Stray

The body behind her is getting hotter and hotter. The woods ahead seemed endless, and the crisp birdsong began to make him feel restless. Nemo took a deep breath and moved his legs mechanically.

He didn't think of a way, and even asked the grey parrot for help. But the nasty bird was not only useless, it also made countless unpleasant noises, as if "the devil can heal magic" is some kind of curse word.

The only good thing about not encountering a beast, Nemo forced himself to cheer up and move on.

"Ouch," said the grey parrot suddenly, "your luck is here."

Nemo glanced around subconsciously, nothing special—until the barking of dogs reached his ears. He hurriedly hid behind the tree with Oliver on his back, holding his breath. The sound got closer and closer, the wooden wheels of the carriage crushed dead branches, and there was faint laughter in the carriage. It doesn't sound like a chasing soldier, it sounds like a caravan.

He stuck his head out a little, two carriages not far away were heading in the same direction as them. It seems to be a small caravan with a small number of people, and the clothes of the coachman are the popular styles of Garland.

Nemo didn't know if their story had spread in Signpost, but he had no choice now. If he continued to be cautious, even if Oliver didn't die from the wolf hunting, he would still die of illness on his back.

"Help!" He chased after the caravan and shouted with all his strength. "please help me-!"

The pathfinder dogs of the caravan spotted him first, and they stopped and barked frantically at him. The carriage slowly slowed down, and the two jumped out of the carriage. Nemo stumbled forward with Oliver on his back, his heart beating like crazy, as if he was about to pop out of his throat if he wasn't careful.

He tried to open his mouth several times before he managed to make a sound.

"We were attacked by wild beasts." He spoke quickly and quickly, not daring to take a closer look at the other party's expression. "My friend is badly injured, you... do you have any medicine? I can exchange something for it."

"Let me see." The man with the goatee seemed to be the first to speak. He looked Nemo from head to toe. "Put your friend down."

Nimo gently put Oliver down, who was flushed red, breathing short and painful, and showed no sign of waking up. The sackcloth around his left leg was soaked with blood and pus.

"It's troublesome." The man twisted his goatee and raised his eyes. "We do have medicine for this, but it's not cheap. What do you want in exchange, sir?"

Nemo ripped open the **** pack neatly—a gold pendant sewn firmly into the mezzanine, looking heavy, beautifully patterned. It's a pity that I don't know what happened, the whole pendant is full of pits and scratches.

"This is gold." He hesitated for a while, opened the pendant, and took out the picture inside. "Can you take a look?"

The goatee merchant put the pendant in the palm of his hand and looked carefully for a while.

"Ann, give them a bottle of decomposing medicine." He greeted the woman standing aside, "Give them two more sets of old clothes."

The woman raised her eyebrows and took out a brown-yellow medicine bottle from her pocket. She looks like a warrior dressed up as a warrior, with short chestnut hair, tall and heroic. The ugly scar on her right eyebrow was particularly eye-catching, but her eyes didn't seem to be hurt—the amber eyes were bright and playful.

"Get the clothes yourself, don't order me." She grinned at the goatee, revealing beautiful teeth. "Do you want these two boys to wear women's clothes?"

Goatee smiled, shook his head, and returned to the carriage.

"What are you packing?" Ann took the medicine close, and Nemo smelled the faint aroma of thyme. "Get out of here."

Nimo carefully unwrapped the bandage, but the pus and blood had firmly adhered the wound and the sackcloth together, and there was an unpleasant tearing sound with a little force. He tore it slowly, his hands shaking.

The female warrior shook her head and pulled his hand away decisively. She deftly lifted the blood-stained sackcloth, took a metal pot from her belt, and poured the liquid directly on it.

The rich aroma of wine suddenly drifted in the air.

Oliver frowned, still not awake. Ann took out a small dagger and slashed the blackened rotten flesh from the wound like a cheese cut. Then she pulled out a clean handkerchief and carefully wiped away the remaining dirt and blood clots.

It never took more than five minutes to add the ointment and bandage to the end.

"It's better to sew it, actually," she muttered, glancing casually at Nemo. "But that's almost it... Don't worry, lad, your friend won't die. The rest is for him to rinse and drink, and it's enough to divide it three times." She shook the medicine bottle.

"Thank you." Nemo took the bottle and thanked him solemnly.

."

Nemo looked away in embarrassment.

"It's not far from Noe in Garland, and I suggest you wash yourselves before heading into town—don't look at me like that, it's really cheap. That pendant just now is pretty good, and worth the price."

"Two sets of clothes." The goatee left the carriage at some point and handed a flat cloth bag to Nemo. "Would you like to go with us? It's hard to carry a sick number."

Nemo moved his lips. "...No, thank you," he said, carefully placing the vial into the package, which he draped over his chest. He bowed slightly to the two of them and carried Oliver, who was still asleep, on his back. "It's only a few steps away, we can go by ourselves."

Goatee shrugs, "Good luck then, lad."

The carriage was so fast that the caravan quickly disappeared from his sight.

Hope their news hasn't reached Garland by now. Nemo closed his eyes and exhaled slowly.

"You don't want to implicate them, do you?" Oliver didn't know when he woke up and asked softly behind him, his tone more like a statement than a question.

"Well, those two were fine just now." Nemo said, "We are lucky enough to have medicine and clean water now."

"Maybe they recognize you two and are planning to give it to the Garland Guard to collect a bonus." The gray parrot flew down from the branch and commented maliciously. "Providing water bags, tsk tsk, what about the weapons? She didn't mention a word, didn't she?"

"I'm a realistic person." Nemo helped him to stop the conversation, "I just look at the results."

"Bah," said the parrot.

Nemo found a relatively clean place for Oliver to lie down, where there were not many dead branches and rotten leaves, and the ground was covered with thick moss. The air smells fresh and clean. Oliver seemed to recover a little, got up by himself, and sat down against the tree.

"Take a break," Nemo suggested. "Just get out of this **** before it gets dark. Just in case, we'll have to save up the strength to escape."

"Okay." Oliver answered quickly.

Then they fell into a subtle silence.

The situation was urgent before, and the two had no time to waste their time on interpersonal communication. But now the tension has faded, and the unique embarrassment among strangers has resurfaced. Nemo tried to find a topic, but he didn't know whether the other party had the mind or physical strength to chat, so he could only grin in vain at the air, and then lowered his head stiffly to study the moss on the ground.

In the end, Mr. Ramon, who has experienced many battles in the service industry, was the first to break the silence.

"Hey, Nemo." He blinked, his tone as relaxed as leaning on an oak chair in a tavern. "Is there a girl in town that you miss?"

Oliver realizes almost immediately that he has chosen the wrong topic - Nemo picks up the moss on the ground uncomfortably.

He has the idea of ​​inheriting the orphanage, but she can't accept it, it's human nature. After not getting along for a long time, he was not as sad as he thought, but it was still a little embarrassing to mention it.

"What about you? There are a lot of beautiful girls in the hotel." So he quickly threw the question back.

Oliver instantly understood what it means to dig a grave.

"Blank." He slid down the tree trunk.

"How come?" Nemo didn't care to hide his shock. Oliver has a likable handsome face, and looks gentle and innocuous, making it hard to be wary - sociable, good-natured, and inheriting the only hotel in town. This makes absolutely no sense.

"I just have a problem and I can't figure it out." Seeing Nemo's eyebrows getting higher and higher, Oliver quickly defended himself.

"What?"

"...My parents are very in love." Oliver raised his head and stared at the blue sky exposed between the leaves.

"Isn't that good?" Nemo, an orphan, had no idea about this. His only relatives were the long-dead old Patrick and a group of cubs who were taken away as minors. An opportunity to empathize.

"I don't think that's a good thing." Oliver still stared at the sky, his tone strangely calm. "You know, I never met my mother, she died a long time ago. And my father he..."

Nimo closed his mouth immediately and looked at him nervously.

"It doesn't matter, since we have talked about this." Oliver obviously felt the other party's eyes, "We can just open up and talk." For this topic, Nimo is too cautious - it is better to let him Get up.

"My father never told me anything about my mother, and there is no portrait or relic of my mother at home." Oliver narrated smoothly, as if he was talking about other people's affairs. "I was a little curious about my mother when I was young, but I didn't care much after that."

"Then how did you know...?" How did you know they were in love? Nemo doesn't find any sweet love in the story.

"Eye." Oliver said, "Father only kept one thing. His ukulele was given to him by his mother, and it was engraved with his mother's gift and signature. He sometimes looked at it. Talk, look—" He paused, mulling over his words. "I never thought someone could look so sad...how to put it, as if a part of him died with her. To be honest, I think that kind of feeling is kind of scary, one can really love another person that way degree?"

Nemo opened his mouth, not knowing what to say.

"I heard people say that when my father first arrived in Lubiao Town, he carried a coffin on his back and held me in his arms. There was nothing else. The coffin should contain the body of my mother." Oliver continued, "I always thought he was just waiting for me to grow up and he would tell me the truth one day. But he didn't."

"He just looked at me as if he had finally let go of some great responsibility. I had this feeling. I kept trying to persuade him to find a better woman to live with, but he turned away every time Topic. Last night I...I could feel his relief, but I also felt his relief. Why didn't I have a good talk with him earlier?"

Oliver wrapped his arms around his sleeves.

"...how could I not blame him." He lifted his eyes, an unhealthy flush on his pale cheeks from the blood loss. It was like pure anger, and it was like something that had been backlogged for a long time and full of bitterness and bitterness had finally been unscrewed from the heart. "If I hadn't shot at that time, would he have been saved? Why did he make such a request, why didn't he give it a try? I killed my father with my own hands, and he didn't even want to mention the reason!"

"He kept me alive without knowing anything, and I sometimes felt like I wasn't even like his family. I knew the wine he liked to drink, the songs he liked to sing, the books he liked to read...but I I don't know his birthday, the appearance of his wife and the cause of death, let alone the story between them. I don't know his hometown, I don't understand his pain, and I don't even understand why he chose to die."

"What have I done..."

He finally said it, Nemo thought.

And that kind of pain, I seem to understand a little. Nemo stared at each other—Oliver raised his arm, shielded his eyes, and gritted his teeth.

This is it. For a moment, you finally find that the last bond between yourself and the world has disappeared, like a ship that has lost its anchor. The faces and voices of the deceased irreversibly fade from memory, only remorse will not dissipate, turning into a curse that corrupts the spirit at all times.

Oliver's condition was even worse, he cut the anchor line with his own hands.

"I can't answer your question." Nemo pulled the drawstring on the water bag twice, and the shriveled leather bag was gradually filled with water and gurgled. "I'm not going to console you with 'it'll pass', we all know it's **** - wash your face and it'll make you feel better."

"Thanks." Oliver looked calmer, he removed his arm covering his eyes and took the water bag. This time Nemo didn't see any tears, only slightly reddened eye circles. Terrible self-control, Nemo marveled in his heart for a few seconds - in the first few days of old Patrick's death, he could shed a few tears into the old man's teacup.

"If you're not going to hug and cry, I suggest you move to another place." The grey parrot is very satisfied with its wings, and the flying posture is extraordinarily deliberate. It rushed down from an unknown tree and dropped a crumpled roll of parchment on Nemo's head.

Nimo frowned and pulled the roll in front of him, unfolding it at will.

Half a minute later, he let go of it, then buried his face in his palms, explaining what malaise was with every movement of his body.

"What's the matter?" Oliver still had water droplets on his face, and now his face was probably the cleanest part of his body, and he wisely chose to air dry.

"You know what?" Nemo announced in horror, "We're worth three thousand gold! I've never seen three thousand gold in my life—"

Oliver's expression softened, and then stiffened again.

"Wow." He let out a weak exclamation. "I haven't seen it either."

"I tore it at the gate of Noe City." It may be an illusion, but Nemo always feels that there is a bit of schadenfreude in the parrot's voice. "What did I just say, boy? That woman saw this thing, and she's coming for you--on horse, with her weapons, and everything, just your heads."

(m..=)