Chapter VII - Fugitive plan 　　

"Bite this piece of wood tightly, you will feel a bit better, I'm sorry, I - I can only think of this method."

Thales frowned, kneeling in front of Ryan.

This cripple beggar was half-sitting on the floor against the wall, holding up his right hand which was "still entangled by a thread of silk" with his arm while blood was slowly flowing out from it. Glazed, he looked Thales as he was grinding his dagger on a slab of stone and let him put a piece of wood into his mouth.

Behind Thales, the girl Carina was sitting dumbfounded on the stairs between the small yard and the house. The burn on her left cheek by the silver coin had been treated, applied medicine, and covered with a piece of cloth.

The fire-blacked silver coin was clutched tightly in her hand at that moment.

The girl widened her eyes and stared randomly at the corners of the yard, after a while she looked up at the moon and let out a laugh like a maniac.

Behind her was a corpse leaning against the collapsed wall. It was Clyde, who died without his eyes closed.

A burst of nausea hit Thales.

This kind of sensation, the sensation when you thrust a piece of metal into the flesh, vaguely appeared from time to time on the hand that was holding the knife.

Thales let out a sight and tried to endure the discomfort of his first murder while his chest still felt the burning pain, which shared quite a lot of his attention for him.

In those fictions with darker theme, all the protagonists are usually a decisive, merciless and cold-blood murderer, who didn't even change their expression when they took a human life, or after they killed someone, they could laugh it off and casually planned for the next kill like it was something normal.

All of those must be lies.

Thales muttered a mocking laugh while his heart was full of sadness.

After all, what he took away is a life. No matter what Clyde did or that he deserved to go to h.e.l.l, in a sense, he is the same kind, the same beings who walk on their two feet just like himself.

And my dagger thrust into his neck.

Thales was very jealous of those who are natural born cold-blooded murderers as they can actually withstand the nausea after killing. To him, the greasy and sticky feel on his right hand seemed to be spreading, and the screams when he pierced Clyde's neck were still echoing in his ears.

A moment of anger and hysteria can help you murder someone but it cannot clear away the aftershock.

Even if it is only his own mind, he is already an adult, an adult who can and must take responsible for his actions.

More importantly - Thales turned his head to look at Carina, the dagger in his hands ground even faster.

These children probably just experienced the most crucial scene in their life.

A cloudy scene appeared in front of his vision again, the light of the projector and the text of the slides manifested like floating waves.

"... The papers I read in today lesson focus on the field of psychology. From the perspective of developmental psychology, children and adolescents are the most crucial periods in the establishment of a person's mind and character. Bloom's follow-up study found that the environment, interaction, and behavior experienced during this phase are strongly related to future personality and psychological development. And many theoretical studies also believe that this effect may even be accompanied along for the rest of their life ..."

Thales waggled his head and buried another piece of recovered memories in the bottom of his heart.

Dealing with mental health of the beggars could come next. The immediate problem which needed to be solved was how to survive.

Tires suppressed the nausea and sadness in his heart and divert his attention to the dagger in his hands.

This dagger doesn't even have the length of an adults forearm, single-edged, the tip has a slight curvature toward a blade's side, the wooden handle was wrapped in black jute to prevent it from getting slippery while holding, the two sides of the blade are smooth - - Oh?

Thales suddenly discovered under the scrubbed blood were two letters, "YS", which were engraved on the blade's side.

YS?

Thales eyes slightly moved as he was getting a bit emotional.

Hah ha, having even more tricks, more planning, more cleverness, Thales thought, were not as helpful as this "YS" dagger.

Then, Thales's eyes turned ice-cold. It only took a moment for the blade which was still grinding to appear next to Ryan's severed hand!

"Slashed!"

Thales didn't hesitate for a hack!

The blade cut off between Ryan's hand and wrist,

The last bit of remained flesh.

"Hmmm! - Hmmm-! - Humph"

Ryan's whole body started to fiercely convulse like the moment a shrimp from Mariahilf River fell into boiling water.

He bit the piece of wood tightly, his scary m.u.f.fled groans could be heard from his throat, his eyes were painfully closed, his face distorted into an exaggerated shape, and his tears and snouts continuously flowed down.

Tires quickly pulled over a cloth with the best medicine possible (in fact, it was only some of the Ouches leaves) wrapped it around Ryan's severed hand and fiercely tied it back and forth.

I hope this will work, to stop the bleeding and the wound from getting infected, or else - Thales look to the bonfire and shook his head.

Ryan was still painfully twitching. Thales pressed his severed hand firmly with one hand and held him into his arms with the other hand.

"Bear it with me, Ryan, it will soon pa.s.s away, bear it!" Thales closed his eyes and gently comforted him. The burn on his own chest rubbed against Ryan's hair, causing a heart-wrenching pain again.

Thales looked to the other sides, Kelly, Ned and Anson, lying silently under the moonlight.

Like they were only sleeping.

While Ryan's breathing gradually stabilized, Carina began to sob softly.

"Thales, hum, I was so scared, Carina clearly didn't have typhoid, Carina was fine -"

Thales put down Ryan to turn around and hold Carina into his arms. He carefully avoided the burn on her face and patted her gently.

"It's all right, Carina, it's alright."

I am sorry.

I failed to protect everyone.

"Thales!"

Thales opened his eyes to look at Clint who was out of breath from running back. He calmly asked: "What's the situation outside?"

Clint was the child with the least injuries in the Sixth House. After Thales helped him fix his dislocated leg (the beggar's career taught them a lot of self-saving knowledge such as bone-repositioning or bone-splitting) he was sent out by Thales to inquire the news and the general atmosphere, and to make an early warning if there were any upcoming Brotherhood members.

"There was no one above, no Rick, no thugs, no Brotherhood's members. It was like the people outside of The Ruin aren't aware of anything."

Clint, being the oldest child and had a long history of effective collaboration with Thales, he directly addressed the part that Thales was concerned about the most.

"Clyde seemed to have been to a lot of people's houses, some of them have successfully escaped, but not counting us and the 17th house, at least six or seven rooms don't have any sound or movement."

Thales's eyes went gloomy. Since the sixth house is not the closest to the door of The Ruin, he could roughly guess the fate of the beggars in those houses.

"Now all the beggars know what's going on, everyone is spreading the words that the Brotherhood will kill us all. Some hide in the room and don't dare to come out, but there are many more people that are out on The Ruin's street, some even want to escape. "

Thales' eyes s.h.i.+ned: "Wait a minute, did you say that all the thugs are gone?"

Clint knew what Thales was thinking. He shook his head and bitterly said: "It's useless, the door is locked from outside. Karl brought along the people from his room and shouted at the door but no one else answered the calls. Unless we can cross those trenches with stakes inside them, otherwise we can't escape. "

"We," Ryan struggled to sit up with his right hand from the floor, palely said: "Must we flee? We can wait here until the morning until Rick and others come to tell them that Clyde himself had gone mad--"

"No!" Thales straight out interrupted Ryan, "Clyde died in The Ruin. If they find out who is the murderer then we will die without any doubt. Even if they cannot find the murderer, the beggars would still be brought out to pay the price. Not to mention Clyde's father was a big boss in the Brotherhood, he wouldn't let it go just like that."

"Moreover," said Thales, looking at Ryan coldly, "Do you still want to wait for them to send in the next Clyde? Even if the next boss isn't a person like Clyde, until he knows that his predecessor's death is in the hands of a beggar, do you expect him to offer you foods and drinks, and then kneel down and beg you not to kill him?

After this chain of words was said, Ryan, Carina, and Clint included didn't seem to understand it very well. The three of them kept blinking their eyes with confused looks.

Thales looked at the eyes of the three and helplessly lowered his head. He sighed and said: "Alas - to put it simple, we have to run away right now."

"Oh."

The three children then "suddenly realized" and nodded at once.

Thales shook his head helplessly.

Suddenly a scene appeared in front of his eyes.

Under the sporadic heavy snow on the street, a willowy yet energetic figure was walking in front of him while he was mumbling something nonstop.

"So - in his book, Weber used his observation and historical summary to ridicule and provoke Mark's theory of "economic foundation decided the superstructure", which was only based on capitalism originated in Europe."

"Even though I don't understand what you're saying, but it sounds really amazing."

"Alas - to put it simple, Weber was pounding Mark using IQ."

"Oh, if that is the case, let's go eat a small hot pot!"

"It's clearly that you were asking me what cla.s.s was on today, so could you please do not change the topic that fast? And why did you do it so naturally?"

"It's decided then, Korean barbecue! Strike Freedom, attack!"

"It's not even a small hot pot - hey you don't push me - and what is this Strike Freedom - have I said don't push me -"

Thales closed his eyes tightly and dispersed this illusion of memory that had come back from the void.

The recent memory surge was getting more and more frequent, and the "past events" emerge one after another.

But they aren't the present.

They can't be the present.

There are more important things to do now.

Thales opened his eyes and found that all three children were waiting for his decision.

He stood up gently while also holding Ryan and took a deep breath.

"First, move Clyde out of the sixth house when no one was outside - although he was heavy, in short term we can't let anyone to know that his death was on us."

"Then Clint, you secretly spread the words to everyone - must be secret, do not let people know you intentionally do it. Tell them, inside the trench on the left side of the fourth house, there are five loosen stakes. Remove them and cover the remaining two stakes with slate or something then you can get out of The Ruin."

Clint was surprised: "You, you found the secret pa.s.sage in the deep trenches?"

"Secret pa.s.sage?" Ryan and Carina also seemed to be shocked.

Thales didn't say anything, just patted Clint's shoulder. "Go."

That was not the secret pa.s.sage which a beggar predecessor magically dug up.

The so-called secret pa.s.sage was he himself using the time when he went to the West Gate to beg twice a week as reason so he could stay out at night, bringing along a dagger, rattan, linen, and corrosive substance stolen from the pharmacy,  and secretly digging it for four years.

It is like "The Shawshank Redemption" in the world of Elor.

As for the legend, it was an illusion, a lie, a fantasy.

There has never been any savior, isn't it?

Thales patted Clint's shoulder again, the latter nodded. When he was about to turn around, he scratched his head like he just thought of something and puzzlingly asked.

"Why do you want to tell everyone? Can we just do it ourselves? They will all rush there to escape, the more people know the slower we can flee."

No, Thales said within the bottom of his heart, the Brotherhood is not a bunch of vegetarians. In the Undercity's three districts, every streets, every roads, every corners have their surveillances. Even the suburbs in West of the city are also covered with their lackeys. In the case of a few beggars who were less than 10 years old, it was hard for them to escape the Brotherhood even if they escaped The Ruin.

Thales's original plan was to escape not until after another six months. He would be able to fully explore between the three Undercity districts to the Red Square Street, study the surveillances' regulations and patterns of the Brotherhood, and prepare sufficient supplies from the Sunset bar and the Grove pharmacy, then the possibility of their escape would greatly increase.

As long as they can get to the Red Square Street.

But now, basically it is not the best time for that.

But in order to survive, they have to flee - accidents always come suddenly, don't they?

Therefore, he must turn the private escape of the sixth house into a ma.s.s of disorder beggars.

If only the sixth house disappeared then it is too obvious, the Brotherhood will soon find out. Second, the more people they have, the slower they will escape but the more secured and unnoticeable they will be.

However, to explain these reasons one by one -

Thales looked up at Clint, his glaring eyes made the latter a little uncomfortable.

"Clint, do you still remember the agreement between the two of us four years ago?"

Clint, dazed for a moment, bowed his head and slightly pondered.

When he raised his head, his eyes had become firm.

"Of course," Clint looked at Thales, looked at the boy who was shorter than himself and slowly said: "You are responsible for thinking, I am responsible for action."

Thales nodded solemnly.

"Let's escape together!"

------------------

Yara Surrey was almost bored to death as she watched the last guest finally got out of the Sunset bar, then unwillingly got up to put away his cup.

Today there weren't as many guests, especially the Brotherhood's own members. Plenty of them were going to partic.i.p.ate in that "big operation", even the cook Edmund also carried along a saber and went there. It was for returning a personal love debt, he said.

The old guy hadn't come back for quite a long time since then.

Boring.

Yara glanced at the clock on the wall, half past three in the morning, a little early.

However, that clock was a bit slow.

It was very old, Yara thought, even the tank of Eternal oil on its back were getting rusty, and rust mixed with the Eternal oil would greatly reduce the efficiency of the clock's function.

Gotta think of some way to make the old guy "bleed" a little and replace that clock.

While the Sunset bar was making a lot of profits, there was no sight of any tax officer from the City Hall ("For the sake of the king I will give him two middle fingers!" - Yara) no blind thugs would come for protection fee ("For a hundred copper coins per person, I will protect your fingers from getting cut off, how about that?" - Yara), even the purchase of goods is from the Black Street Brotherhood's own channel with discounts ("Nell Rick, you're in charge of the accounts, just hurry up and ask the guys up there, ask them along with my blade what kind of price should I pay them when restocking?" - Yara), so spending just a small sum of money to replace the clock is possible right?

That stingy old guy.

After closing the door and finis.h.i.+ng the works of the bar, Yara threw down the ap.r.o.n and towels, pulled up her short leather pant to make it tighter, extinguished the Inextinguishable lamp (this name is really ironic) in the front, then went back into the kitchen.

Today's time is still little early, according to the usual regulations, after finis.h.i.+ng the exercise there is -

The next moment, Yara's face became cold and murderous!

Her body instantly laid lower, knee bent to a position which was easier to generate momentum, on her thigh the infamous Wolfleg knife among Black Street instantly came to her left hand.

A blade das.h.i.+ngly flew out like the lightning bolt!

"Bam!"

The Wolfleg knife fiercely thrust into a barrel!

Only a half of the blade was still exposed while the handle was vibrating.

"Ah!" This was a panic scream of a little girl.

Yara slowly stood up, inserted another Wolfleg knife on her right hand back to her boot, and then lit an Inextinguishable lamp.

The lamp lightened up the dimming dark kitchen and revealed a few small figures.

"Yara - that -" The transmigrator who was terrified by the Wolfleg knife, Thales, was reluctant to put on a smile. He raised his slightly s.h.i.+vering right hand and unnaturally waved: "Hey - - it's me."

Yara looked at him coldly without saying a word.

Her eyes were sharp and scary, which made Carina shrunk her body back toward Tiles.

Yara suddenly walked forward.

Thales felt that the three beggars behind him unnaturally took a step backward.

"I know," Yara said coldly. "Otherwise, I'm not going to simply aim at the barrel like that."

Yara walked to in front of him and pulled out the Wolfleg knife from a spot on the barrel which was two inches higher than Thales's left ear. She also seemed to warn him with a slash in front of his face before inserted it back into the boot.

"And you, little imp -"

Thales rolled his eyes in his mid, instinctively raised his hand quickly as he wanted to cover the forehead.

But a slender finger had severely poked him!

"Ah! Pain!"

"Call me - sister Yara!"

-------------------

"When I came in from the back door and didn't see Edmund, I wanted to go to see the kitchen behind-"

They were now sitting in the cellar of the Sunset bar. With the exception of Thales, the beggars was restlessly leaning on the sacks of food, hardly but still struggling to bite on the white bread in their hands - they hadn't eaten such a good food for so long.

At the place a bit far away from them, Thales was sitting on a barrel twice of his height, looking straight at the one who had her arms folded and her leg leaned against the wall behind, lazy yet confidence Yara Surrey.

If this was his past life, Thales would probably keep a pair of appreciation eyes while looking at every small pieces of her from head to toe, then looked up to the sky, recalled them and emotionally admired the beauty of this world at the same time.

What? What would Thales do after that you asked? Nonsense, obviously to go home by himself and do what he should do.

As for now - so sorry, this body is still young.   

"Just be upfront, why you came to find me." Yara, still with that indifference look, went straight to the point, straight into the subject.

However Thales was used to it. Four years ago in the heap of rubbish behind the Sunset bar, since the time when he first met his "big sis" in her early twenties, the other side has always been in such a tone and style.

He knew she was person like that.

"Clyde went mad. He killed almost half of the beggars in The Ruin."

Thales became serious as he quietly clenched his fists at the same time.

He -- f.u.c.k.

From the beginning, Yara already had some doubts about the event happened earlier that day as she saw the beggars who were full of injures.

Yara still maintained a leisurely face while she already began to curse Rick inside her mind, that d.a.m.n accountant, I knew for certain that letting you fed Clyde with Chaka brandy won't lead to anything good.

Why did I accept his offer for ten gold coins again? Ten gold coins, alas, ten gold coins!

This kind of matter will enrage the Brotherhood, for only ten gold coins - I should ask him for at least twenty!

And -

"No one stopped him, and no one came to save us. We could only escape by ourselves." Thales said with a gloomy mood, the scene from a few hours earlier seemed to reappear.

- And, alas, half of the beggars.

Yara closed her eyes and sighed.

"I know, just hide here for a day. Don't worry, when I'm here, that gorilla won't dare to come. If he dare, I will chop off his below - cough - his hand. "

Yara looked at the other three beggars and frowned. She could identify which was the new wound, especially with the child whose right hand was wrapped in cloth.

"When Edmund come back I will tell him to go to find Rick and the higher ups. When Clyde did something like this he won't escape - this jerk, why can't he die sooner."

Yara's mood went down a bit. She dropped the leg which was leaning against the wall and stood up.

Thales turned his gloomy eyes at the three beggars, took a deep breath, and then looked back to Yara.

"Today Brotherhood is having a big operation, so their garrisons and patrols won't be that tight. You can escape, you must - alas, just forget about it. I'm going to get some medicine, if you want a doctor that would also - wait a minute, little imp, what's wrong with you?"

Yara was talking to herself then she suddenly realized that on the opposite side of her, Thales didn't seem to be alright. His body was also full of injuries, the front of his s.h.i.+rt was ripped apart, his right hand and sleeve were even splashed with blood.

Something is wrong, this kid's eyes -

Yara suddenly came to Thales and dragged him down from the barrel. Then she squatted down, holding Thales's shoulders with both hands while looking straight into his eyes.

Yara eyes suddenly become very serious and also very tense.

"Little imp - you, did you?"

Thales didn't dare look at Yara's eyes, but in just a few seconds, he adjusted himself and raised his head with determination.

Thales heard that his own voice was calm as usual without any s.h.i.+vering.

"Yara, Clyde was killed by me."

End of chapter VII