6~The Sealed and Hidden Scene
“Coachman sir, after our thorough investigation just now, it has been confirmed that there are no suspicious characters on your carriage, all risks are eliminated. You may proceed with peace of mind,” the Militia Captain said with high authority, returning from a sweep around, leading his few lackeys and stating to the coachman in a linen overcoat in a business-like manner.
What suspicious persons? Who would be a suspicious person to ride in a carriage? Speaking of risks, aren’t you the biggest risk?
This was what the coachman thought in his mind but dared not show, so he thanked them repeatedly.
“Hmph.” The Militia Captain grunted with a heavy nod, strutting down from the carriage as if on a victory lap.
After seeing these difficult-to-serve lords off like Buddhas, the coachman wiped the sweat from his forehead and signaled for the carriage to proceed.
“Shouldn’t be any further checks ahead, sorry for the trouble.” The carriage started again and the coachman walked to the compartment, calming the troubled passengers.
“Coachman sir, do you face such inspections every return trip?” Dillin asked.
“It’s rare, just bad luck this time, running into these militiamen. They’re like geese passing through, always having to pluck a feather from us.”
“Would it be different with regular troops?”
“At least the regular troops know some rules, and most of the patrol teams are paid by us. Our boss also has a connection with their commander, so they don’t dare to misbehave,” the coachman explained.
“To eke out a living on the outskirts of the Empire, having connections is essential, or one day you’ll be detained as a cultist.”
“Is the standard for identifying cultists in the Empire so arbitrary?”
“Judging from your appearance, young man, you’re not from the Empire. The standard for cultists is not arbitrary, but rather very strict. It’s because it’s too strict that many innocent civilians end up being labeled as cultists, which leads to these soldiers exploiting the situation.”
Ah, Dillin understood the situation. Basically, if you don’t want to end up in jail, you’d better have some benefits to offer. Otherwise, they’ll slap that heretic label on you and that’s that.
If you meet reasonable ones, you’re lucky. Unreasonable ones will take your bribe and then turn around and deny any wrongdoing, leaving you no room to appeal.
Yimi tilted her head, seemingly perplexed by humans’ puzzling behavior.
She didn’t understand why humans tried so hard to h*rass their own kind, just like she couldn’t make sense of people who looked at her strangely.
“The road ahead will be smoother; these militiamen only patrol the borderlands. The edge of the frontier towns are all under the regular army, so there’s no worry about forced searches, young folks, you can relax.”
As the coachman said, they reached the outskirts of the Empire without any issues.
Upon arrival at their final destination, Dillin got off the carriage with Yimi. He had nothing to carry from this long trip except a little gold elf girl who wanted to k*ll him.
Once disembarked, Dillin noticed not far away the wall with the Imperial Eagle flag fluttering in the wind. Compared to Coleman City, this wall seemed older and in worse condition, hard to believe it was a border city of the Continental Empire.
As a border town, its development seemed to have lagged behind. The city defenses were patched together like a wall cobbled together from different pieces, as if the people in charge of the city’s defense didn’t care about how the wall looked, just as long as it could withstand attackers slightly.
Yimi stood there, dully staring at this wall that looked more like a lump, appearing to be seeing such an architectural style for the first time.
Outside the town, there were a few watchtowers around some farmsteads, with people moving in the fields.
So, there were people nearby?
For an unknown reason, Dillin felt the place lifeless, couldn’t sense much vitality, even though people were all around.
Very few passengers disembarked at the imperial terminal. Besides a few merchants, the remaining people who stayed on the carriage until the last station could be counted on one hand.
As the edge of the country, not many people were entering the city, no line was even necessary.
“You, you want to enter the city?” Having finished the entry application for the previous merchants, the two soldiers turned their focus to Dillin and Yimi. When they saw Yimi, their eyes gleamed like hungry wolves’.
Yimi felt uncomfortable with such glances, so she slightly lowered her head, avoiding eye contact with these humans.
“Yes, we are students from Coleman City on a holiday trip.”
“Haha, vacation?” The soldier chuckled, a tone of ridicule in his voice.
“What’s wrong? Is there a problem?”
“No problem, no problem, you’ve come to the right place for tourism.” The guard sneered in a sarcastic manner. “Furnace City will certainly give you a memorable experience.”
“Well, you can enter,” after a simple inspection of the documents, the guard let them pass, which somewhat surprised Dillin.
“Here’s some advice, once inside the city, talk less, don’t stare at people you shouldn’t, and most importantly, don’t cause trouble. And, ah, your gal’s quite a looker. You might want her to cover her face with a veil or something,” the soldier teased.
Could it be that exaggerated?
After retrieving Yimi’s school ID, Dillin looked at it curiously, still puzzling over how exactly Yimi qualified as a student at Coleman Academy, and if any other elves or people knew her identity.
But at the moment, she definitely wouldn’t divulge that information.
Entering the city, Dillin intended to find an inn and rest. But after entering, the atmosphere he experienced was completely different from what he had imagined.
There wasn’t a bit of vitality in the city’s streets and alleys. The passersby weren’t few, but the entire street was eerily silent. Apart from footsteps, there wasn’t a single person talking.
Feels like a group of zombies. Dillin glanced at the sky; it was still afternoon, not too late. It wasn’t curfew time either.
This was too bizarre.
Observing the numb-faced citizens, he recalled the streets of Coleman City, and they were completely different.
Even though Coleman City might have fewer people compared to Furnace City, the lives there felt normal, unlike Furnace City, where no one spoke, backs slightly hunched, walking stiffly like zombies, merely existing.
Did he come to the right place?
Seeing this scene, Dillin stood there for a moment.
“Excuse me, could you tell me where the nearest inn is?” Dillin stopped a passerby and courteously asked. But before he finished, the man went around him blankly, as if he hadn’t heard or seen Dillin at all.
This city was too strange.
“Excuse me, could you tell me where the nearest inn is?…..” Dillin asked another local. This man gave him a glance then silently walked away.
Then Dillin asked a matron. Her child, hopping around happily, seemed eager to answer. Just as he was about to speak, she covered his mouth and hurried away.
What was going on?
Had these people been cursed to not speak, or else they would d*e or what?
On asking the seventh person, finally, they didn’t ignore Dillin but responded, though silently. At least they pointed him in the direction of the inn.
This was the epitome of kindness in this city.
Following the direction indicated earlier, walking through a bazaar, other city markets were always lively, filled with calls for sales and negotiations. This market, on the contrary, was abnormally quiet. The vendors had fixed prices; you wanted it, you paid. No bargaining was accepted. If you didn’t like it, then leave. The entire transaction occurred without a word.
This was too abnormal.
Could this phenomenon have something to do with rounding up heretics?
Pulling Yimi into the inn, at the old wooden counter, the boss was snoring while resting his head on the desk. Hearing someone enter, he lazily lifted his head.
“Two rooms.”
Upon hearing that, the boss handed them two keys with tags, took the money, and dozed off again on the counter. Soon after, he seemed to remember something and handed Dillin a note.
‘This inn includes breakfast, don’t make trouble.’
The note read.
Dillin looked at the note in his hand, then at the fat boss who had returned to sleep, feeling somewhat amused and a bit bewildered.
“You’ll take this, right?”
Yimi nodded. At this point, she was like a prisoner of war, having no choice, and even if Dillin ordered her to sleep, she couldn’t object.
The reason Dillin booked two rooms was naturally out of fear for her trying to harm him at night.
But on this point, Yimi was indeed mistaken. Dillin booked two rooms not out of fear of her attacking him, but due to the traditional values of men and women keeping their distance.
“No! No… I’m not a cultist! Please spare me!’
Right when Dillin was opening the door, a sudden and startling voice came from downstairs.
Dillin went downstairs, and found that Yimi had already been watching. The fat boss, startled awake by the piercing scream, simply sighed and shook his head.
Dillin reached the door and found several soldiers dragging a woman, leaving two bloody streaks on the ground.
Behind them, a crying boy chased after, shouting with a desperate voice, ‘Don’t take my mother away.’
“Enough chatter, all cultists say this.”
“No! I am not a cultist, please spare me! My child is still young and cannot live without his mother…” the woman pleaded and begged.
Her pitiful pleas went unheard by the cold-face soldiers and only made the officer impatient, ordering his soldiers to beat her.
This shocking scene took place on the street; the tattered, disheveled woman was bloodied and lay on the ground with her brain buzzing. She could only vaguely hear her child crying and calling for her, her eyes blacked out.
Dillin looked at this scene in shock and then at the pedestrians around him. They deliberately avoided eye contact or chose to walk on another road.
In broad daylight and under the eyes of so many people, a defenseless woman was brutally beaten. Is this a crime of astronomical proportion?
“Relaxed, now take her,” the officer coldly overlooked it all, without a speck of compassion or mercy in his eyes.
“No! Don’t take my mom…” the boy cried, pulling on the woman’s hem, begging the soldiers for mercy.
“Annoying brat, dare to interfere with official duties, I’ll deal with you too!” This didn’t evoke sympathy from the soldiers. The superior officer yelled angrily at the boy.
But how does a child understand these things? All he knew was that this person in front of him was his last family, his only family.
“Little b*stard, let go!” Saying this, the officer kicked the boy clinging to his mother’s garment corner fiercely.
This kick wasn’t held back. It sent the boy rolling a few times and he even briefly lost consciousness.
“Child… my child…” The mother, who was almost beaten to d*ath, spoke weakly, seemingly only left with her last breath.
“Alright, take her.”
“…” Right as Dillin was about to step forward, he suddenly noticed something odd about Yimi. Turning around, he saw her eyes glaring at the soldiers committing the atrocity on the street. The expression in her eyes was indescribable, a blend of uncontrollable rage and a hidden bit of fear.
Suddenly, she hugged her head and crouched down, clenching her teeth tightly.
It’s so, so painful…
She felt her vision filled with red and bl**d, watching her kin being dragged away one by one and taken to strange rooms filled with the smell of rust, tied down on tables and having their limbs locked.
A few faceless men held pliers and scalpels on the table, talking something indiscernible.
Fueled by rage and sorrow, Yimi wanted to rush forward and drive these white-robed men away, but found herself completely unable to move as if someone was pressing down on her head, forcing her to witness all of this.
She wanted to see their faces, but every time she tried, her consciousness was repelled as if touching some kind of barrier.
By the time she opened her eyes again, the white-robed figures on the table had disappeared, leaving only the same kin still tied down.
The golden elf lay with vacant eyes staring at the ceiling, her once radiant golden hair scattered across the operating table. Even when the restraints were unlocked, she had no intention of escaping.
Her abdomen had been hollowed out; her organs were neatly displayed, pickled in alchemical preservatives like art pieces.
“Run! … No, no! No, stop it!” Yimi crouched down, hugging her head, trembling all over. She didn’t know why, but fear coursed through her veins.
Dillin watched her, knelt down, and gently patted Yimi’s back to comfort her.
Although he didn’t know exactly what had happened, Dillin knew she was lacking a sense of security at the moment, and she needed comfort.
Yimi didn’t care who was comforting her, like a storm-tossed boat finding a safe harbor, she dove into Dillin’s embrace, trembling violently like a frightened rabbit seeking the safety of its mother’s arms.
