Sword of Dawn

Page 407

Sir Golosh was silent for a while, and suddenly felt a little relieved. He smiled a little, and turned his gaze out of the window again, but he did not look at the south that had been left behind—his gaze swept across the vast expanse on the east bank of the Gorgon River. The plains, across the vast fields bathed in the sun and the breeze, the rivers and lakes with abundant water, and the rolling mountains in the distance, between the rivers and the wilderness, there is smoke rising from the kitchen, and the metal towers are shining in the sun .

He lived in the imperial capital of the Cecils for half a month, and this half month seems to have just passed the most obvious stage of seasonal changes in the human kingdom-the temperature is rising day by day, the plants are becoming more and more lush, all social activities and construction projects They are all busy.When he looked out of the car window at the Holy Spirit Plain for the first time, there was still a hint of winter bleakness in the world, but this time when he looked at the wilderness, the outside was already full of vitality.

This made him couldn't help feeling: "The seasonal changes in the human world are really obvious-the Holy Dragon Principality is almost always winter, and the two seasons here are like two worlds. I still remember the last time these plains were Bare, now there is farmland in the same place."

"Perhaps we should be more surprised that this was once a land destroyed by war." Azalena shook her head slightly, "We are passing through the main pollution area during the Ansu Civil War—the Cecils are rebuilding here, Those arable land and settlements were built in the past year, and they built roads on this side of the river to transport supplies and people to the reconstruction area. What turned this land upside down is not only the change of seasons, but also those who firmly believe that they can The Cecilians who rebuilt their homes."

"...Perhaps this is one of the reasons why Grand Duke Baloger thinks the Cecil Empire is worth making friends with," Sir Golosh said in a low voice after being silent for two seconds, "after Gawain Cecil worked out that set After the new order, people in this country dare to challenge anything in order to live a good life."

Azalena didn't speak, but followed Gorosh's gaze and looked out the window, watching the plants and small rivers on the plain receding, watching a certain camp built by the rebuilders in the past winter disappearing little by little Between the rolling wilderness...

……

In the distance, there is a convoy passing by on the Imperial Avenue, and further away, engineering facilities such as iron towers and cranes can be vaguely seen lined up along the river bank.

The tall man stood on the high ground at the edge of the camp, silently looking at the distant river bank. He was wearing the gray-blue overalls that the rebuilders of the Holy Spirit Plains often wore, and his exposed arms, neck and a small part of his cheeks were wrapped around with white gauze bandage.

In the area not covered by the bandage gauze, you can vaguely see the scars left by the fading of the crystal cluster structure, and even the crystals that have not completely faded.

The gray-blue overalls were issued by the engineering team. The style is very simple, but the industrial fabrics from the Typhon Empire are of high quality, and if they were placed in the old days, poor people would not be able to get a new suit for several years. The new clothes for many people are already a great thing.

The bandages on the body are to cover up and treat the "sequelae" left by the crystal cluster infection-although this terrible infection will no longer spread, the scars and crystals left on the body still affect the lives of many healers. The druids are trying to alleviate these residual symptoms. Now they can at least reduce the remaining crystals and scars on the body surface of the healed by half, and in order to cooperate with the treatment, the "bandage" has become a distinctive feature of the healed in the reconstruction area. One of the characteristics.

Suddenly footsteps came from the side, the tall and silent man turned his head and saw a dark-skinned man in the same overalls walking towards him.

"No. 32!" The other party waved his hand in this direction, "You are really here?"

"It's not time to go to work, is it?" the man named No. 32 said in a muffled voice, "Is there anything else to do?"

"The only thing you can think about is work," the dark-skinned man teased with a smile, "You are too confused, you forgot to rest for half a day this afternoon?"

No. 32 was silent for a moment, then shook his head: "...forgot."

"What are you looking at?" The dark-skinned man came over and looked into the distance in the direction of No. 32's gaze just now, he smacked his lips, "Oh, that's not bad...the railway engineering team on the other side of the river has all advanced here, I'm afraid we won't be able to build the road to Saint-Sunil before autumn..."

"It's very fast... It took many years to build a road from Talen to Thorinburg."

"You said it as if you had repaired it," the dark-skinned man glanced at his work partner, and then patted his arm, "Stop blowing the wind here, and go back to the camp, there is something good this afternoon— —I came to call you kindly, or you would have missed it."

"A good thing?" No. 32 frowned, and couldn't help showing some doubts on the face covered with bandages, scars and crystals beyond recognition, "What good thing?"

"Hey, what do you say with that buzzword...Welfare! The welfare that the superiors have won for us!" The swarthy man smiled happily, "I won't tell you first, you come with me, and you will know it when you see it with your own eyes. Already!"

While talking, he dragged No. 32's arm and walked towards the camp, and the latter could only follow behind in doubt.They walked through the open space outside the camp, through the gate of the reconstruction camp, and walked towards the auditorium next to the residential area-the auditorium is a place that can accommodate everyone, and the people in charge of the camp will call everyone for a meeting there and announce Work plan or material situation, there is also a "teacher" sent from Pompeii to give lessons to the workers there, teaching everyone literacy, arithmetic and "social order". Everyone is familiar with the auditorium. the most important place.

Many people were already gathering towards the auditorium.

No. 32 followed his partner, and followed everyone forward with confusion. He heard someone beside him chanting "Phantom Drama", someone mentioned "new technology from the south", and his partner finally stopped. Tell me, this cheerful man who is said to be from the fertile woods said with a smile: "Today we will play a ghost drama, do you know that it is a drama that uses magic technology - the drama was only played by nobles and gentlemen at the beginning. What to watch! Now we can watch it too, and we can watch it for free..."

No. 32 listened to his partner's introduction and bragging half-comprehensively—he was sure that this guy had never watched the so-called phantom drama, and now he was bragging to himself, probably from someone else's mouth a few ten minutes ago of.

But this bragging is not tiresome.

He nodded cooperatively, as a response to his partner's hard bragging. Then he raised his head and looked at the outer wall of the auditorium not far away. A huge canvas with bright colors.

No. 32's eyes froze.

He saw a young man standing on the screen, wearing the armor of the old era, holding a long sword in both hands. Behind him was a dark and sunken plain, but a ray of sunlight shone down, illuminating the young man's face. The distinctive armor is plated with a layer of light.

The whole painting has a typical southern style-realistic characters, but also has a thick and colorful landscape smear full of abstract and hidden symbolic meanings.

There are huge letters printed on the screen, and the name of this painting seems to be "Fenghuo".

It must have been a great master who created this painting.

The characters in the painting are really detailed.

Chapter 0861 Resurrection

This seems to be a story about heroes and knights.

But it's not a story of heroes and knights.

In the existing memory of No. 32, there has never been any drama that has set the tone with such a picture-it has a kind of real and suffocating depression, but it also reveals a kind of indescribable Power, like the smell of steel and flames, continuously escapes from the depths of the picture, surrounding the young knight in military uniform.

It's not gorgeous enough, it's not refined enough, and it doesn't have religious or royal symbols--those aristocrats used to traditional drama won't like it, especially the bloodstains on the young knight's face and the criss-crossing scars on the armor, Although these things are real, they are too "ugly" to be real.

The old nobles preferred to see knights wearing gorgeous and ostentatious golden armor, eradicating evil under the protection of the gods, or watching princesses and knights wandering between castles and manors, singing some gorgeous and empty chapters , even if there is a battlefield, it is also the "paint" used to decorate love.

Those painted canaries can't stand the iron and fire.

However, ordinary people who have never been in contact with "high society" can't think of this. They don't know what the aristocratic gentlemen were doing every day. There was much discussion around the large, exquisite portrait.

No. 32 also stood under the outer wall of the auditorium for a long time, looking up at the huge painting with a height of more than three meters - its original version may have been made by a certain painter, but the one hanging here at the moment should be painted with A replica made by a machine—for half a minute, this tall and silent man just watched quietly, without saying a word, his face covered with bandages was like a stone.

Until the partner's voice came from the side: "Hi——No. 32, what's the matter with you?"

The tall man just woke up like a dream. He blinked, looked away from the promotional poster of the Phantom Drama, and looked around in confusion, as if he didn't know whether he was in reality or in a dream for a while, and he didn't know whether he was in reality or in a dream. Why is it here, but he quickly realized, and said in a muffled voice: "It's okay."

"You've always said so little," the dark-skinned man shook his head, "You must have been dumbfounded—to be honest, I was also dumbfounded at first glance, what a beautiful painting! I couldn't see it in the countryside before. This kind of thing..."

While speaking, the surrounding crowd was already surging. It seemed that it was finally time for the opening of the auditorium. No. 32 heard a whistle coming from the direction of the gate not far away—it must be the one that the construction captain hangs around his neck every day. A brass whistle, its sharp and loud sound is familiar to everyone here.

The partner pushed him again: "Hurry up and catch up, if you miss it, you won't have a good seat! I heard from the mechanic who delivered the supplies last time that the phantom drama is a rare thing, even in the south Few cities can see it!"

Ah, rarities—there are so many rarities in this day and age.

No. 32 did not speak. He had already been pushed by his partner into the crowd, and followed the crowd into the auditorium. Many people squeezed in. This place, which is usually used for morning meetings and classes, was quickly filled with people. , and on the wooden table at the front of the lobby, there is already a set of large magic devices than usual.

It looks like a magic net terminal, but it is much larger and more complicated than the magic net terminal used for communication in the camp. On the large triangular base, there are several projection crystals of different sizes forming a crystal array. The array A faint light surged in the sky, and it was obviously ready for debugging.

No. 32 sat down and sat under the wooden table with others, his partner chattered excitedly beside him, and expressed his opinion before the phantom show began: they finally occupied a slightly forward position, which made him It seemed that he was in a good mood, and he was not the only one who was excited, and the whole auditorium was noisy because of this.

Then, the mechanical bell set up in the auditorium rang quickly and sharply, and the complex and huge magical machine on the wooden platform began to operate. Accompanied by a magic projection large enough to cover the entire platform and a burst of deep and solemn music, this The noisy place finally gradually quieted down.

it has started.

People who were busy expressing various opinions and making various guesses before were quickly attracted by the things that appeared in front of them——

At first, when the projection and the sound first appeared, some people thought it was just some kind of special Magic Network broadcast, but when a story that seemed to happen in real suddenly came into view, everyone's mood was firmly fixed by what was in the projection. sucked.

It was a heart-pounding story about a disaster, a man-made disaster, a brave knight, a group of victims who fell like grass, a group of brave fighters, and a noble and tragic sacrifice—the Great Hall The people in the crowd held their breath and concentrated, and everyone restrained their voices, but slowly, very soft voices came from every corner.

This is not the kind of traditional drama that the nobles watch. It strips away the exaggerated obscurity of traditional drama, the long and short poems and useless heroic confessions that require more than ten years of grammar accumulation to understand, it only has The frank narration of the story makes everything as easy to understand as the narration of the person who experienced it personally, and this straightforwardness and simplicity made the people in the hall quickly understand the content of the play and quickly realized that this is exactly what the story is about. The catastrophe they had experienced - a disaster recorded from another perspective.

"Ah, that windmill!" The partner sitting next to him suddenly couldn't help but yelled in a low voice. The man who was born and bred in the Holy Spirit Plain looked straight at the projection on the stage, and repeated over and over again, "Cabre The windmill...that is the windmill of Cabret...my nephew's family lives there..."

Someone else whispered nearby: "That is Solingburg, right? I know the city wall over there..."

"This... this is someone who recorded everything that happened at that time? God, how did they do it..."

"Certainly not, didn't I say it, it's a drama - the drama is fake, I know, those are actors and sets..."

"But they look so real, they look like the real thing!"

"Yeah, it looks too real..."

In front of everyone, many familiar things appeared, and then those familiar things disappeared one by one. Soon, the people in the hall became quiet again, and even quieter than before.

No. 32 sits like a silent sculpture among these quiet people, watching the irreversible disaster develop step by step in the magic image, and watching the last knight on the fallen land step on his last footsteps. journey.

He watched all this quietly.

Time passed unconsciously, and this incredible "drama" finally came to an end.

However, no one moved, and No. 32 sat there silently like everyone else.

It wasn't until the words "End of Story" appeared on the projection, until the list of producers and a low and melodious ending song appeared at the same time, that the dark-skinned partner sitting next to him suddenly took a deep breath, as if he was calming down, and then Then he noticed No. 32 who was still staring at the projection screen. He squeezed out a smile and pushed the opponent's arm: "No. 32, you still want to watch it—it's all over."

"Ah... yes... it's over..."

"Seeing that you don't usually talk, I didn't expect to be attracted by this thing," the dark-skinned partner said with a smile, but the corners of his eyes drooped as he smiled, "Indeed, it is indeed attractive... This is the former nobleman Did you watch the 'drama'...it's really not ordinary, not ordinary..."

"That's not the kind of drama that nobles watch." No. 32 said in a muffled voice.

"It's as if you've seen it," the partner shook his head, and then muttered thoughtfully, "It's all gone..."

No. 32 did not speak. He looked at the stage. The projection there had not been turned off because of the end of the "drama". The subtitles were still scrolling upwards. Now it has come to the end. Words suddenly emerged, attracting the attention of many people again.

"I dedicate this play to every victim of war, to every brave soldier and commander, to those who lost loved ones, and to those who survived.

"To this land we love so much, to those who restored it.

"To—Belke Rolland."

The magical projection above the wooden table finally gradually dissipated, and a moment later, a bell sounded from the direction of the exit of the hall.

One by one the people got up and left, but one person stayed where he was, sitting there as quietly as if he hadn't heard the bell.

"Number 32?" The dark-skinned man pushed his partner's arm and whispered with a hint of concern, "Number 32! It's time to go, the bell is ringing."

However, the tall man with bandages covering the scars of crystal clusters all over his body just sat there motionless, as if his soul had gone out of his body, without speaking for a long time, he seemed to be still immersed in the story that had ended, until his partner pushed It took him several times before he woke up with a "ah" like a dream.

"You won't be stunned, will you?" The partner looked over suspiciously, "This is not like your usual appearance."

"I..." No. 32 opened his mouth, but didn't say anything.

The partner looked back at the projection device that had been turned off. The dark-skinned man pursed his lips and muttered in a low voice after two seconds: "But I'm not much better than you...the things in it are the same as the real ones." As if...No. 32, do you think that story is true?"

Number 32 finally stood up slowly, and said in a deep voice: "We are rebuilding this place, at least it is true."

The partner glanced at him in surprise, as if he didn't expect the other party to show such positive thoughts, then the dark-skinned man grinned and laughed: "That's right, this is the place where our ancestors lived for generations."

"I gave myself a name," Number 32 said suddenly.

"Ah?" The partner felt that he couldn't keep up with No. 32's thinking, but he quickly realized, "Ah, that's great! You are finally planning to give yourself a name-although I am quite used to calling you No. 32 By the way, what did you name yourself?"

No. 32 was silent for a few seconds before uttering a few words: "Just call me Sam."

The partner was stunned for a moment, and then he couldn't laugh or cry: "You thought of such a name after thinking about it for a long time-fortunately, you are still literate. Do you know how many Sams there are in this camp alone?"

"I think it's a good name."

"But the soil is terrible. There is a saying that the lord's grain piles are lined up, and forty Sams are busy in it--Sams who cultivate the land, Sams who dig the mines, and Sams who feed the horses and cut wood. It's called Sam, and everyone who works on the ground is Sam!"

Number 32 suddenly smiled.

The face, covered with bandages, scars, and druses, looked a bit eerie in this smile, but the bright eyes shone with brilliance.

He said with a happy tone: "So, this name is quite good."

"Then you can do whatever you want," the partner shrugged resignedly, "we have to go anyway—we're almost gone."

Beside the exit of the hall, a man in uniform was standing there, urging the last few people in the hall who did not leave with his eyes.

No. 32 nodded. He followed behind his partner, puffed up his chest like a soldier who had just recovered, and walked towards the exit of the hall.

At the exit, there is also a large "poster" of "beacon fire", and the young knight with a sword is standing on the ground heroically, his eyes are like a torch.

Although the "actor" in the Phantom Drama is similar to this young man, after all, the one on the "poster" is the one he remembers.

He walked past the poster, paused slightly, and said in a low voice that no one could hear:

"Goodbye, son."

Then, Sam left.

Chapter 0862

From the fertile woodlands to the valley corridors, from the Boulder City to Solingburg, from the Gorgon River to the mountain passes at the entrance of the Eastern Border, the land that was once burned by war and frozen by severe cold for a winter is rapidly recovering.

The warm wind blowing from the south blows across the vast wilderness of the Solin region, shaking the green shoots on the fields, and scrolling the flags flying on the walls of Solinburg. ups and downs.

A young officer in a black and blue coat walked briskly on the semi-open connecting corridor between the city wall and the fort. He passed through the newly restored passage and passed through the brand new main fort The archway passed through the inner fort corridor with a history of 230 years, and finally knocked lightly on the wooden door of the command office of the Construction Corps.

After getting a response, the young officer pushed the door open and entered.

Margarita, who is dressed in a knight's uniform, has a refreshing ponytail and a heroic demeanor, is sitting behind the desk. She raised her head and looked at the subordinates who appeared in front of her: "Is there anything to report?"

"Yes, sir," the young officer gave a crisp military salute, and said meticulously, "We have received notifications from Boulder City, Red Maple City, and Fengruo Woodland that the magic net hub devices required for the second phase of the project have all been successfully activated. The backbone of the network in the eastern plains has taken shape."

Margarita nodded: "How is the situation at the Sorin main hub?"

"The Sorin main hub is in good condition, and all the data are in line with expectations. Ms. Bertila also provided a very detailed observation report on the central crystal array. The report has been approved by the expert team, and the relevant information will be sent to you after sorting out Take a look."

"Huh..." Margarita exhaled softly, "Our long-term efforts are finally not in vain... We are one step closer to His Majesty's national network connection plan."

"Except for the southern border that has already completed construction, we seem to be the fastest-growing region," the young subordinate said with a hint of pride, "We are building in ruins, but it is much faster than other places--Second It’s the west bank. Then there’s the west and east. It’s said that the northern border is only now preparing for the second phase of the project…”

"This is because the empire has given us more than half of its engineering power and countless manpower and material resources." Margarita glanced at her subordinates and shook her head, "and it is precisely because the east bank is a reconstruction area that we can make progress. So fast - the construction corps is based on rebuilding the camp, setting up the camp while advancing the magic net hub, and having a convenient 'infrastructure' like the Sorin giant tree, these conditions are not available in other regions."

"...You are quite right."

"Let's not talk about that," Margarita waved her hand, "The backbone network is only the first step, and it is the easiest one. It is not difficult to connect major cities to form a network. The difficulty is that there are still several cities around the city. Unclear towns and even villages, these are all in His Majesty's plan and must be completed.