The two walked through the dungeon. Sera would have preferred to run, but to preserve her own and more importantly her sister’s stamina – not that Sarah would have been able to keep up in the first place – she decided against it. Getting further down the path, the dungeon seemed more and more like some repurposed cave instead of some game-like dungeon, consisting only of a long passage and a boss room. Though the twins also couldn’t eliminate the possibility that there were other doors in the room they were summoned to or she broke the dungeon cave by sacrificing it…
At some point during their walk their invulnerability expired and they slowed down a bit. Though with further dead bodies lying around and no traps found so far, neither the invulnerability nor them slowing down now seemed to be necessary in the first place.
Lastly the environment changed. The weirdly lit pathway, even though neither lights nor fluorescent vegetation could be seen, got brighter. Looking carefully around another corner, they could see the exit of the cave.
“Can you still go on?” Sera asked her sister worriedly.
Sarah’s breathing was slowly getting heavy. “According to my stamina… i should last for a bit more. But regardless of that, it would be better to get out now, before whoever could be outside had time to organize themself.” Even if her stamina runs out, she should be able to continue on by burning her health, according to Eas. Not that she wanted to use that ability, but it was better than being caught later.
“Yea, then let’s go.”
Continuing on, the two walked vigilantly to the exit. Fortunately there wasn’t much outside and especially no guards. The direct vicinity of the cave seemed to be completely empty, devoid of natural or artificial structures as well as life and further away there were what appeared to be dead trees. Just dry pillars without a single leaf were nearby.
Reaching the exit, peering out into the outside world they could only see a dead forest and behind it more trees. It was a bit hard to discern, as everything was clad in twilight and long shadows reduced the visibility. However there was still nothing that looked like anyone waiting for them. Not even an ambush, as unlike as that would be.
They also couldn’t see any structures nearby, the whole summoning seemed more and more like something cultists would do, with it happening in such a remote appearing location. Unless, those rituals going wrong was common, however Sarah doubted that that was the case.
Not losing their vigilance, the two quickly passed through the clearing in front of the cave to the lush forest. Decaying grass covered the ground. Then they arrived at the first dead trees. The plants looked even worse than expected. Splinters were broken out of them, branches twisted and cracked. As there were also plants on her list of sacrificed materials, it would make sense that Sarah was the reason for this. However another discovery interrupted those thoughts.
The air seemed to slowly change as they came closer to the still living forest. It was hard to describe… but it felt as if the air itself was alive. As if the warmth of the sun reached her skin. Like the refreshing moisture in the wind near a creek. Yet those descriptions still couldn’t quite capture what it felt like.
It felt… weirdly similar to her laboratory. Continuing that thought and also remembering her Mana Sense skill she quickly opened her status.
[Mana: 2/520]
Her mana started to recover. Looking at the environment they seemed to leave the area where she depleted the mana from.
Getting a bit annoyed by opening the status menu permanently to check her condition, Sarah quickly sent a query to the system. A few thoughts later she had resource-bars similar to those in games in her vision. Though, that description wasn’t exactly correct… The bars were similar to the status screen and log messages. All three were visual information, yet they were still outside of her field of vision and didn’t block it, like having a second monitor. It was a bit weird, but in a positive sense. As if she had suddenly gained another sense.
[Mana: 3/520]
Having now an easier access to her status, it didn’t take long to notice the next change in her mana value.
[Mana: 4/520]
As they then made it to the forest, her recovery roughly capped at about 8 mana per minute. If her internal clock wasn’t wrong. A value without much meaning, as she didn’t know what the normal mana recovery was or what a point of mana could accomplish. Though now being hidden through the trees and with her sister still looking for dangers maybe she could create a water ball or something? Through her experiments on Earth she had a good idea of how it could be achieved, yet once she tried to conjure the water, that knowledge seemed to be obsolete. Instincts she didn’t know she had, offered her a far easier way to create the element. Stopping there, she paused for a moment. Mentally. Physically she was still trying to keep up with her sister, which was now much harder due to the bushes and her further decreasing stamina. Back to the distraction of her slowly tiring body, she tried the same with air. She still had her old knowledge, but now the instincts remained silent. No shortcut, no improvements, nothing. So it seemed those “instincts” were related to one’s affinity? Again she stopped her casting. She was on her last points of stamina. Even with those distracting thoughts, she wasn’t able to ignore her body any longer. And she also wanted to test the theory that affinity gave one basic knowledge about magic, without having to look for her environment to not stumble.
“Hey…. can we… stop for… a moment?” Under heavy breathing Sarah asked her sister.
“Let’s see…” Sera slowed a bit down and looked around. She couldn’t detect anything creature-like, not even insects, though there was the option that such beings didn’t exist here in the first place. The green leaves were quietly rustling in the amber light of the setting sun. Finding a smaller, presumably young tree without much vegetation around it, a [Twilight Tree Lv 4] according to Eas, she went near it and poked the plant with her sword. While her battle instincts remained silent and usually warned her from danger, there was no need to risk those plants actually being something which could attack them. Nodding at the missing reaction the sword fighter turned her back to the tree while still keeping a small distance from it. “We can probably rest here for a while.” The conversation was still in a low voice. Even though Sarah started it due to her anxiety around other people, it wasn’t a bad choice in an area where potential hunters, be it enemies, animals or magical creatures, live.
Still staying vigilant, Sera took off her helmet, which seemed to have changed since coming to the Realms. The weird feeling on her head was quickly explained as the helmet of her sport armor was now made out of some dark, nearly black metal. The visor was completely missing and the inside was stuffed with fur, nothing like the modern helmet she wore during the tournament, which was probably made mostly out of some plastic. Her armor, now consisting of a coat and trousers, had changed to a similar style. Dark brown colored leather with metal like that of the helmet attached to it. Some of the metal plates had spikes on them, probably meant to catch blades before they hit the easier damageable parts of the armor. Fingerless gloves of the same leather also covered her hands. It seemed unlikely that her new armor was as strong as the one it replaced, but neither was she sure how armor-strength worked in this world nor did she want to test it. At least her black boots basically looked like what she had worn on Earth, even though they probably also changed their material.
Yet those changes weren’t the only ones which happened to her. Without the head-armor it was clearly visible that her short black hair had changed. As if colored a few weeks ago only the roots of her hair were still black, but unlike when colored, it slowly faded to white the longer it grew. A few thin colored streaks were further mixed in but without any logic or system. Red, green, yellow, blue and many more, all in different intensities, somewhere in between the black-to-white-hair which was still the predominant color of her hair.
Though the mess of her hair – as some would consider it as – didn’t stop there. While her hair was still mostly the same short tomboyish length, some tufts were ten to fifteen centimeters longer. In general, the most fitting word for her hairstyle would probably be wild, if one wanted to try to see it positively.
Furthermore her eyes looked different too. Her brown eyes had become heterochromatic. The left one was now dark blue, while the right iris was light green and near the pupils of both the color turned to a fiery gold, as if a star was at the center of her eyes. Even the shapes of her iris had changed. They were still round as a base shape, but again like a star all around her iris the blue and green was bleeding into the outer white of her eyes.
Sarah was quite surprised over the changes of her sister. She expected some as Eas had informed them, but nothing quite as eye catching. At least the general form of her face and body was still basically the same. Something which wasn’t the case for the scientist.
Indecisively, she held onto her hood which had fallen off her head during their escape. While she wanted to pull it back up, she also knew that reducing her field of vision could be deadly in their current situation.
Her long coat the hood belonged to was similarly to the armor of her sister made out of leather. The knee length dress with long sleeves under it was basically the same as in the old world though it’s design shifted a bit, still being mainly black and having a lot of frills, but some of those as well as some of the bows were now colored in a deep blue. Tight black legwear covered the part of her leg between the end of the dress and her boots, the later of which looked very similar to those Sera was now wearing.
Sarah’s hair which reached down to her waist also only changed minimally. Keeping it’s black color, but becoming more lustrous and maybe even darker. It also seemed to have gained more strength as the normal damage one would expect to find on long hair was nowhere to be seen. The hair clips were missing but even after the long run with her hood on, her haircut still appeared to be neat, completely contrary to her sister.
However all those smaller changes didn’t mean that Sarah still looked like on earth. Her perfectly round iris became black around the edges, they seemed even darker than the pupils, but the closer to the center they slowly changed to white. Less noticeable, the white of her eyes also slowly turned to gray and then black the closer they came to the edges of her eyes.
Those inhuman eyes were part of a perfectly symmetrical face. As if both halves of her old face had been averaged out. Furthermore no unnecessary hair, no blood-vessel and no pores could be seen on her now pale and pure skin. Not that she had much color in the first place, sitting in her underground laboratory most of the time. Yet now without any visible blood-vessels, she appeared even paler, like a doll created by a master craftsman.
Although all those changes didn’t fix what some could see as a flaw. Even though she was Sera’s twin, she had been and still was about an head shorter than her sister, with only around 1.40 meters. A result of her bad habit of forgetting to eat, which also resulted in her being rather slim. The later a fact she also shared with her sister, though for Sera it was due to her training.
As one would expect, Sera was even more surprised than her sister about their changes. Though even if the changes had been worse, the sword fighter was sure that she would still have been able to find her sister by using the bond they shared.
