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Ingrid realized she had punched the ground, sending a spray of sand everywhere. The incoming waves crashing on the shore rinsed it off of her, flooding her nose with scent of the ocean. High above she heard the squawking of birds. She could see but it took her mind a while to process that she was on some beach. She definitely was not anywhere close to home.
Standing up and examining herself she must have subconsciously fallen into the ocean and dragged herself out of the water. She gingerly turned around to face the ocean and felt elated that there wasn’t anything weird like a giant’s head staring back at her or three suns setting on the horizon.
How did I end up here? She thought to herself. She was sure she was completely vaporized, nothing left of her, but she was here. Alive. She pinched herself, first on the cheek. No way... she thought. She pinched and pinched. This is a flesh and blood body, no longer just a soul silhouette. She could feel the wind on her skin and hair and the water droplets around her.
And she could feel her Aura washing all over her as if her Raiment was on.
Oops, I better power down. Ingrid thought. Release! Umm... release? Something wasn't right, she could not keep this on or she will run out of mana when she needs it.
"Release!" She said, verbally this time, she even struck various poses she associated with undoing one's Power Up but nothing was happening...
Release! Release! Release!
Nope... not working.
What if... Power Up!
The sand and water around her was violently pushed away, this was the feeling as if she had transformed, but on a much higher level... What was going on? Was her "default" Ingrid self now scaled up to Star Lily?
Ingrid willed her Aura to Shroud itself around her, and with that she now walked back to the relatively calm water to look at herself.
Ohhhhh God, she thought to herself. I've actually turned into those Super Saiyans from that anime.
It was at that point she heard a loud porky squeal further inland.
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Further inland, two boys were running as fast as their legs could muster.
"Idiot! You didn't know they could run THAT fast!"
"Shut up and keep running!" the other said, threatening to break into tears.
The massive Tusk Boar was bearing down on them, squealing furiously, the two boys let out terrified screams when suddenly something leapt right at them.
Ingrid leapt at the gigantic wild boar. As she sailed through the air, she twisted her body around. Time slowed for her, as she positioned herself to deliver a vicious axe kick. Striking the top of the boar's skull, the sudden downward force fractured its skull and pinned it down, the neck vertebrae shattering as it absorbed all of the forward impact and mass of the heavy beast as the rest of the body literally collided with its head.
The boys yelled and cried in relief as the fearsome beast was brought down.
"Umm... this is going to be awkward, but what are you guys supposed to be? Dog-people?" Ingrid asked, looking at the two fluffy dogs in front of her, they were bipedal and wore clothes that reminded her of the Eurasian and Baltic regions.
"W-were Kobolds! Please don't eat us!" one said.
“What’s a dog?” the other asked.
"No, I'm not going to eat you, I'm just ummm..." Ingrid put up her hands placatingly, she thought for a bit.. "I'm just an ordinary fairy passing by."
"Thank you! Thank you miss fairy!" The two rushed over for a hug as they cried in relief.
Ingrid couldn't help but pat the two dog-like or rather, puppy-like creatures that could talk.
After a couple of minutes, they invited her over to their village, talking excitedly about how they made friends with the fairy of the forest. Ingrid dragged the Tusk boar by one of its hind legs. As she suspected, in her base form she was definitely about equal to her Raiment-wearing Star Lily self.
She offered to take the Tusk Boar to the village, since she had a sneaking suspicion that it was her fault the boar had attacked them. When she tried to power up, she lit up the darkening forest as the sun was already setting in the distant horizon. It was then she heard the panicked cries of the Kobold younglings.
The Village of Ontala or as Ingrid called; Koboldtown looked like a comfortable, sleepy town with stout cottages of solid lumber and stacked stones with thatched roofs. Every house had some kind of personal totem pole and for some reason, a pair of intertwined red and white roles dangling from it… they looked like dog houses scaled to human size, but the stake and chain had been replaced with some charm for protection.
If Ingrid had a tail it would be wagging right now as the village was full of cute dog-people. Thank you, Goddess Alcyon for sending me to this world she thought to herself. She resisted the urge to commit an interspecies faux pas by petting one of them out of the blue.
When they first arrived, the village was first in an uproar of terror, then joy as they received Ingrid. They gave her a hero's welcome as she had not only saved two of their younglings but also brought back a large amount of meat. As they partied, Ingrid started asking around, where she was and… this one was a belated thought, if there were any big towns she could go to.
It took awhile for Ingrid to try to see if this world had a name. The answer one merchant Kobold gave was “Terragalia”, an answer that was met with dissent from the people. The merchant also promised to show her his map tomorrow morning so she could head for the much-larger town of New Gorpisal, which had a library and an Adventurer’s Guild that could provide her more information regarding her whereabouts.
She also found out that nobody knew what to make of her. They’ve never seen a human before but they’ve listed off a litany of other races that had come and gone to the village, usually adventurers passing by; Elves, Orcs, Dwarves, Lizardmen… the usual bevy of fantasy world people as well as other ones she forgot due to their exotic names.
Apparently, despite looking like an elf, her rounded ears and lack of sparkly eyes made her look very alien to them. Like a bad case of Uncanny Valley Ingrid thought.
“Hyoo-mun? Well, I’ve never heard of a Hyoo-mun before… but then again, it’s rare to see a fairy around, they’re mostly found in the Fae-lands and most people that go there… usually don’t come back.” one merchant claimed, looking like a Saint Bernard.
“Are the fairies dangerous?” Ingrid asked, sipping her beer, it was sweeter than the usual type and someone earlier had told her this seaside village also has a farm that grows some kind of grain which was probably the analog for barley on Earth. No wonder adventurers come here…
“Yes and no.” The Saint Bernard shook his head “...it’s just that no one can really tell where the Fae-lands are, travelers have had conflicting accounts on the location, probably due to Fae-magic either moving it around or…” he paused to fill his tankard “the Fae-lands themselves move around, that’s partly the reason why some don’t return. Some take a while to come back while others who’ve never return probably ended up in some unknown place…”
“But wait” a Shiba Inu frowned “...aren’t you a fairy? Why aren’t you in the fae-lands?”
Ingrid pondered the question, since it was a whole can of worms. “I’m from a different plane of existence, that’s for sure. I’m not a God or a Celestial… as a matter of fact, I actually died before I arrived here. How I came back, I have no idea, you have any legends or stories about people from other worlds being summoned for like… hero duty or something? Calling otherworlders to battle some great evil?”
Everybody shook their heads. “Well that’s good.” Ingrid sighed in relief “because there’s no way I’m tying myself to a kingdom, I just wanna live free…”
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The next morning.:
"Do you really have to go, Miss Fairy?" Mink and Roofe; the two Kobold boys she saved yesterday, asked, making their adorable puppy-like whining sounds.
Please, this is already so hard for me, Ingrid thought, stop giving me those teary eyes.
Deep inside however, Ingrid knew she had to find out if she could return to Earth. The fact that she somehow still lived gave her a bad feeling that Melrondia was also alive somewhere. If she's somewhere here in Teragalia, she'll hunt her down and finish the job. If not, then she needed to know as quickly as possible if she could go back.
On balance, she was confident that even if she could not return and Melrondia did, the remaining Starchasers could carry on.
Ingrid adjusted her padloi, which to her looked like a dog collar. Among the Kobolds it was given to heroes, which she had earned for saving two of their boys, getting rid of a highly territorial Tusk Boar that terrorized the village, and feeding everyone with enough meat for probably a month.
Giving the boys one last pat, she turned around.
"Smell ya later!" Ingrid said and sprinted away, leaving behind peculiar foot marks on the ground as it was her aura, and not her feet making contact. To the Kobolds the markings were just another product of fairy magic while to Ingrid, were modeled after her favorite shoes.
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Ingrid felt like she was on a leisure jog, although the rest of the world around her was a blur. Her aura was nothing like it was before. Her feet hovered probably an inch and a half off the ground, give or take, as her aura cushioned them like she was wearing super-comfortable sneakers. She tested it, and it did make sneaker imprints on the sand when she tried it out yesterday. The best part was with all this shielding around her, it didn't feel like she was spending any energy.
And that was the thing. Normally one's mana always leaked out and joined the ether. Ingrid's mana did not... at least not within a certain point. Enhancing her body to jump in and axe kick a giant pig's head with enough force to fracture it did cost her mana, but simply moulding it around her feet to make the perfect invisible shoes cost her nothing.
It wasn't just on her feet either. A thorny vine caught on her hip and it disintegrated on contact, a random tree branch hanging too low was simply shoved to the side as her head made contact with it.
Oh full-body shielding. Where were you when I needed you? Ingrid thought to herself. What I would kill to have this when I did scouting activities... all the memories of accidental brushes with poisonous, spiny, and thorny flora came back to her.
"Oh right, I’m Isekai’d, I should try something out!'' Ingrid said to herself out loud. Time to try out another trope: the Status Window. There had to be one, or maybe a map…
After a few embarrassing poses and yelling “Status!” she got something to show up. It wasn’t a status window though, it was rectangular in shape, with glowing cube-like motes lazily drifting away in haphazard directions. Instead of information however, it was a portal.
Through it Ingrid could see some kind of fantasy-esque bedroom around the Late Medieval or Renaissance-era. Its walls were made of giant bricks giving it a rustic feel, but the hanging banners, rich woodwork with gold inlays, the luxurious carpets and beautiful furniture told the viewer this was the dwelling of someone who had in abundance; land, influence, and power.
All of this was second thought however to what, or rather, who was on the carpet.
"Cecil!" she cried happily, seeing her adorable slime familiar wriggling up and down in joy. His round, blue-colored body was translucent as usual and he looked at her with his cute beady eyes.
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"Ingri- I mean, Star Lily!" the blue slime squeaked in joy. He had looked like he just got up from a nap the moment she summoned the window.
"I'm not Star Lily anymore Cecil." she sighed. "I don't know what happened to me... and how are you contacting me? Can you get me back?"
"Hee hee hee!" he giggled mischievously "Did you think your little sacrifice trick was enough to get rid of me? I left behind a small part of me before I jumped onto your back at the last minute!"
"Well, I’m back but I can’t bring up my Raiment anymore…” Ingrid began slowly “I think it’s fused to me now because I can use its abilities… and since you jumped onto me does that mean I have a slime body now?" Ingrid pulled her skin but found the elasticity no different.
"I don’t know Ingrid, but I am certainly whole… which means either the graft of me died or I’ve completely lost contact, and I certainly can’t feel a connection to you." Cecil thought.
Ingrid smiled sadly. The implications on Cecil dying along with her hurt.
"You're welcome, Ingrid!"
Ingrid shook her head "I didn't want to involve you in this Cecil... but thanks."
Cecil grew a muscled arm and flexed a bulging bicep "I'm your familiar to the end, Ingrid, and I will NEVER go back on my promise!"
Ingrid pretended to wipe a random speck of dust in her eye.
"Now when you're done pretending that your Shields malfunctioned, no! I don't know how to get us back. My consciousness only activated the moment you brought up this overlay thing."
Ingrid sighed “I hope that the other you didn’t die.”
Cecil shook his head “Too many if’s, Ingrid. I could always communicate with my grafts over long distances, but across dimensions which I’m assuming we’re in, I don’t know if it’s possible. Maybe Other Me is alive and well but I just can’t reach him… for now, at least.”
There was a pause as the two pondered on what to do next. Ingrid walked around and found that Cecil’s Dialogue Window was following her around, she tried moving it with her mind and the window obeyed her command without the slightest strain.
“Whoa!” Cecil yelled in surprise.
“Sorry! Did it move your room around?” Ingrid said in concern.
“No, just the view! It’s like I got this big plasma screen hovering in my room, but it’s like a portal with fairy dust coming out of the edges!”
“Huh, same view I got here.” Ingrid said. “See if you can move it around with your mind.” Ingrid saw her view of the room shift around. “Nice room by the way, looks straight out of a menu for a gacha game.”
“I was thinking the same thing.” Cecil said. He was trying one of the doors but it wouldn’t budge. “What the hell? These are real fake doors!” He tried squeezing underneath them but despite the visible gap there seemed to be some kind of forcefield blocking his way.
“Try the windows!” Ingrid urged him, all the same he was repelled. “What about that big balcony?”
Both of them sighed in relief as it looked like Cecil was able to step out onto the balcony. The sky was blue, the sun was shining brightly and there was a cool breeze in the wind. Cecil climbed the railing and said “uh-oh…”
“What’s wrong?”
“There’s a forcefield halfway through these railings!” That said, it helped him climb up faster. Now perched on the banister, he tentatively extended a tendril, sighing in disappointment as the he felt something solid. “No way out here either, Ingrid…”
Ingrid felt deflated, then smacked her head for not realizing the obvious. She put her arm through the portal, causing Cecil to jump down the balcony and hurry towards her saying “Hey! Hey! Hey! Get back!”
“Why?” Ingrid said “I’m getting you out of here!”
“No! What if you get stuck like me? Stay out!”
“Alright. How about you try to come out?” Ingrid said, jiggling the Dialogue Window around just to assure herself she still exerted some control over it.
“I don’t know, Ingrid, I have a bad feeling about this as he moved the Dialogue Window from his side and lowered it so it was resting on the floor.
“I knew it…” Cecil sighed. He managed to bring out most of his body but a tiny part of him remained. He strained trying to split himself but it was futile, as if he had lost the ability.
“Dammit!” Ingrid kicked a nearby rock in frustration, subconsciously wrapping her mana around it and causing the first few trees it punched through to collapse. Mortified by what she did, and the fact that she could have hurt someone, she simply sat down in defeat.
“Look, Ingrid… I’m still here” Cecil said as he approached her.
“I guess so…” Ingrid replied wearily, giving him a big hug. “I just don’t want to lose you again, Cecil. Not this time, not ever!”
After a while, Cecil gasped in surprise. “Ingrid… you feeling tired yet?”
“No, why?”
“Well for one thing that’s good, that means it costs you no energy."
"Let's see if having you as an overlay will get me wheezing in five minutes." with a light gesture, she moved the window so that it hovered above her shoulder, that way Cecil could see where she was going. Atop a nearby hill they were able to get the lay of the land; ahead was a sizeable town with tall, fortress-like walls surrounded by tracts of farmlands.
"We should go there next." Ingrid pointed at the town. “That’s probably New Gorpisal the kobolds told me about.”
“Kobolds?” Cecil said, turning the Dialogue Window so it faced her.
“Fluffy dog people, they were all adorable.” Ingrid explained, pulling at her padloi collar “and I’m their hero now.”
“Alright, Isekai checklist: do something heroic on spawn… what was it, some random giant monster?”
“A tusk boar, double the oink and triple the bacon… that means it was big.”
“Yum!” Cecil tried to imagine a strip of bacon the size of a workbench, and him consuming one. “And we’re going to this town because they got better facilities, right? Especially when it comes to getting our bearings straight.”
“Exactly.”
“Okay, Ingrid lead the way, actually I’m anchored to you now…so that was pretty pointless for me to say that but ummm…” Cecil seemed to be considering his words, he looked at Ingrid up and down a couple of times then turned left and right at the picturesque fantasy forest around them.
“I guess it’s pretty ironic we meet again in a glade in the middle of a beautiful forest.” Ingrid observed, soaking in the fresh around around them.
“Well there’s no forest fire this time and…” Cecil paused, he was trying to formulate words. “...you said you were with some kobolds?”
“Yup, Ontala Village. Apparently I’m the only human they’ve laid eyes on.”
“Huh, interesting.” Cecil said, the next words he was trying to form while Ingrid was subconsciously posing like an explorer in a painting (there was even a random rock for her to put a foot on) was failing him. Well, whatever happens, happens. He gave up and simply twisted around left and right like one would shake their head. "No never mind, you do you. Go right ahead."
With that Ingrid crouched on one knee and fully extended her other leg "Ready..."
"Mhmmm... sure, play it up Ingrid." Cecil sighed.
"Seeet!" Electricity crackled to life around her, causing her hair to undulate from the ambient static around her.
"Yup, ham it up more for those likes." Cecil deadpanned as Ingrid unnecessarily raised her haunches and coiled further back, he wondered if instead of a sprint she would just end up catapulting herself out of orbit
"Gooooo!"
"Claaaasic." Cecil said as Ingrid ran so fast that even the Window Overlay lagged behind her.
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"And what are you supposed to be?" the green-skinned guard said, absentmindedly scratching one of the protruding tusks from his lower lip.
"I'm Ingrid! Just your local fairy."
The guard rolled his eyes. She was doing a poor job pretending to be a fairy by merely hovering an inch off the ground, it struck him as almost comical, and she didn't have wings to boot. Still, no armor, no weapons but with a decent mana signature around her, keeps a slime familiar actively communicating to her using a mobile portal...she was strange yet looks formidable enough. Oh, and the speed she was running from, definitely boosted with magic.
"Uh-huh... fairy. Sure. Look, I don't want to be responsible if you start trouble in this town."
"Alright, alright." Ingrid said, raising her arms slightly. "I'm a human."
"I don't know what that is either, missy. If you're a 'human', you're the first that I or anyone else at town has ever seen."
"What? You've never seen any species like me?"
"The hell not!" snapped the orc guard.
"Would it help if she w-"
"Stay out of this, buddy." Said the Orc. "Look, you got any money with you?" Looks like a stretch, but I gotta ask anyway, the entry fee is two silver."
In response Ingrid summoned another window. Four sigils appeared and quickly drifted apart, forming the corners of a square. The surface of the portal shimmering, revealing only a black void within.
"Seriously? Is this glitched?" Ingrid said to nobody in particular. She had stuck her hand into the void and came out empty-handed.
Cecil recognized this as the Armory; a standard-issue ability used by the Starchasers to store their weapons, but it’s surface was a pitch-black void instead of a glimmering portal and it occasionally displayed bursts of “static,” making him think that perhaps they didn’t die and were just brought to this world of Terragalia (as Ingrid called it.)
"Hello, Ingrid? Are you seriously going to... oh sure." Cecil sighed in exasperation as she stuck her upper body into the window, somewhere in that pocket dimension the slime and orc could hear clanking of metal within its mysterious depth.
The orc yawned. He wanted to go back inside already and kick back with some good ale. His relief should be coming in now, but that guy was habitually late. That said, this “human” or fairy or whatever she called herself was quite fascinating, obviously lacking common sense. Nobody stores money or any kind of real valuables in an item box. Not only did they normally take a while to summon and open up, but they also last only a few days at least. Where the item box disgorges the stored items nobody knows.
"Well...that's a first." Cecil said to himself as the orc yawned, showing his big tusks. He looked bored, like an office worker who had just finished today’s work and was impatiently waiting for the clock to hit five.
"There you go!" Ingrid chirped bouncily, handing the orc two silver coins. The bored man barely glanced at the coins and tossed them into the toll chest.
"Welcome to New Gorsipal '' he said in a monotone, before noticing some latecomers rushing in from the forest. Completely ignoring the strange "human" creature, he yelled at the small group of adventurers hurrying to the gate. "Hey! You guys come late again; I'm gonna charge you extra, hustle up now!" his voice was full of vigor once more.
***
"That's another tick off the checklist Cecil!" Ingrid said excitedly as she took in the sights and sounds of the Market. "We're officially Isekai'd now!'' She raised her arms in emphasis as if making a speech to everyone. But barely anyone paid her attention to them. Any new face entering town this late is obviously some dumb, wannabe adventurer.
Cecil gave her a tired "Yes, very Isekai, so when are you going to p-"
"Look Cecil! There really are no humans here!"
"Seriously? You weren't going to take that orc's words at face value?"
"That's Sargent George to you." The orc said as he walked by. "drinks are on me if you're done gawking at the market."
"Sure! I'll come along!" Ingrid hurried alongside George.
Cecil bit his lip, or would have if he actually had one. He didn't know what was more weird, the fact that an orc had such a earthly name or that Ingrid was-
"Okay, I gotta test something out Cecil, you feeling hungry?"
"Actually now that you mention it, I do, but since I'm stuck in here there's now way for me to consume anything unless I happen to be feeding off of your own Ma-Ugh! Wow, this is some good stuff!" Cecil said as he pulled the kebab-like skewers in. Apparently, non-living things can enter and exit the portal without issue.
"Ugh." George grunted when he saw the line at the tavern. "Might take us a while. You mentioned you want to work as an adventurer? The Guild's over there, he pointed towards a large half-timbered hall. This might take a while and it shouldn't take you long to get registered."
"Roger!" Ingrid said, sprinting towards the Guild Hall.
"It's George!" the orc yelled back.
***
"Name?" Asked the elf receptionist. She didn't know it, but in Ingrid's eyes she hit all the checkmarks of the typical desk elf; blond, green eyes like emeralds, green outerwear with tribal-like embroidery at the edges and the rest of the attire a not-too starched white and deep earthy browns, and of course, the veritable thick-rimmed secretary's glasses.
"Ingrid Lily"
"You have a previous occupation?"
"I was a private contractor."
The pretty blonde elf girl looked at the strange, not-so-elf-like creature before her quizzically. She looked so alien to her, she was quite pretty but the lack of the graceful long ears and sparkly eyes gave her a slight case of Uncanny Valley Syndrome in her eyes. Fortunately, Ingrid’s lively personality and friendly demeanor help smooth out the off-putting nature of her alien-ness. She was sure that in time she’ll get used to it, the same way she no longer felt intimidated when a minotaur or troll came over to her counter for business.
"She gets hired to do violent work if violence is called for." The slime explained. He shot a venomous look at Ingrid and said at the corner of his mouth "...was that what you were thinking all this time?"
Ingrid gave him a cheeky sideways look and grinned, showing a row of sharp, goblin-like teeth.
"What was the name of your last client?"
"We simply called it the 141st Order. You wouldn't know it."
Privately the receptionist was bewildered with this "human". Based on her explanation she seemed to function as either an assassin or a hired guard depending on its client's needs. Sounds so much like an adventurer she thought, but why the secrecy? Well, it doesn’t matter. She'll have to go through a test tomorrow morning and they'll see if she's as competent as her aura seemed to suggest.
Normally, aura pretty much looked like a flame, if the flame was moving very slowly, terminating into several wisps as the aura mixed with and was converted to the ambient ether.
Ingrid was flat where everyone else was wavy, it was like a clear outline around her with no wisps at all.
"Very well, please come an hour after dawn. We will conduct a series of tests to determine your level of proficiency. Now the fee for joining will be twenty silvers..."
While Ingrid did her Hidden Ostrich Impression, Cecil was scanning the crowd of adventurers. He was expecting the token band of toughs who seemed to exist only to be sent flying the minute some talented newbie came in to register. If he was them, Cecil thought, he'd just let said newbie take the Quest-To-Dangerous-For-Rank-F's, grab some popcorn, tail the newbie and have a laugh from a safe distance.
Oh, and make bets too, like how far will the newbie fly once the love child of a unicorn and rabbit ram them in the gut.
"...shading?" Ingrid's voice brought him out of his reverie.
It took Cecil a couple of seconds to realize what Ingrid said and he replied. "No I'm just waiting for the token guy-who-comes-out-and-bullies-the-newcomer cliche' to happen."
"That counts too, and don't be silly" echoed her voice from that mysterious window's quantum depths "Who's going to start a fight under the eyes of the Guild Staff?"
"To be honest I was expecting a long line o-"
"Sorry I just got one gold coin, can you give me the change tomorrow? I gotta go see George."
"That's perfectly alright, our dealings are done today, Have a good evening Ingrid Lily." the pretty elf girl bowed.
"What a polite creature." She thought to herself, but she imagined that once she got too familiar with the Guild she'll be lax on post-quest formalities, and then complain why the reward was less due to said paperwork not being filed properly.
Just like the pack of Kobolds, tongues lolling as they quickly took up Ingrid's spot... Well, here comes the daily haggling.
As the pups barked and tried to settle, she watched the human stride away in probably was a proud strut of a fierce warrior, she had once been assigned to a few guard-escort duties and noticed how some of her more seasoned colleagues assumed a certain gait such that they could easily pull out a hidden weapon of their choice
She could imagine it now, A hidden dagger on the left hip here, a set of throwing knives on a thigh holster there, a short sword, no, two short swords hidden under a cloak, the human's muscle memory serving her well.
A group of Orcs walked by, talking amongst themselves. The receptionist's hearing picked up their conversation; changes in riding routes, inspections of the Forest Shepherds. The strange creature passed and the two parties briefly nodded to each other as they continued on their way. The acknowledgement as they passed each other confirmed to the elf that maybe Ingrid was being truthful
She was definitely feeling the itch to be on the other side of the desk again.