A strange world

Early morning mist covers the forest road.

Two carriages passed through the Haunted Gold Mine not long ago.

Ten days have passed since Tasia was rescued... The once noisy camp became silent again as the gold mines depleted, and only some townspeople who wanted to try their luck were still wandering around.

And as we move away from the bare hills where the haunted gold mine is located, the roadside scenery is reduced to the unchanging landscape of passing trees.

Annan looked out the window. The moisture stuck to the car window gradually condensed into water droplets. This made his attention occasionally fall on the window from the bumps and scenery. He picked a water droplet and let it flow slowly, colliding with other water droplets. , accelerate the slide, and then pick new water drops.

Annan asked Aunt Susan to sew an oversized linen dress to wear on Tasia. She held the borrowed copy of "Hongrels" and read it quietly - it was written by someone who was also of mixed race. The biography of a career that then became legendary.

Soruman Bronzebeard took a nap holding her steel hammer, while Lindy and a female escort were in another carriage.

Annan was overly optimistic about this trip and ignored personal reasons. Before noon, he started to get motion sickness due to the bumps of the carriage, and he stopped the carriage several times and vomited on the side of the road.

I don’t know whether it was the fifth or seventh time, but Lindy came to Annan, who was being supported by Tasia to stand up, and tore open a scroll.

A purple halo enveloped Annan, causing the pale-faced boy to fall into a deep sleep.

"This is a fainting technique. If no one wakes him up, he will sleep for more than ten hours without consciousness." Lindy answered the gaze of the half-tauren and dwarves and returned to the carriage.

This was good, at least they didn't have to worry about whether Annan, who was about to vomit bile, would die on the carriage.

The caravan journey from Pinglin Town to Breeze City takes a week. They had no cargo, so they shortened it to three days, so when Annan woke up, only half of the journey ahead was left.

The forest passing by the road looks similar to Pinglin Town, dominated by tall and cold-resistant birch and pine trees.

"Where are we?"

Annan found that he seemed to be immune to motion sickness, and his mind was as clear as ever.

"Just passing through the Viscounty of Reagan."

Said Soruman Bronzebeard, who has walked this road many times.

"Viscounty? The territory on the edge of Breeze City?"

Annan happened to have read in the book that noble territories were usually far away from towns... and this was already within the scope of Breeze City.

Soruman Bronzebeard and Tasia didn't know either. Later, when they stopped for a dinner in the open space outside the viscounty, Lindy said that it was because this hereditary viscounty existed earlier than Breeze City.

During this period, Annan looked at the hills in the distance and vaguely saw the corner of the castle ruled by the viscount and the farmland opened in the forest.

On the afternoon of the second day of departure, an episode occurred.

When passing a four-way fork in the road, the two carriages were forced to slow down. A goblin wearing rags and leather stood on the roadside holding a wooden sign, warning them in a strange common language: "The area ahead is occupied by goblins, and humans other than caravans are prohibited from entering."

Soruman Bronzebeard and Lindy got out of the car to negotiate. The female guard who was said to be one step away from the elite level put her hand on the hilt of her sword.

Annan observed the goblin from behind the window. It has dark green skin, is about the same height as a kobold, no more than one meter, and its body structure is closer to humans. There is a goblin behind, leaning against the tree, holding a book.

There was no argument or fight. Soruman Bronzebeard returned to the carriage and said: "There are very few goblins who can speak Common Language, and there are even fewer goblins who don't take the initiative to attack." Lindy said, "We don't have to pass by the goblin lair."

Although the meaning is the same, the idea behind it is different - the former does not want a fight, while the latter believes that there is no need for a fight.

This made Soruman Bronzebeard much duller after getting in the car - so his emotions were hidden in his thick brown beard. What made Annan notice the detail was that the female dwarf didn't touch the wine bottle for dozens of minutes.

"Ms. Soruman Bronzebeard..." Annan felt that it was awkward to address a dwarf like this. "What did you want to tell me in the tavern before?"

The female dwarf was about to deny it when she saw Annan's serious expression.

"…Dwarves keep secrets."

"Even if you don't tell me now, Mr. Fast will tell me when you get back."

"Okay...but don't tell Fast that I told you."

Soruman Bronzebeard really wants to talk:

Soruman Bronzebeard, Fast and the Bard were once members of a secret society.

This association has what Annan considers to be a lofty philosophy: it is committed to the coexistence of all races, resolving conflicts and eliminating disputes.

However, this is considered heretical in the eyes of most races. Let the elves and dwarves shake hands and make peace? You better do it. Undead are the best workers? Sounds interesting. Can orcs become docile? Not a bad idea. Are there good factions among demons? Do you know what you are talking about? Ratmen make the best companions... Who's going to drag this heretic out?

At first they did pretty well, with the four basic races of humans, elves, orcs, and dwarves, lizardmen, kobolds, tauren, druids, and even demons, bugs, ratmen, and greenskins...even if each group has such Only one in 10,000 kinds of monsters is a terrifying number.

The membership of the association grew rapidly and the atmosphere was convivial. The various ethnic groups outside are fighting and hating each other, but they help each other and coexist in unity.

However, as time goes by, cracks begin to appear in the unity bonded by ideas, and this is the second stage:

I am against my blood brother, me and my blood brother are against my cousins, me, my blood brother and my cousins ​​are united against others.

Various races stick together because of their closeness and exclude other ethnic groups. Humans call the orcs barbarians, and the orcs call humans monkeys. The elves say the dwarves are mudbloods. Dwarves say elves are bamboo sticks.

The unbridgeable cracks gradually widened, and finally collapsed, leaving only members who had lost their ideals scattered everywhere.

"We won't tell you because of your mysterious origin..."

Annan really couldn't tell them the truth.

But he did like the idea of ​​the association and lamented their failure. It's just that this lofty ideal is not something that a little sorcerer like me can participate in.

As if to confirm what the female dwarf said, in the evening, they encountered a group of bandits - each group was not only cruel to foreigners, they also treated their own kind.

The bandit leader had a hideous scar on his face, extending from his hairless head to his chin, as if his entire face had been split open.

Horrible scars, sure to have a past of battle, pain and death, but soon meaningless.

Lindy's female guard solved everything without the female dwarf jumping off the carriage.

And as we get closer to Breeze City, we no longer encounter interludes.

Early the next morning, Annan lifted up the blanket and sat up. He looked out the window as usual and saw a stretch of snow-capped mountains that seemed to feel the cold wind blowing in his face.

The vast forest stretches at the foot of the snow-capped mountains, and at the end of the straight and spacious road lies a majestic and vast city.