Before the mural, Nasi bowed her head in thought, her lips quivering as she muttered incessantly.
Noticing that Colin had sat down, she subconsciously turned her head to look over, confusion still evident on her face.
After pondering for a moment, she slowly flew beside Colin and suddenly asked,
"Good giant, do you know where they have all gone?"
"They?"
Colin opened his eyes, and the sight of Nasi's downcast little face immediately registered, causing him to pause slightly.
Since meeting the little sprite Nasi, he had never seen her look so dejected.
"The tree elves, the flower elves… Good giant, do you know where they have gone?" Nasi asked, lifting her head with an enduring bewilderment in her eyes.
"I don't know either," Colin slowly shook his head.
There were no bodies in the sacrificial tree hole, no signs of struggle… The tree elves obviously didn't die out due to any crisis.
And with the sacrificial stone platform above completely empty, coupled with the ever-invading dark red wind…
Colin deduced that the tree elves in this place must have evacuated en masse to some other place, as for where… naturally, it was impossible to know.
"Little Nasi can't remember…" the red sprite continued in a disheartened, feeble voice, "Little Nasi can't recall where they all have gone…"
Colin remained silent.
From the traces in the tree hole, it could be inferred that it had been at least several decades since any elves had been here.
If the entire different space was like this, then it was unknown how long the sprite before him had been living here in solitude.
Perhaps five years, perhaps ten years… or even, several decades.
"Little Nasi, do you really not remember anything?" Colin asked again.
Nasi silently shook her head, and it was unclear what she had thought of, but her expression suddenly turned even more desolate, with her wings behind her drooping down as well.
"Good giant…" Nasi fell silent for a moment, flew above his head and collapsed to sit down, taking quite a while before she finally spoke.
"Do you know why they only left me, a single elf, here?"
Colin's lips moved, but in the end, he said nothing.
Only the howling wind broke the silence in the tree hole.
Colin closed his eyes again, silently resisting the pervasive dark red wind.
......
Thus, a day's time silently passed.
In a moment, the dark red wind gradually weakened and finally stopped abruptly, leaving the world quiet and desolate once again.
The dark redness before his eyes quickly dissipated, and his vision was clear once more.
Colin slowly opened his eyes and exhaled a breath of stale air.
The cessation of the dark red wind that had lasted a day and a night was still somewhat unfamiliar to him.
Suppressing the urge in his heart to go out and confirm some thoughts, he took out the Demon Release Ring and began to restore his magic power first.
After enduring for a day and a night, even though the intensity of the wind in the tree hole was low, his body's magic power was nearly depleted.
After a while.
Having recovered his magic power, Colin intended to stand up at once, but as if he remembered something, his action paused slightly; he extended his spiritual power towards the top of his head.
At some point, the little sprite Nasi above him had quietly fallen asleep.
It's undeniable… the little sprite's resistance to the dark red wind is truly high, to be able to sleep even under such circumstances…
He moved the little sprite from the top of his head into his hand and then activated the Soaring and Flying Technique to fly forward.
"Good giant…" Nasi woke up, rubbing her eyes and looking around, "Where are we going?"
"To look around," Colin answered briefly.
He arrived at the edge of the Tree Hole Forest, in front of the bushy area.
Following his memory, going through the now vanished invisible barrier, Colin stopped.
Removing the elf armor off his body, he turned around and tentatively reached out.
Sure enough, that hard-as-steel sensation returned once again.
"Good giant…" Nasi watched his actions, then suddenly froze, murmuring, "That's right, there is a Protective Shield here… it's visible every time the wind blows."
Colin paused, now recalling that the barrier would appear every time the wind blew…
"Nasi, how often does the wind blow?" he couldn't help asking.
"This, Little Nasi remembers!" Nasi replied, counting on her fingers, "About every seven sunrises and sunsets on the outside, the wind will blow!"
"Once every seven days, huh..."
Shaking his head, Colin once again summoned the Elf Armor, tentatively reaching forward.
The same motion, yet this time he encountered no resistance at all.
Looking down at the grey-black armor on his body, Colin's confusion grew.
Moments later, setting his thoughts aside, he flew up toward the high sky.
Passing through the horizontally expanding Dark Red Wind branches, his view quickly cleared.
Lakes, mountains, grasslands, swamps...
As before, the vast Different Space had a complex and sharply defined terrain.
The different landscapes had nearly no transition between them, clearly delineated from one another.
Gazing upon this scene, that bold idea surged into Colin's mind once again.
He murmured to himself:
"Could this be the legendary place where the Nine Elf Clans dwelled together—the Elf Ancient Land?!"
Even as he deduced this result, Colin could hardly believe it.
After all, the reason why the Elf Ancient Land remained a legend was that no one knew if it truly existed, and no Elf had ever publicly acknowledged its existence.
The legend had arisen because wizards discovered that Elves would often disappear without a trace, only to reappear after some time.
And after such disappearances, two Elves who had previously been strangers might become familiar with each other…
In the past thousand years, the Elves... especially the High Level Elves, had gradually vanished without a trace along with the Giant Dragons and the Beastmen.
Wizards commonly believed that the Elves had returned to the legendary Elf Ancient Land...
Every wizard wanted a glimpse of the Elf Ancient Land, rumored to be home to all types of Elves, even harboring the Ancient Tree of Life...
But no wizard truly managed to reach the kingdom belonging to the Elves—or perhaps some had, but at least he had not heard of it, nor was it ever recorded in the books.
With complex thoughts whirling in his heart, Colin's expression slowly darkened. The surprise and excitement of discovering the Elf Kingdom faded, leaving only unease and... a faint fear.
The Elf Clan, having been allies to the wizards in that great war thousands of years ago alongside the Giant Dragon Orcs, surely wielded formidable strength.
If this truly was the Elf Ancient Land... what kind of crisis had occurred that forced the Elf Clan to abandon their home and move away?
"Could it be the Dark Red Wind?" Colin looked up at the deep purple sky.
What had seemed a magnificently beautiful scene now appeared strangely terrifying upon closer inspection.
"Sigh—"
He exhaled a long breath, slightly shaking his head.
All of this was merely his conjecture; without finding another dwelling like the Tree Hole Forest, he could not jump to conclusions so readily.
Colin looked into the distance.
Now high in the sky, he could easily see a mountain that stood out against everything else, located approximately in the center of the Different Space.
The light green mountain, or rather, the one not yet completely soaked by the dark red glass.
Withdrawing his gaze, Colin's thoughts stirred, and he suddenly performed a Miracle Technique he hadn't used in a long while—Anando's Dice!
The golden dice descended from the sky, spinning rapidly.
Colin silently awaited the outcome.
After learning so much, he hadn't forgotten his original, most pressing purpose—
To leave this place!
In other words, to find a way out of the Different Space.
The exit from the Different Space would naturally not be at any edge, and without any information, the first consideration would naturally be places that are out of the ordinary.
The so-called special places... the distant mountain undoubtedly counted as one.
And for other locations, perhaps they could be determined with Anando's Dice.
As he pondered, the golden dice gradually stopped spinning, settling on the number two.
"Bad luck."
The dice transformed into a golden light that sank into his chest.
Two location insights immediately appeared in Colin's mind.
One of them, unsurprisingly, was the distant mountain.
The other... Colin furrowed his brows, gazing toward the grassland not far away.
"At the edge of the grassland, near the mountain direction... there is a treasure there as well?"