I! Cleaner!

"Help!"

"Killing people!!!"

Joshua, who was "assassinated", was lucky enough to twist the door handle of the carriage, but his collar was grabbed by Leon from behind. After struggling for several times, he was unable to break free. In desperation, he had to struggle as hard as he could. He screamed for help at the top of his lungs.

After all, the driver of the carriage was not deaf. There was so much noise in the carriage, so naturally he would not react at all.

When he heard the guest calling for help, he hurriedly slowed down and parked, then opened the small window between the driver's seat and the car, and cautiously took a look.

"You two...this is what you are doing?"

"fine."

After covering Joshua's mouth, Leon turned back and said without changing his expression:

"We are joking, you continue... What happened to your face?"

ah?

The coachman was stunned for a moment by the question, then he stretched out his spherical metal palm, touched his somewhat rusty face, and said with puzzled eyes:

"Guest, is there something on my face?"

"..."

It's not that there's something on your face, but what exactly are you? ! ! !

Looking at the iron head with a strange metallic sheen peeking out from the small window, and the empty eyes that turned into brown glass, the two people in the carriage couldn't help but suck in a breath of cold air at the same time.

"Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu!"

Already startled by Leon's "assassination", and then suddenly startled by the monster peeking out of the transom, the freckled prince's fright level was completely blown away. His whole body went limp as if he had no bones, and he fell directly to the ground. On the ground of the carriage, people looked at the tin coachman with horrified eyes and said nothing for a long time.

Although Leon was also shocked by the tin doll coachman, his two months as a cleaner had really sharpened his mental endurance. Abnormal events of this level were no longer enough to frighten him. .

After trying to regain his composure, Leon reached out to close the carriage door, then lifted up Joshua, who was already limp, and directly pressed him back to the chair opposite. Then he tentatively said to the carriage driver:

"Can you tell me what it feels like when you touch your face?"

What problem is this?

Although he was a little confused when asked by Leon, the coachman who received the two guests from outside the parliament gate knew that the identity of the two guests was not simple, so the coachman answered honestly:

"It's almost the same as usual, cold and hard... Oh yes, my face may be a little rusty recently, and I think it needs some oil."

It's been a little rusty recently...

After hearing this somewhat strange answer, Leon's eyes couldn't help but narrowed slightly.

Already thinking that he is the Tin Woodman instead of a soft-skinned human being, it means that the coachman's own cognition has been confused, which means that the abnormality that caused his change should not be of low status.

Want to touch his face?

Temporarily giving up the plan to stun Joshua, Leon looked at the puzzled tin head in the small window and hesitated whether to reach out and touch it, but finally gave up the plan.

After all, the coachman turned into a tin doll. If it is the kind of anomaly that spreads through contact, touching it directly is undoubtedly equivalent to delivering it to your door. When the cause and type of anomaly cannot be determined, it is better to reduce contact. safer.

"really."

Looking at the face of the tin coachman, he found some reddish-brown light rust on his neck and chin. Leon nodded kindly and said:

"You're a little rusty, you really need to take good care of it."

"Haha, let's forget it."

After hearing Leon's words, the iron coachman smiled honestly, and then said in a strange voice with a slight metallic sound:

"Maintenance is done by noble people like you. We can just apply some rapeseed oil to prevent moisture. Besides, my work is exposed to wind and rain. No matter how much maintenance I do, it will still get rusty."

"That's really hard work."

Adhering to the working principle of not alerting the other party before confirming the source of the anomaly, Leon chatted for a while while grabbing Joshua's hand and pushing open the carriage door, and then said without changing his expression:

"By the way, I suddenly remembered something. Please stop here and wait for me for a moment. I will get out of the car and take a look."

"Ah, okay!"

After hearing Leon's words, the tin coachman nodded in response, then turned his creaking neck and looked straight at the freckled prince on the ground with his two eyes made of brown glass balls.

"guest."

The chin stained with reddish-brown rust was slightly opened, revealing a stiff and dull strange smile unique to a doll. The iron coachman tilted his neck, which was limited by the iron joints and could not twist in a wide range. He said pitifully to the frightened Joshua:

"Want a hot towel?"

"Wow!!!"

The tin rickshaw driver looked human-like, but his behavior was not so human-like. It probably triggered the uncanny valley effect and directly shattered Joshua's psychological defenses that had been broken down.

After howling uncontrollably, Joshua threw himself directly at the door of the carriage, almost rolling off the carriage, instinctively wanting to stay away from this strange carriage.

However, when Joshua got up from the ground and prepared to run away with a pale face, he only looked up for a moment and then sat down on the ground.

The palace, the streets, the square, the streets...he had seen this place countless times, and there were all kinds of tin men everywhere!

The sentries that should have been holding weapons and guarding the palace gates were replaced by two teams of tall black iron soldiers. The iron-gray thickened guard uniforms turned into real black-gray iron sheets and became part of the guards' bodies.

On the special road outside the palace, steam carriages sped past, but the horses pulling the carriages had become iron horses, and their joints had become the ball-shaped joints of toys.

The originally smooth and stable movement became intermittent due to the changes in the joints. After running a certain distance, the iron horse's limbs were reset, and the carriage behind it suddenly stopped.

In addition, the guards in front of the square, the well-dressed nobles, the pedestrians on the streets, the stray dogs that stole goods, the vendors who shouted and chased...

All the things that should have been alive have all become tin dolls. Even though the area around the palace is still prosperous, looking around, there is cold and hard iron gray everywhere, without a trace of the soft color of flesh and blood.

"This... this..."

This is probably not an ordinary abnormal object...

Squinting his eyes and looking further away, at the end of the long street, he saw a group of children who were turning into iron sheets, and Leon couldn't help but take a deep breath.

It's not just the coachman who has been turned into iron sheets, but all the living things around him, and this range is constantly expanding. In addition...

He lowered his head and looked at his hands, which were still flesh and blood. After rubbing his hands against each other, feeling the cold and hard touch, Leon couldn't help but frown.

Am I also a tin man?