Something serious? The tone of her voice changed. Her eyes were sharp and on point. I couldn’t really stop my heart from acting up. After all, I still didn’t know much about the girl in front of me. “What?” I asked.

I was expecting something like “I’d take your soul as payment,” or something like, “You’ll forever be my slave from now on.” Don’t ask me how I came up with those.

“Keep this by you at all times. It will protect you if I turn,” she said as she handed me a cloth-covered knife. Her last words, ‘if I turn’ rang a familiar tune in my mind but didn’t necessarily mean anything. What was she going on about?

She gave me something instead of demanding. Honestly, I might have been a little disappointed. It was weird. “What do you mean?”

“I can’t- I can’t tell you. Let’s just hope it never comes to that.” She went ahead. She didn’t give me a chance to ask.

“Alright,” I said. I didn’t have the privilege of questioning her because without her, crossing this mountain would be very difficult or rather, impossible for me alone. I just had to play along.

It was a straightforward path. There were few splits here and there but Lianne seemed to know the way. She also sniped, most monsters that attacked us. The rest were left off for me, as I was still inexperienced. She also backed me up, whenever I messed up. It was almost like she was teaching me.

“Is the bow really better?” I said.

I’d been wondering for a while. If I could snipe my enemies from far away and with good accuracy than what was the point of running around with a sword to the danger itself?

“You mean better than a sword? Well it depends… I could teach you to use one if you’d like… But bows do have plenty of disadvantages. The arrows for example, are rather a pain to carry and can run out mid battle. ” She closed her eyes and thought for a second. “You seem so restless when using your blade.” She looked straight into my eyes. “I know you’re trying your best to master the skills but why don’t you be a little more patient? Practice and be patient. Those are the two things you need, to be successful.” She answered all of my questions before I even got to ask them. I was blessed to have her. A little embarrassed too. She was almost like my middle school teacher whom I actually liked.

“Th-thank you.” I only had one response, the response of gratitude.

We didn’t do any needless killing.

It was tough walking around in the sun but it was tougher climbing a mountain. It wasn’t all that steep at first and there was a path, but after a while the path got twisted and it got very steep very fast. The path was sucking the life out of me.

“Shall make a stop?”

I huffed. “Ye-yeah.” My wounds were going pretty wild.

There were very few of trees hanging close to the edge of the mountain. “The other side is filled with trees like this…”

Her eyes were telling a story. She looked very sad when she mentioned about the other side. Something must have happened. In fact, why was she travelling alone?

“Really?” Is it me or does she seem really distant all of a sudden? I couldn’t bring myself to ask though. We were travelling together but that didn’t give me the right to poke my nose in her personal life.

We were up pretty high. I looked out. I could see the vast grasslands. I could even make out the village. But I couldn’t see much of it. How are you holding up Milai? I’d already said my farewell, but I still couldn’t forget about the village. Perhaps human beings get attached to things a bit too fast.

“We better get moving. The sky seems a little cloudy.”

My breath had returned. “You’re right!” I just agreed with everything she said. Honestly, if she were to say jump from here to your doom, I’d probably have done that. I was in a trance and I was glad to be in one.

By the afternoon we had travelled halfway up and it started to rain. Fortunately there was a cave nearby. It was dark and cold; we were wet and the cave was small. But there was a problem. How the hell were we supposed to light up wet wood? My question was answered before I could even ask Lianne.

This was the first time I saw another living being using magic. It was fire magic. I knew having magic was convenient and a little awesome but this was a life saver. I was really lucky to have met Lianne. “Having you really is blissful…”

She giggled. “Thank you. You are quite helpful as well.” It wasn’t sarcasm but it kind of hurt.

She was being considerate to me- a useless person. I still considered myself worthless. I couldn’t save a friend and people died because of me. The same happened in my old world. I couldn’t do a damn thing, even now. So her praises only rubbed salt against my wounds.

“Now you’re just being too modest.” I tried to pass off my awkwardness with a laugh. We both laughed as I finished.

The fire was warm and so was my heart. For the first time I felt that this world wasn’t all bad.

But the memories of all the bad things constantly reminded me otherwise. And I felt the same way just a few days ago. And yet all it took was a curse and all that happened. Which meant, all of that could happen again. I couldn’t just take things for granted. I had to accept that.

I was in deep thought about my past and all the things I screwed up. My trance was broken by Lianne.

“Tell me, why are you going to Moire?” Her question was backed by curious gaze.

“I suppose I can tell you. I am actually not from this world,” I said. It wasn’t because I trusted her or anything but because I couldn’t hold it in anymore. I wanted to talk to someone. I wanted someone to know. If she was going to be involved with me then she had the right to know.

“I figured as much,” she said casually.

I became intrigued instead of being confused. “You knew?”

“Your conduct and your fluency in the elven tongue made me wonder. Besides there are history suggesting that in the past outlanders have visited this world”

So she already had her suspicions, huh? But outlanders…. It made me wander a lot of things. But it seemed to overlap with what Misrael said. And that demon in the forest said something about being number nine and stuff.

Lianne said that so casually but to a miserable guy like me, it felt wonderful. Finally someone understood my situation. But she didn’t question me much about my world.

“I’m heading there to find out how I came to this world,” I said.

“You’re actually going in the right direction. The town of Moire is full of diversity. There are quite a few knowledgeable fellows there. You might find some clues there if you can search in the right place.”

That was all I needed to hear. No, that was what I wanted to hear. “I sure hope so.” It was like a great burden was lifted from my chest.

“But if you have any questions you can ask me. I’ll try my best to answer.”

Any questions? Well, I have a lot of them but maybe I shouldn’t bombard her with too many questions. “In that case, would you mind telling me more about your town and the elves?”

She stared at me. She was surprised. I might have said that in a misleading way. I quickly tried to correct myself. But before I could open my mouth, she started.

“It’s been a while since last I thought about my town and her people. You see we are a long-living race and… it’s really been a while,” her voice became softer.

I might have stepped on a literal landmine.. I gulped and prepared myself.