I couldn’t finish it all in one sitting, though, so I decided to save the rest in Shadow Storage for the time being while looking for my next prey.
Suddenly, a woman’s charming voice rang out. “Well, someone seems to be having fun.”
I used Detect immediately, but as expected, I didn’t find anything or anyone out of the ordinary within its decently large range. Either the individual who had spoken was a significant distance away from me, or they were communicating without using magic...but neither of those options was possible.
“Aw, did I scare you? Heh heh.”
What’s so funny? “Where are your manners? You can’t just call out to people like that.” I made sure to keep my voice level in order to mask my surprise.
“Oh, dear me. My apologies. Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Furuth. Nice to meet you!”
“Hard to ‘meet’ someone I can’t see.”
“You’re not going to tell me your name?”
“I’m not ballsy enough to introduce myself to someone I don’t see.”
“What a shame. Couldn’t you just let this slide? I have some things to take care of before I can show myself.”
As our conversation continued, I racked my brain for ideas. From the way she spoke, I could perhaps assume that she wasn’t able to read my mind. Detect also hadn’t worked on her. Suddenly, I remembered what had happened at the church. There’s no way this is a servant of god or something, right? She’s a little too friendly for that.
“Whatever. I’m more interested in the trick you’re using. Couldn’t care less about your name.”
“Trick? Oh—you mean the way I’m talking to you?”
“I don’t sense any kind of magic being used or anyone near me. Mind telling me how you’re doing this?”
“You can detect that kinda stuff? Not bad... But then you don’t know about this?”
Hm? From the way she’d phrased that, whatever she was doing might not have been all that rare.
“Well...” she went on, “I guess there aren’t many humans who can use Spirit Magic, so maybe that’s to be expected.”
“Spirit Magic?” I asked. “Also...‘human’?”
Given that I’d been on the receiving end of her questions ever since she’d forcefully started this conversation with me, she could bear fielding one measly question from me.
“Yes. I’m an elf, and I’m using Spirit Magic to speak with you. More specifically, I asked the wind spirits to carry my voice to you.”
She’s using spirits, and she’s an elf. There were barely any humans who were able to perceive or communicate with spirits. Thanks to that, I hadn’t found any writings on the subject. But still, was Spirit Magic something I couldn’t perceive with Detect? Was the thing I’d sensed back at the church also Spirit Magic? No—that had felt completely different from anything that existed in this dimension. That’s just my instinct, though.
“Sounds pretty handy. Wanna teach me?”
“You’re human, aren’t you? You need to be able to see or speak to spirits first. I don’t think you can do it.”
“I’d love to be able to see ’em. Where are they?”
“I think you misunderstand me. Spirits are everywhere. They’re in the air, the water, and in the ground itself. They may have different elemental affinities, but they are everywhere.”
Hm, I see... Spirits are all around us. If that was the case, then yeah, Detect definitely wasn’t picking them up. I was starting to value the Skill a little less. If it got any more unreliable than this, I’d probably have to lump it in with my useless Skills.
On the other hand, maybe the reason Detect hadn’t picked up on them was because they were so abundant. It was probably hard to distinguish a single spirit from the rest of the world—kinda like looking for a contact lens in the middle of an ocean. Hm, or maybe not quite like that. Anyway, it was entirely possible that I’d been detecting them this entire time; I just hadn’t been able to distinguish them as separate entities.
Detect allowed me to sense not only life signals, but mana, the ground, the air, and even water. Maybe this entire time I thought I’d been sensing land structures, but I was actually sensing spirits. That was a possibility. At the very least, it was worth investigating.
“Mind if I ask a few questions of my own?” she said.
Regardless, I’d have to save my research for later. I needed to deal with this bitch first.
“Hm? Did you just have a rude thought?”
“Just your imagination.”
“I’m not sure I believe you...but all right. You were just eating that skeleton, were you not?” She knew. She’d seen me. This could be bad. I needed to find her and shut her up fast. “Hunting at night is rather unusual to begin with, but you also possess abnormal magic tools. There’s more to you than meets the eye.”
It should have been plain as day that I didn’t have any magic tools on me. All I had on were my pants, shirt, and gauntlets. Can she not see me? She might’ve been fishing for information, or maybe she was basing assumptions on whatever information the spirits may have been feeding her.
“I showed you my hand, so how about you show me yours?” she went on.
“Not happening. What you told me was cheap compared to the value of the information you want from me. Spirit Magic is common knowledge among elves, right? Everything about me is classified.”
“Oh, what a shame.” Looks like she’s not going to put up a fight. “All I wanted was to bother you a little and perhaps have a bit of a chat. I’m not looking to pry information from you.”
“Great. Can I go now? I wanna get back to my stress relief.”
“Heh... You really are interesting. All right then. I look forward to meeting you once more.”
At once, her voice vanished, leaving me with these unsettling words. I had absolutely no desire to meet her again, and I doubted that I would, even if I’d wanted to. Elves and humans were enemies. Elves couldn’t get into Regin...not that they would even try. The elf that I’d spoken with had been an outlier. What kind of elf would want to talk to a human, or at least someone they perceived to be human? Weirdo.