“Yeah Elias, how you knew my Korean name?” Hansoo says with a smile but below it a layer of bloodlust ready to unleash.
Elias is quickly rummaging an excuse inside his memories, searching something which can save his life.
He only ever met about ten times or so with Hansoo in his previous life, after all, their status is so much different — a hero of the human race and a scavenger. Even so, each time they met, Hansoo always spend his precious time to chatting with him, he never knows why Hansoo did that — there are many people with ranks higher than him, but now, after knowing his relationship with Emily, he understands the reason.
It’s because he was his deceased sister's disciple.
He usually tells stories about his life on earth, mostly about his family on earth but he hides the fact that Emily was his sister from him for some reason. Nevertheless, that enough, he know about his family from his story — he can make a proper explanation.
“No, we never met, but I heard about you from your late mother. She often shows me your photos” Elias telling his lies like breathing. He's sure no one can catch his lies which many years honed many years at his previous life.
Hansoo's mother was his soft spot, he often talks his regret, about leaving his mother in Korea alone because of people from Underworld hunted him. He always sends messages to her, but can't receive any from her because he always goes from one place to another.
Using his mother as an excuse is risky but also the safest for Elias.
After hearing his excuse, Hansoo still tries to bait him with many trap question. Nevertheless, he always can answer his question perfectly, after all, he tailored that excuses from Hansoo stories. Even though he can’t give physical proof, the possibilities of him as a friend of Hansoo's mother is enough to make Hansoo hesitate to kill him — besides that, his status as his sister savior make him save for now.
Hansoo still gazing him with suspicions, but it’s fine as long as he doesn’t kill him.
Emily who’s oblivious with deeper layers between their conversation start to asks about his wounds, “is it still hurts?”
“No,” Elias shook his head with a smile after hearing her concerned tone.
“Is there something that I can do?” Emily asks again, she notices that Elias often twitched from pain but try to hide it — he can lie with a straight face, but his body still react to pain.
She felt guilty when seeing Elias painful condition, after all, most of his wound is because he wants to give her chance to escape.
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“There are no—,” he stops for a moment, “Can you check if there any crystal there?” he's pointing at T’lear ashes.
“Oka~y,” she immediately rushes to take a crystal from those ashes and then give it to Elias.
Elias glances at crystal color, and then he sighs.
“Is there something wrong with it?” Emily asks after noticing Elias disappointed reaction.
“Ah, no. It’s good crystal, but I need another kind to recover my wounds faster.”
Hansoo who earlier silent while listening to their conversation become interested after Elias talking about crystals, he starts to join them, “is those crystal have that kind of ability?”
Elias silent for a while, still facing Hansoo — thinking about consequence telling him this. However, he can’t find any downside to explain it to him earlier. On the contrary, it’ll increase the human race chance to prevail if this man becomes stronger earlier than his previous life.
Also, it’ll increase Emily chance to survive because of Hansoo better protection.
“Yes, those are. It’s faster to understand if you experience it yourself, says ‘show me my status’ while touching your ears.”
Both of them do what Elias instructed and then surprised after seeing a holographic sentence on their retina.
“What is this? Rank? Red?” Hansoo mumbles.
Elias stunned hearing those words, after all, Red rank is far above ordinary human, but he soon regain his calmness, “That is your status, ordinary people have colorless rank with 10 points in each base stats.”
Hansoo silent hearing Elias explanation.
“Even though ordinary people have 10 points base stats, they can become stronger with those crystals. For example this one,” Elias showing a crystal he got from killing T’lear, “This white crystal can enhance my perception a little bit.”
“Wait, you’re kidding right?” Hansoo feels skeptic with his game-like explanation.
“You can try with any crystal you got.”
Hansoo takes a red crystal from dead goblin earlier and uses it with a little instruction from Elias. He still silent, sink into his thought even after the process complete — can’t believe what just happened. His stats don’t change because of difference between his rank and rune rank, but as someone who dabbles in body strengthening, he can feel a slight improvement in his strength after consuming that rune.
“Can you explain more about these crystals?”
“Fine, first of all, runes have three categories. Stats, skill, and consumable runes which can be differentiated by their color. Red is strength rune, yellow is stamina rune, green is agility runes…” he explains it one by one while Hansoo and Emily sit down listens carefully.
…
His explanations last more than an hour even though he only explains basic knowledge about runes.
“I think that is all you need to know, Is there anything you wanna ask?” Elias asks after finishing his explanation.
“How you can know all of this?” Emily can't contain her curiosity.
“I transferred to this world earlier than you two,” Elias lies without batting his eyes, but he still considers this is his best excuse for now.
“Hee, so you’re our senior in a sense, hehe,” Emily says after hearing his words.
Elias stupefied after hearing that words from his master, that isn’t wrong because he really has more experience in this world, but it still somehow felt wrong.
After he tosses aside those thoughts, he realizes Hansoo throw a small leather pouch towards him.
“This is?” Elias asks.
“Crystals I collect before got here, consider it my payments for the lesson. There is a crystal you want too.”