Alice in the Land of Steam

Chapter 296: Comfort from her?
Leaving from another entrance of the Windmill Village Ruins, you will see a winding forest path, the widest part of which can only accommodate two people, and carriages and carts cannot pass. At the end of the road, you will see a bottomless rift valley, as if the flat land was torn apart by brute force. The edge of the rift valley presents a ferocious appearance of interlaced canine teeth, quite like the open mouth of a wild beast, and the sharp fangs will bite off everything that falls into the abyss.

As you approach the rift area, you can see signs everywhere reminding tourists to "watch your step." It is said that due to the expansion of the cracks, the nearby strata have been torn and the soil has become loose, making it easy for accidents such as sinkholes or collapses to occur.

The most serious accident occurred in the 17th century. It is said that the most terrible wind disaster in the area originated in this rift valley, which attracted many idle people and tourists to visit. As a result, the gathered crowds crushed the fragile soil layer nearby, and the collapsed mudstone instantly swallowed up those tiny figures, just like swallowing hundreds of black ants.

Fortunately, the collapsed area was only local and did not affect the nearby rift valley, so the damage did not expand. Despite this, the unexpected disaster still caused dozens of injuries and three deaths. Afterwards, the Avion City Government urgently sent people to put up railings in the most dangerous section of the rift valley, but it still couldn't stop people who were curious. After several expansions, a special "rift valley security patrol team" was even established, sending people to patrol nearby every day to persuade tourists who tried to approach the dangerous area to leave, and the situation has improved.

However, there were already dozens of incidents of people falling into the ravine by that time. The slow and delayed response and the ineffective compensatory measures led to a joke that mocked the administrative efficiency of the city government: whenever someone fell into the ravine, the government would send people to put up warning signs at the place where he fell. Several years later, when they realized that they had to solve the problem once and for all, they discovered that the warning signs had surrounded the ravine, saving them the money to build railings.

When Lingge told everyone this joke, Alice's first reaction was: I really didn't travel through time!
Whether in the Earth world or the Mirror Star world, political jokes about the ruling party are a timeless legacy.

She sighed repeatedly, showing an attitude of concern for the country and the people, but unfortunately no one paid attention to her.

The real Windmill Village ruins are located in the most dangerous area of ​​the rift valley, only tens of meters away from the bottomless abyss. But the amazing thing is that the rift valley did not affect the nearby village at all, and even seemed to deliberately bypass those fragile buildings, accurately preserving the area they originally occupied. Therefore, after hundreds of years, these ancient building ruins can still quietly lie on the left side of the rift valley, silently overlooking the empty and lonely forest on the other side.

For some reason, the real Windmill Village ruins are also surrounded by a circle of iron railings. The Rift Valley Security Patrol's outpost, a two-story wooden and stone building, is located on the only way to the ruins. There are six members in total, all of whom are local people from Avion. They patrol the vicinity in three rounds a day, two people per round, to prevent tourists from climbing over the barriers and entering dangerous areas that are prone to collapse.

According to what Linger had heard, the current patrol captain was Mr. David, the man the old man had mentioned. His full name was Arthur David. He was not responsible for patrolling, but was stationed inside the sentry post to persuade tourists who wanted to go deep into the rift valley to return. If anyone tried to force their way in, he would arrest them on the spot and send them to jail to calm down. He was a rather ruthless guy.

Although there was only one road leading to the old site of Windmill Village, and it was monitored by the sentry of the Rift Valley Security Patrol, it was not a difficult task for Lingge and his party. Saint Shallia pulled a thread of fate as a cover, so that the patrol members ignored the strangers under their noses, pushed open the locked iron gate and entered the real Windmill Village ruins.

Compared with the later rebuilt windmill village ruins outside the city of Avion, the buildings here are obviously older, and the regional planning is not so reasonable. There are sheepfolds, vegetable fields and dry wells mixed between the houses, which is closer to the quaint appearance of the original village. Moreover, this ruin seems to have never been cleaned up, so it is inevitably eroded by nature. Various plants grow wantonly in this ruins far away from human traces. The branches and leaves of wisteria and creepers cover the surface of the damaged buildings, which appear scarred after being hit by frost and snow in late winter. Dark green lichens and mosses grow in the dark corners of the wall roots and the edges of the dry wells, and occasionally a few insects run quickly. As for the country roads connecting various parts of the village, they have long been occupied by large shrubs and weeds, and sometimes rust-red ferns can be seen - the common local redtail grass.

Next to the village is the bottomless Ronin Rift Valley, where the strong wind that pours into the valley roars and rages, as if it has been blowing since the beginning of the world and has not stopped until this century, leaving dense scars on the rock walls on both sides, each of which is deep into the bone. This whistling and cold scene is indeed easy to mistakenly believe that this is the source of the wind.

The true intention is obvious.

Metien said weakly, "It seems that we are the more suspicious now, Sister Alice?"

It goes without saying which one is more suspicious: a sheriff who is unkind but conscientious, dedicated to pulling ignorant tourists out of the dangerous abyss, or a group of sneaky outsiders who try to sneak into the prohibited area to do some sneaky things?
"Nonsense!" Alice angrily denounced the pink-haired little girl's wavering thoughts, which actually boosted others' ambitions and destroyed her own prestige. Her position was so unsteady that she would not give you a penny after finding the treasure. She would let the diligent maid Alice keep it for you first.

"On the whole," Alice said, "he's a suspicious guy."

Moreover, he was the only one in the patrol team who was not from Avion, but from Nimsher. He was said to be from the prestigious David family, but for some reason he came to this remote town and served as an ordinary sheriff. The local residents talked about this and made many speculations.

Standing more than ten meters away from the edge of the rift, I felt dizzy at the first glance. Occasionally, the wind blew a few rubbles from the edge of the cliff and fell down. The sound of them landing could not be heard for a long time, making people feel that they were falling down with the rubble, with their head and feet reversed and the feeling of weightlessness shaky.

Even the bravest Alice only took a glance and quickly stepped back, then patted her chest and shared her feelings with her friends in fear: "That was close! I almost fell!
Lingge ignored her and pulled off a large piece of dead vines clinging to the surface of the building. He saw the gray-white exterior wall below. There were mottled cracks on the bricks that made up the wall, but it didn't look like the result of natural erosion, but rather like the marks of being chopped by some kind of metal weapon. Looking up again, the highest point of the tower house was the long-rotten windmill blades and huge wooden brackets, which were also clinging to vines. The exposed parts were eaten by insects and had obvious holes. The whole thing was in a dilapidated state, and people were worried that if there was a little more noise, the windmills would be shaken apart and fall to the ground.

According to the records in the "Research on the History of Avignon", the sinner David hid the secret passage leading to the bottom of the rift valley inside the windmill tower where three summer cherry trees grew. But looking around, there were withered summer cherry trees everywhere, clustered near the windmill tower and weed fields, with bare branches intertwined and growing in a staggered manner, looking like unique thorn bushes. It is indeed difficult to distinguish the three most special ones from these summer cherry trees. However, it has been seven hundred years, and it is normal that the records left by the ancients are different from the current situation. Fortunately, the village is not big, and even if the towers are searched one by one, it is completely in time.

So Ling asked everyone to disperse and search on their own, and sternly warned them not to get close to the rift valley. It would not be a fun thing if they were blown down by the wind or a collapse occurred.

After searching for more than ten minutes in these old and dilapidated windmill towers, there was still no clue. Just when Lingge was wondering whether the so-called "three summer cherry trees" had some kind of metaphor, Metien suddenly ran over in a hurry and told him an unexpected good news: "I found it, Lingge!"

……

"This is it!"

The pink-haired girl pointed to a half-collapsed windmill tower and said to her companions. In the direction of her finger, on the gray-white stone wall exposed after pulling away the withered vines and creepers, three trees were depicted with dim black lines. Only one of the trees was intact, and the other two trees were missing parts because of the broken bricks, but the shapes of the trees could still be barely seen.

"Is this the meaning of the three summer cherry trees?" Alice blinked. "They are not real trees, but paintings?"

It makes sense when you think about it. How could a tree that lived seven hundred years ago survive to this day?

Pushing open the rotten and dilapidated wooden door, shaking off the dust that had gradually accumulated over the dry years, it was like raising a cloud of sand all over the sky. Alice, who was walking excitedly in the front, was caught off guard and coughed several times due to being choked.

The furnishings in the tower room were unexpectedly simple, and all the furniture had become unrecognizable due to the erosion of time. Lingge even saw a thick layer of feathers piled up in the corner. It must have been used as a nest by birds such as turtledoves or gray finches, but now those birds are gone and no one knows where they have gone.

The coldness and desolation that comes over you make you hold your breath involuntarily.

After searching the tower room for more than ten minutes, he searched the narrow space thoroughly but found nothing. Finally, it was Metien who keenly noticed that something was wrong in the corner of the tower room, which was covered by a pile of scattered bricks and spider webs. So Lingge cleared all the debris and revealed a wooden board that could be lifted up. Underneath was a dark hole that was too deep to be seen and seemed to lead to the bottom of the valley.

When Olvera saw such a dark and deep cave, she felt scared instinctively, but at this moment, someone’s hand reached out and held her hand, conveying a kind of silent comfort, which magically calmed the princess’s anxiety and her mood gradually calmed down.

She slowly turned her head and met a pair of clear and bright golden eyes.

"Don't be afraid." The other party said softly, "We are all with you."

I'll accompany you too.

Avella was stunned, then nodded vigorously: “Yeah!”

　Give me some meow
　　
　
(End of this chapter)