rune hunter

Chapter 298 The Strange Refugee Colony
El has had the experience of working with many people, but none of them were particularly ideal.Ahmed babbled about spreading superstition all day long, and he had no idea of ​​his own. It would be no problem to ask him to do things, but it was still a bit difficult to expect him to cooperate tacitly.Pallanti is a runaway wild horse. Although it is easy to use, she must be pulled by the rein at all times, otherwise the child will disappear in the blink of an eye.

Cooperating with Laurana is a very easy and pleasant job, because the eldest lady will pave the way forward very thoughtfully.As long as you don't mind her talking too much, the rest of the matter is very simple, you don't even need to use your brain at all, you just need to follow the eldest lady's instructions step by step to solve the problem.

However, El is still somewhat machismo, and he always feels that this is not a long-term solution.Girls should dress up beautifully and pretend to be silly and cute. After being so complicated all day long and making gods and ghosts disgusted, how dare a man want it?Of course, he will never admit that this is the resentment generated after being suppressed by IQ for a long time.

Cooperating with Tiana is another feeling. She and El are the same kind of people in their bones, so there will naturally be a tacit understanding.Another reason is that when she was not disfigured, she was indeed a beautiful and soft girl, which completely fit the image of El's dream lover, and he still couldn't forget it.

Of course, one of the most important reasons is that with this girl's dark history and current strength, she doesn't need to take care of her at all.In fact, Eldu felt that it would be a waste of resources for two people to come together for such a trivial matter as reconnaissance and intelligence. Compared with Tiana, he was more like a superfluous existence.

But since they have all come out, naturally they can't ask them to go back, so it's right to take the girls out for a night out at night.With such a leisurely attitude, El and Laurana walked into the refugee gathering area outside Sword Castle.

Under the cover of Tiana's optical magic creating illusions, El was not worried about being discovered, and there was no obvious main entrance and guards in the gathering area in front of him, so the two of them walked in grandly.A foul smell rushed towards her face, causing Tiana to subconsciously cover her mouth and nose, and looked up, and everywhere she could see were all tents that were erected crookedly...or it could be said that they were shacks to be more precise. .

It was a wise move for Tiana to decide to transfer to the brown earth hills. The exiles were protected by the army and were not afraid of robbers. But outside that wasteland, under the deliberate promotion of some behind-the-scenes masters, the northern border of the Oakland Kingdom All fell, except for Earl Kemal, who is still holding on to this day, almost all provinces have been reduced to epidemic areas, and the plague has infected more than 80 people.According to the still slow speed of rescue within the kingdom, these infected people can basically be said to have been included in the death list.

The inaction of the upper echelons of the royal family has forced the people to flee their hometowns in order to survive. According to current inaccurate information, more than 10 refugees have fled from the northern epidemic area in this month, and among these refugees, there are also There is also no shortage of hidden patients with contagious ability, or there are also cursed believers with ulterior motives.If these refugees are left alone, it is foreseeable that this country will all fall into the clutches of death in the near future.

The number of refugees gathered here has reached [-], and the earliest ones have stayed here since eighteen days ago.Although Sword Castle is surrounded by mountains on both sides, it is not a closed pass, and there are north-south roads outside the city.But for some unknown reason, these refugees never left.

Before this, El had received a statement from Baron Farah that one could reach the southern territory of the Kingdom by crossing Longwei Mountain from Sword Fort to the south, but as far as he knew, the royal family seemed to have reached a consensus with the southern nobles. Heavy guards have been deployed at the junction of the north and south regions of the country, and no refugees are allowed to go south.This decision seems to be at the expense of the entire north, abandoning the severely diseased areas that cannot be dealt with, and fully protecting the southern territories from being affected.

From a rational point of view, it is not wrong to make such a decision, but based on past experience, the Oakland royal family always has an image of shit in its head in El's mind.Mingming's rift with the southern aristocrats is well known to everyone, and he has to persevere in clipping his own wings.

As staunch members of the royal family, the White Lion family was repeatedly framed for trumped-up charges, until finally the entire Istaron was trapped.The Sword Castle Beifeng Family, which also belonged to the Royal Faction, hid the talented eldest lady from others, and it is very likely that they saw a lesson from the White Lion Family.

As for now, the majestic royal family does not want to save the situation. Instead, it abandons all the northern territories, and ignores the northern military towns including Istaren. Anyone who sees them like dead dogs will probably not have any hope for the future of this country.

From an objective point of view, the refugees gathered here were forced into a situation where they could not advance or retreat. They had no way out except guarding the only city within a hundred miles in front of them.Most of these refugees are ordinary civilians, unlike the Istaren people who are all soldiers, and know how to obey orders and abide by order.And no matter how powerful the masonry brotherhood hidden behind the scenes is, it is only a civil organization after all, and it cannot be ordered and banned like a regular army, so one can imagine what this settlement will look like.

Relying on the hunter's keen sense of smell, as soon as El came in, he could tell that the stench came from the accumulated excrement and excrement, which was a bit beyond his expectation.When the plague broke out in Queensland, he had also seen that kind of purgatory on earth, and the refugee colony in front of him was much cleaner than he had imagined.

Ordinary people certainly wouldn't associate the dirty and smelly shacks with the word "clean", but El didn't smell the stench of corpses after excluding the excrement that couldn't be handled, which meant that there was no one nearby. Corpse... For the settlement in front of me, this is a bit too inconceivable.

Thinking about it in turn, this can at least confirm some of Laurana's inferences: these refugees were not affected by the plague, and they were not short of food... If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, if another person told him this, El would think that he was talk in sleep.

"It is impossible that there are no hidden infected people, but they have stayed here for such a long time, even if there is a hidden source of infection, it should break out at this time..." Tiana paid attention to it from a slightly different angle. As the enemy of the Cursed Sect, What she cares about and understands the most is always the plague itself.In the eyes of the magician girl, this plague is the source of all disasters, so she is extremely sensitive to all related information.

Even the door panels of the haphazardly built shacks are extravagant items. From the outside, one can see a family of three huddled in a corner, sleeping groggy with their clothes on.At the end of summer and early autumn, the weather turns cooler, and the weather at night is already a bit cold for the children, but they obviously don't have other warm clothes.Looking at their skinny appearance, one can tell that the food here is not very promising, at most it is not enough to starve to death.

Tiana squatted down, stretched out her fingers to wipe the empty rice bowl, picked it up, twisted it lightly, and put it under the moonlight to carefully identify it.

"This is corn porridge. This kind of yellow corn is a crop in the north." Tiana stood up, with a worried look on her face, and said to herself: "No matter how much food is consumed by 3 people every day, it is not a small amount. Numbers, this yellow corn is not a crop of Jianbao, where did they get the food?"

"The yield of yellow corn is very low, isn't it?" El couldn't help asking when he saw the food residue on Tiana's finger. Compared to wheat, although the yield of yellow corn is low, it is very cold-resistant. Therefore, it is more common in northern farmland. Even El, who grew up in the mountains, is familiar with it, because this stuff has tenacious vitality and does not have high requirements for land and climate. It can be grown even in the mountains. , can be said to be one of the main foods of northern civilian families.

But then again, this thing is not all good. Maybe it is because it is easy to grow, so the taste is not as good as regular crops, so it can't be used on the table. Only the poor will regard it as a staple food.

"Even if the year was not very good last year, a manor owner like Baron Farah would not hoard yellow corn, because it is not worth the price." Tiana took out a handkerchief and wiped her fingers, her eyes flickered for a moment, somewhat Not sure: "Could it be this year's harvest? I'm not familiar with the growth cycle of crops. I just heard that yellow corn seems to ripen faster than wheat. But... who can have the leisure to harvest at this time?" What about food?"

"It can't be the gang of the Cursed Sect, they are probably the only living people left in the infected area in the north now." El curled his lips and said half-jokingly.But in the middle of the conversation, he saw Tiana's complexion changed drastically, and he couldn't help jumping in his heart, and said in disbelief: "I'm just kidding, those crazy people don't take the time to please their master, how can they be free?" Harvest the crops?"

"It's not impossible..." Tiana didn't take El's words as a joke, she thought about it seriously and said: "From the beginning, I found it strange that with the usual style of the Cursed Sect, it is absolutely impossible to ignore such a big deal." A group of refugees on a large scale. But until now I have not found their dirty traces here, which is unbelievable. But think about it from another angle, if the Brotherhood of Stonework has reached a compromise with the Cult of the Damned, then these problems are very easy now It's easy to explain."

"Please, don't, I've had enough of these bastards." El sighed and said with a bitter face.

(End of this chapter)