Astartes of the Bear School

Chapter 1077 1059. Changhu Town

The wooden plank bridge built on a series of pontoons made a muffled sound under the heavy tread.

On the several hundred meters long bridge with an unobstructed view, at most four people can walk side by side, but now there is only one figure, occupying half of the width.

The figure approached Changhu Town in a hurry and was naturally stopped by the guard before entering the town.

The temperature on the lake is very low, and the cold fog can bring moisture into two layers of cotton-padded clothes!

 At the entrance to the town is a small security booth, which is actually a small wooden house.

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

 Two men were inside the wooden house, their faces red with the color of alcohol.

The smell of bad beer, as well as the smell of human oil and sweat mixed with the heat of firewood, emanated from the side window of the cabin.

 “Hey, someone’s coming.”

Inarticulate sounds came from the wooden house, followed by a burst of reluctant complaints and mutterings. Finally, the wooden door creaked open, and a guard came out with a spear.

The other just stuck his head out of the side window and looked outside, but his body was still attached to the warm bonfire.

"what happened to you?"

 The guard who went out raised the brim of his hat impatiently.

He wore a set of chain mail, a cotton coat and a cloth shirt with armor plates on it, and a pointed helmet with a soft fur edge.

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

 When he saw the whole person in front of him.

 “My mom?”

Lifting the brim of his hat, the guard with an astonished expression on his face did not have time to express a complete exclamation, and then a faint, cold white light lit up in Lan En's hanging left hand.

This kind of person will not be a strong-willed person, and at the same time, he is not in a state of high concentration.

　　When the guard walked out of the warm wooden house just now, Lan Endu saw the tears hanging in the corners of his eyes because of his drowsiness.

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

“Don’t pay too much attention to me, sir. The person in front of you is just a taller ordinary person.”

Lan En said softly, and the guard on the opposite side nodded in sync.

 “Yes, he is an ordinary person, he doesn’t care”

"I came to Changhu Town not to cause trouble. I am an honest man. I just came to see a group of separated friends. They are a group of dwarves. Have you seen them while standing guard?"

Lan En 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 are you talking about?”

The guard who stuck his head out of the window looked older and his hair was reflective and tangled on his forehead. At this time, he sniffed and asked the guard in front of Lan En.

 Lan En did not turn his face to the other party, but his hanging left hand lit up again.

“No, it’s nothing.” The guard standing in front of Lan En muttered in response. "He was just a passerby. Who knows why he got separated from his people. He said he was meeting at our place, so he came here."

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

He was still muttering: "Yes, this is where we are. How can there be any human habitation near this shabby place that can be used as a gathering place?"

　　After sending away the old fried dough sticks in the room, Lan En continued to speak.

 “Please answer the question just now, sir.”

“Dwarf? I’ve never seen a dwarf on the bridge. But there are many ways to get into the town, including waterways and smuggling. I can’t control it.”

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

"The atmosphere is not calm?" The guard's already confused face became even more confused, but he nodded immediately. "Yes, be vigilant, vigilant."

It wasn't until he walked back to the cabin in the cold mist, and after a shiver, that his consciousness returned to him.

"Huh? Why did you come in?" The old youtiao looked at the guard who entered the door in surprise, "Even if there is no problem with that person, you still have to take it to the mayor and report it."

"Whoever wants to go can go." The guard, who was still a little confused, said impatiently, "I don't want to go again on a cold day."

After saying that, he sat on the stool near the stove, stretched out his hand to warm himself, took out the whetstone, and began to carefully polish the edge of the spear under the ghostly eyes of the old man.

This sentence was meant to **** the old man who didn't even leave the house just now. The old man knew that he was in the wrong and didn't want to deepen the conflict with his colleagues, so he just laughed and said nothing.

—

After entering Changhu Town, the feeling of this town to Lan En was not much different from when he viewed it from a distance.

 It is early morning, when people are busy.

Most of the people coming and going were wearing dirty and tattered cotton clothes, and their felt hats and boots were so dirty that they were black and reflective. His face showed the sleepiness and exhaustion caused by the early morning and cold.

Some rotten vegetable leaves that fell on the wooden floor were stepped on by people, almost turning into a ball of paste. The piglets who ran out of the cage from nowhere were eating these things with their heads arched.

 The towns built on the rocks in the lake do not have regular roads. They are all houses made of wooden planks and the ground is paved with wooden planks. If there are no planks, people can only row boats if they want to get across.

 Lann’s body shape stood out among the crowd, not to mention his silver hair and face.

 But the witcher quickly found the pattern of the flow of people in this town through observation and Mentos's calculation power. He used the stealth action rules 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 no people here, only the remains of fish caught at the sluice along the water flow, and the domestic garbage in the town.

 A homeless man with no clothes on was lying sleeping in the corner opposite the waterway.

Lan En looked around, then jumped on the wall and reached the top of the sluice.

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

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

 “Pick me up, meow!”

The flannel ball shouted softly upward.

Then he grabbed the slingshot hanging from Lan En and climbed up. There was no sound the whole time.

 “Whooping?”

Qilin snorted in confusion below.

"I need to stay outside this town for a while, don't go far, Qilin."

Lan En explained to Qilin under the sluice.

“The buildings in this place are too crowded and not strong. If you come in, I will probably collapse them.”

When the New World Ancient Dragon heard that it was "too crowded," he shook his head in boredom, and his beautiful mane and magic rune cloth started to fly.

Qilin didn't want to stay in a place like Rivendell because it wasn't spacious enough, let alone a small town like Chang Lake.

Qilin turned around and stepped on the lake water and slipped away, while Flannel Ball grabbed Lan En'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 board, and turned over to take a look.

 In the end, he saw Lan En and the flannel ball lying on his shoulder.

The two of them looked at each other blankly for a second, and then the homeless man blinked and lay down again.

He was still muttering: "The silver-haired elf is sleeping with a cat in clothes. What is the omen of this dream?"

 “Hehehehe, the elf is so beautiful, hehehehe”

The velvet ball on Lan En's shoulder and the Mentos in his head made a "tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk, tsk" sound almost simultaneously.

  The flannel ball also contains the movement of a kitten shaking its head, and the three-color cat hair swinging around the shoulders makes Lan En's neck itchy.

Lan suddenly tilted his head and looked at the kitten on his shoulder in disgust.

Changhu Town is not that big at all. After all, the huge rock in the lake is only an approximate circle with a diameter of about one kilometer.

 So in the crowded and messy wooden building, Lan En and Fluffy Ball quickly searched for traces of the dwarves.

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

So the old bloodstains that had oxidized into dark black could be seen everywhere on the wooden floor, as well as the remains of fish scales mixed with the bloodstains.

When the weather is hot, the smell of these things must be unbearable, and there will be a large number of flying insects and flies buzzing around the blood stains.

Thinking about it this way, the cold mist on the lake that can penetrate into cotton-padded clothes is at least a little bit beneficial, at least there are no bugs.

But when Lan En passed by a group of houses in Changhu Town that didn't have anything special, he slowed down and looked at it strangely.

The flannel ball, which was searching in another direction to improve efficiency, also slipped back after seeing this.

 “Boss, what’s wrong, meow?”

It has been running on the roof with its light weight. Now its cat head is exposed from the edge of the eaves, and it is holding on to the eaves and looking down.

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

“There are people in this house who are keeping watch on people whose skills are so-so, but there are a lot of them.”

There were people around the house pretending to admire the clay pots 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. Everyone would look at the ordinary two-story wooden house in the middle every once in a while.

 “Want to take a look, meow?”

 “This should be the mayor’s own business, first of all”

Originally Lan En wanted to say, ‘It’s more important to take care of our business first’, but before he could finish his words, a burst of noise mixed in the noisy and non-soundproof buildings in Changhu Town reached the ears of the witcher.