Chapter 43: Contacting Elane
Unaware of the stir he was about to cause in the Insulus City F rank forums, Rohan stepped out of the Awakened Association with a shine in his eyes.
’I feel like I’m forgetting something...’
"Oh shit!"
Rohan facepalmed as he called up his short list of contacts, and typed in a string of numbers that he put a lot of thought into memorising before being kicked out of the Origin Realm.
’Elane Caldwell? This must be her.’
It was the only result that showed up when he tried to add the number to his contacts, with it also being the first time he was learning her full name.
Though it wasn’t anything he recognised. He was half expecting her to be the daughter of some big shot Awakened with the way she talked about her father and his wise teachings so much.
’She must just be the daughter of a decently well off Awakened who had done well for himself.’
Caldwell wasn’t a name that stuck out to him.
Without delay, he initiated a call with her.
The line rang three times, before it finally connected after the fourth.
"...Hello?" Elane’s voice came through, sounding tired and a little hoarse.
Rohan let out an unconscious smile when he saw Elane’s face appear on his screen.
She appeared to be so fatigued and tired that she still hadn’t noticed his own face appear on hers.
"Did I catch you at a bad time?" He asked.
There was a brief pause, and a few wide eyes exchanges between the two, before Elane’s mood visibly rose.
"Rohan!? You finally made it back!"
However her voice and mood both fell to an almost timid level immediately following.
"...I’m sorry. I left you to die in that hellhole all alone."
Elane lowered her head, as though embarrassed and ashamed.
"Huh? Die, where did you get that idea from?"
Rohan kept a wide smile on the whole time.
Elane looked back at him in surprise.
"You mean you made it out alive!? How did you survive for so long in that place... I remember wondering aimlessly for maybe half an hour before encountering you on the stone platform when I arrived in the Origin Realm, so you would have to survive over 30 minutes longer in that place before being kicked out!"
Elane looked at him incredulously.
"How the hell did you survive that?"
Rohan cleared his throat and winked... regretting that gesture immediately.
"You go first. I’ve been wondering this whole time how it seemed like you knew when you were going to be kicked out, and told me how to contact you in advance."
Elane stared blankly for a moment, then burst into laughter.
"By checking the time. One of the many purchases I made when shopping for equipment was a small pocket watch that worked in the Origin Realm. Don’t tell me you overlooked such a simple but useful fact like that?"
Elane knew already that he had, and was just mocking him for it by this point.
Rohan blushed a little.
He did, in fact, overlook buying a watch. His mind had been so full of how technology failed to work in the Origin Realm that he looked over the most important thing, was that it was limited to electronic technology that didn’t work.
Analogue watches still worked just fine.
Rohan made a note to go buy a sturdy one for himself.
Elane smoothly brushed past the topic.
"So tell me, quickly! What happened after I was kicked out?"
Rohan lifted a finger to his chin and began recounting.
"Oh, nothing too interesting really. The Ant was so unbothered by my presence that it spent the first five minutes lazily choosing whether to actually deal with me or not. Even when it did, it took its leisurely time making its way over to me."
Elane nodded in interest.
"But get this, I noticed Sarah entering the chamber through a small gap in the wall behind the Ant in an attempt to steal the Treasure. Oh, the treasure was a scary looking flower, by the way. So right before the Ant was upon me, I made a mad dash behind it and managed to deliver a dose of Karma to Sarah and the others by shifting the Ant’s attention away from me onto the figure currently trying to extract the flower out from the ground."
Elane let out a strained laugh at that.
"I wish I could have seen their faces."
"Oh, so do I. I passed out after that, and woke up back in my apartment. I thought I did die at first, but turns out I didn’t."
The two of them continued recounting the events that occurred after to each other, Rohan vaguely telling her about his Strength test, and Elane awkwardly skirting around the topic of her father and her family’s reactions to her return.
Her situation was much more interesting than his. She was a normal student who’d just failed her third awakening and disappeared soon after.
It was normal for those around her to think that she had run away from home, or done something even worse.
But to find out that she was an Awakened after she reappeared in her room while her cousins were inside packing her stuff into boxes...
That was one thing Rohan wished he could see.
It was one of the few things Elane actually shared about her family, and it was simply because of how funny the situation was.
Though Elane felt awkward after finding out that Rohan lived alone with no family remaining — especially after she put so much emphasis on her own family problems. What problems could she complain about compared to what Rohan had to go through in the past.
It gave her a fresh new perspective on her own situation.
"So what did you want to call me for in the end?"
Rohan asked, only just remembering the original purpose of him contacting her.
"Oh... I assumed that we were going to die and end up being separated to different cities on our next time entering, I wanted a way to contact you so we could find each other again. I wasn’t expecting... both of us to return alive."
Elane blushed a little.
"I see... Wanna meet up? I have a surprise to show you, try not to freak out when you see it."
Elane was surprised by the sudden request, and seemed a little hesitant to agree at first.
"Okay."
But her curiosity got the better of her, wondering what was so surprising that it could make her "freak out".
"How about we take on a low rank gate together? See if we can get you a Gene or Genetic Armament. I can’t be the only one doing all the heavy lifting whenever we fight together." Rohan joked.
Elane seemed particularly interested in that idea, and agreed instantly.
"Where should we meet?"
Rohan realised that he hadn’t even asked her location yet.
"I live in Primus, is that an issue?"
’She lives in the capital!’
Rohan recognised the name at a glance. Every human alive did, as it was the capital city of Earth and a gathering place for some of the strongest Awakened in the Solar System.
"Nope. I can be there in 2 hours."
Even though he lived on the opposite side of the planet from Primus, travel across such distances wasn’t an issue in this day and age.