Roger and Evelyn were searching in a forest north of Heimuguan. They were looking for Xiao Chen. They saw the approximate location where Xiao Chen fell from the air, but looking at a place deep in the forest from the sky and searching for it from the ground in the woods and bushes were two completely different things.
Evelin had a ring on her finger. It was Elena’s storage ring. After her body was mostly destroyed, she could no longer hold on and returned to Xiao Chen’s meditation world. She put her equipment into this ring and gave it to Evelin for safekeeping. “It’s a pity that Tashia and Elena have both returned to the meditation world. Otherwise, if any of them were there, they could easily find Xiao Chen’s location.”
"I hope we have better luck." Roger looked at a watch on his hand. "It's been an hour. Many mages have fallen from the sky today. The imperialists will definitely send people into the nearby mountains and forests to look for them. Although few mages fall in this direction, there is no guarantee that we won't run into a search team. It's best if we find Xiao Chen before they enter the forest."
"If we encounter a team like that, what should we do? Should we hide or fight?"
"It's not difficult to defeat them. The Imperials won't leave this kind of thing to their elite troops. But they will send out more than a dozen teams to conduct a sweeping search each time. If one team is alerted, it is likely to be heard by other teams, and then it will cause endless trouble. So let's hide first."
"There seems to be a sound." Evelyn suddenly interrupted Roger's words. The dark elf ranger's excellent hearing brought them to an imperial wizard who was moaning softly.
"Come and save me." The man shouted as soon as he saw someone approaching.
"Keep your voice down! There may be enemies around." Roger immediately answered in the common language with an imperial accent. He stretched out his hand to stop Evelyn and walked over first.
The wizard lit up a ball of light, and when he saw that the person coming over was a warrior of imperial descent, he felt relieved and said, "You are finally here. I am injured in the waist, bleeding, and my leg is broken. Help me quickly."
Roger lifted the wizard up gently.
The wizard looked him over and asked, "Why are you alone and not wearing standard armor?"
"I am a mercenary recruited by the Duke of Stuart, doing some battlefield cleaning work." Roger replied.
The wizard did not become suspicious, as this was a common practice, and the Duke had indeed recruited mercenaries, and he had seen quite a few of them in the camp.
"The equipment you are wearing doesn't look like that of an ordinary mercenary."
"Of course, I am a high-level warrior, and my mission is not to save people, but to search for lone enemies." Roger replied.
"No wonder." The wizard nodded.
Roger walked closer and asked, "I looked around but didn't find anything. Did anything unusual happen after you fell here? Did you see or hear anything around you?"
"I didn't hear anything else." The wizard pointed to the northeast and said, "That's the direction. I heard a sound of falling before. Maybe there are still our companions there, but I shouted a few times and no one answered. I guess that person must have died from the fall."
"Are you sure it's this direction?" Roger asked again.
"Sure, it's behind those thick trees." said the wizard.
"Thank you!" Roger filled his hands with fighting spirit and slapped the wizard on the head. The wizard's skull was shattered without warning. Blood spurted out of his mouth and he fell to the ground and died.
Roger took off his storage ring and walked in the direction the wizard pointed with Evelyn who followed behind him.
"I didn't expect you to kill your former compatriots without hesitation." Evelyn said, looking at the corpse on the ground.
"Compatriots? Only elves would view their kind this way. Well, some Chinese would too, but others wouldn't." Roger said.
"Is it different in the eyes of the Imperials? Then why do you call yourselves Imperials?"
"In the empire and the kingdom, the relationship between people is like a tree. Leaves belong to branches, branches belong to branches, branches belong to larger branches, and so on, layer by layer, until the trunk. Do you think that as a leaf, I am the same as the branch?"
"But you belong to the same tree, don't you?"
"When autumn comes, the leaves have fallen, but the branches are still there. When the branches can no longer withstand the wind and frost and decay, the trunk is still there. A trunk that can live for a thousand years will not regard leaves that can only live for a year as its compatriots, and vice versa."
"I didn't expect you to be so talented in writing. What kind of relationship do you hope to have between people?"
"I don't know." Roger looked down at his feet. "Maybe it's a blade of grass? At least one blade of grass doesn't look much different from another."
They walked for about five minutes, climbed a small slope, crossed a stream, and finally got behind the big trees. There were many signs of broken branches and the grass on the ground was also pressed down a lot.
"Someone has indeed fallen here," said Roger.
"Wait a minute, I found something." Evelin picked up a ring from the ground, "This is Tasia's ring. Xiao Chen is really here, but it seems that he has left."
"Follow the footprints," said Roger.
Evelyn used her night vision to track the marks on the ground, pushed aside the branches and moved forward, but after a few steps she retreated.
"how?"
"This is a little trick. The footprints were stepped on twice." Evelyn closed her eyes and listened carefully. Suddenly, she rushed four or five meters to the left and pushed aside a clump of bushes on the ground. Behind her was Xiao Chen's shocked face.
"Xiao Chen!" She pulled Xiao Chen, who was squatting on the ground, out.
Roger noticed that Xiao Chen looked very strange, a look of nervousness and alertness, and asked, "My lord, how are you?"
"Sir?" Xiao Chen looked a little strange. "It seems that you know me? Are you here to see me? Do you keep using this strange name?"
Evelyn let him go, "What happened? Did you hit your head?"
"You, you must be a dark elf. You are Evelyn, right?" Xiao Chen said, and then he looked at Roger. "As for you... you look like a swordsman, and there is a faint flash of lightning on your sword. You are Roger, right?"
Roger and Evelyn looked at each other. The man in front of them was undoubtedly Xiao Chen. He was clear-headed and logical, but what he said was very strange.
"I'm Roger, and she's Evelyn. But who are you?" Roger looked at Xiao Chen warily.
Xiao Chen smiled friendly and said, "Nice to meet you. I am Xiao Chen. A Xiao Chen you don't know." (To be continued)