Chapter 561: Familiar yet unfamiliar Castel
The next day, Hunter went to the court to pay bail and brought out Alvarez, who looked exhausted.
"What's wrong, uncle? Were you beaten in there?"
"Not really. The guards are very dedicated, but it's hard to describe."
Alvarez waved his hand, not wanting to talk about these things any more. He looked around. There was a thin layer of mist in Blood Harbor in the early morning, and the sea breeze brought a warm and moist breath, which was completely different from the North.
"Are you familiar with this place? Take me around."
Hunter wanted to say that he was not actually familiar with the place. He was transferred to Castel not long after being sent here, and he did not stay in Blood Harbor for very long.
But he has even been to Castel, so how could a mere Blood Harbor scare him?
"Well, let's go to the dock first."
Before he came, he had roughly inquired about the current situation of Blood Harbor. Now Blood Harbor is divided into dock area, industrial area, residential area and central area.
The central area consists of the school, the court, the railway and the building where Hughes works. It is the busiest area in the entire Blood Harbor.
The original upper town area has gradually declined, and without the nobles, this area has gradually lost its original prosperity.
Moreover, with the prince's secret instigation, many buildings in the upper city were destroyed. After he took over the assets of these nobles, he was not in a hurry to repair them.
After Blood Harbor's industry had developed for a period of time, this area was redesignated as a residential area and many workers moved in. Many of the people from the former lower town became neighbors of Grand Duke Tis, which was also a cause for regret.
It is now early morning and workers are coming out of their homes and flocking to the factories.
Alvaro looked at the workers carefully, with a hint of surprise in his eyes.
"What's the matter, uncle?"
"These people, well, they seem to be very..."
"vitality?"
Alvaro shook his head, then nodded. He couldn't describe the feeling.
He had seen many people in the North, including freemen who needed to rent land for farming, various craftsmen in the city, and various bureaucrats and nobles in the city hall.
The workers before him were different from all of them.
"I can't explain it either." In the end, he could only shake his head angrily and buried the doubts in his heart.
Hunter led Alvarez to a shed near the Blood Harbor Pier. It was called a shed, but it was actually a small street shop neatly built with wooden planks.
There was a tall sign on it that read "Yami's Chips & Fried Fish".
"This is my friend's shop. Let's buy some food before we leave."
Alvarez nodded.
This place is very close to the factory area. The people queuing are all nearby workers. The line is very long, but it moves not slowly. Soon Alvaro sees the scene in the store.
A short girl was standing on a wooden box, standing on tiptoe and using long tongs to flip the fried fish in the pan. She put a portion of fried fish that had just been fried and was still smelling fragrant aside, and a young man next to her began to pack it in a hurry.
"Ah, this one is a little loose, I'll wrap it again." The boy showed a somewhat embarrassed smile, "I just started today, I'm not very familiar with it yet."
"Are you a new employee in the store?"
"No, I'm just here to help. I was cooking porridge nearby before, and Bettys couldn't handle it alone, so she asked me to help."
The little girl next to him nodded seriously: "Yes, everyone else in my shop has slipped away, and I am the only one left. I wanted to close the shop, but the believers nearby... I mean, the workers nearby all like the fried fish here, so I asked Mr. Josh for help. I didn't expect him to come to help in person."
After saying that, she seemed to have thought of something and added, “When you have time, you can go and try the porridge cooked by Qiao Xi. Everyone likes it very much!”
Alvarez smiled and nodded, took the fried fish wrapped in newspaper from Josh, and lowered his head to sniff it.
"What a nice smell! Isn't this the oil squeezed from beans? That kind of oil doesn't have such a rich aroma."
"Yes, this is olive oil, one of Castres' specialties. It is said to support the industrial foundation of the entire island!"
Alvaro didn't understand industrial basics, but he knew how to fry fish.
"This fish is great too. Sea fish always had an indescribable strange smell before, but the ones here don't have that. Is it a specialty of Castel?"
Josh's mouth twitched as if he had thought of something.
He vaguely remembered that Castel had investigated this. In fact, the creatures in the sea were the flesh and blood of the sea god. Since the pollution in the sea was purified, could these fish also have changed?
While thinking about it, Josh grabbed a piece of fried fish and put it into his mouth, chewing it himself. It seemed that there was no difference?
When he looked up, he found Bettys glaring at him angrily, her two long braids shaking.
His grip on the fried fish froze.
“S-Sorry!”
The workers in line all laughed.
Alvarez looked at the people around him. They seemed to be genuinely happy and joyful, which was something rarely seen on the faces of people in the North.
Whether freemen or nobles, whether poor or rich, they can rarely be so purely happy. It seems that there is always something that trips them up and traps them.
Alvarez's doubts deepened.
While eating fried fish with Hunter, the two of them strolled to the dock area.
It's a busy scene here. In the distance on the sea stands a tall lighthouse. The blue sea, the gray tower and the thin mist on the sea at sunrise are as beautiful as an oil painting.
Alvaro admired it with great interest for a while and was about to leave, but he suddenly stopped after turning around.
He turned around slowly, put his palms on his eyes, squinted, and looked carefully.
"Hunter, can you help me check if that lighthouse is built directly out of the water?"
"ah?"
Hunter also looked up, and after a while they both looked around, they were surprised to find that the lighthouse was not built on an island or a reef, but stood upright in the water.
"Could it be that the tide is rising now, and the land will be exposed when the tide goes out?" Hunter asked hesitantly.
His research field originally included architecture, so he naturally knew how difficult it was to build a lighthouse in the sea.
Even if Castel had concrete that was stronger than rock, it would probably be difficult to do so, right?
"Hunter, I don't quite understand what low tide is, but there is a time for that, right? The tide will rise after a while, so can we still do the construction?"
"Well, they have a strong building material. Those houses we just passed were made of it. Maybe, maybe it can be used in water too."
Hunter's voice became lower and lower. He suddenly felt that he didn't know much about Castel, the mysterious island in the sea.
(End of this chapter)
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