Somebody is pinging us, I figured. What could this mean? I tried to analyze the situation. The only option that came to mind was that the owners of this preserve finally became interested in what was happening here. It seems that my relatively quiet life has ended. I asked Smarty's advice on how to proceed: wait for the hosts or quietly slip away.

"You see, Nick," said Smarty thoughtfully, "these lands belong to the elves, who are extremely sensitive to everything that happens on their land without their knowledge. Judging from the information taken from an elven seeker of power that visited me almost two thousand years ago, in such cases they kill offenders on sight, without even inquiring the reasons for the violation. It is quite unlikely that something has during this time since as I said, elves live for centuries and some individuals live up to a thousand years. As you understand, society doesn't change much within a few generations.

"Hmmm," I stretched. "So what should I do? You're the smarty one, tell me what I should do."

"What's there to advise on?" smiled Smarty. "You have to get out of here as fast as humanly possible. That is, if you do not want to personally test how sharp the elves' arrows are."

"All right, all right. I get the picture," I replied, stopping the stream of eloquence from Smarty. "How much time do we have?"

"I don't know for sure," I imagined how Smarty shrugged his shoulders, "but I advise you to not linger for long. It would be best to move out this evening, especially since their already on the way. Let's hope that nobody will come here before that."

Honestly, I was really taken aback. Somehow I really got used to these places already. You could even say that I was afraid to go out into the unknown. But I understood that this stage of my life is coming to an end. And it is unknown what new trials fate has prepared for me.

While I was getting ready, Smarty tried to devise a route for my movement based on the information known to him. As he explained, this area is located deep in the territory of the elves and it will be difficult to get out of here without getting noticed. Besides, the forest is their natural home. The shortest distance is to the eastern border, towards human settlements, so that's where we should be going. It is quite possible to get there within a week or two by walking.

I looked doubtfully at my belongings. I really don't need to collect anything. Since I appeared here with one backpack and in jeans, a shirt and a jacket, nothing new was added to my belongings, except perhaps for the pole/spear and nunchucks. By the way, while I'm on this topic...

"Hey, Smarty!" I looked doubtfully at my sneakers - although they looked a bit worn out, they still seemed strong. I wanted to ask him about something else: "What would you suggest I do with the subnote? I do not want to take it with me, you never know what could happen on the way. It's relatively fragile. But I would also feel bad leaving it here since it has a lot of useful information and I will not be able to reach it from a long distance. What do you say?"

I really felt sorry to leave the subnote. Who knows what kind of knowledge might come in handy on the way.

"Yes," replied the Clever, "I agree, it's dangerous to carry such a thing around with you and I will not forgive you if anything happens to it." Oh, so that's how it is, I raised my eyebrows in surprise. "There are so many amazing things there, you can not even imagine how much I love to dig around in the huge heap of information that is stored on its hard drives. However, I can not think of any solutions to this dilemma," said Umnik sadly.

Okay, it seems that Smarty's brains can't think of anything. I'll have to try using my own thinking device. For the next half hour, I tried to learn as much as possible about Smarty's abilities in magic. It turned out that without the burned out amplifiers and sensors, he pretty much can't do anything. He can only do some minor magic nearby and connect to the info network. I analyzed everything that Smarty said and an idea came to mind.

"Listen, Smarty," I began, "if I remember correctly, you claimed that you can keep in touch with me at any distance if I have the diadem on. Is that true?"

"Yes, but how could this help you?" asked Smarty, puzzled.

"As I understand it, the diadem is a kind of transceiver?" I said, excitedly pacing back and forth in front of the hut.

"Yeah..." Smarty carefully listened to me.

"Tell me, can you pass radio waves through it and reproduce them on the other side? You said you felt them. All you need to do is capture them and recreate them on the other end. The same goes in the opposite direction. Thus, the traffic will travel through magic part of the way. What do you say?"

Smarty remained silent for a long time. Then he said with uncertainty in his voice:

"Actually, I wanted to go with you," and fell silent.

Damn! I felt awkward. I completely missed that he was already not on the ship, but in my diadem. Hmm, it seems, he is tired of sitting in one place. Obviously, I activated the part of his body (module?), that is responsible for curiosity... What should I do now? However, one interesting thought flashed through my mind.

"Listen, Smarty, can't you divide the diadem into two pieces, or is it a single-piece, monolithic mechanism?"

After a couple of seconds of stunned silence, Smarty whispered:

"Nick, did anyone ever you that you're a genius? Of course, the diadem is a monolithic mechanism, but it can easily be divided into multiple of parts without any problems. Do you know how many backup circuits there are in there?" Smarty took a deep breath. "This is the control interface of a spaceship. There is so much redundancy and reliability that you never even imagine it!"

"Well, do it then!" I smiled, listening to Smarty's delight. Of course, I'm not a genius. Just a human being who, as you know, are capable of incredible discoveries that are beyond simple logic. Although in this case, logic was what worked.

Smarty perfectly completed the required task. It turned out that it was not so difficult to divide the diadem. Although, now it could not fit on my head. But we also found a way out of this situation. From his half of the diadem, Smarty formed a simple bracelet, which tightly clasped my arm above the elbow of my left hand. I attached the second part of the diadem to the subnote. The tests showed that everything was successful, although I initially doubted it - because the direct connection from my body-comp to the subnote was still there, but Smarty insultedly argued that the signals passed through the bracelets were identical to the original ones.

"Listen," I suddenly realized, "what if someone comes here and sees the subnote? Can't you disguise it?"

"I'll do better," Smarty smiled. (By the way, how do I know that he smiled? Whatever, I'll figure it out another time) "I'll just lock the door, it will be impossible to open it and no magic will help."

"Sounds good." In such matters, I trusted Smarty.

I was completely ready. Well, almost ready.

"Ugh!" I said discontentedly, "If only I would have brought some proper boots instead of these sneakers. I'm afraid that will not last very long on such a long journey across the woods and other terrains."

"Well," said Smarty, grinning, "I can also surprise you with something."

"Oh really?" I narrowed my eyes with interest.

"Yeah. Do you remember that demon? Who's mummy was lying in the control room.

I nodded.

"Do you remember his clothes?"

"Yeah..." I started to guess what he was trying to say...

"His clothes had a spell embedded in them. In other words, an information structure that strengthens the material that it was introduced into. Clothes made of such material can't even be penetrated my an arrow. If you want, I'll work on your clothes and shoes - they will be completely indestructible."

"That would be great, but there's something else," I muttered thoughtfully. "Tell me, do all of the locals wear these kinds of clothes?"

"No, of course not," laughed Smarty. "Mages wouldn't spend their magic on anyone else, since it takes so long for them to accumulate it. Well, maybe for money or by obligation. Also, the quality of such protection depends on the skill of the magician. I'm pretty sure that nobody here can give you the level of protection that I will give you," he said proudly.

"Listen, can this be done not only to clothes, but to other items?"

"Actually, you are right!" answered Smarty in surprise. "I didn't even think of that!"

I continued my thought:

"Would be possible to protect the subnote in the same way?" I mulled this over in my head for a while. No, even though setting up the defense wouldn't hurt, I still will not take it with me. I might lose it along the way. "Also, can you strengthen my weapons and my body-comp along with its glasses?"

After around half an hour - setting up the protection took some time - once again checking to make sure I didn't forget anything, I set out on my adventure.