Chapter 181 - Again (1)

The group returned to the destroyed base when the sun was starting to rise, and after two more hours, they found those who were left behind. Now the group had more or less three hundred elves… it was a very small number. Despite that, Rina was happy.

"We divided ourselves when we decide to look for allies in other worlds… while we don't have dozens of thousands on our side, we have a few thousand spread across the world," Rina explained when she saw Luke frowning. "It was a countermeasure to keep our species alive in case the enemies found some of our camps."

"I see… what are you going to do now?" Luke asked. "Keeping them divided won't help now that you have returned.

"You are right… Still, we should look for a place to rest first before deciding our next steps," Rina said after she nodded.

There were many groves in the area, and they were pretty dense. They could hide a group of that size. However, everyone would be looking for those places now. They had to look for other hideouts in other areas. Still, walking in the open during the day wouldn't help, so at noon of that day, they stopped in one of those groves to rest and eat for a while.

"Finding a place to hide in this world will be difficult. Wouldn't it be better to transport them to Earth?" Luke asked.

"If we could use a crystal or if they actually could use Teleport, that would be possible," Rina explained. "However, we can only go to Earth right now in that small size state. The people on your camp, some might be compatible with our magic frequencies, but not everyone will be. Their numbers are also pretty small."

Magical frequencies… Luke imagined that his actions could change that since Rina and Shalia explained that to him in the beginning, about his neutral stance toward most things, but they didn't mention anything regarding magic...

"I guess that is no good, huh…" Luke rubbed his chin thoughtfully.

"Still, we should be close to obtaining the power to move between worlds more freely. We defeated two of those that could do that, after all," Rina said. "We also gained an upgrade crystal."

"Speaking of that, none of my skills are close to level ten… what should we do with this?" Luke asked.

"Your Weapon Augmentation is already incredibly powerful. You should try to raise its rarity rank once you have the chance," Rina said.

It was obvious, but it would take a few months, at the very least. In any case, with Shalia's help, Luke will be able to create a high number of projectiles, so he should focus on using those all the time. 

"Do you want to check things at home now?" Rina asked. "I am sure things will be fine here if we stay away for a couple of hours."

"... Let's do that once we find a suitable place for your friends," Luke replied after thinking for a short while.

That was easier said than done, but they had to do it. In any case, after resting for the afternoon, they began to move again. Luke thought that they would have some peace of mind while walking at night, but soon they were attacked by a pack of crows. 

"I thought that they only eat corpses…" Luke said.

"Only if they have that option," Shalia explained. "The zombies of this world had been dealt with years ago, and now the number of elves is pretty small. Hence, they don't have free food anymore."

Desperate times require desperate measures… that was true even for crows. Thanks to that, Luke recalled the Lord of the silver talons. What he did was despicable, but he also was another creature that had to abandon their world and do whatever it took to survive. Also, Luke began to wonder… where that guy had gone when they invaded his castle?

"That reminds me, you aren't from this world, right Shalia?" Luke asked.

"Yes," Shalia nodded.

"But your people also used the same technique to go to Earth, right?" Luke asked. "Isn't it weird that you two reached the same solution when facing a crisis?"

"Not at all," Shalia replied. "Just like some of us went to your planet, other beings moved to ours. As far as I know, they all died, but they taught us how to assume that form, make pacts and look for worlds in which mana has arrived."

"That is strangely convenient… weren't they looking for capable individuals as well?" Luke asked. "You two looked very capable to me."

"My parents had made the pact… and not many of those creatures came to our world," Rina said. "I don't know about her, but I suppose I wasn't deemed worthy by them."

"Who were them, by the way?" Luke asked.

"The fairies," Rina replied.

"They didn't show up at Earth, though," Luke said. "At least I never heard anyone mentioning them."

"They are beings that value nature even more than us, and your planet is quite a bit polluted," Rina said.

"There is also the fact that they were one of the first species that had to deal with the overlords, so their numbers decreased a lot over the years," Shalia added. "They could use magic, but they were pretty weak."

Those explanations made sense, but Luke felt that something was off. Yet, he couldn't put the finder where exactly was the weirdness in all that story… putting that aside, even though one of the spells they taught Rina and Shalia was in the system, the other two weren't. Link was probably the spell that granted Rina the power to become a familiar-like existence to Luke, but what about the spell to find worlds and to move toward them?

It made sense that not all of the magic was recognized by the system since the elves of Rina's works already could use their own magic, but it still was suspicious.