Chapter 306 New Discovery From a New System Feature
'I… do care about Daliea.'
'How much?' Argyle asked.
'A lot.'
'Jack--'
'Don't say it, Daliea,' Jack cut off the goblin girl, not letting her say what he already knew. 'Now's not the time or the place… You and I can't talk about it alone after we're done. Would you prefer that?'
'Yeah, I would.'
'Oh, Jack's finally manning up!' joked Argyle. 'Just don't forget about my beautiful daughter or your other wife during all this. You chose to have more than one wife, so you've got to care for them all.'
'Of course, Father-in-law,' Jack cheekily replied. 'This conversation will happen later between Daliea and me so let's leave it at that for now.'
'But Jack, what about your level? Are you really lv. 47 after clearing just one floor?' Rydel insisted to continue the conversation Jack was ignoring.
'Yes, but it was only because I wanted that level completely empty for future use. Most floors will be cleared enough to get by but not ruin the ecosystem.'
'So ya aren't going to level up again like crazy, are ya?' Maynard asked.
Jack sighed, 'I'm not saying it's impossible. If we come across a mob that I would deem better as killed off, then we'll exterminate that one too. Also, there's still the boss on floor eleven so I'm not sure what level I'll be by the end.'
'How come ya didn't bring us, huh? We want free levels too!'
'Maynard, it's not that simple. I had to change the pacts with Argyle and Tralon so that they gave me half of their EXP in order to do that. But that wouldn't work for the rest of you. You would have to make contact with the enemy in some way to gain a fraction of the EXP, but doing that would slow Argyle and Tralon down to the point where we could get wiped,' reasoned Jack.
'I guess ya have a point…'
'But Big Bro is so much stronger now… What about us? What if we can't keep up any more?'
'Lina, I don't think you of all people should worry about that,' Jack chuckled. 'Out of everyone, you have the most potential to be even stronger than both me and Bowzer. We'll still be a party and you'll always be my Little Lina.'
'Thanks, Big Bro!'
'For now, just keep trying to level up. How about we race?' Jack proposed. 'We'll see if you guys can clear Sunset Valley before I finish up this dungeon raid and my preparation with Choron.'
'If we beat you, then you've got to buy us all new equipment!'
'Yeah, I'll need some new katana soon!'
'And I'll need a new beast companion.'
As everyone started to add to the list of things Jack needed to supply the party, Jack was scratching his head and watching Argyle laugh at his predicament.
'Fine, it's a deal. I'll get you everything you need if you can clear sunset valley before I'm done with my errands.'
'Yay! Thanks, Big Bro! We'll kill all the monsters in no time!'
Everyone started to laugh at Lina's youthful enthusiasm, happy that it was contagious. The party eventually said their goodbyes and starting returning to the inn before it got too dark.
Jack and Argyle, on the other hand, had nothing but time on their hands as they waited to Tralon to recover from his over-expenditure of mana.
Soon after the group conversation came to a close, Bowzer returned with a smile. 'He's resting in the chief's bed.'
'Thanks, Bowzer. You're always a huge help when I need it.' Jack rubbed the fox's belly, making Bowzer kick his back leg out of reflex.
Argyle decided to take a nap while Jack was still awake. They agreed to take turns resting just in case the council members arrived and decided to try something. And as the current lookout, Jack cast God's Eye and began his search for the council members.
To his luck, he saw them near the entrance of the storehouse. Three were already there and one other council member was almost there.
"So there are for of them…" Jack mumbled to himself as he maintained a bigger picture. " We should be fine for now…"
Deactivating the spell, Jack opened up his system to find a few notifications waiting for his attention.
[Unreasonable force of nature: complete]
[Elven language detected. Translate?]
AS tempting as it was for Jack to see why he was labeled as an "Unreasonable force of nature", Jack was fixated on the new ability he discovered within his Achievement System.
Jack selected the old notification offering to translate but was disappointed by what came next.
[Couldn't recognize or distinguish any languages being spoken. Search for language manually?]
Selecting that instead, Jack was floored by the list that popped up in front of him. At least a dozen different languages were listed but most were unnamed and only one was marked as fluent. Jack selected that one, curious what his system could tell him about the common language of Kartonia.
[Modern Humanian: fluent]
[User is fluent in Modern Humanian, the most common language of Modern Kartonia, and the standardized form of Ancient Humanian. Created by humans who populated the majority of Kartonia, influencing the rest of the world to pick up the language for reasons of trade, interaction, and communication.]
Curious, Jack returned to the menu and selected one of the unnamed languages.
[???: unheard]
[??? must be heard by the user in order to decipher the language and/or the dialect.]
He then came back to the language menu, selecting the only other language he had recognized so far.
[Elven, Greis Dialect: completely foreign]
[Unable to understand or comprehend the language to the user. The Greis dialect is completely foreign to the user and the majority of the continent. A forgotten ancient language from a forgotten people, the Greis Elves.]
Reading the description, Jack froze up.
Stated clear as day in the description, Jack learned the name of the language that even Grangor thought was unnamed. He also figured out something that left him at a cliffhanger.
Wanting an immediate answer, Jack whipped out his contact crystal, the next best thing to having a tutorial stone. "Sterfen! Father! Are you there?"
"Yeah, I'm here. Did something come up?" Sterfen eventually responded.
"Tell me what you know about the Greis Elves."
"Oh, so you found out the truth. What gave it away?" Sterfen chuckled.
"It was thanks to my subclass that Darrun gave me," Jack explained. "I heard Daliea speak with Grangor in their native tongue and my subclass has a language feature I just discovered. That feature informed me about the Greis dialect, a forgotten dialect specific to the Greis Elves."
"Really? Well you found out sooner than I was expecting you too, but you are my son after all," laughed Sterfen. "What do you want to know? My knowledge is pretty limited on that subject because the events around the Greis Elves happened before I was a god."
"Tell me everything you know."
"Well, for starters they were like other elves with their long life spans and high affinity for magic. But they also stood out as the only elves who could wield dark magic and had zero chance of learning light magic," explained Sterfen.
"A lot of disputes rose up between the Greis Elves and the other elves. Eventually, something major happened involving the Greis Elves being hunted down and killed. Their kind gradually vanished from history, or at least that's what humans and most people believe. Most elves don't even know the truth behind what happened or that the Greis Elves managed to hide themselves as shadow goblins. At some point, even they entirely assumed the identity as shadow goblins and forgot about their true origins."
"Wow… No wonder I was able to learn little to nothing about them in the past." Jack blinked and shook his head. "What else can you tell me about the Greis Elves?"
"According to the official records, only one Greis Elf remains alive that knows the full history."