Chapter 232 : Chapter 232
Chapter 232. Getting Familiar
With Fulan joining the battle, the skeletons were quickly cleaned up by the two of them working together.
Those skeletons had already been struggling somewhat even against the elf alone, let alone with Fulan added on top of that.
When the bones of the last skeleton cracked apart and rolled onto the ground in several pieces, the battle came to an end.
The elf turned to look at Fulan, her expression complicated. She wanted to speak, yet seemed unsure how to begin, especially since her gaze kept drifting toward Fulan’s perfectly ordinary human ears.
In the end, Fulan was the one who spoke first.
“Hey, this is my first time seeing an elf. Are you all right?”
“I’m fine... You can call me Anna. Hello, my ‘kinswoman.’”
Fulan deliberately froze for a moment, then said,
“My name is Fulan. I think you may have mistaken me for someone else. I’m not an elf. I’m human...”
Fulan had no real understanding of the elf race at all. The various schools were fond of hoarding knowledge about these non-human races, so she only knew that many races existed in this world, not what exactly was going on with them.
Naturally, there was no way Fulan would force her old stereotypes from her previous life onto the matter. Besides, in her previous life, there had been all kinds of different settings for elves. How was she supposed to know which one applied here?
Anna was taken aback, then paused slightly before saying,
“That makes sense. Looking like this, you must have grown up among humans.”
Then Anna paused again and continued,
“No matter what, my eyes and senses cannot be mistaken. You do carry elven blood in you. There is even a unique sense within your body. It’s just that I don’t understand why you don’t have ears like ours.”
“And the Elven Swordsmanship you just used confirms it for me. You most likely do have elven blood.”
Fulan smacked her lips and objected,
“That can’t be right. I remember the teacher who taught me Elven Swordsmanship could use it too...”
Anna suddenly interrupted her.
“When those humans claim they can use Elven Swordsmanship, do they really know how to use it?”
“They can never truly sense the composition of the air, nor can they use that extra organ to alter the surrounding air composition, thereby making it easy to change direction in midair...”
Fulan blinked and said curiously,
“But isn’t there a Modification School among mages? Can’t they alter someone else’s organs or their own to gain more abilities? If someone had an elven organ transplanted into them, then they should be able to do it too, right?”
Anna smiled in response.
“No. Those people from the Modification School could never succeed. You may not know this, but the brains of humans and other races simply cannot process the information brought by that elven organ. They cannot use it. Even if it were connected to their bodies, it would still produce no result.”
Fulan nodded. She truly had not known that. That was a matter belonging to the Modification School, and with the way all the schools guarded their knowledge, how could she possibly know anything about elven body modification?
She had only asked out of pure curiosity and had not expected such an answer.
Still, there should not be any extra organs in her body. Yet she really had experienced the sort of sensation Anna described as belonging to an elven organ.
And from the shallow level of modification knowledge she currently possessed, such a surgery most likely would not involve altering the brain.
Even in her previous life, the brain had been a mass of mystery, and in this magical world, even if there were methods that could affect the brain, they were probably indirect at best.
She withdrew her thoughts and began asking Anna,
“Then... Anna, why are you here in the Northern Frontier? I thought this wasn’t an area where elves were active.”
A trace of awkwardness appeared on Anna’s face when she heard that question, and she did not answer immediately.
There was no issue with Fulan, who looked completely human, appearing here. But for Anna, who still carried obvious elven features, her presence here was more questionable.
Even Fulan knew that the regions where elves were active were extremely far from here.
She had only heard of two elven activity zones that were relatively “close” to the Alliance.
One was to the west, by crossing the continent through dozens of countries or regions until one reached the Forest of Elves, the traditional homeland of the elves.
The other was to the east, by taking a maritime route. Through certain fixed sea lanes, one could reach the waters around the Elven Isles, where elves also lived.
But that voyage alone would still take at least a month to reach the Elven Isles.
And Fulan guessed that Anna was most likely from the Elven Isles. The land route passed through too many countries, and for a First-Tier Professional to cross so many lands alone without incident was simply far too difficult.
“I came ashore at White Dragon Harbor, then followed a small team into the Northern Frontier. My profession is Ranger, you know. If I want to advance, then my only real options are basically to become an adventurer or a mercenary.”
A profession like Ranger was in a very awkward position. It was a relatively flexible profession, naturally skilled at kiting, ranged attacks, and quickly adapting to dangerous environments.
Those professional traits meant it was basically useless in many major powers.
For example, if your force went to war against another and you wanted to scout the enemy’s preparations, there was already a specialized battlefield profession for that: the Vanguard Knight.
That profession possessed specialized intelligence-gathering abilities and a certain level of combat strength, and it was also far sturdier than a Ranger. Any sensible person would choose the Vanguard Knight over the Ranger.
So Rangers were more of an individual profession. In many situations, their standing was even lower than that of a Warrior advanced through the Spirit Realm, though in terms of personal survival, Rangers were indeed far superior to many other professions.
“What about you? Why did you come to the Northern Frontier? Judging by the way you look, you shouldn’t be from here, right?”
Anna carefully studied Fulan’s features. She lacked the look normal Northern Frontier people had after living in a frigid environment.
Even from her facial features alone, Anna could tell Fulan was not someone from the Northern Frontier.
Fulan’s eyes shifted slightly, then she answered directly,
“I’m a Battle Mage from the Alliance. I came here to complete a commission from the lord of Snow Bear Territory and eliminate an Undead Creature inside a mine. Were those skeletons just now summoned by the Undead Creature from one of the mine shafts?”
They were already not far from that mine shaft, so those skeletons might very well have been summoned by the Undead Creature there.
Fulan did not conceal her true purpose. In her view, there was no need for that. She had only pretended to be of elven blood in order to extract some information from Anna.
And according to Fulan’s guess, Anna was very likely one of those thieves rather than one of the mercenaries.
That much could be seen from her behavior.
A true mercenary would inevitably value her life greatly. Long-term missions could cost people their lives at any moment, so a Ranger would almost never act alone.
That was because a Ranger’s frontal combat ability was somewhat weak compared with other melee professions.
In many cases, a team would have a Ranger, but that person was usually responsible for scouting information and setting traps.
No Ranger working as a mercenary would choose to operate alone, because Rangers themselves understood very well just how weak their frontal combat ability was among first-tier professionals.
And after hearing that entire explanation from Fulan, Anna’s eyes widened at once. Her hand trembled violently for a moment before she forcibly calmed herself and said in a clear, cool voice,
“You’re a mage from the Alliance?!”