Monster Girl Ranching in Another World

Chapter 332 Strange, Groomed My Own Path

Remove them from Mex?

I was just getting my plate filled as Harold dropped another bomb on me. I had been curious to know what could be done about the Elementals' darkness, but taking Mex's power seems a bit much.

[You will not be stealing from him. I have scanned and looked over everything that I have learned from your elementals. You know that they were his before, so I was able to retrieve detailed information about Mex. I hadn't said anything about it yet until I was sure.]

Kerri was now our acting waitress, and she was talking plates to everyone now as Lidy sat on my lap, eating her eggs. Kerri was doing much better as a waitress and had only split a single plate of food.

'What does that mean? What did you find out?' I sent as an anxious thought.

[Mex is no longer a Sage Class like you, he is a Fighter Class. To put it more correctly, Mex was never a Sage Class, truly. Something forced the Elementals to merge with him. I have no clue what that was, but none of the elementals know what it was. According to all of them, Mex has always been a Sage, but that isn't right.]

I was confused by this mostly, but parts of it were making sense. I knew that Mex had been much stronger at one point before the Demons had invaded this world, and that was about the time that Maelstrom would have been captured.

'What does Maelstrom know about this?' I asked.

[nothing, all memories from before being released from the prison in Mex's mind are gone.]

'Are you sure gone is right? Do you think that they are blocked?' I asked.

[That I don't know. I don't have powers the same as you or the girls, but I do have access to many tools. Just not the ones that I would need to do something of that scale or advanced enough. I am limited to the tools of this reality and what has been discovered.]

There had to be some way to find out, and one of the ways would be to ask Mex, but he might not be able to say. There was another possibility, but we would have to wait until Mex could summon Maelstrom.

[Mex will never be able to summon either that are inside of him. He has never summoned any of them, only acted as a vessel to bring… them to the… island? Hmmm…]

'What are you humming and ha-ing about?' I asked.

[Strange, don't you think? Mex has never been able to summon an Elemental, yet, for some reason, he brought them to this island and released him. Now I don't have a complete map of the world, but from what you have learned, there is one main continent, and the rest is islands.]

As far as I had learned, that was the picture that everyone was painting. I was starting to guess where Harold was going with this, but I was still confused, so I just listened.

I had my arms wrapped around Lidy as she leaned back on my chest, so I was in no hurry to get up just yet. Lidy had finished eating, but some of the others we still working on their plates, so I had time to listen.

[I can guess that this island isn't much different than the ones that make up most of the surface of this world. So why was this one picked? Because this is where you were going to land, right? I think that the previous you has something to do with this, but I don't think that you will find the answer to this question when we leave the island.]

'I actually have an idea about that. Once you can transfer Maelstrom over to me, then I can summon her; it is her, right? I don't want to be rude since you two are… you know.'

[Yes, Marly is a she, but Elementals don't have genders like us naturally. They can take on most forms, but this world changed that for them. Because of the nature of Demons and other species of the planet, they adapted their personalities to the forms they took.]

'You keep calling her Marly, but is that really her name, or one that you chose for her?'

[Maelstrom is the identity that the darkness inside of her goes as. Marly is the name of the original before she was taken over, or at least I assume as much.]

'What do you mean, assume? You don't know for sure? I mean, you did say she remembered nothing, right?'

[While I was trying a different test to regress Marly's memories, I asked what her name was. I was using a basic hypnosis trick, and at first, all I got was Maelstrom repeatedly. Then, right as I was about to try something else and bring her back, she breathed "Marly" so quietly that I had to check the recording many times. After that, the darkness was at its height, and I got nothing, but that also made it easier to target it.]

'We have someone that can deal with this. Once you get all of the darkness out and Marly transferred over, I will summon her and have Nushi look into her mind. If there is anything there, she will find it.'

[Thank you. Both of us want to unlock Marly's past, but I have been hitting walls.]

'Don't be afraid to ask. You have helped me out more times than I can count! Once we get off the island, I will help get Marly's memories back.'

[I appreciate that. I didn't ask before because you have had more than you can handle on your plate for quite a while, but I think you will have more time in the future for minor tasks.]

'This is no minor task, Harold. If you are right, then I groomed my own path, and finding out this could help direct me in the future.'