Chapter 59 The New Arrival
An ear-piercing alarm shattered Evernya’s peaceful sleep. To drown out the screeching, she covered her ears with her pillow, to no avail. She peeked out from under her pillow, ready to destroy her alarm clock, only to find out her alarm clock was innocent. Not only was her alarm clock innocent, but it displayed a time of 2 AM.
While grumbling, Evernya dragged herself out of her bed to find the cause. Did Meira lie about giving me a day off? But why would she wake me up at 2 AM?
Too lazy to dress in her training suit or any clothes at all, Evernya groggily padded downstairs, naked. When she reached the stairway leading to the first floor, the loud alarm silenced, only for it to restart.
Upon reaching the living room, she found a half-awake pajama-clad elf panning through her enchanted camera angles.
Evernya walked up to Meira, futilely shielding her throbbing ears with her hands. “What’s going on?”
“Something tripped my barrier,” Meira replied as she continued to flip through camera angles.
“Why can’t you pinpoint it like with the catkin betas?” Evernya questioned.
“Normally, but the intruder tampered with my barrier somehow,” Replied Meira with obvious frustration.
Evernya watched the shifting camera angles for a minute until she spotted something odd. “Why don’t you have cameras to the northwest?”
Meira glanced at her kitten, confused, before attempting to switch to the five cameras she had on the northwest border of her territory. Instead of displaying the northwest corner, her remote skipped from the West to the north, leaving a blind spot.
Meira threw the remote as she swiveled toward the kitchen with a serious expression. The air rippled with mana as Meira stormed out the sliding door into the backyard, followed by a curious Evernya. As soon as she stepped outside, Meira lifted off the ground, flying toward the northwest. I should have taken up her offer and teaching me how to levitate. Evernya grumbled as she dashed after Meira, entering her turbo mode.
Less than a minute later, both elf and shifter arrived at their destination only to find nothing. They wandered along the border until Evernya caught a distortion in the ground from the corner of her eye. She trotted over and prodded distortion with her foot, receiving a groan.
Curious, Evernya continued to prod the distortion until Meira arrived. Meira looked at her kitten questioningly, for which Evernya pointed her finger at the distortion at her feet.
“What are you pointing at? There’s nothing there.” Meira questioned.
Evernya ignored Meira’s questioning tone, instead opting to kick the distortion a little harder, eliciting another groan, this time distinctively feminine.
Meira’s eyes widened as a centuries-old fragmented memory resurfaced in her mind. She materialized a grenade-like device, causing Evernya to retreat on instinct. After tossing the grenade near where Evernya pointed, the distortion cleared for a split second. In place of the distortion, an unconscious female elf appeared. A moment later, the distortion re-exerted itself, but Meira saw enough.
“Bring her inside,” ordered Meira with a cold tone before swiveling and flying back toward the house.
Confused by Meira’s reaction, Evernya scooped up the distortion, causing it to dissipate. With her excellent dark vision, Evernya caught a striking resemblance between Meira and the mystery elf. Apart from being shorter and appearing younger, the Elven women looked nearly identical. Even her mana signature was like Meira’s, though much weaker.
After switching her carrying method to telekinesis, finding the elf light, she dashed back toward the house. Her nose twitched as she followed Meira’s scent inside the house, leading her to a bedroom a few doors to the left of her own. As gently as possible, Evernya floated the elf onto the bed.
Now in the light, she compared the two Elven women, finding they had the same shade of platinum blonde hair and slightly tanned skin. If it weren’t for the slight physical age difference and height, they could pass for twins.
Nipping the question in the bud, Meira broke her silence. “As you noticed, we seemed to have quite a resemblance. I don’t know how close our relation is, but she is of my former bloodline. Her appearance reignited a bit of the fragmented memories of my former bloodline. I’m not sure, but I think her nature camouflage is one ability granted by my former bloodline.”
“What’s wrong with her?” Evernya inquired, gesturing to the unharmed, unconscious elf.
“Oh, that one’s easy. The stupid girl tripped the stun defense of my barrier. She should awaken any minute.” Replied Meira just as a pained groan sounded from the rousing elf.
A moment later, her eyes fluttered open, revealing the same shade of green as Meira’s, reinforcing the theory of their relation. A pained expression overtakes her beautiful features as one hand clutched her right side and the other her aching forehead.
After several minutes of silence, the elf sat up and directed her attention to Evernya before speaking in a slow, broken language. “Servant fetch healer.”
Evernya ignored the order, staring at the girl with confusion. Why would she think I’m a servant? I don’t know about Elven society, but I doubt servants walk around naked. Evernya thought.
An expression of annoyance manifested as the elf turned to Meira, speaking fluent Elvish. “Is your servant deaf? I need a healer.”
“My ears are quite functional, thank you, though sometimes I wish they weren’t like this morning,” Evernya replied in place of Meira.
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The Elven girl’s expression switched to scorn as she shot a heated glare at Evernya. “A crippled servant like you has no right to speak our tongue.” The elf chastised, switching her attention to Meira.
“How dare an exile like you teach a crippled shifter our language!” The elf snapped, previous pain forgotten.
“I would watch what you say, girl. You’re an uninvited guest in my territory.” Meira warned, patience waning.
Meira’s warning only incensed the young elf. “How dare you threaten Maylin Ammil of the Sylvan clan!” The elf exclaimed, releasing her mana aura.
A pained expression flashed over Meira’s features for a split-second before a regal, indifferent expression replaced it. “Is this any way to treat your elder, child!?” Meira boomed, crushing the weak aura with her own.
Contrary to their expectations, a childish pout appeared on the elf’s face. “I’m not a child! I turned 112 this year!” The elf exclaimed with crossed arms and an upturned chin.
“To me, you are.” Meira countered as Evernya watched on tail waving with amusement, her previous annoyance forgotten.
As if a switch flipped, Meira turned serious again, staring into the younger elf’s eyes. “Now, baby sister, why are you here?”
“I have come to offer you an opportunity to redeem yourself with the Sylvian clan,” Maylin proclaimed as if she was giving a grand opportunity.
Without a moment of thought, Meira answered. “No need. I’ve made my peace with my exile over a century ago. Go run back to our parents before they decide to turn their backs on you too.”
Hurt flashed on Maylin’s face at the mention of their parents. Unknown magic floods the room, originating from Maylin as she spoke in a mana-infused voice. “As the head of the Ammil family, I hereby order you to follow my commands.”
Meira’s eyes glazed over, falling into a trance as her body dropping to her knees. Unaffected, Evernya reacted on instinct, releasing a mental pulse, disrupting the magic influencing Meira, allowing Meira to regain control of her body. A second later, before Meira could react, the influence re-established control.
Drunk on power, Maylin missed Evernya’s temporary disruption as she continued to speak. “Now big sis, let’s get going. We have a long journey ahead of us. But first, please take care of our pesky crippled witness.”
Without hesitation, Meira rose to her feet, turning to her kitten with a blank expression. Alarms rang in Evernya’s head, but before she could react, an air blade shot past the right side of her face, trimming several strands of her velvety jet-black hair. Terrified, Evernya pumped mana through her body, blurring out the open bedroom door as fast as she could. She didn’t stop until she was several kilometers to the west of Meira’s territory. Evernya dropped to her knees, chest heaving with burning pain in her legs. Unable to support her body any longer rolled onto her back panting while several thin cuts from branches visibly healed.
What the hell was that? Meira would never attack me. Did that bitch elf brainwash her? Evernya thought as her body recovered.
Twenty minutes later, Evernya recovered enough to stand up. Ignored by the scattered animals nearby, she began her trek back to Meira’s territory, following her own trail. Despite her better judgment, she returned to Meira’s house a half-hour later.
As silently as possible, she snuck up to the scene of the crime to find the room empty. Just as she was about to turn to leave, she spotted Meira’s Crystal storage ring lying on the floor at the foot of the bed.
Evernya bent down to pick it up, curious as she had never seen Meira without it. Unable to resist the temptation, she tried to prod it with mana, but nothing happened. With a shrug, she slipped it on her left pinky. To her surprise, a tingling feeling ran through her pinky before the ring shrunk to fit snug around her pinky. Confused, Evernya used her mana sense to inspect the ring, now adorning her finger. Similar to the ruby ring Meira enchanted, she found a mini mana system within the ring. Though, instead of just the ruby on a gold ring, mana veins encompassed the entire ring, creating a mana system exponentially more complex.
After a second, she pinpointed the freshest trail of Meira’s mana, leading her through the maze of mana veins to the core. She read the enchantments stating ‘to link dimension,’ ‘to resize,’ and several security brands preventing unauthorized access. I would’ve thought the legendary dimensional storage would have more complicating enchantments. Though, I suppose the mana veins are pretty complicated. I think there are more mana veins in this small ring than my entire body!
She continued to follow the trail of Meira’s mana, finding its first stop at the security brands before continuing around the mana core to an empty spot. Curious, Evernya focused harder on the spot, revealing a dim engraving obscured by the brightly glowing brands surrounding it. While straining her mana senses, she read the engraving.
Dear kitten, don’t worry about me. I’ll be fine. I know you want to, but don’t follow me. Inside the ring are enough supplies for you to survive for the foreseeable future. Please focus on strengthening yourself while I’m gone. If you need anything, my cell phone is in the ring with Elizabeth’s number saved in the contacts. P.S. to activate the ring, apply mana to it while on your finger.
“Stupid elf. If she had the time to engrave this, she could have freed herself.” Fumed Evernya.
Despite her annoyance, she gave in to the temptation to peek into the ring. A moment after pushing a bit of mana into the ring, a hundred square meter space packed with tons of random things appeared in her mind. Holy Shit! This makes the endless black hole, also known as a woman’s purse, look tiny in comparison! Evernya marveled as she took in the area organized into categories.
She spotted well over a hundred smoothies in every color of the rainbow in one corner, next to a stack of leftover cooked Blue Servant meat and piles of plants. Next to her food supply were hundreds of dresses, all neatly hung up on racks. Several of which she recognized from the pictures in the mysteriously absent photo album.
Where did she get so many dresses!? Every one of them even has a tail hole! Evernya exclaimed in her head before her easily distracted mind reminded her of the task at hand.
Evernya retreated from the storage ring, saving any further investigation for later. After scanning the empty room one more time, she dashed to her bedroom to fetch her training suit.
I feel kind of weird running out into the wilderness only wearing a skintight suit, but from my experience, this thing is the toughest piece of clothing available to me. Thought Evernya, while stretching her training suit over her lithe body.
She grabbed her ID lying on her nightstand but realized her skintight suit had a grand total of zero pockets. I wonder how this ring works. Evernya thought, glancing down at the crystal ring adorning her left pinky.
Yet again, Evernya became distracted, trying to figure out how to use the storage ring. First, she tried to push mana into the ring, but this only summoned up a view of its contents. Next, she pictured depositing the ID into the dimensional storage while pushing mana into the ring, but this yet again failed with the contents showing in her mind. Desperate for a solution, Evernya connected her mana to both the ID and ring, causing the ID to disappear into the storage dimension.
With her ID stored away, her next issue made itself known. How do I retrieve things? She connected her mana to the ring, bringing up the contents. At the thought of her ID, her view zooms in on it, lying near her stack of smoothies. She focused on ID with the desire for it to appear in her hand. To her surprise, her ID materialized in her hand, prompting a triumphant smile to blossom.
The smile vanished when she realized she just wasted twenty minutes, allowing the Elven bitch to take her big sister further away. After vowing to resist any more distractions, Evernya sprinted out of her room, following Meira’s freshest scent.
Did Meira really think that I wouldn’t chase after the only person I consider family in this world? Sure, it is stupid to follow, but I don’t care. Evernya thought as she dashed through the house and out the sliding door leading to the backyard.