The soft orange-red light is especially harsh after dark. Nemo squinted, then immediately turned his gaze in Oliver's direction—they had been entangled with the Spellworm all night, and he himself was fine, Oliver looked a lot worse.
Their head's pale brown hair was soaked with sweat and clinging to the skin. At the moment when the black barrier disappeared, the brilliance of the sunset poured down, and Oliver subconsciously raised his hand to block in front of his eyes. "What time is it?" he said nervously.
"It's less than a whole day, it's faster than I thought." The female warrior was no longer there, and Adrian Cross moved a stool and sat nearby. Now he closed the book in his hand, stood up, and threw Oliver a water bag. "At least you can rest for a while."
Oliver took the water bag. His lips were dry and wrinkled from the loss of water, and his Adam's apple slid up and down eagerly, but he stopped halfway in undoing the water bag—without showing the slightest hesitation, he naturally threw the water bag to Nemo.
"I need to confirm the specific time, Mr. Cross." Oliver's eyes still stopped on Adrian, "We need time to communicate... Ms. Nadine may not be willing to cooperate, I think you know this better than me."
"Indeed, but you need to rest more now." Adrian raised his eyebrows at the water bag in Nemo's hand, "Even if you pass the training - considering this is the first practice, the success rate is at most 30%. If you are in good shape Not good, this number is even lower."
"I'll take him to rest." Nemo said simply, he didn't move the water bag, but simply grabbed Oliver's sweat-soaked blouse.
"But I'm not particularly tired..."
"You haven't eaten or drank for more than ten hours, Ollie, you're human. I can see that you're not in good shape." Nemo pulled him firmly, "Anyway, Horizon won't break his promise on this kind of agreement... Probably not. Bar?"
"No." Adrian answered his question. "At least on this one, Godwin Lopez can be trusted."
"Okay." Nemo nodded, "and dealing with Miss Nadine... they won't be dispatched in full, and it shouldn't involve too much preparation time in advance."
"Then we can go before midnight." Oliver was a little surprised at Nemo's initiative, but he continued the topic subconsciously. "I can get another two or three hours of sleep. Nemo, you can let me go—I'm not running away."
"Okay," Nemo said, but he didn't want to let go of the hand holding the blouse.
He just kept dragging Oliver into the room.
"What's the matter with you?" Oliver adjusted his short shirt. The rough cloth stuck to his body tightly, and the sticky touch made him a little uncomfortable. And completely different from his embarrassed situation, Nemo looked no different from before the battle - the black-haired youth looked clean and fresh, but his attitude became a little weird.
Nemo stared at Oliver with a complicated look, like he had an extra nose on his face. That gaze was so focused that it literally shaves every inch of the skin on his face, and Oliver almost couldn't help raising his hand to confirm whether his facial features were still in place.
"Is there something on my face?" However, after being stared at by Nemo for half a minute, Oliver asked, and wiped his face hard.
"...I have something to talk to you about, but not now." Nemo's tone was very solemn. "What you need most right now is rest, Ollie."
And when Oliver quickly washed the unbearable sweat off his body and walked out of the bathroom, Nemo was no longer in the room.
He sighed, trying to hold back his emotions—Oliver had never seen Nemo look so serious, not even when he claimed to be a superior demon.
He must have said nothing wrong, right? Oliver put his pillow on his head, stared at a crack in the ceiling, and found himself hopelessly drowsy. Their cooperation should have been smooth, and Nemo had no reason to be nervous or unhappy about it. Questions swirled in his mind, and Oliver had to stare at the ceiling in a daze—he nearly bounced like a live fish on a chopping board when a hand clapped his stomach.
"Drink this, Ollie." Nemo, who entered the room at some point, handed him a glass of milk, his face still expressionless, his tone as stiff and rigid as his expression. "You can't go to war on an empty stomach."
Oliver took the cup, his internal organs twitching a little - if he hadn't been familiar with Nemo's character, and judging from the expression on his face, he would definitely think there was something in it that shouldn't have been placed. "Uh... Nemo, if you're bothered..."
"No worries. I'm fine, sober," Nemo replied mechanically, continuing to stare intently in his face.
Oliver turned his attention to the glass of milk with difficulty and gulped it down his throat. It's just the right temperature, with honey added, but it doesn't feel greasy at all. The hot milk made Oliver drowsy for a moment. But when he put the cup on the head of the bed and his eyes met Nemo's gaze again, the intense gaze drove away his drowsiness instantly.
Oliver put his head back on the pillow and swore that he was definitely having a little irregular heartbeat at the moment: "Actually, I'm… not too sleepy."
In fact, his brain was indeed a little stiff, and every muscle on his body was showing faint soreness. But the thorny worries and tensions rolled wildly in his mind, and he just couldn't close his eyes—Mr. Wright's gaze multiplied the tension.
"Want my help?" Nemo asked earnestly. "You want to fall asleep, don't you?"
"Of course." Oliver forced a smile, "Why, are you going to sing a lullaby or..."
He couldn't finish his sentence.
Nemo placed his palms lightly over his eyes, and Oliver only felt a hammer slam into his nerves. There was no pain or other unpleasant feeling, just an irresistibly heavy drowsiness that grabbed his head for an instant. As if sinking into a viscous shadow, his vision was instantly engulfed by darkness, and then he could no longer think about anything.
Oliver fell asleep, and fell into a truly peaceful slumber in just a few seconds.
Nemo withdrew his hand silently.
He knew his performance was abysmal, and perhaps he should have told Oliver his thoughts. Nemo stares sadly at the empty glass—but he doesn't think it's a good idea to create too many mood swings before the fight, his own mood swings have made the atmosphere stiff enough. If you choose to make a confession at such a time, God knows what effect it will have on the cooperation they just got together.
The afterglow of the setting sun gradually dissipated, and the clear blue color unique to the night began to spread outside the window. Nemo didn't turn on the lights in the room, he sat down beside the bed and let the darkening sky engulf him.
Oliver fell asleep, his chest slowly rising and falling.
He must have dried his hair ahead of time, and the soft light brown strands exuded a faint refreshing smell. Nemo hesitated for a moment, then reached out again, brushing the hair from Oliver's forehead.
Unlike when he was locked in the dark barrier, this time he took the initiative to touch Oliver's forehead with his hand. human temperature. He mused uncomfortably, so far, that Nemo couldn't get used to the fact that they were "not the same kind"—or that Oliver wasn't going to get him used to it at all.
Nemo sighed very lightly, leaned down slightly, and touched the other's forehead with his lips.
It wasn't the first time he had done it, "he" had done it when Oliver was badly wounded by Witherspoon and he himself was in that wondrous state—
Different.
That "his" heartbeat was steady, as if kissing trees, land, or the wind. But now, his heart was pounding hard against his ribs, as if it was about to burst out of his chest. The feeling made him novel and reassuring, and Nemo hesitated for a few seconds before trying to kiss the tip of his nose again.
His heart beat faster, and the temperature of his blood seemed to be a few degrees higher. Some kind of sour liquid mixed with the rushing blood and gnawed at his veins. However, it didn't cause pain, just a faint tingling sensation.
"...Looks like I should knock on the door." A slightly embarrassed female voice sounded, "Uh... How long will it take for you? Half an hour? An hour?"
Although the sun has set, the night has not yet come, and everything in the room is still very clear. An Yi was at the door, casting a deep gaze towards him.
"Remember to close the door from the inside next time." She added dryly.
Nemo stood stiffly and strode to the door. "Oli is resting," he said in a gruff voice. "We can talk in the hallway."
"I just have two things to report. It looks like I'm a step late." Ann's voice added a smile. Look for this kind of seed outside with other knuckle lizards." She stretched out her hand, and a familiar "small gravel" lay quietly in the calloused palm of the female warrior.
"Dig it out of the desert and bury it in the shallows," she muttered. "I can't figure out what they're trying to do. Bone-knotted lizards can't grow any plants. This stuff is weird... Cross said it's a seed, How can there be such a heavy seed?"
"The Seed of Earthland," Nemo quickly confirmed.
"...How did you know?" An raised her eyebrows, "What memory did you recover? I'm really getting more and more curious—"
"No, it's not." Nemo hurriedly denied. "Oli and I saw this thing at Miss Nadine's."
"It seems that you can ask her about it." Ann put the seeds in her pocket. "When you two fell in love with each other to destroy the spell bug, I wanted to run and break my leg alone - I even managed to dig out some news about the horizon, and I wanted to inquire about it by the way, but no one recognized it. this thing."
There was a soft sound from the corner of the corridor not far away, like the sound of the soles of soft shoes slamming against the wooden floor.
"News from the horizon? Could it be Debbie..." Nemo probably sensed the identity of the person coming from the corridor and decided to ignore it for the time being.
"Of course I won't embarrass the two of you." Ann shrugged, "I just eavesdropped on it. Nadine is in such a state, and the crusade time is not such a big secret. There is a guard near Howard's house. Several of the Horizon mercenaries—you know, I'm afraid some people will suddenly attack—and Howard is not a lovely client, those few seem to faint from boredom and have nothing to do but chat."
She snorted sarcastically from her nostrils.
"I was going to tell Oliver, but it should make no difference... Horizon is going to shoot in the early morning, and Godwin Lopez will do it alone. 'To show our apologies and respect' — tsk tsk." An imitated the tone of the mercenary who did not know the horizon. "Anyway, if you want to help Ms. Nadine, the time limit is almost there."
"You want to help her?" A hoarse voice joined the conversation.
This time the voice came from a human, and the hoarseness was just from an overused vocal cord. Lisa came out of the corner dragging her moccasins, carrying the shoes Oliver had lent her last night. The shoes appeared to have been washed thoroughly, and the soles appeared to have an extra layer of abrasion-resistant leather.
"I didn't mean to hear it, sorry." The female boss said, she looked very lethargic - her eyes were still swollen, and the dark blue and black under them were terrifyingly heavy, and she looked pale and haggard. "That's the horizon... How are you going to help her?"
"We're not going to fight Horizon directly," Nemo said cautiously. "We just... have an idea that might help her. But the chances of success aren't high, so you'd better not—"
"Could she survive?"
"...there is a possibility..."
The word "possibility" is like a trace of moisture in the desert, a little light in the darkness. She begged and berated, and she thought she couldn't do anything more. Why do these black chapters help, and how to help, everything becomes no longer important. There was only one thought left in Lisa's head—there was really one more thing she could do, something only she could do.
"Then take me with you," she said hoarsely, "please take me with you."
"But you didn't say..."
"It's possible for Nadine to survive." The female boss raised her face and her eyes were frighteningly bright. "I can't do anything amazing... If I can, I'd really like to give five years of my life to shut up that old Howard guy. And you—you're saying she might still be alive!"
Her pale face flushed again, not the angry purple red with bulging blood vessels, but the blood of excitement.
"Is it a crime to see my friends?" her voice grew louder. "Yes, take me there. As long as there is a possibility, as long as there is. I don't believe it..."
She gasped.
"...I don't believe she had the heart to die in front of me."
,Wonderful!
(m.. = )