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POV: Demon Outpost - Karin

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With purpose, Karin made her way through the halls by herself.

Thankfully, she was important enough and trusted enough to quickly gain permission to come to the top floor and "inform the elders of some important details"—such a vague reason wouldn't work for most Demons.

Demons are strict on information, so it came down to her reputation, and she need not tell anybody exactly what she had to share; however, she would of course be punished if she was unreasonably wasting their time.

After some time, she neared a slightly charred entrance.

Surprisingly, the floor had already been repaired and the damaged items recovered or discarded.

But it made sense to her; Elech would make a personal effort for this room in particular...

As soon as she entered, her thoughts were confirmed.

Elech's arm had transformed itself into five flexible appendages; each one moved with a conscious finesse that told much of his practiced mastery, but right now he was only carefully stretching and propping a red beast skin in place—a fairly difficult process for such a skin, even for him.

A short rush of nostagia shot through her at the sight—the difficulty of stretching it was still keenly memorable to her.

Because of this, she could recognise how his effort was likely fruitless—it had been too damaged by the dead guards' flames.

She felt a twinge of pity, and as if sensing the minute changes in her emotions, Elech turned his head slightly, his silvery gaze less piercing than usual.

Karin could only thank the fold that she'd caught him at a fortunate time—for her at least.

"Karin..."

His brow was weakly cocked; there was no charade in his act as usual.

"That 5th layer Magore hide you'd given me... A shame."

The hide dropped to the ground, and Elech's arm's visibly relaxed, drawing itself back into his body like a squid rushing into hiding.

Shortly after, his arm began to reform from the amalgamation of biomass.

"It's ruined."

He sighed and turned his body to look over at Karin directly; a frown plastered itself on his face, but she knew it wasn't directed at her right now.

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When she was younger, she and Elech had a lot of conflict. She took up being an apprentice to an important position in the outpost, yet also acted as a free spirit, leaving seemingly at random.

The way he'd seen it, she was trying to have her cake and eat it too, making the role into an unstable risk—she would likely die out there one day, and they'd be at a loss.

However, on her way back from tracking down a demon, she managed to use her talent in illusion magic to provoke two powerful 5th-layer montsers into attacking each other after discovering one of them had killed the same demon.

She brought a small portion of the hides of both creatures back with her and gifted them to Elech, knowing she'd gone too far this time. It was her hope that, by appealing to his needs in mutation magic, she'd garner his forgiveness.

Even Elech wasn't confident he could take both creatures on simultaneously, but she'd used wit to succeed, and from then on, he tacitly approved of her outings.

To put it plainly, they were no longer on bad terms, and he valued her talent.

"I should have brought back more of it..."

Karin smiled faintly.

"No, this was my mistake."

He paused, and Karin raised an eyebrow in slight surprise.

She was always so confident in reading people, and yet Elech always eluded her. It's a struggle to tell just what's an act and what's genuine with him... Alark would always complain of his hypocrisy and passive aggression, but she couldn't help but wonder if he was merely a master of pushing people's buttons in all the right ways.

It was impossible for her to believe that he was dimwitted at all.

"What have you come to say?"

Seeing him return to his blunt attitude, Karin pushed her thoughts aside.

"Syrin has been acting strange after seeing Ana a few times recently..."

His always stoic eyes flickered in an instant of surprise.

He caught himself, hesitated a little, then spoke.

"Did you remove my mark?"

Shock suddenly wracked Karin's mind; she'd not told anyone other than Alark of her psychic magic; other than Ana, only she could remove his tracking magic.

Her expression was easily read, but she couldn't stop herself from getting defensive.

"But I..."

"Don't lie to me today. I left you be because I respected your way of life; I've always known that you managed to evolve your magic."

Karin could only look away in bare admission.

"I didn't tamper with the magic."

"I know. So, are you going to leave if I need your help. Ana has always been a rogue element."

She felt significantly more assured of her deduction now; he was exactly this type of person—direct, but not with what he actually wants, and he'll use your reactions to glean his information and push you in an agreeable direction.

'What is he even doing here? I'm sure he could have much more...'

She wanted to ponder it further, but this was more important.

Ana is a pillar of the outpost, and Karin would only barely be a suitable replacement for some of her tasks, but barely is still enough; Elech just needed to know if she'd stay if more weight was pushed onto her shoulders.

Karin's heart was filled with a brief sense of guilt. Elech was controlling and possibly paranoid, but she didn't hate him; in fact, what was now going on was justification for that.

She could only lie to him and hope Syrin had a safer, more secluded place to rebuild; perhaps she'd discovered something in these caves while still an imp; after all, her memory seemed to be far clearer than anyone else's.

Reasonable was her train of thought when guided by her belief that Syrin was much older than she actually was.

"I'll stay."

She eventually replied.

Elech maintained his evaluating gaze for a while longer before looking away.

This conversation hadn't gone as she'd expected—not that any conversation with Elech ever did—but the outcome was still what she wanted.