Belladonna met Beans at the tunnels cross roads, where he eagerly flew into the air and landed on her shoulder without her having to slow her pace. The little shadow demon seemed proud of himself, as he held a small crystal in his mouth and puffed out his chest as he showed it off.

"Well now... Seems your hunt was successful, huh? Where did you get that? Did one of them have it in their little stashes, hmm?" Belladonna asked, scratching Beans’ chest as she took the crystal from his mouth.

It looked like a source remnant, but it had been altered and refined, having been cut into a more manageable size and shape. If she had to guess, it would have been part of a wand or ingrained into a weapon to allow the users to better use their magic.

It was a common practice, and worked especially well with low level casters and especially those who relied on speaking their spells, but that did not mean it was used exclusively for them. In essence, the crystal would increase the power of the spell or allow the user to use less mana as it amplified the small amount used instead.

Source remnants were the most common and available, and the main market for the remnants since Belladonna was the odd one out for eating them, but they were not the only thing that could be used to create focuses.

For example, Belladonna’s own focus, her wand that could turn into a pen, used a magical crystal that she had been sent out to collect. Whether that was better than a source or simply different, she did not have the expertise to say.

However it was clear by looking over this, that it had belonged to someone in the past. No doubt a previous victim. She had found another two in the Chief’s massive stash, along with a few other broken weapons and equipment from adventurers long past.

There was a reason that the natural inhabitants of this world did not normally go adventuring and monster slaying. Not only was it likely they would die, but they would die and never get the chance to have their proper death rites, which was how natural undead occurred.

"Where’s the rest? Do I need to go get it?" Belladonna asked Beans, giving him another chin scratch, before tossing the crystal focus into her shadow.

Beans let a proud ’Mreow’ and swished his tail with devilish delight, as the shadows shifted in Belladonna’s path, and dozens of different items poured out of them.

Belladonna couldn’t help but laugh. Of course, she had to fight and scramble for such an ability, but the Shadow Demon could just do it whenever he wanted. She wanted to complain that it was unfair that he could do that just because of his race, but she had little ground to stand on when it came to the unfair advantages of someones race.

She strolled past the pile, glancing at it with disinterest, as it all fell into her shadow as it swept underneath the pile like it was just a hole in the ground.

She kept walking, her mind a mess after her encounter with the strange and dream-like Goddess and all the implications that were given from their conversation. So when she met the wall that shouldn’t have been there, Belladonna walked head first into it.

Unfortunately this time, she didn’t walk through it and just introduced herself to it with a headbutt.

"Ah, what the hell?" Belladonna muttered, rubbing her bruised forehead, before pressing her hand against the wall.

She pressed and pushed against it, before knocking a few times, just to make sure that it was actually real. Usually that would be obvious, since you had just walked into it, but after what she had been through she was going to have to take a few days before she could start believing reality was actually real once again.

Especially when the wall knocked back.

After a slight pause, as she doubted her sanity once again. Belladonna knocked against the wall, and waited a second before she got a reply of the same rhythmic knock. Of course it was not coming from the wall itself, she was sure, but the people on the other side of it.

The wall rumbled and a small slit, the size of an average brick, slid open. A blindingly bright light streamed through the slit, causing Belladonna to wince in pain as her eyes rapidly switched their adaptation, before she squinted at the slit in the wall.

A pair of purely golden eyes, like they were balls made entirely of amber, which were framed by blonde hair appeared in the gap and glared at her through the hole. They scanned the area around her, before looking over Belladonna herself. After a quick inspection, the eyes widened in awe when they looked into Belladonna’s own eyes, before the wall rumbled again.

This time, the entire wall shifted and dissolved into dust, revealing the scared people huddled within its previously protective walls. 𝗳𝗿𝐞𝕖𝘄𝗲𝕓𝗻𝚘𝚟𝕖𝐥.𝚌𝕠𝕞

A small ball of light, like a dancing pixie, floated in the air above the head of the long eared mage. Now that Belladonna was able to get a look at them that involved colour, her suspicions were confirmed. But really, just those massive ears alone were enough to let her know this mage was an elf.

Glancing down at their hands, Belladonna could see that her fingers seemed to turn to a greyish wood just before the knuckles. However even after another inspection of their appearance, Belladonna still could not figure out if they were male or female.

Jason would have had a field day with this race, and Lilith would probably love them too.

"What are you still doing here? I thought you were going to escape through the hole after you made it bigger?" Belladonna asked dismissively, strolling past the elf. She glanced at the cowering prisoners, who shrunk away from her gaze and trembled in even more terror at her presence, before she rolled her eyes and looked away from them.

"We were... but we were not sure how much attention the activity would attract, or what was even out there to escape into. We have no idea where we are or what is waiting for us. So they kind of just... shut down, insisted on waiting for you. Well... Some of them did. Not everyone is convinced that you are not another monster that wants to eat us.

Are you going to eat us?" The elf asked with a slight hint of amusement in their tone, as if they knew something that they others did not.

Belladonna paused in her tracks and glanced over her shoulder. She scanned the trembling and terrified people, before looking over the strange elf who was smirking at her, and grumbled under her breath.

Escort quests were the worst.

"Come on, let’s just get out of here. I have a headache that I need to sleep off."