That Time I Got Reincarnated as an Overpowered Elf (Tensura x OC)

(9) Strange Omen, 1

"--we'll meet again soon. I prefer not to share my predictions, however, I can offer one of my own that much."

I wanted to ask what he meant; what any of what he said to me meant, but before I could get the words out, I felt a sense of weightlessness come over me.

The blurred figure of the strange man waved at me, the smile on his face a mixture of smugness and some strange form of adoration.

My eyelids felt heavy, refusing to stay open as the weightlessness got more and more noticeable, but despite that I tried to keep them open, each blink barely helping to clear the sudden blur. However, with the next blink I took, I found myself looking up at a wooden ceiling.

It was... questionable, obviously. I mean, one second a sky that seemed to be stuck in an endless state of star-filled sunset was the only thing I saw when I looked up, and now, nothing but dark wood....

A couple more blinks to make sure I was "awake", and that was that. I was back in reality. The first thing on my mind was, "...What the heck was that?"

The second thing that came to mind was the color of the roof. Even if I had somehow wound up back in Ulgrasia, my room's roof is white, and the roof in Radriel's is a lighter shade, so the next thing that came from my mouth was "Wait, where the heck am I...?"

Now realizing that I was laying down on a bed, I sat up, only to feel something drop down on my lap with a small squeak. I looked down to see... "Oh, hey there..." A fuzzy caterpillar. "You're Pairih, right...?"

Whether it was meant to serve as a reply or not, she gave me a chirp before hopping down onto the floor, her little feet padding over to the chair beside the bed and climbing onto it.

"Master, coming..." The insect said through Thought Communication. Had it not been for... literally everything else that had happened up till that point, I probably would have questioned it, but by then, the only thing I could wonder about was who she was talking about?

Now, it took me a second to remember, considering the whole boatload of questions I had running around in my brain, but once I sidelined all those and focused on the one at hand, I remembered that, 'Oh, right. Radriel named her, so of course she calls him her master.'

It was weird how something that simple could've slipped my mind. But, then again, critical thinking was never really my strong suit... 'But, speaking of named monsters... I wonder where Pup is--'

"Master, here..." 

Once Pairih announced that, I could hear hurried stomps coming from outside. The second after, the door swung open. Well, burst open would be a better way to describe it... But regardless, in came Radriel.

"Hey, you're up!" Before he walked into the room, a bunch of Spark Fang cubs came running in, chasing after one another, and once the door closed, Pup broke away from the others and jumped onto the bed, running up to lick my face. Thankfully, he was careful enough to not poke me with his small, yet sharp-looking fangs while he did. Meanwhile, Radriel walked over to the seat beside me, picking up Pairih and setting her down on his lap. "How are you feeling?"

That was a good question. For the most part I was fine, if not a bit groggy, but then again there was also the tonnes of confusing gibberish I had just spent... who-knows-how-long listening to.

But, at the end of the day, I couldn't give any answer besides "Fine...". After all, there wasn't much I could do in ways of explaining what had just happened, seeing as I barely understood it myself.

'Seriously, though... What was all that? ...Who was that guy? He felt familiar, but...'

Radriel nodded in response. "And your chest?" I tilted my head at that. "Huh?" Putting Pup down beside me and pulling on my collar, I looked into my shirt to see I had been wrapped in bandages. "The "doctor" found out that you had some broken ribs when I brought you in here." 

...Yeah, I kinda figured Homura broke some. Pain Resistance had just made it a lot easier to ignore, I guess. 

"I'm still not the best with Restoration Magic, and the healers that they do have around here were apparently sent out with a group for some sort of mission before we got here, so he just bandaged you up. I was gonna find a way to heal you since they don't have any surgeons around here, but apparently, you healed on your own. I was thinking you had a Regeneration skill like me, but you didn't heal for a while, and mine activates automatically, so I figured it was something similar but not the same skill..."

As he went on, it felt less like he was talking to me and more muttering to himself, especially with the way his voice got quieter. But, regardless, I knew what he was talking about.

"It's called Tenacious." Radriel's eyes snapped back to me as he came out of his rambling. "It's a Unique Skill."

"Tenacious, huh?" He looked off to the side at nothing. "Yeah, that sounds like the type of skill that you'd have. I think it suits you."

"It's really not all that impressive. It's less effective then Self-Regeneration most of the time and it's really inconsistent a lot of the time."

"But it works the rest of the time, right? That's better than nothing. Heck, I'm still trying to figure out how my own Unique Skills work..."

That had somewhat caught me by surprise; he said "Skills", meaning multiple. Unique Skills on their own were a rare sight; even with weak ones like mine are hard to come by. 'But, I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. Radriel's better than me at just about everything so far; having multiple Unique Skills doesn't seem too hard to believe for him.'

"Anyway," Radriel said as he stood up, Pairih sitting comfortably in his arms as he went, "I'm gonna get back to work. I've still gotta get some magisteel to fix up this little lady's exoskeleton, but I heard you had woken up so I took a quick break to come and catch you up."

While I was thinking over what he said, Radriel put Pairih down on the seat beside the bed, getting ready to leave, but before he could, I sat up, throwing the blanket off myself. "Hold on. When you say "work", what kinda work are you doing? I wanna help."

Radriel paused at the door. "Oh, well there's been a lot of magical beasts running around the area that the soldiers around here have had to cull to keep them under control."

"So, what? You've been hunting? I can totally do that!"

"Nope." Radriel replied, taking the wind right out of my sails. "See, the corpses have been stacking up quite a bit lately, and the people around here found that some parts of the beasts are really useful. Clothes, armor, weapons, jewelry, the list goes on!"

I nodded along, still not quite tuned in on what he was getting at, so I just waited for him to continue.

"So, what I've been doing is helping gather those resources!"

...Wait a second... It had started to click. "Radriel, don't tell me you're doing what I think you're doing..."

He didn't answer as he opened the door, instead giving me a weird grin and a malicious laugh as he left. "Radriel... Radriel, I need answers!" His giggling continued as he slowly sneaked out the door, Pairih and the Spark Fang cubs following after him.

Eventually he disappeared and his laughter died out, but after sharing an unsure glance with Pup, I followed after him, dreading the supposedly unpleasant work that was coming...

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