Chapter 8: chapter 8: the poor teammate didn't even get a name.
It took Elrica all but a few hours to drag back the giant goblins corpse. Arriving back at the cave she went inside to greet her guests.
"I'm sorry for leaving without any notice, I didn't want to disturb your sleep." Elrica said to the two women.
The blond woman smiled and said, "No, we know you must be very busy."
Walking to the woman, Elrica crouched down, raised her hands over the woman and after a few seconds two golden magic circles appeared over her hands and started healing the woman.
"It isn't much, but I hope this helps at least a bit." Elrica said.
"Please don't waste your mana on us miss. Nasha is a healer, so you don't worry about healing us." The blond haired woman said.
The brown haired woman glanced at the blond haired one before confirming. "Yes, my healing magic skill is at level 5 five so please don't worry yourself with us."
Realising that her phrasing may have been rude she added "You have already saved out lives, we can't bear to trouble you even more."
Elrica didn't care much about the latter half of her words instead she locked in on the key detail of the woman called Nasha also possessing the same skill as hers.
She wanted to know about the capabilities of healing magic so she probbed her subtly.
"That's a relief, is it possible for you to heal your limbs then?" Elrica asked worriedly.
Nasha hesitated before nodding. "Yes, but it might take some time."
"I see." Elrica nodded.
"Well you are welcome to stay as long as you want, alternatively I can also bring you back to where you live. I'm sure your loved ones are very worried about you."
"Aldia is at least three days journey and the forest is full of beasts. We shouldn't put miss in danger by having to carry us." The blond woman refused the idea much to Elrica's displeasure but she didn't push.
"Well you are free to stay as long as you need miss Nasha and miss..." Elrica looked inquisitively at the blond woman.
"My name Is Aina V Bellrouge although I have brought dishonour to it." The blond woman said, her eyes gazing longingly at Elrica's new sword.
Noticing her gaze Elrica said "My name is Elana."
Pulling out the sword she noticed Nasha's eyes shrink in panic and Aina's eye turn moist.
"Is this perhaps yours?" She asked.
Although Elrica's actual social skills had mostly rotted away forcing her to completely mimic copy the mimic's mannerisms when they were interacting with naïve newcomers to the Spectral world, Elrica was very sensitive to people's eyes. A skill she learned after 40 years of battle.
The blond woman shook her head in response to Elrica's question before speaking. "That was my brother's sword."
"I see, then it belongs to you. I should return it." Elrica said, off course that was just what Elrica said. If the woman actually wanted to take back the sword, she would just ask to borrow it until they healed and never return it.
"No." Aina shook her head.
"Miss Elana should have it. My brother would be happy if someone as strong as you used it." She said.
"Then I'll be borrowing it until you are ready to depart." Elrica said.
Leaning back against the cave Elrica said. "Now would you like to tell me about yourselves?"
"Yes." Aina took the lead in speaking once more.
"Nasha and I are new adventureres from Adia city. We came here along with my brother and another team mate because we heard rumours of a goblin den in this area."
Elrica noted the name of the monsters she had exterminated.
"We over estimated our abilities which led to our defeat to the goblins, both my brother and our team mate died in battle while Nasha and I became spoils to the goblins, we were held in captivity for who knows how long until you came and saved us."
From Aina's story and from the earlier conversation Elrica learned a great deal of information.
••••••
Over the next few days, Elrica finally extracted most of the useful bones from the giant's corpse which had finally began to decay and rot. Elrica threw it's corpse away from her cave and started fashioning it's bones into useful tools.
The giants bones were incredibly tough so even after a few weeks of work Elrica barely managed to craft a long pike from its leg bone.
This would serve as her secondary weapon along her new sword.
Nasha spent all day casting her spells to heal herself while Elrica would heal Aina from time to time, ignoring Aina's insistence not to trouble herself.
Of course her efforts were just for show as she only used the lowest tier healing spells, saving her mana to heal her self inflicted injuries.
Two months passed by and Elrica only managed to level up once. It seemed that the higher one's level climbed the greater the cost for levelling up.
All her skills had reached level 3 however, even her {Intimidation} skill making most animals flee every time they encountered her.
Elrica liked opponents who turned their backs to her allowing her to fatally backstab them more than enemies who beared their arms at her so she didn't mind.
Nasha had fully healed herself and was mostly done with healing Aina so they would be leaving to Aldia soon.
Over the last few two months, Elrica had given the two women the opportunity to know her and lower their already low guard even further.
She fed them a fabricated tale about a girl raised by her recently deceased father in the woods while slowly bleeding them dry of important information.
Coming back to the cave, Elrica ate a meal cooked by Nasha. After they were done eating she turned to Aina and asked her.
"How are you feeling?"
"Still a bit stiff but I feel a lot better."
"If that the case then after making some preparations we should leave in a few days." Elrica said.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone