The elf held up her bow and aimed it at Mark, who had snatched up all the fish on the ground. In response, Mark quickly summoned a huge shield and hid behind it.

"Adae! Stop!"

The elf retracted her bow as she heard a sudden shout.

"Agon?" she looked shocked as she turned around.

An elf wearing a green vest embroidered with leaf designs glared at her as he arrived. Mei couldn't help but notice that he was especially handsome. Typical fantasy elves...

"How many times have I told you not to attack everyone that comes into the forest? This is the fifty-eighth time I've told you not to!" Agon yelled.

"Bu-but... I didn't do anything until they said the lives of the little fishies we-were just a game! Before that... I only commanded the fishies to help them escape..." she mumbled timidly.

Looking at the scared face of Adae, Mei almost couldn't believe that the elf was the ferocious 'monster' that tried to murder all of them. Not that they were actually going to die since it was a game, but still not very pleasant.

Agon stared coldly at Mark and Mei before turning back to Adae. He leaned in close and whispered something Mei could not hear clearly. Something about 'poor relationships' and 'tolerate'? He then walked towards them.

"My friends from the land of humans!" Agon walked to the duo with a smile. "Forgive the actions of my sister. She is a bit protective of the animals in the forest."

"Ah... It's fine! That uhh... Tom guy did say something wrong, but it wasn't intentional." said Mei nervously.

"Yeah, it's all his fault," said Mark, rendering Mei somewhat speechless.

She didn't want to call Umuton by his name, but she recalled that Mark called him Tom a few times. Was that his real name? Mei decided to ask him that later.

"So it was that skeleton... Please take this as an apology."

He handed out a palm-sized leaf to both Mark and Mei. 

"Oh. Thanks," said Mei.

Of all things, a leaf? The leaves looked like any old leaf from the nearby trees and even had brown spots and a few insect bite marks on them. Mark would have complained if not for the fact that the elves could finish him off in seconds. 

"I bid farewell to you." Agon gripped the frightened Adae by the arm as he headed off into the depth of the woods, dragging her along.

"That was weird," said Mark as he pocketed the leaf.

"Uh huh."

Mark quickly messaged Umuton to assure him that it was fine now. 

"Mei, I'm heading out later with my family at ten o' clock. It's nine thirty-two now, so I have to log out."

"See you later then!" waved Mei.

"Bye- Oh wait, you can have this if you want to go back fast. It lets you teleport to the nearest town portal." Mark handed a crystal to her.

"Wait, what? Isn't this thing worth like-"

Mark disappeared with a flash.

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"20,000 gold..." Mei finished.

The amount of gold earned later in the game was definitely a lot more, but Mei still felt a bit embarrassed leeching off like that. And she still had like... 40,000 gold left from what he gave her to travel here? She decided that she would pay him back once she started to earn good amounts late game. That reminded her of her debt again, which was just great.

She decided to give Mark back the crystal later. She walked all the way back, grabbing a few plants that resembled the ones Mark picked. But not before stabbing them first. She didn't want a repeat of what happened to Mark with the onion. A few of the plants did fight back, but they weren't strong, so she didn't have any issue taking them down. 

Along the long and boring walk, Mei decided to check her friend list to see if Alzeth and Emerr had accepted her friend requests.

Friend List

Alzeth (Online)

Emerr (Online)

Alzeth and Emerr had already accepted, though Mei wasn't sure how long they had been online. She wondered why they didn't send her a message earlier, but she was also slightly glad. She might have beem put in a spot if they messaged her to join them in a dungeon or something when she was adventuring with Mark and Umuton.

"Hi! I joined a party with some friends earlier, so I wasn't around in the Greylands. Sorry." she messaged both Mark and Emerr.

"np i realised u joined a party ealier so i decided not 2 disturb. send u invite again?"

"Yeah. They logged off already." 

Technically, Umuton had not, but she didn't want to party with him alone. 

"k here's the invite"

Mei exited her party and joined Alzeth's.

~~~~~

"Took you long enough to get here, huh?" asked Alzeth.

"It's not my fault," grumbled Mei. "They decided to go to a place so far away..."

After Mei told them she was on the way back, Alzeth and Emerr waited near the town portal. But after ten minutes, they realised Mei wasn't arriving any time soon. So they began to look around the nearby shops for things to buy. Finally, Mei arrived and had to message them in the party chat before they came to look for her.

"What do you want to do today?" asked Mei.

"Hmm... we plan to go into a dungeon. You might be a bit lower levelled at..." Alzeth used Scan to check her level. "level 13... wait, why do you still have 850 stat points?"

"Huh?" Mei checked her stats.

Somehow, she had forgotten to manually allocate her stats. It was a good thing classes allocate some stats automatically, or she would be as weak as a Lv1. She felt slightly embarrassed. With all the distractions, she somehow forgot to use her stat points.

"Oh... I forgot." Mei smiled nervously.

Emerr looked exasperated while Alzeth just shrugged.

"We'll wait while you use them."

Mei began using up her stats, putting 350 into STR, 350 into MAG and 150 into DEF. She was playing a melee magic fighter, so she felt like this was the best way to split her points.

Info Stats Class Equipment

Name Mei Level 13 Species Human Gender Female HP 1,582 MP 2,022 SP 0

Name Value STR 1,382 MAG 1,822 DEX 381 AGI 1145 DEF 287 INT 100

Name Level Progress  SpellSword 9  72%                              

Name Level Camouflage Magic Gear 30 SpellSword Shoes 50