Chapter 55: Guardians of Other Countries and Slaps in the Face, the Terrified Straight Man Rui...

Rena successfully contacted the guardians of Russia, England, Germany, and France.

Reina and the guardians agreed to meet at their guardian base a day later.

Russia has sent one guardian, Britain and Germany each have two guardians, and only France's guardian is missing.

After a long wait, a helicopter landed on the roof of the Guardian Base. A woman stepped off the helicopter; she was the last Guardian they were missing, Ms. Bertha from Paris.

Bertha had long, curly blonde hair, which was tied up with a red bow. She wore a polka-dot dress that reached her calves, and her black high heels made a rhythmic clicking sound as she walked.

She wore a faint smile, and her gray eyes were slightly curved. Her face alone made her seem like an approachable lady, but her overall aura was inconsistent with her gentle expression; it was somewhat too sharp.

She was beautiful and sharp; just walking those few steps made her seem less like someone coming to discuss cooperation and more like a queen walking the runway.

Unexpectedly, a figure disembarked from the helicopter after her, wearing a cloak and with his head down, making it impossible to discern his gender at first glance.

"...You even brought your lover along?" The British guardian asked strangely, "Seriously?"

It's not that she overthinks things. It's not that Bertha hasn't brought lovers to meet the Guardians before. When Bertha arranges meetings, it's always at brothels, ostensibly to share the good fortune. Although she doesn't sleep with them, she has a large group of lovers who simply come to visit, regardless of gender or age, but she doesn't accept anyone under fourteen.

“Look at what you’re saying, Kai, have you forgotten that only the Guardians can move around right now?” Bertha tucked her hair behind her ear and teased her a little. “This is Donato. I saw him running for his life on the way here. He asked me for help, so I brought him here.”

Ethan thought to himself, "That name sounds familiar. Have I heard it somewhere before?"

The person behind Bertha took off their hood, revealing a delicate face.

The person had an androgynous face, short brown hair, pink eyes, long and curled eyelashes, a high nose, red lips and white teeth, but looked listless and had some wounds on the corners of their mouth.

His bangs look a bit like his...

Reina's eyelids twitched violently: "Donato? Didn't you say you weren't going to join? Why are you here?"

Donato? Donato!

Ethan remembered—wasn't this the name of the first Guardian who refused a video call yesterday? Aside from the hair and eye color, what about the boy in front of him matched? Was it real?

Donato's face contorted for a moment upon hearing this, his eyes glazing over: "Holy crap... they're done fighting, Michael won..."

"Then why are you here? Aren't you two on good terms?" Turner asked, puzzled. "Why that expression? Aren't you best buddies?"

“He’s not,” Donato said coldly, his eyes lifeless.

"Pfft!" Bertha finally couldn't hold back and burst into laughter: "Because Michael's feelings for him have changed, and he wants to sleep with him."

Donato gave Bertha, who had exposed his shortcomings, a resentful look: "I was actually watching the show, watching Michael and the others fight over who would be the next leader. Michael won, didn't he? I congratulated him and he tried to kiss me, and after I punched him, he started confessing his feelings. He didn't act like he was winning, he acted like he was crazy. I treated him like a brother, but he wanted to sleep with me. So I thought I might as well join you guys."

Donato felt a chill run down his spine when he thought about what had happened that morning.

Michael was overjoyed to see everyone beaten into submission, and those who disagreed were dead. But then the other side called his name and charged at him.

Donato is not homophobic, provided that homophobia is directed at him.

His smile froze completely. After realizing he wasn't joking, he thought he'd just make her his best friend, but that didn't work out.

There was a significant gap in ability between him and Michael, and all he wanted to do was escape, but the other party relentlessly pursued him.

After five hours of incredible escape, he was so exhausted that he could no longer maintain his other form and was completely drained of energy.

He pretended to faint on the ground, ambushed Michael who was checking on him, used his powers to imprison him, stroked his head to give him a baby-like sleep, and then threw him into the swamp.

Not long after leaving the forest, Donato, looking disheveled, encountered Bertha, quickly changed his clothes, and followed her.

After hearing his story, everyone had complicated expressions on their faces, hesitated to speak, and ultimately said nothing.

The reason for joining was quite complicated, leaving those who heard it speechless.

Everyone tacitly skipped that topic and got back to the main point.

Yesterday, after contacting the other countries' guardians before the meeting, Ethan started divination again. This time, the coin he received had some special material and power, making it difficult to destroy.

Is the only hope among the Guardians? "Yes."

Russia or Britain? "No"

Germany or France? "No"

Our country? "Yes."

Then Ethan started throwing pairs in pairs, but then he felt there were too many people, so he started throwing in pairs in groups of four. Unexpectedly, he was the one who made it into the final round.

Am I important? "Yes."

Will I guide everyone to find opportunities? "Yes"

Is it difficult to borrow something? "Yes."

Is it in this world? "No"

Ethan was shocked when he arrived at the final conclusion.

However, as a guardian, he has read all sorts of books and understands some of the ideas from parallel worlds.

Parallel worlds? "Yes."

Was it an item you borrowed? "No"

Was it a person borrowed? "No"

Is it borrowing power? "Yes."

So that's how it is. So, the next step is a journey to parallel worlds? And we need to borrow power from the guardians of those parallel worlds?

Is this trip dangerous? "Yes"

Will there be friendly guardians? "Yes."

Will we be able to successfully retrieve Lord Starfall and the others by borrowing their power? "Yes."

Then, in a great hurry, he took the divination tools and ended up finding Reina.

Reina changed her prepared remarks because of his divination results, and prepared to discuss it properly with others.

As a result, the guardians from other countries raised reasonable questions, expressing their disbelief in Ethan's divination.

Left with no other option, Ethan had to demonstrate it to him.

“Why don’t you do a divination to see if Donato is gay?” The guardian of Russia suggested first, the silver-haired woman looking at Ethan with a smile.

Donato exploded: "Hey! Yaroslava! Do we need to do divination for this?!"

“Of course you can.” Yaroslava spread her hands: “You know whether you are gay or not, so you can tell whether the divination result is true or false in a second.”

Donato waited with a sour face for Ethan's divination.

Is Donato gay? "No"

Ethan shook his head, while Donato looked on as if it were the obvious thing to do.

“Then you can do a divination on me. I won’t reveal any information about myself, and the other guardians don’t know my true situation either.” Yaroslava changed to a more serious divination: “You can try to divine some things about me. If you get three of them right, I will believe you and apologize for questioning you.”

Ethan was shocked and quickly waved his hand and shook his head, saying that it was no need to apologize. He said that it was normal to have doubts, especially since he had a face that looked like he wasn't qualified enough. It was just a reasonable way to raise doubts.

Did Ms. Yaroslava have a lover? "No"

Is your birthday in an odd-numbered month? "No"

First half or second half? First half: Yes/No

October or December? "Yes."

October? "No"

What are Yaroslava's taste preferences? Sugar or salt? Select "No" for sugar, or leave a "No" if it's not mentioned.

"Here are the results of my divination." Ethan took back the coin: "Ms. Yaroslava is single, her birthday is in December, and she prefers sweet flavors."

Yaroslava believed it.

Seeing how accurate it was, the other guardians also asked several questions, and each answer was perfect; Ethan's divination was entirely correct.

Because of Ethan's accurate divination abilities, the Guardians were quite obedient and discussed the matter with Reina.

They finally decided to go along with it, but the more realistic problem they faced was that Ethan was still looking for a way to travel to parallel worlds, such as portals. Currently, he could only open portals at known coordinates in this world, and to travel to other worlds, he would need to find the corresponding spellbooks.

Ethan had heard Starfall mention during a casual chat that he did indeed have a book like that in his collection, and that he himself had mastered the ability to travel to parallel worlds with ease.

However, Starfall didn't tell him which bookshelf the book was on. Starfall's library had at least a thousand bookshelves, and each bookshelf was incredibly tall, so it wouldn't be a problem to put hundreds of books on each shelf.

Ethan buried himself in his work, wanting to find the problem quickly. He even dragged his Guardian colleagues along to help. He'd apologize for things like bringing people into Lord Starfall's library without permission; this was an emergency.

Even so, it took Ethan three whole days to find it.

Because Starfall lived for so long, the books he collected were very ancient, and some of the languages ​​were incomprehensible to anyone in modern times. Ethan had been taught several ancient and obscure languages ​​that had been lost to time, so even with the help of his colleagues, he was still not very fast; he could only filter out the ones he could understand.

After another period of intensive study, Ethan followed the steps taught in the book and created a magical reaction that matched the description in the book; he had learned it.

However, opening such a cross-world portal also has requirements; it requires a special material, which Ethan obtained without much effort.

However, deciding on the candidates proved difficult. Guardians from other countries could go together, but the choice of the two guardians on Ethan's side remained unresolved.

Ethan had to go. Anyone else could skip it, but he couldn't, because he was in charge of the portal, and he also found a way to store the borrowed power, made containers, and stuffed them into the containers of every guardian who had decided to go.

After much deliberation, we decided to give Nadia one spot. For the other spot, we need to think a bit more; we have to choose between Reina and Tenas.

Actually, everyone preferred Reina to go, but she thought about it for a long time and refused, because the infighting guardians from other countries who did not choose to join their plan had already started fighting on behalf of their countries.

Damn it, we still need to leave some people here. It would be best if Reina, who is both a cunning politician and a leader of the Guardians, stayed behind.

As politicians, they have no trouble getting involved in shady dealings and can also use other means to retaliate against them from a national perspective.

As the leader of the Guardians, she is both strong and intelligent. Given some time, she might even be able to quell this infighting and riot among the Guardians.

So the last one was decided to be Turnas.

Before leaving, Reina patted him on the shoulder: "Remember to put yourself in my shoes. If you encounter difficulties, you can put yourself in my shoes. We've known each other for a long time and we know each other's thought processes very well. You can put yourself in my shoes and think about solutions using my way of thinking."

Ternas knew this, of course, and without much small talk, stood with the guardian who was going to accompany him.

“We need to hold hands to pass through this portal because there’s a high chance we’ll be separated and fall into different worlds,” Ethan explained to his teammates before entering the portal. “Holding hands increases the chance of falling into the same world together, and even if we fall into other worlds, we shouldn’t be too far apart. The container I gave you that can store power also has the function of monitoring your vital signs. If there is danger, there is a protective shield, but it can’t last too long. If you die, the beads corresponding to you here will break.”

Ethan showed them the new bracelet on his wrist, with exactly ten beads.

After receiving confirmation from everyone that they understood, they stepped into the portal together.

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Author's Note: Donato is a total straight man, a terrified straight man.

Michael had a crush on him, a desperate gay man.

He didn't die, but it was just a minor incident, a one-sided affair.

However, I quite like Donato's design. He has two forms, but the boy form is actually his true form. Because he's not a pure human and has elven blood, he grows relatively slowly. Although he's in his twenties, by elven standards, he's practically a baby.

Yaroslava has hobbies that fit the stereotype: she's not in a relationship but treats her two beloved bears like children, drinks vodka with them, and is a very strong and powerful woman [thumbs up]. The usual spot is Donato, where we're slacking off. The next picture is a scene I've been wanting to write about for a long time; I wanted to write about it last month!

I hesitated for a long time between Rena and Tenas, but ultimately chose Tenas. If Rena didn't stay, our base might be raided. As for the other other Guardians, I got them all through a mini-program draw, which I'll post in the usual place.

Yesterday I was drawn into the Dynasty-themed fanfiction by a picture, and today I spent the whole morning reading stories that were both sweet and painful. I feel like I'm going to have to switch sides and end up on the left side—it hurts so much! [crying] There's one character I just can't accept who got on the right side.