Chapter 454 Current Situation in the North, Rumors

Chapter 454 Current Situation in the North, Rumors

The desolate wind blew the grass on the roadside, and the two men walked silently on the road.

The man walking in front raised and lowered his windbreaker, thinking about how to plan the world better.

He has put on the wind of night again. This kind of modern style clothes, through the cognitive camouflage of space, looks like the cloak of a nobleman in Gulantin, and there is no sense of violation.

The sun was setting in the west, and the shadows of the two people on the ancient road were gradually lengthened.

Lu Chen was thinking, Gu Lanting was a man of few words, and he only obeyed orders around the Duke.

After walking around the hill, Lu Chen saw the smoke in front of the road, and the two of them accelerated their pace.

"It's Nicoli Village."

Gu Lanting's hometown is in the north, and he has impressions of many villages in this land, so he explained to the Duke.

After getting closer, Lu Chen discovered that this small village was in ruins, with almost no intact houses in sight.

There was an old man with gray hair at the entrance of the village, holding an old pipe in his hand, sitting on a big rock smoking a cigarette and watching the sunset.

"Old man, what's wrong here?"

Lu Chen called the old man back to his senses. The old man turned around and saw the two of them, especially Gu Lanting who was wearing military uniform, and he trembled with fright.

As if he had exhausted all the strength in his old body, he stood up with a start and ran toward the village.

But Gu Lanting was faster, and the old man didn't even see the opponent's movements clearly, so Gu Lanting walked around to the front and stopped him.

Gu Lanting's thinking is very simple. Since the Duke has opened his mouth, he wants to ask questions. How can you run away?

There was no hope for the old man to escape, so he begged: "Master, Master, we really have nothing here. We have paid all the taxes we should pay this year. Please give us a way to survive!"

Lu Chen frowned, "What's going on?"

Seeing the panic on the old man's face, he added, "We are not from the army."

At least not now.

When the old man heard this, he was stunned for a moment, and then looked at the military equipment of the Keya Empire on Gu Lanting's body, feeling a little unconvinced.

"He has retired. We came out of the royal capital and traveled to the mainland."

Lu Chen explained, and made up a reason casually.

The old man looked at Gu Lanting with doubts, and then looked at the young man who seemed to have a higher status. The man was wearing a large cloak, but his temperament was like a soldier, but he also had the power of a noble man in his bones.

"Traveler?"

The old man sat down doubtfully, and felt slightly relaxed when he saw that the two of them did not use violence and explained nicely.

"Yes, please ask me, old man, what happened in your village?"

Lu Chen looked at the dilapidated village. There were only two children chasing and playing in the distance. The adults who were repairing the houses also had sad faces. It was obviously time to bury the pots and make rice, but only a few houses were raising smoke.

"Hey, young people, when you go out to travel, you have to choose a bad place. Go to our northern border. What is there to see?"

The old man sighed, tremblingly picked up some tobacco leaves he had collected on the mountain from his breast pocket, and lit them again.

He is already eighty-seven years old this year. Unless the other party is the top strong man in the empire, judging from his face, calling him a young man should be correct.

But except for those who join the army, those who are successful in practicing magic and fighting spirit are all big shots. How can a big shot travel with only one bodyguard?

"We were just traveling randomly and happened to arrive in the North."

Lu Chen said.

The old man shook his head and sighed, "It's too hard in the north. Just now you either asked me what happened to my village, or it was plundered by the empire's army."

Lu Chen was stunned for a moment, he didn't expect such a thing to happen, "The empire's army robbed civilians?"

"Isn't that right? It seems that the young man is indeed from the royal capital. His family should be relatively wealthy and he rarely goes out."

The old man thought that the man in front of him was the kind of traveler who came out to see the world for the first time. "In recent years, famine has occurred everywhere, especially in the north. It is said that the army's food supply at the Great Wall has also been vacant. Those military officers do not have enough to eat. Just turn around and rob us people nearby..."

He clenched his old and thin hands tightly, "If you say that more than ten years ago, when the harvest was good, the military masters couldn't eat, we were happy to give some. After all, they are guarding the Great Wall. If the abyssal creatures cross over, they will be the first to suffer. Our people in the north."

"But... now we don't have enough to eat ourselves, so how can we give them food?"

There was helplessness and indignation on the old man's face, "If we didn't give them, they would rob, smash, and burn. The young people in the village were very angry. Some of them were killed after taking action, and most of the food was robbed. Now they are just holding on." Give it to the children, I’m afraid that within a few days, someone in the village will be unable to survive.”

Gu Lanting listened on the sidelines, with a hint of anger in his eyes.

"Didn't you respond to the top?"

Lu Chen's voice was calm.

The old man exhaled a long breath of smoke and seemed to calm down, "What's the use of reacting to the governor of this area? How dare he offend the defenders of the Great Wall? After all, we are just ordinary people, how can we compete with the big shots? Fighting."

He sighed repeatedly, "Well, old man, I don't have anything to do. I have lived long enough in this life. I only pity the young people who died and the children who don't have enough to eat. Now I just live day by day."

“Isn’t there any disaster relief in the empire?”

Lu Chen wondered, even though the empire in his previous life, although the final result of the war disappointed him, it still managed the country well and paid great attention to the people in the disaster area when there was famine.

When he mentioned this, the old man looked a little sarcastic, "Oh, in recent years, the country has been short of food. The big shots in the capital only care about themselves, so who care about the lives of people in remote places like us?"

After speaking, he realized that his words were not appropriate. The person in front of him seemed to be from the royal capital. "Young man, I didn't mean anything against you."

But now he was no longer uneasy. After the initial fright, he calmed down and looked away. Anyway, at this rate, they wouldn't be able to survive for long, and they would starve to death sooner or later.

In the nearby deserted mountains and forests, you can't even see the shadow of Warcraft. Even if there is slime, cut it into shreds and boil it in boiling water. It tastes similar to vermicelli.

Now if I continue to be hungry like this, I can only chew tree bark.

Lu Chen shook his head lightly, indicating that he didn't care.

"Oh, I really miss the days when Duke Godzilla was still here. The Great Wall Army was much more disciplined at that time."

The old man felt a little emotional, and saw that the expressions of the two travelers beside him were strange for a moment, and explained: "You must have heard too many unreliable rumors to be so prejudiced against Duke Godzilla. In fact, the Duke is not like The rumors are so bad.”

Lu Chen asked with great interest: "I just came out from home and rarely had contact with people. What are the rumors?"

The old man was stunned for a moment and looked at Lu Chen suspiciously, "You're not fishing, are you? There's really nothing to gain from our village. Even if we are convicted again, the worst is death."

"The old man misunderstood. I have indeed never heard what you said."

Lu Chen shook his head. It seemed that the atmosphere in the Keya Empire was not very good.

The old man thought for a while and then said: "The north is actually better. I heard that rumors are spreading wildly in the mainland. It is said that Duke Godzilla killed the guardian dragon of the mainland for the witch of the elves. In fact, it has been Abyss instigated rebellion or something."

Lu Chen felt weird in his heart, these people really dared to make it up.

"Old man, I haven't seen anything on the market. They say that the Elf Princess is the medium for the Lord of the Abyss to revive. They say that Duke Godzilla has secretly reached an agreement during the fight with the Abyss. I don't know if it is true. We Don’t make any judgments.”

The old man took a deep breath from the cigarette, but because it was only low-quality tobacco that he had collected, he choked on it and coughed several times.

"Ahem... But old man, I still understand one thing. No matter what those people say, these are just speculations, aren't they? And apart from the Aspect Dragon thing, Duke Godzilla didn't do anything to our Aika continent. What a bad thing, for us humans in the Keya Empire, it is like a patron saint, guarding the border for many years."

The old man knocked on his cigarette pole, "The old man is short-sighted and cannot tell whether the rumors are true or false, but the Duke has done so much for the human race, but they are all true. To take a step back, the Duke is still here. At that time, we didn’t see the army coming out to plunder the village.”

Lu Chen didn't think it was anything. He had no "feeling of empathy" for Duke Godzilla. It sounded like he was talking about someone else, but Gu Lanting held his head high and looked proud.

"So, old man, I sincerely believe that the Duke can come back, take charge of the military again, rectify the atmosphere of the army, defend the continent from foreign enemies, and protect the dragon? He is not protecting our human race. Old man, I have never enjoyed his kindness. All my life, the people guarding the Great Wall in the north have always been our human race, and when Duke Godzilla is here, it is the most reassuring."

People like to chatter when they get older, and the old man seemed to talk enthusiastically. It was a rare occasion when he met a foreign traveler, and he couldn't stop talking for a while.

Seeing that the two young men were both qualified listeners, his words now sounded like he was giving advice: "But, if you ask me, old man, it's true that Duke Godzilla, for a woman, She is still a woman from the Elf tribe, and she has sex with the guardian dragon. I don’t know whether to say that he is a hero who is sad and a beautiful woman, or that he has no regard for the overall situation. "

Gu Lanting frowned, but Lu Chen smiled warmly, and even sat on the big rock with the old man, just like chatting in the village.

"A man protects his beloved girl. Isn't this a good story?"

Lu Chen asked with a smile.

"Okay, okay, that's a woman from the Elf tribe. Not to mention our hundreds of years of hatred, and I heard that the Elf princess is indeed abnormal. Normally elves have light golden hair, but she has dark red hair, which makes people very uncomfortable. It’s hard not to think of the abyss…”

At this point, the old man seemed to realize that he had made a mistake, and waved his hand: "Of course, I think Duke Godzilla definitely did not surrender to the enemy, but he may have been fascinated by the elf woman. After all, I heard that girl She is very beautiful.”

Lu Chen thought thoughtfully. It seemed that the rumors about him in the mainland were very bad, and they were progressively increasing, and the analysis was even clear and logical.

He knew that Eriki's hair color was natural, but the original elf princess should also have this color. There might be something wrong with it. The guardian dragon probably wasn't crazy, so he had to pay attention to it.

"Huh……"

The old man seemed to have thought of something, "I just remembered that Duke Godzilla has been in prison for 20 years. This year should be the year he is released from prison. However, twenty years have passed and things have changed."

"Aren't you optimistic about Duke Godzilla's comeback?"

Lu Chen looked like he was asking for advice. In his previous life, he was on the battlefield, and sometimes he would chat with some old men in the village.

"Old man, of course I personally hope that the Duke can return to the peak of power, but that is impossible. Now almost everyone in the country knows that the foolish king is very dissatisfied with the Duke and will not let the Duke regain power."

The old man is not optimistic about this matter. Even though he admires Duke Godzilla very much, now that all kinds of power have returned to the hands of that faint king, why should you fight?

Moreover, I heard that Duke Godzilla is very trustworthy and adheres to the instructions of the previous monarch. Even if the foolish king kills his brother, the Duke may not resist.

"Grandpa, it's time to eat!"

At this time, a little girl's cry interrupted their conversation. Lu Chen turned around and saw a seven or eight-year-old girl with braids running towards them.

The little girl's face looked a little thin, and her face and clothes were dirty, but her eyes were bright.

"Little Lika, grandpa is not hungry. You and mom can go eat."

The old man smiled kindly and waved the little girl back.

The little girl was a little scared when she saw Lu Chen and Gu Lanting, but she still timidly said to her grandfather: "Mom said that grandpa will starve to death if he doesn't eat..."

Lu Chen also stood up with a smile. He almost understood. The old man was just an ordinary citizen after all. He just had to listen to what he had to say.

The old man hesitated after hearing what the little girl said, but as his granddaughter was very stubborn, he decided to accompany Little Lika home first, and then just drink some water and pretend to be nice.

Opportunities must still be left to young people, who have already lived enough.

He glanced at the two travelers and said, "Our village of Nicoli is very hospitable, but we don't have the conditions right now..."

It seems that he felt that it was unreasonable to not invite anyone to stay after chatting for a long time. The old man thought for a while and said: "How about... come to the old man's house to sit for a while?"

Lu Chen looked up at the already red sky. It was probably going to be dark soon. It was okay to stay in this village for one night today. He nodded and said, "Thank you, old man, for taking me in."

The old man held Little Lika's hand in front and said, "Accommodation is okay, but don't even think about eating. I'll give you a drink at most."

Lu Chen and Gu Lanting followed the old man to a dilapidated house on the other side of the village. The courtyard wall had collapsed and only one room was intact.

At this time, there was a pretty woman in the courtyard who looked to be in her twenties. She was wearing coarse clothes and carrying several bowls of soup towards the big stone in the courtyard. That should be the "dining table".