2. Conflict

conflict

The ship has three floors.

One, the deck.

Second, the middle cabin.

The third is where Ron stayed not long ago. As a prison for prisoners, there is no better place than the bottom of the damp ship hold.

Use the key you got to open the door, and you will see a long wooden staircase with water flowing. At the end of this ladder, the door should be the luxurious middle-level cabin, where some sailors and wealthy businessmen would stay. As for the nobles, they are in the advanced cabin further ahead.

No, in this situation, those so-called nobles probably fled in spare boats long ago, right?

The problem of flooding in the cabin became more and more serious. The sound of rushing water below and the wailing of people reminded Ron all the time that there was not much free time, and he had to race against time to get out of here.

Speed ​​up and push open the hatch. In the field of vision, the middle cabin was in a mess, the tables and chairs were tilted, all kinds of items fell to the ground, and the uneaten dinner, of course, had slipped and fell to the floor, floating with the slowly rising water level.

"It's really quick to withdraw."

Ron scratched his head and stepped out, avoiding the obstacles.

The structure of the middle cabin is much more complicated than that of the bilge. Not only that, but Ron encountered many temptations along the way. The personal belongings of those merchant nobles did not seem to be completely taken away.

Looking at the few gold bars at the bottom of the water, Ron gritted his teeth, pretended not to see them, and continued walking.

But not long after, this Mr. Ron walked back backwards, shouting "Zhenxiang". He picked up a few gold bars and put them in the package behind him.

After all, Ron is a thief, a thief who regards money as his life. There is no reason for thieves not to take gold bars when they encounter gold bars, especially in this chaotic situation where there is no order.

As for why the gold bars landed here, this kind of thing that needs to be thought about, let it go to hell!

After a while, Ron came to a dark room. Here the coal lamps fell into the water and could no longer shine. In the middle of the night, the entire room was plunged into darkness, and it could be said that you couldn't see your fingers.

Just when Ron was hesitating whether to turn around. In the darkness, a door quietly opened. From the gap in the door, there was a faint light, which must have been a dying coal lamp.

Ron, who had been hiding in the corner for the first time, also poked his head out quietly to observe the actions of the people coming.

'However, in this period of time, dare to come back here, should I say it is stupid or brave? '

Ron thought so in his heart, quietly observing his surroundings and the uninvited guest. The visitor placed the coal lamp on a slightly tilted wooden table that was not soaked, and looked at his feet.

Even though she was in the middle layer of the cabin, the water level had already overflowed to her ankles. She bent slightly and fished for something in the cold stagnant water.

By the faint light of the coal lamp, he caught a glimpse of the man's features.

It was a girl, about sixteen or seventeen years old, her eyes were blue and clear, like water waves, her skin was fair and smooth, her waist-length flaxen hair was carefully groomed and tied up, and her slightly ruddy face was also very cute. The whole body exudes a sweet and childish breath.

She was wearing a gorgeous off-white maid dress and a lovely Katyusha headdress, and she was looking for something in a panic.

'Hey, what a sweet and charming girl, much prettier than the old ladies in that street. '

A gleam of desire flashed in Ron's eyes, but he quickly hid this thought in the deepest part of his heart. Now is an extraordinary period, there is no time to shoot.

"Woo... I remember that Master Leon's gold bar was left here, why can't I find it?"

'Uh, gold bars? '

Ron suddenly felt that the package on his back was a little heavier. There is no free lunch in the world. I thought that these gold bars belonged to me, but I didn't expect to meet the original owner here.

'Repay, or not? '

Ron silently weighed the benefits of the two in his heart.

It doesn't seem wise to keep these bars for yourself. Right now, being alive is the most important thing.

The answer seems obvious.

'In this case, I seem to have a reason to board the boat. After all, returning the gold bars is a great achievement. '

Moreover, it would be too passive to wait quietly here for the maid to leave. We must leave this area as soon as possible.

Thinking of this, Ron stood up from the corner, squeezed out a smile, and greeted the cute little maid, "Ah, hello, miss."

"Ah!" The girl realized Ron's existence at this moment, her face panicked, and she quickly stepped back, "You...you are!?"

"You don't have to worry about it, this is what you're looking for, right?" Ron walked to the slightly tilted table with a coal lamp, opened the package, and took out the few gold bars from it. Playing with hands.

"Woo..." The maid whimpered, then slowly stretched out her hands, and held out her hands to him tentatively, and said timidly, "Sir, please give me these gold bars."

Passing the gold bar to the girl, looking at the girl who was looking at the gold bar carefully, Ron shook his legs boredly.

After a while, the girl raised her head, with a sweet smile of joy on her face, "Sir, thank you, there is a seal with wings on these gold bars. These are indeed the gold bars of our Chloe family."

"Huh, that would be great." Ron breathed a sigh of relief.

It's finally over. In this way, as the benefactor of that family, he must have the opportunity to board the boat, right?

"Please allow this subordinate to presume. What is your name, sir, and which family do you come from? Why don't you stay in the middle cabin?" The little maid tilted her head curiously, and asked, "This subordinate's name is Louise. , came here under the order of Lord Leon."

(Do you think I don't want to go! I want to go too!)

Suppressing the thoughts in his heart, Ron replied flatly, "Oh, my name is Ron, and I've been staying here because I have no way out. In other words, um, it's... I got lost, yes , get lost and get lost."

"Mr. Ron?" Louise shook her head suspiciously, "I haven't heard of it. But it doesn't matter, Mr. Ron is lost, please follow me... eh?"

Louise's voice stopped abruptly.

"Ah? What's the matter?"

Only then did Ron notice the panic on the little maid's face.

Looking along her line of sight, on his chest, um...there seems to be a badge engraved with crimes and symbolizing his prisoner status.

Louise in front of her took two steps back, covering her chest with her right hand, and the sweet smell on her face was long gone, replaced by a feeling of fear, as if she was ready to run away at any time.

The original expression appeared on Ron's face.

His eyes swept over the table with the coal lamp. In the opened package, the sharp weapon was shining with a strange light.

A terrible idea has taken shape in my mind.

'This woman cannot be allowed to escape. '

Thinking of this, Ron quickly grabbed the most lethal looking dagger in the package, which was glowing with ghostly light, and at the same time stepped forward, chasing after Louise who was running away.

Louise's clothes were standard white stockings and a maid's long skirt. In this narrow space where the water level was constantly rising, her speed was naturally slower than Ron's. Before she could open the door that came, her smooth and beautiful long flaxen hair had been roughly grabbed by Ron.

Roughly dragged back by Ron, Louise still wanted to struggle, her slender arms kept hitting Ron, but to Ron who grew up in the slums, it was just a tickle. And also soft.

"You, just wanted to tip off the news, right?" The corner of Ron's mouth rose, showing a smile.

There is nothing more refreshing than killing a traitor.

"So what? You dirty thief!" Louise countered with words, her pretty face flushed, "I should have thought about it earlier, why Lord Leon's gold bars are in your package!"

Ron grabbed the girl's slender arms, sighed, and shook his head helplessly, "Oh, what a pity for such a beautiful face."

Although Louise's appearance moved Ron, but as a thief, he knew that he must not be soft at critical moments.

"You... what are you doing! Pervert!"

"Do you still need to ask?" Ron smiled contemptuously, "Kill you."

After finishing speaking, in Louise's dilated pupils, the dagger was raised and stabbed down.

In the darkness, Ron could clearly feel that the girl's life **** was constantly draining from the wound, and the speed was so fast that people couldn't react at all.

With a painful murmur, the girl in his arms gradually stopped struggling. Those slender arms hung down feebly, like withered flowers.

Feeling the temperature in his arms gradually disappearing, Ron snorted coldly, "If you hadn't discovered my identity, we should get along very well now. It's a pity that you can't sleep with me anymore, hehe."

Putting the dagger back into the package, Ron was about to throw the girl's body aside.

However, something weird happened. Louise in her arms was shriveling little by little, and finally there was only a flesh-colored leather object with a maid's attire left.

All this made Ron's eyes widen. He had seen monsters before, but such a bizarre phenomenon appeared in front of him, which was unavoidably frightening.

"What is this...? It's strange from the very beginning. I stabbed her with a dagger, but it felt like I stabbed her on soft cheese, and there was no blood splashed."

With the faint light from the kerosene lamp when Louise came, Ron carefully observed this wonderful flesh-colored leather thing.

To be precise, this is not leather, but something similar to human skin. That empty vision, delicate texture, and that soft and smooth girlish skin. There is no doubt that these are Louise's belongings, but now they are hollow things that have collapsed.

"Selling to witches known for their black magic seems to be a good choice." Ron rubbed his chin and thought.

In Ron's impression, the black witches in the misty forest like these weird things the most. The teeth of Polokrin, the claws of griffins, the skin of corona snakes, the body fluids of petrified lizards, the liver of cave trolls, plus the yarrow and oregano collected by the roadside, as long as you can imagine Strange things that witches can put together and cook a big pot of stew with magical effects.

"Yes, your purpose seems to be the same as mine."

A hoarse and strange voice sounded. Ron got up subconsciously and looked around.

The coal lamp in the man's hand gave off a faint afterglow, but the light did not catch any shadows of creatures.

The swaying coal light swayed, and under the shadows, it seemed to turn into a dancing black mist.

Under such a weird atmosphere, Ron swallowed his saliva, and then asked, "Although I don't know who you are, at least we should meet before talking, right? Mr. Unknown."

See the main body first, and then consider how to do it, Ron thought so. Now the owner of the voice is hiding in the dark, and acting rashly will only be detrimental to him.

"Hehe, haven't you noticed yet, we have been with you since the very beginning."

The package on the table and stool soaked in water trembled for a while, and black light came out in an instant. Flying out of the opening was a familiar, crumpled human skin magic book. The weirdest thing was that Ron could even see someone's face on the crumpled human skin cover.

That was the appearance of a beauty, whose beauty far exceeded Ron's imagination. Even if such a beautiful face appeared on the cover of a book, he didn't feel the slightest weirdness. For a while, Ron even felt that it was extremely difficult to breathe out his body.

But that beautiful and suffocating face smiled hoarsely, and there was a sound like the rattle of sawing wood, "As you can see, we are a book, a book that records taboo black magic. A book made of the skin of a saint."

"Male...a man's voice?"

Such a weird phenomenon made Ron in front of him a little confused.

Ron's original plan was to wait for this unknown gentleman to show up before doing anything. But what to do now, use a dagger on this book, and cut the cover with the human face into confetti... Ugh, dander?

"You seem to be a little confused?" On the human skin book, the beautiful face moved her thin lips, "If you have any questions, just ask, and we will answer them one by one."

"Well, tell me first what you are." Ron asked.

"Our generation is the obsession left by a grieving spirit. Hundreds of years ago, in order to end a certain cause and effect, our generation cooperated with the witch, grabbed the body of a certain famous saint, and manipulated it in order to disintegrate from the inside The belief in the Trinity Church was never expected, and the deeds were revealed, and our generation and the saint's body we possessed were reduced to ashes in the witch hunt a hundred years ago."

"A hundred years ago... Could it be that you were the victim of the first witch hunt?" Ron recalled something.

"Hey, witch hunting was born because of me. In such an overwhelming search scale, **** is not a rare thing." The human skin book smiled fiercely, "The saint's body that we have He was put on the rack and finally reduced to ashes in the fire."

"Then, how did you become like this?" Ron asked again.

"One month after the burning, a certain young witch found our unrecognizable body in the tomb of the hill. Her power was so powerful that she actually repaired my body. She peeled off the human skin of the saint's body, Then transform me into a host soul body, and attach it to the book she wrote herself." Speaking of this, Human Skin Book sighed, "It didn't take long for that witch lady to be targeted by the witch hunting organization. In order to prevent being traced by the magic power, she had to leave her belongings in the tomb, and then leave the face of the saint, and use it as the carrier of our soul, store it here, and wait for one day to wake us up."

"Hey, it turned out that you didn't wait for your beloved Miss Witch, but I, the grave robber, got there first." Ron sneered.

"It doesn't matter, I only have two requests. One, go to the misty forest and look for Miss Witch. Bring me to her, and she will give you a lot of rewards." At this point, the Human Skin Book changed its tone again, " And the second point, we need more nourishment."

"Nourishment, are you a plant?" Ron folded his arms and joked, "Do you need me to water you?"

"Of course." The human skin book grinned strangely, "It's just that we need blood to infuse it more than water."

At this point, Human Skin Book glanced at Louise, who was half-slumped on the table and chair, who had already turned into a leather coat, and said, "You just need to use that dagger to find a young woman as a target and stab it."

"Huh? What's the purpose of doing this?" Ron frowned and said, "By the way, what is this dagger? Such a dangerous prop, if I don't use it properly, will I become what this woman is now?"

Speaking of this, Ron also glanced at Louise who was half paralyzed on the table and chair. Louise was already so empty that she was inhuman, and Ron would bet that all the flesh and blood in this girl's body had been sucked by some unknown person.

His gaze moved up and met those sunken eye sockets. In that empty vision, he even felt a tingling dizziness.

"A hundred years ago, we refined this dagger together with the witch to replace the most prestigious saint of the year. Therefore, the dagger is one with us, it is our mouth, and we will use the dagger to eat. "The human skin book said as if seeing what Ron was thinking, "As for the accident, it is purely your worry. We don't have the strange habit of sucking the flesh and blood of men."

"Although I grew up in a slum, a thief with no conscience is not qualified to say anything, but you and your hobbies are obviously much weirder than normal people." Ron complained coldly.

"Hey, thank you for the compliment." Human Skin Book responded, "We two seem to share the same taste."

"Forget it, old friend. Let's not talk about your story." Ron waved his hand, "I think there are more important things to come."

"Oh, of course, we can clearly feel that the ship is tilting."

Feeling the vibration under his feet, Ron nodded silently. He understood the meaning of the human skin book.

Silently, he stuffed the human skin and clothes that Louise had turned into, including the evil human skin book, into the package behind him, raised the extinguished coal lamp, and Ron walked along the way Louise came. Walking slowly.

……