Back To The Alternate Dimension
[Ace POV],
'I should go back,' I thought as I ate the canned meat in my hands while sitting on the trunk of a tall tree, looking at the rising sun in the distance.
After finishing my conversation with Anna, I continued on my quest to kill monsters, and in addition to the fire ape I killed at the start, I was able to kill five more.
One was on the same level as me, another was one level lower, and three were levels higher.
They were all two levels above me, and their elements added to the fight difficulty, resulting in a lot of injuries. However, this was not without gain because I was able to acquire enough primordial records for a level up and even acquire enough for the progress bar to have another accumulated level up in hand was already a little more than half filled, but even with that, 7 kills out of the required 50 to complete my seemed like a long way to go.
I looked at the panel that appeared in front of me as I ate my food, thinking about these things and some other things.
This has been going on for a while, and the cause was Anna, who kept using the contact system to send me messages every now and then in the last few hours.
I'm not sure why she kept doing it, but since it wasn't bothering me and felt rather comfortable, I used it to pass the time.
However, using dozens of silver coins to communicate casually seemed excessive.
I started to wonder if Anna was spending the coins she got from exchanging the monsters she had killed, or if she didn't have anything she wanted to buy from the store that required her to save.
While I was thinking about these things, I read the message on the panel in front of me.
[Annabelle Dark]
[Mia is still sleeping. Am hungry and crow is too even though he feast on the cores of the monster I killed. What are you doing now?],
The later part of the message confused me for a moment as I considered how extravagant Anna is, but then I remembered her mentioning something about skills.
'Unfortunately, Orbs are difficult to obtain,' I thought as I remembered that I, too, lacked a skill.
I willed my thoughts through the primordial chronicle and replied to Anna's message while thinking about this.
[I'm planning to return home],
After entering this into the text bar, I confirmed sending the message via the primordial chronicle as another text appeared on the panel.
[Message cost 10 silver coins. Do you wish to send?],
I began to wonder if Anna was using her crow as a mode of transportation after seeing the price of the message increase yet again, adding to the number of times it had increased throughout the night.
As I considered this, I confirmed sending the message while waiting for Anna to respond, and while I was waiting, I changed my clothes yet again and put on the other set.
This has happened before when my clothes became drenched in blood, and because I didn't want to waste my money on more clothes, I put them all in my storage ring to wash later, and I'll stitch the ones that had holes.
And as for where the needle and thread came from, I can only say that I was starting to realise how all-encompassing the store was.
As I was thinking of this, I finished the can of food in my hand and threw it away.
After that, I descended from the tree to the ground and began slowly tracing my way back home on the map.
Apart from the human encounter in the earth rats den, I hadn't encountered another human since, and everything I'd seen and observed, such as the ranking system, the two ice mages I encountered, Caleb, and the settlement he mentioned, made me realise that humans weren't in fact rare.
'I wonder if they've all joined or stayed in a settlement,' I thought as I remembered a term Caleb mentioned in our conversation.
Affiliation.
My suspicions that these settlements were merely organizations in disguise were most likely correct.
But, whatever, I had a lot of things to attend to, and I couldn't and didn't want to bother with these things.
As I thought about this as I continued forward, a bell-like sound rang in my head and a blue panel appeared in front of me.
Seeing this, and based on previous experiences, I knew it was Anna's response that had just arrived.
[Annabelle Dark]
[See you at home then],
After reading the message, I dismissed the panel and continued on my way.
Perhaps because it was already morning, but the auras that monsters occasionally emit, especially the strong ones, began to fade gradually.
It was because of this aura, I was able to avoid coming into contact with monsters that were stronger than me.
Perhaps they all went to sleep because it was daytime.
This was the thought that was going through my head, along with a few others, as I headed home.
...
After taking a long look around and confirming that no living creature was in sight and the area was clear, I emerged from behind the tree that served as my cover and made my way to the entrance of the grassy hill that led to the staircase that led to the Bronze door downstairs, and after entering the hill and thoroughly covering my tracks to avoid this place being detected because of the traces I left behind, I made my way down the stairs.
I didn't bother trying to run the stairs because I was tired and just kept going down slowly until I came face to face with the bronze door, which I opened and entered without hesitation before closing it again.
When I felt the fresh cold air brush against my face as I entered the alternate dimension, I knew I was back home.
....
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