Love and passion, cutting up the wasteland

It is rumored that the capital of the Shek Kingdom, Admark, is a huge fortress city built on the mountain, which has stood for thousands of years and is indestructible - but the people of Ai Mining Town have never envied it in the past, because the place where they live has a city-state that has been raised from the ground, and the city walls made of bricks and iron plates are far better than the rock walls and foundation stones in nature.

Now, a gap has appeared in the towering city wall, and the vast sky and the raging yellow sand on the wasteland are leaking in at the same time, making people unable to open their eyes. This was during the beast disaster not long ago, when an elder beaked beast rushed out like crazy, and finally the giant beast crashed and left with a bloody head.

The city wall also collapsed halfway.

Izumi felt that this was a blessing. After all, if it was replaced by other city-states mentioned by the Drifters and the Hunters, who else except Ai Mining Town could continue to stand firm in this situation?

Of course, perhaps other city-states would not be like the adults that Izumi saw. Even if they heard the roar of the giant beast outside the city, they still lived their lives with numb faces and did not move at all.

But even with such empty high walls, a group of sword-wielding warriors came and took over this place not long ago.

Izumi shrank in the shadows and stared in their direction.

She is already nine years old this year - maybe older or younger, because this is Izumi's own estimate. No one in Aikuan Town cares how many years a life destined to die has experienced, including their children.

And Izumi has been paying attention to this since she was old enough to remember things. She is not interested in her birthday, but experience tells her that remembering the time, especially the change of seasons, can to a certain extent estimate the price exchange cycle in the city, what kind of goods will become scarce, and when should she avoid the hunters who come to "purchase goods".

By the way, she also wrote down her age.

She even estimated that she should still be ignorant on the basis of her own counting to ensure rigor.

This is about nine years old.

However, Izumi's figure is much thinner and smaller than that of an eight or nine-year-old child. She huddled in a crack in the ruins like a little mouse, covered in shadows. Even the hunters and the leaders in the city would not find her.

The girl blinked her eyes, and a few tiny grains of sand and dust were stained on her smart eyelashes, which were reflected in her sky-blue irises along with those fully armed warriors.

The weapons in their hands were brighter and sharper than any Izumi had seen in the city, which made people itch and chilled - what made Izumi even more curious was that they actually hung the same shiny iron sheets on their bodies, covered with a thick layer.

Isn't it heavy?

Izumi didn't dare to get close to these people. In fact, it was an overstep for a wild person like her to get close to the city wall.

Once discovered, the crossbowmen under the city could directly shoot them, just like hunting animals in the wilderness.

The general city walls are for defense against foreign enemies, but the shield guards of Aikuang Town are to seal off the entire city.

The muzzle of the gun is facing inward.

Izumi doesn't think there is anything wrong with this situation, because she was born like this. Moreover, it is said that the mountain people and city people who go to Aikuang Town are treated worse than them.

The latter two, even if they are wild people themselves, will remind each other by word of mouth not to contact those people.

It's not discrimination.

But it will really cause disasters.

Even in such a dangerous situation, Izumi still approached here, because there is another education among them -

The more dangerous, the more opportunities.

Sure enough, with the arrival of this group of warriors, the shield guards on the city wall opened the gate - in the past, they would open the city gate before the beast disaster came, to welcome in merchants, hunters, their own soldiers and supplies from outside the city.

Two strong pack animals pulled a high carriage covered with a cloth and passed by Izumi.

She huddled halfway up the ruins of a house.

A scent passed through Izumi's nose, pricking her small body, and she quickly reached out to grab it.

When she huddled back, she had a loaf of bread in her hand.

Unlike the "bricks" in the city that were mixed with wheat bran and fine soil, the bread in Izumi's hand was baked with real flour. What made her even more overjoyed was that in order to ensure the physical strength of the soldiers, some butter and raw sugar were even mixed in.

Izumi had heard that these warriors from the west seemed to be able to command the shield guards, so their status and origin must be not low.

The treatment was also indispensable.

Then they would definitely not be able to stand the coarse grains eaten by the shield guards and blood hunters in the city, and would choose to prepare and transport supplies themselves.

This gave Izumi an opportunity.

She had missed the previous gates, and they were too far away. With her strength, she didn't dare to go through them. The gap she chose to hide in was also specially calculated and observed. Whether it was the angle, height, or the corner of the street, it was just in the blind spot of the shield guards and the soldiers accompanying the car.

Success at one time.

While the carriage had not completely passed, Izumi quickly reached out and pulled out a few more breads from under the cloth and put them in her tattered loincloth.

There was no telling how many breads there were in this whole car, and they were tied up like a small mountain.

A few less would not be discovered.

But for Izumi and her father, it was very different.

The girl stopped when she saw the good.

On the one hand, she was worried about being discovered, and on the other hand, it was getting darker as it was already approaching evening.

Izumi herself didn't know why, but she couldn't see things clearly at night, and her vision was blurry and dark.

She was scolded by her father for this.

She had tried hard, but there was no improvement until her eyes were tearing up. For this reason, she could only move the work of scavenging in the wild to daytime to ensure that she would not fall behind.

She would not starve to death.

For this reason, while Izumi took a greater risk, she did find more opportunities that the wild people were unable to contact.

After succeeding, Izumi retracted her body from the outside of the wall, and retreated along the gap in the house that was originally a ventilation hole or a thermal insulation layer, and shuttled through the ruins like a gerbil or a little elf covered in dust, and finally got out from the other side of the street.

At this time, she breathed a sigh of relief.

She looked at the long loaf of bread in her waist and in her hands, and was filled with joy. Her stomach growled for a moment, and Izumi swallowed hard, not taking a bite to satisfy her craving.

Izumi was not that extravagant.

If these foods were sliced ​​or ground into crumbs and mixed with bricks and chewing sticks, they could be eaten for at least another month.

Lovely bread, good in every way.

The only downside is that it goes bad too easily.

Hearing the growling of her stomach, Izumi subconsciously became alert, and hurriedly pressed her stomach with one hand while retreating quickly.

It was getting dark, and this was the time when other people came out to move around. Izumi didn't want to bump into them. Although they were all savages at this time, they would be the least merciful to each other.

Her night blindness came back. The two moons in the sky had clearly lit up, casting either bright or blood-red light on the ground, but in the girl's eyes, it was all pitch black.

Fortunately, Izumi could remember the way she came, and even calculated the number of steps she should take at what time, so it was not a problem for her to go home in the dark.

"Bang!"

The girl suddenly fell backwards - she was knocked away by the force of her running forward.

The bread was scattered all over the floor.

Izumi struggled to get up. She felt something like a cushion hit her back.

It didn't hurt.

But what concerned her more was that in her blurred vision, a figure leaned over and picked up a loaf of bread on the ground, as if looking at it.

Then he looked in her direction.