Luke blinked.
He was sitting down on a chair, and in front of him was a piece of paper, about one half of it scribbled with various oddly-shaped symbols.
"Luke?"
Luke blinked a few more times.
"Luke? Are you okay?"
Luke turned his head to the right, only to be faced with a worried pair of eyes as blue as the ocean.
'Lala…'
Her gaze helped in clearing his confusion.
'Why did I blank out? It has never happened before.'
Luke smiled at the worried Lala.
"I'm fine. We can continue."
Lala sighed a breath of relief and scolded Luke.
"Don't worry me like that!"
"Haha, I'm sorry, I was just lost in thought."
Lala pouted.
'This girl is really too gullible…'
At this point in time in the previous loop, Luke still had his guard completely up, but after only spending a few short hours with her, he realized how out of place a seemingly innocent person like her was in this world.
He gradually lowered his guard, and this of course translated to the current Luke as well.
Luke glanced at his watch.
'18:50 o'clock. I need to head out right now if I want to make it to the village before the massacre takes place.'
"Anyways, Lala, I have urgent business to take care of. We'll need to reschedule this tutoring session."
Lala's eyes narrowed for a split second before turning back to normal.
Luke wasn't paying much attention to her expression as he was in the middle of standing up.
As he stood up, he noticed Lala's gaze.
She was just silently staring at Luke, pressuring him into explaining himself.
"I really am sorry about this but I must go. It also concerns the reason of why I blanked out in the first place. I have almost forgotten about it."
Luke was mixing in lies with the truth.
'Why is she so suspicious all of a sudden?'
Lala plainly announced to Luke:
"I'm going with you."
Luke raised his eyebrows in surprise. This was the last thing he would've ever expected her to say.
He looked at Lala with a stern expression.
"I can't take you with me, it will be dangerous."
Lala's eyes glinted as she put her right hand on her chest.
"What kind of a teacher would I be if I just let my student go somewhere dangerous when he's supposed to be in my care?"
Luke was left speechless.
'She's… passionate.'
"It seems like you're going to come with me no matter what, but I'll say it once again. It's going to be dangerous. We may even possibly die."
Luke couldn't help it, so he decided to accept her proposal.
Lala suddenly stood up, swooped her right hand through the air, and proclaimed:
"I can take care of myself!"
Luke sighed.
'Yup. Passionate.'
"Fine. We don't have much time, so follow closely behind me."
Lala nodded strongly.
She turned around and pointed her open hand towards her bag, probably full of various supplies.
The bag turned into a beam of light and disappeared.
'What the hell?! Where did the bag go to?'
Lala turned around, and sensing Luke's confusion, explained:
"Is it your first time seeing a storage elemental?"
'There was such a convenient elemental?!'
Luke nodded.
"Explained simply, it temporarily transforms material objects into mana, and stores them inside of your soul. When you need to use what you have stored, the mana transforms back into its original physical form."
'I still don't get it. How is it possible to transform something from a physical form into an intangible one? If mana were to exist on modern day Earth, the society as I know it would leap centuries, no, millennia ahead!'
Luke shook his head and put his jumbled thoughts aside. He had bigger fish to fry.
"Let's head out."
Lala nodded with a serious expression.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Not only was Lala able to keep up, but she did so with ease.
'In what way could she use the water elemental to move so fast? She was a priestess of the Water Temple, so movement techniques were probably very basic to learn…'
If Luke was to be described as a chaotic whirlwind while running, Lala would be described as a gently flowing stream.
Any movement she made contained a great amount of elegance.
'She would most probably be able to easily outpace and outmaneuver me if we were to fight.'
Luke got goosebumps at the thought.
'I need to be careful not to provoke the Temples...'
If he was to get to the apex of this world, he would probably need to face off against the Temples sooner or later, but he'd rather want it to be much, much later.
Befriending some of them was also an option, as long as they didn't get in his way.
The sun had already set about two hours ago.
The village would soon appear in front of the pair.
And so it did.
Lala glanced at Luke and spoke out first:
"I can see some lights up ahead. Is that where we are headed?"
Luke nodded.
The lights that Lala had mentioned were the ones coming from the various buildings in the village, particularly from the tavern that Luke was familiar with. They weren't too bright but could still be noticed from where the pair was right now.
'I wonder if Boldee was also murdered in the previous loop…'
Luke hadn't check Boldee's tavern in the previous loop.
'Did I just forget to check? No… It's more likely that I just intentionally didn't want to check.'
Luke had a good opinion of Boldee, as he had helped Luke out a lot.
'Well, I'll try to save him this time around either way.'
Luke wasn't here to save the villagers.
He didn't really care about them, plus one of them had already murdered Luke once for a very petty reason.
It just happened to fit his interests to come and stop the massacre from ever occurring.
'I want to find out who the hell that guy in the black robe is. I also want his elemental for myself.'
Luke had a hunch that whoever slit his throat in Millef while he was asleep had to be connected to the black robed man.
Their killing methods were too similar.
Lala and Luke had finally arrived in the village, and so they started scouting.
Luke then proceeded to explain what he knew about the black robed man and his bizarre abilities to Lala.
Safe to say, he quickly finished explaining as he had very little information.
Lala nodded, her finger was on her chin, as if she were processing the information that Luke has given her.
"Hmm… I think it's safe to say that we are dealing with someone who is using a shadow elemental."
'A shadow elemental?! Is that even possible to deal with?'
As long as there was light, there would be shadows.
It's a cosmic rule that cannot be broken.
Or so Luke thought.
'I know that I'm no longer on Earth, but shadows existing without any prerequisites is just too absurd even to me!'
This line of thought passed through the head of a man who could conjure wind and fire out of thin air.
Luke sighed.
"Do you have any ideas on how to deal with such an elemental?"
Lala furrowed her eyebrows.
"There is something that may just work…"