When he woke up the next morning, Philaeos was in very bad spirits and looked worried.
"Have you been practicing football until very late recently?" Paramedes deliberately asked his brother: "That kind of practice is meaningless, it's better to go to bed early."
"Don't..." Phileos rubbed his sleepy eyes: "Palamedes, do you think this is really good? Just be a thief and a robber all your life, and only do bad things to survive, meow?"
"No," the leopard boy replied, "When I grow up, I will join the army. Then our orc coalition will attack human towns and take back everything that belongs to us."
"What's the difference between that and today's looting?" Phileos said, "It's just on a larger scale. It gives yourself a reason to loot and kill more innocent people. War... has always been the case.
Very sad meow."
Palamedes didn't speak. He had only vaguely heard that Philaeos' parents died in the war. As for whether it was the human attack that killed Philaeos' parents, or the other way around.
If he died during the attack on a human town...it's unknown.
"But, if not, how else can I meow?"
The soil in the Underdark is not suitable for farming. Not to mention the short sunshine time every day, the soil there itself is difficult to grow crops. Even if it takes a lot of effort and hard work to grow some crops, there will often be violent consequences.
The monsters came to attack the village and made the farmland a mess.
A long time ago, after the war between the Eastern and Western worlds, the [World Wall] was erected, cutting the earth into two halves. From then on, a certain oath was made, and humans ceded the Dark Territory as beasts.
It is a place for people to stay. However, the environment in this dark area is extremely harsh and is actually not suitable for survival. Humans cannot survive here, and the orcs can only barely survive here.
However, knowing that it was an unequal treaty and losing everything in the war, the surviving orcs still accepted the charity from humans - because if they did not accept this charity, the vastly superior humans would exterminate the orcs as well.
idea.
The orcs thought they could escape despair by moving into the Dark Territory, but what awaited them was actually greater despair. Desolation, natural disasters, ferocious beasts, and the natural environment all drove them into a dead end, leaving them with no choice but to survive.
Seek survival.
How long will this kind of life last? Will it continue until the orcs in the Underdark are extinct?
"I... will find a way, meow." Phileos was perfunctory to Paramedis: "One day... I will find a way out, meow. I won't let you starve, little brother."
He rubbed Palamedes' head. But the leopard man boy was not convinced. The friends in the thieves group also said before that Phileos was an unrealistic fool. Others joked about Phileos.
At that time, Palamedes didn't pay much attention, and he would even defend his brother angrily.
However, what happened in the past few days made Palamedes lose his confidence. Maybe Philaeos is indeed such an unrealistic fool, and he no longer knows how to evaluate it.
The thieves plan to launch an attack on that city tomorrow evening, rob a batch of food, and then completely escape from the vicinity of the city. They need to take action tomorrow. Logically speaking, Phileos should be more honest tonight and should not go busking again.
. However, on the night of the same day, Palamedes still found that Phileos had slipped out under the cover of night. The Leopard Man boy followed him angrily, intending to show up shortly after Phileos started performing.
and interrupt his actions.
However, this time Phileos was not setting up a stall on the street at all. As if he had agreed, he met the middle-aged man from last night as soon as he arrived on the street.
"Have you decided?" the man asked.
"Well, well." Phileos hummed: "Please, please teach me how to do it...I, I will try my best..."
"Very good." The other party squeezed Phileos's shoulder with his hand: "The body is very soft. It's really cute. Even if it's rough, there shouldn't be a problem, right?"
Phileos did not speak, but silently followed the middle-aged man into the dark alley.
Palamedes did not follow. There was an indescribable feeling of disgust in his heart, which prevented him from following to see what was going on. But even if he followed, he probably wouldn't be able to see why. The alley was so dark,
Even for leopard men like them who have certain night vision ability, it is difficult to see clearly what happened. He could only hear a low groan coming from the alleyway in the distance, and Phileos seemed to be
Suffering some unspeakable pain.
Palamedes didn't even have the guts to enter the alley to stop this. He knew that if he broke into it, he would probably suffer the same fate as Philaeos. He was just a leopard with no power.
A young man with no special talents other than the talent of a fast-running leopard man, he could only be at the mercy of such a strong middle-aged man.
He lay dormant on the roof near the alley for a long time, waiting for the matter to be over. It was about an hour later that the middle-aged man picked up his pants and left from the alley. Paramedis never saw Phileos appear. It was dark.
It was already very deep, and under the dark clouds of the closing moon, the whole town became more cold and gloomy, as if this was the dark side of human beings.
Although Philaeos never appeared, Palamedes was worried. But he was more worried that when Philaeos appeared, he would see things he shouldn't see. So he waited for about half a day.
After a few hours, he finally retraced his steps back to the secret base and lay back on the bed pretending that nothing happened.
I don’t know how much time passed before Phileos took advantage of the darkness to come back and quietly crawled back to the bed to lie down. There was a faint smell of sea salt on his body. He might have gone to the beach to take a bath and then warmed up by the fire.
He came back after drying his whole body. As for why Philaeos had to wash himself off and come back, Palamedes didn't even want to delve into it.
"Paramy...are you asleep?" Phileos asked in the darkness.
Palamedes turned his back to his brother, said nothing and pretended to be asleep.
"It's really that difficult to pursue your dreams..." Phileos said to himself, his voice so low that it was almost inaudible: "I'm just tired of all this... I want to live honestly... live hard.
That's all..."
Palamedes did not respond and continued to pretend to sleep. His brother's question could not be answered by his little head alone. So he pretended not to hear and not understand. In this way, at least he could
Sleep peacefully.
However, it was his initial indifference that led to his lifelong regret. The next day, when the thieves were looting the town, Phileos missed it. I don't know why he missed it, but he was too absent-minded and was killed while escaping.
Simply besieged, and then fall into human hands as easily as a fool.
Philaeos has been captured by humans, and only death is waiting for him. Without saying a word, a strong man raised a huge wooden stick and broke the leg of the leopard man boy, and the child was twitching in a bloody mess.
He was trembling, twitching, but never forgetting his little friend: "Run away, meow...! Parami..."
Palamedes watched all this in horror, watching the tragic end of a thief who had no time to escape and fell into the hands of humans.
Human beings are cruel, and humans are also greedy. Not only did they smash two of Phileos' legs, they also took off the boy's clothes, which were originally like rags, and used a knife to cut open the flesh on Phileos' neck.
.
The humans cut along the child's neck and peeled off Philaeos' fur. They pulled hard and tore off the leopard skin from Phileos, while the child screamed in agony.
The image of Philaeos, who had lost consciousness and was covered in blood, was forever etched in Palamedes' pupils.
After returning to the secret base, Palamedes, who almost collapsed, hid in his nest for several days and did not leave. From that day on, Philaeos disappeared from Palamedes' life forever - until
Until we meet again.
Darkness. Deep darkness, darkness as heavy as mud.
The young leopard man found himself deeply involved.
"It was you." A voice as low as a devil said, "It was you who harmed him. If you had woken up to dissuade him at that time, maybe he wouldn't be so lost. Maybe he wouldn't have encountered so many things.
Misfortunes, so many sad things."
Palamedes did not answer, he could not answer. He knew that part of what the demonic voice said was right, and he did owe Philaeos a debt.
——The feeling of guilt at that moment became his weakness.
In the same darkness, a figure gradually took shape.
The person whose hands and feet were tightly bound by heavy shackles, unable to move, and could only kneel there in an awkward kneeling position, was none other than the young Phileos.
"Pa, Parami..." The young leopard man covered in blood looked at the young leopard man: "Save, save me..."
Palamedes did not respond. At this time, he was extremely frightened. Because the fur on Phileos' body had been stripped alive, the furless leopard man boy looked like an evil ghost in hell, with bright red liquid flowing continuously.
It was dripping from his body. Even if Palamedes was raised by Philaeos, and he and Philaeos were brothers and sisters, it would be impossible for him not to be afraid when he saw this scene.
The leopard boy took a step back.
"Like that time, pretending not to see or hear?" Phileos asked.
"But I...what can I do?" Palamedes replied in horror and sadness.
"Touch-touch-me-!" Phileos' protracted voice was filled with anger and accusation.
(No, Parami!)
A woman's voice came vaguely from a distance. But the voice was too small and too far away, so Paramedis could hardly hear it. Moreover, the young leopard man didn't recognize the woman's voice. The voice seemed to come from
Another world - a world he has never set foot in, a world he has not yet known.
"I want to help you..." Palamedes whispered, hesitating whether to step forward and touch Phileos: "I thought about helping you. But I can't do anything. We are just children.
, are orphans without fathers and mothers. Besides living by stealing, what else can we do?
Why do you just want to find another way? Why are you always in a hurry to change?
——Why do you want to leave me alone?"
Philaeos did not answer. He seemed to be in some kind of coma with blood all over his body, but he was not dead. The injuries on his body were also slowly healing, and he might want to grow new fur.
Palamedes approached Philaeos: "Just touching you...will you forgive me?"
(No! It’s a trap!)
The woman's voice in the distance gradually became quieter and could no longer be heard at all.
"If this is a nightmare, please let it wake up quickly." Palamedes stretched his hand to the other person's head, trying to touch the undamaged parts of Phileos' body: "I have a feeling, you
You are saved in the end. Someone saved you. But now that you are saved, who are you here now?"
He put his hand down and touched Philaeos' head.
No. What his hand touched was actually the Silver Shadow's control stick.
All illusions disappeared at that moment. Palamedes could hear Vivian getting up from behind him and rushing over, trying to stop him. But it was too late. The joystick was pushed down by Palamedes.
, the Silver Shadow also crashed into the forehead of the Floating Hill Toad. To be more precise, it crashed into the [Subspace Generator] on the monster's forehead.