"If we stay here for too long, will we end up like them?"
Vivianne finally realized this point.
"For sure! The higher your rank, the longer you can last, but light mage should have some resistance. As for angels, no need to mention!"
Judith giggled, her gaze unconsciously turning towards the window.
"But if this place is really from 10,000 years ago, escaping may not be so simple..."
"Why don't we go back to that cave and take a look?"
After considering it, I felt this might be the only way. The whole world should have looked like this 10,000 years ago, with nowhere else to hide. Even though that cave still seems a bit strange, if we all work together, we might be able to get through it since it's the only way out.
"But Adrian doesn't seem to want to leave..."
Vivianne glanced at the tightly closed room door and couldn't help sighing with a hint of worry on her face.
"Why don't you go check on him, Feliciana? Ask him what's really going on!"
"Huh? Me?"
Unexpectedly, she pushed the task onto me. To be honest, I'm also concerned about Adrian's behavior. Under Vivianne's insistent urging, I could only brace myself and walk over, gently knocking on the door.
"Knock knock knock..."
I knocked three times but there was no response. So I knocked three more times, but still no answer.
Did something happen? Just as I was anxiously about to break down the door, I realized it wasn't even locked. I opened it and went inside to see Adrian sitting on the bed, staring out the window with a clearly troubled look.
"Feliciana?"
As soon as I entered, he immediately stood up and reassured me.
"Don't worry! How could I not want to leave? I'll definitely go back with all of you, no need to worry about that at all."
"Um..."
I opened my mouth but couldn't get the words out that I had prepared. Well, he must have overheard my conversation with Vivianne outside.
"Then let's get going!"
This preemptive tactic left me feeling helpless, but since he had made such a statement, my task was accomplished.
Strangely though, even after a while Adrian showed no signs of actually moving to leave. Just as I was about to turn and exit first, I heard his voice from behind again.
"...It's been a long time, how have you been in Edenmere?"
"Huh?"
I was a bit confused why he suddenly brought this up. But come to think of it, it had indeed been a while since we last saw each other - not since we had just escaped back from the Dark Continent. After this journey to Edenmere, it seemed everyone had grown a lot.
"Edenmere was pretty good actually, Elara treated us well! And I also learned quite a bit there, even saved money from buying magic books and storage rings!"
Originally I had planned to catch up when returning to Norvale, but he wasn't home. Finally reuniting in this strange place after so much had happened, even being rescued by him again.
Thinking about it, I suddenly felt a bit embarrassed to see him. I wonder if he thinks I haven't made any progress?
"Did you get your memories back?"
I had thought Adrian might ask about some things related to Edenmere, and I was hesitating whether to tell him about Michelle's invasion. But instead he caught me completely off guard by asking about this.
"It's...still fine I guess..."
I was flustered - why was he still fixated on this? The lie I had made up to get by back then had been completely forgotten by me.
"No, actually there were never any previous memories to begin with!"
"Since I learned in Edenmere that I'm a newborn angel, it's normal that I can't remember anything from before."
My palms were getting sweaty, so I quickly wiped them on my back. This is bad! Fortunately, the circumstances of what happened in Elara Woodlands had been completely figured out, so even if I told him the truth, it wouldn't matter. After all, Adrian wouldn't know anything about before my reincarnation.
"I see, I've long heard that new angels are sometimes born through some kind of ritual. Is Nicola also a newborn angel? Though I don't really think she looks like one..."
Upon hearing this, Adrian pondered with a contemplative look, but still seemed a bit uncertain.
"And usually you two are inseparable, yet she let you wander off to a place like this alone. Did you two have a falling out?"
"Huh?"
This was totally not the case! I didn't expect him to misunderstand to this extent, so I quickly clarified.
"There's no falling out! Nicola just temporarily left to take care of something. Plus my strength has improved a lot recently, I even got certified as a 6th rank adventurer, so it's no problem without her!"
It seems in Adrian and the others' view, I'm always attached to Nicola. This issue has been brought up several times now, which is quite frustrating.
"Oh, is that how it is?"
He looked a bit disappointed, but was still surprised when he heard I reached 6th rank.
"I can't believe you reached 6th rank in such a short time, you've left me far behind..."
"But you've also awakened your Battle Qi and have foresight abilities, right? My 6th rank can't compare to that!"
I couldn't help retorting sourly. Compared to the limited light elemental magic, Battle Qi seemed far more overpowered.
Although the so-called foresight effect still seemed quite dubious to me, his rapidly increasing strength was undeniable. Adrian's future accomplishments would surely be immense! Of course, that's assuming we can escape alive from this era.
"It's not that exaggerated. I only just recently awakened and am at most 5th rank. Not to mention that foresight ability isn't what you think..."
Adrian scratched his head embarrassedly. But after hesitating for a while, he didn't continue further.
"Aren't we going back? Then let's get moving!"
With that, he took the lead walking ahead of me.
"Oh..."
I had the feeling he was hiding something from me, but I couldn't figure out what exactly, so I could only follow behind as we left the room.
Leaving the village was mostly smooth sailing. Ron even specially brought Mike's "corpse" along. Since he had been struck by the light beam summoned by the four-winged angel earlier, his body had accumulated an excess of light elements. After repeated scourging by the "Light's Judgment", Mike had still not completely perished, but was practically no different from death.
According to Judith, his physical issues were secondary - the main problem was his brain being severely "dulled". Even if they used special means to slowly strip the excess light elements from his body, he would still inevitably end up in a vegetative state.
However, it wasn't completely hopeless. For example, if he was placed in an environment saturated with dark elements like the Dark Continent, there was a slim chance he could recover. The trouble was that it would require an extremely long period and very precise calculations, with low odds of success.
Of course, in this era 10,000 years ago filled with light elements, that was impossible. So the only option was to find a way to bring Mike back to the future first.
...
"That can't be right, it should be around here!"
We returned to that small wooded area. Strangely, after searching through the bushes for a while, we couldn't find any trace of the tunnel exit we had originally left through.
"Are you sure it was an upwards exit on the surface?"
Vivianne asked me doubtfully. According to her memory, when they first arrived here, it was through emerging from a cave entrance, not some hole in the ground. Ron and the others had similar experiences, but no matter how thoroughly we searched all the potential cliff faces and similar areas nearby, there were no discoveries.
"Heheh, not normal, not normal at all!"
As if she had discovered some huge secret, Judith shook her head and muttered to herself while scanning the surroundings.
"The elemental aura of earth is way too high here, meaning some high-tier earth magic was likely used - no wait, in Beluto's era where would earth magic come from? ...Thinking about it that way, isn't this getting even more interesting!"
"Earth elements?"
I murmured to myself. Since I couldn't sense them, I didn't know if what she said was true.
Here is a translation of that passage into simple English with a Southeast Asian flavor:
Among the high-tier earth magic, there is a special category called spatial translocation. All spatial magic comes from this type. Although I can't use earth magic myself, I do know some general knowledge about it.
This made me think about how Cysper had suddenly disappeared in that cave - could it be related to this? What's really strange is that after everyone shared their experiences, it turned out mine and the Pope's encounters were the most bizarre.
The others did not encounter randomly appearing forks in the path. They basically just followed one path straight through, quickly passing through the cave to arrive at this place. They also didn't hear any weird sounds.
This is really confusing. Could those forks in the path really have just been illusions?
"What should we do if we can't go back?"
After the fruitless search, Vivianne became completely flustered.
With the only way out blocked, does that mean we really have to stay in this era 10,000 years ago? Perhaps for an angel like me it may not have much special impact, but the others definitely won't last long.
Judith and Vivianne have the lowest ranks, so they will likely turn into those villager-like beings soon. As for Ron and Adrian, maybe they can last a year or two more.
==============================================================
If you enjoyed the novel and would like to support my work, you can contribute through PayPal: https://www.paypal.com/paypalme/snowriver33
Your generosity is appreciated, but entirely optional. Thank you for being a reader!