rose nursery rhyme

The two walked around the stacked tombstones and continued to walk deep into the forest.

There is a small road behind the cemetery, not far away, leading to an abandoned white building.

The building is not high, with only two floors, and the appearance is quite simple. The building is made of white stones, which have experienced weathering and peeling for an unknown period of time. There are brown and yellow spots left by water soaking everywhere, and the background color can only be seen clearly.

The outer wall is covered with green thorny vines, one layer after another, with dark roots, unknown species, crossing the damaged doors and windows, leaving a gap that no one can get through.

No one has been here for a long time.

Xidi looked familiar: "Atonement?"

He has lived there for more than ten years, and he can tell at a glance that the structure of this small house is the same as that of the 'House of Penitence' where the Rosary believers lived.

Are there believers in roses here too?

Possibly, 'Rose of Thorns' is the most widely spread religion among humans on the continent after all, and the people in this town are all ordinary humans, so it's not surprising that they have faith.

It was Brice, who walked up to the house and looked inside.

The dark purple light flashed briefly, cutting off several vines blocking the door.

"It's not that simple," he said. "You see."

Sidi: "Huh?"

He walked over to Bryce and looked in the direction he was pointing.

The vines that blocked the light were cut off, and the outside sunlight barely penetrated into the house. No one has been in the house for a long time, and everything is covered with thick dust, which almost stains everything. The color of dust.

The sunlight forms a solid strip of light, shining on the abandoned ruins.

...a room full of beds.

The rudimentary bed, the bed board is very thin, can only meet the minimum need for lying flat.The wooden part has basically all decayed and collapsed, and there are some weird red mushrooms growing on it, and the metal frame is also rusted in layers.

It wins in quantity.

In addition to leaving the necessary space for walking, almost the entire house, where you can see, are filled with such bed frames.

Of course, the Atonement House would not be arranged like this—except that it was filled with Rose Cultists, it basically looked like a normal residence there.

Sidi: "What's this?"

Brace: "This is the hospital for this town."

He paused and found a suitable word: "A place where only one type of patient is parked."

"People infected with the plague cannot stay at home." Brace's voice was pleasant, like the wind passing through the forest, "put them all in the same hospital for unified treatment...and management. "

It is also convenient for patients to be incinerated and buried in a unified manner after they die.

This doesn't have to be explained in such detail.

It is said to be a hospital, but in order to prevent mutual infection, this kind of building actually only accommodates plague patients.

After the plague is over, this building is of course useless. The one in the forest is too far away from the town, so it has not been used again. The buildings in other places can be repurposed after being thoroughly cleaned and placed.

The atonement house where Sheedy was before used to be an abandoned ward, so they all look the same.

The room was clearly empty, with only the bed, a small table in the back, and a vase, the only thing that was not taken away.

Xi Di was not interested in the broken bed frame, and it was dirty inside. The boy looked at it a few times, then rubbed his nose and got out, intending to walk around the hospital before going back.

Nothing interesting, his curiosity was pretty much over.

No matter how outrageous the source is, it is nothing more than tombstones and houses, which is not unusual.

But I can see the ghost child at the three-way intersection again. He still has some things to ask.

Don't know if they show up every night or not.

The young man jumped two steps briskly, jumped over the roots of several vines on the ground, and walked around to the back of the house, only to find that the vines grew directly from the roots of the house.

They are densely entangled, several times thicker than ordinary plants, and even collapsed a small half of the wall. The spikes are as hard as spears, and they are deeply embedded in the stones that make up the wall.

Like a monster below the surface, it broke through the soil and stretched out its hideous tentacles towards the house.

He couldn't go any further. The denser plants blocked the road ahead, and he couldn't even see what was hidden behind it at a glance.

There was the sound of something collapsing behind him, Brice cut off the roots that were in the way, and walked over calmly.

He seemed to be like this forever, and he was never seen as urgent about anything.

At this time, Sidi had already pressed her palm on the spikes of the vine in front of her.

In fact, he didn't use any force, just out of curiosity, he wanted to touch it.

But the spikes were thin and long, and the young man's movements were careless, and a few short wounds were scratched on his slender wrist.

The same is true on the calf, where there are scratches scratched by vine bushes all over the place. They are not deep, and blood beads slowly seep out.

Brace walked slowly behind the boy.

Xi Di heard the voice and looked back at him: "Why is it black?"

This is the root of the whole plant. Unlike the green ends in front, all the vines here are pure black.

Ominous, the same color as the Suebird's feather.

Bryce didn't answer right away.

He stared at the young man's body, saw his horizontally scarred calf from the bleeding wrist, his gaze seemed to be hooked, as if he was going to hook someone on him in the next second.

It should be an uncomfortable scene in front of him, but because of the boy's indifferent posture and delicate appearance, he distorted it into a confusing painting.

Can lure anyone who sees it into the abyss.

——It’s just that he didn’t pay attention, and his rose made himself like this again.

Bryce sighed very lightly, gently took the boy's hand, and used the magic circle to summon a little water to clean his wound.

Xidi didn't care about these things, moved, and said dissatisfiedly: "You haven't answered my question yet."

Bruce looked up at him.

The hand that was just holding Xidi's wrist moved down slowly, squeezed into the boy's fingers, interlocking his fingers with an almost forceful attitude, but the voice was soft and depressing.

He put the young man's hand on his forehead, and said almost sighing: "... Please be good."

Be a good boy.

Don't show me your truest and most beautiful posture.

Don't make me shed that suave skin just yet.

——I can't bear it any longer.

Xi Di: "..."

He was not as strong as Bryce, and he couldn't handle him, knowing that resistance was useless, so he obediently was pressed and put on the medicine, and watched Bryce wrap the bandage around his arm.

I don't know why, although he is a magician, he has never seen Bryce use healing magic.

This thought only flashed through Xidi's mind, and was quickly forgotten by him, and he still didn't forget to ask: "Don't you know?"

The little pervert thought very intimately: If he doesn't know, then forget it.

Maybe this vine is a special mutant variety.

However, after finishing his work, Bryce really answered his question: "This is a trace that has been eroded by shadows."

But judging from the age of the traces and the scale of the vine growth, the erosion should have been a long time ago.

Sidi: "Shadow?"

It was the first time he heard the word.

Brice's voice was ethereal, as if it came from another world: "Yes, the shadow of the coveted abyss."

A shadow that appears without warning and disappears without warning.

Erosion from the outside to the inside, crossing the ocean that wraps the continent, crossing the endless jungle, only bypassing the abyss, greedily grabbing the vitality of this world on the ground.

Where the shadow spreads, people and animals will die of disease and plants will wither. As long as the shadow appears, the harsh winter will ignore the laws of nature and come at any time of the year.

It's like a... 'plague' against the whole world.

"It's not strong enough." Bryce said, "If possible, what the shadow wants most is the foundation of the entire continent."

Maliciousness from outside the world has its eyes on the rose under the abyss.

It is gathering strength for itself.

Sidi blinked. "I've never heard of it."

If something will happen to the abyss, how can the people of Thorn Rose have no news?

But they didn't seem in any hurry.

Bryce: "The shadow spreads from the edge of the continent to the center at a very slow speed, and if it is not expected by someone, it is easy to regard it as an ordinary disaster."

There have been shadows here, indicating that they are gradually approaching the edge of the continent.

Anyway, at least they're heading in the right direction.

Siddie: "No."

I understand, this thing is too hidden, and generally no one pays attention to it.

"When I went out before, I went to check other corners of the city." Brace took the initiative to mention the previous trip alone, "I caught two dead birds, and they also had a eroded breath."

Living things are different from buildings. If they are affected by shadows, they will either get sick and die soon, or... there may be mutations.

The blackbirds in this city are all descendants of birds that survived the erosion.

No wonder those big birds look like they are now.

Xidi: "This is what you said before to go out and confirm?"

Bryce lowered his eyes: "Yeah."

Sidi stopped asking.

He stretched his body a little, and removed the bandage that Bryce had just put on.

The scar under the bandage has almost healed, and there is only a little tender red mark on the skin, which should also fade away soon.

"Then let's go." Xidi bent down and picked up a vine that had just been cut off by Bryce on the ground, held it in his hand, and wound it into a ring bit by bit.

This vine was very thin, it was new, and the thorns on it were not too long, so it finally didn't hurt the boy's hand again.

Sidi finished weaving the rattan ring, lifted it up, looked at the sunlight, then looked back at Brice beside him, and made a gesture on his head.

Bryce watched him silently.

"...Forget it." Xidi finally gave up on this idea, threw the vine ring away, and put it on the tombstone of the child named Joshua.

It happened to collide with the garland of wildflowers.

The wild flowers were already a little wilted, and after being hit like this, a few small petals fell.

"It's not pretty," he said. "It's not for you."

The author says:

In other words, although there seems to be a background and the identity of the protagonist, these are actually not important. Some background settings have no plan to reveal the secret.

"Nursery Rhymes" doesn't want to make a big conspiracy, just want to tell a story, just watch it with a relaxed mind.

(Also: I want to post...the two of them haven't posted for several chapters...