Sitting at the front of the carriage, Lin Shu couldn’t talk to Sefina, and they rarely even made eye contact.
Lin Shu sighed in her heart.
‘Without blood to sustain her, Sefina will be in more danger the closer we get to the center of the Sacred Race.’
‘I’ll wait for an opportunity,’ she thought silently. ‘I need to find the right time and feed her my blood quickly.’
Lin Shu sat quietly, flipping through a manual of quick-cast magic spells. She wanted to take advantage of the free time to memorize a few more spells to make up for her shortcomings. After all, her Familiar skills currently lacked offensive capabilities.
As night fell, Lin Shu chanted the incantation for Glow, using the light from her fingertips to illuminate the pages on her lap. Time flowed quietly.
After an unknown amount of time, a piercing blue light caught the corner of Lin Shu’s eye. Curious, she looked up toward the source of the light.
“Hati?” Lin Shu gestured for her to look ahead.
In the sky not far away, a deep blue meteor streaked across, trailing a long wake through the night.
“Huh? It’s a shooting star!” Hati stood up excitedly. “No wonder the sisters said the weather tonight would—”
She stopped abruptly.
“Something… seems wrong.”
Lin Shu noticed it too. The blue speck of light was expanding rapidly before them. The meteor was getting closer, and it seemed to be heading straight for them!
“Hey! Angela!” Hati shouted toward the front of the convoy. “The meteor is going to hit us! You—”
*Boom!!*
The meteor suddenly exploded in the sky nearby.
A blinding white light enveloped the entire sky, turning everything pure white. Lin Shu hurriedly closed her eyes, but the intense light practically pierced through her eyelids. At the same time, she felt a sudden warmth on her chest.
‘Is the key… getting hot?’
Lin Shu instinctively reached out to touch it. In that moment, the sound of the wind by her ears vanished, and everything fell into silence.
Feeling something was wrong, Lin Shu snapped her eyes open.
The sky around her was still dark, but the carriage was gone, and neither Hati nor Sefina was by her side. She was suspended in the air alone, as if held up by some invisible force.
The key around her neck floated before her chest, emitting a soft white glow.
‘The key is acting up again? What’s going on?!’
“Hati?! Sophia!” Lin Shu shouted.
The white light faded, and the buoyancy supporting her suddenly vanished. She plummeted downward. The wind whipped fiercely against her face, and the feeling of weightlessness instantly overwhelmed her.
‘Crap, crap, crap!’
The ground approached at high speed; below was a vast forest.
Lin Shu crashed into the trees, the branches breaking her fall before she landed hard on a thick bed of leaves. The magic manual she had been reading lay quietly not far away.
“I’m sorry, are you okay?”
Lin Shu endured the pain and leaned over to help an elven girl pick up some dropped crystals, handing them back to her.
“…”
The elven girl didn’t answer. She silently took the crystals and looked up at Lin Shu. Lin Shu noticed her gaze lingering on the center of her own forehead.
‘Is she looking at my Familiar mark?’
A trace of surprise flashed through the elven girl’s eyes, but it quickly faded. She spoke, “…Thank you.”
Her voice was as cold as her demeanor. She gathered her belongings, put her pack back on, and began to limp away.
Lin Shu blinked, staring at the girl’s back.
‘What a stoic elf.’
A person falls from the sky, and she isn’t even curious about their origin—she’s just leaving?
Looking around, Lin Shu found herself in a dense forest. The ground was covered in withered yellow leaves, almost hiding the only path. She looked up at the sky, but the meteor had vanished without a trace, leaving not even a lingering trail.
Where on earth was she? Had she been teleported somewhere else?
She needed to determine her location first to see if she could contact Hati, Sefina, and the others. Seeing the elf about to disappear, Lin Shu quickly chased after her. There was only this one person around, so she had to ask her for information.
“Um…”
Lin Shu broke the silence. “Excuse me, do you know where the nearest town or outpost is?”
“…Just follow this road to the end.”
“Thank you. If we’re going the same way, can I walk with you?”
The elven girl silently adjusted the basket on her shoulder without looking at Lin Shu.
“Suit yourself.”
Lin Shu caught up with her. The two walked one after the other, their footsteps crunching on the fallen leaves.
“Does the Monster Hunter Squad pass through or stay in your town?”
If she could find the Monster Hunter Squad, she’d have a chance to get in touch with Hati. The elven girl stopped abruptly. Lin Shu almost bumped into her and braked just in time.
“What Monster Hunter Squad?”
“Huh?” Lin Shu was taken aback by the question. “I mean… the organization under the Holy Church that specifically deals with magical beasts.”
The elf sized Lin Shu up with a strange look. What was that look for? It was as if she were looking at someone who had fallen from the sky and scrambled their brains.
“There is only the Holy Church, no Monster Hunter Squad.” The elf turned back around.
“…That can’t be right.”
‘Is this region so peaceful that she doesn’t know, or is it…?’
“Where is your Master?” the girl suddenly asked.
Lin Shu snapped out of it. “We got separated. I don’t know how, but I ended up here.”
“So you’re just carrying a single book?”
Lin Shu tightened her grip on the manual. “It was sudden, and this was all I had on me.”
The girl didn’t say anything more and continued walking.
Not far ahead, the path was dotted with flickering lights. A treehouse suspended in a massive tree came into view, with a simple wooden ladder hanging down the trunk. The elven girl reached into her basket, pulled out a crystal, and tossed it to Lin Shu.
“Here.”
“What’s this?” Lin Shu asked, surprised.
“Take it to the town’s pawnshop; you can sell it for money,” she said plainly, putting the basket back on. “I have to go.”
“Okay, thank you.”
Lin Shu’s feelings were complicated. Although this elf was cold, she wasn’t a bad person.
“Furina—why are you back so late?” A voice called out from above the treehouse.
Lin Shu looked up. An older elven woman leaned out of the treehouse window and waved.
‘Furina? Is that her name?’
Lin Shu stared at the retreating figure.
‘That name… why does it feel so strangely familiar? It’s like I’ve heard it somewhere before.’
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