Naturally, the thought of asking for Vera's whereabouts did not come out of nowhere. As the four were wrapping up the conversation to go do their own things, a lingering thought surfaced in his mind all of a sudden, causing him to remember the set of Intermediate Reinforcement Elixir he had obtained from Riekan back then as a reward for completing the dungeon.
Now that he was Rank 2, he now was free to ingest the entire set and gain the passive skill that came along with consuming 10 vials of each type, which would improve his stats even further. However, this set of Reinforcement Elixir was stored away back at Algerie City in the inn both he and Wells were staying at, which prompted him to think about having it concocted instead, causing the thought of Vera to pop up in his mind.
"Vera, huh?" In response to the question, both Tristan and Damian looked back at him with bitter smiles before the former let out a faint sigh, which did not take long for Valyr to understand that the answer he would obtain was on the side of something that he did not want to hear. "Well, to cut a long story short, she left the village."
"Why?" Though Valyr inwardly let out a faint sigh at the response, with a faint bitter smile creeping up onto his lips not long after, he asked the two of them for a reason why.
"She didn't really tell us anything," Tristan shrugged his shoulders as he replied. "All she said was that she was going to have to leave the village to pursue some matters and that was it."
"Did she leave just recently?" Valyr asked in response.
"More or less the same as you, actually." This time, Damian was the one who responded. "If my memory serves me correctly, she left around a week or two after you left to head to Clossbay City the day after the celebration."
"I see." At those words, Valyr let out an audible sigh, only to realize something a few seconds later. "Wait… then that means there's no one capable of healing in the village anymore, right?"
"Don't remind me about that." Surprisingly, Alfaera was the one who responded to his words, letting out an exasperated sigh as a slightly annoyed expression appeared on her face. "I found a healer from another village to come to our village and stay, but he asked a lot of things from me before he eventually accepted."
"I hope he didn't ask for anything too important," said Valyr in response, which only prompted Alfaera to let out yet another sigh.
"Aside from a small sum of money, he wanted me to become his lover out of all things." Recalling the entire scene as if it had just happened sometime earlier, an irritated expression appeared on Alfaera's face as she told Valyr of what the man had asked her. "Fortunately, I was eventually able to work it out. If not, that guy would still be hounding me as we speak."
"I… see." Feeling as if any further explanation regarding the matter would only lead him down a rabbit hole that was hard to escape from, Valyr decided to leave the matter at that, letting out a sigh not long after as he thought about Vera leaving the village. "In any case, it's a shame that Vera left the village."
"It really is." Alfaera nodded in agreement, with Damian and Tristan faintly nodding not long after. "A healer is already hard to recruit for a village, with an alchemist and a healer even more so."
"Anyways, I'll have to leave now. Gotta settle a few more things before the defense against the monster tide starts." Seeing as their conversation had finished, Alfaera took the opportunity to leave, bidding farewell at the other three as she disappeared from their field of sight not long after.
Sometime later, Tristan decided that it was time for him to leave as well, bidding farewell to the two as he urged Valyr to stop by his smithy when he had the free time. In response, Valyr let out a faint chuckle as he nodded, telling him that he would definitely be making a stop at the smithy before the monster tide began, inwardly thinking about upgrading the Nascent Wyvern Armor set a bit more.
Eventually, with both Tristan and Alfaera gone, Damian and Valyr looked at each other, being the only ones left within the former's office.
"Say, has my dormitory room been occupied by other people after I left?" Thinking that he had delayed the allocation of his unused XP for so long, Valyr went ahead and asked Damian if his dormitory was still free.
"Nope." Damian shook his head in response. "For those at the rank of Guard Captain and above, even if they leave, the dormitory rooms they occupied are made sure that they wouldn't be used by other people. Of course, that is unless the guard regiment had a good reason to do so."
"Got it." Nodding back in response, Valyr thanked Damian before turning around to leave the office. Surprisingly, just before he could fully leave the office, he heard the man behind him welcoming him back to the village, causing a grin to appear on his face as he nodded, making his way to his dormitory room not long after.
…
"Still looks the same as when I left it." After walking through the ever familiar corridors of the village barracks, Valyr eventually arrived at his dormitory room, a slight grin adorning his face as he took in his surroundings. Feeling a hint of nostalgia from the place even though it had only been over a month since he left the village, he eventually sat on top of his bed, the expression on his face turning solemn as he commanded the system to bring up a list of his skills.
Ding!
"It would've been nice if I had Skill Keys on hand." Taking a look at the list of skills in front of him, which was multiple times longer than the last time he took a look at it, Valyr quickly noticed that a great amount of his skills were still at the base level, prompting him to inwardly curse himself for delaying such a simple thing for far too long. "Too bad the place where I can get them is incredibly far away."
"Then again, it's fortunate that I now have the means to teleport there." Placing the matter of Skill Keys at the back of his head for now, Valyr focused his attention on the unleveled skills in his skill screen. "The only problem is the amount of money I'd have to fork out to teleport there in the first place."
"Oh well. That's better saved for when the monster tide is over."
"For now, it's time to upgrade my skills."
"… Let's just hope it's not as painful as having to learn close to 40 skills in one sitting."
