A Tale of Strategies For the Throne

Things are a little bit worse.

Sitting at the foot of the cracked and mottled stone wall, Garlan was deep in thought.

The original plan was to be captured by himself, and then put some marks along the way so that the cavalry could follow up secretly from a distance.But the arrangements are all outside the city of Vinal, who knows that those 'thieves' are so bold as to rush into the urban area.

Although he knew that on the way to Ayr Town, there were two cavalry disguised and followed far behind, but the incident happened suddenly, the thieves moved quickly, and he was knocked out and couldn't leave any clues. , I am afraid that those cavalrymen will be difficult to track down.

Moreover, Garlan himself is still at a loss as to where this place is now.

He thought for a while, got up, walked to the rusty iron railing, held the railing and looked outside.

The gaps in the iron bars are not big, but he is small, and a head can still get out.

So, in the dark dungeon, I saw a fluffy little golden head coming out of the iron bars, looking left and right with a pair of big eyes, like a little squirrel sticking its little head out of a hole.

He looked at the children curled up in different dungeons who seemed to have fallen asleep, and counted one, two, three, four in his heart.

Well, probably less than twenty.

Garlan, who poked his head out and looked at it for a long time, came to a conclusion.

There are no more than twenty children in this dungeon.

In this way, the number will not match. It is said that the number of missing and kidnapped children is almost 70 to [-], and the number here is not even one-third.

Then, there are only two possibilities.

The first type is that the children who were caught earlier have been sold.

The second is that this is just a temporary transfer station, and the children here will have to be sent to the real place of captivity.

According to the little girl named Keli, the children here were all arrested in the last four or five days, so the second possibility should be more reliable.

So what he has to do now is first to find out where he is, and then wait for those 'thieves' to send him and these children to the place of imprisonment.

Thinking of this, Garlan retracted his little head that had been drilled out, planning to go back and squat down, honestly waiting for the opportunity.

However, when he walked back along the way, he accidentally saw a child sleeping in a corner and kicked the child. Not only did he trip over himself and almost fell, but he also kicked the child. I have to turn half over.

"Ah, sorry—"

Garlan quickly reached out his hand to apologize, but when he leaned over, he found that the child who had been kicked and turned over had not woken up, and was still in a deep sleep, showing no reaction at all.

He suddenly felt a little strange.

Walking quickly back to the stone wall where an oil lamp was hung, he saw that the old man and the little girl were both asleep, and when he turned around, he found that everyone else was also asleep.

... something is wrong.

Garlan remembered that when he looked around just now, all the children had fallen asleep.

At first he thought it was just because it was getting late that everyone was asleep.But think about it carefully, no matter how late it is, there will always be one or two children who are too scared to sleep, right?

He squatted down, stretched out his hand and gently pushed Keli who was nestled beside the old man.

"Wake up."

He yelled softly, seeing that the other party didn't respond, he began to push Keli's body harder with his hands.

But the little girl didn't know what was going on, she fell into a deep sleep, and couldn't wake up no matter how hard she pushed.

Garlan tried to push the old man again. It stands to reason that the old man's sleep is very light and alert, so he should wake up easily, but this old man, like Keli, completely fell asleep.If they weren't still breathing, Garlan would almost think that they were actually dead.

what happened?

Obviously everyone was still very energetic before eating, some children were still crying, and now they all fell asleep all of a sudden?

And he's the only one who's fine?

……

Wait a minute, 'before dinner'?

By the way, that bowl of gruel——

Among all the people here, only he didn't eat that bowl of porridge!

He suddenly figured it out.

Those 'thieves' must have added drugs to the food to make these children sleepy, and they wanted to make all the children sleep to death, probably in order to prevent these children from making noise on the way when they were transported out.

In this way, their next step is definitely to...

Just as Garlan thought of this, there was a click, and the iron door opened not far away.

Without saying a word, he fell to Keli's side, closed his eyes and pretended to fall asleep like the other children.

The sound of heavy footsteps came, noisy and chaotic, as if many people had poured into this narrow dungeon corridor.Immediately afterwards, he heard the crisp sound of keys hitting each other, and then the creaking sound of iron gates being opened one after another.

Someone was giving orders in a low voice, yelling hurry up hurry up.

Not long after, with a creak, Garlan heard the iron gate of the dungeon he was in being opened, and several people walked in quickly.One of them stretched out his hand to grab it, and rudely carried himself and Kelly on his shoulders.

With his eyes closed, he could hear the person carrying him whispering to the side.

"What should I do with this old guy? Leave it here, or throw it in the sewer later?"

A voice answered quickly.

"You can take it away together. It's better not to keep anyone here, throw it in the sewer... No, let's take it together. The bunch of brats over there are annoying. Throw this old guy over there to take care of those brats."

The conversation ended there, and the man carried him out.

Garlan lay on the man's shoulder, with his head hanging on the man's back, and opened his eyes slightly.He saw a dozen tall men in the dungeon, each carrying one or two children walking out quickly.

After going out of the prison door, there is a spiral stone step, which is also extremely dilapidated, except for the middle part that is often trampled, the other places are covered with moss.

In the dark dungeon, those 'thieves' were hurrying on their way, no one noticed, and no one would think that there was a child pretending to be sleeping secretly observing them.

When the spiral stone steps reached the end, the leading man pushed away the heavy stone above his head and got out of the ground, and the others followed suit.

Sensing the light of the moon, Garlan quickly closed his eyes, leaving only an extremely tiny slit, which was obscured by thick eyelashes.He sneaked a glance at Kelly on the other side out of the corner of his eye, and seeing that she was still in a deep sleep, he even smacked his mouth. He didn't know what he dreamed of, but saliva dripped from the corner of her mouth. , flowing backwards onto her eyes.

The corners of Garlan's eyes twitched, and he stopped glancing at her.

The man who was carrying him hurried all the way, Garlan didn't dare to look up, so he could only see the road under the man's feet.

The ground was very flat, and it was paved with large bluestone slabs with beautiful patterns. Garlan guessed in his heart that this place should be a rather luxurious building.

After walking for a while, he was suddenly thrown down, and his whole body fell heavily on the stone floor. The pain was so painful that he almost yelled out, and he tried his best to hold it back.

Because it happened to be face up when it was thrown to the ground, he took the opportunity to squint his eyes and quickly closed them again.

Seeing this, he suddenly felt a huge wave in his heart.

Under the moonlight, he saw a tall and majestic building that looked like several cubes neatly piled up layer by layer, standing tall not far away.

The Consulate!

When he followed Brother Kamos into the city of Venal last time, he saw this magnificent building in the center of the city's elite area from a distance.

This is actually the governing office in the center of Vener City!

The hideouts of the so-called 'thieves' who attacked the people of Vernal City are actually the place that was supposed to protect the people of Vernal City——

Just as Garlan's heart was churning endlessly, he was picked up roughly by that man again and carried him on his shoulder.

The man still had leather armor on his shoulders, which was hard enough to make his stomach hurt.

He was thankful that he didn't drink that bowl of porridge not long ago, otherwise, this pampered body would have been uncomfortable enough to vomit out now that he was pressed against his stomach while awake.

Resisting the uncomfortable feeling, he gently flicked the wrist guard on his wrist with his fingers.

It was a wristband made of black cloth with blue river runes embroidered on it. This kind of talisman to pray for children's health is very common, so no one took it seriously.But now, Garlan flicked it lightly with his fingers, and two or three tiny black beads rolled out from the gap in the cloth's talisman and fell to the ground.

Those little black beads are almost like sand grains, very inconspicuous.

Before Garlan was ready to do this, he made two plans with Brother Wang and the others.

The first is that after he was arrested, Brother Wang and the others followed behind, finding a place to catch him all at once.

In the second case, if there is an accident and Brother Wang and the others are dumped, then he will leave clues so that Brother Wang and the others can find them.

"Come on."

This group of people is waiting here because they have to join the other two groups.

The other two groups were smaller in number, but they also brought about a dozen children.

Then, after the group of 'thieves' met, they quickly got into a gate with the child on their backs.

The road behind the gate is a slope, which leads obliquely to the ground, and Garlan smells a not-so-obvious stench.

He understood immediately.

Sewers, this is a large sewer built under the city of Vinal.

Under every large city in Aaron Landis near the often flooded river, an equally huge sewer will be built, criss-crossing like a net.

The specifications and standards of these urban sewers are strictly regulated by the state, and they are very wide, and must be able to accommodate at least one carriage.Moreover, there are generally roads for sewer maintenance personnel to walk on the edge of the sewer wall.

Garlan thought to himself.

No wonder the spies hiding in the city couldn't find any clues. It turned out that these children were secretly transported out of the city directly from the sewer of the Consulate.

I don't know how long I walked in the maze-like sewer, anyway, every once in a while, Garlan would secretly touch the cloth amulet on his wrist, and some small black sand would fall down.

After walking out of the sewer, there was another long cave. He probably already left the city. This cave was also dug artificially.

Garlan reckoned that after walking for half the night, this group of people finally got out from the ground.

The bright moonlight shone down, and the shadow shrank into a ball under the person's feet. Sure enough, it was almost midnight.

With a bang, he was thrown heavily into a wooden cart, and his shoulders, which had been severely hit by the hard wooden bottom, were aching.

The child closed his eyes and gritted his teeth bitterly.

The guy who lost me twice, I remember you!

You wait, wait for me—

In his heart, he recorded the man who threw himself around rudely in a small notebook, and Garlan, who was lying on the car, opened his eyes slightly.

There are thick wooden railings in front of the car. The car body is like a large wooden cage. Twenty or thirty children, including myself, were all thrown in. The low neighing of a poor horse was faintly heard in front of the car. It turns out that there are horses pulling this cart.

Accompanied by the creaking sound of wooden wheels pressed against the ground, the carriage moved forward.

Garlan could only vaguely see that this was a valley in the deep mountains, surrounded by mountains and dense forests, it looked very hidden.But he didn't know exactly where it was, so he could only continue to sprinkle small black beads secretly along the way.

The carriage drove for a while, and the front suddenly opened up. Instead of the dense forest, many huge black rocks appeared instead.

Those pitch-black giant rocks are hard to tell whether they are naturally formed or man-made. They are covered with densely packed small holes. Very weird feeling.

The wheels of the carriage were still creaking, and Garlan heard a sound.

An extremely weird voice, like singing, and like shouting.

The voice was actually not unpleasant, it was a deep and ancient accent, and each sound seemed to be able to penetrate people's hearts.

But for some reason, when he heard that voice, he felt a very uncomfortable feeling, as if something was about to move in his body, trying to tear something out.

The child lying on the wooden board of the carriage secretly opened his eyes.

The red firelight illuminated his face.

He saw ahead, a place surrounded by countless jagged black rocks, a place surrounded by several vertical black stone slabs, a huge bonfire was burning.

Under the bonfire is a huge black and blue stone slab, engraved with mysterious lines, like patterns, and ancient patterns.

A man in a black and blue robe stood beside the campfire, and it was he who made the strange sound.

And next to it, there are many people around.

The people next to them were kneeling on the ground, everyone was eerily quiet, no one made a sound, and the firelight reflected the extremely pious faces of those people.

A child stood barefoot on one end of the black and blue stone slab, and the raging fire reflected the child's dull, lifeless face.

On the child's brown-skinned neck and forearms, densely packed mysterious patterns were painted with bright red paint.

The moon was in the middle, and it was midnight when the strange noise stopped.

The man in the black and blue robe stepped forward and cut off the child's two wrists, letting the blood drip onto the black and blue slate on the ground.

The child whose wrist was cut was still standing there sluggishly, motionless as if he had lost his mind.

Immediately afterwards, Garlan saw it.

Amidst the roaring shouts of people kneeling all around, the man in black and blue robes opened his arms towards the sky, shouted loudly, and then slit the child's throat with a knife.

The gushing blood flowed through the blood-red runes on the neck and forearm of the child who was standing dumbfounded, and it became more and more bright red, reflecting the firelight as if it was about to burn.

Then, the bright red blood dripped onto the black and blue slate, blending into the crooked patterns, dyeing those patterns blood red little by little.

The bonfire was burning fiercely, as if it had dyed the originally bright moonlight in the sky with an ominous blood red.

Garlan in the wooden cage suddenly closed his eyes.

He held his breath, clenched his fingers tightly, and made deep marks on his palm with his fingertips.

Black and blue robe...

Also, when that person stretched out his hand to the sky, the blood-red strange rune appeared on his arm...

All things teach.

A cult that stirred up and spread the theory of subjugation in the country during the most difficult period of Aaron Landis, incited people to commit suicide, disturbed people's panic, and almost caused Aaron Landis to subjugate the country.

In the past, King Kamos, who came back after being repelled by the enemy country, mercilessly wiped out the cult with iron and blood.

Years later, when Aaron Landis is just now leveling off, it has revived again.