Chapter 422 - I Don’t Trust Your Self Control!

Chapter 422: 422 - I Don’t Trust Your Self Control!

The soft, mystical glow of Thalendor’s waterfalls reflected spectacularly across the suspended streets of living wood and crystal, bathing the elven metropolis in an atmosphere Lohan never got tired of watching.

He crossed the heavy oak doors of the city’s main arch after identifying himself to the guards, who by this point were already used to seeing a sentient blue slime entering the city frequently, feeling a sense of lightness and mental clarity that, as good as the Upper Zone was, it had never managed to give him anything like this.

Especially after connecting to this world through the Vance Group’s new, technologically advanced Grade SS immersion capsule, which had completely changed his sensory perception of everything he saw and felt here, making every gust of wind, the perfume of the magical flowers, and even the warmth of the sun on his gelatin membrane frighteningly real and comfortable.

While rolling calmly along the city’s natural sidewalks, Lohan opened the game’s floating chat interface with a blink of his eyes and sent a quick message to Lisa, wanting to let his partner know about his next steps.

[Halon: Hey, Lisa! I just logged in and I’m already entering Thalendor right now. I’m going to roll straight to Yrneha’s magic tower to collect our rewards for the northern rift. The archmage promised the five hundred gold coins and that advanced mana stone, so I don’t want to waste any time for us.]

Lohan barely had time to close the chat window when the game’s system buzzed with an almost instant reply from Lisa, who had also just logged in and apparently gone into a state of panic reading his message.

[Lisa: Stop exactly where you are, Halon! Don’t you dare take one more single step toward that tower without me by your side! I’m heading to meet you right now and I demand that you wait for me!]

[Lisa: I know your impulsive temperament very well when it comes to power and level growth. If I let you go there alone, you’ll definitely do something monumentally stupid and try to digest that high level mana stone the very second Yrneha hands it over, exactly like you did that other time I lost sight of you for a few hours and you nearly blew up your own core out of sheer stubbornness coming to her tower! Especially considering she’ll probably even encourage you to digest that Mana stone, I can’t trust either of you two! Wait for me at the central plaza, I’m rushing over!]

Lohan let out a mental laugh, feeling his membrane subtly warm at the long distance scolding she was giving him.

He had to admit, with a bit of embarrassment, that Lisa’s worry made complete and total sense.

If he were alone at Yrneha’s tower, his insatiable predator hunger would surely speak louder, and despite plenty of hesitation, the temptation to swallow the level twenty or twenty one mana stone whole could take over him, even knowing the density of the runic gem’s energy could make his biomass collapse under the magical pressure.

’Alright, little fox, you win.’ he thought with amusement, typing out a quick reply to ease her nerves.

[Halon: Ok, ok! I admit your worry is fair. I won’t try to eat any mysterious mana stone without you around to hold my gelatin back. I’ll be waiting for you at a small plaza I just found in the residential district near the Horizon Bazaar, so no need to rush and scare the passersby like you usually do.]

Lohan closed the golden chat window and subtly changed his path, rolling calmly toward a charming, tree lined public plaza located in the heart of one of Thalendor’s quieter residential districts.

The atmosphere there was incredibly pleasant and relaxing.

In the center of the circular space, an imposing crystal carved fountain sprayed luminous water that reacted to the ambient mana, spreading a cool mist that nourished the beds of exotic flowers around it.

Several elf children played cheerfully around the fountain, running along the walkways and laughing with an infectious energy.

Lohan stopped at the edge of the plaza, watching the scene with his artificial eyes fixed on those small creatures with hair ranging from blond, white, red, rarely black, and with pointed ears.

He was surprised to notice that, unlike other commercial districts of Thalendor where there was a large mix of species, there only elf children played together.

Reflecting on that detail for a few moments, Lohan remembered what he’d learned about that world’s biology and history and understood the reason for that childhood isolation.

For an extremely long lived race like High Elves, whose members lived for over a thousand years, childhood and a child’s development lasted several decades.

Making friends with children of other short lived races, like humans or beastmen, must have been a genuine emotional torment for the little elves.

They’d be forced to watch their best childhood friends grow up at high speed, start families, have children, and eventually die of old age, while they themselves remained just small children playing in Thalendor’s parks.

The barrier of time imposed a tragic distance that made childhood friendship deeply complex and painful in the long run.

While Lohan pondered the melancholy of that reality, his attention was drawn to the largest group of children playing very energetically on the lawn beside the crystal fountain.

They appeared to be acting out a game of adventurers against villains, running back and forth with wooden swords, staffs, and bows.

To Lohan’s absolute surprise, he noticed that among the children wearing small pieces of rough fabric as capes over their faces, there were two figures that seemed subtly familiar to his perception.

With the extremely precise, detailed memory he’d developed thanks to Halon’s constant neural upgrades, Lohan analyzed the silhouettes, physical posture, and subtle mana signature of those two small children.

In under three seconds, he identified them.

They were the two white haired elf children he and Lisa had rescued from the clutches of that group of greedy human kidnappers in the slippery swamp of the forest!

The little nobles, protected so desperately by two servants, were now there, playing under the sun as if they’d never gone through such an intense trauma.

What amused Lohan most was watching the roles the two children were playing in the game.

Surprisingly, instead of acting as the heroic adventurers or the princes needing to be rescued from the tower, the two children were actually masterfully playing the role of the child kidnapping villains they themselves had faced in the real world!