Chapter 114 Looking for a fire

Chapter 114 – Looking for a Big Fire

Walking down the road, Shirley looked a bit indignant: “Why doesn’t that old man answer my questions! He acted like he didn’t hear me when I spoke to him …… Is being short so unappreciated?!”

“I don’t think it’s shortness that’s the main reason, it’s the fact that you’ve been hounding people about the factory,” Duncan gave the girl a slight sideways glance, “And wouldn’t it be better to see that factory for yourself rather than wasting time on a local who won’t cooperate? ”

Shirley pursed her lips and said nothing more, while ahead of her and Duncan, at the end of this street, the factory that had been abandoned eleven years ago was already visible.

In the Lower City, many factories were located near residential neighborhoods, or even just a wall away from them – the limited land of the city-state and the status quo of the Infinite Sea’s blockade doomed the city’s planners to vacate enough plots of land to house industrial facilities, and with the ground of peace and stability crowded almost everywhere, there was no natural The concepts of “industrial relocation” and “suburban resettlement” do not exist.

Most people in this world don’t have time to think about the health risks of industrial pollution, and to the general public, the increased safety of the city-state brought about by the development of modern technology is obviously more important than the risks posed by the factories – gas lamps, heavy firepower, steam webbing, potions and mechanical ships, all these things have made the population of the New Age of the city-state nearly triple that of the Old Age. Anyone who understands the functioning mechanism of modern city-states can clearly recognize the fact that factories are the skeleton and flesh and blood of modern civilization, and have long been impossible to separate from the city-states.

In fact, according to Nina’s textbook, these factories were not even just clustered in the lower city – despite the city planners’ efforts to move the overly dangerous installations to the edges of the city-state, some of them still had to be located in the city’s hinterland, even next to cathedrals, such as the sacred bell tower, and the “factory” that was used to deliver “food” to the whole city. The Central Steam Core, which was used to deliver the “Sacred Gas” to the city.

These things were essentially huge machines, containing terrible energy and great risks, yet they had to be placed next to the heart of the city.

In Nina’s engineering and mechanics textbook, the author of the textbook explains this specifically:
One has to “sanctify the sacred steam” and “rely on the power of the cathedral to ensure the clock tower’s orderly operation” – machines are not just machines, they are also the holy and pure Machines are not just machines, they are also the heart of the divine purity that underpins modern civilization, and it is up to men to keep these pure steels out of the sights of the gods so that the shadows of subspace do not contaminate their oils and bolts.

Duncan recalled what he had read in Nina’s textbook, and looked up again at the factory that stood in the middle of the city, still deserted, with an odd sigh of relief.

This bizarre and outrageous world …… was really picking at his three views at all times.

He and Shirley came to the front of the factory, a single thin and many collapsed fence is the only boundary between this factory and the surrounding residential area, between the factory and the nearby residential area, another narrow circle of wasteland can be seen, the barren land is not an inch of grass, only to see many scattered masonry debris, as well as rusted for an unknown period of time of the pieces of scrap metal.

No matter how important the factories were to the city, no matter how much the people had adapted to living with them, the factories remained factories, and when these behemoths got out of control, they still left huge scars on the city.

But it still struck Duncan as odd that a scar could sit for eleven years without being “repaired” in the middle of a city-state that had been built on every inch of land.

“Land should be precious in a city-state,” he said thoughtfully, standing at the edge of the wasteland and looking at the abandoned factory buildings ahead of him, “and for this place to just sit there . . it doesn’t quite make sense.”

“Didn’t that old man just say that? Pollution can’t be cleaned up. …… “Shirley didn’t seem to think so much about it, “Some pollution can only wait for time to let them slowly fade away.”

“Maybe ……” Duncan shook his head, his eyes moving between the series of pipes and tanks at the edge of the plant, trying to recreate the “original” appearance of the accident that had erupted here. saw several sections of ruptured piping, and also saw that the base of one of the storage tanks had collapsed, and the entire tank had fallen down and crushed into the rubble of a nearby building, looking as if it were the carcass of a massive behemoth.

Judging from these sights alone, it would seem quite plausible that there had been a leak.

But Duncan still frowned slightly.

The old man in the sun had said that there was pollution around the plant, pollution that had caused the entire Sixth Ward to go without a newborn for the past eleven years, and yet there were no warning signs or patrols or guards around the plant.

Things don’t make sense, although it’s not too big of an anomaly, but these unreasonable circumstances still make people suspicious.

“Are we …… really going in?” Shirley’s voice sounded from the side, her face expression seemed to be a bit nervous, “There might really be contamination here ……” “Can’t your Dog give you some advice?” Duncan gave Shirley a look, “It’s deserted, and you can let that Phantom Hound out for some air, and I don’t believe you’re really afraid of the so-called ‘contamination’ here – the nervousness in your eyes is a bit too fake It’s a bit too fake.”

Shirley dodged Duncan’s gaze, raising her hand as she agreed, “Well, well …… mostly Dog’s not in very good shape ……”

As soon as the girl’s words left her mouth, the crackling sound of flames pulsing suddenly sounded out of nowhere beside her, and immediately afterward, a pitch-black blaze spread along her arm and half of her body – the flames coalescing into chains, and the figure of the Phantom Hound emerging from the smoke and black flames at the end of the chains.

Duncan watched the process curiously, waiting for Dog to reveal himself before smiling and nodding with the spectral hound, “Long time no see, Dog – you guys ran pretty fast last time.”

“I was in a hurry, I was in a hurry, don’t be offended,” Dog’s tail was clenched as soon as he showed his face, and this time when he heard Duncan’s voice it was even more visible to the naked eye as his entire body shortened by half an inch, and he carefully bowed his head as he tried to constrict his limbs, “What are your orders? I’m good at a lot of things, carrying a plate and sweeping the floor to coax a child or something else can be ……”

This profound hound words did not finish next to the Shirley has covered half of the face, just like a “I’m already enough this way you can even new heights” look, Duncan can not help but laugh, raised his hand and pointed to the factory in front: “I have no orders, just borrow your eyes! –I just want to borrow your eyes, can’t you see things that are invisible to normal people? Take a look at that factory and tell me what’s wrong.”

“Look at what you said, you can still look at this point of my eyes ah ……” Dog immediately modestly flattered, but still while flattering while turning his head to look in the direction of the factory, his mouth still muttering, “I just now was observing This factory, also did not see anything ah …… now looking at the same, is an abandoned ……”

Dog’s voice suddenly stopped, and immediately afterward, it violently ambled down, letting out a threatening low growl from its throat – however, in the next second, it suddenly shook its head again, letting out a puzzled voice, “…… Huh? ”

Sherry instantly tensed a bit at the sight, “What did you see, Dog?!”

“I …… I don’t know, just now there was a moment, I think I saw …… fire? It seemed to be a very large fire, like a giant wave lashing out from the factory, but …… it was gone in the blink of an eye ……”

Dog’s voice was full of skepticism, but Shirley got excited all of a sudden, “You confirm that you saw a fire? Was it really a fire!?”

Dog shook his huge skeleton head: “It was just a flickering image, maybe it was a hallucination, I’m at least a Profound Demon, it’s normal for me to have occasional hallucinations of insanity ……”

“But the big fire is different!” Shirley’s tone was urgent, “We’ve searched for so long, and finally found the traces of the ‘Great Fire’, that’s right, Dog, this must be the place ……”

Shirley was halfway through her excited sentence when she suddenly felt a large hand on her shoulder, her words came to an abrupt halt, and with a belated sense of tension, she turned her head with a stiff neck, only to see the dreaded “Mr. Duncan” gazing at her quietly.

“Why did you react so strongly to the ‘fire’?” Duncan asked slowly, looking into Shirley’s eyes.

“I ……” Sherry opened her mouth, “nothing ……”

“You’re also looking for ‘a fire’ eleven years ago, aren’t you?” Duncan, however, paid no attention to the girl’s attempts to change the subject, he had already made a violent connection in Sherry’s earlier perverse reaction, “A fire that doesn’t exist in any official records, but which you experienced first hand, right?”

Shirley’s body stiffened a bit and she slowly swallowed, “How did you …… you ……”

“I was looking for it too,” Duncan smiled up, “Looks like the right place.”

(End of chapter)