Twenty-five kilometers didn't seem like a long distance. It was a number I could walk in a day easily. Sixteen miles to the border.
That was, of course, not factoring in I had to make many circuitous paths in order to not be tracked instead of a straight b-line to the edge of elven territory. Also the trees and rivers and uneven land.
Mostly, though, it was trying to make it difficult for any pursuers to track me down.
[We are now 2km outside the Elven Forest Territory, Nori.]
I heave a sigh of relief and just collapsed back against a tree.
It took me days before I reached this point.
After a breather, more for my mental calm than physical, I continued walking in a westerly direction at a more leisurely pace than I had since arriving (my time in the slammer notwithstanding). This 72-hour escape really puts it into perspective, how my body adapted to a single "evolution." Physically, I felt fine, and if it weren't for my knowledge of my previous limits, I wouldn't have noticed how different I was and consequently how jarringly natural it felt.
I also had a lot of respect for criminals on the run. That they'd break the law half-knowing they'd suffer being constantly alert if they get caught? Yeah, I'm just too lazy to break the law exactly because of these consequences.
Finally, now that it didn't seem like I was in an urgent situation anymore, I took the opportunity to ask the one most likely to know a bit of the how and whys of my current circumstance.
"So," I spoke aloud for the first time in days, sounding hoarse—as expected. "Are you the reason I woke up in Gaellia?"
[I went online in Gaellia.]
That would be a "probably not" then.
[I do not know what circumstances caused you to arrive here, Nori. I just know my cardinal objective is to save Gaellia from destruction. My mandates are to protect my partner and aid them.]
Save Gaellia from destruction?
I was rather unamused that I was basically in a cliche isekai summoned hero situation. A hero, I am not.
But I was not going to argue about this with a voice in my head. It seemed pretty hopeless to argue with an AI over their inbuilt programming, even if said AI was a sentient adaptive one. (Maybe later.)
"Give me the rundown on how you translated this?" I changed the subject as I took out my phone and viewed the homescreen. "HP is basically the energy charged in the shield keeping me from being punctured by arrows and the like. Once it hits zero, I will be as squishy as any other human."
[MP, usable energy, acts as an emergency power source for the shield. The shield will still hold once HP hits 0% until MP is also drained. Each Level Up has the shield upgrade itself, automatically rebooting to full-charge because of the increased defense. It takes five seconds for a powered-down shield to go up again.]
"The Level Up, is that directed in any way? Like stat points in Endurance or Wisdom."
[Evolution and consequently Leveling Up is dependent on the partner. It is a natural growth instead of a manual one. If Nori wants to increase endurance, you just need to do actions that require higher endurance or is dependent on increased endurance. Experience is calculated based on how much skill Nori has utilized in a fight. The number is a quantifiable calculation of your growth as an individual.]
I was kind of relieved that I couldn't just stick points into Strength and become a bruiser that way—it would get into too much of a game-like reality for me. Instead, from what I can tell, it was more like Pokemon (with the whole fighting equaled improving in whatever specific thing) and Skyrim (the more I exhibited the mastery of something, the more I level up).
"So, this energy that powers the shield and I can use. It's not magic but I can use it like mana or…?"
[It is a universal constant. Different people call it different things but they all refer to the same specific energy.]
Interesting. I wonder if you can drain the energy in your shield for a spell or whatever that uses MP? I mean, it's not uncommon in certain magical spells in RPGs.
[Your amount of MP is the maximum cost of a technique you can perform at your current level, Nori.]
I blinked. "Can it be stacked?"
[…]