novelraw Chapter 895: The Little Flower Girl of the Old Sewer
Chapter 895: The Little Flower Girl of the Old Sewer
"Sir, buy a flower."
On the outskirts of Midnicht, in a branch of the Old Sewer, inside a dilapidated inn.
The robed figures were calmly eating their food when a little girl, peeking in from outside, made them pause.
Several pairs of eyes stared out at the girl from beneath their hoods. She waited a moment, then, finding no customers, turned away from the door.
After silently finishing their meal, they paid for their stay and left the dilapidated inn.
The faint glow of the fluorite blocks on the cave ceiling was dimmer than the torches and oil lamps in the shops. Signs with shop names, written on alchemical plates, emitted multicolored, glowing runes that were clearly visible from hundreds of meters away.
A powerful figure, following his companions, suddenly stopped and looked down the street.
He saw the little flower girl again. It seemed she had just been rejected once more, and the number of flowers in the basket hanging from her thin arm had not diminished at all.
The skinny girl, devoid of any malice or filth, was completely out of place in the Old Sewer and looked as if she could be devoured by a passing anomaly at any moment.
The figure broke away from the group, knelt before the girl, pulled a few crumpled shillings from a pocket beneath his robe, and pressed them into her hand."We need to go."
A companion called out from behind him.
"Try to get to the surface. Don't stay here."
The figure patted the girl on the head, took a trembling purple flower from her, stood up, and rejoined his companions, heading toward the distant, bustling underground street.
...
Central Station of Midnight.
The bustling and prosperous main street seemed no different from the cities on the surface.
Except for the strange and bizarre goods in the shops.
Lu Li and his companions arrived a little later than expected due to a shortage of wormholes—the worms around Dark Star City had been completely plundered, and the vacated wormholes were quickly occupied by nomadic tribes.
"Sir, buy a flower."
A dirty, skinny human girl approached Lu Li and his companions.
"How much for one?"
"Only 3 shillings, sir."
Lu Li gave the girl 3 shillings but didn't take the flower she offered, instead leading his followers around her.
"Anomalies... buy... flowers, too?"
Ophelia kept glancing back. The girl had moved on, trying to sell her flowers to other passersby.
"There are more humans and non-humans at the Central Station of Midnight than in other parts of the Old Sewer," Lu Li said, walking ahead.
"They're easier to deceive."
"Deceive...?"
"The flowers are anomalies. I've seen this scam before."
As a resident of the Old Sewer, Prusius had a right to speak on the matter and exposed the girl's flower scam:
"Flower-anomalies use this method to spread pollen or parasites. I think it's the latter: the girl is either infected with a parasite or is a flower-anomaly herself."
A real little girl couldn't survive alone in the chaotic Old Sewer.
"Aren't there... rules... in the Old... Sewer?"
Ophelia recalled the girl's indifferent expression and behavior. It was indeed strange, but would the Central Station of Midnight really allow anomalies to hunt here?
"Miss Ophelia, you can think of it as an unspoken rule: if you don't get caught, it's fine... The rules in the Old Sewer are very weak, nothing like in human cities. Here, fools and the weak have no right to exist..."
Prusius said this with an emotion and pain he didn't want to recall.
He wasn't a fool, but he was utterly weak. He was the sole survivor of the City Scouts; if not for Lu Li, he would have long since become food for some monster, just like his former comrades.
...
Drip... drip...
After slipping into a dimly lit alley, blood dripped from his fingertips.
Strike.
The lit match flared with smoke and light as it was brought, wavering, to an oil lamp.
The dim light that flickered to life gradually illuminated the surroundings.
Captain Hoggart continued to tear away the last tendrils of veins clinging to the powerful figure's bloody, wounded chest.
A bundle of purplish-red veins, resembling tree roots, lay in the filth at their feet.
"Squire, make a torch."
Without turning, Captain Hoggart spoke, pulling out the last root embedded in the flesh and taking the torch held out by the squire.
"Endure it."
The torch was pressed to the chest, which looked as if it had been torn open by a plow, and a muffled groan of pain rose simultaneously with the smell of searing flesh.
After a few seconds, Captain Hoggart pulled the torch away, wrapped the chest in bandages, and sprinkled it with a powder to conceal the smell of blood.
A trembling, rough, broad hand grabbed the robe and threw it on. The silhouette, like a wall in the firelight, moved out of the alley.
"Come back, Knight Vino," Captain Hoggart called out to him.
Knight Vino stopped. "Scholar Lanna died because of my mistake."
"That's why we must learn our lesson. Remember, nothing here deserves compassion."
Captain Hoggart whispered gravely, "This sounds fanatical, but don't forget the mission the bishop gave us. For the glory of humanity."
"...For the glory of humanity."
...
The spider-man guide was no longer needed to follow them.
The rescued worms had likely recovered from their wounds and left, so there was no need to worry that the spider-man guide would betray them upon returning—
Besides, the spider-man guide probably wouldn't go back anyway.
Because there were more opportunities at the Central Station of Midnight, because returning could mean death on the road, and because this cult didn't seem so unapproachable—they had even treated him quite well.
The spider-man hoped to follow Lu Li and his companions again, whether to work for them or to serve them.
The word "serve" made Ophelia uneasy, but they did need someone intelligent enough to run errands.
Bishop John rented a room at an inn and sent the spider-man guide to scout for information. Soon, the spider-man returned with a local guide.
"I heard there was an auction in the Old Sewer recently," Lu Li asked.
"Could you be more specific?"
This three-eyed non-human guide spoke the human tongue better than the spider-man and, prostrating himself fawningly on the ground, said:
"Auctions are held every day at the Midnicht station."
"An auction of rare treasures in the deep levels," Lu Li repeated, relaying the information from the tentacled cultist.
"The deep levels... Please, give me some time!"
The three-eyed guide returned three hours later. He was in a terrible state, having lost an arm and an eye.
However, he brought Lu Li the information he needed: the auction of rare anomaly treasures would be held tomorrow evening on the seventh level.
The three-eyed guide had paid a terrible price to gather the information. He humbly begged Lu Li to pay the promised reward or allow him to become one of his followers.
Lu Li didn't expand his group, merely paying the guide a handsome compensation that made the spider-man watch with envy.
"Merciful and compassionate master, if I were to lose a leg..." the eight-legged spider-man began fawningly, but Bishop John shooed him away from Lu Li.
Learning that the three-eyed guide's injuries were not related to his inquiries about the auction, but were simply part of the usual "unspoken rules of the Old Sewer," Lu Li and his companions left the inn and headed for the Spiral Hall, which led to the deep levels.
A spiral staircase wound down along the edge of a gigantic, abyss-like cavern, its center bottomless.
Aside from the various hidden paths leading into the deep levels, the Spiral Hall was the official passage from the Central Station of Midnight into the deeper layers.
This meant it was safer.
At least, on the way from the Spiral Hall to the seventh level, aside from the fact that human silhouettes grew scarcer while repulsive anomalies became more numerous, they encountered no problems.