Chapter Thirty-Seven

“This is weird. Shouldn’t the dungeon entrance close?”

“Yeah, did someone complete the dungeon already?”

“Even if someone completed the dungeon, it should be one way until we complete it ourselves. Did you learn anything on the training grounds?”

The man at the front stopped and pivoted to the two conversing Changed. “Enough! focus. There is no telling what will jump out at us.”

Both younger Changed fell silent as they nervously scanned the woods, expecting something to jump out at them. The last Changed at the back, much slimmer than the other three, spoke in a soft voice like a warm breeze. “Something is out there.”

In an instant, elemental magic sprang to life as they tightened their formation. Fire, water and a rumbling under their feet radiated outward as the breeze Elysia hadn’t noticed before turned into a gust. Her head jerked back behind the tree before the wind, which seemed to be a sonar of sorts, could hit her, but it was too late. The slim Changed turned in her direction, drawing the attention of the other three.

Seeing no point in continuing to hide, Elysia told Ione to stay hidden just in case, as Elysia stepped out from behind the tree. She hoped they weren’t here specifically for her but the dungeon island as a whole. She looked like a Changed despite being superior, so it might buy her some time. It wasn’t worth the risk to run or attack when her element of surprise was gone.

Worst case, Ione could attack, giving her time to take action. Something told her these Changed were far weaker than her. She couldn’t see their level without the elusive Identify skill, but the moment she sensed their elemental magic she felt little danger.

Still, she wasn’t going to take risks beyond what she had to. If they made any hostile moves, she would defend herself, likely with deadly results.

As soon as she came into view, the building elemental storm stalled either by confusion or thinking she was an ally. She did have some whitish hair peeking out from under her helmet, and her eyes shined with a familiar elemental glow.

A stray spark of fire hit her armor harmlessly absorbing as she stepped forward, eye’s watching for any hostility but finding none. “Greetings.”

On guard, the presumed leader boomed, “Where’s your team?”

Elysia smothered a smile as they assumed she was a Changed. Instead, she tried to look distraught, though her acting skills were never that good. “I’m the only survivor.”

Suspicious flashed in the older Changed eyes. “What team were you with?”

She froze mid-step. Her thoughts flashed through her mind far faster than a human. Should have seen that coming. With how rare Changed seemed to be, they probably knew each other, or at least knew of each other. Now what? She didn’t want to kill them, but if they found out who she was, they would probably swarm her. This team she could probably handle with Ione, but dozens would be difficult.

It was one thing to slaughter mindless beasts but these were thinking people. She doubted they had any animosity toward her but were following orders. If she did kill them, they would have a real reason to hunt her down if they found out.

They were probably wearing something to track them, and even if they weren’t, she couldn’t take the risk. Damned if she did, damned if she didn’t. Right now they didn’t know her identity, but if she used her lightning to scare them off, they would, or at least their higher ups would when they reported this.

Actually, they probably would know even if she didn’t use her lightning. They knew she had escaped to Urus, so it wouldn’t take a genius to put things together. Best to just scare them and leave, then put as much distance from the dungeon as she could before they swarmed.

Any pretense of sadness vanished as Elysia released a sigh. “It was worth a try. No I’m not a part of a Changed team. I’m here on my own. This dungeon is clear so I’ll be on my way. Please don’t follow me.”

Elysia’s gaze remained locked on the team as she walked around them. Unfortunately, she only made it two steps before they reacted.

Ione tensed to protect her mother, but Elysia sent an image to stay hidden just in case. She knew they would eventually figure out who she was, but they didn’t know who Ione was and she would like to keep it that way.

Elements flared up ready to attack but far faster than they could attack, a thin stream of violet lightning streaked the five-meter distance between them. At first it veered off course but corrected itself at the last moment, probably from the still hidden feline.

The lightning impacted the older changed, burning through his equipment with ease and locking up his muscles as it jumped to the next Changed and another, sending all four to the ground in a twitching mess.

Wow, even a weak stream like that took them out? If she used a full powered chain lightning, they would have died. They were weaker than the birds and those things fried in an instant. Were they really that weak, or was she that much stronger than before? Maybe the team she ran into in Port Alberni was an elite team and these were the common foot soldiers. Whatever the reason, she better get out of here.

Before they could recover, she took off in a sprint toward the dungeon exit followed by Ione, who stayed out of sight of the Changed team.

Seconds later, they reached the dungeon exit. As they stepped through, a notification appeared in her vision.

Dungeon Complete.

Fifty Points to Elysia Arashi and Ione Arashi.

Current Score: 1023

Current Ranking: 7th

Huh, that was new. Must be the changes the system implemented. Seventh wasn’t bad considered how much time they spent sitting around either.

Most of it was probably from the bird dungeon. Nice that the system counted that. Even though it was before the Changed arrived. Not sure what getting a high ranking did, but she may as well earn some more points while she was at it. First, she needed to put some distance between her and the Changed.

Elysia took off in a sprint in the opposite direction of the shore, though not as fast as she didn’t want to draw too much attention to herself. As they ran, Ione sent her images of various dinosaurs she saw and wanted to hunt and several dungeons, but Elysia vetoed each one in favor of traveling deeper.

Ione sent pouty feelings through the bond in response, but Elysia held strong to her plan, though she promised they would do hunting soon.

After a while, Elysia frowned. Where were all the Chrotile? She should have run into at least one team by now.

On the plus side, she seemed to be past the Changed teams, too. Sure, she moved fast since she didn’t have to widen the trails and worry about keeping in formation, but a team like the one with Prismatic Chrotile had to have made it this far. It was hard to judge how far she ran with how fast she was now, but she couldn’t be more than five kilometers from shore. This island was actually pretty big. Just in case she ran another several kilometers.

As she slowed to a stop, Ione shot out from the jungle, excitement radiating out of her, tail flicking, eyes sparkling. She nudged Elysia toward the hole in the jungle she made while flooding Elysia with images of hunting and delicious meals.

Elysia only resisted for a moment, unable to say no to her excited bond. She was probably far enough from the Changed to hunt for a little while. Though they should move deeper right after, just in case.

After weaving through the jungle, following Ione’s zigzagging path, they arrived in front of a cave. Ione tried to push Elysia inside, but Elysia stood her ground as she took deep breaths, trying to calm her violently pulsating core. Fortunately, she didn’t have a heart anymore or it probably would’ve exploded, or maybe not. The system did some crazy improvements to her body even before her evolution. One thing was for sure, she would have leaned heavily into endurance if she wasn’t an elemental.

She probably ran a 5K world record and she could have gone faster. It would be awesome to see a post system Olympics. They would probably need slow motion cameras to follow the sprints. Even she, who she doubted was close to the fastest out there, would be hard to follow with human eyes in short bursts.

Who knew, maybe the Olympics were still on, but she was too isolated to know of them.

One thing was for sure, once society stabilized, there would be competitions of some form. She had no doubt eventually the world would find normalization. The Chrotile seemed to act like it was business as usual, though to be fair, their home, Urus, didn’t change and they were probably used to traveling. The Chrotile they left behind were probably struggling more, but again, their world already had the system, so it wasn’t as big of an adjustment.

Once she grew strong enough, she would love to travel the world. Even before the merge, there was plenty of adventure to be had if one was daring and had the money, but now there were probably some truly unexplored marvels of nature and magic out there.

Though the money part probably didn’t change. It would probably cost a ton to make Umbra ocean worthy if it was even possible. The waters were much more dangerous than they were before, and even then, she wouldn’t trust Umbra on the open ocean. She was a beautiful ship, but she was meant to travel the ocean’s shore or large lakes, not across the Pacific or whatever it was called now.

From her visions, Sereia appeared to be a capable of water magic, so maybe that was their key to travel. If she could cross the ocean with that small fishing boat while being chased by a fleet of water elementals, she could keep Umbra afloat.

At least she hoped so. She didn’t seem to need to breathe underwater, but it would suck to have to swim for weeks or more to reach land. Plus, what about Eva and Joe? She had a water breathing skill crystal but only one of them. Though she might be able to buy another. It was probably a good idea to have her crew capable of breathing underwater.

She never understood why the devil fruit users of one piece wanting to travel the seas so badly. If she were them, she would hide on the biggest piece of land she could. She wasn’t scared of water, far from it, but if a mere touch of it paralyzed her, she would stay as far as she could away from it. It just wasn’t worth the risk. Fortunately, she gained powers without eating a disgusting fruit and without the same drawbacks, though she had to die instead. Well, actually, she was already dead, so that was a plus.

Elysia’s inner monologue drew to a close as her core returned to its resting pulse. She eyed the cave Ione was insistent on entering with suspicion. Was there a massive bear hiding in there? Or whatever passed as a dinosaur bear. No, if there was, it would’ve attacked by now. That left a dungeon. If Ione wanted to fight it so badly, it was probably a strong one too.

Whatever, it wasn’t like she couldn’t retreat. Unlike before, she could exit a dungeon, though who knew what that did. Maybe if the monsters would follow her, or it could reset making her lose all her progress. Hopefully she didn’t find out, as the very thought of retreating disgusted her.

She took a deep unneeded breath and stepped into the cave then a feeling of falling took over her before a splash. All that greeted her in the pitch black gloomy water was the glow of her veins and a similarly glowing silvery purple streak shooting through the water after something.

Wonderful, a water level. No wonder Ione was so insistent.