Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1077 1059. Changhu Town

The wooden plank bridge built on a series of floating boats made a dull "dong dong dong" sound when stepped on by heavy weights.

The hundreds of meters long, unobstructed bridge deck can accommodate at most four people walking side by side, but now there is only one figure, occupying half of the width.

The figure approached Changhu Town at a leisurely pace, and was naturally stopped by the guards before entering the town.

The temperature on the lake is very low, and the cold mist and moisture can penetrate through two layers of cotton clothes!
The gateway to the town is a small guard booth, which is actually a small wooden house.

There was the crackling sound of burning firewood in the wooden house, and smoke curled up from the chimney on the wooden roof, finally mixing with the cold mist.

There were two men inside the cabin, their faces red from drinking alcohol.

The smell of cheap beer, human oil, sweat and the heat of the woodsmoke wafted out of the side windows of the cabin.

"Hey, someone's coming."

There were inarticulate voices coming from the cabin, followed by a series of reluctant complaints and mutters, and finally the wooden door creaked open, and a guard came out with a spear in hand.

The other one just stuck his head out of the side window to look outside, but his body was still lingering on the warm campfire.

"what happened to you?"

The guard who was leaving raised the brim of his hat impatiently.

He wore a suit of mail over a cotton coat and cloth shirt with armor plates, and a pointed helmet with a soft fur rim.

The quality of this set of equipment is actually quite good, but unfortunately, the user of this equipment did not realize until he stood in front of Lan that his helmet was too big and he had to lift it up to get a good view.

But when he really saw the whole person in front of him.
"My mom huh?"

The guard raised his hat brim with an expression of amazement, but before he could finish his exclamation, a faint, cold white light flashed on Lan's hanging left hand.

This kind of person is not a strong-willed person, and he is not in a state of high concentration right now.

Just now, when the guard walked out of the warm wooden house, Lan En saw tears in the corners of his eyes because he was sleepy.

This kind of person is very suitable for [Yaxi Seal].

"Don't take me too seriously, sir. The person in front of you is just an ordinary person who is a little taller."

Lan En said softly, and the guard opposite him nodded stupidly at the same time.

"Yes, I'm just an ordinary person, I don't care."

"I came to Long Lake Town not to cause trouble. I am an honest man. I just came to find a group of friends who got lost. They are a group of dwarves. Excuse me, have you seen them when you were on guard?"

Lan asked in a tone that would never disturb the other person's hypnotic state.

"Oh my god, he's so tall! Kenny, who is this big guy? What is he whispering to you about?"

The guard who stuck his head out of the window looked older, with his hair hanging in tangles on his forehead. He sniffed and asked the guard in front of Lan En.

Lan En did not turn his face to face the other person, but just raised his hanging left hand again.

"No, nothing." The guard standing in front of Lan En muttered in response. "He was just passing by. God knows how he got separated from his people. He said he was going to meet us, so he came here."

The guard who stuck his head out of the window didn't bother to care. He just looked at Lan En's height and body shape curiously, then retracted his head back into the warm wooden house.

He kept muttering, "Yeah, this is the only place like this. Where else in this shabby place can we find a place to gather?"

After sending away the old fox in the room, Lan En continued speaking.

"Please answer the question, sir."

"Dwarf? I've never seen a dwarf on the bridge. But there are many ways to get into the town, waterways, smuggling. I don't care."

"Understood." Lan nodded and patted the guard's shoulder as he passed by. "But you should be more vigilant. The atmosphere has been uneasy these days. It would be good for you to be more vigilant, right?"

"The atmosphere is not peaceful?" The guard's confused face became even more confused, but he nodded. "Yes, be alert, be alert."

It was not until he walked back to the cabin in the cold fog and shuddered that he regained consciousness.

"Huh? How did you get in?" The old man looked at the guard in surprise. "Even if there is nothing wrong with that person, you still have to take him to the mayor to report."

"Whoever wants to go can go." The guard, who was still a little slow to react, said impatiently, "It's so cold, I don't want to go again."

After saying that, he sat on a stool near the stove, stretched out his hand to warm himself by the fire, took out a whetstone, and began to carefully sharpen the blade of the spear under the old man's suspicious look.

This remark was meant to sneer at the old fox who hadn't even left the house just now. The old fox knew he was in the wrong and didn't want to deepen the conflict with his colleague, so he just laughed dryly and said nothing more.
-
After entering Changhu Town, Lan En felt that the town was not much different from what he had seen from afar before.

It is early morning and people are busy.

Most of the people coming and going were wearing dirty and tattered cotton-padded clothes, and their felt hats and boots were so dirty that they were shiny black. Their faces were filled with sleepiness and fatigue caused by the early morning and the cold weather.

Some rotten vegetable leaves that fell on the wooden floor were trampled by people and almost turned into a paste. Piglets that had escaped from the cage from somewhere were arching their heads to eat these things.

The town built on the rocks in the lake has no regular roads. The houses are all made of wooden boards and the ground is paved with wooden boards. If there were no wooden boards, people would have to row a boat to get across.

Lan's size stood out in the crowd, not to mention his silver hair and face.

But the demon hunter quickly found the pattern of the flow of people in the town through observation and the computing power of Mentos. He used the stealth action principles in the [Lone Shadow Ninja Technique Book] to quietly avoid crowded places and avoid being discovered by the patrolling guards who occasionally passed by.

Finally, he arrived at the edge of Changhu Town.

There are not many people here, only the fish debris piled up at the sluice along the water flow and the domestic garbage from the town.

A half-clad tramp was sleeping in the corner across the waterway.

After looking around, Lan En jumped lightly, stepped on the wall and took two steps, and climbed to the top of the sluice gate.

After standing on it, he gently rubbed the magic ring on his hand. After a while, the sound of hooves splashing water could be heard in the cold mist of the lake outside the sluice.

Qilin ran over from the outside of Changhu Town with a ball of fluff.

"Pick me up, meow!"

The ball of fluff whispered upward.

Then he grabbed the grappling hook that Lan had dropped and climbed up. There was no sound throughout the process.

"Whoops?"

Qilin snorted in confusion from below.

"I need you to stay outside this town for the time being. Don't go too far, Qilin."

Lan En gave instructions to Qilin under the sluice gate.

"The buildings here are too crowded and not solid. I think they'd collapse if you came in."

When the New World Ancient Dragon heard the word "too crowded", he immediately shook his head in boredom, and his beautiful mane and magic rune cloth fluttered.

Even Qilin doesn't want to stay in a place like Rivendell because it's not spacious enough, let alone a small place like Long Lake Town.

Qilin turned around and slipped away on the lake water, while the fluffy ball grabbed Lan's shoulders and jumped off the top of the sluice with him.

The homeless man on the other side of the waterway seemed to hear the sound of boots stepping on the wooden boards and turned over to take a look.

Then I saw Lan and the ball of fluff lying on his shoulder.

The two people and the cat stared at each other blankly for a second, and then the homeless man blinked and lay down again.

He was still mumbling, "I was in a daze when I was sleeping. A silver-haired elf brought a cat wearing clothes. What does this dream portend?"

"Hehehe, the elves are so pretty, hehehe"

The flannel ball on Lan's shoulder and the Mentos in his head made "tsk tsk tsk" sounds almost at the same time.

The ball of fluff also contained the movement of a kitten shaking its head, and the calico fur swaying beside its shoulders tickled Lan's neck.

Lan En immediately tilted his head and looked at the kitten on his shoulder with disgust.

Changhu Town is not that big at all. After all, the huge rock in the lake is just a roughly circular surface with a diameter of about one kilometer.

So in the crowded and messy wooden buildings, Lan and Flannel Ball quickly searched for traces of the dwarves.

A large part of Changhu Town's food comes from the fish caught in the lake, and people do not pay attention to hygiene under difficult living conditions.

As a result, old bloodstains that had oxidized into a dark black color could be seen everywhere on the wooden floor, as well as remnants of fish scales mixed with the bloodstains.

The smell of these things must be unbearable when the weather is hot, and there must be large numbers of insects and flies buzzing around the bloodstains.

Come to think of it, the cold mist on the lake that can penetrate cotton clothes has at least one advantage: at least there are no bugs.

When Lan En passed by a group of houses in Changhu Town that looked nothing special, he slowed down and looked at the place curiously.

The fluff ball, which was searching in another direction to improve efficiency, also slipped back when it saw this.

"Boss, what's wrong, meow?"

It had been running on the roof thanks to its light weight. Now it stuck its head out from the edge of the eaves and was looking down.

Lan En's body was hidden in the dark where no one noticed him, and the cat's eyes glanced around calmly again.

"This house is being watched by someone whose skills are mediocre, but there are a lot of them."

Around the house, some people were pretending to admire the pottery jars and blankets on the vendors' stalls, while others were smoking pipes and fishing in the middle of the waterway.

But their intentions were too obvious to Lan En's observation. Almost everyone would turn their eyes to the ordinary two-story wooden house in the middle every once in a while.

"Want to go check it out, meow?"

"This should be the mayor's own business, first..."

Lan originally wanted to say, "Let's take care of our own business first," but before he could finish, a burst of noise mixed in with the noisy and unsoundproofed buildings in Changhu Town reached the ears of the demon hunter.

(End of this chapter)