Chapter. 22. Last Parade (4)
****
‘Remember Han Shen! There is sunshine in the hole, and there is opportunity even in our lives!’
Boy Hansen recalled the words of the old shoemaker who picked him up and raised him.
The grandfather, who was said to have lost all his teeth after being beaten by a knight, raised many orphans, including Hansen, and would say things like that whenever he had time.
‘tooth! when! When is it coming? Last month, last month, last month, last month, just like today, we make a living by picking up trash!’
‘Whatever!’
‘So when!’
‘Sunshine in the hole!’
‘When will that be?’
‘Whatever!’
Someday. Someday, the sun will shine even in the mouse hole.
“Hansen. 13 years old. “A newsboy who makes a living without an affiliated newspaper by selling stories he picks up through listening.”
“That’s true, but what could the driver do to a lowly bastard like me…”
“He doesn’t pay taxes, is acquainted with a rather seditious group, and was chased by the guards for various misdemeanors, but he escaped without being caught 34 times. Am I right.”
“Hey!”
Even though I knew I couldn’t do it, I tried to run away, but the shack where Hansen and his brothers lived was shattered with a single kick from a knight surrounded by iron armor.
The driver who lifted Han Sen’s neck, who was struggling because he thought he was dead, spoke like an emotionless person.
“It is an order from the Lord of the castle. “Please follow me quietly.”
“Seongju… are you?”
oh my god. A knight in flashy armor doesn’t even make sense, but the Lord of the castle me?
The knight skewered him like a skewer on a tree and did not even put him in a sack so that he could remain dry.
After he stopped struggling, he put him down on the ground and started muttering things like etiquette, monsters, and conservatives. His younger siblings, who had been shouting “Don’t kill my brother-“, looked at him with envy in their tearful eyes and said “Good-bye-!” to see him off. did.
Han Sen thought.
‘Ah, the moss that floated down the sewer yesterday was horribly damaged!’
It’s a dream. They say dreams are the opposite of reality, so this extremely wonderful dream must be the last dream I have as I die.
Otherwise, there’s no way a thirteen-year-old orphan who hadn’t applied for refugee status would go into such a fancy castle, meet the lord, who I can’t even remember because he’s too far away, and have three pretty maids who would make him blush just by looking at him, and come and wash him.
slap!
Slap slap!
It hurts.
weird. Why do I hurt in my dreams?
Han Sen, who was washed, dressed, and dressed as if he were blind to the strangely impatient instructions of the knights, had no choice but to admit that this was reality.
“man of humble birth. Are you listening?”
“Uh…yes? Yes yes! Yeah yeah! “I’m listening!”
“…It may be a somewhat dangerous mission, but keep in mind that it is an honorable mission that will never be repeated in your life.”
“yes! “I will keep that in mind!”
Something big has happened in Windhall Fortress City, and it is so urgent that the solemn knights are sweating profusely. I don’t know why, but the lord of the castle has been looking for a capable newsboy.
That’s this body. The rat from Windhall is called ‘Smart Hansen’!
‘Grandpa, is this [somehow] you were talking about?’
A number of busy knights were mobilized to act as meat shields on the battlefield.
If you’re going to a dangerous place, there’s no sign of moving anywhere and there’s no reason to wash or clothe yourself.
Wow!
“Ugh, come to your senses, come to your senses!”
Han Sen composed himself. It is said that precious people are treated preciously, and those who are treated preciously are used preciously.
“Now… where should I go?”
“Just go to the checkpoint at the entrance to the city. “I’ll give you 50 Calitz soldiers, so you can go with him.”
“ancient!”
They were treated with honor, dressed in aristocratic clothes with lots of strange decorations, and even escorted by soldiers from the city who would get beaten up if they met each other. I don’t know why, but it was clear that he had become a very important person.
‘Even in our lives, opportunities are coming…’ “
….Yes, grandfather. “I’ll take the chance.”
Han Sen promised. I will seize the opportunity that comes like a miracle. I will no longer live in a hole-in-the-wall shack and have my half-sisters fill their bellies with strange grass roots that float down in rotten water.
‘Come, you precious person who doesn’t know what you are! I can chat with the wizards of that scary hill with just my sense of humor and wit! I’ll do everything I can to please you!’
Han Sen, surrounded by 50 soldiers, burning fear with a burning will, confidently arrived at the checkpoint of the fortress city.
『What is that?』
“Thank you for waiting, [Red Mute]. From now on, this boy will be the guide to the city.”
And then he faced the ‘honorable mission’ given to him.
“Uh uhuh….”
Checkpoint. A large vacant lot, one of the few in a city densely lined with buildings.
A red lump so large that it makes the vacant lot look narrow.
Wow, it’s moving. I guess that thing is alive.
『Because he is a young boy.』
.
.
.
.
『Is it a snack?』
The will that had burned the most in the boy’s 13 years of life was extinguished with just one word.
“Uh huh? Uh oh…”
Cold armor touched Han Sen’s back as he took a step back without realizing it.
“Chief Knight. “I won’t be able to-”
“Your trashy brothers will be kicked out of the city.”
“Uuuu….”
“No matter what happens, even if that monster chews you up as a snack, don’t offend the monster. “If the job is done well, those sewer rats will gain Windhall citizenship.”
This was it. So, they called someone like me and used it.
Han Sen swallowed the tears in his throat and pounded his thighs to calm his shaking legs. When he looked up, the eyes of a monster the size of the boy’s fist were staring at him.
[Jui-There are days when the sun shines even in the hole-!]
“Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu… Ah, hello!”
‘There are sunny days….’
Han Sen thought of his younger brothers who were seeing him off. My grandfather had thirteen, and now there are only five half-brothers left.
They needed some sunshine before it was too late.
‘I will become the sunshine…!’
citizenship. If you have that, you can at least live in the refugee zone. Eleven-year-old Bolden could join a full-time newspaper company and become a real newsboy.
If only I did well here!
If only I could hold out until the moment I was chewed between those sharp teeth!
“I’m Hansen, who is in charge of guiding you through the wind hall!”
A bright smile covered in tears and snot greeted the terrifying monster.
****
plod trudge trudge.
The sound of footsteps walking on the hard floor of the city.
Crackle, clang, clank!
In addition, the sound of footsteps trying to match the monster’s large strides without running was added.
“Woah, the big pinwheel here is Windhall’s proud wind magic concentrator!”
“Hey. Your physique is so imposing that the wide street seems so narrow! Ahahahahaha….”
“I saw a road wider than this on the castle wall. “Over there.”
“Huh! “Oh, that’s because there are more things to see there!”
I only spoke briefly to him, but he froze as if he had been struck by lightning, and then waved his hands and feet as if he had never done that again, with a smile on his face.
‘Why don’t you at least wipe your nose?’
“Windhall is a city deep in the West, unlike other fortress cities that sprang up after the Dragon Vein Twisting! W here! If you look over here, you’ll see the street with the biggest market in Windhall! Wow, the liveliness of the market makes you feel good just by looking at it-”
“It’s a monster!”
“A monster has entered the city!”
“Wow!”
“Uh… I feel… energized! Ah, so lively! Lively!”
This guy.
Something is very desperate. I was so far away that I could hear the sound of coins clinking in my pocket without stopping, and whenever I opened my mouth, I would freeze like a goat in front of a wild beast, so I was thinking about giving directions.
For example, the main road I just briefly mentioned.
‘The biggest thoroughfare in the city is always where the nobles live. Carriages pass by, war horses pass by, and the lord’s procession passes by.’
‘Of course, the places where the city’s nobles live are also located on the main road. It would be inconvenient for the high-ranking people in many ways for a monster like me to enter a place where nobles live, but that must be from the position of the castle lord and the nobles…’
Even though the newsboy, who seemed to be Hansen, was so scared, he was watching the castle lord’s thoughts. They probably promised huge compensation. Or maybe it gave me a fear worse than being immediately eaten by a monster with distorted judgment.
Or both.
‘Ugh.’
I felt sad to see it, so I walked quickly to leave it behind, but it chased after me viciously. The fact that he was panting but still maintaining a thorough business smile showed a determination that went beyond greed.
‘I’m weak to things like that again.’
When I see such stubbornness, especially from a young child, it’s hard to turn away because it reminds me of myself when I first failed at April World.
Um, newsboy. A monster promise, and a young and immature boy whom the castle lord had personally appointed…
‘The lord of the Windhall castle is quite clever.’
Even at a glance, all you can see is that guy.
A throwaway card with the necessary abilities that
can be used in
a hurry .
I didn’t know how badly the port was destroyed, but I knew that the city would dry up and die within a few months. Since the inland area is in disarray due to the problem starting from the capital, the only proper trade route is the sea route, but the port has been destroyed. The rocky terrain where modern humans survive is as hard as it is barren, so only things like moss and mushrooms can be grown, and of course it is difficult to feed the population of the bustling city.
Since they had to fill the mouths of refugees from all over the town, they would have had to fix the port as soon as possible and resume trade with other port cities.
In such a situation, I had no choice but to make a deal with Mute, a man with superpowers that I really wanted, for demolition and reconstruction, but no matter how I looked at it, it looked like it was going to be a killing party rather than just quietly exploring the city and returning.
So they threw in this newsboy named Hansen as a kind of test. Even though they can communicate, they don’t know when something may change, so like a canary in a mine, someone who can warn people around them of an attack in advance is posted as a watchdog.
Although it was not a satisfactory way of doing things, it could not be denied that it was a reasonable and understandable way of doing things considering the position of Seongju, who was responsible for the countless lives in the city.
So I decided to just take him with me. It’s not like I’m going to stay long anyway.
“How much do you know about Windhall?”
“Hmph! Uh… Yes! That’s right! I know all about the complex alleys like a spider’s web, as well as the white and clean roads that only the most privileged people walk by, as well as the holes dug by those who trade complicated goods that are secret to the soldiers next to them! “Oh, teacher, I think it might be a little difficult given your size.”
“Anyway, I guess I know it well.”
Thump!
“Wow! Oh, no! Aaaah! I don’t wash well and live in a sewer! “The food we eat tastes like garbage because we only pick up spoiled garbage!”
“I don’t eat. “It’s frustrating to keep up with you, who is so slow.”
“Can you give me a ride?”
“There’s no need to let him use his legs since he’s a human being who keeps talking.”
“Huh! Oh no! I need legs! It’s not useless! Don’t cut it!”
“I won’t cut it.”
Instead of answering, I put the boy on my shoulder and walked with long strides.
“Hyaaa…. Huh!”
I could hear the boy involuntarily expressing his admiration. Eyes that were once filled with desperate determination and fear are now starting to see a curiosity appropriate for someone my age.
Actually, riding through the city on the shoulder of a scary monster the size of a house is something that any boy of this age would have imagined at least once.
“Are you really here just to see the archmage’s traces?”
“I know this human being. I saw it about 200 years ago. “I guess he was one or two years older than you.”
“Woo wow! The wizard of stagnant wind himself! No monster-uh-huh-up! Oh mute…? “Do you know anyone?”
As we treated him kindly while maintaining his own concept, suppressing his loud voice in front of the castle wall, the boy’s voice, which had been shaking like a reed, suddenly changed to that of a teenage boy full of curiosity and interest.
Well, kids should be like this too. This is compensation for my lost childhood.
“I have no choice but to wander around the land where humans live. “Even the newsboy knows one.”
“Hey! Besides me, there was another city newsman who attended you! “What city are you from?”
“It’s Wigen. “It’s a rocky metropolis.”
“Wiggen! I know this city too! So how did you meet that friend?”
“like now. “We met for work, and now he’s dead.”
“ah.”
Grrrr!
It’s nice that this guy is easy to understand.
I don’t know what I was imagining, but I guess it wasn’t a very good ending.
The newsboy, who was in just the right state of being neither too nervous nor too stiff, began to put all his effort into giving directions that he had forgotten for a while.
‘….Pablo. That was the name.’
Seeing the boy hovering over my shoulder pointing to a place I had just passed by, reminded me of another newsboy I had forgotten about.
Professor Park headed to the Teldrat region. The boy who wandered that rocky city with me, ate cheap mushroom soup with me, laughed and swore, and finally held a gun to my head, would have burned down with the city by now.
Not only him, but everyone he met and knew in Teldrat would have met a similar ending.
Even while I was enjoying a brief moment of peace, the world was rushing toward the end.
Squeeze-
“Teacher, I’m over there!” “That is where the ruins of Astrad Dillon Delhast, the Greatfather of Wind, the wizard of the stagnant winds, and the last traces left by him and Felix Holm!”
Even while I was lost in bitter thoughts, my long, strong legs crossed the city with great strides.
“hmm.”
Although it is completely different, it is clearly familiar terrain. It’s inside the city now, but it was the border of Windhall when it was a small village. If you come out of here and follow the small path, you will come to a low hill (now a hill with small houses close together like cockroaches). At some point, it becomes narrow and steep. If you go up the hill, you will see a wide rocky valley spread out before your eyes and a white cliff at the end of a long cliff. The round building
crashed.
Shoot-
slap.
Shoot
….there wasn’t one.
The wide rocky valley and the white, beautiful buildings.
The song that the wind left behind in a building with many holes, and the group dance of letters pouring down like a white waterfall.
Traces of rocks melting and flowing down from the bombardment of airships, places where countless barbed wire fences and barriers were built, and traces of knights and soldiers who sacrificed their lives to rush in,
“really… disappeared.”
There was nothing. Storm Hill, which was no longer a hill, was a basin carved out round around the groove.
The sound of the waves came from a salt lake formed by sea water filling the deepest part of the lake.
Around that place, all sorts of clumsy tents and structures erected by wizards clung to each other like barnacles.
****
