The ability to change into a crow was an ability the dark elf possessed before joining the Heresy Tribunal. Among the dark elves, some lucky individuals were able to obtain nature’s grace and be granted with the ability to transform into wild beasts.
That day, she was chosen. That was why she gained the ability to transform herself into a crow.
Apart from disguising as humans, crow could be said to be the shape and disguise she was most familiar with.
Today, she flew back to Farucci’s Mansion with her fastest speed. When she was about to reach the balcony outside the mansion, a strange window suddenly popped up before her eyes.
‘Return to Farucci’s Mansion. I have a test that I wish to entrust you with.’
Those words filled her entire field of vision. Because of that, she lost judgement of her distance from her target.
As the words came too suddenly, she wasn’t even able to retrieve her wings in time. Just like that, she crashed into and shattered a window in the third floor of the mansion.
Test?
Still in the form of a crow, the dark elf spit out a glass fragment and flapped away the glass fragments on her feathers.
This was the first time that she crashed into a human building’s window since she learned how to transform into a crow. It was all because of the sudden pop up of words before her eyes.
Fortunately, her ‘rash’ intrusion into the Farucci’s Mansion did not raise any alarm.
The dark elf took a glance around the room she found herself in. All kinds of letters were piled up in the room. There were also several sleeping owls.
She had landed on a table filled with illumination originium crystals. A large amount of the letters that were piled up on the table had scattered onto the floor.
‘Newcomer?’
‘Why is this newcomer so black?’
The owls were woken up by the dark elf and began to hoot at the dark elf. They were asking her where she came from and where she was going to.
As the dark elf possessed the druid ability of shapeshifting to a beast, she naturally understood animal speech too. She took a glance at the owls,
To the mages of Norland, or perhaps all the people in this world, two kinds of birds were indispensable. The first were pigeons and the second were owls.
Both birds were tasked to transport letters in this world. They were the composition of the important communication network.
Owls were mainly used in Norland. Those owls were likely the owls raised by the Farucci’s Mansion.
Questioned by the owls, the dark elf crooked her head and let out a crow cry. It was extremely ear-piercing. Then, she fluttered her wings and flew out from the room.
The owls in the room looked to each other in confusion and shock. The reason for that was because the dark elf had just informed them a piece of bad news before leaving.
‘You all are going to be unemployed!’
.........
“Unfortunately, the only version of the chatting program is the test version. Having the chat box appear so suddenly is not what I wish for either.”
Joshua was standing before the window and looking at the crow standing on the window still. Glass fragments could be seen on the crow’s feathers.
It would appear that the commotion earlier was caused by this crow crashing into a window.
Joshua extended his hand. He was trying to remove the glass fragments from the crow’s back. But, the crowd quickly dodged Joshua’s hand. Its movement was so very sharp. That reaction and speed was definitely not something that a bird should have.
It was only at this moment that Joshua recalled that crow’s true form was that dark elf girl. Likely, no one would wish for their back to be touched by a stranger.
“What test?”
The crow didn’t speak. But, the dark elf’s voice entered Joshua’s ears directly.
“A test to determine the range of the network connection.”
Since this world’s network was utilizing the World Tree as its core and magic power and spirit power as the transmission vehicle, Joshua decided to call it a Magic Net.
Unfortunately, this Magic Net could not unleash dangerous magic like the Magic Net from DnD. All it could do was to allow one to get on the forum and check out some blogs and videos when one’s bored.
“Range?”
The crow crooked her head and ran her eyes over the people in the room. Soon, her eyes were focused on Tylene.
Tylene had no idea what Joshua was doing right now. But, as an elf, she was close to nature and animals. Because of that, she smiled and waved at the crow.
“The person the World Tree is in...”
The dark elf has been monitoring Joshua for a very long time. Thus, she knew that the frost elf began following Joshua last week. Like the female mage, she had gathered a lot of information on the frost elf.
Among them included how the frost elf had the seed of the World Tree.
It could be said that she was a fellow sufferer and could empathize with the frost elf. It was all because of the Heresy Tribunal’s atrocious actions that caused their homeland to be engulfed by the gray mist and their races extinguished. The only difference between them was that she was the only remaining dark elf in this world whereas the frost elf had managed to carry on the World Tree seed and had the chance of reviving her race one day.
“Those from the Heresy Tribunal wouldn’t allow her to exist in this world.”
The dark elf lowered her voice as she warned Joshua.
“Why’s that?”
The only reason Joshua could think of was that the frost elf was working in his Hearthstone Tavern.
If that was enough to bring about the assassins from the Heresy Tribunal, Joshua felt that he would have to consider adding employment injury insurance.
“...”
The dark elf grew quiet momentarily. It was only when Joshua showed the imprint on his palm that she was forced to tell the truth to him.
“That’s because... our race’s World Tree was also engulfed by an unknown black mist like her race’s World Tree.”
The dark elf lowered her voice. Blatant killing intent filled her voice.
“My apologies, I’ve accidently touched upon your pain...”
“It’s alright. I’ve already become numb to it. Tell me what that so-called range test is.”
Even though the dark elf was living in this world for the sake of revenge, she knew that she needed to do more than just revenge. She also needed to show loyalty, devotion and repay Her Highness who saved her.
The special ‘magic’ that Joshua made and the originium crystal containing ‘Léon: The Demon’ were most definitely the best gift the dark elf could bring to her benefactor.
“It’s very simple. You see the Magic Net’s signal on the lower right corner of your desktop? It should be full, no?” asked Joshua.
The dark elf summoned out the ‘Windows XP’ system Joshua installed for her. She looked at the lower right corner and discovered there were five white rectangles.
“Your mission is to fly around Norland. Whenever the signal drops, tell me your location.”
That was the most direct way Joshua had in testing the network range right now.
“You want me to communicate with you using that magic you called ‘chat box?’”
The dark elf began to flap away the rest of the glasses on her feather. She would most definitely have to find a place to properly take a bath later.
“That’s right.”
Joshua had compiled a completely new input method in his operating system. This input was not limited to only the alphabets. But, he had imitated a keyboard.
The dark elf used her beak to tap open the cause for her crash. After confirming that there was a script input ‘magic,’ she took a couple hops on the still and flew off into Norland’s night sky.