CHAPTER 18 THE PLAN

I sighed as I walked away from the two investigators. I wasn’t a genius by any stretch of the imagination. They easily saw through the fact that I wasn’t telling them the whole truth, but for some reason they didn’t push me on it. Now I needed to try and figure out if that was a good thing or a bad thing.

Paying the innkeeper I walked up the stairs to my designated room and sat down on the bed. I looked out the paltry window I had in the room, it was dusk. Around now Penny would be checking back in with the team and Karif would take over watching me over the night. I decided to go to sleep early, maybe if I was lucky I would get kidnapped in my sleep and then the rest of the group could move in.

Something I had noticed ever since coming to this world is that I’ve had a much easier time sleeping whenever I wanted to. Back on Earth I could sit awake for hours even when I was exhausted. Taking Benadryl didn’t seem to speed along the process either. But here I could practically sleep on command. I certainly wasn’t complaining.

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I woke up the next morning shortly after dawn. Still in the same room I went to sleep in, not sure if that was a good thing for me or a bad thing for the people of this town. Probably both. I looked down at my outfit, I was still wearing the clothes the elves gave me. I was also just now realizing that they were completely spotless. I had fought giant moles, went crawling around in dirt, and more than likely soaked gallons of sweat and blood into this outfit and it still looked brand new. I nodded approvingly. Built to last, I didn’t have the time to be spending money on a new pair of clothes every 2 weeks because they got torn to shreds.

I hopped out of bed and grabbed the wooden blade that had been given to me. A melancholic mood overtook me for a moment as I looked at the beautiful weapon. It didn’t look like it would even be able to cut through paper let alone armor, and yet it had consistently managed to cut through metals like they were made out of warm butter.

I shook my head trying to dispel the thoughts. I didn’t have time to spend mourning over the elves. They had been strong, there was nothing I could’ve done to save them and as far as I was aware, the Heart was the one who had brought their destruction down upon them by bringing me into this world in the first place. Sure, that mindset might be a little harsh. And I’m sure there had been plenty of innocent people that had no idea why they died that day. But that was just the reality of the situation.

I slung the sword across my back and stepped out of my room. I had paid for several days so I didn’t have to return the key just yet. I stepped out onto the street and glanced around. What was the best way to get myself kidnapped? Maybe I should’ve left the sword behind? Hmmm, I didn’t feel like that was worth the risk, but I guess if I got caught they would take it away from me anyways? I don’t know, there were too many variables to the whole situation it was hard to say what was the right maneuver.

I slowly stepped through the streets and kept my head down avoiding eye contact for the time being. I didn’t want to get caught up in another kerfuffle with a villager after what happened with the guard. I walked slowly making sure to stay out of people's way and used my superhuman hearing to see if I could discern anything. If maybe people were talking behind closed doors or if they were as quiet back there as they were in public.

So far most of the houses I walked past were empty. I eventually came across a house that had someone in it but they were talking about their next meal, muttering to themself and not really saying anything of importance. So I carried on, to the next house. And then the next one, and the next one, and then the one after that. And nothing. The entire time frustration slowly built up. Something was happening here. And it was really strange that no one, absolutely no one, seemed to care. They were more concerned about whether or not it was going to rain on their laundry rather than the fact that 20 people had gone missing in the past 6 months.

I didn’t like it, something was really off about this whole situation. I just couldn’t put my hand on it. Something wasn’t adding up, I needed to figure out what it was. Well… Maybe not me particularly, preferably someone smarter than me would figure it out. I spent a lot of time observing everyone with [Electric Sense] and their flows looked wrong. Something was really off in this town.

I noticed someone walking into my path so I moved to the side to get past them, but the feet moved to cover my path.

“Well well well, what do we have here?”

Well shit. With such a cliche line there could only be one person here that would ever say something like that. I looked up and sure enough I was right, the one person I hadn’t wanted to run into was standing in front of me with a coy grin on his face. That stupid guard. And he wasn’t alone. I ran a quick identify on them.

[Level 232]

[Level 152]

[Level 33]

Well. That’s not good. The other two I could more than likely handle. But all three of them with one of them being a tier above the other two? I was probably going to get my shit rocked. And I didn’t want to actually hurt them either. Especially since hurting them could only cause more problems for me in the long run. Maybe I could outrun them? It was definitely worth a shot, but maybe, just maybe, they weren’t here to ‘teach me a lesson’. Maybe they just wanted to intimidate me a little.

I cocked my head a little as they stared me down. The group leader stepped forward and shoved me back, causing me to stumble backwards.. Given that he was a tier above me it almost knocked me over, thankfully I managed to keep my balance.

“What are you doing walking by yourself, knife-ears? Ain’t got your friends around?” He said with a sneer.

I almost laughed, it took every ounce of discipline I had not too. This was just too unoriginal for me not to find amusing. It was like something straight out of an anime. Was this even real life? Surely this had to be a joke right? My amusement disappeared really quickly when his fist came hurtling towards my face.

I slipped under it and danced a few steps back, giving him a confused look.

“Are guards supposed to attack people unprovoked?” I said, maintaining a calm disposition.

“Unprovoked? I mean, you swung at me first. You all saw that right?” He looked to his two buddies who both nodded in agreement.

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I rolled my eyes and sighed before immediately turning around and taking off, with my new passive [As Fast As Lightning] I was significantly faster than I had been before. That in addition to getting a healthy boost in just raw stats allowed me to put a significant amount of distance in between me and the group before they managed to properly react.

I glanced behind me as they started shouting and running after me.

“Alrighty, time to see if those levels are just for show.” I whispered to myself, before I pushed myself as hard as I could.

I had to wonder why we didn’t run from place to place, in thirty seconds I had covered as much distance as we had in thirty minutes of walking. I glanced behind me again, they weren’t as far away as I would’ve liked. In fact, the tier three man was very slowly gaining on me. Considering agility was more than likely not his main stat, that was pretty impressive since I had classes that put a decent amount of focus on it and had the benefit of getting a passive boost that was pretty hefty in general.

I smiled before I turned off the road making a beeline for the nearby woodlands. Right as I started to get to the edge of the trees I glanced behind me and saw tier three was only about fifteen feet away. The tier two’s had been left in the dust. Perfect. I jumped doing a half spin and planted my feet sliding across the ground thanks to all the momentum. The distance between me and my pursuer closed frighteningly quickly, I threw my hand out and summoned a [Barrier] that he proceeded to run into at max speed. He ran into it with a very satisfying ‘thunk’.

My mana depleted by about eighty percent from that. I winced before turning around and taking off into the forest. I could see the guard trying to stand up but he looked really messed up.

“Gg, easy.” I whispered under my breath with a smirk.

I launched through the forest, ducking and weaving past tree’s. It was exhilarating. Even with all the obstacles I was still running faster than an olympic athlete running a one-hundred meter dash. After a while my lungs started to burn and my legs felt like jello. My stamina was sitting at about ten percent. I’d probably run too far. They probably gave up once I knocked down the tier three guard. I really needed to learn their names. But that was a mission for another time. I had a vague sense of where I was, or at least how to get back to the road. I’d have to mentally keep track of it. I just had to hope that Penny could keep up with me… Ah, who was I kidding? She was more than likely way faster than I was.

While I was out here I might as well take another look for anything. And if something was keeping an eye on the village to snatch people, there was no way my little scuffle with the guards didn’t get noticed. So wandering out and about away from public view was a great way to get myself abducted. I could only hope it worked out in my favor.

I spent several hours digging through the woodlands, constantly flickering my sense skills. I still wasn’t able to turn up anything new in the area. With a sigh I turned back towards the village. More accurately I turned back towards the road, and then from there I’d head towards the village. I wonder if I could use [Electric Sense] like a compass? I really needed to find someone to teach me how to use these skills. I was getting by well enough using my intuition, but that wasn’t going to be enough the further along I got. More creative uses would also allow me to just handle more situations in general at a lower level.

Thoughts for another time I suppose. For now, I need to worry about meeting up with the rest of the group tomorrow. Our plan was to meet out on the road toward Vinwood tomorrow and from there we’d plan our next course of action. I stepped out of the more wooded areas and could see the road a short ways away.

Standing on the road looking my way was Warren and Jalen. That was a strange coincidence. Had they been waiting for me? I did a perimeter check with my sense skills. No mana or other electrical impulses that were outside the ordinary. It didn’t seem like I was about to be ambushed, but I still didn’t let my guard down. Warren more than likely didn’t even need backup to take me down.

I slowly walked up to them keeping an eye on my surroundings just in case, “Investigators,” I said with a slight nod of my head. “What are you doing out here?”

“We heard you attacked one of the guards and then fled the village. The guards assumed you were involved with the disappearances and so we decided to take a look.” Warren replied calmly.

I chuckled at that. “And am I part of the disappearances? Surely if I was you would have figured that out when we first spoke with each other last evening. No, the reason I ‘fled the village’ was because a group of the guards targeted me simply for the fact that I’m an elf. The main guardsman had actually personally taken offense to my presence here when I first came through with my group. And the only reason I made it into the village in the first place was because the group leader had more weight to pull than the guard did. Unfortunately without the rest of my group to help me I was outnumbered and outleveled, so the only way I could protect myself was to run.”

Warren gave me a skeptical look, “You’re telling me you managed to outrun three separate people higher level than you and one that was two whole tiers above you?”

I smiled, “My agility is exceptionally high and I’ve got substantial boosts to it from my other skills. Even with that though, the tier three was able to keep up with me. So I made him run into something. Unfortunately his brain is not as fast as his legs.”

I glanced at the other investigator but his mind seemed anywhere else other than the current conversation. Warren noticed my glance and let out a sigh.

“Just ignore him, he refuses to pay attention to anything that doesn’t interest him and unfortunately half the time I’m included in that. When he is interested he’s one of the brightest people I’ve ever met, I just wish he could stay better focused on these tasks so that we might solve them more quickly.”

I smiled apologetically, “So it seems. So what’s the plan here? I’ve told you my side of the story, are you going to detain me? Or am I free to leave?” I tensed my muscles as I prepared for action, I wasn’t going to let him arrest me on a falsified charge, whether or not he knew the truth of the situation.

My worry seemed to be unfounded though, “No, you’re fine. I came to discern for myself whether or not the situation was true. According to that guard you ambushed him and got a sneak attack off, but if that was the case why does it look like he was punched instead of cut in half with that sword you have? It hadn’t added up then, and that’s doubly true with your side. I can warn him off sending me on wild goose chases, but I won’t be able to protect you from him so keep an eye on your back, because if he kills you I’m not going out of my way to do anything about it.”

I smiled and nodded my head towards him appreciatively, “Don’t worry, you won’t have to.”

I walked back towards the village. I managed to make it inside without any troubles again and walked to the inn. It was evening again and I was starving. I had left early in the morning and all the excitement had left me busy until late and I had completely forgotten to eat the entire time. So I went and ordered some of the soup that the innkeeper had made and sat down at one of the tables.

It was good soup, it could’ve used some more salt in my humble opinion. But given how society was in this world, salt was probably a slightly more rare commodity than back on Earth. I quickly finished my soup and went back up to my room. I didn’t have a lot of things and most of the things I had I carried on my person. But I still wanted to make sure that I was ready to leave tomorrow so that way I could meet the rest of the group on time.

I opened my door and entered my room and saw the group was sitting in my room.

Garrus stood up, “Good you’re here.” He had an extremely pissed off look on his face. Had I messed up somehow? The rest of the group had varying degrees of worry and anxiety on their faces. Penny wasn’t here though. That was strange, she was supposed to be watching me from afar, but there’s no way she didn’t notice the rest of the group come here and move in with them.

“We need to move out now,” Garrus said, refocusing my attention back on him. “Penny has been taken.”

Ah, that’s why Penny wasn’t here.