030. The Outsider

  Li Aozi g him.

  Barnum, busy driving, couldn’t make aures, so he vaguely said, "I mean, isn’t it a man’s job to protect a woman…"

  "Women of the old era had far more ce and pride than today’s det youth."

  Li Aozi criticized:

  "Besides, she is an indepe and strong woman. I believe she pull herself out of this darkness on her own. And you too, don’t look down on someone just because of their gender."

  Barnum waue against this point of view, but whehought about Li Aozi’s background, he decided not to.

  After all, this man had been cast out by the women of the Frost-Pted Republic, yet still maintained a normal sense of gender equality. Li Aozi’s perspective and level of thinking were far beyond his own.

  Li Aozi didn’t press the issue further. Barnum was the te-blooming type, and as an 【Architect】 in the 【Craft】 branch, 'Magieics' required deep philosophical uanding as one of its core knowledge areas. Without suffit enlighte, there’s no way to bee an 【Architect】.

  No one help with that; Barnum could only rely on his own accumution and experieo broaden his horizons, then tinually refled uand.

  That said, when Li Aozi saw the ‘bride’ in the back seat staring out the window, trying to find traces of her era, he couldn’t help but think of Qiu Ran.

  He had never uood why Qiu Ran chose to die. She clearly could have been rescued if she had just waited a little longer, yet she resolutely set herself on fire and stepped into the fake man's battlefield.

  But now, Li Aozi uood a bit more.

  For Qiu Ran, perhaps something was indeed more terrifying thah, just like how Miss Alexia seemed so lost ae at this moment.

  Li Aozi knew her home, her beliefs had beeroyed.

  She could no longer find the meaning of her existence.

  In a sense, Alexia was already a dead person, but Li Aozi believed that she wasn’t someone who would stay down. He believed this girl from 500 years ago could stand back up through her own will.

  However, all the way back to the abandoned factory, 【Inquisitor】 Alexia didn’t utter a single word.

  The hover car drove into the factory and came to a slow stop. Li Aozi and Barnum got out, but Alexia remained in the back seat, as if she were a rigid corpse, lifeless, with empty eyes that made it hard for ao meet her gaze.

  She was tall, only half a head shorter than Li Aozi, but now she seemed terrified of being caught by reality. When Li Aozi opehe car door, she turned her head away and curled up into a ball, smaller than a newborn baby or an elderly person on the verge of death.

  For a moment, Li Aozi even began to doubt whether what he had read in that post in his past life was true or if it was just sensational tent made up by a marketing at to gain attention.

  Could this weak woman really be the strong, fierquisitor they had known?

  "David Lian, are you crazy?! We’re allies now, and you’re trying to incite infighting!"

  Li Aozi and Barnum turheir heads to see people ihe factathered in their respective groups, armed and fag off with their leaders.

  The womaioning was a fierce member of the civilian militia named Amanda Williams, with curly hair braided like a Gypsy. She was acg David Lian, the leader of the Children of Fire, a grumpy old fanatic who kept his eyes closed, with e fluorest paint on his eyelids, making it look like he had burning eyes.

  "Amanda, it was your subordinate who disrespected our faith first. Hand him over, or the wrath of Aliaza will e the entire world."

  David Lian spoke in a low, rhythmie, as if he were pounding a drum. He held an ornate human boifa one hand, gesturing various symbols with the other, his stern void strange demeanor evoking fear in others.

  "To hell with that," an angry young man from the civilian militia said. "You sacrifice the bodies of the dead to the gods—what kind of prod would accept that?"

  The young man’s accusations didn’t bring about the expected e. Instead, many of the ral parties criticized him:

  "Adam, you’re being too rude. The Children of Fire are a major church; how you say that?"

  "Exactly, exactly. They have the freedom to believe whatever they want. After all, we’re all brothers in the same trenow."

  "Ha, those who don’t believe in the gods will sooner or ter be burned by fire."

  The civilian militia was mostly made up of people who had received a few years of pulsory education and had rid themselves of superstition. However, the rebels here didn’t all e from cities.

  Some came from rural areas, some were drifters from the outside world, and many were just unemployed or farmers. For them, the existence of gods was like cheap alcohol, a temporary relief from their unsatisfactory reality.

  "…Church?"

  Li Aozi was taken aback. He turned his head and suddenly heard Alexia speak.

  The Children of Fire had deep roots in the rural tryside. Many of those standing against Adam were also part of the reason why such a rge rebel alliance had been formed—the Children of Fire had rallied many followers and mobilized manpower.

  Although everyone could see the ignorand backwardness of the Children of Fire, they were relying on their influence for the time being and had to turn a blind eye. Young Adam, full of passion and justice, didn’t uand the ways of the world. Seeing the Children of Fire once again using the corpses of the dead for rituals and sacrifices to the gods, he angrily kicked over the fire pit, disrupting the ceremony.

  Amanda, hearing the whole story, felt stuck between a rod a hard pce.

  On one hand, she really didn’t like the mad behavior of the Children of Fire, but oher hand, if they became dissatisfied a, the strength of the entire group would be greatly diminished, and their struggle against the Grand Duke would be doomed.

  The leader of the civilian militia had left ent business, leaving the entire fa’s deaking to her. She had no choice but to turn to Adam aly say, "Adam, go apologize."

  These words hit Adam’s soul like a thunderbolt. He looked in disbelief at the trusted leader and the rades behind him, nudging him to apologize.

  "I don’t uand!"

  Adam said:

  "If we’re not here for justiot here to resist the ial rule, then what are we gathered here for? To let these worshippers of false gods take the political stage? What will the world think of us? What will our citizens think?"

  Alexia raised her head, murmuring:

  "izers?"

  "My fellow trymen, isn’t our nation’s independend autonomy the most important thing right now? There are people starving by the roadside and under bridges, while others throw delicacies into the trash every day. Uhis sunless sky, some freeze to death while others install air ditioners at home!"

  Alexia ched her fists and stood up straight.

  "Injustice… Oppression…"

  Her gaze swept over the crowd, her ears tuned in to Adam’s desperate cries.

  "My fellow trymen, we have fewer than fifty million citizens, yet we feed 600 million people in the Frost-Pted Republiilk feeds their soldiers until they’re fat and strong, and they, in turn, oppress us. Has a suffered at the hands of the Frost-Pted Republiany daughters have been vioted by their occupying forces? They’re sug our blood, and the church sacrifices our soldiers’ bodies to gods that do—how is that any different from the izers? They’re all blood-sug bastards."

  "Heretic!"

  FAL