Try again?

As we continued our trip, Fiona had no intention of stopping from pestering me with a ton of questions. In a strange way, I started to get accustomed to it after a while and the fact that our relationship improved even more due to it wasn't a bad thing.

I still regretted a little bit the fact that I lied to her about some stuff... A really lot of stuff, but I could do nothing about that. What was done, was done, and I had to move on with it.

The environment started to show signs of changing as we moved forward. Not by much at first but as we advanced more and more, the trees stood more scarcely from one another, the terrain got a tad bit rockier, and judging by how the temperature dropped a bit every night, it was safe to assume that we got some altitude too.

It wasn't like there was a need to climb the really big mountain but we had to stay closer to its periphery so we could slip the border easier.

At least Fiona wasn't fixated on how I crossed that border by mistake. I definitely wasn't going to remind her of it either. 

’Border!? What border??? There was no border... Hahaha...’

The day went off like that and we started the night preparations. She threw some questionable glances at how fast I finished the campfire but she didn't ask anything about it.

As a side note, I definitely had to research about that ring of mine when I had the opportunity. To freeze things in time wasn't a small feat. Even I, the less than a month-old elf knew that.

Looking at it again for a little longer, the appraisal description popped in the corner of my field of view.

[Odder’s Black Ring]

Even with [Appraisal] at level 5, the question marks didn't change one bit. Maybe the ring was damaged as I assumed first? Or my Appraisal wasn't high enough...

*sigh*

The sighs of frustration became a common occurrence these days and that was signaling me that I needed a break. Not for my body which wasn't that exhausted even after that much walk but my mind was different.

My mind had been constantly flooded with problems which slowly but steadily accumulated a lot of stress.

While looking at the ring in contemplation, another thought came to me which made me raise my eyebrows.

I never tried that appraisal on other people. I didn't even know if that would work but I was so focused on what we had to do in that village that I ignored it completely.

I could see my status and that was true for other living beings even though all of them were monsters. There were chances to work on other people as well.

I looked at Fiona who for some reason was staring at a big boulder in the distance and muttered the magical word in my head to see if my theory was accurate. 

----------------------------

Well, I should have expected it. I hoped for it to be lower level than me, but that wasn't the case. Two statuses in three digits as well and because I didn't know anything about it, not even the race was revealed. 

If you know that a wolf was a wolf, sometimes the skill was kind enough to tell you what kind of wolf that was. But with no information at all... that was the result.

Three-digit statuses for Vitality and Power. That thing was comparable with Fiona at least in raw strength. There were skills on our side and we had a thing called brain, which these monsters weren't that eager to use. As such, I didn't think Fiona would lose to one or two of them, but more than that wouldn't be possible even for her.

” Lizza, we really need to go... Right now! ” she said waking me up from my thoughts. Even more of these things started to make their way out of the main cave. 

I didn't even reply to her and started to head back from this place in the quickest and quietest manner I was capable of.

But we didn't even make it half the way back and we started to hear roars from our abandoned camp. 

’Great, the situation just worsened to a whole new level.’