Chapter 47 - 36: Hunter’s Market
The lecture lasted for over two hours.
However, it felt like time passed very quickly and the session was over before they knew it.
The young hunters were very interested in joining the Storm Squad, one by one they gathered around the podium to register as prospective members.
Leonard Churchill had no immediate plans to join a team, so he left the Hunter’s Association building.
Even though the class was all about the basics of being a Curse Card Master, he found it extremely rewarding.
Without realizing, he once again found himself in the Reward Hall of the
Association.
Leonard paused to take a look.
As he had expected, a few days had passed and there was still no trace of an
“arrest warrant” or a “bounty” for him in Sinless City.
The Fourth Master of the Miller Family, likely fearing a leak of information, could only secretly search for him.
This made Leonard feel like the threat had greatly reduced.
Along his journey, he spotted a few suspicious characters out of the corner of his eye.
They might have been after him, or maybe not.
But in Sinless City, he was not the only one with secrets.
Leonard didn’t pay it much mind.
After all, they couldn’t catch him on the train earlier, it would be even less likely for them to find him now.
Without giving it much thought, Leonard left the building and continued to stroll around the market outside the Hunter’s Association.
Having rare day off, he was quite intrigued by the strange and interesting items displayed on the stalls, and so, he casually strolled around.
Even though the street stalls looked shoddy, the items on them were all treasures brought back from the ruins by hunters. Extraordinary materials, ancient documents, antiques, blueprints, secret scrolls… there were even items that the stall owners themselves did not know what they were selling.
There were quite a few good items.
But snatching up a bargain was entirely up to luck.
After all, Enlightenment wasn’t always helpful out in the open.
If an item was far beyond one’s knowledge, Enlightenment would not display
it, or perhaps only display parts of it.
Just like the “Secret Cause Spirit Medium” before, when it wasn’t in his perception, he couldn’t even see it.
Over these days, Leonard gradually began to understand the rules of this mysterious “Enlightenment”.
He found that the Enlightenment each person saw was not exactly the same.
This seemed to be related to personal perception.
For instance, with Leonard himself: words in his perception like “BOSS” were concepts that simply did not exist in this world.
But Enlightenment would still display them.
In other words, Enlightenment was a special way of expressing things that transcended humanity’s current understanding and was not limited by types of text.
Leonard wasn’t surprised at this realization.
With existences like the “Alternate Dimension”, there were too many secrets in the world.
It was this sense of mystery that made everything more interesting to him.
After wandering past a few stalls, Leonard’s gaze suddenly halted in the distance.
He saw two beggars by the roadside.
It was a dirty little girl about seven or eight years old, hugging a boy who seemed to be her younger brother. The siblings huddled on a grubby blanket, their hollow eyes staring emptily at the passersby with hunger written all over their faces.
There were two types of beggars in Sinless City, one type were thieves, and the other were true orphans.
In this city of sin, life was cheap. The mortality rate of hunters was high, resulting in many orphans just like these two.
The passersby, having already grown numb to such sights, were indifferent. Most people in Sinless City were bloodthirsty wolves, and nobody would feel pity for the weak.
Something crossed Leonard’s mind. He picked up a few things and walked over. He squatted down in front of the siblings, smiled, and asked: “Little girl, what’s your name?”
As he spoke, he took off his gas mask, and like a magic trick, his face turned into a clown’s face with a funny red nose.
The bright smile on his face seemed to bring laughter and joy just by looking at it.
The girl’s eyes were still cold due to her hunger, but the boy curiously reached out as if trying to touch the clown mask.
Leonard didn’t mind. He grinned: “I’ll show you a magic trick.”
As he said that, the siblings’ gazes became a little more curious. He stretched out his hand, twirled it around as if was empty.
“Now watch.”
At that moment, the smile on his clown face was brighter than ever. He laid his left hand horizontally as if hiding something, then used his right hand to make a grabbing motion, pulling something from the space between his left hand’s thumb and forefinger…
Just then, the boy’s clear eyes suddenly lit up because he saw a dark object being pulled out!
There was even a hint of the fragrance of freshly baked bread.
The boy gasped, his eyes filled with awe at the most miraculous sight he’d ever seen in his life. He couldn’t help but swallow, then cried out: “Sis, it’s bread!
Bread!”
“Yes, look how long it is-”
Immersed in his performance, the clown wasn’t done yet.
He just kept pulling and pulling, and a loaf of bread as thick as his arm was pulled out, longer and longer.
It was like magic, he managed to pull out a loaf of dark bread that was even longer than his forearm.
Watching this miraculous scene, the boy jumped and danced with excitement, tugging at his sister’s sleeve, exclaiming: “Sis, sis, look! This gentleman really made a loaf of bread appear!
It was just a simple magic trick known to many a magician.
But at that moment, at seeing the two innocent childish faces, it felt as if the world was illuminated, casting light into their gloom-ridden hearts. It was as though they were instantly warmed.
Seeing this, the comically exaggerated red smile on the clown’s face stretched all the way to his eyes. He handed over the bread, without the pity of alms to the weak, only kindness and equality: “Here, eat it. It’s a gift for you two..”