The Mysterious World Under Steampunk

No matter in the Earth Federation or in this world of Velen, when facing the pain and panic brought about by life, alcohol is always the best drug to paralyze.

Compared with the desertion of other industries in Miria City, the wine industry has become particularly prosperous. In the market area opened by the black market and various gangsters, apart from the large and small street stalls, there are the most taverns that provide all kinds of drinks shops.

Among them are some ordinary refugees who brew their own fruit wine from wild fruits. They have no way to rent the houses built by the surrounding gangsters to open taverns. They can only rent a booth every day, set up a few chairs and small tables, and it is considered a tavern.

Because this kind of fruit wine has not been carefully filtered, there are many impurities in it, so the tavern owner will put them into a small wooden barrel, insert a few reeds in it, and let the guests drink the wine through the reeds.

Although the brewing level of this kind of fruit wine is average, the taste is very bad, and it is astringent and bitter, but because the price is cheap, you only need two underground coins to buy a barrel, and a few friends drink it together, so most of the refugees who have no money are Regulars here.

For those scavengers and gang leaders who have some spare money, those taverns with houses are the best choice. These taverns are no different from other taverns, or even better. You can buy any kind of wine you want.

After Leo came to the market, he just strolled around the market carelessly, found a seat in the largest open-air wine stall in the market, bought a barrel of wine, and then invited a few people pretending to be hospitable. Drink with a smart-looking guy.

"Mr. Leo, do you have any skills in finding things in those ruins?" The lame Paul asked Leo after taking a big sip of his drink and couldn't help being curious.

"Actually, whether you can find a good thing or not depends mostly on your luck. Just like I found a broken statue just now, I thought it was only worth a few underground coins, but I didn't expect..." Leo pretended to be mysterious and took a picture. He patted his pocket and said, "Anyway, I made a lot of money today, and I'm lucky." He said to the tavern owner, "Give a round to all the wine barrels present, and I'll treat you."

Hearing what Leo said, the people around immediately burst into extremely enthusiastic cheers. Although it was only the first time they saw Leo, many people had already regarded Leo as a friend because of alcohol.

"In fact, besides luck, news is also very important." Leo nodded to the people around him, then returned to the topic just now, and said: "For example, the statue I got this time is in the villa area of ​​the first quarter moon... ..."

"That's the territory of the old dog." Hearing what Leo said, someone next to him immediately said in surprise.

Leo didn't know who the old dog was, but he could guess that the old dog was probably the leader of a scavengers group, so he said disapprovingly: "What's the matter, the old dog only has so many people under his command, and the powerful villa in the Shangquanyue Lake area There are so many, it’s impossible for him to control them all, and I’m not alone,” he said, lowering his body, beckoning the people next to him to come over, and pretending to be mysterious, he said: “Actually, I also heard about it beforehand. Said someone found something interesting there and sold it on the black market for a lot of money."

"I've heard the news too,"

"Me too."

"I heard that he made a lot of money and bribed the soldiers of the Imperial Army, and now he has gone to the Seven Northern Kingdoms."

Everyone responded one after another.

"Fart, why did he go to the seven northern countries, he died." The lame Paul broke the news differently from the others.

"Cripple, do you know something?" Everyone immediately looked at the lame Paul curiously, and Leo's attention was also diverted there.

The lame Paul hiccupped and said, "Remember that guy with six hands?"

"Isn't he dead?" Others looked at the crippled Paul with some puzzlement.

Seeing that his words attracted the attention of others, the crippled Paul said with a frightened expression, "I know he is dead, but do you know how he died?"

Immediately, an insider said: "I heard that I offended someone and was thrown into the lake."

"Hmph! Only you ignorant guys will believe such words." The lame Paul smiled disdainfully, took another sip of wine, wiped his beard habitually, and then continued: "Six hands When I died, I was right there, if I hadn't been smart and hid quickly, I might have died too."

Leo signaled the boss to refill the wine barrel, and asked emotionally: "Listen to you, that six-handed man is the one I heard about, the one who found something good in the last quarter moon villa area and made a fortune." The one with the big pen?"

"That's the man." Seeing Leo's question, the lame Paul didn't hide any more, and said carefully: "At that time, I, Casey, Roy and Grin were woken up by the screams of the six hands. There is not much content, but I heard that Six Hands should be hired by someone to find things in the Shangxianyue Lake area, but he is very greedy. When he found the things, he not only failed to hand them over to the client, but also XZed them up, and the rest Some of the valuable extra treasures I had went to the black market to exchange for money, and I planned to use the money to escape from Miria City. Later, they were found by the victim, but they were tortured out of shape, and finally thrown into the lake to feed the fish."

Although the lame Paul didn't give too much detail, nor did he give a detailed description of the item hidden by the six hands, but Leo felt that the six hands should be the one who took away the ring of plague.

Because, from the tone of the people around, it is not difficult to hear that this Six Hands is an experienced scavenger, and he has a good reputation here, otherwise no one would take the initiative to find him and hire him to find things.

And Leo looked at the various traces excavated in that villa. It is not difficult to deduce that the digger did it alone, and he was very skilled. He was an old hand. Everything of value was looted, even the precious metal ornaments of the wall lamps, apparently by scavengers.

Thinking of this, although Leo didn't think Paul the cripple would know the answer, he still asked as usual, "Do you know what the six hands are hiding?"

"I don't know." The lame Paul shook his head, but added: "However, it should have something to do with the medical school, because I heard that the medical school was mentioned in their conversation."

Leo had already got the news he wanted, so he didn't continue to ask, but chatted about some daily chores here, and seemed to pass the boring time like everyone else.

Although Leo doesn't expect to get any useful information from these daily chats, there are often some unexpected surprises, just like getting news about the six hands from the lame Paul.

While chatting with these people, Leo found that in the refugee districts of Miria City, a large number of missionary priests appeared, providing free medical care and food for refugees, and recruiting believers. What is interesting is that the religions of these missionary priests are all It is some religions that I have never heard of, such as Maya, the Mother of Conceiving, Maubison the Observer, and so on.

Faced with the appearance of these missionaries, the various organizations that control the situation in Miria City reacted differently. Among them, the black market and gangsters were left alone, as long as the other party did not mess with themselves, they would not bother.

The Freedom Front strongly opposes it, and even assassinates those missionaries in public. It is precisely because of this move that the reputation of the Freedom Front has been hit.

Compared with the attitude of these forces in the urban area of ​​Miria City towards the missionaries, the empire's attitude towards these missionaries is a bit weird, because there are many signs that these missionaries are constantly supplying believers and ordinary refugees. The materials flowed from the imperial barracks.

According to the empire's previous attitude towards the Orthodox Church, they should strongly oppose any missionaries, but now they have expelled all Orthodox churches from the city of Miria and destroyed all the temples and churches of the Orthodox Church. Secretly supporting some other mysterious churches of gods that are not on the list of orthodox gods of the Orthodox Church, such contradictory actions will inevitably make people think. So when the Freedom Front attacked these missionaries, their behavior was justifiable in the eyes of those who did not receive any favor from these missionaries.

Although ordinary people don't know what the gods of these new religions are, Leo is very clear that these gods have appeared on the continent of Velen, but they appeared very early and disappeared very early. According to the time Counting them, they should be regarded as the oldest ancient gods. When they disappeared, none of the righteous gods enshrined in the Orthodox Church had yet appeared.

The reason why Leo urged these ancient gods to understand so much was because he had seen the churches of these gods in the dream world, and he had also read about the origins of the beliefs of these churches in the books he bought.

What's more interesting is that according to some information leaked from the conversations of these people, the transactions spread by the preachers of these new churches are somewhat similar to the church teachings of these gods in the dream world. Modify the code, and then use it in the world of Vinylon.

Therefore, at this moment, these mysterious new churches reminded him of the dream world.

Although Leo has not yet found effective evidence, he was able to find out from some information and information with clues that there is communication between the dream world and the Velen world, but these exchanges are only in the hands of few people.

In addition to the newly emerging mysterious church, Leo also learned from the conversations of these people that there have been a large number of disappearances in the refugee city recently, and there are also some very cruel murders. Among them is a case that Leo is somewhat familiar with. The characteristic of this case is that the murderer killed the whole family of a certain victim, skinned the skin of one of the victims, asked the other victims to make prayers, and left scars on the walls and the ground. A large number of patterns similar to magic circles.

After Leo heard this secret, he immediately thought of the murder that happened to Emily. Obviously, after many years, Emily still hadn't caught the murderer who killed her family. He didn't leave the city of Miria, which was shrouded in war, and even took advantage of the chaos in the city to continue his religious ceremony.

Thinking about it carefully, it is not difficult for Leo to understand that in any world, as long as a city falls into chaos and disorder, all kinds of evil things unimaginable in the past may happen, and Miria City is in this period.

During the conversation, Leo asked the lame Paul about the people who killed the six-handed people without any trace, mainly asking who those people were.

The crippled Paul, who was already a little drunk, naturally knew everything, but it was a pity that he and the other people who heard the movement were too frightened, so they hid themselves in the crevices of some rubble, not even daring to lift their heads. You can't see the appearance of those people.

However, Paul, the cripple, remembers one detail very clearly, that is, the accents of those people are not natives of Miria City, and as far as he knows, most of the outsiders are concentrated in the refugee districts where the new churches appeared. Refugee urban areas are rarely seen.

After drawing nearly half of the underground coins on his body and giving the people here a treat to drink, Leo has extracted a lot of information from these people that was not recorded in the information provided by Sylvia, which temporarily made his investigation easier. some directions.

After paying the bill, Leo left the trading market opened by the black market amidst the cheers of these alcoholic refugees who were immersed in drunkenness and dreams, and prepared to find a temporary place to live in the city.

Just when Leo walked through a refugee shack and walked past a disabled beggar wrapped in sackcloth begging along the street, the beggar didn't raise his head, and said something inexplicably, "Leo. Mr. Dodd, your friend is waiting for you in the little garden in the Lake District of the Last Crescent."

Leo didn't stop, and didn't turn his head to look at the beggar. He continued to walk forward as if he didn't hear anything. After turning around a rubble ruin, he walked towards the Crescent Moon Lake area.

Because of the large number of rubble ruins and the gang resident blocking the road, Leo had to take a detour, and in order to avoid attracting attention, he couldn't let go of his hands and feet, so it took a little longer, until it got dark and night , I came to the small garden in the Crescent Moon Lake area.

This small garden was not a well-known place when Miria City was still intact. It was only a place for the dignitaries in the villas in the Crescent Moon Lake District to take a leisurely walk. The flowers and plants planted were also very simple and had no special features.

But after almost all the exquisite and majestic buildings in Miria City were destroyed, this small garden was preserved intact under the devastation of countless bombs. All the residents of Miria City saw this small garden. , I couldn't help but recall the disappeared city of Miria, and thought of that great city. It is precisely because of this kind of nostalgia that the small garden can be preserved in this chaotic city, and it has almost become an implicit rule of all forces in Miria that all battles are not allowed to affect this small garden.

When Leo came outside the small garden, before he could go in, he saw a person who had been waiting at the entrance of the garden, and he couldn't help being surprised: "So it's you?"