In the forest, shrouded in the twilight of the sky, Lucretia trudged into the depths of the forest, following the elven woman with a strange long-handled weapon.

The other walked very fast, even in the rugged, vine-strewn forest, with no road at all, his steps seemed to be running on a flat and wide avenue - this extreme adaptability to the forest and the special footwork even reminded people of the "classical skills" mentioned in some ancient legends of the elves, in those descriptions, the elves also lived in the vast country of the "forest", and they could jump through the forest like a light wind, not like the modern elves, Many of the techniques of harmony with nature have long been forgotten in the city-states full of high-rise buildings.

Lucrecia certainly couldn't keep up with that—she didn't have to try.

Miss Witch has always refused to go outdoors, and even when she has to go out, she uses all kinds of spells to hurry, so after she was thrown off by the elven woman for the first time, she decisively turned on the phantom wind, and from time to time transformed herself into flying pieces of paper through the woods to keep up with the speed of the other party - her father was not here anyway.

Her only concern was how the strange elf who appeared in this "dream" would react after seeing this scene, but it turned out that the other party did not react at all when he saw these strange spells of hers, just like at the beginning, the elf did not realize that the "uninvited guest" in front of him was a human, but wanted to take him to the place called the "Wall of Silence" as if he were inviting his kind.

Seeing this, Lucrecia had a vague guess in her mind, so she deliberately did something more obvious and inconsistent to verify her conjecture - she simply stopped from time to time and used spells to create some relatively large movements, such as suddenly summoning a huge flower vine, or creating some explosions in the air.

The elf still didn't behave in any way - she stopped at most while Lucrecia was deliberately delaying time, and waited patiently for the other to follow.

Lucrecia temporarily paused her "test" and began to follow the other party with peace of mind, while controlling the distant "puppet medium" in her mind, and describing the situation on her side to Duncan:

"After my testing, this elf is indeed not the 'dreamer' of this dream, she should be a 'product' of the dream, or an integral part of the dream...... There are significant limitations to her cognitive and behavioral patterns...... It appears to be a 'normalization filter', and the anomaly of the outsider is 'normalized' in her eyes, and this normalization may be to maintain the stability of the dream.

"I didn't do a more intensive 'test' and don't know what the upper limit of this 'normalization' is, but theoretically if my behavior is too out of line, it may lead to a cognitive reset of this 'elf', and it may also lead to a more intense 'rejection' of the dream world...... Now I need to continue my investigation and can't take that risk......

"Ah, you've entered the neighborhood where the 'mutation' happened? Great, I hope you can find the 'dreamer' from the real world side, and if you lock on to the source of the dream, you should be able to intervene directly here as usual......"

"By the way, what's your name?"

A voice suddenly came from the front, interrupting Lucrecia's mental communication into the distance, and Miss Witch immediately stopped and looked up ahead.

The elven girl with an axe in her hand and a wonderful blue thread in her blonde hair was turning her head and looking curiously.

"You can call me Lucrecia," Lucrecia said calmly, "why did you suddenly remember to ask my name?" ”

"The more people who know their name, the more people who will remember themselves," said the elf not far away, "My name is Shireen, and you have to remember it." ”

Lucretia noticed the worry and nervousness in the other's eyes.

Along the way, she noticed more than once the apprehension of the strange elf—the tension permeated the forest, as if the dream itself was the "undertone".

After a moment's hesitation, Lucrecia asked, "What's going on?" ”

The elf named Shireen opened her mouth, but she didn't say anything, as if she didn't know where to start, and as if she felt that some things should not be revealed to "ordinary people" at will, so in the end she just shook her head slightly: "Don't worry, Sirantis will shelter us, and everything will be fine...... Hurry up, it's no longer safe outside the walls of silence, erosion can appear outside the walls at any time, and it's lucky to meet a ranger like me. ”

Erosion - Lucrecia immediately noticed the particular word, took it to heart, and followed Shireen's wind-like footsteps once more as she trekked into the depths of the seemingly never-ending forest.

……

"Dog, did you hear anything?"

In the lush and endless dark forest, Shirley suddenly frowned, and then she bent down behind a bush while vigilantly observing the movement around her, while carefully asking the dog who was hiding in the shadows.

Ah Gou's voice came directly into her head: "The sound of the wind, the sound of the trees, the call of unknown birds, on the surface are all normal sounds - but the atmosphere is very weird, and it has become more and more strange since just now, I don't know how to describe it, it seems to ...... The environment itself is changing, and the trees around it are no longer trees, but something that is gradually taking on malice......"

Shirley suddenly had goosebumps, her eyes were nervous, she looked around at the unknown towering giant trees, and one arm had gradually transformed into the characteristics of the ghostly demon: "Dog, what you said is a bit scary, there are trees everywhere here......"

"You told me to tell me, and I tell you what I 'felt,'" Ah Dog replied sullenly, "I advise you to be serious, the perception of the Hidden Hound has always been keen—this forest is gradually becoming wrong. ”

"Fools know something is wrong here......"

Shirley grunted and cautiously left the bush where she had just been hiding - she didn't know what was changing here, but her instincts told her that it was best not to stay in one place for long.

Everywhere she looked, the vegetation was everywhere, and the lush and gloomy jungle was a scene that she could never have imagined as a girl born and raised in a cramped and crowded ghetto, and she had only heard of such places from the conversation between the captain and others not long ago, but she had not imagined that she had been brought here just by taking a nap—if I was not mistaken, this should be the "dream of the nameless" that both the captain and Lucrecia had talked about.

Feeling the eerie atmosphere around her, a slightly regretful expression suddenly appeared on Shirley's face: "Shouldn't I ......have taken a nap while doing my homework?"

"I don't think your entry into this weird 'alien realm' has anything to do with whether or not you nap while you're doing your homework," Dog's figure gradually emerged from the shadows, condensed in the drifting smoke, and muttered as it followed Shirley on guard, "but the sentence itself is true—you shouldn't nap while you're doing your homework." ”

"The main thing is that I have a headache when I do arithmetic," Shirley muttered, as if she wanted to talk about everyday topics to deflect the tension caused by the gloomy atmosphere here, "and I know a lot of basic words, why do I need to learn arithmetic......"

Ah Dog listened silently on the side, it seemed to want to be quiet, but after a few seconds of silence, he still muttered as usual: "I still have to learn some arithmetic, even if it is for my own ......"

Shirley pursed her lips and couldn't help muttering, "Dog, why do you want me to learn these things so much...... It feels like you're more motivated than the captain......"

Ah Dog didn't speak for a while, and after a while, when Shirley was about to forget about this topic, he suddenly said, "Do you remember the seventy-two pesos?" ”

Shirley was stunned for a moment, and after a moment, her eyes widened slightly, as if she had finally remembered something from the faded childhood memories.

A slightly complicated expression appeared on her face, and she whispered in embarrassment, "You...... Remember, it was so early......"

"I will always remember that a bastard who killed a thousand knives and with a few scribbled pieces of paper could cheat a child out of a factory chimney for several days—if I could read at the time, you wouldn't have been hungry for days, and if you could read at the time, you wouldn't have to go into those dark and dangerous chimneys at all—it's better to be an apprentice who copied numbers in the pump room."

Shirley was silent.

After a while, she whispered: "But now you know how to read, you can not only read and write, but you can also learn at the same pace as Nina......"

"What if I can't stay with you all the time?" The dog grunted.

Shirley was stunned for a moment, as if she didn't know what to say for a while, and then subconsciously spoke: "The captain ......"

"The captain won't necessarily protect you forever - he's fine, he's taking good care of you now, but subspace is unfathomable after all," Dog shook his head, "Shirley, on your own." ”

Shirley lowered her head, and after a few seconds, she gently shook the chain connected to her arm: "Dog, what did you mean when you said you couldn't stay with me all the time?" ”

“…… Don't think about it so much, I'm just making an analogy," a sigh came out of the dog's throat, "I didn't want to leave you, but I didn't think about the future, after all...... I have a 'heart', and there has never been a ghostly demon with a heart in this world, no one knows what will happen to me, maybe 'human nature' will make me have a lifespan limit like you humans, maybe my reason will gradually diminish with the years, maybe one day, my 'heart' will disappear again......"

"Dog," Shirley interrupted suddenly, her eyes widening and tugging hard at the chain in her hand, "you...... Stop it. ”

"Okay, I'll not say that."

(End of chapter)