Chapter 1364 1336. The Real Feeling of Life
For some reason, Maria’s eyes sparkled with disbelief.
Yes, ‘somehow’.
After all, in Maria's subjective time, she had seen sunshine and daytime not long ago. All the changes and the collapse of the worldview actually originated from the previous night, just one night.
But for some reason, Maria felt the light covering the side of her face under the brim of her hat, and she felt a melancholy as if from another world.
How long was that night before?
How long has it been since I saw the sun?
In other words, have I ever really seen the light?
The contradiction between memory and feeling made Maria freeze as she took a step into the alley.
Bewildered and disbelieving, she looked up at the sunlight piercing through the gaps in the spiers of the Gothic buildings in Yharnam.
Then he looked back at the alley, where the demon hunter seemed to have lost his strength and was unconscious, but was still smiling with his head down.
"What did you do?"
Her slender legs wearing long leather boots stepped on the stone tiles, and she trotted to Lan En's side and knelt down half-kneeling down, her tone was sarcastic. He asked consciously and anxiously.
She herself didn't know what she was anxious about at this time, but this unbelievable emotion kept rising from the bottom of her heart.
“What have you done?!”
Unconsciously, Maria lost the style and habit of the Yharnam hunters who were completely silent even when the blade of a knife sliced across their throats.
Her voice spread far in this empty dawn.
Far enough to attract something.
The sound of claws stepping on the stone tiles finally allowed Maria to break away from the wave of chaotic emotions and regain her skills as a Yharnam hunter.
She turned around smoothly and quickly to face the entrance of the alley, and the one-shoulder cloak on her left shoulder swung in a gorgeous and neat arc in the air.
The Cainhurst musket in his left hand was loaded and pointed.
The unique cold murderous aura of the Yharnam hunters was aimed at that place.
But "Ouch?"
A dog, a scrawny dog, just about to pass by the entrance of the alley, jumped three feet high as if it was suddenly pricked by a needle. The messy hair also exploded.
Wimpered and ran away without looking back.
Maria, whose finger was already on the trigger of the musket, stared blankly in a very unprofessional manner, watching the dog under the muzzle of the gun run away.
Because that is a normal dog!
Although a dog is dirty, thin, and looks almost dead, it is indeed a normal creature!
Its ribs are not exposed. Although its belly is deflated, there is still a layer of belly covering the bones and internal organs. Its messy hair also grows from the skin, not from the inside of the body. It grows on bones, internal organs, and marrow!
Seeing a normal creature for the first time, Maria felt as if she had seen sunlight.
In her subjective memory, she should have just seen these things, but her feelings could not match her memory.
Subconsciously, Maria held down her tricorn hat with her gun hand, using this action to stabilize her head from the contradictory confusion.
"Dreams and reality were all too messy in the past."
The huntress whispered in a tangled voice.
In the fight between a group of high-dimensional life forms, everything in Yanan appears to be illogical, absurd and chaotic.
But fortunately, the hunters in Yanan are used to dealing with this kind of situation.
Given that it was already sunrise, and even ordinary creatures had begun to run around in the city, Maria could finally give up her previous plan of finding her own way and asking for help.
She supported Lan En, who was in a semi-conscious state, and walked on his arm.
If it was that dangerous night in Yanan, then Maria felt that it would be better to put some disguise on the unconscious Lan En and then go find someone alone than to carry a heavy burden with her, which would be more harmful to the two of them. Everyone is safer.
Maria walked with Lan En in the city shining with the light of dawn.
Although she already knew that this was the 'future' Yanan, the scene in front of her still surprised Maria.
It is not because of technological advancement and the expansion of city size, but because of dilapidation.
This city, which is several times larger than Old Yharnam, undoubtedly represents the technological progress and scale expansion that have occurred over time.
But at this moment, the cold sunlight of dawn shines on the ground.
On the side of the road, there is a statue of a female angel without a head, but with her hands raised to the sky as if praying for something.
Its body was already entangled with tiny vines, and deep red blood stains that had seeped into the stone could still be vaguely seen.
But it took so long that even with the sensitivity of Yanan Hunter, who could smell the blood in other people's veins from a few meters away, he could hardly tell what kind of blood it was. Several corpses that had weathered to the point where only their skeletons were left were lying beside the pool in the small square.
It stands to reason that the corpse should be reduced to a clean skeleton, and the clothes on the body should be weathered into pieces.
But the clothes of those Yanan civilians were well worn on the skeleton.
Dirty and yellowed white shirt, frayed suspenders, straw hat or old wide-brimmed hat for working.
There are also pitchforks, muskets and torches used by civilians beside them.
These things are still fine.
Maria walked along the road that seemed vaguely familiar. After walking past the pool, she saw a withered skeleton on the ground that should have been dressed as a hunter.
It is still the combination of long-dried bones and unreasonable intact clothes.
It’s just that the hunter in front of me, wearing a suit and woolen coat and a neat top hat, must have been quite fashionable during his lifetime.
Even from Maria's point of view, this outfit is very fashionable in this era, so let's call him a fashionable hunter.
But Maria did not see his musket or weapons on the hunter's body, and she did not know what the circumstances were when he died.
After turning around and seeing a large closed iron door, Maria realized that she must have transferred to Gascoigne's home.
A female hunter was holding a man who was much taller and stronger than her. Even though Maria's physical fitness was not weak, the noise of bumps and bumps was always insignificant.
Lan En’s boots with intertwined dragon scales made a squeaking sound on the stone tile floor.
In the buildings on both sides of the pool park, a house is protected by thick iron railings, and there are several iron chains wrapped around the windows. It seems that it is because it feels the sunlight through the curtains. At this time, it is hesitating and thinking again. Or cautiously open it slightly.
This man seemed not to have seen Maria standing in the small pool park.
In other words, he is so delirious now that he doesn’t even know what he is doing.
After confirming that there was real sunlight outside the curtains, he almost tore off the curtains on the window.
Looking at everything in front of me blankly and at a loss.
There is some lycanthropic black hair under the bandage on his head, but it is very slight, so slight that people think he just has strong eyebrow growth.
Just like Maria who saw the sun and a normal dog before, he covered his head at this sight.
It seems like I have forgotten too many things, and it seems like I can’t handle so much information.
But in the end, he did not have the tenacious nerves of the Yharnam hunters. After turning around and shrinking back into the room, he let out a cry of pain and surprise.
Too many people died.
This hunting night was too long.
Even if it was a lucky one, they did not turn into a lycanthropic patient, nor were they broken into by a crazy lycanthropic patient or a hunter. They could not survive just hunger and thirst.
In Yanan now, if one person can survive among hundreds of people, it is considered an ideal situation.
Involuntarily, she tilted her head and looked at the still dazed Witcher.
Without him, this city would not even have the chance to feel sad.
"Squeak!"
The rusty steel door shaft made a harsh sound as the mechanism rotated.
If it were at night, this noise would undoubtedly be unacceptable and fatal news.
But now, the person who opened the mechanism is standing relaxedly next to the mechanism lever.
Henryk raised his head from his tricorn hat. Although his eyes were stung by a gap between the brim of the hat and the mask, he still looked greedily at the morning light.
After he was stimulated to tears by the light, he sniffed and nodded muffledly to Maria who walked in through the open iron gate.
"I guessed that this is the road you are familiar with."
The old hunter first skillfully lifted Lan En's head, rolled his eyelids, and looked at it mouth.
The final tone was as calm as ever.
"It's nothing serious. It looks like he's suffering from a lack of blood? But I didn't see a big enough wound on him."
"I am not a professional doctor after all. Let's go and take him back to Orton Chapel."
The cold light of dawn gradually became warmer as time went by.
But in Yanan, increasingly noisy voices appeared, expressing collapse and pain.
But Maria, who was holding Lan En, and Henryk, who was walking to the other side and holding up the witcher's other arm, felt the reality of life in these increasingly noisy sounds. .
It is not bloody and absurd like a dream, but a real, human life.
(End of this chapter)