Chương 87: (B2.23)

23) Merchant Ellen So far, Bookkeeper had been handling most of the actual transactions and calculations. This had delayed Ellen's Level up, but only a little bit. Arranging all the plans, fixing the interface designs that had been broken by her death, and handling negotiations with adventurers had all rapidly accumulated enough experience to boost her up to Level 12 again. She was just glad that banked experience transferred over even if it hadn't been spent yet, or else she'd have had a long road.

"You've done so well with the road so far, it's strange that you just stopped so abruptly," Leona said as she walked beside Ellen. Except "walked" wasn't quite the right term, since her feet didn't quite touch the ground. That was great for keeping the mud off, but it had been long enough now that most of the mud was dried, especially on the road itself. Ellen suspected the levitation was habit. Must be nice to have so much mana to work with.

"That's part of why we're here," Ellen explained softly.

"We aren't just relying on the dungeon, you realize. We have ways of burning the excess mana ourselves. That's what I'm here to explain. I'm the Ellen that holds the founder position, so while we all get certain unusual abilities, I can do some pretty strange ones that look impressive at first. Think you can tell what's going on with the mana while I do this?" Leona sighed, "I can try. Theodore would be better, but he's being cranky for some reason.

You'd think one of the greatest mages in the kingdom wouldn't sulk like a child, but apparently one of you did something that really upset him and he's been holed up in his room ever since." Good riddance, Ellen thought to herself. She didn't like the man, and she especially didn't like him seeing her when her mana was drained like last time. She was going to try not to exhaust herself this time, but still had some doubt about her ability to control it. She chuckled to herself in her head.

Even though she was two generations removed from her, she still thought of herself as the original Merchant Ellen. The others had immediately gone their own way and some of them diverged wildly… but she'd just picked up and moved on as if nothing had happened beyond the loss of levels. It was strange how she could do that. Did that make her the actual Merchant Ellen then? Because she'd never stopped? Was Hunter Ellen basically the same Hunter Ellen as before?

Village Ellen seemed a lot like the "first" Village Ellen as well, Ellen One. It was like the original had split off a divergence, and continued going on. But that hadn't always happened, had it? Adventurer Ellen had become Apprentice and Healer, and then the Adventuring Party. Did that mean Adventurer Ellen was… actually dead? Was Village Ellen the continuation of the original Ellen, or the branch, and Adventurer Ellen had been the last "true" Ellen?

Or was she trying to find continuity where none existed, and she was a completely different person than the original Merchant, who had just taken up the mantle? Ellen let out a quiet breath. The situation always made her head hurt. She'd have to talk to Hunter about this again… Hunter always knew how to approach this kind of talk, somehow. Was it going to happen every time she died? Why was she already thinking she'd die again? When had she become resigned to it instead of fearing it?

"Are you all right?" Leona asked, the older woman's voice piercing the whirling cloud of thoughts.

"Yeah, I was just gathering my thoughts," Ellen lied.

"Turn on your mana sight or whatever you use, I'd like to know what's happening here. It's going to look pretty weird, I think, but we can't do it often so get what you can." Another lie. They now had 153 Settlement Points… more than they'd had last time she'd done this. The others working on the hamlet had made some real progress, and as far as Ellen could tell that did regenerate their Settlement Points.

It would be exhausting to do this frequently, but revealing everything they could do to the mages at the Academy seemed a bad idea. Getting murdered a few times had taught Ellen at least a little caution, as it turns out.

"Ready," Leona announced. Ellen nodded to her, then activated Reshape Terrain once more. Trees creaked and crackled, protesting the sudden violent expulsion from the earth below. Land buckled, heaved, then flattened and compacted, smoothing out as the eyes watched. The forest was filled with the crash of trees and the sudden flight of birds, deer and other animals bolting from their suddenly-unstable home to dash into less violent forest nearby.

She made a mental note that she could use this to flush out prey if Hunter ever ended up having a lean week. You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

"Great Vilenca…" the mage whispered beside her. Ellen couldn't focus on that right now. Just like before, it took all her focus to visualize what she needed, and she felt the rush of mana flowing out of her. Her body didn't remember ever spending this much, but she had her memories of the first time…

she felt the vague sensation of emptiness gnawing at her well before it became painful this time, and though she had reshaped significantly less of the ancient road than last time, she cut off the flow and let the Ability lapse. With her personal Mana still in the 30s, Ellen breathed a sigh of relief. Less than half, so it would take a little while to recover, but it wouldn't leave her feeling tapped out and empty for the rest of the day.

As long as she had the Settlement Points and Land Mana, she could do this once a day without worrying too much about exhaustion. That reduced the time needed to build the road significantly… even if she didn't make nearly as much progress.

"That's a level of terrain control that would take several of us an entire ritual to match," Leona was saying, snapping Ellen back to attention.

"Of course, any one of us could clear the trees for you just as quickly, but the result would be much more destructive. This is a targeted Earth Shaping. It's always impressive how specific Abilities can do so much more than spells in their narrow field." Ellen mopped her brow and looked at the results.

"The more mana I spend, the more gets done. I mean, obviously, but what I mean is… if I spent fifteen or twenty more it would do a lot more ground, almost twice as much I bet. The more I put in, the wider the difference is."

"Exponential effectiveness," Leona clarified.

"Yes, that isn't uncommon in large workings. The mana is hard to start shaping, but once in motion it's much easier to keep it in motion than it is to start all over again. It's well-known amongst mages who use a lot of ritual magic, but you're doing it all by yourself. Or… at least, with only one person."

"Yes, but I run out of mana quickly," Ellen pointed out.

"Once I get to Level 15 this will start being less of a problem, I know, but that's a long way away." The teens were where progress really started to slow down for most people… Edmund was in his early thirties and still hadn't broken through to twenty. They were also the Levels with the most progress, though. Abilities granted almost every Level, and in the late teens mana and stamina started increasing on their own, along with bonus Perks unrelated to the user's Class. Leona turned to look toward the mountain.

"Probably. Your own mana isn't actually doing any of the work, it's just pushing the local mana enough to get things moving. You're drawing on the local mana much more than most magic or even Abilities do… I've never seen anything like it. Maybe Theodore has." Ellen quickly checked where Theodore was, but he hadn't moved from the inn.

The village's Trust score was still too low to make out all the details, but she could identify the structures by shape even if they didn't have labels yet, and she could at least tell where non-villagers and other Ellens were. That was much better than the blank smudge, but still not ideal… even if she wasn't sure she wanted to know where each and every villager was at all times. Except when they were flying. Ellen wasn't sure why that didn't work.

She could see Leona who was very close to the ground, but Hunter had very clearly indicated that she hadn't been able to detect Leona during the night she flew.

"I'm not sure I trust him yet," she said aloud.

"But I guess he'll find out really soon that we're a group. Once Whisper and Stage get back, we're going to stop hiding, unless they have some objections. They may have found something out during their investigation that convinces us to keep hidden." Turning away, Leona once again stared up to the mountain.

"That's up to you, but he'll find out sooner or later. Don't wait too long or he'll probably get angry… Theodore is a wise and thoughtful mage, but he can act remarkably petulant at times." With Leona staring at the mountain, Ellen cleared her throat to ask a question.

"Did you see anything unusual during it?"

"Yes," the mage replied, tapping her cheek with a finger.

"Very very odd. You're actually pulling mana from the same source as the dungeon… it almost looks like it's coming from the dungeon, but I had to double check and it looks like it's more like a similar base. At first it moved slowly, but then it looked like the dungeon was actually feeding you the power you needed. I'd have to see it in action while I was nearer to the dungeon's core to make sure, though." Ellen flinched at that.

"I was afraid it was something like that. The dungeon is linked to our hamlet somehow, and I'm not sure how. I think it's another way to control the mana, but maybe that's just hope. It's also a little weird because I'm pretty sure the dungeon tries to kill us every time we go in there. It's really dangerous." She hadn't actually told Leona that death was what triggered the spawning of new Ellens. Leona seemed nice enough, but it didn't seem smart to let everyone in on that secret right away.

She had no desire to be studied by mages repeatedly killing her to test the limits of the resurrection clause, whatever it was.

"Dungeon cores are said to be intelligent, but their intelligence is not always one that makes sense to us," Leona said quietly.

"It probably gains some kind of extra boost for killing you inside it… they do get stronger when adventurers die, but having repeat arrivals is better in the long term, and dungeons seem to understand that. So it tries to kill you in there because your bodies might release more mana on death, but it likely views the hamlet as being some kind of symbiotic relationship."

"A what?" Ellen blurted. She was pretty well-read for a farm girl, but Leona had started getting into some more technical matters. The mage sighed, "I mean, it probably views helping the hamlet as something that will eventually help itself. This makes sense… an established community can feed it more adventurers, and it can grow stronger faster. Helpfully, that will also clear up the mana instability faster… it's something that a dungeon can't win on.

Eventually it gets so hungry for mana it stabilizes the mana and stops growing." That was interesting. But that wasn't the real question that Ellen felt Leona was circling. She didn't want to leave it unsaid.

"What happens if the mana excess keeps growing, then?" Ellen asked, biting her lip. Leona looked to her, then back to the mountain… and shrugged.

"No idea."