Silver Blade and Rose

The beast was bound by almost invisible transparent silk threads, fell to the ground and kicked Hyde angrily, but ignored Zals, its initial target.Zars stood aside and watched for a while, and couldn't help but ask, "What are you going to do with it?"

And, who are you?

He didn't ask the last sentence, because he was basically sure of the answer in his heart, and he couldn't ask anything, so he simply didn't ask.

"It wants to attack you, but you are not angry at all?" Hyde asked without answering.

It sounded like he had done a good deed, but Zals didn't forget that the reason why he encountered the forest guard alone just now was because Hyde left him alone on purpose.There is an intentional element of Zals in this, but going back to the source, it was because Hyde led him to this area that all the things that happened later happened.

Zals didn't intend to argue with him about this for the time being, shook his head, and repeated his question: "What are you going to do with it?"

"Nothing," Hyde shrugged, "I just want to grab it and get the real key from it."

He looked a little disgusted with the forest guard, and he didn't touch it himself, but directed Zars to work: "It should have a necklace around its neck, and the pendant is a key, which may be a bit like the one on yours." , go find it."

Now his tone of voice is more impolite than Edwin's, and it is almost the complete opposite of the kindness he pretended to get along with just now, but Zals didn't hear bossy orders from his words, but more like a willful elementary school student who is unwilling to complete his homework .

"Since you proposed to seize it, it's up to you to search for the key." In order to verify his thoughts, he said this deliberately.

Hyde was already planning to find a tree to lean against and wait for him to find the key, but when he heard this, he turned his head to look at him in surprise, and blurted out, "Why?"

"I was given a set by you just now, and I'm not in a particularly good mood now, and I don't want to do this."

Zales said with a blank face.

Having been with Edwin for a long time, he has also learned a little skill of pretending to be aloof. Although it is completely imitated by Edwin himself, there is still a bit of charm under the influence of his ears and eyes.

At least Hyde seemed to be completely intimidated by him. He had already found a place to sit down, but stopped hesitantly and looked at his face again, as if trying to find some joking expression from it, but failed in the end up.

Zars stared at him with a straight face, looking really unhappy.He hesitated for a moment, then turned his head to look at the forester lying on the ground, as if trying to convince himself, he stood up straight and walked towards it.

Zars held back his laughter and almost had stomach cramps, and when he turned his back to him and began to rummage around the beast, he couldn't help turning his face away and laughing silently for a while.

Hyde didn't realize it, because the forester's fur was too thick and he was tied so tightly that he couldn't flip it with his bare hands. He turned over it for a long time, but he couldn't find the key "hanging around his neck" in his mouth.He was almost completely trapped in the fur, and he propped himself up with his hands in a bit of embarrassment, almost being bitten by the neck by the forest guard.

With a wave of his hand, the statue of the forest guard was hit by a huge force, and flew back two or three meters, hitting a tree before stopping.Zals had witnessed the whole process, and he didn't know whether he should stop him, but after thinking about it, he said, "Let me do it."

He stood up, walked over Hyde to the ranger lying under the tree, and slipped the gun back into the holster, freeing his hands to check its condition.Hyde was stopped by him. He should have thought it a good thing not to do it himself, but he became a little frustrated for no reason, and stepped back a few steps and stopped talking.

The forester fell under the tree he hit. It wasn't hit directly, but it was still rubbing against the grass on the road. Its light gray fur was covered with soil and there was a little green flower juice, which made it look embarrassed. Unbearable, completely lost the prestige that was ready to attack him just now.Zars didn't have any prejudice against it at first, and because he liked animals, he couldn't bear to see it being unilaterally reprimanded by Hyde, so he took over the task of finding the key from it.

Since Hyde himself has to condescend to look for it in the thick hair on its neck, it means that even if there is no key, the forester must be carrying something important.If he can hold this thing in his own hands, Hyde should not be too willful, and if he throws an olive branch in time, he will probably choose to go with him.

Zars squatted down in front of the forest guard, first tentatively reached out to touch it, and saw that it was just gasping for breath without any major reaction, and then began to look at its physical condition.

Up close, the Ranger is indeed a strange and beautiful beast.It has light gray shiny fur and a pair of beautiful wings on its back. Although its eyes are surprisingly large, it has a weird beauty of aliens in movies. At least for him, it is not scary enough to make people retreat.Zals put his hand on it, and could feel the heart beating gently under the flesh and blood, so he breathed a sigh of relief and began to check the wound for it.

Hyde walked away unhappy, no one was looking at him, it was a good thing that he could have more space to secretly check on the beast's injuries.

"We just borrowed the key once." During the inspection, he lowered his voice and said to the forest guard. "Someone asked for help from the outside world in the depths of the forest. I just came to find him. I will leave as soon as I find it."

To be honest, Zals didn't expect the forest guards to really understand, but after explaining his purpose clearly, he could carry out the robbery with more peace of mind.

Seeing that the forest guard didn't struggle to resist, he groped the opponent's body and found no other injuries except a wound cut by a sharp branch. However, during the process, the forest guard's body temperature became higher and higher, obviously something was wrong. The injury started to heat it up.

Hyde just knocked it away, it should be a subconscious refusal, probably not including killing intent, but there are no other wounds on the forest guard, Zars searched around, even found the key, but couldn't find it. Find the second trauma.

He removed the small golden key along with the necklace, and the forester just looked at him with open eyes, showing no resistance or anger.Zals held the key in his hand, looked at the forester's unusually large eyes, hesitated for a while, and finally couldn't hold back, patted its head.

It is not any kind of animal that humans are familiar with, but it will be injured like other animals, and may also be born, old, sick, and die, and will be replaced by newborn beasts, living and multiplying endlessly.

But it is not necessarily a good thing to always bear the responsibility of the forest guardian and survive in this endless and timeless forest, even if the life span is endless.

Unlike Hyde who trapped it, the forest guard did not show any resistance to Zals' contact, and even lowered his head slightly when he boldly reached out to touch his head, allowing Zals to touch it more easily top of the head.

There is no thick hair growing there like other parts of its body. What looks like hair is actually a thin cuticle. After touching it, you can feel a slight heat coming out of it—it is probably inside brain, if it has one.

The Ranger exposed its greatest weakness to him.

Zales opened his eyes wide: "You..."

It rubbed his palm gently, and bent down, as if it had accepted its own fate, or in other words, it entrusted its own fate to Zars.

"There is a key inside," a strange voice sounded in Zars's mind, "the real key. The key just now is a fake one, and it will lead you to a dead end."

The accent sounded blunt and awkward, as if it took a few minutes to learn a sentence in a non-native language, and after splitting the sentence into several phrases, I barely remembered the pronunciation, and said it in a hurry to express myself.Zals tried hard to figure out the meaning of this sentence, subconsciously let go of his hand first: "No, I can't—"

Although he had thought before coming here that he might have to kill the forest guard to get the key, but the situation in front of him had completely deviated from his expectations, and he was running wildly in a completely unexpected direction.Zars was stunned for two seconds before he understood what it meant, but he acted faster than he thought, and he had already retracted his hand.

He can kill a beast that wants his life after a life-and-death struggle, and if that is the case, he will be very decisive when he does it, and kill him with a single blow.But in the situation before him, he had no way to take a life that was voluntarily handed over to him.

Although Edwin had educated him many times, Zals still felt that it was too cruel to face the steering wheel in his hands.

The real key is in the body of the forest guard. It has been wandering in the forest with a fake key for many years. Maybe someone has defeated it to take the key, but it has walked to a dead end with the fake key. When a person dies, he has probably given up his freedom long ago.

As the guardian of this forest, its existence itself is the key, but it will never be free.

To kill such a life with his own hands, Zars really couldn't do it.

"If you can't, let your companion come," said the voice, "he is strong, but he doesn't remember how to use his power, and there is nothing better or worse than you to kill me."

It was telling the truth, and Zars had to agree with this point of view, but instead of doing what it said immediately, he asked, "Why?"

Why did you take the initiative to tell the secret about your own life, why did you give him the key?If it doesn't say these things, Zalls will try his best not to let Hyde kill it, and take the fake key to the same dead end as the lost ones before. He will die without knowing what he missed, and will not think of the real key. Where exactly is the key.

But it chose to hand over the key, taking its own life along with it.

"After I die, there will be a new birth, growth, and continue to watch over this forest. Being killed by someone is the ultimate fate of a forest guard. If you don't kill me, it may take years, years, years to wait The next worthy human being." The forest guard spoke very slowly, as if he was trying to piece together the words he needed on the spot, barely expressing himself in words he could understand, "I've been doing this for a long time, and I want to be liberated."

It took several minutes to finish the sentence, which was mixed with gasps several times, as if it had exhausted all the remaining energy, but it kept staring at him without blinking.

Zars and it looked at each other for a moment, and saw tiredness, helplessness, and even a little nostalgia in those big eyes.Maybe it's about this forest, maybe it's about my long and short life, maybe...

Maybe it was resentment and helplessness for the shackles I was born wearing, but there was nothing I could do.

He heard Hyde's footsteps coming from behind him, and the other party crushed a branch with a crisp "pop", interrupting his thoughts.

"How about it, find the key—" Hyde's voice stopped abruptly, and a hesitant question came out after a while, "Is it dead?"