I'm Not Shouldering This Blame

On the other side of the earth on the other side of the ocean, Bangolo City in the state of Marseille.

Knee-deep snow covered the lawn, and the snowflakes froze in mid-air, presenting an eerie scene.

This is an abandoned world, an afterimage of reality, and a hell of despair.

The air was filled with the smell of blood. The man wearing goggles cut two pieces of meat on the monster's leg with a knife. Just after wrapping it in kraft paper, a blurry black figure bumped into the wind and snow.

The man quickly jumped away.

Snowflakes in mid-air clung to his overcoat—a derelict world sustained by such inclement weather that it was difficult for people to hide their tracks.The footprints left by the snow that I walked through can be covered up, but the solidified snowflakes in the mid-air crashed and disappeared.

The shadow that attacked just now was no exception.

A trail rushing down from high altitude, like someone using an eraser to wipe out a blank on the graffiti covered with snowflakes, following this track to the end, a black sharp-toothed bird stopped on the corpse.

It lowered its head to the dead monster's wound, followed by spreading its wings, and let out a shrill and excited howl.

"Corpse crow?!"

The man took two steps back in horror, stretched out his hand, and disappeared without a trace.

The sharp-toothed bird's eyes were narrowed, and it lost another source of bloody smell, but such a large amount of food was enough for it to have a full meal, and the corpse crow buried its head in contented bites of the fresh meat.

Black sharp-toothed birds flew in one after another, and soon seven or eight of them stopped on the corpses, scrambling after eating.They showed their sharp claws on their wings, bared their blood-stained teeth, and uttered a threatening cry.

Small corpse crows will consciously lower their wings, give up fighting, and instead bite the parts with poor quality meat.

If they were evenly matched, the two sharp-toothed birds would have fought directly on the corpse, their feathers flying around, and their sharp cries could be heard endlessly.Corpse crows are a group of creatures that gather together as a family. When looking for food, they often encounter similar groups of different groups, and conflicts often break out.

When they are fierce, they will fight to the death until one of them breaks its wings or is unable to stand up.

At this time, the Corpse Crow, who has been "dinner and onlookers" by the side all the time, will stop eating, flap its wings and fly to the side with the same group as the loser, giving up the right to eat.

The victor let out a high-spirited howl twice, followed by its claws with sharp hooks, pierced the loser's neck directly, tearing off the feathers with the dark red blood bubbling out, and divided the loser into pieces. Food.

There are many types of monsters in the abandoned world, but there are only a handful of species that can eat the same kind.

A few corpse crows left contentedly, and the loser's companions continued to fly down to eat, without even looking at the wreckage of their relatives who died tragically.

When the surrounding calmed down again, the "snow scene in the sky" in front of him had been completely smeared by corpse crows.

A colony of gophers emerged from the snow and pounced on the remains of food.

One of them hit an invisible obstacle, fell into the snowdrift, and made a deep hole. It climbed out and took two steps towards it tentatively, its beard flicked, and it desperately sniffed the air.

The cold of Bangolo City made the gopher's movements clumsy and slow.

The nostrils were so frozen that only a feeling of icy cold remained, and the gopher turned its head and crawled towards the place where its fellows had dinner. At this moment, a strong force came from behind it, hitting the mouse's spine accurately and ruthlessly.

When it was about to scream, its body sank into the snow with this force, and when it opened its mouth, another cloud of snow poured in, and its squeaky cry turned into a dull sound.

Gophers have keen hearing, they turned their heads, only to see one of their kind flopping in the snow, as if it was the same as before, they turned their heads boredly, and continued to tear and eat food.

Each gopher was the size of a house cat, and they quickly scoured the wreckage and leftover monster corpses.When preparing to evacuate, only the mouse discovered that the stupid mouse "playing with the snow" had disappeared, and there was only a deep pit left in place, and a few drops of solidified dark red blood.

——There are enemies lurking nearby!

The gopher squeaked, looked around vigilantly, and searched around.

But the murderer they were looking for had already run away with the "trophy".

Federico Morenza walked all the way to his door, looked around and found no danger, then walked to the small door next to the garage, and knocked rhythmically a few times as agreed.

He lowered his head, took out the key, and opened the door.

He didn't remove the space ability during the whole process, so in the eyes of others, it was a row of shoe prints printed on the thin snow extending to the door, smashing the snowflakes in the air, and finally the "invisible man" entered the door.

——Bad weather is really the biggest disturbance when space power users want to hide.

However, Federico is not worried that these traces will attract the attention of other supernatural beings, because in his garage, there is a 14-year-old boy waiting for him to come back.

This is the future American hero, the savior... Remove those titles, Johnson Brown is now the snowblower in the home of the superstar Morenza.

When the wicket was knocked, Johnson shrank behind the box.

He remained motionless until the "invisible man" walked in, removed the space ability covering his body, and took off the goggles and hat, revealing the blond hair, blue eyes, rough wild charm face, and Johnson came out from the shadows.

"Good evening, Little John."

Federico dropped the gopher he was carrying to the ground.

The boy stretched out his head for a look in fear, then stepped on sheepskin boots that were more than one size too big, and ran to the door of the garage with a bang, staring at the footprints outside and the area where the snowflakes disappeared in mid-air, in a daze.

The invisible wind rolled up the snow and gently wiped away the footprints.

The wind rubbed and scattered the falling snowflakes, just stirred them again, and scattered them evenly before the eyes.The blank area has been filled, extending all the way to hundreds of meters away.If someone is chasing the blank traces left by Federico, at most they can only come to this neighborhood full of rich and famous people, and then get lost in the intricate blank traces.

Those who can scatter snowflakes are not only supernatural beings, but also monsters.

Gophers can dig holes, corpse crows can fly, gibbons climb trees and walk on top of buildings. It is normal and not surprising that the blank traces are broken.

Like laying out a maze game, Johnson finally pulled a few blank tracks to the roof, or next to the drainage manhole cover.

Obviously no one was chasing after him, but he imagined several monsters running around in the neighborhood. It doesn't matter if the "smear" is crooked, and the wind ability can erase it and change it again.

Johnson also fantasized about a group of "maze breakers" who confidently analyzed the monster's traces, and finally walked to a "dead end" in disappointment, looking extremely frustrated.

"Well done."

The sound coming from behind made Johnson's ability tremble in fright. The blank trajectory rubbed against the roof of a villa, drew a parabola, and landed on a big tree.

"..."

The jumping ability of this gibbon is a bit amazing!

Federico stood behind the boy and patted Johnson on the shoulder: "Close the door, you will catch a cold."

"It'll be fine soon," Johnson said.

He shook the tree with his wind power, which dropped a lot of snow, and quickly replaced it with another one, letting the imaginary monkey jump over the row of trees in the block, and then Johnson reluctantly closed the door and joined his "painting". "bid farewell.

Federico rubbed the boy's head: "Come here, it's time for us to have dinner."

"Every meal we eat is dinner." Johnson questioned in a low voice.

"Because the time in this world doesn't move, it's always in the afternoon close to evening."

"but……"

Johnson hesitated for a while, still repeating the word "But", hesitating and not knowing what to say.He and Mr. Morenza have lived in this strange place called the Abandoned World for a long time.

Five days, or a week?

Johnson couldn't tell the difference, because they lived their lives, eating when they were hungry, and resting when they were sleepy.

Mr. Morensa's spatial ability is very safe, every time they sleep, they will enter that transparent cover.It's so warm that monsters can't get in.

Sometimes Morenza would take him out to observe the ferocious monsters up close, to see their physical characteristics and how they looked when they attacked.But this is very dangerous, even in the space, monsters can touch the outline of the "space", but they can't see or smell their scent.

If surrounded by monsters, after the power is exhausted, the space power user can only die.

"Mr. Morensa, can we go back?" Johnson hesitated for a long time, and finally asked.

He wanted to go back to the world of Bangalore with its crowds, TV shows, and Christmas music.Even if every door on the street is closed to him, even if the talk show host on the TV screen likes to taunt the poor, even if he will not get presents after the Christmas music, Johnson still misses a world without monsters.

The young man had seen the ferocity of those creatures with his own eyes. Every time Federico went out, Johnson, who was waiting silently in the garage, couldn't sit still with worry.

Federico paused for a second before replying, "Those who work hard to survive can go back."

"This is called Abandoned World, Outcast...Are we sinners exiled by God?" Johnson was very disturbed.

"Listen, Johnson, there is no god in this world." Federico looked directly into the boy's terrified eyes, and said in a contemptuous tone that a believer would go crazy, "Even if there is, he can't see us."

Johnson, who was born in a slum, is not very devout to God, but the nuns of the church have always been kind to him, and he believes in God and firmly believes that those classmates who bullied him will be judged after death, which will comfort him.

Gradually growing up and passing the age of self-deception, Johnson no longer believes in this, but the profound influence of the environment, the teenager was still taken aback by Federico's rude words.

"Mr. Morenza?"

"No, nothing!" Federico felt his gaffe.

If there is a god in this world, who is the god?

"Naniya Kea? Oh, don't be joking." Federic said to himself, he took off his overcoat, took out two pieces of meat from the wrapped brown paper, put them in a basin and washed the blood with snow.

Johnson consciously stood aside.

"This is the meat of the wild boar. I was lucky today. It fell into the trap I dug. The meat on the thigh is sprinkled with black pepper. It tastes good when eaten raw."

Federico was not in the mood to continue talking about this delicacy. The early appearance of the corpse crow made him feel dangerous.Federico picked up a pen and paper and drew a picture for Johnson.

"Today we're talking about this monster, it's a bird..."

The author has something to say: Outcast, abandonment, also means exile, and the latter means a little more.