When the team led by the giantess arrives at a clearing, it is clear that some unexpected fire has occurred in a place that was once a beautiful native garden. With the popularity of exotic plants, such as the many orchids that Gwen and his companions saw on their way in, they had been looking forward to finding a beautiful grotto, the most beautiful apex of nature. Instead, they found a barren wasteland that was only beginning to recover. The old roots and old branches that once formed the chairs and tables were charred, shriveled, blackened, and burned with strong intentions. The foliage gazebo overhead is gone. The place now has the stench of decay, the dirt ankles are buried deep in the soot, and the rotting material is busy decomposing.

"It's interesting that you've learned this from their hostess. Just as some pretty women can't cook, maybe this charming dwarf can't grow a garden? Maybe she's unresponsive? Moyer considered the possibility. But for a fairy, this is not an undesirable quality.

Next to them, the Wood Elf blackened a stain. Gwen didn't realize that marmots would blush, believing that it would take flesh and blood. Then Drade spoke, her voice aching and painful.

"Sophie's guests, vulgar, mortal are part of them. I invited them to tea out of my heart, and that's how they repaid me and burned my love. ”

"Brute!" Maya agreed to the verdant goddess. "I'll find a way to compensate you. ”

Gwen felt a wave of remorse permeate guilt, a cold sense of guilt oozing from the fabric of her leather coat. Yue! It must be Yue. She was also grateful, and the painful situation in the garden meant that her friends had already made contact with Sofina, so they must be fine.

"Where is Sofina, Mistress of the Forest?" Gwen walked over to the clearing, wondering if an incredible turn of events would make an impression. Instead, the giantess turned her sculpted face towards Gwen and moved closer.

"Hmm...... What does that smell like?" she got closer, her nose almost touching Gwen's face. Her head was almost as long as Gwen's torso, carved out of wood, as if a master had applied his skills to a massive tree trunk. Her eyelashes, the blades of the grass, swayed cutely, attracting her attention, and the two smoking green spheres seemed to have infinite depth. It was a seductive but unfamiliar expression, as the woman's eyes had no pupils. "Your face..."

Gwen felt her skin crawl as the creature wandered around her, causing the Taj Mahal and the others to prepare their guards and half-spells in their breath. Gwen was also ready to loosen her Void shield, or wrap herself in the Void's skin, especially if the Wooden Woman suddenly became hostile.

"It's weird," the giantess said to herself. The dwarf carefully placed the tendrils under Gwen's sculpted chin and lifted her face so that her eyes could fully see Gwen's appearance. "Are you Sofina's contractor? Aren't you dead?"

"We are...... relatives," Gwen replied vaguely. "Can you tell us to go see Sofina now? ”

The midget leaned back and almost hit Gwen with her protruding wooden **. Gwen staggered backwards and grimaced; On a summer morning, moving to the sound of lifting wood, the fairy gazed hopefully at the men in the crowd.

"Maybe they'll stay for tea when you come? My sisters and I are desperate for company. ”

As she spoke, a dozen marmots of various shapes and sizes appeared on the edge of the clearing, each with garlands and rows of vigorous hair, giving the grove a tropical vibe.

Those people used to seem less infatuated with them, and now they all blush from the expected swelling. Even Jonas held his breath as a particularly red-haired dwarf came to know her with a white pine hand running down her washboard belly.

"Maybe they will. Gwen turned to face the hostess, her expression cold, and she muttered in a low voice. "Is there a mortal like me with her?"

"Yes. "Drade didn't look happy when he told an unpleasant story about uncivilized barbarians ravaging her groves. "There was a little arsonist, a delicate dwarf healer, a very burly native, and Sophie cruelly rejected us. I dare say she's wrung him out like a damp cloth now. ”

Gwen turned around and asked for an escort, but the debauchery that greeted her made her sigh deeply. Maybe it's because of military life, but the Taj Mahal, Jonas and Paul seem to be particularly susceptible to the allure of the opposite sex, especially when they are like the pictures she sometimes sees in the boys' dorms. In fact, the forest elves are completely submissive, even desired, and they have doll-like physical perfection, which makes usually disciplined men defenseless.

Her father, in particular, was in the spotlight, showing an enviable ability to have three or four conversations, swimming between compliments and flattery, like a river eel gliding over mossy stones.

Gwen tells them not to start a fight under any circumstances, but she's not saying that the dryads are completely friendly or harmless, or that these people can initiate extracurricular contact.

Should she scold them, or should she let it be?

Of course, with Sofina, the "lady" in the grove, they are safe, if they are slightly poorly dressed - to survive the strange dangers of this island, and there is a worse fate than picking sawdust from their own delicate place.

"I'm going to find Sofina!" she called out to them. "You should be safe here!"

"Do you want me to come along?" he held back with a huge look of self-sacrifice. So far, smaller marmots have planted their furniture to meet men, twisting branches and roots to form sofa beds, chairs and tables, creating sheets of emerald moss and fine jade lawn linen. The burgeoning transformation has brought an eclectic atmosphere to the vacant land.

Gwen almost blurted out that Alessia would know about it, but she remained silent and rejected Jonas's offer. While she has never personally invited a stripper to a company's Christmas party, she believes that the employer's basic agreement does not involve misuse of employees. Jonas strikes a rhetorical pose and tells Gwen that maybe it's time for her to go hiking in the woods while her companions enjoy some frolic and frolic. Although the soldiers were professional and polite, they were men in their prime. There shouldn't be too much time to protect a man's privacy.

The real reason, of course, is that Grote is a place where only Gwen can venture out. She neither wanted them to see nor let them enter a heaven that was sacred to her master. A place that was also special to her, a private shelter that only Alessia, Gunther and herself dared to go to.

Delaide didn't want to waste time taking her to Sofina's cave, so she carved a path through the jungle and let Gwen follow it until she reached a Bayan tree with a clearing there. Gwen walked along the dark path of fertile soil, her shoes sinking into the fertile loam with each step. A hundred meters later, she came to a clearing, although there was nothing in the clearing itself. Rather, it's a clearing, because of its strangely shaped giant Bayan trees, one towering over all the others. Terrifying tendrils sprout long from the branches, giving the mottled reservation a ghostly mystery.

Gwen creaked in as she entered, the familiar warped wood.

A branch hangs down from a great height and begins to hang down.

From its top, Gwen can see a familiar female figure - her form, lowering herself from a platform of life.

Gwen observes a pair of elongated, supple legs that end in a pinpoint-shaped wasp waist and arch toward a modest chest of smooth wood covered with glittering autumn leaves. Her delicate face was studded with jade vines that hung down to a pair of palatial buttocks.

It's Sofina, but Delaide isn't Sofina either. The thing that made Sofina her master's companion is gone. The warmth, the humanity, and those weird little gestures are now gone.

"Hello, Gwen," Sofina whispered, her suppressed emotions trembling slightly, as if she could not remember the past. "Henry is gone. ”

"I know. Gwen felt her throat tighten, and her eyes warmed a little from the effort. She could feel the trembling grief she'd been buried for a week, rising from the Grim Reaper, kicking open the box she had kept inside. "Sofina..."

"Do you want to see him?" interjected Sofina.

Gwen felt as if a cat had snatched her tongue and fled with her words.

"The remains of the owner...... Here?"

"Yes. He fumbled. "Come on. ”

Without saying a word, Gwen followed her former friend until she came to the entrance to the grotto. It is no longer a familiar sight of an elegantly designed portal. The entrance is now a dark hole between two sinuous roots, and its degraded state is a fitting metaphor for their current situation.

They crossed the threshold and walked deep inside until they reached the Heart Tree, where Gwen put Henry down and let Sofina's natural vitality heal. That was the last time she saw her master, and he was here now, just as she had left him, just pale and motionless.

"Oh......" Her body felt stiff, stiff and unyielding as her eyes fell on this tragic sight. "Oh my gosh—"

She began to walk towards her corpse. One step at a time, then another, and then one after the other. Her hand immediately fell to his jugular vein, and the other hand swirled over his nose. Desperately, nothing. His cold flesh struck her like a magician's frost.

"Oh, Henry—" Gwen felt her chest uncontrollable, her heart battered by the arrhythmia, barely breathing.

At this moment, something escaped from her throat, and a long wail echoed in the hollow room of the Hearttree, which had lost its master and only master. Sad Gwen fell like a whimpering mess on the chest of the motionless man, all her pent-up grief, stifled by the crisis of the past week, destroying the dam she had built to stay awake and functioning.

Next to her, Sofina watched, her face as calm as a wave, reflecting the quiet sky.

"As far as my magic allows, I protected him. She put a hand on the sad girl's shoulder and told Gwen, "As long as my dog is alive, he will live safe and sound." ”。 "I'm going to take you to your friend now, would you like to leave a few words for our co-host? I think he'll like it. He always tells me that he likes the way you speak. ”

Gwen burst into tears and looked up at the elf who had cared for her with childlike pleasure.

Sofina is now alienated and aloof, a powerful magical being. Creatures like forest elves know desire, desire, greed, desire, hatred, and more, but they are not sentimental. Unlike their semi-human cousins, they do not possess what scholars call the capacity for the human condition.

A few words?

What can Gwen say to Henry now? Her master is gone, there is no more "Henry" here, and Sofina is the elf she's known for the past 12 months. If she were to leave words, not for herself, nor for Henry, but for Sofina, whose complete intellect would allow her to recall, and perhaps one day she would understand them, enough to protect Henry's remains for centuries to come.

What could she say? What was Henry to Gwen? What words would fit a man who had suddenly changed her life, who had helped her with constant affirmation and support in her darkest moments? What would Sofina's alien heart resonate with?

Maybe something's wrong.

Gwen couldn't recall the whole content of the recital, but she couldn't think of a better way to commemorate their union.

"Oh, Captain, my Captain......" Gwen began to recall the words.

"Ah, Captain, my captain, our terrible journey is over,

The ship withstood all the trials and tried, and the prize we wanted to win,

Bouquets and ribbon garlands for you, the shores are crowded,

They call to you, swaying crowds, their eager faces turning;

My captain did not answer, his lips pale and still,

My father doesn't have a pulse either,

The ship dropped anchor safely, the voyage was over,

From the terrible journey, the victor's ship came with a victorious aim;

Rejoice, O coast, O bells!

But with sad steps,

Walked to the deck where my captain lay down,

Dead cold. ”

Whitman's feelings extend far beyond the circumstances she finds themselves in, but that's what Gwen can sing about. Henry had been her captain, and he gave his life to defend them. Like the man the poem commemorates, her master was equally taken away by malevolent forces, but his legacy will live on through Gunther, Alesia, and now Gwen.

"Oh, Captain......" Sofina seems to be digesting these words, my Captain... Chilled to death......"

The wood nymph allowed the words to roll off any marmot used as a tongue, feeling her smooth, bark-like skin tremble, accompanied by involuntary emotions that permeated the heart of her magic. She is in a state where she can barely express complex emotions, but then again, she has spent more than 30 years as the soulmate of a man who has lived an extraordinary life.

After the ordeal, Gwen left her master's body. Give Henry a last bow in respect.

"I'll let Gunther and Alicia know, master," she promised. "All three of us will come to see you in the future. ”

"Come on. Sofina's voice didn't have that harsh sound anymore. Now softer and more affected. "It's time to meet your friends. ”

They found Elvia and Wetu in a walled garden, talking sullenly.

Elvia, splendid, as always, is very well preserved. She's still wearing her post-Rossbay aftermath of the attack, but it looks like it's been washed. The little girl is playing a game of fetch with what looks like some kind of flower elf, and she throws a ball of positive energy back and forth as the creature jumps over the lawn.

He looked bored. Poor Kiwi Abu Jul is building himself a dilapidated house built with the Punamu brand.

Gwen's footsteps rushed out of the doorway heavily, catching their attention. When Gwen picked her up from the footstool, pushed her to the lawn, and buried Elvia's face in her chest, Elvia's face showed an expression of eager surprise.

"Gwynmf!" Avia shouted, putting her arm around Gwen's waist and squeezing hard. "Oh, Miffy!"

"Corgi!" the elf who had just played with Elvia escaped into her messy hair.

"Oh, I miss you too!" Gwen pulled over and kissed Elvia three times on the forehead, then again. She was about to repeat her medication routine when Huitu coughed.

"Hello. He waved at her.

"National Day," Gwen waved in response.

"Gwynnie!" Elvia writhed in her arms, her head still buried in Gwen's chest, trying to speak. The petite blonde girl felt her cheeks touch something soft and perky, and felt the naked heat of her friend's body against her face. "Oh, my self can't breathe

The girls separated themselves and panted contemptuously that they had exhausted their pent-up emotions.

"Where's Yue?" Gwen asked, looking around. "Is she okay?"

"She's on another level," Sofina replied to Gwen blankly. "Your fiery friend is simply insane. ”

"Oh?" Gwen could imagine. "I'm sorry, Sofina. ”

"Gwen," Tu interrupted Gwen's conversation and took back his house in Punamu. "Does that mean we're going out?"

"I think so. Gwen turned to Sofina. "Shall we go, Sofina?"

"Do you have a boat?"

"Yes. ”

"Very well, get your arsonist out of my groin," Sofina said angrily.

The tour is down a flight of stairs that staggered down from the Bayan roots above. As the tunnel continued, they could hear the dull thud of hitting the ground at irregular intervals. When Gwen asks what caused this terrible farce, Avia acts embarrassed because "it" could be Yue.

When Gwen asked, it was Sofina who replied coldly.

According to Dry, Yue didn't like Sofina for "imprisoning" them in Grot's safety. She prefers to test herself outside under vegetation. In her own words, if she had time, she would definitely be able to burn a six-lane highway in the greenery and open a road to the sea.