

"I'm afraid I'm not in a position to condemn you," he shrugged. "It's probably my fault for not keeping you in check, so if anything goes wrong, I'll definitely be the one to take the blame."

She acted confused.

Cesar stopped paying attention to her and continued to observe the port. Although Goukeng was famous for mining, many people who didn't want to work in the mines gathered in the port area, hoping to make a living by fishing.

These people had no boats, no tools, their clothes were tattered, their bodies were dirty, and they had nothing but the skills that their fellow fishermen had. To put it bluntly, if Cesar also wanted to find a job fishing here, then the only difference between him and them was that he was not born in Neuen, but was just unlucky and trapped here.

They even have to pay rent for the house.

Since the suspicious blood cheese had all gone into the dog's stomach, Cesar suddenly felt very hungry. He had to do what everyone in Neuen who hadn't eaten the next meal did - he took out the only remaining piece of buttered bread, carefully broke off a small piece and put it in his mouth, making sure no crumbs fell to the ground.

Without any income, he had to accept the reality that food was a greater problem than avoiding the Count's pursuit. Phils didn't have much money, and even less to spare for his daily food. Now that he was out exploring, he was essentially a jobless vagrant, wasting his family's already meager savings. And considering he was spending the money of a sixteen or seventeen-year-old girl, the situation became even more absurd.

Although living off a gigolo is part of life, Phils's money is limited. He can't really go digging coal, right?

Halfway through his meal, Cesar noticed a child not far away staring at his bread. It looked about twelve or thirteen years old, its face weathered and grimy, like a small skeleton, but its relatively clean features were filled with anticipation. He thought, in such a filthy place, it must be difficult for a parent to keep their child clean. The feeling must be like his own, trying to wash himself in a room reeking of feces and urine.

Perhaps realizing he couldn't really consider himself a slum dweller, Cesar handed over half a piece of bread. With a turn of his head, the child disappeared in a flash, as if he was afraid that someone else would snatch his food away.

After a while, a large fishing boat finally returned to port. It looked like it had been fishing in the Joshua River for several days. The captain was greeting the guards at the bow, looking quite relaxed, as if he had just returned from a trip.

In stark contrast to the captain were the hired fishermen. These men had already toiled for days, their faces etched with fatigue. Now they had one last stretch of work to do. Once they were done, they could take their pay and leave to rest for days. The fishermen hurried out of the cabin, some busy hauling ropes and lowering sails, others busy loading piles of fish onto the deck.

Compared to digging coal in the mines, this job is more comfortable. At least you can always see the sun and don't have to breathe in the smoke and coal dust that makes it difficult to breathe.

It's said that the coal and iron mines of Noien were originally abandoned, dried-up underground iron mines, and that the Dog Pit was the result of mining that caused the ground to sink. By the time of Sean's ancestors, they had hired people to explore deeper into the mines, discovering not only iron but also an unknown amount of coal at a horizontal level far outside of Noien.

The mineral vein was incredibly distant and deep. After descending from the mine entrance, miners first had to descend hundreds of steps, then through a seemingly endless, eerie tunnel, before traversing the rock and earth to reach the mineral vein. A few years ago, a landslide buried many workers in the tunnels. The bodies still lay there, and no one wanted to retrieve them.

Compared with this business, fishing with others is just like a spring outing.

When these fishermen came ashore, the idle fishermen who were waiting for work were eager to try. They desperately crowded forward and waved to the captain, hoping to catch his eye and hope that the job of working for a few days and then resting for a few days would fall on them.

Cesar saw the fish being dumped onto the deck and shipped to the market in Lower Noyen, and he couldn't help but feel even hungrier. He coughed, patted Gouzi's shoulder, and then pointed to the fish being piled up in the harbor.