Translator: Yang_Wenli
“Young miss, are you still worrying for that little girl?”
Flay walked over to Gallolie. Ever since they encountered the little girl who tried to sell a fake ticket to Gallolie, a heavy expression continued to linger on Gallolie’s face.
“That little girl must’ve been forced to sell tickets by a certain underground organization in Norland. Not only that, from her bruises, it’s very likely that she’s being mistreated too.”
Even though Gallolie knew that she should not meddle in other people’s business, the little girl left an enormous impression upon her with how excited she was when mentioning ‘Léon: The Demon.’
She... was a fan of that movie.
“But, you’re unable to provide her any help right now. Perhaps... Mister Joshua would be able to do something,” said Flay.
The conversation between Gallolie and her bodyguard only lasted for a short moment before they’re interrupted by a hoarse voice.
“Little bastards, where the hell are you running off to?! You’ve yet to strengthen the fire of two furnaces!”
The person who shouted was a dwarf in the nearby smithy. This old dwarven blacksmith utilized the special loud voice of the dwarves. His loud and rough voice echoed through the entire street.
He was shouting at three relatively young looking dwarves. That said, Gallolie was unable to determine the age of the dwarves as they all looked like uncles with long and unkempt beard. Even the young dwarves looked that way.
“Master Orrick! We will come back to take care of the metalwork afterwards! Brothers... we can’t have the Frostaxe Clan pull another fast one on us this time! For the Alliance!”
The three young dwarves shouted ‘For the Alliance!’ and rushed out the smithy. They didn’t even bother to turn back around and rushed toward the end of the street toward the entrance leading to the underground city.
Identical scenes emerged from several other dwarven smithies on this street. The running dwarves even caused a slight amount of chaos and disorder to the street. But soon, all the dwarves disappeared and things calmed down again.
“Daughter of the Forest, what’s going on? Why would this city’s dwarves be this agitated?” Elder Safran walked over to ask Gallolie.
“This...”
Gallolie was not familiar with Norland’s dwarves. But, she had the magical Mage Forum. If there’s anything she’s confused by, she could log onto the Mage Forum and post a question. The wise and farsighted mages will definitely answer her questions.
That was one of the benefits to the Mage Forum! It was practically the same as the all-knowing ‘Magic Mirror’ in the story Tylene narrated.
Sure enough, the Mage Forum presented the answer to Gallolie.
The moment she opened up the Mage Forum, she saw the recommended posts on the upper left corner. One of those posts was titled ‘Hearthstone Spring Event.’
Gallolie tapped into the post and skimmed through its content. Upon doing so, she immediately understood why those dwarves were this excited.
“It’s because... of a bounty notice. Those dwarves are off to arrest the leader of an underground organization,” Gallolie explained to Elder Safran with more suitable wordings.
As Gallolie was not a Hearthstone player, she does not understand the charms of the card game. But, from how the dwarves collectively stopped working so that they could participate in the Spring Event all for the sake of a single card, Gallolie was able to become faintly aware of how terrifying Hearthstone’s charm was.
That said, Gallolie hoped that the dwarves shouting ‘For the Alliance!’ will have their wishes fulfilled... From the event information, their target, The Beauty Gutama, was a brutal and vicious orc. Furthermore, she was secretly engaged in slavery.
Gallolie couldn’t help herself from thinking about the girl she encountered earlier...
“Young miss... I seemed to have seen that goat-horned girl just now.”
Flay suddenly pulled at Gallolie’s sleeve and pointed to an alley at the corner of the street.
...
Riley ran into the crowd. With her small frame, she shuttled through the people and soon entered an alley in Norland’s bordering district.
She placed her hand into her pocket and took out a dozen or so coins with the imprint of the Weissenasche Theater’s flower.
Naturally, those coins were counterfeits. If they weren’t, Riley wouldn’t be selling them. Instead, she would use those coin-tickets to re-watch the two movies she liked ten times or more.
Unfortunately... that was only her fantasy.
As a mixed-blood born from a demon and a human, she lived among the lowest rung of Norland. On normal days, even having a full meal would be difficult. As for going to the Weissenasche Theater to watch a movie, that would simply be impossible.
Nevertheless, there were some pleasant surprises to her arduous life. Even now, Riley felt an endless amount of happiness when remembering it...
She actually encountered the star of ‘Léon: The Demon’ outside the city! She encountered Mathilda!
She couldn’t be mistaken. Even though Mathilda’s hair was already a bit longer than the movie, Riley could still clearly remember how Mathilda looked.
Riley truly yearned to be able to stay a while longer to ask her some questions... questions like ‘Is Léon still alive?’ and ‘Where did you go afterwards?’
Unfortunately, an irritable voice interrupted the day-dreaming Riley and brought her back to reality.
“You! How many tickets did you manage to sell today?”
An orc walked out from the shadowy area at the end of the alley. He stared at Riley with a vicious glare.
Riley was too scared to speak. Her small frame was shivering nonstop. She could only hand her remaining coins to the orc.
“Only two? Utter trash...”
The orc grabbed the coins from Riley. He did it with such roughness and strength that Riley ended up losing her balance and fell onto her butt. The orc did not even bother to pay any attention to her and walked back into the alley.
“Why are you still sitting there?!”
Riley bit her lip and stood up from the ground. A sharp pain came from her ankle. Enduring the pain, she caught up to the orc.
As a mixed demon-blood, surviving in Norland was not an easy task. Even though she had joined the Black Dove, her luck wasn’t good. She ended up joining the most dangerous branch of the Black Dove. Or perhaps, it would be better stated that she had joined an orc tribe.
Riley had thought about running away. Unfortunately, the orcs kept a very close watch over their slaves. She had personally witnessed The Beauty Gutama breaking the neck of a slave before.
Following the orc, Riley entered a shabby underground tavern located deep in the alley. The tavern was connected to the city’s sewer system. The surroundings were completely pitch-black. If this orc wasn’t guiding her, Riley wouldn’t be able to find the entrance at all.
After walking for a dozen or so minutes, Riley could finally see signs of light ahead of her.
They arrived at a crowded cave. Shabby wooden planks and iron pillars were put together to create simple houses. Soon, Riley was tossed into a crowded little hut by that orc. Then, the orc locked the door.
She was quite fortunate by comparison. Although it was very small, she had her own little hut...
Riley walked over to the corner of the hut and squatted down. Many movie posters were posted onto the hut’s wooden walls. The majority of them were posters for ‘Beauty and the Demon’ and ‘Léon: The Demon.’
Those posters were all things that Riley gathered in Norland. All those posters seemed quite weathered. Among them, the newest poster was the one for ‘Hachiko,’ the new movie that will screen in two days.
How many fake tickets must be sold in order to purchase a real ticket? As Riley curled up in the room, she looked to the posts on the wooden walls.
She started remembering how she had encountered Mathilda earlier.
All sorts of questions began to flash past Riley’s head. Right when sleep began to gradually overtake her, a large amount of noise sounded from the outside.
Riley immediately placed her ear onto the wooden plank walls to quietly hear what’s going on outside. When she did so, what she heard were shouts...
“For the Alliance!”