We must have been in the house for a good 10 minutes. Amazingly, I managed to find a few things, but they weren't very good and were already a bit worn. How could the clothes age so much? It's only been about three days since all this started.
Whoever lived in this house seemed to have a penchant for furs. I found a leather jacket, some pants (including at least one leather one, but I suspect they must have had more before, considering the slight smell), and some wool sweatshirts.
Given the mild weather, the sweatshirts wouldn't be much use other than for keeping warm, but the pants would certainly be useful.
I put them on over thinner pajama-style pants, giving my legs a little more protection. I wandered around the house for a bit, checking for places that might have more useful things.
Since my item box was already practically full with iron, my weapons, and potions (rats), I couldn't put anything else in it, so I gathered everything useful in a fallen cabinet to retrieve after we got back. During this time, Lumi and Impeto did nothing but rest, especially Lumi.
It seems that attacking in quick succession drained more of his mana than I expected.
The 10 minutes weren't enough for any of them to fully recover, but from what they "said," they managed to recover about 1/5 of the mana they spent. Don't ask me exactly how much that is, I won't know.
But wouldn't 1/5 in 10 minutes, a pretty quick recovery speed?.
Well, they recovered a bit, and so did I. I also had time to distribute some points that were still loose from the last level-up, along with the current one. My status is now like this.
[Name: Fernando Martins
Level: 6
Race: Dhampir (half-vampire)
Job: Fighter Lv. 4
SP: 0
AP: 10
HP: 55/65
MP: 43/50
Condition: minor acid burn (-1 HP every 1 minute and 30 seconds).
Str: 12
Def: 10
Agi: 11
Int: 10
Mag: 8
Res: 7
.....]
Well balanced in my opinion, leaning slightly more towards physical than magical, but nothing too significant... yet. And stamina remains my lowest stat since I rely on my unique ability... but if it always takes as long to activate as it did now, maybe it's best to consider investing a little in resistance.
Well, considering the time of the fight until the ability "activated," I don't think much time passed, but still...
Anyway, now we were even more prepared to fight whatever we were going to encounter!.
.... Wait a minute, I didn't just raise a death flag, did I?
**************
Mari's POV
"How are they?"
"They've already passed the stream but had to stop to recover. Some liquid creatures seem to have ambushed them."
Pomo's voice echoed in my mind, a feminine one that was both that of a mature woman and a child.
The effect of [the voice of the plants] isn't limited to creating a mental map of the surrounding plants, that's just the most basic way the "human mind" has of understanding a small part of the shared network of plants that are not parasitic.
This spell literally lets me hear the voices of the plants, at least those with enough life energy to create a consciousness, which until now is just the Pomo.
"Liquid creatures? You mean slimes?"
"I don't know, I haven't gotten used to 'seeing' the world yet. But the sensation they feel is unlike anything I've ever felt before. Something like... a 'tingling' sensation?... What's 'tingling'?"
Pomo didn't mean to say she feels this way with these creatures around, but the plants she's sharing her vision with do. She's hard to understand; sometimes she seems to know much more than she should, and other times she's completely ignorant.
'Well, I can't blame her. If I were blind my whole life and suddenly could see, I'd be disoriented too. Even more so if I could transfer my consciousness and vision to other places without even realizing it and having to deal with creatures I don't understand.'
Plants don't have eyes, but they can perceive the world exclusively through touch. And through touch and communication with other plants, they can form "images in their minds." The difference is that it takes time for them to do this. A lot of time.
But thanks to mana, that time has been shortened from years or decades to mere days or even hours. Pomo now can see like a person, including in colors.
"Are any of them hurt?"
"What 's hurt?"
'Still sometimes she can be irritated... But then again, there's no point in getting irritated about it. It's only the second day we've talked and the fourth she's been conscious.'
"Someone is leaking red liquid or looking pained."
I repeated the question, this time sending both an image of a bleeding wound and a pained expression, as well as the sensation of both. The sensation of bleeding was easy for Pomo to understand; even plants "bleed" when their leaves are torn off or their trunks are cut.
".... No, they're not 'bleeding,' but the one that looks like you but bigger had that... expression?"
The term "expression" is also strange for plants, but thanks to my magic and control over mana, I've been teaching her various things so she can live more comfortably, and so can we.
[Skill: Green Magic 2–>3]
[Skill: Initial Mana Control Acquired.]
'Hmm, not bad. But it's strange that I got [Initial Mana Control], general mana control is already included in [Loved by Mana], and from what Nando and our father said: when you have a similar or complementary skill, it's usually added to the existing one, so why?'
Strange. But not important.
"How far are they from the park?"
"?"
I rolled my eyes; she really could unintentionally irritate me sometimes, just like a baby can.
"How far they are from the glowing red stone."
I repeated, sending images and the closest I could to the sensations. It's not easy, since there's no sensation for the big red magic stone. I still don't understand how she managed to know it wasn't even a magic stone.
"Hmmmm, close?"
It wasn't helpful, but I knew it was the best I could do.
Plants don't have a precise sense of distance, not that they don't have it specifically. They can perceive who's closest, but depending on how interconnected their roots are, they can still consider plants and trees almost on the other side of a forest as: a little bit not so close, but not as: far away.
"How many large plants are there between them and the place where several plants fell?"
This was the most reliable way to be certain. Even plants can differentiate between large plants (trees, shrubs, etc.) and smaller plants (grass, flowers, etc.), as well as between standing plants and fallen plants.
And from what Pomo had said earlier, several "large plants" had fallen near where the "big red thing" was.
Oh, and plants also have no exact sense of numbers; that's one of the things I've been trying to teach her even when I'm "sleeping."
"Hmm, maybe... 12 big ones?, with 4 standing and the others fallen. Oh, they're near one of the standing ones."
'If there are at least 12 trees between them and the magic stone, with 7 fallen trees and they're near one standing one... they must be at least halfway there. Not as fast as I'd like, but nothing to worry about.'
"Can you see the monsters near the 'red thing'?"
"Not very well... The fallen ones are tiring fast, I can't keep my 'vision' clear enough. They're in a lot of pain."
"It's okay, you can stop now, thanks, Pomo."
My heart ached for the pain Pomo felt when she shared her consciousness with the destroyed trees and plants in the park. When we spoke through [green voice], a tiny fraction of what she feels is also sent to me, so I know what she felt must have been more intense.
[MP: 60/90]
Using [green voice] directly like this takes more mana than I'd like. I wish it could be as economical as monitoring, but things don't always work out the way we'd like.
And to make matters worse, the constant use of mana makes me even drowsier.
But if there's ever a time when I don't want my "unique ability" to activate, it's times like these. When my family is at risk and I can do nothing but observe and send help if something goes wrong, help that might very well arrive too late.
'...But is that really all I can do? Even remotely?'
An idea came to my slightly drowsy mind, one that might very well work. If it didn't, all it would cost me would be mana. Something I can recover quickly, either by meditating or by sleeping directly, but I prefer to avoid the latter.
The sleep induced by my ability is quite heavy.
'Well, it's worth a try,'
I thought, preparing myself to pull off a possible shenanigan worthy of a fairy.