Stray

Ann did change her mind. She didn't bring them into Noe immediately, but let Oliver start training with a cold face.

"It will be very troublesome to hurt others." She pointed out mercilessly, "You must have learned the method of control, please practice until you remember - I will take you in on the last day, I won't leave a backup plan, and I hope you can show some sincerity."

She's really sincere, Nemo thought, the point of her gun was sparkling when she said this, ready to poke them together. But her attitude towards them did change. Although the cold part didn't diminish, Nemo could feel that subtle sense of equality that didn't exist in the first place.

Ann spent a lot of time fighting with Oliver, with a murderous aura like a fake. I have to say that her method is indeed effective. At the beginning, Oliver was almost unsteady, and after half a day, he was able to resist for a while.

And Nemo's job is to sit next to the grey parrot and eat nuts.

He didn't try. The black shadow barrier that day seemed to appear in a dream. Before he had time to taste the joy of the caster's control of reality in the panic, he once again returned to the usual state where he couldn't even use the abyss version of the illumination technique. Nemo even asked Ann to give him a solid beating, and he was beaten to the point where he vomited all his lunch, with nothing but severe abdominal pain and wounded self-esteem.

Nemo chewed the nuts melancholy, looked at Oliver, who was holding a wooden stick in his hand, holding on for longer and longer in the electric light, and only felt that the last trace of confidence would also go with the wind.

"At least you're very resistant." The parrot swallowed the nut that Nemo handed over, trying to say a few words that weren't so bad. "If you were an ordinary person, you would be half disabled if you were beaten so many times by her."

Possibly influenced by the contract, Nemo found it hard to hate the grey parrot from his heart. But on the other hand, he tried his best and couldn't squeeze much goodwill. It's just that in this hot battlefield, as the only living creatures doing nothing, it's hard for them not to make some noise to try to regain a little sense of existence.

"I tried my best." Nemo mumbled with the nuts, "I have to repeat it a thousand times, that spell will definitely appear in my nightmares."

"You did something quite similar yesterday." The parrot squatted on a pile of husks, "Remember how you felt at that time!"

Nemo opened the palm of his right hand, and stretched it forward in a pretentious manner, chanting the familiar incantation. Unfortunately, even if his face turned purple, the scene in front of him was still exceptionally clear, bright and lovely. So he had to take a deep breath and stood up with a sigh. Then he went straight to the nearest ice thorn bush, broke off a piece of ice and crunched.

The two who were fighting stopped together and turned to look at Nemo. The concentrated expressions on their faces and the reflection of the sweat made him feel guilty, and Nemo quickly waved his hand. "You guys go on. It's so hot, I can't help but try..."

Oliver, the maker of the ice thorn bush, burst out laughing. He threw down the wooden stick in his hand, disregarding the blood on his hand, and also broke off a small piece. "You're right," he said, breathless in his voice, as if he had just been fished out of the water. "I chose ice because of this."

An Ze glared at his opponent, and the words in his eyes almost overflowed.

"It's almost there." Not to be outdone, she also broke the piece and smacking twice. "I'll take you two over the wall after dark today—the black badge test starts tomorrow morning, and we'll have to sneak in tonight."

"Can't we follow you into the city normally?" Nemo was a little surprised.

"Noe's soldiers will not embarrass you in principle." Ann dropped the ice and wiped her mouth. "Most of us have agreements with gatekeepers in our business. They don't have the power to deal with you, but selling your information to us is another thing - it's an easy and lucrative business. Most bounty hunters don't go for it. There is a master's prey, but there is no shortage of villains in this world, and I don't want to waste time on this."

The two of them had already changed into the old clothes they got before, and with the sloppy appearance created in the forest in two days, they looked like two Garland civilians. Oliver looked more haggard. The continuous high-intensity battle left him with countless wounds and bruises. I wonder if he was trying to avoid some intractable emotional problem. There was a clear blue-purple under his eyes, and it was estimated that after the fever subsided, he would not have closed his eyes.

But when Nemo stood under the wall, he stopped all superfluous thoughts. The sun had just set, the air was warm and humid, and the smell of food and cooking smoke wafted from the walls. Nemo looked up at the top of the city wall, his neck was a little sore - Noe is just a small city, is the city wall so high?

"How do we get up?" He subconsciously touched the stone bricks on the wall, hoping to find a secret mechanism from where.

"The gatekeeper changes shifts, we only have fifteen minutes." Ann said, "I'll go up first, the rope will be dropped, and you will climb up again. Are there any questions?"

"No, but you—" Oliver obviously had the same question, he even tried to kick the wall with his foot, watching the sole slide down the rough masonry.

A real smile appeared in Ann's eyes. She didn't say anything, just wrapped a few strands of hemp rope around her palm, and then snapped the joints at the base of her fingers. The next second, she clawed at the city wall as deftly as a wild goat, as if an invisible handle suddenly appeared on it. The female warrior's physique and petiteness are completely irrelevant, but at this moment, she quickly climbed the wall as if freed from gravity - it didn't even take a minute.

Ann turned her head for a while, then let the rope hang down. "Come on, lads." She lowered her voice and whistled happily.

Nemo swallowed at the height of the wall.

"I'll go first." Perhaps sensing Nemo's fear, Oliver stepped forward, although there was a subtle trembling in his voice. He tentatively tugged at the rope, stepped on the city wall again, and climbed a few steps.

It's just that this wall doesn't show the friendly attitude just now, as if it's turned into butter. Oliver's sole slipped again, and he swayed in mid-air, almost hitting the city wall head-on.

Ann wiped her face silently.

Oliver let go of his hand decisively and slid back to the ground, with a blood mark from the hemp rope on his palm. Looking at the swaying rope, he picked up a thick branch from the ground and chopped it towards the wall. The training in the past few days has paid off. There is a slanted ice mark on the wall, and the edges are all over the place. Stick out some thick ice spikes. Oliver took a deep breath, grabbed the hemp rope again, and carefully climbed up the wall by stepping on the base of the ice thorn.

Nemo's eyes darkened, and his new friend helped him amicably increase the difficulty. He had only climbed the low ladder of the library before, but now he was faced with a flat stone and brick wall, ferocious icicles and ropes dangling in between - it could be called a devil's level. He held his breath, and timidly grabbed the rope, trying to imitate Oliver to climb up on the ice spike. As a result, as soon as he stepped on the second one, his wrist began to lose strength, and the whole person fell down from a height of more than one meter.

Fortunately, his body is very strong now, and Nemo gritted his teeth and grabbed the rope again.

"It's a pity." The gray parrot flapped its wings triumphantly beside his head, not letting go of any chance to speak sarcastically. "If you have a little talent the size of a pea, you can fly straight up in this situation!"

Nimo rolled his eyes and climbed up again with difficulty, without the strength to speak. He suspected that even if he stepped on the right place every step of the way, his physical strength was not enough to climb the whole way.

Ann tutted loudly, "Oliver, hold on to the rope." She instructed in a low voice.

Oliver blinked his green eyes in confusion, subconsciously obeying. Immediately, Nemo watched as he was pushed to the wall by Ann, and disappeared from the top of the wall neatly - and he himself was yanked up by the rope, almost hitting a thick ice thorn head-on.

However, the scary thing is that after he crossed the wall, he didn't have any intention of stopping, and was dragged directly to the other side of the wall by the rope. Just as he realized he was in free fall, he fell into the haystack. Oliver was sitting in shock not far from him.

An Ze landed gracefully in a neat half-kneeling posture.

"Okay," she said. "This is my acquaintance's yard. We can rest for a while. Wait—"

She stopped the conversation suddenly and drew the hunting spear from behind.

"Jude." Ann smirked, "Nice to meet you."

She stretched every syllable and pronounced the greeting into a curse. Nemo turned his head with difficulty and finally saw the person she was greeting. It was a horse-faced man in his 40s or 50s, wearing a leather armor similar to Ann's style, with a dirty beard on his face, and his long curly hair tangled in a tangle. He was grinning at the moment, showing his charred teeth.

What really stood out was what was on his shoulders—the size of a sack, the color of which was very uncomfortable, like the bloated corpse of some hairless animal. Its limbs are very similar to the feet of a gecko, and there are not many of them at the moment, all of which are firmly clawed on the man. Nemo couldn't tell where the head was. There were a few dark ones on the exposed part of the man's shoulders, and what looked like eyes were opening and closing.

"Miss Savage." Nemo asked in the smallest volume he could. "Introduction?"

"My colleague, your kind." Ann sneered, "Devil believer Jude Major, to be precise, is a hyena who came to grab food."

"Don't be so ruthless," said the man with a smirk, "I'm just here to try my luck—and it's our dear Oni's lax mouth. Coming from Roadmark Town at this hour, It's not hard to guess who else will interest you... God, my luck is really good."

The things on his shoulders wriggled, and the things like eyes opened and closed faster. Nemo suddenly felt that the grey parrot looked very pleasing to the eye.

"I'm sorry, baby." Jude blew a kiss, "I've been short of money lately."

He didn't give Ann a chance to react, raised his hand and hit Nemo's chest with a black light. The grey parrot rushed out and swallowed the light.

"Bah!" it commented, "Bad, I'm going to have diarrhea."

Jude narrowed his eyes, but his hands were not slowed at all. He drew out his machete to block An's spear, and the monster on his shoulder spewed a large amount of yellow mist from those openings and closings.

Now Nemo sees it clearly - those are not eyes at all, those that keep opening and closing are clearly piles of black holes.

An quickly took a few steps back and retreated to the two of them, not touching the yellow mist at all.

"You should know that your fighting style has no advantage over me." Jude himself seemed completely unaffected by the yellow fog. His tone was light and cheerful. "Let's get to know each other, beauty, now it's too late to find a team of garbage to make up the number."

"Nimo." An said solemnly, her eyes fixed on Jude's direction. "Can you come up with that spell now? Ten seconds is enough. As long as we stop the fog, we have a chance of winning."

"I can't...." Nemo looked at the monster, he had a strange feeling that the thing seemed to be watching him - although he didn't know where the eyes of the thing were. .

Another was silent, she glanced at Oliver again, and fell into contemplation in a defensive posture. And although Jude is not forgiving, he still looks a little jealous. He paced up and down the edge of Ann's range, like a mangy wolf contemplating what to do with a hedgehog.

Nemo's gaze followed the demon on Jude's shoulder. As long as this is dealt with, Ann has a way to deal with it. He thought, just get rid of this...

Mutation.

The demon on Jude's shoulder suddenly fell to the ground like a real sack. It didn't move, the black holes were all closed, more like a strange corpse. And its owner apparently had no clue about it.

"Tam!" Jude sent the machete forward, his voice a little flustered. "Get up!"

The demon, who didn't know whether it was a junior or an intermediate, was still lying on the dirty floor, dutifully acting as a corpse.

Ann did not miss this opportunity. Before Jude's voice could fall, the female warrior rushed out like a leopard. She cautiously kept her distance, and sent a thunder light when the other party was distracted.

Center the heart. The leather armor of Jude's left shoulder was blackened by the electricity, revealing blood-red flesh, and the man let out a hoarse wail, followed by a series of indistinct swear words. He didn't say any more harsh words, when Ann was about to make up the second blow, he decisively took out a piece of parchment and shredded it, and took his demon to disappear in place.

"Short-range teleportation. Run if you can't hit it, really... very Jude." Ann muttered in disgust, "Speaking of which, what happened to his demon just now?" She raised her voice and rushed Nemo raised an eyebrow with the grey parrot who was resting on his shoulder.

"I don't know," Nemo said honestly.

"Just playing dead." The grey parrot answered almost simultaneously. "This kid was 80% hostile to that piece of trash just now, and he found it too. Isn't this kind of situation common on the ground?"

"Oh yes, noble demon warlocks can naturally suppress lower-level demons, do you want to say that?" Ann sighed, "Forget it, just treat him as unlucky - anyway Guys have never had much luck."

Jude Major panted and carried his demon back to the Dawn Tavern, where he slammed it onto the empty table as he entered. "Vance, Vance!" he roared. "Come and see for me, and a bottle of meds by the way! Hell, that bitch—"

"Brother, what's the matter?" The man at the table next to him stretched his head curiously, and a bunch of grape-like eyeballs floated over with his movements.

"Can you imagine that the contract is interrupted under the name? Damn, this kind of inferior goods is really unreliable."

"It's not like a contract break." The drinker at the next table shrugged, "...Dude, your demon is dead."

The man known as Vance finally arrived late, and he put the medicine bottle gently by Jude's hand.

"Yeah, it's dead. Probably quite frightened," he said, in a soft and graceful tone. "This species has the guts of a hamster, and it's not uncommon, sir."

Then he gave a very decent smile.

"...So, which demon warlock did you meet? Are you interested in sharing information?"

(m..=)