The street lamp with black wrought iron carvings sprinkled warm light yellow light, and the figure of the bee floated across the crowd like an inconspicuous leaf, leaving no ripples among the pedestrians.
She came to a shop at the end of the block. Outside the shop hung the "Three Towers" emblems that foreign merchants must hang when opening a shop in Violet. In the display window, you can see a variety of novel groceries from across the strait. At the moment, a wooden sign was hanging on the door of the shop, which read "Suspended".
Sparrow's sight stayed on the wooden sign of "suspended business" for a second, and then pushed the door to enter.
The shop was empty. Due to the suspension of business, there were no customers inside. Only a young man in a dark coat was sitting behind the counter, picking up the sundries. Hearing the movement from the door, the young man raised his head, and he seemed to be relieved when he found that it was a sparrow, and nodded slightly in greeting.
"Why is there a sudden suspension of business at this time?" Sparrow walked quickly to the counter and said in a low voice, "Also, what about the ‘shop manager’?"
"The store manager went to Beicheng District," the young man silently paid attention to the movement near the door, while whispering casually, "Today received an instruction from the bureau seat, the Violet Kingdom has been affected by a serious extraordinary vision. All contact points have suspended activities and are preparing to evacuate. The store manager intends to collect as much information as possible before evacuation."
"...Ready to evacuate?" A look of consternation appeared on the sparrow bee's face. "The situation has become so serious? Then we are here..."
"It's more serious than you think. All the operators in Cold Sea City have lost contact, and no news has been sent back." The young man wiped the shiny ornaments on the counter, his movements appeared smooth and natural, but his tone was extraordinarily serious. When the message was sent back normally, suddenly there was no news, and even the'whistle' that should be sent in the most emergency state was not sent."
"The whistle hasn't been sent out?!" Birdbee could hardly believe what she heard. "There are well-trained operators over there, and they also carry the most advanced communication equipment. How can they lose silently like this? Are you connected?"
"...The biggest possibility is that the vision has spread to Lenghai City. The local staff died before they had time to react. In fact, it is not only our intelligence personnel who lost contact, but the whole lost contact... Cold Sea City," the young man temporarily put aside his work and looked up into Sparrow's eyes. "Some ordinary Lorenian merchants who do business in Cold Sea City have also cut off their ties with the mainland. Since yesterday, the communications in Beigang. The station never received any magic net signal from Cold Sea City again.
"This morning I also saw Typhon's spies rushing to No. 23 West City Street. I suspect that they have also noticed the abnormality there, and they are starting to make preparations for evacuation."
Sparrow's eyes widened, but in just two seconds, she forced herself to calm down. At the same time, she had understood Director Amber’s order to evacuate. Although the evacuation order was sudden, even though “because some of the intelligence personnel suddenly disappeared. "Evacuate all contact points" seems a bit impulsive. Although it is regrettable to give up the foundation of having managed to operate here, she knows that this is a last resort.
The vision is happening. This is a large-scale mutation caused by incomprehensible magical powers or other extraordinary powers, rather than conventional intelligence warfare, public opinion confrontation, or special infiltration. The latter is the field of military intelligence officers. But the former... has exceeded the "work scope" of ordinary intelligence personnel, and such professional matters should be entrusted to professional teams.
In fact, when she noticed that Plantel was being affected by the extraordinary vision, the Sparrow Bee thought that she was very likely to receive an order to evacuate, but she did not expect that this day would come so early in the recent period of time. None of the elephants showed any real harm, but the situation has taken a turn for the worse now.
But even if there is no such layer, as long as Chief Amber's orders are issued, Sparrow Bee will still unconditionally choose to implement this is the iron law of all military intelligence bureau officers.
"This is no longer a front for intelligence activities. Our mission is over. The bureau said in the order that the Violet Kingdom will be treated as an'abnormal area'." The young man shook his head, his voice low. "But after all, this place is still an independent'kingdom' from the face of it. Before it shows its infringement and hostility to the alliance, we cannot take any military action against it... There will be an elite steel game. The cavalry squad and two extraordinary vision countermeasures experts came to take over our work. They are experts in investigating and fighting against extraordinary visions."
Sparrow nodded slightly, and then said as if casually mentioned: "I saw Torrig on the way back and talked with him for a while."
"Torrig... the apprentice of the mage who lives in the inner city?" The young man thought for a while, and quickly matched his name in his mind, "What have you talked about? Did you find a new situation?"
The Sparrow was serious: "Remember that Torig had an uncle? It was a wizard who lived in Palan Santo. I mentioned this person deliberately during the conversation. Torig didn't seem to remember that he had such a relative at all. He even seemed completely ignorant of the existence of the inland city of'Paran Santo'. There was obvious confusion and blankness in his spirit, and then he directly'skipped' our topic..."
Sparrowbee told about the situation she encountered today, and the young man behind the counter frowned a little bit, and then whispered after a moment of thinking: "Since this period of time, there has been some information about the'inland' in Plantel. There is less and less news, and people no longer talk about anything related to the city of a thousand towers or inland cities like Palan Santo. Trade goods, letters, visitors from the inland cities... all these things are disappearing , But until today, the situation has not been as weird as you just mentioned. At least when we take the initiative to talk about the inland with ordinary people in this city, they will still answer normally...
"Now, there is a local resident who has obvious mental disorders when talking about this topic..."
"It feels like the violet'inland' is gradually being stripped from this kingdom, or wrapped in some kind of'cocoon'," the bee whispered thoughtfully, "There is some power in it. 'Delete' all the information related to the inland, even preventing ordinary people in the border area from talking about and recalling an inland city like the city of a thousand towers... Is this some kind of barrier? A barrier in terms of cognition and memory?"
"...I feel worse than that," the young man shook his head, "Today I went to the central market to investigate the origin of Matilun wine in the city. You should know that this wine can only be obtained from Lenghai City until noon yesterday. The "foreign product" shipped over, and at the same time, this wine is not a local product of the Violet Kingdom. It is produced in the brewery opened by the gray elf merchants in Cold Sea City. It is a localized moss wood wine. 'The product of adjustment, but since noon yesterday, this wine has become Prandall's'local specialty'.
"I bought a bottle of'Martillon' in the central market and put it on the shelf on your left. You can open it and have a look."
The Sparrow was stunned and looked up and saw the bottle of wine on the shelf. The dark brown bottle was also printed with the logo of a certain brewery in Prandall. She reached out and took the bottle and found that the cork had been After opening it once, she immediately noticed something wrong after unplugging the plug. She didn't smell any aroma of wine.
"This is...Clean water?" She sniffed the liquid carefully, then took a sip at the prompt of a colleague, with a look of error on her face, "Clean water is the one bought?"
The young man behind the counter nodded: "Yes, but the locals seem to have never noticed that they buy and sell water as alcohol, and there are still people in the market who drink this thing drunk, but the others are'transformed' into This is not the case with local products.
"After the pine cheese became a local specialty, it would still be at least cheese, and ice roux wine would still be a wine after it changed from a Palan Santo specialty to a local wine. There are also other kinds of local products that originally relied on transportation from inland. Things...Although their'settings' have changed, things are still true at least. Only this Matilyn... has turned into clear water outrageously."
"Why is it like this..." Sparrow was a little confused for a while, and then vaguely guessed, "Could it be because...Although this thing was produced in Lenghai City, its source was brought in by a gray elf merchant. Mosswood honey wine, from the'foundation', is this completely'things other than violets'?"
"This is the only difference between Matilyn and the other products that have been replaced," her colleague nodded. "It gives me the feeling that there is some kind of huge...'rule' controlling this. This rule can affect all things that are originally violets. It can erase the existence of Palan Santo from the memories of Prandall’s residents, and it can turn the specialties of one city into the local goods of another city. But... things outside the Violet Kingdom have jumped out of this system. It can't "copy" things that don't exist in its own system, so the Matilun wine brought by the Grey Elves to this country has changed in the central market of Plantel. It became clear water."
The scene described by the other party gave Sparrowbee a strange and terrifying feeling, and suddenly a conceived scene popped up in her mind. A factory that produces magical devices, and has been exporting goods to other cities, what will it look like after the anomaly occurs today?
Will "locally produced" magical devices also appear in the central market? Then, because the ‘rule’ that caused the vision could not replicate things outside the Violet System, those "magic devices" turned into a bunch of weird empty shells?
She said what she had conceived, and the young man behind the counter thought about it seriously, and slowly nodded: "It's not impossible... If our guess is correct, it happened to Matilyn. Obviously, anomalies also occur in other similar things. But we are destined to be unable to verify this.
"Except for the gray elves with super mobile power, no Lorenians have successfully built factories in the Violet Kingdom. There is naturally no'wrong replacement' situation for the ones shipped by Lun."
Sparrow nodded, and then she seemed to have suddenly reacted to something, subconsciously raised her head and glanced at the mechanical clock on the opposite wall, her tone became a little nervous: "How long has the store manager been out? Is there a safety signal in the middle? "
"He went out six hours ago," the young man behind the counter replied, and then seemed to react suddenly, "...he shouldn't have been alone for so long without sending a signal...especially in the city. It’s time for extraordinary visions."
While talking, he took out a plain-looking brass pocket watch from his pocket, pressed the button to open the cover, and all the hands on the seemingly normal dial were fixed at 12 o'clock. And it doesn't move.
The young man's expression suddenly changed slightly. He quickly pressed the button three more times. The dial of the pocket watch immediately opened with a snap, revealing the movement underneath, as well as the fine and complex runes and fine crystal structures around the movement, one of which is a small crystal. At this moment, it was emitting a slight red light, and the light flickered as if there was an uneasy rhythm.
This is a dedicated communication tool for officers of the Military Intelligence Bureau, and it is the smallest communication device that can be achieved with current technology.
In order to reduce the size and enhance security, this small device does not have complete magic net terminal functions, but it can send and receive specific rhythm signals through vibration, buzzing, etc., through encoding in advance, these signals can transmit important information, and at the same time The rune array inside the movement can also be used to monitor the operation of other operators' communication equipment.
"...The'shop manager' may be in trouble," the young man suddenly raised his head and looked at the same serious sparrow bee, "I can't track his signal response here."
"It's also possible that in an emergency, you have to switch to silent mode and don't rush to signal him." Sparrow said quickly, and then seemed to have noticed something suddenly, and suddenly looked back in the direction of the shop window.
I don't know when, there is already a thick fog outside the window.
Everything on the street is shrouded in dense fog, the carriages parked on the side of the road, the silhouette of the building opposite, and even the lampposts close at hand, everything becomes a hazy and gloomy void in the dense fog. The shadow, vaguely, can't be seen clearly, only the warm light from the street lamp lights up in the fog, like sparks floating in the fog, vaguely outlines the direction of the street.
In the thick and strange fog, the bee did not see any pedestrians.
The heavy fog will of course hinder people from traveling, but it is more or less weird if no one can see it on the road, especially the sparrow bee is 100% sure, at least two minutes ago when the corner of her eye swept through the window. Seeing such a heavy fog, the pedestrians on the road continued to flock for two minutes. In such a short two minutes, what happened in this city? !
She glanced at each other with the colleague behind the counter. The latter had reached out and took out two sets of small melting daggers and a magic terminal for combat from the hidden compartment of the counter. They skillfully and quickly put on the wrist-like terminal. He hid the dagger behind the hem of the close-fitting and easy-to-access clothes, and then walked cautiously toward the window.