"Can you keep a promise?" I grabbed Elfrafim's shoulder and squeezed hard. She was very interested in what I was, so decided to just extend out an olive branch of trust. She could already kill me so easily if she so wished, and if my revelations here ever became a problem in the future, then I should hopefully be strong enough to destroy all comers.

"Yes. My lips are sealed as tight as the deathgrip of a deathgripper." She answered. I stared into her gem-like eyes with my goat-like own, and I saw no lies reflected within.

Problem was, I wasn't actually any good at reading people like that. Had no relevant Mutations or spells on the matter either.

"Deathgripper?" That's what I ended up asking.

Elfra then described the creature, with a few helpful and needlessly elaborate illustrations drawn in the sand. Moonwash was going to love her.

A deathgripper was essentially some kind of armored leech that just would not let go once they bite you. Their bites also served to propagate some kind of rotting effect that's not really a poison, it just happened once they've got their jaws on you. Those wounds were extremely difficult to heal.

"Interesting creatures. They really won't let go ever? Can't you deal enough damage to drive them away?"

"Hmm. If you can get through their armor and actively torture them then that would be enough I think. I knew a gal who did that once! Well, she magicked pain straight into their minds actually!"

That's... striking close to what I do with my intimidation stuff. But it’s fine! So long as the intent isn't to brainwash, but to just make them easier to kill during battle. Or maybe even outright kill them!

"Right. So unless someone tortures you, you won't say shit about me? Promise?"

"Oh shit! There is a loophole! No, no, my promise is tighter than a deathgrip! I'll not talk even if they feed me to the skitters!"

"Skitters?" I only knew of one person with that name, and she wasn't so bad.

"Oh yeah. Skitters. My father knew a guy. He was a very evil guy! Made this new entire species of worm-insect-crab hybrids whose species I will not even dignify naming! What these animals did was burrow into people and secrete pain hormones and chemicals inside while they continue to muck up your internals. They were basically just torture pests, and they were vile. So we killed the guy, and all of elfkind went on a crusade across the whole of the Grandest Forest to wipe out all of their kind. But then these horrid creations may still be around. My other father swore up, down, left and right that he saw one of them, he did! Up in that good tree where his first warwind companion nested."

That... was a lot. Too much. I had no idea where to fucking start.

“Didn’t you just dignify their name of skitters?”

“Oh shit!” She shrieked, freaking out

I laughed a little and watched her go, until finally I pulled my new friend aside for something that she must absolutely know.

"Elfrafim," I called her name. "I appreciate your enthusiasm, but my secrets are certainly not worth getting tortured over. I'll live. So just, don't say it for no goddamn reason, but if you're captured and forced, then say it. If someone else is taken hostage, then just spill the beans. The details of my species aren’t actually worth more than anything else in this grand universe.”

Maybe I was just reading too much into it. People just make stupid promises they wouldn't actually keep all the time. But somehow, I felt that Elfra was serious about keeping my secret even under those circumstances. And I didn't want that in my conscience.

She smiled, touched, nearly brought to tears. Those gem-like eyes were beautiful when they were moist. The menace magic within me whispered how it would then be nice to make Elfra cry more, but I did not let it ruin the moment. I never allowed it to ruin any of my moments anymore.

"Thank you, Haell. You're a good friend. Actually..." She shifted on her feet. This woman who could trivialize everything that I could do or try. "Are we friends? I know you said we can start over and all..."

I hugged her. "Of course we are."

~~~

"...and that's how I ended up in this isolated region, of all places." It was evening, by the time I finished telling her about my story.

"So that's why there was a slight curse to this place..." her voice was like the depths of a serene and endless lake. Elfra had calmed down a lot, in the time that we'd talked.

"Huh? What?"

"Oh. This place is cursed. It's a heavily flavored curse, which makes sense because you don't possess the all-encompassing curse element."

"What? What are you talking about? Are you saying that me leaking out menace magic is altering the very environment!?" It's not that hard to believe considering goblin hordes and the lingering wickedness they leave. But I'm just one person! Sure, I'm far stronger than your average goblin, and I'm sure one day I'll be strong enough to terraform the lands with my mere presence, but has my time already arrived? Is it Haell Era now???

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

"It is. But it's nothing restricted only to your menace magic. All mana dissipates into the environment, they only stay or are converted at varying rates."

"Converted?"

"Yes. The planet has its own mana that suffuses its entire atmosphere and beyond. That has profound effects on the mere scraps we mere mortals are able to make ourselves. Not that I'm a mortal any longer..." Elfra sounded both proud and melancholic. Being immortal seemed like an absolute win to me, but I knew that people were different.

I'd ask her later if she wanted to talk about it.

"So... my presence here is terraforming the land?"

She chuckled. "Nothing so grand. You're not the Nature Dragon Gaianess! Yours is very slight, and is only noticed by me thanks to my ears," Elfrafim flicked said ears. They were very long and big. I wanted to touch it… "We elves can hear mana and magic, and at my level I can perceive even the planet's mana itself that way."

I focused on Elfrafim, and I felt her level to be impossibly high. Close to eighty... maybe beyond?

"What level are you? If you wanna talk about it, of course." It seems fair though. I've revealed A LOT about myself.

"I’m about over 80 for every Mutation.”

"Woah. Really? That doesn’t make sense though. I know someone who is past those levels, and I'm pretty sure he's not immortal…" He's dying, actually.

Elfrafim must've sensed something in my tone, as she lightly bumped her shoulder into mine. "It differs from species to species. But immortality is usually at level 160 Mutations. The synced trio of flesh, bone, and musculature are also the most important for it."

"I see..." Humans were dealt a worse hand than elves it seemed. "So anyway. My menace magic. Like, being everywhere. I'm guessing not just anyone can sense it?"

I glanced at Luine, and she shook her head, still a bit irritable.

"Oh, of course. As I said, it's miniscule. Very weak! You're not about to create a new wonderzone. So do not worry!"

"Gee. Thanks for the vote of confidence. But wait! That's not the important part! You can make wonderzones?" I thought back to The Endless Dive and the monstrosities that hid within. It was exhilarating to imagine that someone could make something like that!

"Our Grandest Forest was created by the Nature Dragon Gianess and the Father Tree.”

"Wow. I've only heard very sparse mentions of it. But the elven forest... or Grandest Forest, as it seems to actually be called. I heard that it makes our own forests," I gestured at all the trees around us, "look like common weeds."

"Not to that extent. Although the trees in the Grandest Forest, made in collaboration by the Nature Dragon and the Father Tree, because we elves certainly did not make it, are indeed several times larger than the ones here."

"Amazing." It was a place I'd explore someday, so long as I never stopped moving forward. I would grow stronger than even the dragon that made that continent-sized wonderzone someday. "How do you even know all this?"

"Because I was over there? Like, until just a few years ago?"

"No, no. I mean, all this knowledge, about the planet and its mana and all that bullshit."

"Ah. I was just taught some of it as I grew up. Some I discovered for myself. Others I read books about."

"...That's like... All the options. On how to get knowledge. That can literally be used to describe any knowledge ever gained!"

"Wow. So you're saying that I'm not only describing myself, but a profound truth shared by all the sapient peoples!?"

"Err... Sure?"

"Yay! Thanks Haell!"

"Right..."

The conversation died down for a second, and Luine took the opportunity to hurry me along. "I think we should be heading back, Haell."

"Oh, okay." I stood up and so did Elfrafim. "You wanna come?"

"Hmm? Where? Yes I wanna go!"

At least wait for the question of ‘where’ to be answered...

I felt Luine's glare, and I looked back at her to see my friend displeased.

R-right. It's technically her hideout. I was just using it. Shit.

"A-ah... It's actually a very secret place that I can't take you to. Sorry, Elfrafim. But like... let’s meet again? Maybe put some kind of marker here. Luine, can you like remember the path here..."

After a moment of silence, Luine drew out a long sigh. "No. Nevermind. She can come, Haell."

"Eh? Are you sure?"

"Her not coming would be a courtesy in itself," she grimaced like she'd swallowed a particularly bitter fruit. "I didn't notice shit when she was watching us."

"Hey, I respect secrets!" Elfrafim chimed in. "I won't go there if I'm unwelcome. I'll also not just follow you there!"

"...I know," Luine said. She thought it over and found that she believed it. "I want you to come. We got off on the wrong foot, but you don't seem like a bad person, and I'd like to hear more of you and your homeland."

"Yay!"

"However. On the topic of secrets. Can you keep another one?"

"Sure, sure, friend!"

"...Alright. I just want full disclosure of my motives. But I'm part of New Grandera. A new nation that is in resistance and opposition to the Angelore empire. And part of me right now is thinking that if I could get elves, or even just you, to join, then it'd be a massive win."

Elfrafim's posture changed, somehow even more regal than before. "People all have their own internal motives. It is normal to seek something from another. But it is telling of your character that you're willing to be honest and upfront about it." She smiled, genuine, sincere, and overwhelming. "I make no promises. I'm a traveler here to see the world, not to make war. But if half of what Haell has said about the Angelore Empire is true..." I blushed at the elf’s attention. "Shit, none of those were in the copies of the Angelic Scriptures that we got! I was expecting a cohesive and content society, where everyone's agreed to pull their strengths together and make a better and stronger empire for it. It's certainly not something I can easily relate to, we elves don't really have a structure like that, everyone just does whatever, and it's great. But I thought I could respect it. The reason I'm here is because I'm interested in seeing how other people choose to live, and I still am interested in that. This place is just... far different from the research that I did before coming all the way here."