Mysteries: Arcana Wars

The group did not walk long on the bright road before they entered a dark path that was rarely visited. The jagged rocks bit the heads and feet of the group like the teeth of a giant beast. The air was filled with an unpleasant smell, moist and dull. Fors felt like a tiny ant walking in a bloody mouth.

"May I ask how Mr. Evan and Miss Christine came to Evernight Harbor?"

The silent atmosphere made Fors want to talk about something.

Evan was stunned for a moment, and opened his mouth but didn't answer. This was a sensitive topic, especially in the atmosphere of the dungeon, any attempt to find out about the other person's past was somewhat offensive.

Evan understood the curiosity, but he had no intention of telling his story, and just as he was about to refuse, Miss Christine hit him in the face with her tail.

"That's a very rude question in the dungeon, ma'am."

Miss Christine scratched her ear graciously.

"I understand the curiosity of people like you on the ground, but according to the rules of Evernight Harbor and the Earthworm Alley Bar, every piece of information has its value, and listening to stories also requires a fee."

Evan responded, as an agreement with Miss Christine.

"Sorry, I'm just curious."

"It's okay. We are the people on earth. We can understand."

Rejected, Fors returned to the adventurer and the detective, and they continued on their journey in silence until they reached the next rest stop, where they sat down in the ruins of a building.

This looks like a collapsed underground building, and it is possible that it was once used as an underground city for people to live in. But now the entire underground space has collapsed into a mess, with eroded building debris and collapsed soil and rubble filling the former basement, leaving only a few paths for people to walk through.

According to custom, after distributing the supplies, the group tacitly split into two groups and raised two spiritual walls. Although due to the difference in status, the spiritual wall of Evan and Miss Christine was like a virtual thing to Klein and his group.

"Miss Christine is the black cat that Evan picked up before."

The adventurer said this suddenly.

Fors was a little surprised. She knew that this crazy adventurer had the ability to use divination to obtain information, but she didn't expect that a question she asked casually would make the adventurer take it to heart and even use divination.

"Did you just... do some divination?"

"I just did some divination. Knowing the other party's background is beneficial to us."

The adventurer pushed up his gold-rimmed glasses on his nose.

"Evan picked up Miss Christine when she was just an ordinary cat. At that time, Evan was just doing some odd jobs of smuggling, mainly purchasing some materials from the surface and selling them in the underground city. He was a lone wolf, not affiliated with any force, and did not have a strong force, so he could only be a peddler to earn a little hard-earned money. So he picked up Miss Christine during a transaction on the surface and brought her back to the underground city.

"But cats have a short lifespan, and Evan wanted the black cat to stay with him longer, so he found his boss and asked for a deal. Since Evan didn't have anything valuable, the boss asked for ten years of Evan's time. During these ten years, he had to work for Evernight Harbor for free to pay off his debts.

"Evan used his ten years to obtain an 'Assassin' Extraordinary Characteristic. After the ten years, Evan and Miss Christine chose to stay at the Earthworm Island Bar. Now they are still doing the business of the underground city, but they are not limited to the ground. They run back and forth between various underground cities, buying and selling information, and also purchasing supplies for Evernight Harbor."

Fors was so fascinated by what she heard that she couldn't help but look back at the man and the cat who were talking not far away and sighed.

“He is also a miserable person.”

"how about you?"

The adventurer suddenly turned around and stared at Fors and asked.

“Why did you become a poet?”

"I...how can I be called a poet...I am just an ordinary person who makes a living by writing poetry. Just like the engineers in the factory, not everyone is Lord Manstein or Mrs. Manstein. They just use their skills to make money. It's just that they use wrenches and I use keyboards. There is no difference between us."

This question made Fors a little confused.

"Why are you asking this question? I thought you had used divination to know everything that happened in my past and present lives."

"You can't rely on divination for everything. Divination is not omnipotent. Besides, it's better to hear this kind of thing from your own mouth. It's a courtesy."

Fors's eyes were a little dazed. She propped up her head and thought for a while, then said somewhat dejectedly.

"Sorry, I don't know."

For the moment, she had no idea what to do with this question. She lowered her head and pondered for a long time, but could not find a suitable answer. In the end, she could only give some irrelevant answers in a disjointed and chaotic manner.

“I made my first pot of gold by writing poetry.

“I was in primary school at the time and I won first place in a poetry competition at school, so I received a prize, which was a huge sum of money for me as a primary school student.

"I used it to buy a lot of things, including snacks I had always wanted to eat, school bags I had always wanted to buy, and especially a kind of candy that was very expensive but delicious. I still remember its delicious taste.

"The teacher who adopted me was a poet who contributed to many publishing houses. Although he was not famous, at least he had many clients. Many people came to him to write poems and lyrics for songs. In short, his literary career was very stable.

"After I received the award, my teacher framed it and hung it up, saying that I had a talent for poetry and that I should make a living from it. With his encouragement, I really began to study poetry seriously, thinking that I was a natural-born poet.

“I did win many awards in subsequent competitions, and my works were frequently published in various children’s magazines. My teacher encouraged me a lot and taught me how to write poetry very seriously.

“But as I got older, I gradually found that my ranking in the competitions was gradually declining.

“At first I thought I wasn’t doing well enough, I wasn’t working hard enough, I should be more diligent in reciting and practicing poetry. But as I delved deeper into this field, my situation didn’t get better, and my investment didn’t yield the returns I had hoped for.

"I won first place in the elementary school competition, first prize in the junior high school competition, second prize in the Backlund competition, third prize in the Loen Kingdom competition, and didn't even get a commemorative prize in the Loen language poetry competition throughout the entire North and South Continent.

“It was then that I suddenly realized that it wasn’t because I didn’t work hard enough, but that there were so many people who were better than me.

"I am not a natural poet, but similarly, I have never been naturally gifted in any field. The brief talent that I had when I was a child was only because I accidentally got some poetry fragments under the influence of my teacher, and I took a few steps ahead of others.

“But starting early doesn’t mean you can go further. The road under my feet is not longer than others. It’s just that I couldn’t see its end when I started, so I thought I would go further than others.

“When I realized that my upcoming finish line was actually much farther away than others, I started to panic. I felt scared, sad, at a loss, and a feeling of confusion I had never experienced before.

"But I had no one to talk to. I didn't know what to do with my life. When I was seventeen, before I could tell my teacher about my helplessness and fear, he was hospitalized due to overwork."

Fors took a deep breath, and the moist and smelly air rushed into her respiratory tract, just like the pungent smell of disinfectant in the pale corridor back then that stung her nasal cavity.

"He left me before he could answer my confusion and pain."