Kali didn't know what to say to his declaration, it was in a sudden bout of courage that she asked the question. The man just seemed so disarming that she forgot that he could rip her apart if he got his hands on her.

"Sorry for asking something intrusive," she apologized, she noted what she thought was guilt flashing across his face as he answered her question.

"It's nothing," he waved his hand at her as she rose to her feet, now able to support her whole weight.

She eyed him for a moment, holding his gaze then turned her eyes towards the veritable mountain of mana she felt from a small crystal under the dirt.

"Ah," he said when he followed her gaze, "I'd like to take that if you don't mind?"

Kali nodded, she was a bit regretful at losing an opportunity to advance but then again she didn't quite earn this one and he was already being nice with letting her keep her knife.

The man crouched and clawed out the uneven crystal from the ground, it wasn't too different from the hare's core if a bit more round and vibrant in color. He stood and hummed in satisfaction as the crystal dissolved into fine dust between his fingers.

He just straight-up absorbed all that mana?

She watched him dubiously as he stood there silently, his eyes closed and his brows furrowed in concentration. She assumed he was doing something with the stuff he absorbed but she didn't know what, maybe there was something she didn't know about absorbing the crystals.

No, there is for sure.

She wanted to ask him but thought better of it and decided not to, she should get going soon. He was more cordial than she expected him to be but she didn't know him and staying next to someone who could end her life wasn't too good for her nerves.

After a few seconds, he was done with whatever he was doing and looked into Kali's curious eyes, he raised an eyebrow at her, "What is it?"

"...what were you doing?" she asked, now that he prompted her the curiosity got the better of her, "if you don't mind me asking?" she added quickly.

While she loathed ethics and etiquette lessons some things stuck and some were just common sense, not that she gained that from real-life experience. She was mostly copying how people talked politely in books, the Kashgar etiquette she's been forced to learn was a pain in the ass and overcomplicated in her opinion.

"Absorbing the essence and the mana?" he asked back, looking confused at her question.

"...okay," Kali would leave it at that, she wasn't sure if he wasn't willing to tell her or if he just didn't get what she was referring to but she didn't want to annoy him.

"Anyway, it was nice meeting you," she smiled thankfully at him, "Bye!"

"Wait," he said as she was already turning away from him and she stiffened.

"Yes?" she asked, a nervous smile plastered onto her face. Did he want to kidnap her as well?

"Where are you going?" he asked with a frown on his face and ... what was with that weird look? Kali failed to make any sense of it.

"...away?" she answered after a moment of hesitation, "I shouldn't bother you for too long!" she nodded, slowly convincing herself that it was the reason.

"Do you have anywhere to go?" he asked, his frown still present and deepening.

"...yes," she nodded without much conviction, not staring into his eyes.

He sighed as he seemed to understand her intention of ditching him quickly, "I'm going to see if the other three are alright and help them find their village if I can."

Kali nodded, feeling a bit weird at doubting the guy but she caught herself, she shouldn't believe it just because he said so. People lied all the time, she should have gotten used to that while growing up but she tended to not pay much mind to the servants and guards in the castle, most of them never said a single honest thing to her so she didn't put much attention on anything they said.

"Okay," Kali nodded at him, "good luck!"

"Look," he said with a sigh, "I know you don't trust me and you shouldn't but this forest is dangerous," he continued with a look into the dark forest around them, "Wouldn't you consider traveling with me for a bit?"

Kali took a step back and readied herself to run if he got pushy as she answered, "That's very nice of you but, that guy," she eyed the crater they were standing in, "made trusting others a bit challenging, yeah?"

"Let's look at it like this," he started to say, "I'm stronger than you but I don't have senses anywhere comparable to an elf and seeing how you fought your combat style meshes well with my own so I think we would have a better chance at surviving out here together, than alone."

"You'd need my help?" Kali asked incredulously, the dude just demolished nearly a kilometer of forest in a duel with a bandit that got the jump on her. She understood that her perception would be a help to him but was less sure about fighting together, if she let her guard down for even a moment he could kill her.

"Yes," he nodded, an action he quickly repeated frantically when he noticed her no longer taking sneaky steps away from him, "I don't think it looks like it but I'm injured still, my Core was almost shattered not too long ago and is still recovering."

"How are you even alive?" Kali asked, gobsmacked at his admission. Getting your Core shattered tended to kill most people and cripple them at best for a long while, his desperation felt sincere at least.

"It repaired itself," he shrugged, "I did lose more than 200 levels from it though."

Kali just blinked dumbly at him and after a quick calculation she arrived at a disturbing conclusion, "You were above level 400?"

"Yes," he answered, though the natural pride she thought was inherent to high-level people was missing from his poise, "it took a lot of essence to repair it and I don't think I'll be much stronger than you by the time it's fully done."

Well, if he was honest that did change things. He had to be well-traveled and knowledgeable if he reached that high before and she did desperately need knowledge and common sense if she ever wanted to venture into human towns.

Plus if he wasn't much stronger than her she was more confident about running away from him should her still lingering doubts turn out to be true. She noticed he was hell-bent on this partnership for some reason and while she couldn't be sure about his reasons she felt like his intentions were sincere.

"Okay," she nodded, "we can travel together for a while I guess?"

"Great," he smiled at her, "I'm Vorgnar by the way," he said as he extended his hand.

What am I supposed to do now, why is he extending his hand? I should introduce myself! Right, there was a human custom of ... shaking hands I think?

She nervously reached out her hand and grabbed his extended hand, not sure if she remembered the gesture right as she answered, "I'm Kha- *cough*," moron, don't use your real name, "Kalitra, nice to meet you."

Even if he didn't know the name of the Elven Princess it should be widely known that only Royal Elves had apostrophes in their names. She hoped the glowing eyes and her long ears weren't a dead giveaway but she couldn't be sure what would be common knowledge.

He shook her hand, up and down gently then released it with a smile. Kali retrieved her arm, relieved that she didn't seem to have messed up the handshaking, who knew she'd regret not listening to some of those boring classes?

She averted her eyes awkwardly as the man studied her for a moment before he said, "Let's go and see what they had tucked away back there, alright?"

"Sure," Kali shrugged, she'd keep her eyes on him for now but he could prove to be helpful if she let him. She had so many questions, some of which he might be able to answer.

He turned to leave, heading back towards the camp along the demolished path he left without further questions and Kali followed him a few steps behind.

Kali felt a bit small, following the mountain of a man. She wasn't small, she was taller than her elder sister and wasn't much shorter than her brother and father but the top of her head barely reached the shoulder armpits of the man, no I should call him Vorgnar, weird name, not that I can talk.

Kali was still a bit confused about her own decision to follow along with his suggestion, she knew he was dangerous and that trusting him was even more so but she still went along with it. There was some instinctual part of her telling her that he was being honest and just wanted to help but how could she tell?

Is it the heartbeat? It fluctuates when people lie but that's not an iron-hard rule, maybe that's why I felt like he was being sincere. Because his heart rate didn't fluctuate when he talked?

To her sensitive ears hearing another's heartbeat wasn't hard, it was one of the easiest ways to detect living beings after all. Other things could make sounds similar to footsteps but they couldn't fake a heartbeat and masking it was also hard then again her Race is capable of slowing it down so much that it's barely detectable.

"Why is a Winter Elf this far down the mountains anyway?" the man — no, Vorgnar — pulled her out of her ruminations with the question as he glanced back at her over his shoulder.

Kali blinked at the intrusive question but decided to answer somewhat truthfully, "I ran away from home," she shrugged, "getting eaten by frost wolves seemed like a preferable choice to getting forced into a marriage back then."

"Hmm," he hummed thoughtfully, "Would you like to go back? Do you regret it?"

"No," Kali's answer was quick and decisive, "there aren't frost wolves around here but I'd still rather stay here than go back."

"How did you plan to survive in the jungle then?" he raised an eyebrow and she detected a slightly admonishing tone in his voice.

"I'd have managed," she glared at him, who was he to admonish her?

"Surely," he was being sarcastic but Kali just huffed in irritation instead of gracing him with a response.

The man reminded her far too much of the gaggle of tutors her father sent to hound her, all they had were admonishments and complaints. They always berated her for doing things wrong, that she was inadequate, they couldn't get it into their thick skulls that she couldn't have cared less about anything they were trying to tutor her in.

The maids gave up on clothing her 'appropriately' after a few years of all of the irritating dresses they got her conveniently burning to ash every night. The etiquette tutor almost got an aneurysm at her constant disregard of her teachings and gave up but she lasted the longest out of all of her tutors, almost up until she left for Kashgar.

Most of them called her entirely insufferable and unwilling to learn, not that they were the wrong amount of either of those, she strived to be the prior while the latter was just the truth.

The only tutor she liked was Zadkiel but after he started teaching her he convinced her of paying attention to some of her other classes, like history, biology, geography and such. She did, at first reluctantly but she did give it a fair chance and she found herself enjoying those classes too if she considered them as background knowledge for her magical education.

While she was brooding they reached the campsite in silence but her sense picking up on a few lingering humans snapped her out of her state.

"There are still twenty-seven humans inside," she told Vorgnar.

"Thank You," he nodded in thanks and readied his gauntlets. Kali's gaze lingered on them as the claws snapped out of some sort of hilt hidden inside, quickly turning a regular-looking gauntlet into a vicious clawed weapon.

"The elves are still sleeping," she added a moment later, hearing their deep and consistent breathing.

"I'm gonna clean up the leftover trash," he growled as his eyes made contact with one of said trash, "wanna help?"

"Sure," Kali shrugged.

"HE'S BACK!" the moron screamed as Vorgnar launched himself at him, cutting off his screams a moment later.

He fights like a beast.

His leap reminded Kali of how wolves jumped at their prey and his wild claw swings were as ruthless as they were brutal. The goon died in an instant as one claw tore his throat open and another sank deep into his chest as Vorgnar pushed him down into the dirt.

Kali's ears twitched as she felt a Spell activation going off from one of the goons a few houses away. She didn't know what he was thinking but just to be safe she conjured up a simple Arcane Shield, Mana Gathering + Shield + Hold + Overcharge, such a basic spell but it works I guess.

The spell matrix sped down into her arm and settled onto the skin of her palm, appearing like an assortment of shifting bluish Runes. Kali loved the aesthetic of spells like this, she wanted tattoos too like her brother had but it was considered 'uncouth' to have them in Kashgar so she was never allowed to.

The Arcane Shield materialized in a semi-translucent blue shield floating twenty centimeters away from her extended palm. It wasn't large, only one and a half meters in diameter but it could withstand a single spell of the strength she sensed.

She felt the launched spell arching above the buildings ad starting to shoot straight at her, they probably thought she was the easier target. She could have dodged but she wanted to use the Spell if she's already cast it so she raised her palm, the floating shield floating along like she was holding it physically.

"Incoming Spell," she warned the man who by now was a house away pouncing on another goon that came to check out what the previous one was shouting about.

The spell that looked like a glowing blue bolt of energy struck her Shield a moment after. She felt the matrix strain under her hold and the floating shield was pushed back a bit from the pure physical force the other Spell carried but it held.

The Spell wasn't much to write home about, after the shield withstanding its power it dissipated uselessly but then again it wasn't much more complicated than the five Rune Spell she used. She checked over the shield and felt that it could withstand another similar Spell before dissolving which made her smile.

She then frowned as she realized she's wasted a bunch of mana on overcharging the Spell uselessly, half the amount would have worked just as well. She could sense the rough amount of mana in a Spell matrix so she could have calibrated her own Spell better, she needed to do better than this.

To dispel her annoyance she launched a well-calculated Kinetic Strike which zapped straight down the dirt road she stood on and past two houses before it bent ninety degrees and turned the insides of the goon that attacked her into outsides.

Now that Overcharge was well worth it.

She felt Vorgnar stalking through the camp and systematically hunting down the bandits one by one. He seemed angry as he mauled them before brutally killing them. Okay, let's leave the scary wolf-man to his stress relief.

She made her way into the storage room where the non-living loot of the bandits was stored and started peeking into the crates one after the other. Now that she wasn't in a hurry to get her trusty knife back she could take her time to check whether anything of use was hidden here.

She didn't want to just flood her storage ring with trash after all and even that had a maximum capacity though she wasn't sure what it was. She's never managed to fill it up with books or snacks so she didn't care up until now.

Monster parts filled the first bunch of crates she opened, scales, bones and leather for the most part as keeping meat fresh was hard to do in the quantities they'd need to sell to make it worth it. Kali check over the stuff and placed anything she found to be interesting into the spatial ring.

The next dozen crates were filled with rocks, or minerals to put it nicely. She wasn't sure how much they were worth but she put away a small amount of each type. Might be useful once she learns how to craft something interesting, like Scrolls, Amulets or even Artefacts.

She went through the last bunch of boxes and found mostly dried herbs or other plant remains, she stored these as they didn't take up much space besides the bark and wood but there weren't many of those so she stored them all.

Once she was done raiding the place she made her way over to the other building housing the cages filled with the many still living 'merchandise' the bandits had. She heard Vorgnar reenter her spatial hearing range, he's left it a few minutes ago chasing after a few goons that ran away instead of fighting the incarnation of death that the man was to them.

She was curious about the many animals and even more so for the few magical ones but she fought on and made her way over to the three elves. The three were still sleeping rather peacefully despite only having the cold iron floor for bedding.

She jumped up and sat on a cage from where she could see all three and started swinging her leg back and forth, to which the small catlike animal inside the cage started trying to catch her boots. She was amused by the little furball despite it seeming intent on devouring her flesh.

She played around with it until Vorgnar made his way into the building, he watched her antics amusedly but shook his head and leaned on a nearby cage as he stared at the prone form of the three.