Free Web NovelChapter 471: Chapter 471 Train Station Gossip Market_1
The following afternoon, in Sunset City, Gistas Kingdom, at the train station.
"Extra! Extra! Dmitry was bombarded this morning, the city was engulfed in flames, with the death toll surpassing a thousand people. The scene is too horrifying to look at!" The young newsboy waved the special edition of the newspaper, shouting with all his might.
Passengers waiting for the train stood neatly in a row on the platform, nearly everyone holding a newspaper, men puffing on cigarettes and exhaling smoke.
Some were discussing with their companions while holding the newspapers.
"Look, I told you it would come to blows! What’s the use of our mediation? It’s all empty talk! The ghosts of Dmitry are not willing to stop, they need a beating to quiet down!"
"I don’t get it, why is tiny Dmitry making such a fuss? And these terrorist attacks, heh, one blast and they’re back to their real size."
"The refugees are going to increase again..."
"Damn it, when the country is in trouble, those trash don’t defend their homeland but come here begging. Taking them away to be tried for treason wouldn’t be unjust at all! Didn’t the mayor say last month that he was going to issue a regulation to move refugees to the suburbs? And no news since then?"
"Didn’t you see the newspaper last week? When the police were arresting a refugee thief, that bastard jumped into the river and drowned himself. There were a bunch of people protesting in Civic Square!"
"Refugees protesting? Why care so much about them?"
"It’s the locals! The mutual aid societies, get it?"
"Damn virtuous bitches, no wonder the policy can’t be implemented."
"What’s the use even if it is? What’s the point of these superficial solutions? Dmitry’s ghosts, wolves that never grow tame no matter how much you feed them, you give them bread and they want cake; you give them tents and they want villas. Besides, imagine a bunch of thieves gathered together—whose wallets are they going to steal to sustain themselves?"
"Of course, they’ll steal two wallets a day and discard one themselves. The amount they make or lose is up to fate, haha."
"Hahaha!"
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"Extra! Extra! The great fire of Dmitry, a living hell, too horrifying to look at!" the newsboy continued his pitch, "Hey, sir, buy a paper."
The young man who appeared in front of him was carrying luggage that was clearly heavy, having come from afar.
The man didn’t say much, just took out a coin, bought a newspaper, and while holding it in one hand, he read as he walked on.
A little figure appeared behind him, following and weaving through the crowd.
Barely over ten years old, the child was dressed in old clothes with dark skin, displaying the facial features typical of southerners, identifiable as a refugee who had escaped from Dmitry.
Some locals saw this scene from a distance and immediately knew that the young man’s wallet was being targeted. In the end, no one spoke up to warn him. Such events are a daily occurrence at the train station, and everyone had become indifferent. Even if station staff were informed, they wouldn’t chase away the refugees wandering about; if the incident was reported and became a big deal, the employee involved could lose their job.
The child quickly closed in on his target, focusing on the pocket of the man’s coat where he had observed that the man habitually kept his wallet when buying the newspaper.
He was the perfect mark, entirely too carefree about his wallet, a sheep waiting to be shorn. His pocket might as well have been waving at him, beckoning to be taken. All it would take was a quick approach from behind and a snatch, and the poor sod wouldn’t notice a thing until he turned around to pay for a meal.
Two steps, one step... Just as the kid was about to reach out, the young man spun around without warning, leaning in face-to-face, and shouted at the kid, "Surprise, kiddo!!"
"Ahhhh!" The kid was so startled that he fell on his butt on the ground.
"You picked the wrong target," the young man said, looking down at him, an eyebrow raised.
The kid snapped back to reality, scrambled to his feet and ran off, bumping into several people along the way, eliciting a string of curses.
"Three pickpockets before even leaving the station, has Gistas’s public safety gotten this bad?" mused the young man’s female companion, crossing her arms beside him. freeweɓnovel.cøm
Passersby didn’t notice this woman at all; some even walked right through her, as she was nothing more than an illusion projected from the young man’s consciousness.
"With such a massive wave of refugees, it would be impossible for public safety not to be affected."
The young man—Aiden—looked around and responded to the avatar of vengeance in his mind.
He had gotten used to this form of telepathic communication, lest speaking aloud too often might cause others to think he needed to check into a mental hospital.
After confirming there were no more suspicious people following him, he picked up the newspaper he had been reading and continued to read as he walked.
"A typical military crackdown, a street burned, casualties unknown... Heh, that newsboy really had the guts to shout about it," Aiden chuckled, putting the paper down.
In a world dependent on paper media, the bustling train station was the gossip hub of concentrated information.
"Dillon isn’t far from here, yet they speak of it as if it’s a distant matter," the avatar of vengeance remarked.
"Because it is distant. The flames of war in the south will never reach the Gistas Kingdom. For either of the two small countries in the south to aim their cannons at Gistas would be to sign their own death warrant the quickest way possible," Aiden said solemnly. "It’s a stark contrast. Ordinary people living within powerful nations know that their sun will rise as usual tomorrow, so distant wars are nothing but topics of casual conversation after meals. They have the energy to criticize their nation’s policies and to accuse the citizens of smaller countries of lacking patriotism, but they can’t appreciate how precious and hard-won that kind of patriotism really is."
Aiden’s mind contained geographical knowledge left by the previous Aiden. The Gistas Kingdom, like the Dragon Spine Empire, was a long-standing major power, while the two nations currently at war in the south, including Dillon which had produced a massive number of refugees, had all experienced multiple changes of government in the past five or six decades.
The south of the continent had always been more tumultuous than the north, with small nations struggling to survive in the shadow of the great powers. Military conflicts both internal and external occurred frequently, governments changed rapidly, and even the names of countries changed quickly.
To exaggerate a bit, some countries were even post-war creations, cobbled together from regions that were not historically a single nation due to complex political factors.
Many countries’ cultural heritages had been severed with the change of regimes. Citizens of these small nations often lacked a sense of belonging to their country. For some, their patriotism was tied to a country that had long since ceased to exist, rather than the name currently given to the land they lived on.
The strength of a nation and the dignity that cultural belonging brings to its people are subtle yet profound. Imperial folk see themselves as Imperial, Gistastonians see themselves as Gistastonian; in their eyes, this comes naturally. Under such circumstances, it’s hard to empathize with those rootless, driftwood-like people who have lost their connection to their homeland.
"What did they mean by ’mediation’ just now?" the avatar of vengeance suddenly asked.
"Just a favorite activity of certain great powers," Aiden replied with a sudden laugh. "World police."
