One of the entrances to the Lost Valley was located at the end of a narrow alley. Hammer always entered it through here, following a predetermined route to ensure he wouldn’t get lost in the market and succumb to the overwhelming elation.
On both sides of the alley stood old residential buildings, occasionally interrupted by a few shops selling items similar to the one where he had previously stolen a coat. However, despite their universally aged appearance these houses were still significantly better than the dwellings of the Ghost City inhabitants—even Captain didn’t live in a place as well-maintained as these. To withstand the strong winds, their houses were designed with peculiar shapes, and many of them didn’t even allow for standing upright inside.
Ning Gu’s small cabin was one of the exceptions, allowing him to stand upright inside. However, it came with a price of getting blown over by the wind four times, resulting in the loss of many of his collected belongings. While he managed to recover some items by going from door to door, others had vanished without a trace.
There was even a tragic incident where items he obtained from Land King were retrieved by that cunning merchant, forcing Ning Gu to exchange them once again.
The alley was devoid of pedestrians, and understandably so. When the alarm signalled the arrival of the Travellers, everyone retreated into their homes. Some people feared the Travellers, while others were less concerned. Nonetheless, it was clear that the Travelers were not welcome here, just as they harboured a kind of resentment towards the people of the Main City.
Ning Gu could feel the gazes following them from both sides as they passed through the alley, but every time he turned to look, all he could see were the swaying curtains and the suddenly extinguished lights… After all, fear was still the prevailing emotion here.
Are we really so frightening? Ning Gu thought to himself, but then thought about it again—of course! The Travellers are all monsters, and you two had just stolen a coat, even kicked a shop owner twice. We’re still emanating that menacing aura of recent robbery.
“We’re here,” Hammer pointed ahead, “Stick close to me, no joking around. We can’t afford to get separated.”
“Got it.” Ning Gu waved in acknowledgment.
The scenery ahead was a bit eerie. Unlike other parts of the Main City with high metal walls, here they could see the Black Iron Wasteland with a single glance.
And the alley ahead looked as if it had been chopped through by some massive force that came to an abrupt stop. As if there was an invisible divide there.
On one side it was a city with its night and days, and as they crossed over, they were met with an endless expanse of shattered walls, dilapidated buildings, and rugged hills and mounds of rugged wasteland devoid of life.
The entrance was inside a half-collapsed building. Upon pushing the door open, they descended into a pitch black staircase where they couldn’t see anything, and there was no sound. Ning Gu turned back to gaze at the alley they had just left behind.
“Soon it’ll be gone too,” Hammer said, “They said that this alley used to be longer. The entrance we’re entering through right now also used to be like that side—a part of the Main City territory, with people living here.”
“Then why did it become like this?”
“The Main City is collapsing. The way I see it, sooner or later all of it will eventually become a part of the Black Iron Wasteland.” Hammer glanced at the paint mark on his hand, then walked down the staircase.
Ning Gu also looked down on the mark on his hand.
A picture! I’m here to find a picture! I’m Ning Gu! I’m here to find a picture! And I have to return to the Ghost City!
After following Hammer and walking down for a while, he caught a whiff of the scents he had never smelled before—a very pleasant one with a sweet tone to it—as well as a few other scents. However there was one of them that he definitely smelled at Crazy Uncle’s hut before.
When he was back in the Ghost City, it wasn’t really possible to smell much. With a wind so strong, even the farts caught in one’s clothes would immediately get blown away by its gusts, so you could only smell them in a hut… And there were also the scents of the items he had collected. All of them gave a feeling of being ancient and aged, and not a lot of them smelled pleasant.
“What’s that scent?” He asked, noticing a bend up ahead in their path, a faint red light seeping through from around the corner.
“We’re here.” Hammer stopped and took a deep breath, as if they were about to step into something extraordinary.
We’re sorry for MTLers or people who like using reading mode, but our translations keep getting stolen by aggregators so we’re going to bring back the copy protection. If you need to MTL please retype the gibberish parts.
Ning Gu wasn’t sure if this was part of some necessary ritual, but he followed suit and took a deep breath as well. Regardless of its necessity, it added a solemn sense of ceremony.
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The stairs continued their descent, with light filtering in from each level. Numerous cave entrances and tunnels were densely scattered across every single one of them, extending further than one could see, both downward and to the sides. The red light seeping through the gaps in the cave walls wasn’t particularly bright, but it provided enough illumination for the surroundings.
Ning Gu stared at it for a long time before coming to a simple conclusion.
That’s some huge underground world.
“It smells of tea,” Hammer replied to his earlier question, “It’s a rare commodity. Don’t think that you can obtain it just because you were able to smell it. Even if you scoured through the entire Lost Valley, you probably wouldn’t find a single pouch. The people here spray themselves with a kind of water scented with tea leaves, it’s trendy here.”
“Then I will get some of this water for Nail.” Ning Gu declared.
“Do you have anything to trade?” Hammer asked.
“What do I need to trade?” Ning Gu asked in return. He hadn’t thought about trading when he came here; he just wanted to have a look.
“At the very least, it should be something made of glass, like a flower vase.”
“I don’t have that,” Ning Gu pondered for a moment, “I’ll just steal it?”
Hammer gave him a glance, “Don’t say stuff like that openly; it’s embarrassing.”
“Got it.” Ning Gu nodded.
There were no people at the entrance. Hammer led him down a flight of stairs to the level below. Before they even reached the bottom of the stairs, Ning Gu heard someone talking. There was a large empty cave to the right that looked like a chamber.
All around was full of shop-like huts, but not all of them could be entered, with quite a few being closed. Here, people finally started to appear. As he looked around, he saw quite a few Bats wandering around the chamber.
They were quite easy to distinguish—it was said that due to their insensitivity to pain, they frequently underwent body modifications. The style of those modifications often clashed with their own skin and flesh, so you could identify someone as a Bat by merely seeing the metal bones protruding out of their flesh. Of course, the body modifications weren’t only limited to the protruding bones…
Aside from the Bats who wandered around with their expressions ranging from mysterious to dazed or suspicious, there were many others whose identities were less clear. According to Hammer, many of them were likely the Travellers or Main City vagabonds who got overwhelmed by the fatal sense of bliss.
“And there are some that escaped here themselves,” Hammer said, “but that’s just a small fraction. Ordinary people rarely have the chance to escape here from the Hyenas.”
Ning Gu remained silent, having also just experienced that on his own skin. But even though he had just escaped the Hyenas, especially from Lian Chuan, he still hadn’t felt any overwhelming sense of excitement about it.
He had no idea how he managed to escape whatsoever. When Lian Chuan had approached him, surrounded by the smell of death, Ning Gu’s mind was filled with only one thought—I don’t want to disappear yet. I still haven’t seen anything.
So he used that thought to defeat Lian Chuan.
If he told this to any Traveller, it would only get him a bout of uncontrollable laughter in return. It was the kind of brag right he didn’t even know how to boast about.
“I come here every time I get to the Main City. You can see a lot of interesting stuff with a single round trip—some of them are tradeable, some are unaffordable. Of course, you can buy them if you have the Main City’s common currency,” Hammer guided him around while giving a quiet rundown on the place, “If you’re not getting anything, you can listen to their conversations or ask about things. But they all stay here, so they might not know much more than us… Oh, right, there’s food and drinks here, which you can trade for the Main City rations. It’s all stuff we’ve never eaten before, and there’s also booze…” Hammer said this and then glanced around, “But we can’t drink alcohol. If Captain finds out, I’ll get hanged at Tongue Bay for three days, getting licked by the damn thing.”
“Can’t drink it?” Ning Gu looked at him, “I’ll bet a glass bottle that the first thing you do is look for booze. You’re way too obvious.”
“Am I really?” Hammer straightened up and thought for a moment before smiling, “Nail always says I’m a terrible actor.”
“You’re definitely not as good of an actor as him.” Ning Gu nodded his head.
Remembering Nail, he looked at the red light escaping the small hut on the side. He had to bring new goggles back for Nail, but he didn’t know if he could trade a pair for any of the clothes he had on him.
“See the passages?” Hammer asked him.
“Mhm, I see them.” Ning Gu saw several tunnel-like caves all around this enormous cavern.
To be honest, he felt like he couldn’t get enough of this view. He was born in the Ghost City, grew up in the Ghost City, and never went anywhere else. The by-the-book orderly buildings in the Main City had already opened his eyes to the new world, but this underground world he was seeing right now was even more full of wonders upon each glance he took.
“Remember the one we came from, then the three following ones on the right,” Hammer pointed with his finger, “All of them are safe to go inside. I walked through all three of them with Captain, there’s a bit of a smaller cave at the end of each one and no split paths. The other two can’t be entered, and I haven’t entered them myself.”
“Mn,” Ning Gu committed it all to his memory, “Then how about the other chambers? I saw that there’s still a lot of levels…”
“What are you thinking about??” Hammer interrupted him, anxious, “It’s only here, the other places are the no-go zones! I only wander around here every time I get here, and that’s enough! They have everything here!”
“…Oh.” Ning Gu was just as shocked by his outburst.
Hammer stared at him firmly, then finally poked his chest with a finger, “Ning Gu, I know what you’re thinking, but this place isn’t the Ghost City. I know that you’re a big bad bully back in there, everyone fears you while you fear nothing, but you’re nothing here—understood? You’re just an idiot who has just come to the Main City for the first time.”
“Got it,” Ning Gu stared back at him, “You don’t have to be so harsh, you’re the idiot here.”
“Idiot,” Suddenly, a man walked over from the side, “Is it your first time here? Wanna learn a bit from me?”
Ning Gu simply couldn’t believe his ears. He turned his head and saw the man with a beard that grew even over his nose coming over to them. From the way he dressed, it seemed like he was a vagabond, there were also no metal bones in his body.
“Who are you talking to?” Ning Gu asked.
“You,” The vagabond replied impatiently, “You really are an idiot, I’m clearly looking at you yet you’re still asking…”
Ning Gu lifted his leg and kicked the vagabond’s chest, sending him flying into one of the huts, causing a bit of a commotion. Initially, there were only a few people wandering around nearby, but the sudden kick drew the attention of a group of peculiar-looking individuals.
When the vagabond stormed out of the hut, bellowing curses at Ning Gu, two more individuals looking like Bats followed him out. One of them had only half of his face remaining intact, with the other half replaced by poorly crafted metal—Ning Gu could see the visible indents in it even from a distance. The other Bat had the alterations of a more popular kind, with metal bones exposed through the damaged flesh on his legs.
“Let’s go,” Hammer said.
“What?” Ning Gu turned his head. Hammer wasn’t an honest man who would shy away from trouble even back in the Ghost City. He never feared conflict, and had never shown any inclination to escape despite most of the Travellers being far from ordinary people—even if he clashed with the ones gifted with more powerful abilities. So how could it be that now it only took a few spring-legs to make him flee?
“This place is hollow below.” Hammer explained.
Ning Gu was taken aback, but then he remembered that Hammer’s power required a solid surface, and that this underground market was riddled with hollow caves and tunnels… To Ning Gu, who had grown up on the vast expanses of the Ghost City’s solid ground, this situation was beyond his expectation.
This meant that they were currently here as two ordinary, arrogant humans.
“Let’s go!” Hammer pulled on his sleeve and quickly moved toward the second passage.
As he turned around, Half Face and Spring Legs suddenly rushed forward. With Ning Gu’s many years worth of experience in beating and getting beaten, he immediately recognised that they were targeting Hammer—after all, Hammer, without his ability, looked just like a scrawny and frail youngster.
Ning Gu immediately became infuriated—not because of the sneak attack or targeting the seemingly weakest opponent, something he would often do himself—but because those people actually dared to attack his friend right in front of him!
“To hell with leaving!” His voice grew stern as he charged toward the two Bats.
Spring Leg’s modifications at least had some use, allowing him to run ahead of Half-face. However, based on Ning Gu’s prior rough guess and hasty judgement about Bats, Spring Leg was definitely less formidable than Half Face. So, when he was about halfway to them, Ning Gu jumped and landed on Spring Leg’s thigh just as he took a step, using it as a springboard to kick off with all his strength.
Given that the Bats could jump high, he should also be able to do it. His bet turned out to be correct as this Bat’s leg really acted like a springboard.
After the Bat collapsed with a painful howl, Ning Gu suddenly leaped into the air.
It was only when he bumped his head against the cave ceiling that he realised why this Bat was only running and not jumping. He could even hear the sound of his skull hitting the ceiling.
Thud!
Those spring legs were actually this bouncy?
Fortunately, it seemed like he might have just awakened some iron head ability and didn’t end up getting knocked out. As he fell back, he twisted his body midair and used the downward momentum to land a punch on the half of Half Face’s face. This ended up being a powerful attack, leaving Half-face knocked out on the ground.
As Ning Gu fell to the ground, a crowd gathered around him. Perhaps they hadn’t had anything fun to do for a long time, so they started ganging up to beat him.
While he was the local bully of the Ghost City, gang fights weren’t really a thing there. He was quickly pummelled and brought down to the ground, clutching his head. As he tried to crawl out of the mob, he took a quick look around but couldn’t find Hammer.
“Beat him! Beat him!” A group of unknown individuals all shouted as they gathered around him. He struggled to make his way out of the crowd while throwing punches at those nearest to him.
Amid the chaos, someone grabbed him with great force so strong, it nearly matched the strength of the punch he delivered to Half Face. He was swiftly pulled out of the mob, and before he could make clear of what was happening, he already found himself pulled into a dark hut with no red light.
Outside, someone among the crowd of whistling and shouting ruffians pointed in that direction, causing the noise to instantly subside significantly, turning into a low buzz. After buzzing for a while, it was as if everyone suddenly lost their interest and scattered.
Ning Gu tidied up his dishevelled coat and touched his face before turning to look back, “Tha-…”
There was no one behind him. He turned his head back and didn’t see anyone. After turning his head back and forth for the fourth time, he was finally sure that in this small dark hut with all the light-leaking cracks blocked up, there was absolutely no one.
“Thanks.” He still finished his thanks before quickly walking toward the entrance.
At that moment, a slight breeze brushed by his side, and he heard a voice in his ear, “Who are you?”
Thanks for the translation!❤
Pfft he got beat up
Thanks for the chap!❤️❤️❤️