Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter16 (section)

===Beretta’s Journal===

This is bad. It is 10 PM and I am writing this while waiting for Rose Francisca in the waiting room of the mayor’s home. The village’s leaders are on the other side of the door in front of me discussing what to do about the Germans. I was in there a bit ago telling them about the Germans I saw.

I am sharing the large waiting room with the wives waiting for their husbands.

I did not bring Rosetta with me. I said that was so she could look after the clinic while we were out, but I was honestly worried. She’s been acting weird. Her normal careless attitude is gone and it kind of scared me today.

Although if she hadn’t been acting weird, we wouldn’t have found the Germans or the Attesor Project’s lab.

On the way down from the shrine this morning, we washed our dishes in a river along the way. We set them out on the sunny valley side of the mountain path so they could dry and then the morning wind blew one of the cups down the slope.

The 5-yard slope led down to the forest below.

It was a ceramic cup, but it caught on the slope without breaking. I started to climb down to get it, but Rosetta climbed down ahead of me. Just as she was about to reach it, the cup rolled the rest of the way down the slope.

I could laugh about it up to that point.

The two of us ended up descending the slope to retrieve the cup. That was when I noticed we were on top of that rock table.

Then Rosetta started walking all of a sudden. She walked into the grassy forest with the cup in hand.

When I quickly grabbed her to stop her, I found she was crying. For some reason, she was looking up at the trees while silently weeping.

“I am sorry. I was overcome by the sudden urge to see some things around here.”

She apologized and I sighed. I mean, I wanted to take a look around too. From what I had seen next to that mountaintop shrine, the trees were growing in an odd way at some points atop that rock table and I had seen a few clearings.

Just as I jokingly suggested we go exploring, we heard an explosion in the distance.

I felt the need to investigate, so we went to take a look together.

Once inside the forest, we quickly found a wide path between the trees.

It was covered in underbrush, but it was a definite path with no trees growing on it. We heard another explosion, so I had Rosetta stay behind me while I got down on my knees and advanced through the underbrush. There was a fork in the path up ahead.

Then a green command vehicle suddenly cut by in front of us. It was German. I panicked, of course. We quickly moved off the path and into the forest as we continued forward while crouching low. On the way, we saw that same vehicle return the way it had come.

After walking another half hour, we found a clearing about the size of the Balleroy mansion’s yard.

The clearing was surrounded by tall trees and a lot of four o’clock flowers covered the ground.

Most of the clearing was filled by a pile of rubble. The mossy and crumbled cement buried about half the clearing. There were a ton of German soldiers surrounding the rubble.

They had a single military vehicle, two trucks, one Light Barrel, two Middle Barrels, and a Heavy Barrel, but what was Rot Löwe doing here?

This was no laughing matter. A boxy reddish-brown object lay at Rot Löwe’s feet. I’m pretty sure that had to be the remains of the rumored Heavy Barrel related to the Attesor Project. In other words, the spare for the Sourire that was left with the mayor.

I could only say it had been stolen, but I was helpless to do anything about it. When I saw them walking toward us, I fled. I frantically grabbed Rosetta’s hand and pulled her away.

<All of a sudden, the waiting room is shaking and the walls are creaking.

It is an earthquake.>