Stray

The cry was not far from them, it was not terrifying, but the suppressed pain in the voice was very obvious.

Nimo's first reaction was to stand up and look, while Debbie frowned and clenched her staff. The cry was so short that its owner seemed to swallow it back. Oliver moved the fastest, and when the last sound disappeared, he had already opened the door and looked out.

"It's the lady we nearly bumped into." Oliver turned his head, "She doesn't look... well."

The fat middle-aged woman stopped crying now, she was squatting in front of a window in the corridor, blowing her nose vigorously with a handkerchief. Seeing someone looking around, she hurriedly moved forward, as if she wanted to stand up - but she failed, looking at her red eyes and abnormal flushing on her face, she might have lost her strength from crying.

Nimo leaned against the door and saw Oliver reach out and help the lady up. Debbie also looked out with interest - only the moment she saw the lady, the smile on her face froze. She retracted her head glumly, and returned to the room first unhappily.

"She's the boss here, Lisa." Ann whispered, "She almost took the bench to shake Horizon's client before you came back."

"Mrs. Lisa..." Nemo recalled the pale yellow envelope for a few seconds, "Is she correspondence with Miss Nadine? We saw a letter signed by Lisa in Nadine ."

"Yeah. By the way, she also thinks Miss Nadine is 'Nadine's grandmother'." Ann added, "Nimo, look at Oliver, don't let him miss it mouth."

On the other side, Oliver just helped the innkeeper up. She gave a grateful, reluctant smile, then turned her head away and blew her nose loudly again—she was standing a little oddly, and her left foot didn't seem to dare touch the ground very much. Nemo glanced at it, and he knew it. He had seen this situation hundreds of times in the orphanage.

But he has a better way of handling it now - Nemo walked out of the room and crouched down beside Oliver, the black shadow wrapped around Mrs. Lisa's ankle.

"It's all right," he said softly, "you can try it."

"Thank you." Mrs. Lisa looked sad and tired, she tentatively stepped on the floor with her left foot, and then stood up. "I remember you two... almost ran into you just now, sorry, lads."

"You seem to be troubled." Oliver hesitated for a few seconds, "Is there anything we can help?"

"I'm afraid not." She shook her head, looked up at the black seal on their chest, and turned her gaze to Ann. "As much as I want to entrust you... but that's the horizon, and no one can beat the horizon."

Ann sighed, Debbie in the room buried her face in the pillow.

"You are—" Oliver opened his mouth when he was interrupted by Nemo's sharp twist on his leg. He turned his head in surprise—

Nemo nervously stopped what he was about to say: "I heard, Mrs. Lisa. Granny Nadine helped me... She is a kind person, this It's really a pity." He desperately emphasized the pronunciation of "mother-in-law" and gave Oliver a stiff look.

"Isn't it," Mrs. Lisa didn't have the energy to care about the other party's awkward tone at this time, "How am I going to explain to Nadine... That's her only relative, and what am I? can't do it..."

Nimo suddenly felt a little discomfort in his throat.

Oliver was silent for a while: "We just came back from there and happened to hit the horizon to negotiate with Nadine... mother-in-law."

Mrs. Lisa raised her head slowly.

"If that comforts you," Oliver whispered, "she's so peaceful, she's even in the mood to water the seeds."

"You don't need to say that." The female boss shook her head, "They never water the seeds. In their hands, no matter what it is, as long as the seeds go to the ground, flowers will bloom the next moment. Come on...they just water the flowers."

She showed a dazed smile: "I appreciate your kindness, but there is no need to coax me about this kind of thing."

"She did exactly that, watering the seeds of Dihyran." Nemo quickly proved, "Looking at your store name, I think you must have heard of—"

"What?"

"Uh, Dihyland?"

"Nadine's grandmother? Bullshit! Listen, I do thank you both, but I'm really not in the mood to joke with you right now—"

"The seeds in the glass bottle, like stones, are very heavy." Nemo was a little surprised by Lisa's attitude, "We really didn't lie to you, Mrs. Lisa."

Lisa could feel the blood vessels in her forehead throbbing. Her feet must have been so cold because the blood had poured into her brain—she was dizzy to death, sweating uncontrollably. They were lying, she thought blankly. That can't be true, because she remembers too well—

"I'll write you a letter." Seventeen-year-old Nadine was suffocating, "I'll... always write to you."

"Listen to me, you must meet a prince." At that time she said aloud from the heart, "Don't forget me completely!"

Nadine smiled a little embarrassedly and didn't take the sentence: "Do you want anything?"

"The letter is enough."

"Anything other than a letter?"

"Then...you come back sooner?"

“…what else?”

"Anything will do?" Is that an impossible wish, and she will always remember herself?

Nadine is the most moral person she has ever met - Nadine will always remember. It was perhaps the smartest idea she'd ever had in her life, and Lisa even secretly triumphed for a few seconds.

"Then don't tell others, no one can do it, everyone will laugh at me for being stupid." She said very solemnly, "I want to take a look at Di Hailan, you see, the name of my store is called This one? I heard my grandmother say it before, it's a very beautiful flower. You are the best at these things, maybe you can find them outside!"

"Of course." Nadine agreed with her.

Until now, Nadine occasionally mentions this in her letters, but she has never said that she found the seeds of Dihylan. And that is a matter of course, Lisa knows better than anyone else - Di Hailan has only appeared in this town, and it has been extinct for a long time. Her grandfather even wrote a heavy book about it, and she doesn't know how many times she has read it.

The two young men said that Mrs. Nadine had the seeds of Hyland.

But Nadine left and never came back, let alone tell anyone their secret - even her grandmother.

"She doesn't know how much life she has taken, but only five years, what can't she give up. She didn't waste much effort-" Howard's annoying shout suddenly came to the back of her mind Blast.

If so much life is really taken away, why is Mrs. Nadine getting weaker and weaker?

Lisa stood there, breathing hard. The cold gnawed at her feet, and now it was all the way up her calves. Although it was a warm oasis, she felt as if she was in an ice cave.

"Impossible!" she exclaimed, not bothering to care how rude her tone sounded. "There can be no such thing."

But can these two well-meaning young men really lie—a lie to that degree? She didn't know what her expression was now, but the worries on the faces of the two young people in front of her became more and more intense.

Not possible.

She can only hold this thought in her current mind. Lisa turned dazedly and ran instinctively to the hall. Impossible, she clearly wrote so many letters, so many novel things—

It can't be that way, God, please.

"...Is that all right?" Nemo's face paled a little, at least in fact, Mrs. Lisa's suddenly contorted face really scared his superior demon. "Shouldn't we talk about it, she looks worse."

"Follow me." Oliver's face was not much better than his.

"Then I'll be here waiting for you to come back." An sighed, she recognized the look. Mrs. Lisa probably guessed something, and she never liked watching tragedies very much.

"Aren't you going to take a look?" The female warrior turned to Debbie in the room, and the mage of the horizon had completely buried her head in the quilt. "Nemo is gone?"

"No...I'm not going." Debbie's voice trembled a little, and she pressed the quilt even tighter. "I… I have to go back, Ann, say hi to Nemo for me?"

But at this time, the two figures have completely disappeared from the corridor.

When Nemo and Oliver stepped into the front hall, Mrs. Lisa was standing tremblingly rummaging for something at the wooden bench—some new guests were still greeting at the door, but she Don't even lift your head.

"Yes, yes." Lisa carefully picked out a letter from the pile of letters, wiped her hands carefully on the apron, and unfolded the letter. "Nadine, she was still in Willard's Vincent Town three days ago!" The lady boss seemed eager to prove something, and she turned to Nemo abruptly. "She's there, she's all right."

She went to all the towns they had planned together and showed her everything she wanted to see. Her letters were never broken, and they were always hopeful—she couldn't have grown old.

"What nonsense?" cried a man dressed as a businessman impatiently, banging on the door frame with a stick. "Vincent Town disappeared more than a week ago, and it was ruined by the black seal! Hurry up and go through the formalities, damn, all my goods have been pulled to the door of that broken town. It's really bad luck."

The letter fell gently on the wooden table.

The female boss's face was still flushed red, and her eyes were swollen like goldfish's blisters. The expression on her face was frozen at that moment—a weird expression of hope and despair. Instead of looking at the businessman who opened her mouth, she stared at the two black seals in front of her.

Nimo was the first to turn his face away as if he couldn't bear it - the eyes were too heavy for him to bear.

"You know, right?" the female boss murmured, "otherwise why are you two... looking at me so sadly?"

Lisa didn't cry this time.

She turned around without even waiting for the two of them to answer, carefully folded the letter like sleepwalking, put it back in the envelope, and lined the flat envelope neatly. The movements are crisp and neat—if you ignore the trembling hands. Immediately, she ignored the angry guests, took off her apron carefully, and pulled her bun tightly. She looked towards the door for a moment, then suddenly ran out—without even changing her shoes.

Oliver and Nemo looked at each other and hurriedly followed. Mrs. Lisa's condition was worse than they thought, and if anything happened to her, they would definitely be crushed here by the guilt.

The situation is desperate enough.

Mrs. Lisa ran faster than they thought, she ran desperately, and the soft indoor shoes fell halfway. Her foot must be hurt, Nemo can smell blood. By the time they picked up the shoes and kept up with the distance they had been dropped, she had already run to the front of the witch's house, and had even crossed the yard.

It was dark, and the house windows were dimly lit by a faint, distant light.

Nimo thought Lisa was going to rush through the door to have a sad goodbye with a best friend he hadn't seen in years. But she stopped, stopped at the door. Half a minute later, they watched her turn and slide limply on the stone steps.

Mrs. Lisa did not care about her bleeding feet, she buried her face in her arms, shrugged her shoulders, and made no sound.

"She..." As soon as Nemo spoke, Oliver put him on his shoulder. His head shook his head and stepped forward.

"Mrs. Lisa." Oliver crouched down, his tone light. "We're really sorry...she didn't want you to know."

"It's not your fault." The female boss didn't raise her face, and her voice was choked with a desperately suppressed voice. "You don't mean it...I know. I just..."

She gasped for a while before restraining the almost burst of crying.

"Is she going?" Lisa still buried her face in her arms, "Is she going? But I'm not ready, what should I do?"

"Aren't you... going to see her?" Nemo couldn't help but ask softly, the shadow silently crawled over the wound on Lisa's sole.

"...she doesn't want me to worry, it's better for me to continue 'don't know'." Lisa finally raised her face, her face full of tears. "At least this way, then she won't be...too regretful."

After another quick breath, she staggered to her feet.

"I'll go for a walk." She said softly, "Please don't follow me this time."

"But you—"

"I still have a daughter, so I won't do anything stupid." Lisa's voice was getting softer and quieter, she stared at the pair of soft shoes in Oliver's hand. "Thank you for your kindness...I just wanted to be alone for a while."

"I see, Mrs. Lisa." Oliver nodded, and took off his shoes—they've changed to rough straps as they crossed the desert, but at least the soles were strong enough. "At least...please wear this. I'm staying with my mate and won't get hurt."

The lady boss looked at him for a while, and bowed awkwardly. She put on those slightly large shoes unskillfully, and her figure quickly disappeared into the night.

"...Does it matter if you are like this?" After a moment of silence, Nemo couldn't help speaking to Oliver, who was struggling to put his soft shoes on his feet.

"I was able to walk on a blood blister back then, that's nothing." Oliver tried to take two steps, indicating that he was moving normally.

Afraid of disturbing Nadine, the two quickly left the front door of the witch residence. The flowers in the courtyard are in full bloom, but unfortunately the rich and sweet fragrance of flowers can't save the two people's bleak mood.

"Oli...what do we do now?" Nemo stared at a flower bone and asked dryly. "Personally... If I choose to leave here now, I'll always feel like I'm something special."

"Same." Oliver replied dryly, "But... I'll let it go, can you confront Miss Wright head-on?"

"...can't."

"Speaking of Miss Wright." Oliver suddenly stopped, "You didn't say what... what, is there a way to make Nadine lose her strength? No, you don't need that expression." Look. To Nemo's frozen face, he quickly added, "I don't care where your knowledge comes from."

"That's only a theoretical possibility." Nemo said listlessly, "Do you know Woodruff's theorem?"

"...don't know."

"...It doesn't matter, I don't know about yesterday." Nemo sighed, "'Once a two-way connection across space is established, it can only die naturally according to the law. The connection itself cannot be destroyed'... The surface contract of the superior demon also conforms to this theorem, and I suspect this is the reason I know."

"I don't understand." Oliver admitted honestly, "What does it have to do with Nadine's impossibility to break free?"

"She is connected to the main plant of the eastern witch by the root system across the space. Just like the flesh and blood of the superior demon is connected to the body in the abyss by the contract. It is feasible to kill things on both sides, the connection itself It will disappear naturally. But if both sides are alive, the connection itself is unbreakable. That's how it works."

"But you said there was a way."

"There is indeed a way to perfectly simulate the death of one side." Nemo pressed his temple hard. "But the power that bursts out at the moment of death...well, Debbie is right, Nadine is not that strong. On the other hand, although I can see the roots, I don't know where to find pure blight spells to destroy nodes. "

"I may have a solution for Nadine." Oliver pondered for a moment, "But why pure blight spell, can't you do it?"

"If the spell attribute exceeds the cognition of the root system, it will only think that it has been attacked - it does not admit that it is Nadine's death feedback, and it will not disconnect itself."

"That means...if there is that, there is hope."

"But we only have one day left!" Nemo rubbed his face vigorously, staring at the soft shoes on the sharp stones. Thank goodness there is no smell of blood in the air yet. "It's too late."

"In time."

"Oli, what's wrong with your throat?"

"...The one who answered you is not me." Oliver's voice was a little dry.

"In time." The voice was not far from them, hidden in the darkness. The voice was hoarse and eerie, like a dying old man speaking in an angry voice.

"It's too late," the voice repeated.

(m..=)