Meteor City, surrounded by countless junks and resembling a refugee camp, wasn't all bad. It had churches that offered prayer and housed orphans, shops for trading goods, and factories providing jobs. Anyone with the ability to work, as long as they were diligent, didn't have to worry about starving to death.
The streets in the residential areas were generally peaceful. Perhaps it was because I had been here for too short a time, but I hadn't yet witnessed street murders, arsons, or robberies. There was one instance of theft, however, which ended with the perpetrator being caught red-handed. The culprit was Illumi and me.
In ordinary places, thievery was a low-cost, high-return profession. While it was difficult to steal from truly wealthy households, one could choose less challenging ordinary residences, scout them beforehand, and the gains wouldn't be disappointing.
Meteor City was different. Ordinary residents' homes were generally poor, with little to steal. What was worth stealing were high-level dungeons. If your level wasn't high enough, you had to consider the consequences of attempting it rashly.
After experiencing the NPC level suppression in the high-level dungeon "District Twelve Grocery Store" and losing all my belongings after a failed challenge, I learned my lesson and chose to start my leveling journey in the maps surrounding the residential areas.
Every morning, I would first go to the grocery store to confirm with the owner whether the whistle had been resold. Then, I would go to other maps to level up. Once I accumulated a certain amount of items obtained along the way, I would take them to the grocery store to exchange for daily necessities, and also ask if the whistle was still there.
After being asked for two consecutive days, the owner, upon seeing Illumi and me, would respond with "It's still here" before Illumi could even ask. He wasn't bothered by the repeated questions because he was very interested in when and how two little brats could obtain the precious metals to exchange for the whistle.
Of course, no precious metals could be dug up from piles of garbage. Places where precious metals existed were definitely high-level dungeons. Without even thinking, focusing on leveling up was the correct strategy.
Where there is light, there is shadow. When people cleared out the garbage to create livable residential areas and imposed order, the chaotic, dirty, and disordered parts, along with the garbage pushed aside, were transferred together, forming a natural, open hunting ground outside the residential areas.
Some hunted garbage, while others hunted the garbage collectors. Illumi and I belonged to neither of these groups; we hunted the latter, because the latter offered significantly more experience points and better loot.
After selecting a target, the first step was observation, judging the level difference, which was divided into "easy," "nor...
The owner was dead. Before his body was discovered, everything in the grocery store was considered ours. After eating the biscuits, we finally let ourselves go, drinking a whole bottle of water to our hearts' content. Then, we carried over the jar of candy that countless children of Meteor City considered their life's dream. We took out one piece, unwrapped it, and put it in our mouths. It was so sweet; it had been so long since we had eaten anything sweet.
"It's so sweet, I really want to eat honey cake," Illumi said. "I also want to eat cheesecake, rainbow mille-crêpe, chocolate éclairs, soufflé..."
I immediately raised my hand to stop him from listing dishes. Don't say any more; the more you say, the hungrier I get!
After eating our fill, Illumi remembered the ledger.
"Is it possible that the whistle isn't here at all, and he might have lied to us?" Illumi said.
We drew the curtains to block out the light, lit the candles in the store, and together examined the ledger we found by rummaging through everything.
According to the dates written in the ledger, the owner resold the whistle the Sunday after he received it, selling it to someone named "Bernano." He had indeed lied to me.
"Someone in Meteor City willing to spend five silver coins on jewelry must not be ordinary," Illumi decided to give up. "Now that we know the whistle is definitely gone, let's clean up the scene and leave."
I held Illumi's wrist and shook my head repeatedly, indicating that I absolutely had to find out "Bernano's" identity.
Seeing that I refused to leave, Illumi reopened the ledger. "Then let's look at all the transaction records related to 'Bernano,' perhaps we can find a clue."
"Mm, this volume of transactions. 'Bernano' is likely not a single individual but the name of a group. Using a surname as a group name, this naming style strongly suggests a gang," Illumi handed me the ledger. "It's not surprising they would purchase jewelry."
Since it was a gang, and we knew the name, we could find them after leaving Meteor City and snatch the whistle back.
Tearing off the page of the ledger with the whistle transaction record, I put it in my pocket and used the candle's flame to burn the entire ledger. This way, no one would know what items were missing from the store.
We packed the remaining food and drinking water in the store into two backpacks, enough for two people for four days. Keeping things simple, we didn't dare use overly large backpacks, as they would attract too much attention and lead to robbery. Minimizing trouble was the best way to survive.
There weren't many candies left in the candy jar; we each took a handful and put them in our pockets, leaving only a few left in the jar.
Gathering the remaining water in the store, there was a whole basin of it. We used this water to wet towels, as if we had found a treasure. Oh, there were a few towels in the store, which was great; they were much softer than old cloth and had better absorbency. We thoroughly wiped ourselves down and then tore up spare clothes to bandage our wounds. The water used for the towels wasn't directly discarded; it was reused to rinse away our bloodstains. Contaminated bloodstains couldn't be identified, which further eliminated our personal traces.
Actually, I thought setting the store on fire would be the safest option, but that would create too much of a commotion and have a worse impact. We needed to be low-key.
It was not advisable to linger here. In the darkness, we each placed a candy in our mouths, carrying five silver coins, and set off fully loaded.
The destination was District Eleven.