Chapter 40: A Simple Life
The sky was reddish-purple around evening time when Stanley and Bradley reached the noodle shop that was on the rightmost side of the 3rd quadrant.
Crossing the small stream, the two brothers walked up to the noodle shop and were surprised to see that even now it was just as popular as ever.
Perhaps because it was close to dinner, however, there weren't as many people waiting for the noodles which could be mostly considered snacks.
When the spots opened up, Bradley and Stanley walked into the shop.
"Welcome, please have a seat. The noodles will be ready in a few minutes," Sheila said before looking up to greet her guest.
She was taken aback for a moment when she saw two people in Defenders armor. She got a little meek and nodded toward the two.
"Hello, Sheila," Stanley said with a bright smile. "We came back for your noodles."
"Huh? You know me?" the girl was a little surprised. Her blue eyes widened in shock before she remembered who Stanley was. "Ah! It's you, the one that burned his hand, right? What was your name again?"
"Stanley," he answered.
"Right, right, Stanley," she said. "Take a seat, I'll get the noodles ready quickly."
Stanley nodded and walked away, while Bradley looked at him weirdly.
"How do you know her name?" he couldn't help but ask after he was seated. "Have you come here on your own when I'm absent?"
"Huh? Of course not," Stanley answered. "She helped me when I had burned my hand the last time, so we ended up talking a bit and learning each other's names. Although, it doesn't seem like I made much of an impact in her mind."
"Don't mind that, she deals with hundreds if not thousands of people a day. It would be weird if she remembered everyone's name and face. The fact that she knows you burned your hand means you definitely made an impact," he said.
Stanley gave a small smile and let the topic drift away. He looked around at the people that were either waiting for their food or were busy eating what was already served.
Not a single person that was eating was forcing themselves to eat at all. Sheila's noodles were just that good.
"So, what did George do today? Was your job difficult?" Bradley asked.
"No, it was simple. Mostly we just followed him around as he searched for information," Stanley said. "Oh right, speaking of which. Brother, did you know that crawlers fell down from the cliffs? I just found out today and had no idea something like that happened."
"Oh that, I learned that quite late too," Bradley said. "One of my tests during the 3rd year's exam was to send someone to prison and deal with the paperwork. I found out about the falling crawlers then."
"I think it's kept a secret so that people don't get nervous during their daily life. Learning that there are crawlers living not just outside the veil but also above the cliff does make it hard to fall asleep when every single sound makes you think it's a crawler," Bradley explained.
"Hmm… that does make sense," Stanley said.
"Does that mean you went to prison too?" Bradley asked.
"Yes, but we didn't enter. George just had to take back some documents from there for the census," Stanley said. As he said that, Stanley remembered something that had happened back then.
"Oh right, brother, of the people I and the others caught a few days ago, 2 have been apparently sent to a different prison because of their powers. Do you know what this prison is, or where it is?" Stanley asked.
Bradley looked at his brother with a slightly surprised face. "You… you learned about the 2nd prison too?" he asked.
"Yes, was it supposed to be a big secret?" Stanley asked.
"It's… definitely meant to not be learned by everyone," Bradley said. "I only learned because…" He stopped speaking. "Anyway, you don't have to think about this prison if you don't know about it. Let the others deal with these things."
Stanley frowned a bit. "Why does everyone get so defensive about the 2nd prison? Why aren't you telling me?" he asked.
"It's a secret, okay," Bradley said. "I'm not authorized to give you any information about the second prison. Just drop the topic, okay?"
"Sigh, okay," Stanley said and stopped.
"Anyway, what after the prison? Why were you in the 4th quadrant?" Bradley asked.
"That's because George had another job," Stanley said. "Brother, have you heard about the girls trying to fight for equality? Apparently, something else is going on after the previous resistance against the mayor."
"Yeah, I've heard," Bradley said. "Honestly, I don't know what's going on at all. It wasn't like this before. But after the Crawler attack 3 months ago, it feels like everything is slowly going downhill."
"When you think one problem is taken care of, another one pops up. I can't wait for the town to go back to normal so we can live a simple," Bradley said.
"Can someone whose job it is to uphold the law even live a simple life?" a girl's voice spoke from behind them. "Here's your noodles. Sorry for the delay."
Bradley watched as Sheila placed the meals on the table in front of the two and then turned towards her.
"What did you mean by that?" he asked her.
"By what?" Sheila asked.
"You said we can't live a simple life," Bradley said.
"Can you?" she asked. "You have to constantly place your life on the line to catch criminals just to keep the civilians safe. Do you call that a simple life? Because I don't."
"Unless you can ever just give up on this lifestyle of yours, let alone a simple life, I don't think you can ever even live a worry-free one," she said.
She walked away to serve the other customers, leaving both Stanley and Bradley something rather profound to think about.
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