The Witch and the Doll Swear

Throughout the whole day, Tina did not ask Liliana what kind of existence she is to her, and how to become more attractive to her...such questions as Alice said.

Half of the reasons belong to the shyness of girls, the confusion entangled in the heart, and the deep-rooted emotional concepts of human beings.

The other half is fear.

The unknown is indeed terrifying, but if the foreseeable future is likely to be something one does not expect, it may not be so unacceptable to hesitate in the unknown.

What's more, my liking for Miss Liliana is my true feelings? Or, is it just because of the witch's [demonic charm] that has eroded into my bones?

——If Alice asked Miss Tina why she likes Lily, Miss Tina wouldn't be able to tell, would she?

Am I not completely unable to answer this question because I have no answer?

"Well……"

Roll around, roll around, roll around.

Tossing and turning tossing and turning.

In the end, not to mention Liliana's opinion, even my own mood was completely unclear...

That night, for the first time since entering the grassland, Tingna fell asleep without hugging the witch.

The dreams born in troubled and colder and unreliable nights than in the past are not beautiful. In the delusional dreams of this night, the girl dreamed of the tragedy she witnessed when she was a student for a long time.

I dreamed of the sound of chalk hitting the blackboard and the rustling of paper and pen.

Suddenly, the wooden sliding door that was only changed at the beginning of the new school year was pulled open, and a sound of Kara attracted everyone's attention. Standing there was a girl from the same year, with blond shawl short hair, sea blue eyes, and herself, like everyone else, a face that can be seen everywhere in Yansha City.

Her hard-soled leather boots stepped on the wooden floor, click, click, and walked to the front seat. The teacher asked her what she was doing here in confusion, and she raised her head because of the difficult theories in the book.

Very close.

The classroom is extremely quiet.

So it's very clear.

So hear clearly.

The scarlet splashed from the neck of the blond-haired, blue-eyed boy who was neither particularly familiar nor unfamiliar.

The sound of the knife blade deeply embedded in people's throat, embedded in [raw] flesh and blood.

And to submerge the incomprehensible text after racking my brains, the heat...

And, amidst the screams.

With blood-splattered golden shawl and short hair, sea-blue eyes without the slightest emotion, uniform college uniform, he stretched out his hand in confusion, and raised a blood-colored finger from his face, and he was wearing an oriental-style ring that was popular at that time.

——Human emotions are incomprehensible and unstable.

Since then, the girl has understood the matter.

Later, after seeing the boy's parents crying heartbreakingly in front of their son's grave.

——Human life is indeed a very important thing. If it is lost, nothing can be brought back except sorrow. Since it is such an important thing, it is an unforgivable crime to take it away, no matter how rich it is The grand reason is also good.

To take a life is to take a life.

To bring sorrow is to bring sorrow.

No matter how righteous the reason is.

and this.

But what is the point of dreaming about such things even now?

The principle of life—that is not a personal cognition worth telling outsiders, and human emotions are incomprehensible and unstable. As early as half a year ago, when we were parting at the station, I personally used those absurd behaviors Confirmed.

What does this dream indicate?

——If Miss Liliana is unwilling to accept my sincerity in the end, like that girl?

In the darkness, the girl stared blankly at Liliana who was curled up on the soft quilt, sleeping soundly like a cat.

The witch's platinum-blonde long hair exudes a faint halo in the darkness, slightly illuminating that peaceful sleeping face. In the outline of the night and the halo, that small, beautiful face becomes more and more sacred and beautiful. ... full of heart-pounding charm.

After staring stupidly for a while, the girl smiled self-deprecatingly.

If I really "hatred because of love" and pointed the blade at Liliana, even in my sleep, this witch lady with mysterious and powerful power can easily subdue me, maybe, if I really If she said such stupid things as "stay with me forever or die", she would really send her soul back to the earth with a magic spell, so that she would return to eternal rest before she even had time to generate resentment and hatred.

Rather than thinking about such stupid things, I'd better go to the bathroom and go back to sleep...

Touching her slightly distended belly, Tingna sighed a long time, got up and put on a thick windbreaker, and put the whalebone amulet around her neck.

"Miss Alice... sorry to trouble you..."

"Huh? It's okay."

In the darkness, the soft voice of the little puppet came.

Holding Alice in her arms, Tina tiptoed out of the tent.

Today's campsite is located next to the hot spring. After Miss Witch's busy day, this bare bowl-shaped rock has completely changed.

On the edge of the steaming water, the rocks are raised a bit, and I don’t know how to do it. There are vine-like hollow reliefs on the rounded edges, which look like some decorations in [Maple Leaf Trumpet]. With a touch of gold.

Outside this circle of rocks is a circular water channel, which is different from the central spring surrounded by it. The spring water in this water channel is connected to four thinner water channels, two of which flow water and the other two absorb water, forming a Spontaneously flowing loops. The water flow is not only very fast, but also engraved with a [clean] magic circle, Liliana told Tingna, this is used to cleanse the body before entering the hot spring.

Only after washing the body first can one enter the hot spring, and the clean spring water must not be soiled - Liliana repeated this sentence several times.

Then, in order to block the winter rain that will fall tomorrow afternoon—well, it should be this afternoon, and to prevent the rainwater from mixing into the spring water that already has a "perfect mineral balance ratio", Miss Witch raised the terrain of the hot spring, A dozen snow-white rock pillars were also erected around the hot spring, and a roof with a gorgeous suspended ceiling was kneaded on the spot with rocks of the same material.

When this miraculous building was completed, Tingna looked left and right, and felt that it was like the shape of a street pavilion in the guide booklet when her parents were planning a tour route to the City of Glory. Si told the girl that more than one-tenth of the street gardens in Glory City had something to do with Liliana...

The reason is that during the recent large-scale renovation of public buildings in Glory City, Liliana just happened to be graduating from the Department of Architecture. Because she likes hot springs, she returned to the academy and studied architecture. All items related to...

And the prototype of this one is the famous Cathedral of Santa Maria del Fiore in Florence, a famous capital of culture and art on the southwest side of the mainland. This is how the largest round arched dome is scaled down. It was created to solve the unemployment problem when the Queen of the Qiu Empire was in power.

...Anyway, Tina has completely given up trying to guess Miss Witch's age. Even if Alice leaked the truth intentionally or unintentionally, Miss Liliana's past was too shocking to have any inner fluctuations.

Without even paying too much attention to this exquisite building, the girl hugged Alice and hurried out.

"Why doesn't Miss Liliana build a toilet..."

"A toilet needs at least a relatively complete sewer system. Ms. Tingna, who is used to the toilet, probably can't accept the toilet tank and the urinal, right? Speaking of which, this was the patent of the nobles before, Ellie Si still remembers that it was because those nobles clamored that ordinary people are not worthy of sitting to go to the toilet, and Lily had to find someone to design and promote the squat toilet when she was promoting the sewer renovation of Qiqiu City."

"..."

The north wind on the grassland is really cold, hurry up and go back after using the toilet...

Came to the grass, put Alice on an exposed rock not far away, Tina kicked a small dirt pit on the grass with her feet - she was already very familiar with such things, just peeing If you don't need that kind of meticulous treatment, it's okay.

However, just as Tina stood up again, she covered the paper towel and the puddle of steaming liquid with the mud kicked out earlier.

- Aww -! ! ! ! ! !

Not far away, a wolf howl suddenly came to mind.

"?!"

The girl who was arranging the hem of the windbreaker suddenly shrank her neck, immediately picked up Alice and ran towards the hot spring.

Ever since she was chased by wolves once outside Yansha City, the girl knew that wolves would not howl easily when hunting. It would not only reveal her position, but also alert the prey.

In other words, when wolves start howling, if you are not in a completely safe situation, then you are surrounded.

Now Miss Liliana is still sleeping, Miss Alice doesn't have much magic power, it's still unknown if she can fight, because Tina is definitely - yes, thank you!

Don't be chased by wolves! Totally declined!

Although wondering why Alice didn't warn herself in advance, in short, Tingna fled under the dome of the hot spring building in three steps at a time, and she didn't turn her head until this time.

On the grassland, dots of fire lit up.

In addition to the howling of wolves, there are also the roars of people.

It was almost like a reappearance of the hunting night, the fire lights lit up one after another, and then divided into two streams to rush in different directions, accompanied by the howling of wild animals, the neighing of horses, and the stars lying on the rocky ground. The world unicorn stood up, stomping its hooves excitedly.

However, its current excitement is not because of the high-concentration sulfur spring specially left for it by Miss Witch.

The unicorns of the astral world are bloodthirsty beasts.

The smell of blood and slaughter, accompanied by the bone-piercing night wind, Tinna saw that half of a light suddenly fell off one after another, and another light that was heading in another direction quickly turned around there, but at this light bend When it formed an arc, it was cut off from it again, and a small piece of dry grassland was burned, and it turned into a storm of flames in an instant, drowning all the glowing lights...

From such a long distance, Tina could still see the shadows of people and wolves in the flames. Sometimes people were torn off their horses by leaping beast shadows, and sometimes wolves were pierced by long, sharp spears. Nailed to the ground, dying roar.

"It's hunting wolves..."

Alice, who was held in Tina's arms, raised her head with some difficulty, and said with a blank expression.

It was a flat tone explaining things that should be taken for granted, exactly the same as Miss Witch.

"Speaking of which, Miss Alice, who will the elf help in this situation? Humans or monsters?"

Realizing that she was not being chased by wolves, the girl's heart was relieved again. Now, Tingna will no longer be shocked and speechless because of such a primitive and cruel fight. With a calm tone that she must not have imagined a few months ago, Tingna asked a question that had been hidden in her heart for a long time. question.

"Although the vast majority of human textbooks don't teach it, human beings are just a type of monster. Fairies generally don't participate in such battles."

The little puppet replied indifferently.

"If it's a matter of hatred, it's even less of a concern. But if it's really involved, leaving out the premise of the position, the goblin will help the less disgusting side, which is a pity that often It’s not human beings who claim to be superior, although there are exceptions... but they are just exceptions, there are surprisingly many examples of helping humans at the beginning, but then being disgusted by human behavior and turning hostile to them.”

"Yeah……"

"That's right, but these things are basically written by humans to instigate rejection and hatred of goblins. As a result, goblins become less and less fond of humans, forming such a vicious circle, for example... ..."

While Tina and Alice were chatting nonchalantly, the hunt soon came to an end.

The lights symbolizing the nomads began to gather again and recede, and the shadows of the beasts also disappeared under the shadow of the fire, the burning grass was extinguished, and although the smell of blood hadn't faded, the noise had stopped.

"Looks like it's over..."

Tina yawned a lot, turned around after Alice comforted the excited astral unicorn, and stopped in her tracks when she was about to walk towards the tent.

"……Oops."

After being disturbed like this, the cold wind sobered up my mind a lot, and my drowsiness disappeared even more.

But in the long winter night, there was no sign of dawn yet. Standing in the bitter cold wind on this frosty night, Tingna felt like a fool.

"Miss Alice, what should I do..."

Can't sleep at all!

"Since you can't fall asleep, let's go to the hot spring. Maybe you can fall asleep when your body warms up."

"Woooo..."

No matter how you hear the voice of the little puppet, you can't help but gloat over others' misfortune.

But what else can I do?

The girl had no choice but to cry and walked towards the hot spring.

However, it has not waited for the girl to go far away.

"Aww..."

The soft howling of wolves, accompanied by a series of footsteps, quickly approached.

"?!"

It's not over yet?

As soon as such thoughts flashed through the girl's mind, Ting Na turned around abruptly and jumped towards the astral unicorn who had not yet lay down again.

Compared with the tent that had to be walked for a while to reach, when Miss Liliana was asleep and Alice did not have enough magic power to move, this dreamy one could kick a prairie deer of similar size several meters away with just one hoof Obviously, this kind of wolf can give more practical protection, but just when Tingna turned her face to see what kind of wolf came here so boldly.

"Aww..."

What ran in front of her was a group of fluffy little fur balls...

wrong.

It was seven or eight young prairie wolves.

After the astral unicorn snorted, the group of gray and brown furballs stopped abruptly, backed up slowly, and the one running in front faced the girl and the girl's arms. The little puppet screamed.

——Those fiery red eyes shone brightly in the dark night.

The fear and loathing of creatures like wolves made Tingna retreat instinctively. However, contrary to such physical instincts, from the cry of this little wolf, the girl actually felt a little... intimacy?

"...Hey, Miss Alice, shouldn't it be..."

Some time ago—it was obviously not so long ago, but it seemed to have happened a long time ago, and it resurfaced in the girl's memory.

The sea of ​​flowers of manjushahua is a continuous chain of hatred.

"Is it the little wolf from back then..."

The girl was a little unsure.

"Allah... yes, it's the little wolf that Lily boiled in a stone jar overnight. It seems to have fully recovered."

But Alice gave her affirmative reply.

The little puppet also looked surprised. As if he could understand her words, the little wolf with red eyes shook the thick mane on his neck, throwing out sparks.

"Is this really a...coincidence...have we moved so far north?"

"Are these children the group that was hunted..."

The unexpected reunion is a joy to behold, but standing in the cold and talking is just too stupid anyway.

So, Tingna hugged Alice, lit up the lighting magic that Liliana set up in this hot spring building, took off the thick windbreaker and cashmere cotton coat, and soaked in the water channel for washing her body.

Under Alice's teaching, the young wolves who were a little afraid of the bright lights also followed suit and howled and jumped into the waterway.

"Ouch——"

"Aww! Aww, aww—"

This half-meter waterway is a bit too deep for them, and the water flow is too fast. These little furry wolves got in and were washed away by the water, from one end of the waterway to the other. They turned around in a big circle, and bumped into Tingna's body one after another. Their little paws swiped, but they couldn't find the north.

"Ahhh..."

Although there is a real psychological shadow on creatures like wolves, these little drowning wolves whose soft fur is wet and sticky to their bodies really don't feel any deterrent force, rather, they look different cute.

Tina stretched out her hands to grab the sides of the waterway, and her arms became the life-saving straw for these little guys. The dizzy wolf cubs, who were dizzy by the rushing water, stretched out their little furry paws to grab the girl's arms. Their bodies blocked the others of the same kind behind them, and suddenly, a pile of wet little wolves appeared on the water.

"Aww..." Only the flame mane pup who had been treated by Liliana's medicine bath stood beside the waterway with flower carvings, hesitating.

After Alice said to it again that you can't go soaking in the central pool without washing it, she carefully rubbed against the bodies of her companions and soaked in the warm water.

The expression on that furry face became more subtle...

But soon, these young beasts succumbed to the comfort brought by the hot spring. After being scooped up one by one by Tingna, they were blown by the cold wind and quickly burrowed into the hot spring in the middle. They all wagged their tails happily.

Through Alice's translation, from their howling, Tingna also gradually knew the whole story of hunting wolves on the grassland.

Just after the clan of little wolves attacked the tribe of hunters in the sea of ​​flowers but failed to wipe them out, they became the targets of nomadic herdsmen on the grasslands.

Under the encirclement and suppression of several tribes, even the most powerful tribe would be overwhelmed, and the number dropped sharply. In addition, winter has come, and the shortage of food has brought the wolves into a severe situation.

So, they planned to come here, that is, the land of demons that the nomads called to take shelter from the limelight, and spend the winter here by the hot water that spewed out of the ground occasionally.

"A land of demons... huh..."

Thinking of the strong sulfur smell here before Liliana dispelled it, Tingna nodded knowingly.

Now she already knows that in this barbaric grassland, "devil" does not necessarily refer to a real demon. The uncivilized nomads will name everything they don't understand as a demon or a god. Obviously, They may not know what sulfur is, just like the residents of Macondo, they don't understand what methane is, and they call the smell of rotten eggs "the smell of home".

"Aww..."

We will meet again here, which surprised the little wolf. It seems to think that Tina and Alice are the masters of this place as it keeps paddling on the water with its four short legs. Can let its group stay here.

"Well...it's fine, Miss Liliana should agree, as long as..."

After thinking about it, the girl nodded.

"If you don't pollute the spring water."

During the conversation, some adult big wolves also came out of the night shadow one after another. They looked at the young wolves who were howling with a human in the hot spring, and their fierce faces showed confused expressions. .

The goblin's affinity for monsters was revealed at this time.

After Alice took out some healing potions from her space storage ring and let Tina hold them to heal the wounds of the injured wolves, the expressions of these ferocious monsters became friendly, and they washed off their fur in the water channel With the dirt and blood on his body, he soaked in the hot spring with the pups.

All of a sudden, the hot spring and the waterways beside it were covered in gray and brown fur.

Both goblins and witches are races close to [nature]. Tingna believes that Liliana will not refuse the request of this pack of wolves, even if they attacked a tribe before and killed many people...

"..."

Even if you know this, looking at the spring water, knowing that you can stay for the winter, and swimming over to rub against your own wolves, it will only produce an unrealistic feeling.

Maybe there are still human remains in their stomachs.

Even so, their friendliness is genuine.

Whoever is kind to them, they will be kind to whoever they are. In their world, there are not so many scheming, no troublesome beliefs, ethics, and morality. This is the simple logic of beasts.

"Although humans call this kind of behavior 'If you have milk, you are a mother'."

"Ahaha... But the nomads won't let it go..."

"Yes, maybe they will come over tomorrow morning... Well, at that time, let Lili deal with them. Lily likes very few things, but dislikes a lot, especially those who don't listen to people's words. .If you don’t listen, Lily will definitely beat them until they listen.”

"That's right, I'll leave it to Miss Liliana..."

...Is that really good?

Although there are such worries, it is impossible for Miss Liliana to be here to protect these wolves all the time.

However, Tinna, who was surrounded by small howling sounds, grabbed a relatively quiet little gray wolf and hugged her in her arms, and she was also a little sleepy. She wanted to stick out her tongue to lick her face but accidentally licked it. A sip of spring water showed the wolf cub with a bitter expression, the girl smiled and fell asleep slowly.

Outside Yansha City, the shadow that wanted to tear itself apart in the hills seemed to gradually melt away under the warm warmth.

...

I was woken up again because of the continuous howling of wolves in my ears.

"... um... what's wrong..."

When I opened my eyes, the sky turned pale. I didn't know when I arrived in the middle of the hot spring, surrounded by many wolves.

Probably because he fell asleep in the hot spring, his body was warm, and the whalebone amulet on his neck glowed faintly, so he didn't soak himself to the point of being unconscious, maybe it was also due to this...

He stood up, turned his head, and saw dozens of arrows nailed to the barrier of the aurora.

And some distance away from the hot spring, nomads wearing animal skins were shouting something.

All men.

"..."

"..."

"..."

The scene fell into a moment of silence.

Sleepiness was gone.

First of all, of course, the first reaction is to pick up a wolf cub and block the exposed chest from the water.

"F, what happened——!!!"

Then, the girl screamed.

The piercing scream made the nomads over there and the wolves around the girl commotion together, and more arrows flew over one after another, but the aurora-like defense wall remained motionless. Amidst the noise, the villain An occasional weak voice sounded directly in Tingna's mind.

...Miss Tina, it looks like she's awake...

"Love, Miss Alice, what happened!"

... Well, probably Miss Tina's [Early Morning] and the nomads' [Early Morning] are not at the same time. These hunters came over when the sky was just turning white, and saw the astral unicorn and the buildings. Sometimes they were so scared that they thought it was a miracle from the gods... But when they saw the wolves, they attacked without saying a word... It took Alice a lot of energy to appease the wolves Woolen cloth……

Next to the hot spring, the size of the wolves has expanded a lot compared to before Tingna fell asleep. These wolves are lying on the rocky ground, looking bored at the nomads who sounded like they were barking because of their strong accents.

...This enchantment has almost used up Alice's magic power, but it doesn't matter, don't worry about them, and deal with it after Lily wakes up, it doesn't matter if you continue to sleep...

"No, how is it possible to fall asleep in this situation...and Miss Liliana, how long will it take to wake up..."

...Probably, another two hours...

"..."

Perhaps it was because she was overly frightened as soon as she woke up. Tingna felt that her mind was completely in a state of stress, unprecedentedly calm and clear. When hearing the time scale of "two hours", Tingna only felt that her brain A Mongolian.

Even if she is used to being watched by Liliana and Alice when she goes to the toilet, it doesn't mean that the girl's deep-rooted sense of shame has been exhausted during such a trip. Watching the hot spring soak for two hours?

Just thinking about it, Tina almost fainted.

--no.

——Absolutely, absolutely not! ! !

My mind, stimulated by shame, is running fast. Now I can't count on Liliana who won't wake up until 9 o'clock in the morning, but this situation must be resolved immediately, immediately, immediately!

——What should I do? How can we efficiently and effectively drive out these barbaric, vulgar, ignorant and stupid nomads——

The girl whose favorability with the whole group of nomads fell crazily because of the nomads' staring eyes felt that time was slowing down, and what she had seen and heard along the way frantically flashed in her mind. In the end, when the girl cursed these people for being ignorant when stupid...

The relatively civilized tribes she met during the journey flashed in her mind.

Then, freeze.

"...Miss Alice, can you make these idiots understand my words?"

Trembling slightly, the girl didn't even realize that the smile on her face seemed to be looking at some garbage.

...With the current magic power...that's right...Miss Tina, what do you want to do?

"Anyway... please..."

……Eh? Eh? Alice knows...

Ignoring the little puppets that were rarely in chaos, Tina took a deep breath.

"You... stupid and vulgar fellows-!!!

... What happened after that was regarded by the girl as the biggest dark history in her life, buried deeply in the deepest part of her memory.

…………………………………………………………………………………

A long time later story:

One day, two girls visited this place. Because of the city built of gray and white rocks in the grassland, the silver-haired girl blinked her ruby-like pupils and exclaimed. ——In a place so deep in the grassland, there really is a city...and it is so beautifully built. The unique civilization ecology should make it difficult to produce a unified national system, but... the black-haired girl stared at the two sides of the stepped temple, the building, and on the road sign beside her, it was written in the common language name. 【Congress】

【The capital city】

—Is it an imperial parliamentary state... It's really amazing. Generally speaking, with the geographical civilization here, it is already remarkable to be able to produce a clan union like the orc leader Saudkin...

——Also, there is a new belief that was born, it really makes people curious...

They asked about the history of the city to the passing residents wearing clothes carefully cut from animal skins, and the woman told them about the city on which it was built, with a pious gesture as if she was holding something in front of her chest. The legend of the city built with a glimpse of the holy hot springs.

A few years ago, this place was still a barren land named after demons, until one day, in order to hunt a group of evil wolves, nomad warriors broke into here, only to find that the mist that looked like the breath of demons had receded , Holy springs gushed out of the barren rocky ground, and a solemn and beautiful temple was built.

When the hunters broke in there, a blond-haired and blue-eyed girl was bathing with the wolves they were hunting. They mistakenly thought that the girl was attacked. The hunters shot arrows at the wolves, but they were blocked by colorful rainbow lights.

It turned out that the girl was the goddess of the holy spring, the maid of Liliara, and she loudly reprimanded the hunters for their ignorance and brutality, saying that even wild beasts would not show their fangs beside the holy spring, because the maid was attacked. Offended, the goddess was also angry about it, and used divine power to spray the scorching fountain of punishment, from then on, prohibiting men from stepping here again, and left the one-horned holy beast to guard.

However, although they were severely punished, these brave hunters were enlightened because of the spring water sprinkled by the goddess. They began to deeply feel the barbarity and vulgarity of the past life, and determined to believe in the wise spring goddess. , study, progress and change, they went around to persuade other tribes, gathered here, learned civilization and knowledge from the world outside the grassland, and finally established this city in the name of the spring goddess who left.

This is a well-known and well-known legend among women and children in this grassland. After the residents were beaming with joy, they seemed to remember that they had something to do and left in a hurry.

——So once you enter the inner city, you can hardly see men...

——It’s really an interesting legend.

The silver-haired girl looked at the pyramid-like temple with great interest, took the hand of the black-haired girl, and stepped up the rocky steps.

Pulled by the enthusiastic little master, the black-haired girl was a little confused.

——Do you think that the birth of this grassland country really originated from this myth?

——Maybe then? The myth is an exaggeration of the facts. Perhaps, the so-called prohibition of men taking a step further is just that the women who are bathing want those male hunters to leave quickly... it shouldn't be like this?

——That's right, too.