When we finally part ways with the elves, the old man is fully recovered. I like to think they stayed as long as they did because they enjoyed our company. Even Eli warmed to me, though she still thinks of me as "that horny human". No wonder free elves are few in number. To be honest she is probably right. I can't even remember being this horny even as a teenager, though technically I got the body of a rather bulky teenager right now as well.

To not offend the young elf I slipped away with Kira on a regular basis. I suspect Eli was aware of it the whole time. Rin would some times join us, but I am starting to think I am just a plaything to her. I am not enough of a hypocrite to judge her for that, but I got to admin, I am starting to grow fond of her. Wonder if she will stick around when we get back.

I suspect the old elf will miss Nadi. Unlike Eli, he did not mind her nightly visits, though it meant Eli stayed in the hut with me and the girls. More for him, less for me. At least I slept well.

As we get ready to leave the hut, I consider taking Bambi with us. It clearly does not want us to leave, but I reconsider. He might be used to us and the hut, but I doubt he would get used to human civilization. Someone with a craving for meat might kill him as well. Here he should be safe as long as he does not stray too far from the dryad tree.

I did ask the elf if he had ever heard of an elf making a bow from a dryad tree using tree singing. "Not without its permission, or it will end badly." He didn't elaborate. How do you get the permission from a dryad tree? Anyway, I will certainly not take the risk.

The return journey is quicker than the initial journey as we aren't stopping to do guild requests. This time we manage to evade the kobolds and head straight for the nearest village. We stay the night in the village and take a carriage the next morning. Less than a week later we are home at the farm. Overall the trip took about a month.

As we are about to reach Lagos it is the middle of the day and I suggest to the girls that we head straight to town to report to the guild and offload the collected fauna and flora we are planning to sell to the guild. I am keeping all the herbs and plants I collected for my potion experiments, and some of the animals for meat and raw materials. I fed the goblin corpses to the dryad tree after taking their mana stone and right ear, as no one wants those. Also, we are keeping a portion of the honey, but there is far too much for our personal use.

Nadi, seems ok with an even four way split of any beast taken down as a group, even the ogre and orcs, despite most of the work being done by me and her, rather than our two support companions. All the girls insisted I take the wyvern corpse. Rin seems to think I should get at least a gold coin for it from the guild.

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The purpose of the trip was to raise money and our levels. Money should be plentiful for awhile unless I squander it all on experimenting with potions and such. Need to invest some of it. Maybe buy a shop. Lawra should be able to turn it into a success. She got all the skills needed. I make a mental note to set aside more of the loot that we might be able to sell in a shop. I am reminded that I still got a heck of a lot of used stuff from goblin cave raiding. The older goblins seem to horde any loot for themselves. I never did much with it, but we should be able to make a bit of money out of it.

As for our levels, though we will get these confirmed at the guild, I already know thanks to my analyze skill. Both me and Kira leveled up during the raid of the giant bees nest. The last time Kira leveled up was in our goblin raid to save Rin and Nadi. She got to level 7 then and now she has reached level 8. I leveled up again after the ogre fight, and my lone fight with the wyvern. In the subsequent days hunting everything around near the mud hut I leveled up a fourth time. Probably when I took down a large pack of wolves.

This brings my current level to 16. Nadi leveled up once during the whole trip, but I didn't notice when. Rin didn't level up at all. Considering what I have learned before about the way lifeforce works, most of it makes sense, except the level of my own growth. Lifeforce is attracted to the hunter contributing the most in a hunt, and contribution is directly associated with how much risk you are taking. Vanguards naturally attracts more lifeforce than support hunters like archers.

I initially thought of lifeforce leveling as "experience gained" in role-playing games from my old life, but it seems to work a bit differently. Just killing a lot of weak beasts will not mean that you grow indefinitely. It does get harder to level up the higher your level is, but it is like the lifeforce has a mind of its own. The person who delivers the killing blow does not necessarily get any more lifeforce by doing so. The lifeforce seems to prefer the person who took the most risk, and even then it seems to be able to chose to just dissipate away.

I am not surprised that Kira leveled up in the bee raid. Her contribution in that raid, despite being the one who brought the whole swarm down on us, was substantial. Nadi contributed a lot throughout the whole raid, but being the highest leveled hunter her growth should be slower than the rest of us. My own growth does reflect my own relatively low level relative to the beasts I am facing, but even with my level of contribution, it seems a bit higher than the norm. Not by a huge amount, I did after all take down some beasts all on my own. The only explanation is one of my unique traits.

Faster learner does give me a decent skill growth boost, but with regards to lifeforce growth it only gives a little boost. It is also very possible that I actually slow down the growth of others around me by attracting more of the lifeforce. If I want Kira to grow, I might need to take a step back and watch rather than participate in fights. As her vanguard, that would be almost impossible.

After reporting back at the Guild we agree to pick up our earnings the next morning. Nadi and Rin can pick up their portions separate as the Guild does the money management like always. Nadi heads off to town rather than staying at our farm and Rin tells us that she will also be leaving in the morning. We all would have liked her to stay, but she seems keen on a new start with the earning from our trip.