Chapter 528: In the Sea: Familiar Sanatorium

"Is it... here?"

Dust particles and floating dust captured the lazy sunset, making the light of dusk linger in the entire street. Mikael walked in front, looking at his phone from time to time, and finally stopped at the door of an ordinary cafe.

"Yeah, it's here."

Leaving this sentence, Mikael pushed open the door of the cafe and walked in.

Kevin hugged his body and shivered in the evening wind. He looked down at Bronya who was inexplicably hesitant and patted her shoulder gently.

He was about to say something else, and when he opened his mouth, the wind poured into his mouth with yellow-gray dust. In the blink of an eye, even the whole street was filled with sand. Kevin could only reach out and grope to grab Bronya by feeling, and then slammed the door of the cafe.

"Bang!"

"Woo——"

A layer of sand accumulated at the door in an instant. Kevin pressed the door with his back, jumped twice with his trouser legs lifted, and there was another layer of sand on the ground.

Bronya used both hands to stroke the "drill" beside her ear, but she couldn't clean it up, so she just shook her head twice.

"What are you two doing? Come here quickly."

Mikael stood in the middle of the first floor of the cafe, his dark uniform almost blending into the shadow left by the candlelight. Only when he spoke and moved, the outline of his body would move like a flowing quagmire.

"Don't mind, the Fourth Herrscher affects the global climate, and this influence is amplified by the Fifth Herrscher. Brindi City is not far from North Africa. This sandstorm that came out of nowhere... I can only say that you'll get used to it. Look, they didn't make a fuss."

After listening to Mikael's nonsense, Bronya turned around and looked at the few guests in the cafe.

The sandstorm made the windows of the cafe "bang". The wooden frame house was groaning as if it would fall apart in the next moment. At the joints of the building above, the light sand and dust poured down like a curtain of water, and for a moment it seemed to cover the dim cafe with a layer of light yellow haze.

However, these had nothing to do with the few guests in the cafe.

They just leaned on the tables and chairs in their own comfortable ways, without moving the coffee at hand, just silently opening and closing their lips, or writing something on the paper with a pen, and then pushing the note back and forth between the two of them.

Bronya realized what was happening here almost instantly, and didn't care much about the seemingly vague peeping that focused on her.

Yes, in such a poor and chaotic place, the existence of a cafe is a bit redundant.

Even if people want to get promoted at work, they prefer to wash their faces with cold water, and they won't get infected with some strange disease that they can't get up without drinking a cup of coffee.

However, every occasion has its necessity. A cafe can be a place to drink coffee, a place to read, or a place to conduct some kind of transaction.

They exchanged their information with lip language or text without making any sound. In the final analysis, buying and selling information is a job that is very easy to accumulate popularity and very easy to destroy others' trust. It is better to keep it as confidential as possible.

"This way, second floor, second floor."

Mikael stood on the first step of the stairs, rubbing the shiny escalator with his hands repeatedly, and kept urging with a very small voice.

The sound of Bronya and Kevin's leather boots stepping on the wooden floor was a little loud, but even so, it failed to attract the attention of the man behind the bar, as if where they were going and whether they wanted a cup of coffee were not a big deal to him.

This indifferent attitude only lasted until the moment Kevin placed two gold coins on the bar.

The man's response to this was to make the two gold coins disappear from Bronya's sight in the blink of an eye, and then continue to ignore everything that happened in the cafe.

After turning 540 degrees on the stairs, the three of them walked up to the second floor in this slightly dull atmosphere.

At first glance, it seemed no different from the lobby on the first floor, except that the air on the second floor was more turbid and the candlelight was dimmer. Although dust always went down, even one-tenth of the seats on the first floor were not full. Normally, no one would come to the second floor unless there was a special request, right?

The air was filled with the smell of decayed wood and leather, and the few candles could not dispel the darkness without windows. Both vision and hearing were in trouble, but fortunately the "target" was not difficult to find. At a glance, there was only one black hooded man with his back to them on the entire floor, which was particularly conspicuous.

Mikael tilted his head, walked over first, walked around the round table for half a circle, and finally sat opposite the man without hesitation.

Kevin consciously guarded the stairs.

[Of course, this kind of place has its own rules. Besides, this trip is just a C-level mission, so maybe there is no need to worry too much. 】

This is what many Fire Moth warriors think when they are performing missions below B-rank, so at least half of these people will die, and unfortunately, most of the time, it is not the collapse that kills them - on the way here, Mikael once said this to Bronya.

Kevin has performed many missions, and he knows this very well. When he needs to be reliable, he will never fail.

Bronya looked at Kevin, and then looked at Mikael who was waving at her. It was another multiple-choice question with no choice.

She shook her head and walked to Mikael in three or two steps and sat down.

"Crack..."

The low-quality artificial leather sofa made a heart-breaking sound during the friction. When she heard the sound, Bronya moved her butt instinctively, which actually made the sound more rampant. When the sound was not so sharp, it sounded like farts. .

She could only place her hands on the table full of original wood with a hint of embarrassment.

"Have you collected everything?"

Facing Mikael's question, the person opposite buried her head deeper. The huge hood had completely covered her face, and now even the only exposed white neck was covered in shadow.

"Hey boss, don't break the rules!"

The voice sounded a little naive and childish. According to Bronya's experience, it should be a girl not much different from her in age, but she would not be surprised if what Mikael wanted to show her was this kind of thing. If so, then he may have miscalculated. Bronya learned to shoot and kill at the age of three. Twilight Street... No matter how dilapidated and decayed this place is, no matter how chaotic and disorderly it is, it is still pale and powerless in front of the real experience of the past. of.

"I understand."

Mikael spread out the nine gold coins in a row and slowly pushed them in front of the black robe.

"Huh? This...um..."

Seemingly seeing the difficulty in the black robe, Mikael spread his hands and said:

"Don't get me wrong, I know that this kind of thing is not useful in Twilight Street, but I can only ask for this kind of thing when I apply for funds. In addition, do you remember the old warehouse under the Good Luck Bridge? I put it there If you get something, consider it as my personal compensation for you. You should also keep these currencies. The outside world is different from Twilight Street after all, whether it is active or passive, if you leave here one day, Canned goods and compressed biscuits can no longer be used as hard currency."

"I understand, I understand! Now, the information I collected is all summarized here. If there's nothing else, I'll leave first. I have to do something big tonight."

Mikael did not stop him, and the man in black robe stood up and left, leaving only an information bag.

Mikael took out the information and flipped through it casually twice. His eyes stayed on each piece of paper for less than two seconds, and then he handed the information to Bronya.

"Let's take a look."

"Um?"

The yellowed and wrinkled paper was filled with crooked words, which looked very uncomfortable, not to mention the messy grammar, which caused serious obstacles to reading... Bronya suspected that Mikael just didn't have any words at all. Look carefully at what's on it. Of course, if she didn't have to complete his test, Bronya wouldn't have the patience to read it.

Fortunately, perhaps the writer himself is also aware of this. All the words are just the simplest written instructions, and the most important information is placed in the photos.

"This is……"

"When the reaction is strong enough to be detected by the Honkai energy detector, it will inevitably be accompanied by the emergence of Honkai disease and Honkaimon. What I asked her to collect is nothing more than evidence in this regard."

"..."

"Have you finished reading it all?"

Bronya laid the information flat on the table and tapped her fingers on the table subconsciously.

She did not give an answer immediately, but her eyes wandered, she swallowed, and then glanced at Kevin, who was still standing unmoved at the stairs in the distance even after the black robe left. She deeply felt that Taking a breath, finally... finally...

She picked up a photo and pushed it in front of Mikael.

"Mikael, can you explain to Bronya what the Cocolia Orphanage means?"

"Hmm... I don't know either. I heard it was a famous orphanage on Twilight Street. Before Cocolia came, it was a church with nuns and priests. Later it was transformed into a nursing home, and then it was called Coco Leah's woman bought it and converted it into an orphanage. Ah...how can I put it, you have really keen observation skills. In my eyes, this is the number one suspect.

"According to the information provided by the informant, the children in the orphanage are a bit weird. They all appear to have sound limbs. There are also many boys over twelve years old who can do manual labor. However, a large number of people are still hired to do daily work, such as these The child seemed unable to even carry a bucket of water. The informant sneaked in as a hired worker and took a look. The amount of food they consumed every day was also wrong, almost only one-third of what they should consume. In short, it was extremely weird.

"If the above evidence is just weird, then the following point - those children, even in the previous days when the weather was unusually warm, wrapped themselves tightly, not even showing their hands, and some children kept wearing Wearing a mask. Needless to say, you should know that this is most likely to cover up the lines of Honkai disease. In other words, this woman named Cocolia most likely understands what Honkai disease is, and it has some properties. That’s bad.”

After patiently listening to Mikael's long list of supplementary explanations, Bronya just moved the photo back and merged it with the original information.

"Bronya is not asking you this."

Two pairs of gray eyes met, but neither one spoke first.

Bronya's fingers were still subconsciously touching the table.

The thoughts that had been turned over and over in my mind in the past ten seconds were still spinning around all the time.

She knew that there seemed to be a big secret hidden in Mikael. Kevin in the previous world bubble did not know such a person, and in the world bubble that Bronya went to during the fourth collapse, although it was a brief contact, that Mikael No. 2 seemed It also revealed a certain understanding of them.

Bronya felt that from this perspective, it was still impossible to tell whether Mikael, who had previously said that he would give Bronya a test, was Mikael No. 1 or Mikael No. 2. Because Mikael 2 is also likely to know that there is a "Cokolia" in the future.

This was different from what she had just thought. When her thoughts were scanning just now, she clearly felt as if she had some extremely favorable evidence to tell which Michael was in front of her...

It's like what I sometimes encountered during exams at St. Freya Academy. A tricky math question that I couldn't figure out after thinking about it for half an hour. Suddenly my thoughts became clear and I constructed a complete derivation in my mind in one breath. In the process, when I was about to write down the calculations on the draft paper, I found that everything was just due to my misunderstanding of the conditions.

no good.

But something’s not right…still something’s not right…

Bronya looked at herself reflected in Mikael's pupils. She always felt that she had not misunderstood the conditions, but that she had forgotten a very crucial step used in the previous derivation when she started writing...

But now I really can’t remember it.

After all, the light flashed by, leaving all the light in the moment when it shone through all the darkness, but... after that, if you still want to recreate that touch of color in your mind, you can only stare at the dim night sky, Trying to piece together traces that are impossible to patch up.

"Um!"

Bronya's nose shrugged, but she was distracted for just a moment, and she was caught off guard and had her head rubbed again.

"You should ask."

Mikael supported his forehead with his hands and looked at Bronya with a lazy smile.

Closing her eyes and taking a long breath, Bronya said with a hint of anger:

"Forgot what to ask."

"Then let's set off. Time is tight, be careful not to get everything done."

Mikael stood up directly. Just as he was about to stretch, he stopped abruptly. Instead, he gathered up some scattered documents and put them back together, crumpled them into a ball, and with a snap of his fingers, all the information was reduced to ashes.

Bronya jumped down from the chair, glanced down, and patted the artificial leather scraps on her pants without leaving a trace.

The sandstorm outside the house had subsided, and the three of them walked out of the coffee shop in silence, chasing the sunset along the street signs of the Good Luck Bridge.

"Where are we going? Before processing the data next time, can you give me a look...ah bah bah bah!"

Kevin covered his mouth and complained. Even so, a lot of sand was still poured into his mouth by the wind.

"etc!"

Mikael suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?"

"Um?"

Kevin and Bronya followed the inertia and took two steps forward, then turned to look at Mikael in unison.

"Bronya, if you go to see the children in the orphanage, shouldn't you bring something delicious?"

"You..."

Forcibly swallowing the word "idiot" that was about to come out of her mouth was even more uncomfortable for Bronya, who was so smooth with her words, than swallowing a slug alive.

"But Bronya remembers, didn't you just tell the informant that you had prepared some supplies for her in the warehouse under the Good Luck Bridge? Why didn't you buy them together?"

"Wait? What supplies? Didn't you come here with us, Mikael?"

"Um--"

Mikael pinched his chin and nodded.

"My memory may have been a little messed up. Isn't it too late to make up for it now?"

Seeing Mikael admitting his mistake without changing his expression and solemnly, Bronya's brain was running at high speed, and finally left a lot of red confusion warnings.

This slightly unreliable way of doing things was, in a sense, too familiar to her. If he were Mikael No. 1, there was nothing in the Mikael in front of her that Bronya was familiar with. That kind of absurd and ridiculous performance after using too much force...

But to say that he is Mikael No. 2, he lacks too much of a suffocating low.

In the thin light of dusk, Mikael seemed to have a double image in front of him.

One divides into two, two gives birth to four, and those who watch it are dizzy.

Bronya held her head gently. She felt that she must have lost her mind to keep worrying about this issue.

By the way, now that Cocolia has opened an orphanage here, what Michael No. 3 promised before is that he will see Seele in this world...

"Huh...ha...huh...ha..."

Bronya turned her back to the wind and took two deep breaths.

Only in this way can the uncontrollable restlessness in my heart be calmed down.

Calm down...calm down...

Tell yourself this repeatedly.

It's unclear exactly what Mikael's alleged test is, but there's no chance she'll fail.

"Xie'er... Bronya will definitely take you out."

Having made the promise again in her heart, Bronya expressionlessly swatted away the two hands that wanted to rub her head.