Before Ed could finish jumping the high, narrow staircase, he was panting for breath, and Tess, who had closed the shop and caught up, pushed him impatiently from behind.

"Your physical strength is even inferior to Xiao Mo!" she complained.

"Tess!" the elf's rebuke was gentle and helpless.

Ed finally climbed to the top, trying not to collapse to the ground and stick out his tongue in an ugly way, his calf throbbing in pain, and his blood-soaked pants pressed uncomfortably against the wound.

Norway half-dragged him to the chair and sat down, and Ed finally got to see the elf's face.

"Ahh

The elf looked at him in surprise: "I don't remember ...... much"

"At the docks in Visa! You're in a boat, I'm in the water, and you say 'be careful' to me when you're sailing!"

He remembered that blazing summer day, when the elves poked their heads out of the boat, their long golden hair running down their shoulders, and their bright green eyes as alive as newborn leaves.

"I did go to Visa 10 years ago. The elf smiled apologetically, "But sorry, I really don't remember much." "Elves don't have a bad memory, but it's hard to remember every face they met in their long lives.

Ed was a little disappointed, but quickly perked up: "It's okay, I've lived in Visa City for more than ten years, and I've only seen one elf, and it must be you...... It's fate!"

Tess hugged Mochi and sneered and rolled her eyes.

The elf half-crouched down and cut Ed's pants open, frowning at the wound: "Tess, you should teach Xiao Mo not to bite indiscriminately." ”

Ed was left with several bloody tooth marks on his calves.

"He steals. Tess said confidently.

"It's pretending to steal!" Retorted Ed, hissing as Novi cleaned his wounds.

"Xiao Mo is very smart, but not so smart that it doesn't matter if it's real or fake. Tess said. The ferocious little creature was now as well-behaved as a cat in Tess's arms.

"So, what the hell is little Mo?" asked Ed, who had secretly kept a cat he had picked up from the street when he was a child, with cow-like markings on his body, and would purr under his fingers when obedient, and bark his teeth at him when he was fierce. The cat soon ran away from home because he couldn't bear the loneliness, and only occasionally came back to him for food. After one winter, he never came back.

"Mongoose. Norway replied, carefully spreading powder over Ed's wounds, "I brought them back from far away in the Wild West. ”

"You've been to a lot of places?"

"A lot. The elf bandaged his wound and stood up. He's tall and not as slender as the average elf, "I like to travel everywhere. ”

"He even loves the dwarven mines. "You won't find such a strange elf again." ”

"So, you brought back the stuff from the store?" Ed asked.

"There are also some that I made, and I can give them to you if you like them. Norway smiled, and Ed noticed that the silver hairbrush from yesterday was on the table beside him.

"Hey, you can't always give it away like this!" Tess protested, "You don't know how expensive the shop is here! and the hell stuff!"

"Then I guess you know what this is. Ed pulled out the silver coin and deliberately shook it in front of Tess before placing it in Norvi's palm.

The elf flipped over and over the silver coin, the smile that had been on his face faded little by little, and Ed and Tess exchanged a restless look.

"Where did you get this?" asked Norwe.

"A friend gave it to me. Ed replied cautiously.

"What kind of friends?"

"Uh...... He looked a little bit like an elf? His father was a carpenter. "A carpenter who knows a half-elf priest and can ask the paladins of the god of water to take care of his children. Ed guessed that Delian wasn't as ordinary as it seemed, but that wasn't his secret, and he couldn't tell it to a stranger, even if it was an elf.

He didn't even tell his parents.

"I guess your friend didn't tell you where he got this from?"

Ed shook his head: "This is ...... Is there something important, or have you been cursed or something?"

The elf held the ancient silver coin in his palm, feeling the cold seam of the metal that had been smelted thousands of years ago on his skin. He was still quite young as an elf, but he had also spent hundreds of years, and his experience was richer than many elves have ever lived, and the secrets condensed in that little silver coin still left him almost breathless.

He never imagined that it would be true—thousands of years of history had been covered up by the elves, with only a mutilated account in an old diary kept by the Bolt dwarves, and if he hadn't seen the silver coin, he would have always thought it was just another completely non-existent story deliberately distorted by the dwarves. Even so, he was furious and almost ruined his friendship with the Bolt dwarves he had just met.

For a moment, he wanted to destroy the evidence that shouldn't have been, and then remembered that it didn't belong to him. He slowly let go of his fingers, realizing that his long silence had caused the uneasiness in the young man's eyes to build into panic.

"I know it's an inappropriate request," he said sincerely, "and I don't have enough to exchange it, but I still hope that you will give it to me, and for that I can grant you any request I can make." ”

He understood that it might be futile - that no secret could be permanently concealed, and that what had happened would one day be known. He was also quite keen to uncover all kinds of secrets, but this one, he only hoped to hide as long as possible.

His solemnity apparently frightened the human boys. He huddled on the chair with the uninjured leg in his arms, and looked at him blankly for a while with the eyes of a frightened little animal before nodding violently: "Here you go!"

He simply had to make the elf stunned for a moment before hesitantly confirming, "Really?"

"Here you go. Ed nodded again seriously, "That's an elf thing, and judging by your face, it's definitely not a good thing." Even if I'm a little sorry for Is, I definitely don't want to hold it anymore. ”

Norway smiled, and the frankness of the human always made him feel rather endearing: "In exchange, what do you ask for?"

Ed lowered his head and thought for a moment, then raised his face, and his big smile showed a hint of shyness and uneasiness that he tried to hide, as if he was afraid of rejection: "Can you be my friend? and my friend Is? This silver coin was given to me by him, and if we were all friends, I think everything would be fine!"

The darkness that pressed down on my heart seemed to have lost weight incomprehensibly. Norway smiled and bent down and gently hugged the young man's still thin shoulders: "Of course, my friend. ”

"Actually, you made up your mind to stick to him from the beginning!" Tess scoffed, "Norwe, it's so hard to pretend that silver coin is worthless and let me exchange it for you with whatever you want!

"I don't think so. Do you ever regret being stuck with me, Tess?"

The red-haired thief blushed, bit her lip in frustration, and threw Moch into Norvi's arms, "I need to go to the store!

Ed's head followed Tess in a circle, then back to Norvie.

"You, stick her?" his eyes flashed with curiosity.

"Oh, that's a long, long story......" Novi deliberately dragged out his voice.

Ed writhed in his chair and slumped into the most comfortable position.

"What's there to eat?" he asked, expectantly, "I've got a snack when I'm listening to stories!"