Due to material scarcity and extreme poverty, Twilight Street residents always especially treasured food, to the extent that they didn’t even need to wash their bowls — after checking, you might even see that another edge had chipped off.
In such circumstances, ‘leftovers’ could probably only be found in rich people’s trash cans.
“Eh, what happened here?”
Pardofelis, who was first to climb into the sanatorium, looked at the somewhat messy sanatorium that seemed to have experienced some kind of riot, and was instantly stunned.
The interior of the sanatorium was completely unlike the tidiness seen from outside. It was filled with traces of violence.
“There was fighting, traces of blood… this bullet hole… it’s from a handgun.”
【Elysia】, who followed closely behind, approached the pillar and gently touched the remaining bullet marks and holes. At the same time, gear-like traces belonging to the Herrscher of Reason appeared in her eyes as she quickly captured other traces inside the sanatorium.
“Not too long ago… probably just a few hours.”
“Phyllis, are there still people in the sanatorium?”
“Ah… let me check!”
When asked, the somewhat panicked cat immediately rushed into the sanatorium. From her familiar manner, it was clear she was already a regular at this sanatorium.
Picking up a bit of remaining blood and sensing the information within it, the pink girl frowned:
“There are traces of Honkai Energy in the blood… but Aponia also takes in patients with Honkai sickness… it’s hard to judge.”
“Sister Elysia, there’s still one person!”
— It was a sanatorium child who had hidden.
Quite high Honkai Energy resistance… like Phyllis, did she pass the judgment of the Domination particles?
Noticing the traces of the Herrscher of Domination, Jiang Qiao showed an understanding expression.
From the information the cat fed back, apart from this child who had hidden very well, there was basically no one else in the entire sanatorium.
Only traces of vandalism existed, and there weren’t even any remains — this was obviously very abnormal.
He glanced at Pardofelis, who was stunned for a moment before understanding what he meant. She nodded and spoke to the currently only survivor of the sanatorium in a quite gentle voice:
“Timmy, tell me… what happened at the sanatorium, okay?”
Jiang Qiao could see the little guy’s terror.
Although using this body should also be able to provide comfort, having Phyllis, who was more familiar with the sanatorium children, do this was obviously more appropriate.
And this was obviously very accurate. Although Pardofelis had a mediocre relationship with Aponia, she was quite close with these sanatorium children.
“Suddenly… a group of people rushed into the sanatorium and took everyone away. Only I… because I was playing hide-and-seek, managed to hide.”
Hide-and-seek was one of the few forms of entertainment for the sanatorium children.
And this remaining child named Timmy was the best at hide-and-seek among the sanatorium children.
Even just within this not-very-spacious sanatorium, he could hide very discreetly with his excellent hiding techniques. In this aspect, even Phyllis had learned quite a bit from Timmy — although this hide-and-seek skill seemed to fail every time when encountering Aponia. That seemingly gentle nun lady could always catch him in an extremely short time, then transform into a Tang Dynasty monk and let Timmy, who tried to challenge her, experience what it meant to have ‘every family has its own difficult scripture to recite.’
But today, this seemed to be an exception.
“I don’t know where they took everyone from the sanatorium, but… it seemed to be in that direction.”
“What’s in that direction, Phyllis?”
Looking in the direction Timmy pointed, the pink girl squinted and immediately consulted her Twilight Street guide.
The cat, who was somewhat absent-minded due to the sanatorium incident, still quickly gave an answer after coming to her senses and taking a look.
“Over there, there’s a Lucky Bridge…”
— Legend said that as long as you crossed that Lucky Bridge, your luck would become very good. This was a rumor circulating in Twilight Street.
But basically no one believed it.
After all, so many people came and went across Lucky Bridge every day, but none of them seemed to have won any big prizes.
Hitting ‘big luck’ might even be more frequent.
For this reason, truck drivers often avoided crossing Lucky Bridge.
Two words — unlucky.
“I quite like this bridge. Although many people think it’s quite unlucky and run-down, when I have nowhere to go, bringing a blanket to the bridge hole under this bridge lets me make do for a night. Sister Elysia, don’t look at its old appearance — when it’s warm in winter and cool in summer, it’s quite comfortable. Many homeless children like me treat this as home.”
Leading 【Elysia】 across the bridge, Pardofelis touched the rusty handrail and sighed:
“Every time I come here, I have a nostalgic feeling. Sometimes I wonder if maybe I was born here?”
“Since Sister Aponia’s sanatorium opened, many homeless children here have found new places to go… Although I can’t stand her preaching, she’s really, really a very good person, and so is everyone at the sanatorium.”
“…How could someone target them?”
The chestnut-haired girl’s voice was low, her emotions somewhat depressed.
She quite liked that sanatorium — it felt like home.
For the lower-class residents of Twilight Street, Aponia’s selfless good deeds were also a kind of salvation.
So quite often, more well-off residents would donate some food, and those bottom-level thugs didn’t dare to trouble Aponia’s sanatorium.
It could be said that Aponia’s sanatorium was the only glimmer of humanity in this garbage dump-like Twilight Street.
The kindness of Twilight Street residents was almost all ‘preserved’ there.
And such a place had actually experienced such a thing. Even the cat rarely felt angry.
Crossing Lucky Bridge led to southern Twilight Street.
That was also where the rich district was located.
Compared to the dilapidated, terrible northern Twilight Street, it was like the difference between heaven and earth.
Clean and tidy.
Everything looked so orderly.
Compared to the north, this place was also larger… leaving one completely without leads.
Even though Pardofelis often came to the rich district to rob the rich and help the poor, she couldn’t be called familiar with this place either. The security was too strong, especially after she had visited several times, the rich district had become alert.
Since the last time she almost got sent away by a bullet, she rarely came here anymore.
“Sister Elysia, the rich district is so big. How are we going to find the people from the sanatorium?”
“Phyllis, what’s in that direction?”
Following 【Elysia】’s line of sight, Pardofelis recalled for a moment and said somewhat uncertainly:
“Mm… I remember it seems to be a church. I heard Sister Aponia used to be a nun there. Later the church was abandoned, and it seems to have been recently occupied by some unknown religious sect.”
“What was it called… it seemed to be called…”
— Apocalypse Church.