Does the mechanical girl dream of the Messiah?

At least that's what the order says!

The order also said that the opponents they would encounter would be people of equal strength to them, not much stronger than them, at least they would not be left without even a chance to escape, and if they saw the situation was not good, they should retreat immediately - this was bullshit, were these two monsters that looked like women in front of them "people of equal strength to them"? !

If the feeling Lunicia gave them was just "timidity", then the feeling Ashtherin gave them was "fear".

People's fear often comes from the unknown. The more incomprehensible something is, the more it can evoke this deepest emotion in their hearts.

Obviously, Ashlee was an "absolute unknown" to them.

Why are human hands and feet made up of organs?

Why are those mechanisms completely different from what I understand?

Why could she create a crossbow out of thin air?

Why can she shoot without ammunition and fire compressed air bullets without gas cylinders?

Problem after problem was like loads of straw. Add to that the blood rain raised by the giant sword and the blood splashing from the heads and hearts blown up by the black crossbow. The camels named "attackers" collapsed completely before they could even wait for the last straw to fall.

The leather armor they wore, which was convenient for movement, now seemed to have no meaning at all. Whether it was for the "Righteur" or the crossbow copied by Asheselin, the animal leather and iron sheets were as vulnerable as paper scraps and shattered at the touch. The battle lasted less than three minutes, and there was only one attacker left alive.

"Tell me, who are you? Why are you attacking us?"

Putting the sword on the opponent's neck and saying such words, Lunicia's expression was not natural.

It's not that she didn't intend to hold back - in fact, she had no intention of annihilating the opponent from the beginning. On this point, it was Ashlee who said before that "I hope to avoid unnecessary fighting" who was more resolute. It seemed that she was more inclined to the feeling of "since I have done it, I might as well do it all the way."

Lunicia is completely different. Even though the other party was aiming for her life from the beginning, she subconsciously thinks it is better to "kill as few as possible."

But reality is often not as good as we wish.

She couldn't understand why, even though the battle was completely one-sided, the attackers still showed extreme fear and swung their swords vigorously, with no intention of retreating. The direct result was that Lunicia had no strength to hold back. Her clothes had no defensive ability at all. If she wanted to avoid getting hurt, the only way was to attack with all her strength, using offense instead of defense.

So in the end there was only this one attacker left alive, and Lunicia had already chopped the sword in his hand into two pieces of scrap metal to ensure that the other party could not continue to attack.

This even made Lunicia begin to feel pity for the other party - if they were ordinary thieves, it would be fine, but they didn't look like that kind of people. Instead, they looked like mercenaries who had accepted a mission and were ordered to attack. In short, they were suspicious people.

——Could it be that... I recognized the wrong person?

Just as she was quietly waiting for the other party's answer, the attacker's body began to sway slightly. In just two or three seconds, his face turned blue and black, and then he twisted to the side, with black blood flowing from the corners of his mouth.

"Varied……"

"Don't touch it yet."

Just when Lunicia was about to use holy healing to give the other party first aid, Ashethelin came over and stopped her action with her hand.

"It is highly poisonous and may take effect through skin contact... and he has died and returned to the embrace of the other side, freed from this world without salvation."

"but……"

Ashlee squatted down under Lunisia's complicated gaze, and covered the dead man's face with her slender, cold black palm. She didn't close her eyes or pray for him, but just closed her eyes, as if she was feeling something and remained silent. Not long after, she stood up again, but her palm was stained with some black blood.

"It's an extract from the petals of the aquatic violet."

"what is that??"

Just as the attackers could not understand Ashetherin's existence, Lunicia was completely unable to understand the words that suddenly came out of the other party's mouth - even though she had received a systematic and complete education in the Divine Court, such inexplicable terms were still beyond her knowledge and obviously belonged to the high-end part of some subjects that she was not interested in at all.

"It's a powerful poison," Ashlee's eyes swept over the dead attackers, golden waves rippling in her pupils, "it's amber in color, with a slight smell of coal smoke. After oral administration, it will quickly enter the blood circulation. In addition to blocking the blood supply by coagulating the blood and causing a large number of blood clots, it also has a strong destructive effect on nerves."

"But, when was it taken?"

"They have a poison sac at the base of their wisdom teeth, which they can consume by rupturing it with their tongue."

"In other words, they are not bandits, nor are they ordinary mercenaries, but assassins..."

They don't look like professionally trained assassins.

In the history textbooks, Lunicia had learned about these soldiers who existed specifically to die. They were transformed mentally through brainwashing education and hallucinogenic drugs. Not only did they have stronger combat capabilities than ordinary people, but they also lacked the emotions that humans should have and were incapable of feeling fear.

These characteristics were very different from the attackers before them. They looked as if they were being forced by something, having to move forward with swords raised, having to commit suicide by taking poison, or else they would have to face consequences that they absolutely did not want to bear.

They had no documents or identification on them, nothing obvious enough to indicate their identity, and even their appearance was ordinary and deliberate.

Lunicia remained silent, looking far away towards the end of the road.

The gates of Nosawy stood there, reflected in the light of the eclipse.

Chapter 3: A Few Things About Pocket Money

As expected, Lunicia and Ashethelin easily blended into the crowd and slipped into the city gate of Nosawi.

The team entering the city was complicated and crowded. Even an inexperienced newcomer like Lunicia could tell the superficial differences between merchants, wanderers, adventurers and professional pickpockets at a glance. Accordingly, she almost immediately moved the suitcase in front of her to ensure that she could keep an eye on the suitcase at all times and prevent anyone from touching her bag.

Of course, this is also where she is half-baked. In fact, a normal pickpocket would immediately give up the idea of ​​attacking her when he sees the giant sword on her back. After all, no one knows whether the other party will notice it, and what he will do after he notices it - what if that person looks like a normal beautiful girl, but actually draws out the giant sword and starts killing without saying a word?

No one can tell for sure about this kind of thing, and no pickpocket likes to gamble with his life. We are all out here to make a living, and we are not desperate criminals.

Of course, Lunicia didn't pay any attention to the pickpockets. She was still confused about the identities of the attackers. If she had chased away bandits or human traffickers, she would definitely not have such troubles, but this matter was so strange that she couldn't help but have a lot of thoughts.

As for Ashlee, it seemed that no one was interested in her, and she seemed to have no interest in the things around her.

According to Lunicia's original guess, Ashlee might look around when entering the city, appearing to be curious about everything, but she just kept staring at her, making Lunicia feel uncomfortable.

It was not uncommon to see people using cloaks to cover their bodies and faces. It could even be said that they accounted for a large proportion of the total. After all, in addition to covering, cloaks also had an important function of blocking the wind. Although the Mariai area was covered with dense forests, the strange phenomenon called "forest wind" was more common here than in other places. That is to say, even in dense forests, there might be sudden gusts of wind, which made it hard to guard against.

Nosawi was a real city that was much larger than Shuichequ, but the condition of its defenders was not much better than that of Shuichequ - their equipment was naturally much better, at least they were not fighting with rusty weapons like the defenders of Shuichequ - but their spirit was exactly the same, lacking drive and vitality, and one could tell at a glance that their combat effectiveness was low.

It is for this reason that they turned a blind eye to the crowds of people crowding into the city through the city gates.

As the city lord, Count Nikita Kuridel did not give too many people to the city gate guards. In his opinion, a relaxed access control policy would make merchants have a better impression of this place and attract more business that is not so obvious, which would correspondingly bring him more tax revenue.

Of course, this is not something Lunisia needs to worry about.

She took a free map from a stall near the city wall - this measure was said to have come from Kuridal's father, the former city lord, who believed that such small benefits with low costs could be exchanged for high profits - Nikita Kuridal did not have much thought about the practice of distributing free maps, but did not ban it, and it was just passed down naturally.

"It would be much more convenient if we had a map," said Lunicia as she unfolded the rough paper map. "It's rare to come to a city like this. Well, this should be Ashe's first time. Anyway, is there any place you want to go?"

"I think there is something very important that should be done first."

Looking at Ashatherin's seemingly serious expression, Lunicia was a little unresponsive for a moment.

"Uh, what is it?"

"Get the currency—"

"I have money."

"But, Luna only has gold coins in her hand, right?" Ashethelin came closer and reached out to touch the small pouch hidden in Lunicia's belt. "Things like this shouldn't be that useful in a city like this?"

Looking at the beautiful face that was almost right in front of her, Lunicia suddenly remembered that this was indeed the case.

Originally, Andy was the person in charge of the team's finances. Considering that the destination was Shuichequ, Sieli actually exchanged some local currency of Mariai for them in advance - in addition to that, he also gave each person some additional operational funds as a part of their personal use in addition to the team's property.

As the suzerain state of Mariai, Myuland did not grant Mariai the "right to mint coins", and the Ivanov family had no particular pursuit of such power. Therefore, the currency circulated in the Mariai region has always been Myuland's "Ir".

As part of the assets for the team's collective use, all the exchanged Ils were placed on Andy. The result was that when Andy himself disappeared without a trace and even his suitcase was nowhere to be found, Lunicia didn't even have a single Il that she could use directly.

Fortunately, the personal funds in Lunicia's suitcase were not reduced by a single cent, and are now safely lying in the suitcase and purse, a total of fifty gold coins.

Zerhar does not have its own currency, but it has considerable gold reserves. These reserves are generally minted into seven-gram pure gold coins to be used as funding for personnel going out on missions. The gold coin in Lunicia's hand is such a coin.

"But there should be a bank in Nosavi, right? It's a big city after all..."

If there was a bank, things would be much simpler. Lunisia could get the funds she needed by swiping a card instead of using the emergency gold coins. With this in mind, she searched carefully on the map for a while and finally found the location of the bank on the map.

Coincidentally, the bank is actually right next door.

"Hey?"

Likewise, unfortunately, the door at the entrance of the bank was tightly closed, with two seals on it, saying "Equipment maintenance, temporarily closed, opening hours to be notified later". In addition, there was a blackboard hanging next to the door, with the words "Temporary currency exchange window, go straight ahead" written in ugly handwriting.

"As you can see, the result is still to use gold reserves."

"What on earth is going on..."

Faced with this question, Lunicia and Ashethelin could only look at each other, one with a cold expressionless face, and the other with a confused look - one of them was an underground inheritance that had been dormant for who knows how long, and the other was a super shut-in who was almost at marriageable age and had just left home for the first time. No one could understand such a thing as "the current situation in the Mariai area", especially when these two people were not locals at all.

The situation at the currency exchange window was completely different from the bustling one at the city gate. It seemed quite deserted, with only a few merchants exchanging various coins for el or Asian silver in denominations of one-tenth of an el. The clerks who seemed to be bank employees looked nonchalant. It was clearly daytime now, and some of them were still yawning very casually, looking completely unreliable.

"Welcome to the Sefirah Bank... er, temporary office."

The receptionist at the window almost mispronounced his lines, which made Lunicia feel quite distrustful of "Mulland's largest local bank."

The exchange process was unexpectedly simple and fast. On the blackboard nearby were displayed today's gold price and the exchange rates of several mainstream currencies. The gold coins produced by Zerhar seemed to have a magical credit. Just by seeing the relief piled up on the tiny coin as if it were free of charge, the employees of the Sefirah Bank immediately determined that it was the real thing and even skipped the process of verifying its purity.

Zelhar is the core of the Glorious Temple, which also means that the travel expenses of all Glorious Temple members are borne by Zelhar - not only holy warriors like Lunisia, but also priests, clerks, guards and other personnel must use Zelhar gold coins when traveling. Long-term circulation has given Zelhar gold coins sufficient credit.

After all, clergy have always prided themselves on their virtues. Regardless of how some of them make money, at least no one would be so ashamed to do something like counterfeiting money.

When Lunicia left, she had a small bag in her hand, which contained 120 neatly stacked 1,000-Iel banknotes.

"Isn't this a bit too ostentatious..."

"It's going to be spent soon anyway, isn't it?"

"That's right...Ashe, do you know what the three most important elements of traveling are?"

"I don't have that knowledge in my head, but I think one of them is definitely shopping."

"Yeah, that's right." This answer made Lunicia smile, "So next, we should go shopping together."

Chapter 4: The commercial street here is as small as a sparrow

"Does this count as a kind of date?"

"Why do you think so..."

Faced with the question raised by Ashatherin with her head tilted, Lunicia was almost speechless. No, this was not a kind of tacit agreement. She just couldn't understand the other party's rather jumpy way of thinking at all.

"Generally speaking, um, generally speaking, shouldn't a shopping date be about buying something else?"

"What else?"

"Like clothes, maybe..."

Of course, Lunicia herself had absolutely no experience with dating. Not only did she have no experience, she also lacked relevant knowledge. All her understanding of the word came from what she heard when chatting with her seniors. This topic was too heavy for a stay-at-home girl who was leaving her home for the first time in her life.

Looking at Ashetherin's confused and suspicious expression, Lunicia couldn't help but laugh: "Anyway, it's definitely not to buy armor!"

"Armor is a good thing. It can protect your fragile body from getting hurt, just like a chrysalis shell."

"That's a weird metaphor."

Sometimes, Ashethelin would talk about things that only come to her in dreams, just like now. Lunisia could not understand it at all. Not only did she not understand the meaning of such words, but sometimes she even had difficulty understanding them. She spoke not only the ancient Sakaar language, but also the most common Danu language among humans, the Sodzok language used by the Dragonborn, and some languages ​​that Lunisia had never heard of.

Even on streets like today's are no exception.

Compared to the streets in Shuichuqu which were not really streets at all, the streets in Nosavi could be said to be quite presentable. Naturally, this made Lunisia look around a lot more. After all, in a place like Shuichuqu, there were only simple wooden houses and earthen houses on both sides, the ground was bumpy and full of mud, and the pedestrians were listless for various reasons, making it difficult to arouse the interest in looking around.

It is said that the first Count Kuridel who took office as the mayor of the city paid great attention to the appearance. Compared with political and financial issues, he cared more about whether his city "looked pleasing to the eye". It was for this reason that Nosavi invested a lot of material and human resources in urban construction, making Nosavi city have a landscape that is no less than that of Twick, the capital of Mariae.

But that was a long time ago.

Although old Kuridal took great pains to educate his descendants, they did not seem to have inherited the trait of being face-conscious. After focusing on attracting vendors and making money, the funds for city maintenance were said to have been cut by more than half. It is precisely because of this that the appearance of Nosawi city is no longer as breathtaking as before.

Lunisia would never have such an understanding. She would not lament like the old residents of Nosawi and secretly denounce the current lord for being shameless. After all, she had no idea what Nosawi was like before...

Then again, everything in the outside world was new to her. Even the Nosawi, which was not as good as before, still had great appeal to her - in theory, the same should be true for Ashetherin, but in reality she just kept looking at Lunicia.

The road surface of Nosavi is completely covered with white slate bricks, which is a very rare thing in the relatively poor and backward Marie region. In the city's largest commercial district, Hernand Commercial Street, the shops facing the street are commercial buildings built by the Nosavi government. These houses have stone columns and door lintels, simple reliefs, and are painted white. They are divided into four different types: food, clothing, blacksmiths, and groceries. The buildings in different categories are similar, and it seems that there is no difference except for the signs.

The flagstones of the pavement, the barricades that separate the shops from the street, the stone-carved storefronts… these things may sound completely unrelated, but they all have one thing in common: they have all faded due to lack of maintenance.

The stone slabs are worn and broken, the white paint is mottled and peeling...the traces of time are particularly strong in this city.

Lunicia would not care about these things, and similarly, the people walking on this Hernand Commercial Street would not care about these things. It would be better to say that their indifference to all this is even greater than Lunicia - Lunicia would at least cover her nose because of the unpleasant smell emitted by the lack of maintenance of the sewer system, while those merchants from all over Mariai and even all over Muirand simply pretended not to smell it.

In fact, it is the same reason. Lunicia feels novel because it is the first time she has seen such a street scene. People do not pay attention to the stench in the city and the garbage dumps on the street corners, because these are not surprising at all in Mari.

There weren't many armor and weapon shops on Hernand Commercial Street, but they weren't few either. As the largest vassal state of Murand, the Principality of Mariai did not produce much more steel than other principalities, and basically relied on imports from other countries on the Lamenesian Peninsula. However, the demand for weapons and armor was huge, which ultimately led to this situation.

Regarding the latter, Lunicia naturally had not read the relevant information, but this kind of thing can be seen at a glance: almost every store related to equipment is bustling with people and doing a booming business.

"The shops here are doing very well... I have to choose a suitable one, otherwise I'm afraid I'll have to wait in line for a long time."

"Luna, protect yourself."

"Hmm?" Lunisia withdrew her gaze from the shops and turned to look at Ashlee. "Why do you say that suddenly?"

"What is there in the Marie region? Pig iron? Wizards? Ruins and treasures? Books and wisdom? Things that make people's hearts surge, things that make people intoxicated? Like dew in the morning light, like frost on the frozen sky, like light and rays in the abyss? Things whose value I cannot comprehend, but whose existence I am aware of?"

"No, I don't think so."