Kotori and her party quickly made an escape from the city. The city guard tried to stop them several times but were quickly defeated by Kotori and Umi despite causing a commotion at the Earl's manor. Information passed slowly and many guards hadn't been mobilized yet.
They forced their way through the gate. And past the guards, several arrows were shot at them, but Shu used several rock formations to block them.
And thus, they quickly left the frontier city of Faramouth.
They were not pursued. Apparently, Yooma told them not to chase her down. The average guard and soldier would not be able to kill her anyway.
…
Amelie groaned
She was in a stabilized condition after Kotori poured [Magical Musician] into boosting her body's natural regeneration. Still, there was a limit to her ability to boosting healing. Kotori would not be able to regrow limbs and there was a limit to how much she could boost their healings.
The wounds that Yooma inflicted on Amelie looked quite gruesome but they were ultimately shallow. The gash on her side was mostly superficial. The stab wound into her chest had missed all her vital organs but still, there was a problem of internal bleeding and staunching the wound which Kotori tried to do when casting [Magical Musician]. She focused on closing the wounds and stabilizing Amelie but outside of that it was a waiting game.
Kotori had taken shelter in an abandoned village to the east of the city. There were no residents but the ramshackle buildings were enough to provide a modicum amount of shelter.
Every single building was leaning in one way or another, but Kotori was in the building in the best condition which looked like the mayor's house. Shu and Umi were on the lookout so Kotori spent a lot of time helping Amelie.
Thankfully, they could hunt and forage for food because of the training in their village.
Amelie gave another pained moaned
[This battle idiot] Kotori thought
She wanted to scold Amelie for trying to fight Yooma. She knew she wanted to respect Amelie's wishes but Amelie had gotten seriously injured trying to beat him. It was a bad match-up, Yooma was a technique type.
And there was the dungeon issue. Kotori knew that she would now not be given access to dungeons anymore. At the very least she was going to be stopped by someone.
Dungeons in the kingdom were controlled by two factors. One, the kingdom tried to keep their locations hidden. Of course, this was difficult since citizens would run across them. They would pay off these citizens and try to suppress the information but that was still difficult.
So, the kingdom had a unique approach. They would keep several adventurers to guard the popular and well-known dungeons. The adventurers would be able to farm the dungeon as well as guarding them. The lesser-known dungeons that still had their information and locations hidden were typically left alone and their anonymity would protect them, so the kingdom didn't spend resources to protect them
These dungeons were typically newer and had weaker monsters, so Kotori and most adventurers didn't use them. She had luckily memorized most of their locations before they left the city.
Now, Kotori would have to use them. She could of course overpower the adventurers in the popular dungeons, but that was tedious and would make it easier for the kingdom to find them.
It seems that she would have to make use of her dungeon eating skills to the fullest.
The mana within these dungeons was extremely unstable and even harder to grasp than more establish dungeons.
Kotori had no choice though. This village was nearby one of such dungeons and she spent every day since then trying to use [Hunter] to eat it. She was slowly getting even better. She realized that she was leaving too much to the skill itself
She started imagining a vacuum in her hand and the mana swirling in the dungeon would slowly accumulate towards her hand it was like trying to drain a pool and was very very slow. She diligently worked towards her speed and making it even faster.
She also experimented more with taking mana from monsters without having to defeat them. Unlike humans who had the hard "nut" of mana within them. Which Kotori was calling the "soul". Dungeon monsters were just condensed masses of mana. Kotori was able to eat them as well. Of course, it was more difficult to take their mana when they were trying to kill her though. So she just found it easier to defeat them.
She began feeding the small MonMochi to Amelie. She hoped that Amelie would be able to grow as a result and the extra man would help her recovery. It seemed to help a week after leaving the city Amelie had began to walk around with some light exercise.
"Please take it easy" Kotori chided Amelie who was making practice swings with her sword
Amelie pouted.
"Kotori a girl as young as you shouldn't nag like an old maid"
[Not like I was originally a girl in the first place] Kotori thought
It was odd that she was so concerned for Amelie. In her past life, she hadn't really cared for anybody. Kotori felt like she had to protect this girl from the elf village.
[Ah, is this what's it like to have someone precious to you?] She thought.
They lived quietly for a month before the troubles began.