Chapter 50 Evelyn’s Rise

According to Evelyn, Robert had not been born with his memories. When he was around five, he had hit his head, and his memories had just sort of popped into place. Evelyn had been right there when it had happened and had heard Robert speaking a weird language.

From that point on, he had been slightly different. He displayed a level of patience and composure uncommon for his age, often analyzing situations with an insight that baffled those around him. He grasped complex concepts quickly, rarely needing things explained twice, and his strategic thinking made him stand out even among older nobles.

This shift led Evelyn to work harder to keep up with her twin, though Robert always remained patient and willing to help her. This had led Evelyn to work harder to keep up with her twin. Robert had always been patient and willing to help her, but he had never really gotten along with people his age.

Not that he didn’t have any friends, it was very common for nobles to be more mature than their age would normally demand. Being trained from the moment you can understand words to start taking over a noble house does that. But the friends that he did have, were not that close to him.

Evelyn was actually surprised by how close Robert had gotten with me in the short time we had known each other. Though my recent admittance of being reincarnated made her understand that now.

We talked for the next few hours; unfortunately, I was still a little tired, so our conversation meandered through various topics without much focus. I explained how I had retained my memories from the moment I was born in this world, but how hard it was for me to take advantage of that.

When I told her about the god that had brought me to this world, she was a little confused, but she didn’t say anything, just letting me retell my story. When I got to the part about gaining my talent, I told her that I had not hid anything else from her.

She sat in quite thought for a few minutes, her eyes closed. When she didn’t say anything for a few minutes I thought she might have fallen asleep, “If you are going to make me get up when I was taking a nice nap, you better not have fallen asleep.”

She snorted before responding, “I don’t think that the god you met, was a god of this world. At least I cannot think of one that matches the description you gave me. Not that, that really means anything.” She nodded her head before continuing on. “There is also every possibility that the god you met was hiding who they were, just in case you remembered. I wouldn’t worry too much about it, not like we can do anything anyway.”

I shrugged and agreed with her reasoning. If that god was strong enough to pull my soul through different universes, I was definitely not in any position to worry about it. “I know you want to make a plan, but honestly, I think we should both get some sleep. Even though you were taking a nice nap before getting The System, you should still rest up. Once we have both rested, we can make a plan.”

“Oh, shut up you ass.” Smacking my arm and smirking as she responded. Though she did end up agreeing with me.

We both went to our rooms and surprisingly, I was out in seconds. I had thought that learning about Robert being reincarnated would keep me up more, but it was almost like I had known. Thinking back there were a couple times that he had said things that I did not even think about.

My nap was surprisingly short, and when I woke up, I found that Evelyn was still in her room. While I was not able to create actual furniture in the Void Nexus, I was able to make a sort of box that I could use for a chair and table.

Then I began pulling out food for breakfast. I went ahead and got the old staples, bacon, eggs, and biscuits. It wasn’t long after I started pulling food out that Evelyn came out of her room. Nose sniffing the air at the smells. Before she made it halfway to the “table”, I heard a loud growl from her stomach.

“Looks like someone is hungry this morning.” I said while laughing at her.

Evelyn blushed slightly at my words, but still smiled and nodded. Sitting down she dished out some food for herself and we ate in silence. The food was amazing, and I made sure to make a note to visit the elves again just to visit that place. I can’t imagine what they did to eggs and bacon to make them so delicious, but I had to go back there again.

Evelyn let out a contented sigh, savoring the brief moment of rest before quickly refocusing. "We need to figure out what we're going to do next," she said, her expression turning serious. "I'm not entirely sure where we are; these trees don’t provide much information." She paused, deep in thought. "Do you happen to have a map or something useful in your Inventory?"

Shaking my head I responded, “No, I had not planned on going anywhere further than just outside the city anytime soon. I have a lot of food though. I think Princess Lilliana was trying to find the limit of my Inventory and bought me so much food that I don’t think we have to worry about food for several months.

I know you wanted a plan, but the only plan I think we can really do is head South. Once we reach the ocean we can head West. At some point we should find some form of civilization and we can make a better plan with the information that we gather at that time.”

When I finished speaking Evelyn raised one finger, “I agree with that, with one difference. I want to clear any Dungeons we find along the way. That will help us both to become stronger and face whatever comes our way.”

With a tentative plan in place, we headed out. We travelled South for a few days, and I spent the time teaching Evelyn what I knew about The System. She immediately tried to invite my parents to the party after learning about that function.

I tried not to take that personally; I would have done the same thing as her if our roles were reversed. The next thing that she did was to use her skill. Sovereign’s Gambit was an active skill that she could use once per day. Before she activated the skill, she had to have a firm idea in her mind of what she wanted. In our case she wanted to find the closest Dungeon to us. The first thing that we tried was the quickest way home, but the only thing she felt from that was to keep heading South.

Now that might sound like a very powerful skill, however, as we found out very quickly, it does exactly what you want. In our case, it led us to a Dungeon that was for a group of 5 all level 100+. While I consider myself strong, I do not yet believe I can take on a level 100+ creature. Maybe when I reached level 50.

Luckily the Dungeon had yet to overflow so there were no monsters in the area. We did try to note the location as best we could, so that we could let someone in the first town we came across know.

After that little snafu, she was much more specific about what she wanted. She wanted a Dungeon that was close by that would allow her to be able to level up and catch up to me in level. The feeling that she received however, was somewhat problematic.

The closest Dungeon with those criteria was Northeast of us. In the end Evelyn decided it was worth the delay if it allowed her to grow strong enough to stand by me. With her past being what it was I could understand her desire to grow stronger and, in our situation, I was all for us growing stronger.

It took us four days of walking to make it to this Dungeon, or well to where we think the Dungeon was. There was a kobold encampment surrounding a jagged cutout in a mountain. I freely admit that I do not know where the origin of kobolds being the descendants of dragons came from on Earth. I do, however, want to make it perfectly clear that they were wrong. The only way that a kobold is a descendant of a dragon is if that dragon was a newt.

The kobolds here were extremely short creatures standing no more than three feet tall, and those were the tallest ones. They each had scraps of torn cloth covering them that were no more than rags. I don’t know if they needed water or not, this being a magical world and all, but all of them looked to have some kind of slimy film covering them. Their skin was multicolored, orange on the chest with yellow on the sides and black spots dotted here and there.

Their faces looked like any lizard I had ever seen, with eyes that while on the front of their face like a human, were monocular and each could be controlled to look in different directions. Every so often you could see a tongue shoot out of their mouth to lick their eyes; to clean them or make them moist, I had no idea.

I used Identify on every creature that I could see and found that none of them were over level 15. Looking at Evelyn, I used part chat. The encampment is yours; I will stay back and watch. This group looks perfect for you to get a few levels and get you class.

Evelyn nodded and continued to scan the encampment while I waited to see what she would do. While I said that I would just stay back and watch, I also wouldn’t just let something bad happen to her.

After a few minutes of her watching from where we were, she moved to a new position. She made sure to bring me with her and constantly asked if I found or saw something with Panoptic Sense. When we were at the new position, she would sit there for a few minutes watching the group and cautiously looking around before moving again.

We did this for the next hour, constantly changing positions and looking around. When she was finally ready, I told her I was going to leave her party, as to not take away from any of her experience. Even my parents had yet to see what fighting in a party was like.

With the bow I had given her in hand and a quiver of arrows at her side, she took a steadying breath, her fingers tightening around the bowstring. Her eyes narrowed in focused determination as she lined up her first shot, exhaling slowly before loosing the arrow. The twang of the bowstring and the sharp whistle of the arrow cutting through the air were followed by a dull thud as it struck true, felling the first kobold.

 She barely paused, shifting her position fluidly, her movements precise and calculated. Each arrow she loosed found its mark, and with every hit, a surge of confidence radiated through her stance. The air was tense with the muffled cries of the kobolds, the faint rustle of their scaly bodies collapsing to the ground, and the rhythmic pull and release of her bowstring, a melody of silent victory.