in the bathroom.
"Are you insulting me?" The dwarf crossbowman and his three brothers sat in the bathtub beside the boy, rubbing the dirt on their hairy legs with their hands, and asked, "Yesterday you clearly won the wine fight, Why return the crossbow? Think I can't afford to lose?"
"Tanshan people are willing to admit defeat!"
"Boss Reagan, since I won the game, the 'Blood Brothers' belongs to me." Roy said with a sullen face and a serious expression, "Then I have the right to give it to someone more worthy of it. ."
"You—give it to me?" The dwarf pointed at him with a finger as thick as a carrot, his mouth seemed to be blocked, and he sighed after a while, "Good boy, it's really not worth it, I drank it. your wine..."
"Just leave it to a friend! Anyway, the first elder gave an order, and you will follow me for the next few days."
"Is there still wine then?" Diff licked his lips.
"There is a chance to let you open your belly again!"
"Roy, from today onwards, we are good brothers!" The dwarf slapped him excitedly, making the corners of his eyes moist and his skin flushed.
"Okay, let's talk about business. The elders sent you to help me to investigate the murder of Tanshan." Roy lowered his voice and formed a circle with a few people. Since he chose to trust them, he didn't have to hide some things. . "I need your help, think about it, have you seen a weird tattoo on someone else recently?"
"What tattoo?"
"Be quiet."
The teenager showed the spider web and antler marks he had drawn in advance to the four dwarves, and his eyes quickly swept across their faces.
He was disappointed to find that several of them looked blank, obviously very unfamiliar with this symbol.
"Roy, what does this pattern represent? Why do you want to find it?" Regan shook his head and said, "The elder thinks that the beard and chest hair are enough to set off the manliness, and it is not necessary to paint these messy tattoos on the body, so Tanshan has never advocated tattoos. . As far as I know, less than one percent have tattoos. But compatriots who have left Carbon Mountain to make a living prefer these colorful designs.”
"I've seen all the men's butts in Basic Carbon Mountain... I haven't seen this tattoo anyway."
Dive, Dulu, and Bernie were equally unimpressed.
"Then help me pay attention, and keep it secret!"
"Don't worry, if I leak it out, I won't be able to drink alcohol in my life!"
"Me too!"
"And I!"
When the four dwarves swear and swear, a dwarf with a gray beard and knotted muscles entered the bathhouse, leaned back on the side of the bathtub at the other end, and wiped his body with a weary face.
"The person on the night shift won't take a bath at this time, who would it be..." Roy's attention was drawn to the past.
The skin of the old man's face is loose, the age spots are obvious, the nasolabial lines on both sides of the bridge of the nose are deep, and the forehead is also covered with ravines, and the age is equivalent to an old man in his 50s or 60s.
The boy's eyes became deep.
Benson Fagner? One hundred and fifty years old, his status, attributes, and skills are all normal.
"Is that old man a worker in the mine?"
The dwarves followed his line of sight, and Diff, Dulu, and Regan looked like they were racking their brains to remember.
And Bernie said slightly proudly, "I stutter, but... I have a good memory. It's me... I recognized you at the first sight in the bathhouse..."
"Dude, keep it short and straight."
"Okay..." Bernie's eyes turned to the man in the bath, showing respect.
"Uncle Benson Fagner, this year... 150 years old, he is a person of the same era as... the Great Elder, but he has a good temper, treats people... kind, and doesn't have the air of... elders, so he is deeply affected by... The workers… love it.”
Although dwarves are born with longevity, in this era of frequent wars, there are still very few dwarves who can survive all kinds of natural and man-made disasters to be over 120 years old.
"Why is he still working in the mine and not enjoying his old age?" Roy asked curiously.
Bernie said proudly, "We dwarves... as long as we can... move, then we must... keep working, if we don't work... how can we eat?"
Roy rolled his eyes and asked again, "What kind of work is he in charge of?"
"The Fifth Mining District... The clerk... arranges the work schedule."
"The fifth mining area is not the mining area in charge of Kelvin." The two asked and answered, but unexpectedly, the man in the bath suddenly made an abnormal movement.
Benson Fagner wrapped his arms around his knees without warning, and burst into tears, which echoed in the empty bathhouse.
Bernie, the most sensitive in his heart, couldn't help his nose sour and choked slightly.
"Why does the old man cry? Could it be that among the four dwarves who died, there were his relatives?"
Regan took over the stuttering words, "Uncle Benson's family is alive and well, he just hugged his grandson not long ago."
The words were full of envy.
"Hey... Little Fagna is even more useless than me, but he was able to find a woman he likes and give birth to two big fat boys. In recognition of their credit, the elders cleaned the bodies of the two little guys with their own hands."
The fertility of the dwarf race is far inferior to that of humans, and being able to give birth to two offspring is undoubtedly a great contribution to the race.
"It's a great honor. It's only been half a year since this happened. I don't understand how Uncle Benson is so sad. Could it be that the child had an accident?"
The dwarf frowned in confusion.
But Roy moved in his heart. After spending a few days in the bathroom, I finally saw a guy who was not so normal.
Most of this race is optimistic by nature, and what makes them cry is not an ordinary thing.
He felt the need to know a thing or two.
"Bernie, seeing an elder so sad, why don't you go and comfort him?"
The dwarf was stunned by what the young man said, and he scratched his head. He seemed to think this was the truth, but he couldn't refute it.
"Remember, be casual."
"Always make me... do this... bizarre thing?" Bernie was reluctant.
"Uncle Benson watched you grow up. As his junior, why not say a few words with the old man?"
"Okay, you're right."
…
Soon after, Roy got a message from Bernie who was accompanying him in the bath.
"When I get older, I like to miss the past and recall the years when I was young. Uncle Benson just remembered the old friends who died on the battlefield, so he couldn't control his emotions for a while."
Thinking of a lost friend, is that really the case
"Several, take me to his house to have a look."
…
The Black Iron Tavern, as the only tavern in Carbon Mountain that has obtained a business license from the Great Elder, is often full of guests on weekdays.
However, due to the recent series of deaths, most of the adult men in Carbon Mountain choose to stay at home at night and take care of their relatives.
The business of the tavern was temporarily sluggish.
At this time and night, under the bright lights of the Black Iron Tavern, there were only four or five figures scattered, among them an elderly dwarf with gray beard and a scruffy yellowed nightgown sitting in the corner drinking and drinking.
Occasionally he would suddenly raise his head, his drunken eyes brightened again, and he looked around warily and slightly nervously. At first glance, he seemed to be worried about something.
On the other side of the pub, the window seat.
"Little devil, call me out at night just for a drink."
"I have something important to tell you." The witcher flexibly manipulated the flying knife with five fingers, shaving the blue-gray stubble on his chin, "According to the information you provided yesterday, I discovered a huge secret from Kelvin."
"Secrets will be discussed later." Roy calmed down and patted the palm of the witcher's Pu Fan version, "Settle things down here first, and pay attention to the dwarf in front."
Roy glanced at the target casually, then leaned into the witcher's ear, "Don't let him catch your sight."
"What's suspicious about him?"
The witcher took a gulp of dwarven liquor, his eyes squinting from the strong drink.
"His name is Benson Fagner, the clerk of the fifth mining area. He is mainly responsible for the working time arrangement of the mining area. During the day, I noticed that his behavior was extremely abnormal in the bathroom, and he burst into tears for no reason."
"This is the only suspicious guy in the past few days," the boy said helplessly, "there may be clues on him."
"It's worth a try." The witcher put down the wine glass, admiring it slightly, "You did a good job, you can't let go of any abnormal marks. Maybe you can catch a big fish."
Roy shrugged, "But his mouth is very strict, and my dwarf friends can't tell the truth, let alone outsiders like us. So you need to use special means... "
"Boom... boom..."
The grandfather clock in the tavern struck midnight.
Benson Fagner suddenly got up from the wine table, wiped the saliva from the corner of his mouth, shook his drowsy head, and walked out of the tavern door.
The temperature of Tanshan was below zero at night, and when the cold wind blew, the wine stuck to the beard was frozen into ice slag, and Benson's nose turned red.
However, he didn't feel anything about it. He dragged his tired body like an empty puppet and walked towards the stairs leading to the cave on the mountain wall.
He walked through the dark and narrow alley behind the tavern, raised his head and looked up at the broken piece of the moon in the sky, the day of the full moon was coming.
Old Benson couldn't help taking a deep breath, his pupils staring at the moonlight shrunk into a dot, and the beard on his lips began to tremble slightly, as if he saw something extremely terrifying, and fell into a daze.
The moon turned blood red, and human screams and terrifying roars lingered.
"Crack..." Benson felt his shoulders sink, and he looked back a little dully, but saw a completely unfamiliar face in front of him.
Unfamiliar man, the smooth top of the head and the lower face are extremely rigid, the corners of the lower jaw are slightly protruding, the eyes are sunken, and the corners of the mouth are tightly pursed with a cold expression.
Behind his majestic and majestic body, a section of the hilt of the sword could be seen.
"Who is your Excellency?" Benson staggered back uncontrollably.
The man didn't answer, his mouth grinned open revealing white teeth.
"Sorry!" The dwarf's ear received this sentence, and he felt that his heart was cold, but his drunken state made him sluggish, and it was too late to make any response.
Immediately afterwards, a hallucination appeared in front of him. The witcher's five fingers were split into a hundred thousand pieces like octopus tentacles, entangling him into a ball with nowhere to hide.
"Many fingers are flying..."
…
In Moonlight Alley, the witcher whispered to a dwarf with blind eyes.
"Benson Fagner, you often cry alone in the bathhouse and go to the pub to get drunk. I know it's because of a secret in your heart."
"You hid it so deeply that you didn't even tell your family. But as time went on, the secret became more and more corrosive to your heart. You were full of guilt, you wanted to die, and you didn't even drink the water. Can't numb the body and forget the pain."
With the erratic words of the witcher, a look of pain appeared on the old dwarf's face.
"Now, you have the best listener in front of you. He's a passer-by who won't stay on Carbon Mountain. He's kept his promise and can share any pain for you without fear of being leaked."
"Tell him the secret of your heart... tell him..."
The voice gradually fell, and Roy, who was standing behind the witcher, held his breath and stared at the old dwarf without blinking.
The old dwarf grinned, his face changed from pain to struggle, and he could see that his heart was extremely contradictory, but he struggled for a while, but still refused with difficulty, "No... can't say..."
Roy looked shocked. He didn't expect that anyone could resist the power of the Seal of Axie, which indirectly confirmed that the old dwarf's sadness and gaffe was definitely not because of missing his lost friends.
"Benson Fagner lived more than 150 years old, and he has a lot of experience, and his willpower attribute exceeds that of ordinary people, reaching 6."
Seeing that he was resisting, the witcher's tone softened, "Is someone threatening your personal safety?"
The old dwarf raised his head grimly, tightly shutting the corners of his mouth as if he was going to bite all his teeth. At this time, Roy stepped forward abruptly,
"Did someone threaten you with the safety of your two grandchildren!"
As soon as these words fell, the old dwarf opened his eyelids and widened his eyes, looking at Roy in horror.
"The person who threatened him should be the traitor."
The two exchanged glances and understood, the old dwarf was extremely reluctant to certain issues, so the effect of the seal of Axi was unsatisfactory.
He wouldn't answer directly, but the two were able to judge the answer from his reaction to the question.
The witcher motioned Roy to continue asking questions,
"You accidentally broke someone's secret in the fifth mining area?"
"That guy used your family to coerce you into serving him?"
"He's serving a murderer?"
"Did the two deceased in the fifth mining area die under his arrangement?"
"A new deceased will appear on the night of the full moon tomorrow night? Outside the fifth mining area?"
…
As the questions went on, their breathing became heavy. After asking the last sentence, the witcher snapped his fingers, dismissed the seal, and left quickly with Roy.
About half a minute later, the old dwarf woke up in a daze, hugged his body and looked around in horror. He seemed to have forgotten something, but he couldn't remember anything
"What a hell..."
"Holy Mount Mahakam, please grant old Benson a touch of kindness to allow me and my family to spend this time safely..."