Stray

The knight commander is right, they do have no shortage of food. The desert is full of edible cacti, thorny roots, and fat gerbils who don't know where to dig their food. If they were lucky, they might be able to catch a few chubby quadrupeds. Even the Fuller goat is not short of food, and its aura of gnawing on cactus is fiercer than anyone else.

The biggest problem, heat.

When I mentioned the heat earlier, Nemo could at best think of summer sun exposure and hot boot soles. The summer in Roadmark Town was not too hot, but even so, he didn't want to go out on a sunny day at all. Usually he would nest in the deepest part of the library, just below the cool wind formation, and then stick to the stone wall with novels containing winter scenes.

It's different now. Everything was scalding hot—even though Nemo covered the top of his head with a shadow, the heat was squeezing him from all sides. His whole body was like being stuffed into a red-hot metal tube, and every time he breathed, the little bit of cool air left in his body was lost.

So he lay flat.

"...Nemo, you're reneging on your debt." An said hoarsely, raising his hand and throwing a small piece of cactus into the sand at will. "Being a man must be willing to admit defeat and chat with Dylan."

"But I'm dying." Nemo responded sadly, crossing his fingers on his chest. He was lying flat in the shadows, with some cover over his head, as if he were imitating an oyster half-shelled. The shadow stretched out countless tentacles and dragged this large oyster with difficulty, with a speed not much different from that of a Fuller goat. "Ann, if I do die, please leave my debt to Oliver."

"Oliver at least is still standing." Ann said grimly, "even the sheep are still standing - even if someone here is going to die of heat, that person will definitely not be you. Demon Warlock The body is not so fragile."

"Really?" Nemo stretched out his hand from the shadows, and swung what was in his hand - the grey parrot was slumped into a ball, his unnaturally long tongue hanging out, and There is a trend of getting longer and longer. "The superior demons are like this."

"The bird's body is still too fragile." Adrian explained, "It's not very strong now, so it's not unusual... Don't worry, the night will be better. The night here is probably will drop below zero."

"…" Nemo doesn't think it's "getting better."

A few steps away, Oliver was indeed still standing, but he looked half-breathed. There was pitifully little moisture in the air as they went deeper into the desert. Adrian's guess was right, and the climate really restrained them both - Oliver tried to get some ice cubes to cool down at first, but now he can't even get a slug of ice.

Nimo can only barely help him hold out a shadow.

"Don't block him." The knight commander calmly instructed, and even poked Oliver's back slightly bent in the heat with his bow. "Stand straight, Mr. Ramon, that's the basics...if you want to keep practicing."

Oliver wiped the sweat from his face, gritted his teeth and walked forward. Although the posture looks a lot like the feet are forcibly pulling the body forward. In this atmosphere, Nemo was too embarrassed to continue lying down—he sat up properly.

Jesse Dillon didn't have any special performance, he didn't even sweat a few drops, as if the endless desert scene was all a stage set. Seeing Nemo sitting up, he opened his mouth with interest—

"Help me!" Just as Jesse was about to speak, he was interrupted by a hoarse cry for help from afar. Nemo really sat up straight now, and he looked at the source of the voice.

In the hot, twisted air, a vague figure was waving desperately towards them. "Help-"

But the line didn't stop.

Nemo, who was distracted, was immediately behind. He quickly put away the shadow, and was almost knocked down by the hot air blowing on his face, but after he stood firm, he realized that he was not the only one who stopped - Oliver was standing beside him, also looking at the figure calling for help, his face full of doubts.

"Someone is calling for help over there!" Nemo yelled at the advancing team. Ann's style has always been free, but even the knight commander is unmoved, which is a bit strange.

"That's not a person!" Ann turned her head and shouted, and then coughed a few times due to the dust in the wind.

Nemo turned his head to look at the staggering figure, still trying to call for help, and goose bumps suddenly appeared.

"He didn't come," Oliver muttered, "...he didn't come."

Nimo suddenly felt that the air was not so hot: "Then we..."

"The first two, please help me! I'm really not a monster - my feet are entangled!" The figure became clearer and clearer, with a decent appearance, typical of a businessman. "Please!"

“…he looks quite human.” Oliver whispered. After thinking for a moment, he picked up a stone from the ground and threw it at the opponent's leg - looking at the speed at which the stone flew, it probably didn't take much effort.

The stone fell silently four or five steps in front of the man, as if hitting an invisible barrier.

The clear figure distorted, the whole body spread out like butter melted in hot water, and the facial features were tangled into an indistinct mass. It stretched forward what had been its arms and reached out to them.

"What is that?" Nemo asked in shock after catching up to the tail of the group.

"The figure just now? That's a tongue." Jesse finally seized the opportunity to speak, "The tongue of the desert mirage. By the way, Mr. Ramon's stone may have hit it. jaw."

"That means..."

"It's asking you to step into its mouth." Jesse sounded in a good mood.

"...but you all saw it?" Oliver sounded a little distressed.

"I hear it." Jesse shrugged, "That thing can't speak for itself. Those calls for help may sound similar, but they are different people's voices - you really are The most tender snake I've ever seen, it's amazing to be able to survive until now."

There was a somewhat familiar voice from behind, from slow to fast, from jerky to smooth.

"Someone's calling for help over there!" Nemo heard his own voice from afar, then Oliver's. "...He didn't come."

Finally, Ann's voice.

"That's not a man."

"That's not a man."

"That's not a man."

It was repeated over and over again, and a slightly muffled female voice echoed in the wind. Nemo shuddered, and hurried forward a few more steps. Although the wind was quite loud, he could still hear Qing An and Adrian chatting at this distance.

"Are those two bitten?" An asked leisurely.

"It doesn't sound like it." Adrian replied calmly, bow still in hand.

"It doesn't look stupid." The female warrior said with relief.

Unlike Jesse Dillon, the two veteran fighters didn't even bother to look back, and Nemo was suddenly a little tired. He and Oliver walked with their heads down, and started making a fuss about all the seemingly normal things on the road. In a sense it was a good thing, at least their attention was taken away from the heat.

Unfortunately, the next cactus is just a cactus, and the stone is just a stone. No outlandish monsters reappeared. The scene in front of me kept repeating, and the annoying high fever once again became impossible to ignore.

Until that strange thing appeared in their field of vision.

Originally, the scenery in front of you was cut into two flat pieces by the desert and the sky, but now the two pieces of pure color are mixed with impurities - a few pale white towers stand in the distance, with strange shapes , not like an artifact.

"Go over there to rest tonight." Adrian pointed to the towers that seemed to be fixed to the horizon.

The sun is starting to set in the west now, and the temperature is not so unbearable. Nemo's steps suddenly became a lot lighter, and even the grey parrot could take two steps with fluttering wings. Oliver did his best to freeze a few pucks—though they all knew that as the temperature dropped, the usefulness of the thing would be drastically reduced.

After walking through the desert for most of the day, Nemo's moccasins got at least half a boot of sand. And now that everything was finally on the right track, he grabbed Oliver, intending to use him to empty the sand out of his boots.

A huge spine passed by the two of them.

Oh, the spine. Nemo thought lightly, and the boot in his hand almost fell to the ground in the next second.

He stared in horror at the giant spine-like thing, Oliver didn't look much better - he stared blankly at the monster beside him, subconsciously wanted to draw his sword, but caught it Nemo's moccasins clutched.

So the two of them were frozen in place, subconsciously motionless.

The spine went away leisurely, and snakes generally swam in the sand, making a pleasant rustling sound. Seeing it finally climbed away, the two of them breathed a sigh of relief at the same time. Nemo numbly snatched the moccasins from Oliver's hands, and after shaking the sand, took off the boot with another foot.

"You see your whole body froze." Nemo continued to support Oliver, staring at the sand under his feet, and tossing his boots intently. "No way, Ollie."

"...I think that's probably because..." Oliver's voice was dry and careful, "...the one you're supporting isn't me?"

Nemo paused for a few seconds. He solemnly put down the moccasin boots that had shaken the sand, put them on carefully, and then took a few steps back—

A small joint more than half a person high at the end of the spine fell out of line, it was stunned beside them, and four black bean-like eyes stared straight at the two of them.

If you look closely, the gap between it and the vertebrae is quite large, but the slightly yellowish white shell is similar in shape. What should have been a cross-section of a bone revealed a face that belonged to a reptile, but it was surprisingly flat, like a lizard that had only smashed its face flat against the wall and survived. A thin tail trailed behind the carapace, covered with scales like powdered silver.

No wonder he just felt something was wrong, Oliver shouldn't make a half-circle for him to lean on. Nemo controlled the shadow between his fingers, and he couldn't even raise his strength to defend—the little thing that wasn't too small looked at them pitifully, and rolled stiffly on the spot.

"...Forget it." Oliver put away his sword, his expression twitching. "Even if there is an emergency, you should be able to guard against it alone."

And Nemo nodded sullenly.

But as it turns out, their troubles are just beginning—they have just taken a few steps forward when the thing swoops after them. And as soon as they stopped, the monster stopped immediately. Nemo sighed and turned his head, and the bone-like creature immediately began to perform on all fours again.

"In trouble again?" The chatter of the team ahead came again.

"It looks like it." Adrian answered the female warrior's question.

"Clos... let's throw them both."

“…”

(m..=)