Iris stared at the two demi-humans with suspicion but didn't lash out at them, feeling light-headed as if someone had boiled an egg in her skull. She felt her body purging something deep inside her body but was unsure of what her undead body could even purge from its resilient self. Her head felt the brunt of the purging causing her excellent eyesight to become blurry whenever she moved her head.
The risen grabbed her head with her free hand trying to remember why the two demi-human who knew their names were even there. Slowly the elf's mind began to be flooded with memories of what happened which suddenly cut off as the memory of Kia's cold finger touching her chest appeared last. Whatever her mistress must have done to ensure their survival must have great weight on her shoulders as the girl's pitifully weak body managed to latch onto her stomach like a leach. A wave of sadness flooded Iris's entire body causing the undead hoplite to want to give up on her new life seeing her inability to protect Kia from danger but two pair of eyes staring at her and the undead girl made the elf reconsider.
She couldn't leave Kia to fend off for herself because of her own selfishness.
Looking at the two demis in front of her once again, Iris was able to examine the two with much more care than before when they fought. Sitting casually on the cold stone floor, a woman with white hair reaching slightly past her shoulder was playing with a pebble throwing it high into the air, punching a hole in the fog before catching it without looking. She was wearing a light grey tunic with an iron plate resting on top of her upper chest held up with a series of strings going over her shoulder and under a thick belt covering her stomach. Her forearms were protected by braces made from the same thick leather as the belt around her stomach while a pair of ordinary boots protected her feet. Laying on the floor next to her a long forked tail slowly swept the stone as it swayed mindlessly back and forward. With cat-like ears on top of her head, Iris's suspicions about Shiro being a feline demi-human were confirmed. Turning her head left toward the other demi-human, Iris saw a somewhat familiar gown adorning the woman with more resemblance to an animal than Shiro but remaining very much human-like.
The second woman wore a white shirt with an upright collar tucked into a long bright red skirt what Kasheng wore, albeit more primitive as the skirt was held onto the woman's frame with a string and not with a silk sheet of fabric wrapped around the waist. The woman's hands ran through the long and wide tail she rested on her knees, grooming its slightly dusty fur until its fur gleamed in the harsh light of the torch. The more Iris's eyes got further from the fox's torso the more abnormalities seemed to appear on her human form. Her green eyes resembled that of a cat with long vertical irises instead of round ones. An armoured plate made from bone lined the outside of her arms, primarily congregating the most around her elbows and the side of her neck, culminating into small blunt spikes.
Iris noticed pendants made from colourful beads, teeth and a skull of an animal hanging on both of the demis necks. The skull on Shiro's pendant was one of a rat or a mouse while a skull of a small songbird hung around Nakatei's neck.
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"You are a shaman, aren't you?" Iris instantly picked up the work laid out for her by the blood-covered girl sleeping in her hands.
"I? Ehh... I'm but not a very good one." The mutated fox stuttered as she answered the sudden question.
"But can you fix mana links?"
"Why the two of you just say these random words? Our soul being small and now mana links," Nakatei waved her arms in frustration. "I'm on my way to Nishimine!" The beast woman said to the undead elf, who didn't know how her response answered the question.
"Nishimine is the city where shamans go to learn how to talk to the spirits and so on," The white cat explained to the elf. "Since shamans are extremely rare, sometimes going centuries without one. They are sent off to Nishimine to learn as much as they can in the span of five or ten years before returning to their tribe."
The elf's mind quickly noticed the similarity between Nishimine and Oriripol as a place for magic users to learn. It wasn't a hard thing to do as Oriripol is one of the few human cities on the eastern bank of Vitas, having to exist in Demi-Human Territory. Still, even Magocracy wasn't there to teach mages the very basics but to expand on their knowledge in addition to being the place where the noble houses love to throw their secondborn into to gain prestige and show off their wealth and blood purity.
"On Darkness which eats the Light." The undead elf cursed under her nose.
"You speak like pink skins I had killed once." Shiro commented.
"What did they have emblazoned on their armour?" The former slave asked out of curiosity.
"They had a sun which was on fire everywhere they could paint it on."
"Paladins from the order of Cleansing Light... what were they doing here?" The former slave to the human Hero remembered that order being stationed outside the Theocracy in the upper left reaches of the Wetlands in charge of killing whatever stepped out of the swaps or slipped mast the Ridge Mountains.
"Shiro was hired by a human to travel around with him as a bodyguard."
"Is that true?" Iris asked, never hearing of a demi-human hired as a bodyguard or anyone entrusted with a weapon.
"Yes, long ago a pink-skin went into my tribe and traded metal for some male inus we have captured before. He offered to pay me if I lend him my spear."
"And you believed him?" The elf found the cat woman incredibly short-sighted believing a person whose trade involved acquiring and selling of demi-humans.
"For a time. When I was in Flinter I think the tribe was called, I was hired by another pink-skin and so on and so on until I came back." Shiro spoke as if she had described the weather. "So where are you planning to go, all the tunnels behind us are collapsed."
"Somewhere, where I could find someone or something to repair her body." The tall risen shook her head toward the girl in her arms.
"I think we will get going." Shiro used her spear to lift herself off the floor while motioning the fox to stand up.
"Wait for a second," The undead stood up, stretching out her spine to its full length. "Can I hire you?"
"Sorry, but I'm already hired." Shiro instantly replied as she readjusted the cloak resting on her shoulders.
"How much would it cost us to tag along to the city of yours." Iris riposted, she couldn't navigate through the deep dark tunnels without the sun and if anything lurked in these tunnels while she and Kia mindlessly meander through them something more powerful could attack them.
"Shiro?" The younger beast woman standing beside the cat began to worry as Shiro's crimson eyes began to ponder.
"How many health potions do you have?"
"Couple, but I can only tell you once she wakes up."
"They have health potions?" Nakatei's eyes opened wide open.
"I will consider Kia saving Nakatei as a temporary peace until we go above ground and the rest of your potions as payment for navigating through the tunnels." Shiro extended her hand like a merchant to the pale risen extended her long arm and shook the demi-human's hand.