42nd Looper [Isekai / Time Loop / LitRPG]

Rendhe and Lanlo came with Penelope the next day.

Penelope had expected there to be a comment made by the driver, but he didn't even roll down his window as they got in the vehicle. The three of them spent the ride in silence, which was a welcome environment compared to the trips with Nochi. The young Mebope never stopped talking, which got on even Circe's nerves.

Rendhe wore a smile on her black face as she looked out the window. Lanlo, on the other hand, was quietly playing with his silver fingers while keeping his gaze in his lap.

There were vehicles in front of the school when they arrived. Only a handful scattered around the parking lot, but it was a notable change from the day before. Their car pulled up to the front of the school like it had the day before and waited for the three of them to get out before it drove away.

Penelope walked into the building with her two charges behind her. The light to the office was out and the door was shut. There was no handle to test and it didn't open when she pushed on it.

"Are we early?" Lanlo looked out through the front doors.

"He's probably getting the others set up in the room." Penelope walked to the + and looked to her right and left. The left hallway was the shortest, with it leading to the side of the building where the track was. The right was the longest and ran the length of the building. It was also the direction that she had gone the day before. Straight in front of her was another + before the hall stopped in a dead end.

"Did he tell you where to go?" Rendhe tapped her foot as she leaned against the wall.

"Did either of you go to school here?" Penelope glanced back at her charges.

Both shook their heads.

"We have our own school on the island." Lanlo beamed with pride. "This is for the mainlanders."

"Horses don't have to go to school." Rendhe scoffed, but didn't try to hide the hint of jealousy in her voice. "And the rock eaters don't send their young but half the time."

"So it's the birdmen, Elves, and Goblins?" Penelope tried to think of what the people with wings were called.

"Sively." Lanlo answered just before Jeru. "And they're not really birdmen since their wings are made out of leather and they don't have feathers."

"Gotcha." Penelope rubbed her temple. "I'll figure this out eventually."

"There's not a lot of diversity in this colony." Rendhe shrugged. "Not like most places in the universe. We've got a few other races here, but they tend to be loners instead of whole communities."

"There are a lot of different races?" Penelope pointed down the hall to her right. "Let's see if they're where he had me working yesterday."

"Over two hundred." Lanlo fell into step behind her. "Every few decades, a new planet will be discovered with sapient races that haven't been encountered before, but that's been happening less and less as more of the universe gets mapped."

"You mean you haven't explored everything out there?" Penelope paused. "I thought the Casters could teleport from planet to planet?"

"Casters?" Rendhe wrinkled her nose. "Oh, you're using the system classification." The black woman smoothed her skirt. "Only the strongest mages can do that and they're busy with more important stuff than exploring." She bobbed her head. "There's an exploration group, but it takes a while to scout out new planets, make sure they're safe, and then set up a new gate on the planet. Then there's the discovery team that has to go in and check out the new flora and fauna and they usually include whatever mage was strong enough to set up a planetary gate to set up world gates, so a single exploration team can take decades just to set up a single planet."

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Lanlo stared at the younger woman.

"What?" Rendhe folded her arms across her chest. "I wanted to join a discovery team before I had my magic evaluated and learned that I was never going to be strong enough to create a gate."

"Well, we're not going to be weak for long." Lanlo smirked. "Once we go into the Dungeon we're going to be stronger than the masters!"

"If you survive." Rendhe rolled her eyes. "Didn't you hear how many people they've been losing?"

Penelope swallowed as she tuned out their conversation while they walked down the hall. How am I going to get the things I need to do alchemy and enchanting?

"Spell paper can be made from the trees, though convincing people to make paper when the Dungeon is looming in front of them and they're confused is going to be difficult from the get-go, though…" Jeru bobbed his head from side to side. "Cirdor does have some in his office."

And I can get in there because of the looper card. Penelope nodded. But that means opening up the admin building… Her thoughts trailed off for a moment. How am I going to explain that?

"Ren has enough Fae blood in him that the Star Tower opened for him. That's how they were able to set it up as their base and I gave the others the idea to try to use their menus to open the other buildings. There were enough people with a small portion of Elf lineage or who were descendants of Human allies to those houses that all the towers but the admin building could be opened."

Penelope stopped, causing Rendhe to almost run into her. The Mebope woman sidestepped, then turned around to face the Human.

"Why'd you stop like that?" The black woman glared at Penelope.

"Just thinking." Penelope blinked, then shook her head when she realized that Rendhe was waiting for her to elaborate. "I was remembering all the people we lost and going over what I could have done differently to save them."

"You can't change the past." Rendhe blew a raspberry. "Even if you could, Elder Feletis banned using chronomancy for anything more than freezing time." A smile crept across her face. "He's so powerful and time magic takes so much time to cast; he'd be in your face the moment you started the spell."

Your dad would have stopped you from doing this?

"That's why I had to talk to him first." Jeru shrugged. "Throwing down with him would have severely depleted my reserves and ultimately we wanted the same thing." A tear escaped his eye and rolled down his cheek. "He couldn't stop me when I cast it the first time to go back because he wasn't there, so getting to see him and tell him goodbye…" He wiped the tears away with the back of his hand. "It was something I didn't get to do the first time around."

How did he die? Penelope blinked when Rendhe's fingers snapped in her face. "Sorry, just wondering if that would be a way to summon him."

"You wish." Rendhe laughed. "You might be the strongest Caster here at the moment, but even you aren't strong enough to even start one of those spells." She walked backwards down the hall, then stopped in front of an open door. "They're in here!"

"That's someone else's story." Jeru took a deep breath. "But he died giving hope to the universe, which was what he always wanted." He motioned at the Mebope woman walking through the door. "You better go after her."

Penelope shelved the conversation about Jeru's father for the moment. They had years for it to come up again and she was sure that eventually, she'd hear what had happened.

"Wait." Penelope hurried to the door and touched the other woman on the shoulder. "Let me talk to him."

It wasn't the same classroom as the one that she'd been in the day before, but it was arranged in a similar fashion. Six tables with cabinet doors underneath were evenly spaced around the room. Behind five of the tables were a pair of each of the main races in the colony. The Centaurs and Goblins were in the back of the room, with the Sively and Unktehila in the middle row and the pair of Elf men at the front left table.

The purple Elf at the front of the room had her blue hair pulled back in a tight ponytail. She wore a black lab coat over jeans. Her yellow eyes fixated on the trio in the doorway.

"And we have our final group." The Elf clicked her tongue. "I won't give you a demerit for being late since you had to accommodate a Human, but…" Her gaze centered on Penelope. "Don't make a habit of it." She pointed at the empty table. "The three of you will have to share a table."

Everyone was standing behind their tables, so once the three of them got behind theirs, the teacher nodded. "I'm Professor Nellebrie Nosea. Let's start with the basics of alchemy."