"Have you heard of Adrian Cross?" Nemo struggled to rub the blood stains from his hair, and asked Oliver outside the bathroom aloud - Oliver washed himself first, and now he's probably slumped on the bed .
It was midsummer, and the small hotel was too lazy to heat the water, and only provided a few large buckets of cold water warmed by the sun. Nemo carefully poured water over his body, for fear of running out of water before he could wash it off. The process of cleaning up blood and sludge was so boring that he couldn't help but have a chat with someone. Now Oliver is the right person.
"No..." Oliver's voice came from outside the door, the voice was a little vague, and he seemed to stuff his face into the quilt or pillow.
Although the topic didn't start, Nemo's mind was agitated for a few seconds. With quilts and pillows to lie on, he couldn't imagine anything more beautiful at the moment. Although they weren't clean, they had a subtle musty smell. It can only be said that people's adaptability is really amazing - Nemo's previous life, although poor, can be considered a clean life. In just a few days, his requirements for quality of life have plummeted.
Nemo wistfully pulled a small shard of demon flesh from his arm and sighed. He looked at his arms—the skin was pale and smooth, not even a scar. He twisted his arm hard, trying to find the place where he mutated, but he found nothing. No weird knuckle bulges, no marvelous sores or non-human growths.
After pouring the last spoonful of water, he wrapped the bath towel around his waist and pushed out the door.
Oliver was lying face down on the bed just as he thought, in his new baggy blouse, motionless, as if asleep. Nemo hesitated for a few seconds, stretched out his wet paw and patted the opponent's neck - Oliver bounced off the bed almost immediately, and Nemo took a step back in shock, nearly slipping.
"Sorry, I thought..."
"No no, it's my problem, I should say hello first—Oliver, I want to ask you a favor."
"You... you wait, I remember putting my clothes on the wooden shelf in the bathroom, did you—"
"I'll wear it later." Nemo interrupted Oliver earnestly. "If Bagelmore is really a superior demon, I must have alienated somewhere. When I took a bath, I made a little confirmation, and there was nothing abnormal - except for the back, I couldn't see my back."
It was a simple thing, but Nemo's description was a little terrifying. Oliver swallowed, his butt rubbed against the sheets and moved backwards - it was one thing to face a monster with a strange appearance, it was another thing to have a strange thing growing on his companion's back.
Nemo, shirtless, turned away with a dignified expression.
Oliver breathed a sigh of relief.
Nemo has a normal back, no extra faces or weird organs that shouldn't be there. The curtains were drawn, and the light in the room was a little dim - the dark-haired youth's pale back even gave the illusion of a faint glow. Nemo lifted his dripping hair, revealing the entire back of his neck. The skin on his back was smooth and intact, and though pale it was not in the least ill. And the muscles are not exaggeratedly bulged like a warrior, but they are also strong and beautiful.
"It's normal... nothing special." Oliver rubbed his nose, and his tone suddenly became slightly uncomfortable.
"Looks like the problem is only the internal organs - maybe I've got an extra heart or something." Nemo loosened his clenched hair and shook the water from his hands, looking reassured. "It's good, at least it's not easy to be found."
Then he slid back to the bathroom briskly and quickly changed into his undershirt and robe—they were of very ordinary fabric, unlike Oliver's blouse, unmistakably the style of a mage's robe.
But before he even warmed the staff, he threw it in the border forest. At this rate of wear and tear, the two of them estimated that they would not be able to pay off the owed money after taking on a lifetime of tasks. Nemo wiped his hair with a bath towel, and his mood turned bitter again.
"You... come and get down." Oliver sat down by the bed and greeted hesitantly.
Nemo instantly thought that something really went wrong with him, he tightened his muscles and walked over honestly. The wet hair was still dripping, soaking the light-colored collar a little deeper.
"Leave your head down a little."
Nemo complied stiffly. Oliver stood up and put his hands on the sides of Nemo's head, as if to cover his ears. Nemo felt a soft warmth from those hands, running warm water through his hair. The moist steam was steaming, but he didn't feel the slightest uncomfortable heat.
The tips of the jet-black hair went from wet strands to fluffy, and no more drips slid down Nemo's neck. Nemo raised his head and tied his hair skillfully with the hair tie, just in line with Oliver's line of sight—the two were standing so close that his raised arm nearly hit Oliver's shoulder.
"Thank you," Nemo took a half step back and gave a big smile. "You fit better than me—we should get two more mage robes. Are you hungry? I remember Ann said..."
with a snap.
The two almost got into a fighting stance. Oliver was the first to discover the source of the sound—the grey parrot slammed into the glass window of the room and was slowly sliding down the glass window.
"Hey, I'm back." Nemo opened the window, and the grey parrot flapped its wings in confusion and flew into the room.
"...it doesn't look good." Oliver stared at the parrot's tangled feathers.
The parrot, in contrast to his usual raucousness, huddled on Nemo's shoulders and remained silent.
"Where have you been?" Nemo tried to talk to the grey parrot, who kept his mouth shut and didn't say a word - a real grey parrot could learn a few words anyway.
"...Forget it, let's go find Ann first."
It was almost noon, and they hadn't eaten anything seriously in the past day. But the hunger seemed to forget them—at least Nemo wasn't hungry at all, his stomach seemed to disappear without a trace. He thought it was just a simple lunch with everyone. As it turned out, when they could see who was sitting at the table, Oliver coughed heavily, and Nemo turned pale and almost fell to the door - fortunately Ann grabbed him by the front and pressed him against the nearest door. on the chair.
Fenrir Troy raised his eyebrows.
"Is this your new teammate?" he said, eyeing Nemo's sullen gray parrot over Nemo's shoulder with interest.
"Yes, I may have owed them a treasury in my last life." An was beaming, and he estimated that he had used some additional means of reply. She changed into a new leather armor, sat down carelessly, and poured herself a gulp of mead.
"This is... your friend?" Oliver asked cautiously, slowly covering the black seal pinned to his left chest with his right hand.
"Nothing. We do business occasionally, it's just fate." Ann shrugged. "The captain of the Steel Wolf Mercenary Corps, Fenrir Troy. I think you've met." She added insincerely. road.
Fenrir's falcon-like gaze swept between the two. Oliver straightened his back subconsciously, while Nemo lowered his head and began to count the embroidery stitches on the edge of the tablecloth.
"It's just two children, don't scare them." Ann bumped the mercenary's arm with his elbow, and Fenrir finally retracted his gaze. "Say something quickly, the food will be up soon - I'm hungry enough to eat a bear now, and I may not have time to talk with my mouth later."
"How much do you know about Pandora?" The mercenary turned his head and stared straight at An's amber eyes. "That group of refugees is basically scared, and they don't know when they ask three questions. The wanted criminals see me and run away, and they are full of bullshit when they are caught - but you should not know nothing, Savage."
Nemo held his breath and counted the stitches harder.
"I do know a little." Ann's face was not nervous at all. "Old rules, honest mantras, intelligence for intelligence."
"What do you want to know?"
"The matter of Adrian Cross." The female warrior's tone was very calm, "I need some rumors."
"make a deal."
After saying that, Fenrir took out a blank parchment, and the two of them stretched out their thumbs without hesitation and bit them, and together they drew a complex magic circle on it. After the array was completed, two thin bloodshots protruded from the center of the array and wrapped around the wrists of the two of them.
"Let's start." Ann said nonchalantly, "You come first."
Nemo finally stopped focusing on counting stitches. He couldn't help but raised his head and looked curiously at the slight fluttering in the air, as if the bloodshot would break and disappear at any time.
"The Honesty Spell," he whispered excitedly to Oliver. "It's the first time I've seen it."
"First question, how do you know it's Pandora?"
"I've read it in books," Ann replied without hesitation. "It's very characteristic."
"... There is not much information about the superior demons. Where did you come from...?"
"This has nothing to do with what you're asking." An replied calmly, "Why, are you planning to use honesty spells to spy on women's personal privacy?"
Fenrir gritted his teeth. There was nothing he could do—the bloodshot wasn't broken, and Ann wasn't lying.
"Okay, okay. So, did you go back after fighting off the worms? Did you see anyone else approaching?"
"Not at all. Wasn't it ripped apart by Pandora?" Ann raised her eyebrows, "Did something go wrong with it before that? I think... Who hurt it badly? No, it looks like someone did it. Die it." She opened her beautiful eyes and fixed her eyes on Fenrir's pupils.
"I'm asking the question now." The mercenary's face darkened.
"Sorry, please continue."
"What did Pandorather do after it appeared? ... Be more specific, and tell me everything until it disappears." Fenrir stood up from his seat, put his hands on the table, and bloodshot swayed dangerously a few times.
"It spreads out and slaughtered everywhere—it always does." The female warrior's tone was a little colder. "Then it suddenly came together, like it was bound by something, and it didn't take long..." She gestured to spread out. "It disappeared with a snap."
"Bound?"
"Yeah, got tangled up in something black, what the hell is that... at least I've never seen it."
"Did anyone approach it proactively?"
Oliver clenched his fists and Nemo clenched his grip on the robe under the table.
"I didn't see anyone approaching it," the female warrior picked up the glass with her free hand and took a few more sips. "Of course, I didn't hear anyone say to deal with it. It fought with that black thing so badly, maybe it just encountered some natural enemy."
"That's a high-level demon, not an ordinary beast. They don't encounter natural enemies so easily on the surface, at least I haven't heard of any trial knights just passing by. Then unless there is a demon warlock present..." The mercenary sat back in his chair. He looked away from Ann and stabbed Nemo again, who froze at the back of his neck. "… otherwise nothing can stop it."
"I said it, I don't know - come back, I didn't find that there were demon warlocks among the testers. It was your problem, right? If you are interested in that black thing, I can draw you a schematic diagram... But I It's not too close, and it may lack details."
"…Okay." Fenrir sighed. "What about this kid, what is his identity?" Just when Nemo thought the inquiry was about to come to an end, the mercenary asked directly.
"Devil believer, that's all I know." An Heng smiled and answered without hesitation. "Look at the way he looks, you stand still, and he probably won't be able to give you a knife - if there is some dangerous person, do you think I will be stupid enough to bring you here?"
An raised his head, his face full of confidence. Fenrir squinted at the bloodshot on her wrist—the thin red thread swam, still unbroken.
"Give me the schematics in a moment, I have nothing to ask. Now it's your turn, Savage."
The smile on Ann's face faded, and she thought for a moment.
"Adrian Cross, 'The Morning Star of the Radiance'... All I know is that he was indeed removed from the title of Knight Commander of Judgement. Troy, tell me, is he really apostate?"
,Wonderful!
(m.. = )