Selena ca back over with another bottle of wine, this one already half empty.
"Lyra wanted to bring this to your table. She’s too shy to co over herself." She nodded toward a blonde elf woman sitting near the window. Mid-thirties, maybe, with kind eyes and flour dusted on her apron which made Emily’s eyes sharpen with focus.
"That’s Lyra." Toris interrupted before Emily could say anything. "She runs the bakery. Makes the best bread in the village."
Lyra caught Eren looking and gave a small wave then imdiately went back to her al like she did use up all her courage.
Another elf, a man with green hair and a tired face stopped by the table with his own cup. "I am Thadric human. Hello. I’m one of the ranchers." He offered his hand and Eren bumped it. Elves didn’t have handshake but loved the idea of fist bumping in the last two weeks. It was a new cultural movent of Eren’s part.
Thadric smiled. "Heard you’ve got so kind of teleportation skill. That true?"
"Sothing like that."
"Handy. Wish I had sothing that useful." Thadric grinned. "All I’ve got is better aim and faster reflexes. Gets the job done but it’s not flashy."
"Flashy doesn’t an better." Emily blurted quietly but there was weight behind the words. Eren was actually curious about sothing else. "What exactly are we ranching. Cow?"
"Naah. We all wish the village had a couple cows. We have yaksha. Horsy animal. Hard at and strong monster blood. They are awful as ranch animals."
"I will make a guess. They are also smart so you don’t want to eat their at most of the ti..." Eren smiled as his guess was true.
Yaksha was mostly used for transportation like a horse, definitely not a cow!
Thadric raised his cup. "To Emily. Level fifty and still humble enough to sit with the rest of us."
"Haha. Funny..." Emily looked as the most beautiful woman Eren even saw with that mimics and smile.
I am really lucky. She is too good for soone like ...
They all drank to that and Eren relaxed completely. He was smiling despite the lingering mana fatigue or too many people were coming and going from the restaurant and look at them.
He felt like a local celebrity’s husband with a bit fa himself.
He finished third or fourth cup of wine and poured a new one. The warmth in his chest had spread to his head now, making everything feel soft around the edges. He leaned closer to Emily and rested his head on her shoulder.
"You’re warm." He whispered while acting as if it was a secret between them.
Emily laughed and tried to push him off. "You’re drunk."
"Not yet honey. Getting there though." He stayed where he was, enjoying the way she slled like forest, fruit juice and a little bit of leather. Her sll was perfect.
"You can drink maybe one cup if you want. Don’t take my words too seriously. I know almost nothing about Elven biology, rember. Maybe except the parts...." He added so naughty things and made her blush.
"Absolutely not, for both of them." She rejected Eren’s half serious offers but there was a smile in her voice. "Also if I want to get drunk we should do that in our ho. Soone has to make sure you get ho without falling in a ditch."
Toris laughed from across the table. "He’s going to regret that fifth cup tomorrow."
Eren was shocked as he wouldn’t even imagine this was his fifth cup.
"Probably." Emily ran her fingers through Eren’s hair. "But he’s celebrating. Let him have this."
The conversation shifted after that and Eren only half listened. Sothing about mana regeneration. Emily was explaining how it worked to Thadric.
"Mana cos from Evon or out planet Aradne itself, I don’t rember the specifics. It was sothing like the world feeds it to you slowly. That’s why dungeons and forests recharge you faster than cities or Labyrinths. Nature based places has more nature mana in air, obviously... " Her voice wasn’t so sure actually.
Her mother explained many things at so point of her early childhood.
The problem was her blurry mories. She was tiny back then, maybe around seven or eight. And she didn’t give a crap about most of it, like most children do.
She ignored most of the boring stuff her toxic parents said in those days.
"What about other worlds like he ca from?" Thadric asked. He and the rest of the Village heard for the first ti other worlds or even Universes existed. Even Emily didn’t hear anything about such stuff from her mother.
"Depends on the world, but we can only guess." Emily glanced down at Eren who was still using her shoulder as a pillow. "If you went sowhere without mana like Earth, you wouldn’t recharge at all. You would be stuck with whatever you had when you arrived."
"That sounds dangerous. But is it certain?" Toris asked.
"It is. I heard most mages or strong beasts don’t enter suspicious places in our world. My mother used to say many tis that there are cities with mana locks in it. Designed to trap magical beasts or so strong people and make them slaves.
Just imagine. The mont a creature or a mage enters and use their skills, they can’t regenerate mana anymore! No mana makes them extrely easy to hunt, right." Her face was excited. Like if she had the sa option, Emily would use it on the village and call it a day.
Would make her days of protecting the village easy-peasy.
Eren filled that information inside his head for later, when his head wasn’t swimming in honey added Zen wine.
By the ti they left the restaurant, Eren’s head was spinning pleasantly. Emily had to steady him twice on the walk ho.
They walked slowly and Emily humd sothing under her breath, a tune Eren didn’t recognize but liked anyway.
"I want to try sothing tomorrow." He knew the idea would work.
"What kind of sothing?" Emily liked surprises.
"Opening a door to my house on Earth. Just for a few seconds. I want to leave a note for my family. Let them know I’m alive. I am pissed at myself for not doing it earlier."
Emily stopped walking and turned to face him. "Do you think that’s a good idea?"
"Probably not. But I can’t just disappear without a word. My parents are probably worried sick by now."
She didn’t argue. Just nodded and kept walking.
She gets it. That’s one of the things I love about her.
When they got ho, Eren collapsed on the couch and stared at the ceiling. His mana pool was still empty and slowly refilling. By tomorrow morning, he would have enough to try again.
He stood up with great effort and took a piece of yellow paper and a feather pen from Emily’s board in living room.
Better to write the note now, while he still had so coordination left. When the portal opened, he only have a few seconds to shove it through or throw.
He kept it simple:
I’m alive and safe. Don’t worry about . I’ll explain everything when I see you. But I need you to put a single water bottle on the exact place you find this note. Thrust .
- Eren
He folded the paper and set it on the table where he would see it first thing in the morning.
Emily ca out of the bedroom in light cloths. She saw him staring at the note.
"Isn’t that really short. That’s all you’re going to tell them?" She couldn’t read the the strange language but it looked tiny.
"What else can I say? I fell through a magic door into an elf village? They will think I lost my mind or kidnapped."
"Fair point." She kissed his cheek and pulled him toward the bedroom. "Co on. Sleep. You’ll feel awful tomorrow."
"Already do." But he followed her anyway and felt better after hugging her alluring body. Two seconds of their bodies touching on the bed made Emily blush as a bonus. Charisma and his new class was working flawlessly.
Emily still insisted to continue their night activities. At the very least at until one month passed. And Eren didn’t resist, or couldn’t after Emily dropped her cloths.
Charisma and improved stats showed their magic for Eren’s lower side.
After half of the night, he couldn’t move much of his limbs. But Emily was more experienced by now and they tried new things, even if Emily said no in the restaurant.
Eren managed to convince the girl to try yaksha-girl position so it was a huge win in his book..!
...
The next morning, Eren woke up with a splitting headache and a mouth that tasted like sothing had died in it. He knew the Earth wine was sneaky but apparently harmless looking Elf Wine was the sa.
Who could have guess!
Emily was already up and dressed and moving quickly around the kitchen. She glanced over when she heard him groan.
"How are you feeling?"
"Like I got hit by a truck made of regret."
"What is a truck?" She ca closer and kissed him on the cheeks.
"A dragon size tree but you can sit on it and it can move really fast like alfa wolfs." Eren didn’t even know what he was saying. His headache was awful and they didn’t have any painkillers in this village!
She laughed and handed him a cup of water with purple color. "Drink this. I added sothing extra. You’ll feel better."
He drank the whole thing in one go and imdiately felt marginally less dead.
"My mana’s full again." He checked his pool out of habit. 240 points. More than enough. "I’m going to send the letter to ho."
He didn’t realize when he said ho, Emily looked sad for a second.
He grabbed the note from the table where he had left it the night before. His handwriting was ssier than usual but readable.
Emily nodded but didn’t say anything. She just watched as he stood and walked to the bedroom wall.
He placed his hand against the wood and focused on his old bathroom. The tiles. The mirror. The door that had started all of this. He could probably use it on other places but visuals and imagination was a big part of the skill description..
The mana drained in an instant, leaving him hollow. The door appeared, glowing faint blue and through it Eren could see his bathroom exactly as he left it. Maybe three seconds. Four if he was fast.
He shoved the folded note through the opening and watched it land on the bathroom floor.
The door slamd shut before he could see anything else.
"Done." He muttered, more to himself than Emily.
"Think they’ll find it?"
"Eventually. My parents co to check the house every two weeks or so. And they would co sooner when I don’t answer their communication device. You heard it before. A Phone call." He paused. "Or my girlfriend would find it. If she hasn’t already moved on."
The thought stung more than he expected so he pushed it away and focused on the present.
Emily was standing in the doorway, watching him with that look again. The one that said she understood more than she let on.
"Co on." She whispered. "Let’s go have a breakfast!"
Eren smiled as they went outside. "I bet you just want to use your new skills!"
She laughed with the idea but didn’t say no. Eren followed her to the breakfast. But suddenly stopped for a mont.
Took a deep breath and forced himself to believe everything would work out. Like his family would find the note. His and Emily’s baby would be born healthy, hopefully a girl that looked liked her elven mother...
Achieving these would be enough.
Until he started hearing screams...
And they were coming from everywhere!
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