The Witch and the Doll Swear

Swish, swish, swish.

can you hear me?

In the hot sun.

In the shadow of the cold moon.

Swish, swish, swish.

can you hear me?

The peaceful sand sea is singing.

Day and night, day and night.

Under the blazing sand dunes.

In the cold sand waves.

Swish, swish, swish.

can you hear me?

That is the ballad of gold in the sea of ​​sand.

—Sinai folk songs. If there is anything eternal in this world, one is the sky, and the other must be this dry and scorching desert.

In the shadow of the rock, the man licked his lips.

The thick lips were cracked due to dryness, and a wet sigh was blown out of the mouth. Before the water vapor had time to moisturize the weather-beaten partner, it disappeared without a trace in the dry wind of the desert.

"...I don't see any camels or sand boats today."

He picked up the water bottle and took two sips, rubbed his furrowed brows, brushed the sand out of his brows, and looked back at the lonely cave in the desert. His men were resting in the cave in twos and threes, Playing cards, or smoking cheap cigarettes, they were all burly and dark men. In the only refuge under the vicious sun, their faces were somewhat anxious.

And not just because of the heat wave.

"Boss, it's been more than ten days, and we haven't seen a caravan. It's really not good, and the sand boat is fine. If we don't grab something, our bones will rust under Seth's breath. "

In the cave, a person spoke.

As soon as he opened his mouth, another strong middle-aged man echoed and said:

"Yes, boss, let's find a new stronghold. Two groups of people were robbed here. I guess the news has spread. If we stay like this, soldiers and adventurers may come to us someday. .”

"It's easy to say, this is the domain of God Seth, it is not so easy to get a place to rest, or we will dedicate you to God Seth, begging him to show mercy and give us another place A cave with water that can hide from the light of Amon Ra?"

The man stopped talking, he touched his nose resentfully, and lay down on the hay on the ground again.

The leader turned his head and sighed.

They are sand bandits who make a living by plundering, and the vast sea of ​​sand is their hunting ground—this may sound majestic, but in fact, the range of their activities is only a few tens of miles from the center of the stronghold. Far off, the mark of the rock cannot be seen, and the light of Amon-Ra and the breath of Seth will bury them.

The desert makes no difference to the wading caravans or to them, the rats of the sand.

There is still water in this cave, which is their most important lifeline, but there is only half of the food reserves left. More importantly, as robbers and robbers, they have not been able to grab anything for a long time. If he is scattered, his authority will also be questioned. Whether it is an easy camel caravan or a difficult sand boat, they urgently need a target now.

Lighting himself a cheap cigarette, the leader looked at the young man who was scanning the surroundings on the edge of the shadow of the cave with him.

...but not just about any goal.

He took a deep breath, let the choking smell pass through his lungs, and then spat it out through a mouthful of rotten teeth.

"Boy, did you find anything over there?"

"Sand, sand, nothing but sand is sand."

"……call……"

Even though it was an unexpected answer, the man sighed in disappointment.

If there are any eternal things in this world, one must be the sky, and the other must be the desert.

With a cigarette in his mouth, he continued to watch the undulating sand waves bored.

The wind blows the silence.

After a long time, the youth's voice sounded from the other side.

"Hey, let me say."

"I'll break your legs if you keep saying that unrealistic thing."

"No, no, I saw a shiny, thing, that's - it's Sha Zhou's solar sail!!"

In the second half of the sentence, the voice of the young man whose skin and hair are as bright as sand grains suddenly became high-pitched.

The leader stood up abruptly, and quickly crawled across the cave to the side of the shaved-headed young man, holding up the binoculars that he bought at a great price.

In the direction the young man pointed, a shining sand boat was moving forward in the undulating sand waves.

It is the style often used by caravans to run business. The raised solar sails are glowing with brilliant rainbow colors, conspicuous like the beacons of lighthouses in a golden desert.

"Good job!"

A sand boat is not the best camel caravan to deal with, because there must be a magician who can use mysterious powers on it, but now we can’t pick so many. On the other hand, how can a powerful magician condescend to a caravan How about sailing a sand boat?

As long as they are not powerful magicians, they always have the wisdom of their ancestors to learn from.

The leader yelled into the cave, telling them to bring tobacco and horns to deal with magicians, and put on clothes of the same color as the sand sea—after a while, a team that almost blended with the desert came out of the cave .

Then, tens of minutes later.

"I don't know how to live or die..."

Looking at the disgraced dozen bandits tied together by activated ropes, Ai curled his lips.

There are two kinds of people prone to appear in areas with a low rate of magic penetration. One is people who are frightened when they see the "Light Art", and the other is people who think that magicians are no big deal. She doesn't know where these desert mice are. One, but seeing how they rushed over aggressively when the sand boat stopped, the girl thought it should be the latter.

They didn't even get within ten meters of the sand boat. Before Liliana and Alice could do anything, Ai lost a "quick sand technique" that he learned after leaving Alexandria, and let these guys fall into the hot sand, crying for help.

Only Ting Na, who was convenient to get off the boat, was quite frightened.

Ai glanced at Tingna who was gray and white in the cabin, and couldn't help feeling a little sympathetic.

The mooring just now was because Tingna needed to go to the bathroom, but just as the girl squatted down in the shadow beside the sand boat, a group of black men riding camels appeared from behind the sand dunes not far away, rushing towards Tingna.

At that moment, the girl's mind went blank.

But the body that was faster than thinking screamed, and the scream became an early warning alarm. Ai, who was reading a book with a sun umbrella on the deck, immediately realized what happened, and used magic to prevent the bandits from approaching.

It wasn't until these men were buried by the quicksand that only their heads remained, Tingna fled back to the deck in a hurry, and then Ai tied them tightly with the activation rope, and dragged them out of the quicksand.

"I can't get married anymore..."

"Don't worry, don't worry, just treat it as being seen by a group of wild dogs."

"...Alice, this is not consolation... But Miss Tingna, being seen is actually nothing. The important thing is to have a comprehensive understanding and proposition of your own body and the eyes of others..."

"Lily, don't teach Miss Tina about naturism..."

Alice was comforting the burned-out girl in the cabin. Liliana had no interest in sand bandits - more importantly she was too lazy to dress up to talk to a gang of robbers, so she wasn't on deck right now.

Knowing for the first time that her master is so clumsy in comforting people, the girl pressed the linen skirt, making sure that the bandits would not see anything they shouldn't see, and then looked down at the tied up Bind, the bandits kneeling in the sun spoke coldly.

"Although I just dragged you out of the quicksand, now, I don't know if you can give me a reason not to bury you back."

If Ting Na is completely ashes, these bandits are ashamed.

The smoke pot they prepared so that the magician couldn't speak and the horn that made people unable to concentrate were useless, and they couldn't make it within ten meters of the sand boat, so they became the young girl's prisoner.

The dark red rope of light killed all their resistance, and the girl on the deck was holding a beautiful parasol, waiting for their answer.

"We've known from the start of this business that we either die on the gallows or die in the desert."

There is a death on the left and right, the leader raised his head and answered through gritted teeth.

"The scales will weigh my heart, let the Hidden Ones take us."

"No, wait a minute, boss, I don't want to die yet, we won't be able to go to Reed Field!"

"Please forgive us, we will never do this kind of thing in the future, and live an honest life!"

"Shut up!"

The leader turned his head and growled fiercely.

"There is no chance for us to live an honest life. No one forced you. You chose it yourself. At least don't embarrass the oasis!"

The men roared like lions, and the men who wailed the loudest just now opened their mouths and suddenly fell silent.

Behind the bewildered Ai, the witch's voice blew with the hot wind.

"...The richness of the oasis and the decline of the oasis are not uncommon in villages like Sinai."

Liliana came out from the cabin where the men couldn't see. Behind her, Tingna had a sullen face and said nothing.

"...It is dangerous and costly to take old and young women and children across the desert. If the oasis is located in a remote location, it will be even more difficult, and the residents may not be willing to leave, so the men become sand bandits and rely on plunder for a living."

"Do you want to let them go? Master Liliana."

"...What does Miss Tina think?"

"...As far as I am concerned, of course I hope that all these guys will be dried into meat..."

Ah, there's a dark aura behind it.

I don't know what Alice and Liliana enlightened, the current Miss Secretary's face is gloomy, her face is hidden under her bangs, a little scary.

"...Although I said that, if these men die, their oasis will definitely die, even if they are brought to justice..."

"Alice would like to remind Ms. Tina that the decline of the oasis is a natural law. Seeing the decline of the oasis, but still unwilling to move, it can only be said to be self-inflicted. Helping a whole village to migrate is not just a pat on the head. It's up to you to decide."

"……I know……"

Tina sighed.

Even Miss Witch is not omniscient, and the various issues that need to be considered in helping a settlement migrate cannot be achieved in a short period of time.

This is one of the tragedies that can be seen everywhere on the mainland, and they have neither the time nor the obligation to change it.

"Then what are we going to do? Here... kill them?"

"...This is a desert, let's do it according to the tradition of the desert, Ai, set the natural digestion time of the activation rope to half an hour, leave their food and water, drive away their mounts, there must be them nearby stronghold, if they can go back alive, it means that the desert has not planned to take them away."

The conversation on the deck did not deliberately lower the volume, and everyone who was scorched by the hot sand and the sun could hear it clearly.

The traditions of the desert, of course the men know.

It was a terrible criminal law, and people were abandoned somewhere in the desert, leaving only a small amount of water and food. It was a horrible death, and only a few survived, and these people, whether they went elsewhere or returned to their homeland, would be regarded as absolved by the gods of the desert.

It will be noon in a while, half an hour... By the time the rope is untied, they have already roasted just right, right?

The horrific ending made the leader's resolute face twitch.

"Wait a minute! You are magicians! I know there are treasures hidden in the desert!"

At this time, such a voice came from among the bandits.

The sand bandits couldn't help but look at the young man who yelled these words.

But no one was hopeful, and it sounded like just another form of begging for mercy.

The girl on the side of the boat probably thought so too. She condescendingly looked at the young man who said this, but she didn't show any interest.

"You'll be interested because that's..."

The young man licked his chapped lips, and shouted this sentence in a very non-standard common language.

"That's singing gold!"

"..."

"..."

The black-haired girl was stunned. She looked suspiciously at the young man who yelled this sentence, as if she was lost in thought. After a while, she turned her head to look in another direction on the deck, and from there.

"...Let him go on."

That indifferent voice, which seemed to be really in charge of the sand boat, sounded again.

………………………………………………………………………………

The route of the "Lightseeker" deviated from the schedule.

At the same time, at the back of the sand boat, a simple cage with a sunshade was connected to the stern with ropes. A dozen men were stuffed into this clay cage and dragged across the sandy sea.

"Boss, we are saved, or we are about to die."

The men who rode camels in the desert like the wind have never experienced this. Although they temporarily escaped the fate of being turned into a human under the trial of Amon Ra, it seems that falling into the hands of the magician is not much better. go.

Thinking that their current fate is tied to that young boy who always said inexplicable words and a well-known and unreliable legend, these men who can fight tigers and leopards can't help but feel frightened.

"How do I know? The magicians of Isis have always been mysterious. They even managed to do such crazy behaviors as three women driving a sand boat into the desert. Who knows what is going on in their minds."

The leader habitually took out cigarettes from the bag on his belt, and only after he found nothing, he remembered that all their things except water and food had been confiscated and thrown in the desert.

The three women didn't want to let them board the boat when they were dirty, but used magic to create this fragile but strong cage from the sand, and dragged them behind the sand boat.

"If you want to chat, it's better to pray, pray that all the weird things that kid said before are true, especially that damn singing gold, pray that this thing really exists, and it is worth enough—at least it is worth us life."

In the end, he could only let out a long sigh, and squatted on the hot floor of the cage, praying silently.

In the cockpit of the "Lightseeker", Tina looked at the young man standing at the bow, and couldn't help but look curiously at the witch at the helm.

"I've heard of gold that sings, but isn't that a treasure found in very old, lush forests?" Ancient forests gushed out ageless springs, and the sands in the springs sang sweet songs , that is the gold under the sand singing, the person who drinks the spring water to take away the gold, the immortal youth is always accompanied by the sound of nature'..."

This is a passage from a novel I have read. The girl flipped through the excerpts from the novel she read before, and found this description of the singing gold.

"Will there be in the desert?"

"...Yes, but not really."

"Eh?"

Liliana stood on a low stool. She was only about the size of an ordinary 11-year-old girl so she could hold the tiller properly.

During the journey, except when resting at night, the witch rarely leaves this cabin, so Tingna and Ai's main activity area is also here.

Now, Ai is in the cabin below the deck, and Alice is tutoring today's lesson. In the cockpit, Tingna is sitting beside the witch, staring at the undressed beautiful figure.

"...The essence of the Fountain of Youth is the condensation of natural magic power. Witches and goblins call it star veins, druids call it stream of life, and Easterners call it light veins. In the concept of alchemy, that It is a natural sage's stone, buried deep under the earth, like the roots of a tree, it spreads all over the continent, occasionally gushing out of the surface, forming incredible landscapes, and the Fountain of Youth is one of them."

The witch said lightly, while paying attention to the huge compass next to the rudder.

Even looking outside through the glass window of the cabin is useless. There are very few reference objects in the desert. To identify the direction, the sun, moon, stars and compass are the most reliable.

"Are there also in the desert?"

"...The desert is not completely lifeless, but it is true that there are very few records of light veins erupting in the desert, because the movement of the sand dunes is quite violent, and there is no carrier that can retain natural power, the occasional eruption will soon be destroyed. Buried under the sand, sometimes it creates an oasis, but more often, it has no effect at all."

"That man said he could hear it..."

Tingna closed her notebook and looked at the man standing at the bow.

The young man, who was relatively clean after Liliana opened the element door and washed it with the water of the quiet harbor, told a lot of legends in the desert before boarding the boat.

Although it is generally a story told to children like "there is magic gold in the desert, it will sing under the sand, and the person who finds the gold will get great wealth", but the young man swears that it must be true. of.

Because he can hear it.

Whether it is night or day, whether in the oasis of my hometown or the desert at this moment.

Hear it all the time, echoing under the hot sand.

Ballad of gold.

Ai used magic to help him cover the sun and reduce the scorching temperature around him. Before boarding the boat, Liliana gave Tingna a black cloth for the girl to cover him.

At first Tina thought it was Miss Witch who didn't want these people to see her skin, but that didn't seem to be the case.

"Are we headed in the right direction?"

"Yes, I can hear it more clearly after I can't see it. There are rustling songs under the desert. If you go in this direction, you can definitely find it!"

Every once in a while, Tina would ask this question, and the young man's answer was always the same.

"...If he can hear it standing there, I should also be able to hear Miss Sylph's blessing..."

It has been a long time since she received the blessings of the six elemental spirits in the City of Thousand Towers, and now Tingna can somewhat control the unique abilities obtained in the blessings.

But she couldn't hear anything, even if she concentrated on feeling the wind, she could only hear the roar of Sha Zhou's magical engine and the friction of sand grains. The so-called "singing sound" was nowhere to be found, and the girl couldn't even imagine what kind of "singing sound" it was.

"... To hear that voice, what is necessary is not hearing, but blood. This is very rare, although I don't know why this man has such blood... But, go and see, this is a rare experience, even I have never seen traces of star veins in the desert."

"Um."

Putting the quill next to her cheek, Tina held her little notebook and couldn't help but start imagining.

Gold that can sing...

What would that be like?

Above the sea of ​​sand, under the guidance of the young man, the "Light Seeker" constantly corrected his direction, guided by the singing that only he could hear, and headed for the depths of the desert.

At night, the wind picked up.

Although the girls on the sandboat don't have to worry about the cold face of the desert, which is completely different from the daytime, the robbers are still afraid.

The witch used magic to erect a wall of earth on the sandy ground for the bandits, and gave them some firewood so that the men would not freeze into a dozen popsicles in the huge temperature drop.

Of course, Ai and Tina would not want to have a man on the "Light Seeker" at night, so at night, the young man was driven off the ship and returned to his companions.

As soon as he returned to the earth wall, the bandits surrounded him one after another and asked him about it.

"Is there really singing gold in the desert?"

Half the people are asking this, after all, right now, it's the only thing that keeps them alive.

"Can you really find that gold?"

The other half are asking this.

"If the singing gold was fake, they wouldn't have left us alive after they heard it. After boarding the boat, they covered my eyes with a black cloth. Once I covered them, I couldn't see anything. Yes, hear more clearly."

The young man nodded and found a seat by the fire to sit down.

"Can you still hear me now?"

"I can hear you."

As long as you concentrate and prick your ears, the golden song will always ring out under the sand.

Swish, swish, swish.

Hearing what he said, the bandits closed their eyes and pressed their hands to their ears on the sand, but they couldn't hear anything except the sound of the wind blowing the sand and the crackling of the firewood.

"Oh, someone farted."

"Damn, you're the one who farts, whoever farts, drive him out, and get out of here after he's done!"

After getting a firm answer from the young man, the tension of these people eased a little, and they even made vulgar jokes.

When they almost dispersed, the leader sat down beside the young man.

"...Is it related to your illness when you were a child?"

"...I was still a baby at that time, and the only thing I remember is that my mother disappeared not long after I recovered from the illness."

The young man shook his head and closed his eyes.

A day's trip has brought them closer to the singing voice. As long as they close their eyes, the voice will flow into their ears more clearly.

He could hear such a voice since he was a baby, after a serious illness.

But he has almost no memory of the illness. He only knows that shortly after he recovered, his mother who carried him around to seek medical treatment left. When he was a child, he thought it was because his mother couldn't bear his father's poverty. Guess, that is the parting that can only be met again in Luweiyuan.

Since then, he has been hearing such voices.

The song of gold.

Others in the village always thought that he was mentally abnormal, because no one could hear his voice, and the singing gold in the desert was a legend that no one had ever seen.

Even himself, before today, had doubted countless times whether he was really mentally ill, until now.

He'd tried to find the source of the singing but had been dismissed as stupid, and now, for the first time, he actually felt that he was chasing it.

"...If they really found the singing gold, would they be willing to let us go?"

Looking at the young man's silent face, the leader shook his head and changed the question.

"who knows."

"That's right, I can only pray that these witches are not as elusive as the priests of the mysterious lady. Go to sleep, our lives depend entirely on you."

After speaking, he was silent for a moment.

"And if they find it, will they let us take some gold?"

"……who knows."

Although these earthen walls seemed to have the power to insulate the cold and keep out the icy night wind of the desert, they could not provide warmth after all.

With a long sigh, the leader yelled at those guys who occupied the warmest positions by the fire to make room for the young man to sleep.

The young man nodded and lay down there to sleep.

Before closing his eyes, he saw a sand-gray lizard emerge from a small hole in the earthen wall.

He didn't care, and after closing his eyes, Shaxia's singing slowly wrapped him up.

Swish, swish, swish.

The sound rising from the bottom of the sandy bottom was so soft, like mother's lullaby, and soon, surrounded by these soft songs, he fell asleep peacefully.

The next day, on the deck of the "Lightseeker", Tina stared blankly at a pile of soil exuding a strong earthy smell.

From a linguistic point of view, this may be a bad sentence. Of course, the soil has the smell of soil, but this is the first time Tingna has seen such a soil with the smell of soil.

This pile of soil is black and shiny, almost no impurities can be seen. A device with a large number of drainage channels is placed under the soil, piled up by some stones that are also sandy in color, and under the drainage channel is placed "Light Seeker" "Almost all the buckets on board.

"Miss Liliana, what are you going to do..."

The witch was inspecting something next to the pile of soil, and sprinkled some potions and powders into the mound from time to time. When she heard the girl's question, she replied without raising her head:

"...making the soil extract of Chongshan, this will be our passport to go and return safely."

"???"

Tina was still confused, she looked at Alice in her arms, but the puppet just smiled mysteriously, and asked Ai to observe and learn by Liliana's side.

But Miss Apprentice also looked blank, it seems that this is also her blind spot in knowledge.

When the young man came to the deck, he was obviously stunned. He stared blankly at the almost two-meter-high mound, and his feet seemed to have taken root. He didn't turn back until Ai impatiently kicked him. Shenlai blindfolded and continued to guide the direction of the singing.

When the sandboat moved, the mound of soil began to be extracted, and the witch sprinkled some shiny dust, causing the fireball to revolve around the mound, and the earth-yellow translucent liquid flowed out of the soil and dripped into the buckets.

Today's sandboat is Alice at the helm. Miss Witch was busy making the soil extract, and Tingna was bored watching the mound of soil gradually shrinking and losing its black luster, and at the endless blue sky and boundless sand sea.

No matter where you travel, after the initial novelty, the same landscape will always be boring.

She wanted to ask Alice Liliana if she had any special plans, but the little puppet just smiled mysteriously and said, "I'll know when the time comes."

... It feels like it's been a long time since I heard this sentence.

Well, since we know when the time comes, let's wait until the time comes.

When the day was approaching evening.

"—! I heard it! I heard such a loud singing!"

Immediately, Liliana stopped the sand boat, the magic power on the solar sail dissipated, and the small boat in the sand sea stopped immediately.

The young man standing at the bow cried out in surprise. He heard it. The loud singing voice no longer echoed softly in the depths of the sand, but suddenly became louder.

In the distance! Not far away! Under the desert, the song was passionate and high-pitched, like a thousand horses marching forward, even the sea of ​​sand was boiling for it!

But the excitement was replaced by thick surprise in a short while, the voice became louder and denser, but the sand boat had stopped—even though the young man didn't know why it stopped suddenly, the singing was still growing , it was as if the singing gold was approaching!

——Can singing gold also move?

There is no mention of this in any of the legends!

"... Immediately, pour the extract on the "Light Seeker" and you, but you must not drink it, and do so if you don't want to die. "

At the same time, the witch's order was also conveyed by the magic of loudspeaker.

No one knows what happened.

But the witch's declaration did not leave any room for doubt or opposition. The liquid extracted from the pile of black soil was poured on the sand boat and almost everyone. The problem is to change into a cheap and easy-to-clean linen dress, otherwise if it is the original expensive clothes, it really won't work.

Except for the youth at the bow.

He was the only one who wasn't doused with the extract, and during this time he confirmed one thing.

It is indeed approaching.

It is not accurate to describe it as thousands of troops and horses, and the mighty voice is not singing at all.

Something is approaching, thousands, tens of thousands, no—it is impossible to count!

--In the end what happened!

He grabbed the black cloth in front of him, and when he saw what happened in the distance and was stunned, the leader's terrified voice sounded at the same time in the cage at the stern.

"Living quicksand!!"

It was the closest thing to a nightmare that a man who walks in the desert can encounter.

There is no need to compare, compared to the predators in the desert, the bandits with malicious intentions, the phantasm that devours the soul and the sea city, all these are not as hopeless as encountering quicksand, but living quicksand that can move freely, even if it is A whole fleet of sand boats will be swallowed up to the bone!

"Miss Liliana, Miss Alice, well, it seems that we have encountered something very dangerous!"

The terrified emotions of the men made Tingna a little flustered—probably few normal people could remain indifferent when seeing a vast sea of ​​flowing sand rushing towards them in the distance.

"Don't worry, don't worry, although the living quicksand is almost a fatal disaster for those who encounter it without preparation, it will not be dangerous for those who are prepared in advance."

But obviously, Alice and Liliana, as well as Ai, are not "normal people" in this sense.

"Sure, do you mean the khaki water?"

"That's right, although there are titles like "Living Quicksand", Miss Tina knows about it——no, what is their essence? "

The little puppet who had also been soaked in those khaki liquids and was using hot air to dry its wet black hair looked at Tingna with an amused expression.

"How would I know!"

The flat sand that swims quickly among the dense sand dunes - that piece of sand that the bandits call living quicksand looks like this. Tingna can't estimate how big it is, only saw it pass by Everywhere, the sand dunes stretching tens of hundreds of meters collapsed and disappeared. Although they were no different from ordinary sand grains under the sun, they were undoubtedly heterogeneous.

What is that, of course Tina, who doesn't know much about magic, will not know.

"—that is from the elemental plane of the earth, some kind of elemental monster on the mountain, "living sand", in simple terms, it is living sand grains! "

But the girl who knew what it was called out the real name of the sea of ​​sand.

In just a few minutes, the collapsed sand dunes spread to the side of the sand boat, and the flat sand surrounded the boat and the man in the cage, and stopped.

There was silence under the sky.

The men who thought they would be doomed stared blankly at the quiet sand.

In the stories passed down by the desert residents, the living quicksand will catch up with all unlucky people who stray into its territory without knowing it, and swallow them up, but what is this?

They didn't escape and couldn't escape, but the man-eating demon quietly didn't hurt them?

Then, the sea of ​​sand moved.

The sand boat didn't start, but the sea of ​​sand began to roll.

The living sand grains did not swallow them to the bottom of the desert, but supported them, like ocean waves, heading somewhere in the desert.

From dusk to night.

The place where it finally stopped was a desert covered with gray rocks.

The rocks are low and low on the flat sand, and no sand dunes can be seen. The moonlight illuminates the golden sand brightly, like a silver mirror lying quietly on the sand.

A steady tranquility.

"here it is……"

"A lair of living sand."

Alice answered Tina's questions concisely.

The young man stared blankly at this place, since the sand boat began to move in the living sand, he has been silent until now.

He felt a subtle sense of familiarity, as if many images suddenly emerged from the depths of his memory, flashing before his eyes like phantoms.

Suddenly, he jumped down from the bow of the ship, and jumped into this peaceful sand sea amidst the screams of the leader and other bandits. The soft quicksand instantly engulfed his normal body, but there was nothing deeper, There was no sticking out that dragged him deeper into the sea of ​​sand.

His fall caused ripples on the calm sand surface, and the quicksand surged.

These bright grains of sand under the moonlight at night are like undulating waves. They surge, flow over the sandy skin of the young man, and flow through his fingers. They almost bury him, but they are only gentle, surrounding him. with him.

"What is this doing...it looks like..."

"...like long-lost, family hugs."

Tina said that a little less confidently, but the witch just spoke calmly and firmly.

The sand gradually calmed down.

"I... seem to have been here before..."

The young man raised his head and looked at the witch on the deck with confusion.

"...Even if you have never been here, you should have been to a similar place, otherwise the origin of that part of your bloodline cannot be explained."

"Bloodline..."

"...Ai, do you know the two ways of blood transmission of elemental monsters?"

The witch was wearing a large yukata, leaning on the railing of the deck of the sand boat, looking at her students.

"The first type is direct blood connection, which mostly appears in powerful and highly intelligent elemental monsters. For elemental monsters, the unique elemental characteristics are their bloodline characteristics. They mate and exchange with each other just like other monsters. The unique elemental characteristics give birth to children who will inherit the bloodline."

Ai answered without thinking.

"The other one is born from the same source. Individuals who are born in the same place and share the same blessings are regarded as having the same blood. This man obviously cannot be born in Chongshan, but he may have taken some drugs caused by living sand. The special substances produced, such as earth milk or sand honey. Both of these are very effective alchemical raw materials. The result of drinking it directly will most likely be severe elemental erosion and death. Therefore, this guy may Having drank potions containing this ingredient in the past, monsters of some bee species will treat people who have drank the royal jelly of their own group as members of the group or even queen bees, and living sand has similar properties."

Liliana walked up to the man, and her deep eyes penetrated his blank gaze without any tenderness.

"...Both earth milk and sand honey are good nutrients for elemental creatures when they are young. The same is true for humans. Therefore, they are expensive. Of course, there are side effects. The most common ones are changes in the color of body hair and skin."

"??!!"

The man looked at his hands and his skin blankly.

It was not as dark as the others in the village.

He ran his hands through his hair.

It didn't look like anyone else's hair color he'd seen, but more like--

More like, eternal yellow sand.

He had asked his father before, but the drunkard just looked at him with a complicated look and said that this was the last legacy of his mother.

"But sand honey and earth milk are poisonous... No, it cannot be said to be poisonous. It should be said that without alchemy treatment, it is too strong a medicine. Let a baby drink it rather than saving lives. It's murder... but even without any knowledge of alchemy, for women... for a mother, there is still alchemy that can be used."

Alice spoke slowly and leisurely.

The little doll seemed to be enjoying the sight of collapse in her pupils. Everyone could hear her words. She turned her head faintly and looked at Tina who seemed to have thought of something.

"Miss Tina, do you remember what that is?"

"……Um."

Of course Tina remembers.

In the City of Thousand Towers, Liliana used this method to help herself cure her disease. She suddenly realized something, and there was a little pity in her eyes of disbelief.

"...When you were a baby, you suffered from a serious illness, right? After you recovered from the illness, your mother disappeared."

But the witch has no mercy.

Liliana just looked at him lightly and conveyed the words to everyone's ears.

Then, she looked at the cage on the sand and coldly asked the question she wanted to know.

"...How did that man's mother disappear? Do any of you know?"

The men looked at each other in confusion, but had no clue about this problem. They were all still young, only one or two years older than the young man. Although the disappearance of the young mother was a major event in the oasis, it was far away from the old man's memory. Something that no one will ever talk about.

Until the leader spoke in a muffled voice.

"His mother left early in the morning. Only an old man with insomnia saw her walking out of the village. He called her, but there was no response. When he wanted to go over and ask what happened, the woman who walked out of the village changed her mind. It became a puddle of sand and was blown away by the wind... But people never took it seriously, they just thought that the old man was old and confused."

"Sand honey, if you drink it directly without any auxiliary medicine, severe elemental erosion will cause people to die in a few days, and the body will turn into a pile of yellow sand."

At that moment, the whole sky seemed to collapse in the young man's eyes.

"You knew this all along?!"

Like a wounded beast, screaming heartbreakingly.

“Why haven’t you told me this whole time?!!”

The low roar made the flat sand become restless, set off violent waves, and caused the sand boat to rise and fall. The men in the cage shouted the young man's name in panic, holding on to the fence tightly and bumping in the sand waves.

"...Because no one believes it, until today."

But amid the turbulent sand waves, the leader just shook his head.

"No one would believe this weird thing, just like no one believed there was singing gold in the desert, until now..."

He smiled bitterly, looking at the yellow sand that rushed to the young man's side and wrapped him tightly.

"Until now, I didn't know that Mr. Giza didn't have an old fool."

"..."

The rolling sea of ​​sand subsided.

The young man just stayed stuck in the yellow sand, as if he had lost all his strength.

"...What about the gold?"

It took a long time before he spoke with a surge of emotion, as if he had grasped the last straw in the torrent.

"Where's the gold in the desert!!"

Alice leaned in Ai's arms and raised her head to look at Tina.

"Miss Tina, do you still remember the star pulse that Lily said?"

"Eh? Well, I still remember."

"Sand honey is a product processed by living sand by absorbing the vitality in the star veins, just like a mother turning the nutrients of food into milk. In addition, living sand will also use the star veins to create another thing -"

The little puppet raised its hand.

The sharp wind blade cut across the sand. Before Tina could turn around, a gray rock more than two meters high had been lifted by the almost substantial wind and was suspended on the deck of the sand boat.

"……ah!"

Under the gray rock skin, the moonlight reflects another color.

“—gold in the sand.”

The eyes of the bandits widened.

The young man looked at the bright yellow color and was in a trance.

In front of a piece of gold that is more than two meters high and weighs tens of kilograms, probably no one will be in a trance, right?

Tina and Ai also almost forgot their words for a moment. The girl even felt a little dizzy, and she looked around in a daze.

Gray rocks like this can be seen everywhere in the calm sand.

She also saw the incision Alice made on the rock. Under the moonlight, the golden color was so bright that it seemed to suck people in.

"But it's not really gold, it's not a metal, exactly."

But Alice's next words stunned them before they could recover from the shock.

"Not gold?!"

"How is that possible? It's obviously gold! It's such a big piece and it's everywhere!"

The bandits screamed, looking at the gray rocks everywhere, their eyes glowed with gold.

"...Unfortunately, this is indeed not gold. To be precise, it is the feces of monsters like living sand, and it is also their lair."

"……Eh?"

"……What?"

Ai, who was about to reach out and touch it, suddenly froze, and Tina's expression also froze. Gold everywhere turned into excrement everywhere, and the girl's imagination that had just been unleashed immediately became indescribable.

"The living sands absorb the life energy in the star veins, discharge these golden substances, and over time, they turn into huge rocks and precious 'gold' that can accumulate earth elements. They live in such rocky areas. Although they are not real Gold, but in the desert, this is more precious than gold. The life energy of the star veins, the rich earth elements, and the rich nutrients in the living sand excrement, only a very small amount can make the land fertile, but Alice This is also the first time I have seen such a large object. Live sand is rare on the mainland, and the gold in the sand is even less."

As she spoke, Liliana used the magic light blade to cut off a piece of the gray rock as big as a human head, and threw it at the gangsters at will.

"...If you dig deeper, you will find something with higher purity, but if the purity is too high, it will become something difficult to handle. You can take this piece away. How to use it is your business, but if you don't want to be When monsters attack, it’s best to use less or sell them as soon as possible.”

"Is this all you'll give us?"

"...Of course I can just throw you here. The effect of the extract will not last long. When Huosha discovers that there is no breath from Chongshan on you, you will be lucky enough to experience the legend."

"……make a deal."

The piece of gold in the sand was wrapped in the arms of the bandit leader. After hearing the witch's words, he immediately realized how precious this "gold" was.

The annual flooding of Nile Clay brings fertile soil to the areas along the river, but the oases in the desert cannot enjoy such benefits. When the fertility of the rare soil reaches the bottom, even if the water source is full, the oases will inevitably decline.

However, there is this "gold"... As long as there is this gold!

The witch no longer cared about the reaction of the bandits. She opened the deck of the sand boat, put away the larger piece, and returned to the bow.

"...We are leaving, but are you...going to leave?"

The young man looked at her blankly.

leave……?

The moment this thought flashed through his mind, he seemed to feel that the entire atmosphere in the sand became silent in an instant.

He picked up a handful of sand and watched as the particles that should have slipped from his fingers gathered together in his palm and squirmed slowly.

The rustling sound sounded again, and now.

He finally understood the song that had haunted him since childhood.

——Stay, stay.

——Go home, go home.

He stared blankly at the sea of ​​sand, and stared blankly at the witch looking down at him on the deck, her eyes deeper than the night.

Then he looked at his companions who were so excited that they were holding the piece of gold in the sand.

"...Now, Your Majesty the Witch, am I a human...or a monster?"

He murmured.

"It's human."

Then almost at the same time, the witch answered coldly.

At that moment, the yellow sand that hugged him tightly flowed away.

With a kind of reluctance, the rustling sound changed its meaning.

--go Go.

——To build a new home.

——Whenever you want to come back, we will be here.

The young man was silent.

He walked towards the cage step by step. The witch opened the door and let him in. As soon as he walked in, he was slapped hard on the back and knocked him unconscious. Then, a group of men who had not showered in several days hugged him. He stood up and gently beat his chest.

"With you, now our oasis is saved!"

"Let those old and stubborn people who disdain us see that it is we rascals who saved the oasis in the end!"

This round of beating hit him directly, and seeing him fall to the ground, the men laughed again.

"……Hahaha……"

So, there is no reason.

He laughed too.

………………………………………………………………………………

What the men didn't know was that on the deck, a thick book suddenly appeared in front of the witch. Liliana opened it and turned to a certain page, and then the magic power of aurora color emerged, a kind of Terrifying fluctuations floated on the deck of the "Light Seeker".

"Li, Miss Liliana?!"

"Master Liliana, what happened suddenly..."

A cubic magic circle with a diameter of about one meter was spinning in the hands of the witch. Liliana seemed to have not heard the voices of Tingna and Ai. She stared at the peaceful sandy land for a few minutes, ten minutes, There was a cold cruelty and a softness Tina had never seen on her face.

Then, the magic circle slowly disappeared.

"……never mind."

She walked to the cockpit and started the sandboat.

The trek in the desert took two days, and it took hours to be brought here by the living sand, but now, after only a short stay, the witch started the sand boat, and the iridescence of the aurora shone on the solar sail.

There are only calm yellow sand and gray rocks here. Although the night sky in the desert is gorgeous, it is true that I have seen it countless times since I set off from Alexandria, but Tingna was quite surprised to leave so soon.

"...The effect of the extract can only last for a few hours. In the desert, it will lose its effect faster due to dryness and wind. Although there is still time, it is the first time for me to go deep into the living sand nest. If anything happens, I will I am not sure about launching the "Light Seeker". "

"Well, since it's so dangerous, why did you come here in the first place?"

"...It's rare to come across something rare, and I want to see it, and Ai and Miss Tingna also have curious expressions."

"Well, because you will definitely be curious, but I didn't expect the gold in the sand to be the feces of live sand..."

"Miss Ai still wants to reach out and touch it..."

"No, I can't help it! It's the first time I saw something..."

"It's the first time I saw you—"

"What, what, that tone of voice!"

"No, nothing—"

In the cockpit, Ting Na hesitated after being stared at twice by Ai.

"But Miss Liliana, Miss Alice, what should we do with these bandits?"

"...It doesn't matter, I don't think they will still do robbery."

Liliana shrugged indifferently.

"...They all know that they will not be able to go to Luweiyuan after death, then after that, they will try their best to live no matter what."

"Well...if it's not like this..."

"...That has nothing to do with us. At most, go to the next city and inform the sheriff there."

After finishing speaking, the witch injected magic power into the pattern carved with secret copper on the tiller, making the sand boat roar.

The calm sandy ground also had ripples amidst the roaring sound. The sand boat started, and the live sand followed closely behind, dragging tracks on the sandy ground, slowly surging.

Until the sand boat was thousands of meters away, it re-entered the waves of the sand dunes.

The men who were dragged behind the sand boat yelled because they were out of danger. Tingna left the cockpit, looking at the mirror-like sand under the moonlight from a distance.

The man took one last look back at the peaceful sand.

Swish, swish, swish.

They perch there tightly, as if they have never changed.

And the singing is still there.

…………………………………………………………………………………

Postscript of a certain day:

"Speaking of which, Miss Liliana, why did you suddenly call out the Noble Phantasm and use magic..."

"...Huh? Just thought of something suddenly."

"one thing?"

"...Living sand can reproduce, and it reproduces quite quickly. When the number of ethnic groups reaches a certain level, it will split. Some will stay where they are, and the other will go to other places to reproduce. That's why the young man can leave... But, the desert There are not many eruption points in the star veins, in order to obtain nutrition for survival and reproduction, they will hunt, attack, and even target cities."

"……Eh?"

"As far as Alice knows, more than half of the quicksand disasters in Sinai are caused by living quicksand, and the reproduction speed is almost as fast as that of mice. Some scholars once concluded that one-third of the sand in the Sinai Desert has become living quicksand. Sha’s remarks—well, although it’s not that exaggerated, but if you don’t want to manage it, it will indeed become a reality one day.”

"So Master Liliana was thinking about destroying all the live sand there...? But, he stopped suddenly..."

"...In Chongshan, the living sand will not produce the gold in the sand, which is their hometown, but when they come to the mainland, the concentration of earth elements is far from enough for them to live well, just like the habit The hot people are thrown into the ice and snow, they draw life energy from the star veins to create the gold in the sand, and accumulate the elements of the earth, and the phenomenon that a single element accumulated in large quantities may eventually cause...Ai?"

"Ah, yes, according to the records in "On the Elements"...it will form a natural portal leading to the corresponding elemental plane...ah!"

"Wait a minute, that means..."

"...Only Sinai has a vast desert, but there are not many star veins erupting in the desert. It may be the only place on the mainland where living sand can accumulate a large amount of gold in the sand and open the door to the mountains... It came to me suddenly."

"...Actually, they just want to go home."

"..."

"...Like, like me..."

"Miss Liliana?"

"...No, nothing."