"So, I have been meaning to ask but how did you kill those beasts?" a frail and weak voice entered my ears, it was the beast lady who has posed the question, her name Aria.
Of course, her question wasn't as simple as how I killed those beasts but more about how I killed them with these chain handcuffs.
Her question showed how much these guys relies on mana and aura, without it they are total baggage, like never heard of traps and ambushes?
Wait..
Oh lord, I just realized I probably sound like those old folks from countryside who talk about how modern tech has made us younger generation some sort of whining babies...
I-I gotta answer the question of beast lady.
"With my hands" I said while showing her my cuffed hands, her expression showed her dissatisfaction with my answer, not like I care
What else can I say?
To begin with, it wasn't like I got attacked by the beasts. It was different, I had attacked them instead. Sneaking up on a sleeping beast and killing it. They are under the wrong assumption of I protected them from some beast to begin with.
What? How can I kill a sleeping beast? Well, anything that gives EXP is killable, that's the fundamental rule.
So, I killed. A lot of them until my screen showed I was ready to level up but I didn't.
I will wait until these chains are gone.
"How did you find the way to leave that place?" The man asked, probably referring to my swift escape from the prison.
That slight change in tone. I knew it.
"With the help of my skill, duh."
I wasn't going to tell them about the system, why would I?
What? What skills? Well, there exist skills in this world.
No, I am not talking about skills like driving skills or cleaning skills type of ones.
The skill I am referring to is the type of mental resistance skill or pain tolerance type of stuff, you get the gist.
For that matter, I don't have any skills.
Well, I don't have a class either.
What's class? Well, ever heard of the saying 'Everyone has a talent'? but have never figured out what your talent is and lived a mediocre life? You no longer have to worry!
Because with the help of the system, you can check your class and your talent!
No longer will you have to worry about putting your efforts in the wrong place!
So, yeah, that's what class is.
And Noah doesn't have one, of course, I know the reason for it. Noah did write about it in his diary, more accurately, bragged about it...
Regardless, that's not something I need to concern myself with.
"So, why did you guys decide to follow us?" I asked.
I wanted to avoid this situation, but in the end, they followed us.
They might have slept but they are not in good condition, and they won't be in one anytime soon either.
And that's slowing our speed down.
Well, nothing I can do about it, I better make good use of the situation.
"...We, just ..didn't want to eat t-them ...anymore"
Ah, the Elf lady must have said something related to the corpse-eating before leaving...
I see, I see.
Sometimes, even when you know you are wrong it doesn't sink into you unless told by someone else, and the Elf lady, Elina just did that for them.
Lol.
Like I had believe.
Normally two or three slaves running away shouldn't be a cause of concern for the demon or anyone but it's Elina who ran away not just someone. The demon has a history with Elina.
The fact that there's literally no one chasing us means only one thing.
"Um.. where are we going exactly?" Albert asked.
"Don't know, I am just following the Elf"
Of course, I know.
My divine mapping skill -system- knows all corners of this world.
"I have a name and it's Elina! I already told you!" The elf fumed with anger.
Yes, yes.
Whatever.
She let out a sigh, probably because of my disinterest as she looked towards Albert.
"We are going to one of the bases where everyone's hiding, it's about 30 km away from here, one of the underground facilities made by humans long ago."
It's 6 am right now, if we keep this pace up which is going to be impossible because I am sure these guys are gonna take breaks in between, taking that into account hopefully before night arrives we will be there.
Well, since we have so much time on our hands, I better get my answers.
"Hey, Elina, can you navigate mana in your body in a way that would let you take control of 'every' part, 'every' inch, 'every' fiber of your body?"
I had done that in my fight against the minotaur, I honestly don't know how I did it, I just did that during my whole dungeon charade.
To begin with, I wasn't even in my right mind. I mean, I was dying back then.
My consciousness was hazy, my brain messed up, I had a high fever, and a lot of stuff.
Back then, I just simply threw whatever idea popped into my head. I mean, you don't think much when you are dying, you just start doing whatever you have at your disposal and I just did that.
But now that the charade was over, I can't really help but wonder what the fucking hell was I doing.
Back then, I gotta say but I was fucking high.
Anyways, forget that, how the hell did I do all that?
I needed to know if what I did was possible or not, more accurately, if it was normal or not.
"No, that's not possible, controlling your body to some extent might be but completely and every part of your body? I don't think I have ever heard of something like that..." Elina paused for a second, one of her eyebrows arching "Why do you ask?"
"So, you can control your body to some extent? How so and in what way?"
"..Did you just ignore my question?" Elina scrunched up her face as she asked.
"I just substituted mine with yours, now the answer?"
Shameless as it might sound, I gave an honest reply, for I was taught to be an honest man.. only when it's not disadvantageous, of course.
"You are one shitty brat" Shaking her head a little Elina continued "You can control your body to some extent by weaving your mana into threads and then combining those threads into strings, but it's not as simple as it may sound, it takes a lot of time to master it, it would take a human half their life span to do the trick and if you are some sort prodigy maybe around 2 decades, that's how hard it is to do so. Though considering the time it takes to master the technique compared to how useful it is, it's not worth much. The strings are not that strong. They are weak only capable of subtle control of the body"
Gosh, I love apocalyptic settings!
What? Why am I saying this all of a sudden? Well, in a normal situation, Elves would never tell you about mana techniques that easily. I mean, that is their forte, why would you tell someone your trade secrets?
Though, it's different right now, weaklings banding together against the strong!
So, everyone's united.
Okay, jokes aside, her explanation is a serious matter of concern.
Let's say I can substitute that training time with Noah's intelligence, proof that the experiment was worth something after all but it still begs the problem of the 'weak' string that she told me just now.
...I guess, I will put this piece of puzzle in the back of my head.
"What about you? Is it possible to move your body using aura?" Tilting my head slightly to my left I posed the question to the beast lady, Aria.
Aria shook her head as she spoke "No, it's not and if you try to use the concept of strings it would be impossible to since aura is more viscous than mana it would be hard to use strings however you want"
That so?
How the hell did I do it then? It definitely isn't simply because of my intelligence ..something's missing and that might be related to why I got more severely injured than I initially had imagined I would be against the minotaur.
"You know, you can answer some of our questions too"
"Ask"
It would create problems if I kept ignoring her every time. It was okay for now but once these chains are removed, one needs to keep in mind that Elina, unfortunately, is a damn S-rank, I had be screwed.
"Who are you? Your rank? How did you get captured?"
It's not a rapid-fire round lady, keep your horses calm.
"Noah, G+ rank, wanted to see the inner workings of a prison so I decided to visit one"
What? That's a pretty good answer I gave.
"..Are you serious?" Elina asked with a bewildered look on her face, our other two companions also let out a gasp.
Hm? Was there a problem with my response?
I felt it would be trouble if I said anything more so I remained quiet continuing the journey.
"System-san, make sure to keep looking out for any beasts near our vicinity" I muttered and System saluted me and went to do its work.
Wouldn't wanna be attacked by a beast on the way.
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Finally, after some more traveling, we arrived at our destination.
It was a long and arduous journey, hiding ourselves whenever we found a beast approaching our direction, matching the pace with two slowpokes and stumbling here and there...
My companions, in the name only, were totally tired.
What about me? I already solidified a few potions (high uncommon grade) of mine and hid the tablets inside my mouth and of course, I consumed one of them along the way, I wasn't feeling tired.
Rewards from hidden dungeons are really the best.
"How are you still okay!?" Elina asked while huffing, a bit of frustration evident in her voice, somewhere on the journey Elina had decided to take the role of a nagging aunt for me, which I of course, didn't appreciate.
"You guys are all old folks, aren't ya? Age is catching up to you, that's all" Elina tried to kick me but because of her exhaustion I easily avoided it and made her trip by disturbing her footing.
"Ouch!" She fell on her butt "You shitty brat! Just wait until these chains are gone!" Elina shouted once again.
She needs to study some stuff about blood pressure.
"..So, where is the base, exactly?" Albert asked looking around the barren land.
Did this guy ever bother to listen to anything during the whole journey?
"Ah, give me a minute," Elina said, as she stood up dusting off the dirt from her butt "You guys aren't registered so you can't enter, give me a second"
Yes, this is one of the reasons I needed this Elf.
I mean, the system is showing that the base is here but for fuck's sake I can't seem to find it.
I can keep moving all day long and this illusion wouldn't let me enter. It wasn't simply illusion magic though some other ones are also imbued with it.
Only those who are registered under the magic can pass through the illusion.
And of course, the person who put this whole freaking magic in place is also gonna be an important character.
We followed Elina, in my eyes the whole place looked barren but that wasn't the case for Elina because the illusion didn't work on her, to begin with.
Soon after, she came to a stop.
After few seconds, she came towards us and took a drop of our blood.
Ouch.
"Alright, it's done"
Just as she said those words, my whole vision changed.