"War! War! War!"

I looked at the fanatical members of the Grey Squirrel Gang in the audience and sighed slightly. I pulled out the dagger on my waist, which was the standard for every member of the Grey Squirrel Gang.

"I am Salenoves!" I shouted loudly, trying my best to make my voice over everyone's noisy shouts, "I brought General Jean Rana's orders."

"We will find a large number of 'homeless poor people' who will become part of the Grey Squirrels and fight with you and me."

Many people smiled suddenly after hearing the words "Homeless Poor". It seemed that there were a large number of smart people in the Grey Squirrel.

But that's true. If you are not smart enough, how can you survive in a slum?

"You all heard what Mr. Saren said," Dallas stood up at the right time and took over the conversation. "Since the Viper Gang wants to break the rules here, we can't blame us for taking ruthless measures against them! Men! Let the little snakes that can only slide on the ground know how powerful we are!"

"For the Grey Squirrel!" Everyone raised their weapons above their heads and let out howls that were more like wild cries than cheers.

"The war... is about to begin," I looked at the members of the Grey Squirrel who were trapped in the frenzy and sighed in a low voice.

"The war has begun long ago, Mr. Saren," Dallas came to me at some point, and he handed me a glass of wine. "When the Snake Gang chose to surrender to those Imperials, things were destined to come to this point."

He looked into the distance, his eyes flashing with dangerous light, "I will not let them take away my property and bully my brothers. The Snake Gang and the Grey Squirrel Gang, and in the end they can only leave one party."

"It's time to go, Mr. Saren," Dallas retracted his gaze, and the dangerous flames contained in it were extinguished, and he looked at me with a smile, "Before Mr. Rana finds the poor for us, the Grey Squirrel will rely on your strength.

◇◇◇◇◇

I led a small group of people, including eight of me, and crossed the dividing line between the Grey Squirrel and the Viper Snake Gang, a square located in the southwest of the slums.

I held a short sawed smoothbore cannon in my hand, which was the best weapon I had on my body, and to keep my disguise, Hickrad and I brought nothing into the ghetto.

It was obviously unrealistic to expect Hicklad to come back and set off again. In desperation, I had to pick a few weapons that were barely handy in the "armortium" of the Grey Squirrel and put them on them.

Unfortunately, only 70% of my mind is still in a healthy state. Although this has already allowed me to release some less difficult rune techniques, I decided to use these abilities as little as possible.

After all, no one knows what I will become if my mind breaks again. Maybe what awaits me is the tragic ending of becoming a vegetative person, maybe what awaits me is endless death.

"Boss Salon," a voice pulled me out of my complicated thoughts. The voice was very young and trembling. I think it was because I was too scared.

I looked at the man who walked up to me. He was a young man, younger than me. I remember his name was Galati, and he was only sixteen years old this year.

He is a second generation, and this title is used to refer specifically to children born in slums and then grow up here. For them, this dirty and messy area is their entire world.

I looked at Galati and showed a gentle smile, "What's wrong, Galati?"

He swallowed and looked at me in fear, "Will we meet people from the Viper Gang? And those Imperials? Will we die? I heard that those Imperials have muskets, new muskets that are much more powerful than those of our muskets."

"Don't worry, Galati," I rubbed his head and comforted him with a smile, "I will look at you, after all, I am your boss."

I said, blinking at him.

"I understand, Boss Saren," Galati followed me, his voice still trembling, "I know you are a powerful character coming in from outside. I heard Uncle Chavez say that you are a magician and the kind of magical person who can bring flames out of thin air."

"But I'm just afraid," he continued, and I saw the unwillingness in his eyes, and the clenched fists. "I don't want to die here, I'm afraid to die here, the first sixteen years of my life have been spent in such a small place. I haven't even been to other places in Cabofis!"

"I'm not willing!" He looked at me and choked up. "I want to see the outside world, I want to know the lives of other people, what is the life of people in the world you come from."

"I wonder why we are all Stranders. Only we have been forced to live in this dark place since we were born, all day long, with sludge, disease and poverty, and struggle to survive every day, but we can't see a glimmer of hope."

"I want to know the answers to all of this. I want to rely on my own strength to find out the answers to these questions."

He looked at me, his nails pierced his palms, and the red blood winded down the skin, and then formed shocking red beads, dripping onto the ground under the action of gravity, making a crisp snap sound.

I looked at him and didn't know what to say. In my team, there were three boys as big as hers. They also clenched their fists tightly and stared at me tightly. What they saw was a complex emotion intertwined by desire, anger, unwillingness and expectation.

"There will be a day, I promise you," I looked at all the teenagers, "I will try my best to get you out of the slums, I swear."

"But now," I looked at them, pulling out the pistol at my waist, "we have to keep moving forward, don't forget that we are already on the territory of those venomous snakes."

The teenagers nodded one after another, dispersed from me, and turned into loose formations again. They were only wearing tattered cloth clothes, and they were mostly holding simple weapons such as daggers, knives and short axes.

I looked at their firm faces and sighed quietly. The rags on their bodies were unprotected. In this still cold spring, these rags could not even meet the most basic need for keeping warm.

There are only three muskets in the team, two of which are smoothbore guns from thirty years ago, and only one is a rifled gun or a backward guy from five years ago.

I carried a smoothbore gun on my back, and the rifled gun was carried by the sharpshooter in my team. He was twenty-two years old and was recommended to me by Dallas. It is said that within a range of two hundred steps, the rifled gun in his hand was like the god of death with eyes. No one could dodge the bullets he fired within this range.

The last smoothbore gun was held by another young man in his twenties. Of course, it was not realistic to pretend to be like this weapon to hit people. The probability of hitting a smoothbore gun was really low.

This is still a calculation within the effective range. If the range is obtained, the probability of a smoothbore gun hitting a person is not much higher than the probability of a lightning strike.

"I hope I won't meet the people from the Viper Gang," I prayed in my heart, vaguely regretting it, "I would have brought the bow and arrow if I had known."

Modern thinking has hurt me. I really didn't expect that the so-called "armortium" of the Grey Squirrel Gang was so unbearable. A smoothbore gun like this could be used as a decorative antique on the walls of the rich, but this is a rare strategic weapon for them.

As for rifled rifles, they are even more rare top-level weapons.

This made me a little laugh and a little sad. I had no right to point fingers at Strand's policies or methods of doing things, because I was an outsider after all.

But I think no matter who they are, when they see poor people in these slums, for a little bit of small pitiful territory, and those supplies that are almost impossible to count as food and water, they will have doubts about the Strand's government, holding short blades and short axes, and even blood flowing into a river.

My eyes swept over the teenagers led by Galati again. Many people in the slums were once members of this prosperous city. They were not evil bandits, nor were they morally corrupt evil people.

Just because of bankruptcy, they were driven to this dark place and rotten day by day. They laughably fought each other on this land, abandoning the virtues, dignity and soul they once had.

Not to mention these poor people, the so-called "second generation of poor people" who have been trapped in this small space since birth.

I took these members of the Grey Squirrel and kicked open the door of a building on the side of the road. What appeared in front of us was a burning iron bucket, and three men curled up beside the iron bucket, keeping warm.

They were unkempt and their clothes were as ragged as members of the Grey Squirrel here. The weapons and tied armbands around their waists revealed their identity. They were members of the Viper Squirrel Gang.

They quickly confirmed our identity through the same method, "The stinky rat from the Grey Squirrel Gang!? You have crossed the boundaries!"

"We cross the boundary!" Galati stepped out of me, pointed the dagger in his hand straight at the other party, and said viciously, "The ones who really cross the boundary are you poisonous snakes! Don't think we don't know that you are already hooking up with the Imperial!"

The faces of the three men who were roasting the fire changed unnaturally at the same time, which made me more sure of my previous guess. They did reach some kind of agreement, or alliance with the Imperial people.

"You can't talk nonsense, rat," the man in the center pulled out the short knife from his waist and looked at us in a cold look. "This is an extremely serious accusation, you know."

"Oh yes, of course we know," Galati continued to sarcastically, "You don't admit it, your face has told us everything, you know what you have done."

"We are not here to seek crimes, idiots," he clasped his dagger and surrounded him with the others. "We are here to declare war. The Grey Squirrel Gang and the Viper Snake Gang, the Rat and Viper Snake Gang, the Rat and Viper Snake, have started a war."

"Do it!"

I let out a depressed angrily shout and rushed forward with a short knife.

But Galati was faster than me, and before the others could react, the dagger in his hand stabbed into the heart of one of the Viper Gang members.

Until Galati pulled out the dagger, the member of the Viper Gang still maintained his facial expression. After seeing the splattering blood, he lowered his head as if he had remembered something and stared at his chest blankly.

Large swells of blood splashed out along the wound, and vitality quickly disappeared. I saw the eyes fading away quickly, and my huge body fell heavily to the ground.

I held the short knife and cut the throat of another person. The last person was also cut open with a short axe by a boy.

In just a short while, the three people who were still alive turned into three corpses on the ground. I saw dark red blood spreading, emitting a steam of heat.

I sighed, "Hide the body and deal with it here," I said, "The later it is exposed, the more beneficial it is for us."

Galati and others nodded. They were moving very quickly. Immediately, someone began to carry the bodies, while the rest began to clean up the blood on the ground.

After a little rest here, we continued to set out deeper, and there were already shouts of killing not far away. I saw lights on in many places, and the noisy sounds even sounded from all directions.

"Go away!" I whispered to the members of the team, "We must meet with others as soon as possible. I don't want to be drowned here by the people from the Viper Gang!"

"Where are we going?" Galati seemed a little confused. "Aren't we going to fight with the Viper Gang?"

I looked at the tender faces of these teenagers, and the promises I made before surged into my heart again.

An idea came up uncontrollably, and I gritted my teeth, looked at them, and asked in a low voice: "Do you believe me?"

Everyone nodded, "Very good," I said, "If we don't go to support the main battlefield, most of the members of the Viper Gang will definitely rush there, which will turn that into a high-risk area. I promised you to let you out of the slums, so I will never take you into the most dangerous area."

"This is my plan," I gathered everyone around me. "We continue to follow this road and try to see if we can directly hit the nest."

"Get straight to the nest? We are going to catch that poisonous snake!?"

"Yes," I smiled and looked at the excited Galati, "this would be very dangerous, so you don't have to follow me."

"What?" Galati's smile seemed to be frozen. It took him a while before he realized, "No, of course not! We want to follow you!"

I looked at him, took a deep breath, and began to adjust my emotions: "Stop making trouble!" I looked at them angrily, "I'm not going to catch the 'Cobra' to achieve success!"

I looked at the confused teenagers and sighed, "Do you remember how Galati told me?"

Everyone nodded, I smiled and continued, "The people in the Grey Squirrel are humans, but the people in the Viper Squirrel are not humans?" I looked at them and asked, "Don't they have the right to get out of this damn place?"

I sighed again, "You are all poor people trapped in this place," I said, "It is because of this reason that I don't let you go, whether it's the Grey Squirrel or the Viper Snake Strip, I don't want to see more people fall here just for a little pitiful benefit."

I didn't lie to them. Every word I said was inspired by feelings. Whether it was the Viper Snake Gang or the Grey Squirrel Gang, they were just the most lowly existences on this land. When the nobles and citizens outside were enjoying their just returning to normal life, the people here were fighting each other for the sake of things that people outside would never look down on, for the sake of each other's survival, and even refused to take refuge in the imperialists.

It's enough. The innocent people's blood has been shed too much and there is no need to continue to shed. This is the first time I feel that I have done something wrong. Maybe I shouldn't help Rana.

I don't know what he thought, but the rest of Strand? They probably never regarded the people in the ghetto as part of their own.

I looked into the distance, and the shouts of killing were still coming, with clear and identifiable screams in the middle. Each scream meant another life was injured or left the world forever.

I quietly looked at the bright sky and the dazzling sun, and felt that my heart was wrapped tightly in a strong sourness. Only by gritting my teeth can I control myself and prevent tears from flowing out of my eyes.
Chapter completed!