Greenwood City is a large city in the southwest of the kingdom.
Although the Chinese controlled Arano and Alvita, for Greenwood City, it was not yet at the gates of the city. Even the Duke's Palace had not come to a conclusion whether the Chinese wanted to occupy some place or attack Greenwood City.
However, no matter what the Chinese do, Greenwood City will not take the initiative to attack. Due to a series of failures in Arano Town before, none of the vassals under the Duke of Greenwood City are willing to fight the Chinese.
It usually takes at least four days for an army to march from Alvita, so many people felt that there was still time. Except for a few who chose to seek refuge, most people chose to stay and wait and see.
Greenwood City is close to the Elf Kingdom and is the most important trading city between the Iberian Kingdom and the Elf Kingdom. A large amount of goods from the Elf Kingdom pass through here and spread to various regions of the kingdom. Therefore, there are a small number of elves and more half-elves living in this city. They mostly gather in the west of the city, forming a community of elves and half-elves. The architectural style here is simple and quaint with a lot of elven atmosphere, which is very different from the house style in other areas of Greenwood City.
Although the Duke of Greenwood City, Parsa, was a greedy, rude, and simple man, he had a very good attitude towards the elves. He knew that if he offended the elves, he would lose the source of wealth for the entire Greenwood City, which would put his city in trouble. Therefore, the elf community was mostly autonomous and quite isolated from the rest of the city.
However, the elves are not too opposed to humans moving into this community. In most cases, they can live in peace with the human residents here. Therefore, this state is valued by some humans. They choose to live in this area to avoid a lot of inquiries and troubles.
Due to the recent tense situation, many elf warriors and wizards have appeared in the elf community. Most of them are inspectors. They come to protect the elf residents in the community and lead them to evacuate when necessary.
According to the intelligence, Julio is currently living in this elf community.
Two days after the conversation with Luo Ling, Ackley, Anar and Glade dressed as merchants sneaked into Greenwood City. It was not difficult to enter the city. Ackley and the other two wore local merchants' clothes and were not conspicuous walking in the streets of Greenwood City. According to the intelligence, they found a house with a separate entrance and courtyard. This two-story house should be where Julio lived.
"Julio was originally the knight squire of Julieta, the son of the Duke of Greenwood City, and should have lived in the Duke's Mansion. The Duke of Greenwood City probably moved him here to protect him." Glade said as he looked at the house from across the street.
"Parsa Solanas, the Duke of Greenwood City, has always been an ambitious man. As long as it is possible, he will not give up the opportunity to take back the town of Alano. Naturally, he has to hide Julio." Ackley said.
"Let's go. There's not much to see here," Anar said.
The three of them crossed the street and came to the gate of the house, only to find that it was not locked.
Ackley walked in first, but after entering the door, he found the yard empty. He listened carefully but did not hear any movement in the yard.
"No one?" Ackley asked doubtfully.
Not only was there no one in the yard, there was not even a horse. The stable on one side of the yard was empty, with horse manure still on the ground that had not been cleaned up.
Anar's eyes swept across the windowsills. The room seemed to be silent. She said, "Open the door. If I'm right, there's probably no one inside."
Glade walked to the door and climbed the stairs. The main door of the house was a wooden door with iron edges. He focused his attention on the door lock, and his mental power penetrated the door lock like mercury.
After more than a year of training and experience, he has already stepped onto the stage of a high-level mage. The structure of the door lock seems extremely simple in front of his mental power. After a few seconds, with a click, the lock was cracked.
The three of them walked into the house, and Glade turned around and closed the door. The room was indeed empty.
There were many footprints going back and forth at the entrance, as if many people had gone back and forth between the room and the yard before.
Ackley followed the footprints into the restaurant and saw a lot of leftover food on the table: unfinished bread, soup and bacon, as well as an overturned wine glass. The wine in it dripped from the table to the ground and was trampled everywhere along with the footprints.
Judging from the position where the food was placed, these people were interrupted in the middle of eating and left the table.
Based on the drying degree of the remaining wine in the cup and the degree of spoilage of the food, Ackley judged: "These foods should be left over from last night. Did the Shadow Group come here? And took them all away?"
"Impossible. You are overly worried. There are no signs of fighting here. There are eight plates on the table, which means eight people were eating here at the same time. Even if there were no particularly powerful masters among them, it is impossible that no one would resist after being attacked." Anar looked around and said, "I guess the people here received the evacuation order in a hurry and left the house without time to pack up."
"Yes. I didn't think it through." Ackley said with a sigh of relief.
"You're just a little too worried about your brother," Anar comforted.
"So the person who came to inform them must be of a high status? Otherwise, they wouldn't be so busy." Glade analyzed, "If they left here at dinner time yesterday, it has been more than ten hours now. We have to hurry to catch up with them."
Ackley thought for a moment and said, "Then let's go see if there's anything valuable left in the room. Then ask people nearby if they've seen where these people went."
Several people walked around the room separately, but didn't find anything new, so they prepared to look around for clues.
But just as they were about to leave the house, the door lock turned by itself.
Ackley glanced at the other two. The three of them retreated quietly, each of them taking out their weapons and hiding behind cover.
As the door opened, ten people walked in from outside. They were all wearing ordinary local clothes. But they held various weapons in their hands, forming a tight and complete formation. The first person held a long knife, although he was not wearing black this time. But Barclay recognized his identity from his figure at a glance: a black-clad archer.