Editing City Series:Volume5b Chapter15 (section)

===Beretta’s Journal===

Today, I am writing this in a truck parked next to a river. I was told to go see what had happened to the mountain pass after last night’s earthquake.

The pass is about 10 yards wide, but it’s completely blocked off up ahead of where I am. A rockslide and landslide completely took out nearly 2 miles of it.

There’s no way to move east and west through Morvan.

That’s a pretty big problem during a war like this.

The mountain rail line can get you around Morvan if you’re willing to wait three days.

But tanks and Barrels can’t ride the mountain line’s train. They could send a military transport train if it was a normal line, but the mountain line is wider and thicker than normal. The military needs to use that mountain pass to get through Morvan.

I imagine some German construction vehicles will be here to deal with it before too long.

While pondering this issue and viewing the aftermath, I noticed something interesting in the landslide on the mountainside.

There was a mass of concrete containing rusted rebar within the dirt.

Only the black dragon lived in the Morvan Mountains, so why would something like that be there?

I quickly checked my map and realized I was right near the bottom of the table of rock. The table rises up like a cliff from here and forms a canyon with the land Herlde is built on, but what was this concrete mass in the landslide within that canyon?

It looked like a piece of some kind of structure. Since this was in a canyon, would it be a bridge? Well, it could be a gate or whatever else as far as I was concerned. It only mattered that there had been an artificial structure in this supposedly unpopulated area.

I think I’m going to climb the mountain. If I look down from the path up to the shrine at the peak, I should be able to see the top of the table.

But that incredible rockslide and landslide is a problem. It’s only around two miles from that table to this mountain pass, but mud had flowed all the way down here to fill the pass along with the rockslide.

That was no joke. You would die if you were caught in something like that.

I was glad no one had been caught in it, but I had no idea when it might happen where I was.

<The cries of the birds arrive from between the trees.

There is also a lot of shaking. The tremor is enough to shake the truck.

The cries of the birds and beasts join together in the distance as the ground lifts its own sort of cry. When the ground shakes, the earth responds.>

It scared me.

I quickly grabbed at the steering wheel, but it was still terrifying to feel an unavoidable death so close by. This was part of the mountain pass, so there could easily be another landslide or rockslide, not to mention a flash flood from upstream. I wanted to hurry back, but…

<My face looks pale in the cracked rearview mirror.

The pounding of my heart rings loud in my ears.>

My fingers are trembling as I write this. The earlier earthquake was bad enough, but this one is worse. I hate things like earthquakes because there’s just no way to fight them.

I can’t believe this. The whole time things were shaking, I kept wondering what happens if I die here and wishing I could return to the others. It was the same on the night I first met Rosetta in February and when the librarian disappeared in March.

I was scared. My usual cheerful self completely disappeared.

<When I breathe in, I realize how unusually dry my throat is.

The muscles around my jaw are trembling.>

I must have been screaming in fear.

<When I realize that, the tears start to flow.>

I really don’t want to Point that I was cry-

Let’s just say it took me a while to stop crying. But why? I didn’t cry when I was scared back in Paris, but when I really was alone, there were the tears.

There may have been something more fundamental than strength and weakness that I didn’t understand.

That had to be the difference I felt between myself and Phillip or Heinz Berge.

The difference that made me feel inferior. And the reason they seemed so strong.

What was it?

<A cry different from a normal animal sounds in the distance. It is the black dragon.>

There sure is a lot going on today. Well, I wrote down everything that caught my attention, so I need to reread all this to make sure I don’t forget any of it. Time to get back to the vill-

<The black dragon’s cry echoes out.

And there are three deep sounds similar to shattering stone. They are cannon shots.>

Is that the Germans? Fighting the black dragon? Surely they aren’t that reckless.

<The cannon blasts and the black dragon’s cry echo across the mountain.

I do not know where they are fighting or what their situation is.>

I should go see-…no, I shouldn’t. And sitting here listening is meaningless too. I don’t need to Point it any more. The dragon attacks Herlde on August 3 to crush the German army. We will be back in Paris by then.

So I should get back to the village. My hands aren’t trembling anymore.