Stray

    Children are like that. The female warrior lowered her gaze and poured the last of the wine down her throat. She seldom thinks about that time - naive and stupid, and mistakenly think that pure combat power can represent all the ages.

    At first, she didn't think much about it. She glanced at the shabby and dilapidated daily necessities in the house and the dry straw in the corner, and subconsciously decided that this was the home of a refugee. She took a few bites and Ann bowed to the empty room. Yes, as long as you add a little real temperature to your empty stomach, you really won't eat too much.

    After saluting, Ann made a simple prayer and tremblingly picked up the heavy metal spoon.

    The thick soup was stirred, and the corpses of black flying insects were floating on the soup surface. A nausea came back into his throat, and An pressed it down forcefully. The soup was boiling, and she squeezed the limited knowledge out of her brain, telling herself repeatedly—as long as the soup was boiling, there should be no big problem in eating it.

    The soup tastes bad. The thick soup was nearly brown in the firelight, had an odd fishy smell, and tasted barely salty. The bean-like thing slid across Ann's tongue, and she didn't even dare to chew it, for fear that she would spit it out because she couldn't stand the taste. There seemed to be grated plant tubers in it, and her throat was going to be grazed by the splinter.

    But Ann endured the discomfort and drank a tablespoon. Then she put down the heavy metal spoon carefully, and the emptiness and colic in her stomach disappeared, replaced by a slightly bitter satisfaction.

    Ann didn't know what time it was in the morning, most of the windows in the slum had been extinguished, not far away came the crying of children, the screams of women and the curses of men. She had never been awake at this time, let alone exposed to such sounds. The young princess clasped her arms, shaking like she was standing barefoot in the snow. She had to find a place, find a place to take a nap - An Neng could sense that she was abnormal, the wound bitten by the insect must have worsened, and it was unbearably itchy. Her breathing was fast and fast, and the temperature around her was unbelievably cold.

    He may have a fever, An thought groggy.

    Another paralysis then struck her.

    The things in the field of vision began to appear unnatural ghosts, and the strength of the limbs was slowly withdrawn. An hurriedly pinched herself, and in her blurred vision, she could see blood dripping, and her skin was ripped apart by her unintentional pinching.

    But she felt no pain.

    There is a problem, what went wrong. But the darkness engulfed her increasingly slow thinking. Ann moved to the straw pile step by step, burying herself in it with the last of her strength.

    …

    I don't know how long later, when Dang An woke up again, the first thing he felt was the rope on his wrist.

    She was bound.

    Blindfolded eyes, darkness, and great terror struck her. Ann wanted to scream, but even though her mouth was numb from the cloth, she could only let out an indistinct whimper from her throat. All she knew was that she was curled up, the skin of her left arm touching the slightly curved border of the prison—it felt like wet wood.

    The smell of alcohol and musty crept into her nose. If she hadn't misjudged, it should have been a cask. Someone tied her tightly and stuffed her into a wine barrel. The barrels were bumping, she should be in a moving carriage.

    Don't panic, don't panic. The young princess desperately slowed her breathing and braced herself so that she wouldn't go into shock again from fear. She still smells and hears, she has to figure out what's going on—

    Because no one will come to her rescue.

    No judgement knight came on a white horse to slay the wicked under the sword. No servant helped her loosen the rough hemp rope, wiped the dirt off her face with a hot towel, and rubbed away the bruises for her. No maid has diced desserts, warm goat milk and warm, soft hugs ready for her.

    No one will come.

    The regular tracking spell was destroyed by Ann herself with confidence, and the clothes embroidered with the positioning circle and the marked jewelry were also thrown into the woods by the church. No one knew she was here, not even herself.

     Tears poured out of my eyes uncontrollably. The remorse began to spread uncontrollably in the bottom of my heart - the light and dry nightgown, the fragrant soft and soft bed, and the thin feather quilt as light as a cloud. Why did she leave there?

    But now she doesn't even dare cry out loud.

    "...are we really going to do this?" A man with a shrill voice spoke out from outside the barrel. "To be honest, buddy, I still think it's better to hand over this chick directly. The city of Doru is crazy! If we hadn't arranged for the gatekeeper brother and came out in time, now it is estimated that he will be pressed by the trial knight. Dead on the ground. They are serious, listen, serious!"

    "That's why I said you have no brains, idiot." Another gruff voice retorted, "Okay, what are you going to do, eh? Go to the emperor and kneel, 'Dear Your Majesty' , I'm a trafficker in Xiacheng District, and I accidentally picked up your lovely little daughter. Can you reward me with a bag of gold coins?'... One second he gives you gold, the next second your head has to roll on the ground."

    "I, let's tell him the truth. After all, it's meritorious service, so it's all a princess. If you just slip away like this, in case someone finds out..."

    "Well, tell him the good truth. Tell him we just want to use that pot of soup to catch a few mice in the lower city, wash them and sell them, and the princess just accidentally broke in and drank it herself Thanks for that **** pot of soup! Your Majesty will be very pleased with our cause and admire it—do you really think so? Buying and selling those little mice is a death penalty, and you don’t remember anything or what?”

    "...tsk."

    "Didn't we talk about this, this is a meeting given by Danny! The gatekeeper's idiot probably thought we were 'delivering' on a regular basis, and no one would have thought that we would have something to do with the princess. Old rules , to 'Old Skunk'. There must be someone willing to buy her, a serious person to buy it for credit, or just sell it to someone else - we took the money and picked ourselves clean. Even if it was a small amount No matter what, it's more comfortable than asking for credit in person. Turn around a few more times, and by the time they try to trouble us, we'll be flying away—I think Willard is a good place to go."

    "Will the old skunk believe it? That old **** is more suspicious than the fox."

    "I've seen it, the one on that chick's left arm is indeed the royal emblem, we don't have the ability to disguise that thing. People are tender and tender - how can there be such a coincidence in the world? Old Skunk is suspicious, but he's not stupid."

    "If the buyer doesn't take credit, what about using her for something else? The big guy on Willard's side will be happy to have a toy named Alastair, which is a bit... "

    "What does that have to do with us? Who knows who will end up in the end, as long as the old skunk is willing to put enough gold."

    "Hey, you're more of a **** than me! Tsk tsk, it looks like I still have something to learn. But keep your voice down, in case she hears it..."

    "Oh oh oh, I've filled some medicine, just a little girl, enough for her to sleep for two days and two nights. Don't worry, if you put her under the nose of the old skunk, she may not be able to wake up ."

    Although the common language of the two had a strong accent, Ann barely understood most of them.

    …she must escape.

    These two people sounded like habitual offenders of child trafficking in the lower city, not the refugees who were born with evil intentions. Her body was gradually weakening, and Ann didn't think they would be kind enough to keep her energized. Now the other party didn't expect her to wake up early, and her meeting is only once, the young princess thought tremblingly.

    There is only one fact in her favor - I don't want her to die halfway due to wound infection, those bug bites and scrapes seem to have been treated, and the fever-like drowsiness no longer fills her up 's brain.

    My magic power is definitely stronger than these two people, but the other side is two adults, and they have an advantage in physical strength. On the other hand, Ann didn't know if they had a magic circle on them. Once they failed to escape, the vigilance of those two would definitely increase.

    To make matters worse, there may be more than two enemies.

    Ann's feet were cold and her heart had never beat so fast. She tried her best to suppress the choking voice and listened carefully to the movement outside.

     Grinding, panting, hooves hitting the dirt. She can tell more, she can do this. Ann seized a trace of clarity in the endless panic and horror—it wasn't her, she wasn't here. It was just a dream, an adventure story told to her by her brother Abbas.

    She must believe so.

    The trembling gradually subsided, and the heartbeat that seemed to burst the eardrums also calmed down a little. The sound became clearer—

    There are indeed two enemies.

    An subconsciously wanted to use lightning to burn the rope, but was afraid that the smell of burning hemp rope and fireworks would be noticed by the two men in front of the carriage. So she took another course of action, which she had heard Abbas tell—

    Ann brought her wrist close to her mouth, slipped her thumb into the strip of cloth that restrained her mouth, and struggled outward. With perseverance, the strip of cloth slid down her chin and landed on her neck.

    Then the hemp rope on her wrist, she brought the rope to her mouth and bit hard. As the twine was bitten apart by strands, Ann twisted her wrist fiercely. The skin was scratched and blood soaked into the hemp rope, but she still struggled mechanically.

    This pain is not hers. With tears in her eyes, she thought so. These are all hallucinations.

    To prevent her double necrosis, the twine is not strong. After a long struggle, her twin was finally free. An quickly untied the rope on his ankle, then adjusted his posture, waiting patiently for the sharp pain.

    She's not here, don't think about failure. It's just an escape game, a test.

    If she's not here, it's all fake.

    "I'll go to the back to sleep for a while." said the man with a shrill voice, "I'm sleepy, call me when the sun rises, and then we'll change shifts."

    "Okay, go to sleep."

    Something came over, Ann labored to choose the most destructive spell in her mind, holding her breath.

    "Oh, these two days are like a **** joke..." The man muttered not far away, the fabric rustled and rustled. Within ten minutes, snoring crept into Ann's ears.

    It is now.

    Lightning splits the barrel, straight towards the sleeping man. The Alban Royal Family's advanced conjuration was so powerful that even though an eleven-year-old girl couldn't exert its full effect, it directly split the man lying on the carriage into two pieces, and at the same time charred to black.

    With the carriage.

    The horses let out a frightened neigh, and the carriage, which was not strong, suddenly fell apart. An even fell to the ground together with the broken wooden barrel, almost knocking her unconscious. The pain in her back was so severe that it was unreal, she wished she could not move, just fainted—

    But not.

    Ann staggered to her feet, forcing herself to look at the other enemy. The low-voiced man hid quickly, only hurting one arm—the man's left arm was hanging limply over his shoulder.

    This pair was unusually tall, took a few steps back, tremblingly stepped on the charred corpse of another enemy, and instinctively ran away.

    Unfortunately, before she ran a few steps, a spell hit her in the back, and the slender girl was directly knocked out.

    Ann was beaten to the core, her ears were buzzing, and warm liquid was running down her nostrils. The teeth on the left side are loose, the mouth is full of the taste of blood, and the left side of the face is definitely swollen.

    Her tears were still flowing, and her eyes were so dry and painful.

    Seeing that Ann had not lost consciousness, the man kicked her in the stomach again. An shrimp curled up on the ground, closed his eyes tightly, and spat out a thin liquid from his mouth.

    Did she lose?

    ...but she can't lose.

    Maybe he was afraid that he would directly kick this slender girl into a serious injury that could not be handled.

    It is now.

    Severe pain and dizziness, An squeezed his last strength and bit the man's throat. She gritted her teeth numbly, tore off a large piece of flesh, and was sprayed with warm blood all over her face.

    The man didn't seem to react for a while, he screamed and touched the wound on his neck with his still movable right. An dazedly grabbed the man's ankle, and the light of thunder and lightning lit up again. It's a pity that the last blow almost exhausted her strength, and the weak thunder and lightning only paralyzed her enemy for a moment.

    A moment is enough.

    I didn't dare to leave to pick up rocks or broken wood. Ann buried her head without hesitation and continued to bite the man's neck - until a lot of blood spattered out, the man's limbs twitched, and he finally stopped struggling.

    It was the first murder in her life.

    The princess of Alban stood alone in the early morning wilderness. The teeth were filled with disgusting flesh, and the pain burned the nerves. The sackcloth robe was soaked with blood and turned cold. She finally dared to tear her throat open and burst into tears.

    The horses of the carriage have long run away without a shadow, leaving only two bodies in place. Ann tried her best not to look at the two men's corpses. She staggered to the ruins of the carriage and began to rummage for food and tools that could be used. Her mind remained blank.

    She is going home. The wayward exodus should end - she wants to go home.

    Use the Condensation Charm to get some water to drink when you are thirsty, eat some grass roots when you are hungry, and be lucky enough to kill some mice, rabbits or fish with the Lightning Spell. She walked along the road in the wilderness, hiding in the grass when she saw people passing by. Days and nights passed, and Ann finally touched the vibrant town again.

    Now she looks skinny and dirty, people just take her as a little beggar, no one will give her a second look.

    There is a branch of the mercenary guild here, she only needs to walk in and reveal the royal emblem on her left arm to go home—

    This is finally coming to an end.

    She no longer needs to eat the half-cooked guts of mice and the grass roots that get stuck between her teeth with every bite. The wounds are still aching, but she doesn't have to worry about them anymore, she can finally...

    "Funeral? Didn't the princess find it, why did you have a funeral?" The two mercenaries were chatting at the door, An instinctively hid himself behind a few sacks of waste, carefully listen.

    "Hey, maybe it was found by the Radians, and those guys won't report to us. It is said that Her Royal Highness Andrea was seriously ill when she came back. , passed away within two days. Poor Princess, what will happen to the other Nightingale—"

    But here she is, Ann's eyes widened in shock.

    "New job." The first mercenary joined them, the wolf's head glittering on the white tin badge. "See for yourself, this is a work that needs to be kept secret. The emperor directly designated our mercenary group, and Steel Wolf has picked up dirty work this time."

    "I'm not talking just now..." The mercenary's voice trembled a little when he put away the parchment scroll.

    "Well, that's what it says."

    "That's not found."

    "Hmm."

    "But anyway, it's his own..."

    "Let's put it this way, it's easy to get it back in four days, and eight days is enough to do a lot of things. Undetectable mind control, or undetectable surveillance spells, eight days are enough to complete I personally think it may be... out of this consideration. In case that child is kidnapped and given something like this, and then sent back to the palace, they can't handle it at this stage. "

    "Even if Willard's side has been uneasy, this is too..."

    "So the emperor, uh, that lord didn't look for the trial knights, but asked us to do this. Just follow the above requirements. You know, there is no one, there is still one left. ."

    "The funeral has been officially held, and the rest are impostors - once the impostors are found again, they will be killed on the spot, and there is no need to report again. The judge knights don't have time to do this" Stupid thing', so let's protect the 'family reputation'? Alas..."

    "I hope that little girl is really dead. It's easier to die."

    Since that day, her life has turned into a nightmare—a nightmare initiated by herself and completed by her father.

    That was Ann's first disappointment with her father, or rather despair.

    Now that I think about it, it is nothing more than giving up an irrelevant little girl for the information security of the royal family, and she will not hate her father from the bottom of her heart. What made her really desperate was that her biological father wasn't even willing to make a little effort for it.

    There are many solutions, even if she is brought back and raised by herself, until a solution is found. Even if she is locked up in another city until she grows up and no longer has contact with important people... But now it seems that the emperor who manages every day is too lazy to bother about it.

    The Alastair family does not need a princess without "value", and her father does not need a disobedient daughter.

    After that, Ann did two things.

    Stealing a knife and getting a bottle of spirits, she abruptly cut off a piece of flesh on her left arm and dug out the delicate and beautiful emblem. Then, in order to save her life at the bottom of the chaos, she also stabbed herself in the face, creating an ugly scar herself.

    If it weren't for the hard life, An would have died at the age of eleven. From that day on, the young princess stopped trusting others. She lives like a wild cat in the corner of the town, stealing and hunting small animals to make a living.

    But winter is coming soon.

    Fortunately, before that, she found a perfect target - a teenage stupid nun.

    She doesn't have a name, so people just call her "Nun". An heard the neighbors talking about the silly-looking woman, that the nun did not come from any formal church, at most a folk practitioner, and even the nun's clothes were sewn by herself. Despite a slight mental handicap, the nun's skill at baking cookies was first-rate.

    The nun used this unique skill to earn herself a big yard. She was not married, but happily picked up a dozen abandoned children to raise. Every day she keeps the less-than-perfectly shaped cookies out in the yard for snacks when the kids get tired.

    Those cookies became a good target for Anjing.

    As the weather gets colder, she has fewer animals to catch and more biscuits. I don't know if it was her delusion, but the amount of cookies the nun took out was also increasing, and she even put down a few fruits occasionally. In the end, there was even a thick, shabby dress hanging in the yard, and the nun seemed to have forgotten it, and she would not accept it when it snowed.

    And when Ann carefully grabbed that dress late at night, the backyard door suddenly opened.

    "Come in and warm up." The nun had a childish smile on her face as if she had succeeded in mischief, "It's snowing too much outside, little girl."

    She should have escaped, An Xin thought, but she didn't move. The children in the nun's yard haven't changed, Ann keeps watching, she knows the children are doing well, but...

    "Don't be afraid." The nun held out one and did not approach her rashly. "Look at you, your clothes are freezing... At least come in and take a hot shower. What's your name?"

    "Ann."

    "Do you have a surname? If you get separated from your parents, I can contact you. Oh, other relatives, too. Do you have any other relatives, little girl?"

    "...no last name, just Ann."

    "Poor little one, come and hold one."

    An cautiously approached the past, a tiny electric light flashing between her fingers. The nun really just hugged her fiercely, completely ignoring the frozen mud and dirt. The woman is clean and warm, with the sweetness of milk and butter.

    "It's so cold, why are you alone outside, alas."

    There are many reasons, feel at ease. It involves war, it involves royalty, it involves pride and stupidity, it involves conspiracy and death. But in the end, she shivered and spat out a simple sentence, a child's word.

    "...My parents." She quivered her lips, "They don't want me anymore."

    That was the last time she burst into tears.

    "Then I'll give you a name." The nun rubbed her dirty hair grudgingly, "Looks like a savage... Just Savage, Ann Sa Vicky. Would you like to stay here?"

    Ann nodded.

    The rest of the story is simple. The children raised by the nuns are all refugees without status, lucky enough to have a home, but not enough decent jobs when they grow up. They are not allowed to do formal business, nor will they hire refugees in formal places, and the salaries offered in less formal places are pitiful.

    They can't always rely on the kindness of the nuns to live, but after leaving here, they are destined to be displaced again.

    "I teach you spells." An made up her mind and announced to her friends who lived with her. "We're going to take the black badge exam. Although it's dangerous, we can earn a lot of money. We just need to pass the test and then do the easiest task! There are so many children who pass each year, and I've investigated their strength - just be careful, We'll be fine for sure."

    That was her second fatal mistake.

    Waiting for her is the Seymour worm, and the test results of her loneliness.

    Ann Savage became a black badge, but never returned to that warm little courtyard. She knew the nuns were waiting for them—for the return of the children she had raised.

    But she can't bring anyone back, she dare not go back.

    More than 20 years later, Ann will entrust people to inquire about the current situation of the nuns, and will send a large sum of money to the nuns when the seasons change. The nun has raised a lot of refugee children, and the money allows her to do what she wants to do without worry, without overwork.

    It's time to send money again.

    Ann put down the empty glass again and grabbed the grey parrot in front of her: "Let's go."

    "Are we finally going back? Ouch, wait for me-"

    "Yeah." Ann twitched her lips, "But I have to send some money first. After all, I'm about to lose my pension."

    "What money? Who? To whom? What's the matter, is this transfer of property, are you going to betray us?"

    "...Oops, I've been found." Ann shot the parrot's head.

    "It's not the first day you know me, don't you know how bad I am?"