It took them an hour to reach the spot where they could turn around and go back uphill.

“Can we take a small break? I’m sooo exhausted…” Emilia said.

Ken wanted to rest for a bit as well, but he heard as if something ran through the bushes near them. He didn’t know what it was, but it reminded him that prolonging the visit wouldn't do any good.

“Same… but we are halfway there. Can you endure it?”

“I don’t know, man,” Emilia said and sat down near a tree. This one thankfully didn’t have anything interesting for her to poke. “Five minutes!”

Ken sighed and sat down next to her. Something soft and happened to be underneath him, so he stood up and checked. It was a short chain of sausages.

“I think someone dropped it while in a hurry,” he said.

“Oh, so we have some food now!”

“I beg you, can you stop eating, touching, sniffing and poking into everything that catches your eye? Do you realize that some things might be poisonous or injure you?”

Emilia looked at him and smiled.

“How come you care so much about me? Hmm.”

“Don’t get any silly ideas, I am too weak to carry you around if something happened.”

“Hehe, your proposal from kindergarten says otherwise.”

Ken blushed.

“Geez, I was just a child, how do you even remember it…”

Emilia was about to say something but Ken shut her mouth with his hand, as he heard someone’s voices. They were talking in Aeterran, and thanks to a certain spell from Aleric, Ken could understand.

“Show yourself! We know you ran this way! Do you think you can mess with us like this!?”

Ken and Emilia silently got up and attempted to get away, but a man in black armor similar to the Cryth stopped them.

“I found the thieves!” he shouted.

“Wait what?” Emilia asked.

“We have got you surrounded, give up!”

“Hold on,” Ken said, ”This must be a misunderstanding!”

“The food you stole is ours, and you will be punished for your crime!”

Ken was confused, but as he held the sausages, he realized.

“Oh, I see… I guess we won’t be able to explain. Based on my last fight, this should be easy.”

He unsheathed his ice sword, but before making any other move, a Cryth from behind touched Ken’s neck with a blade.

“Fuck.”

It was night. Ken and Emilia were tied up near a campfire made by the kidnappers. There was a total of five of them, all wearing Cryth armor and chatting. Emilia watched them grilling sausages and other kinds of meat, but as an aspiring cook, she couldn’t hold back her instincts.

“Hey! It’s getting burnt!” she shouted.

They looked at her and laughed.

“It’s turning into coal,” Emilia said, “Can’t you see, dumbasses?!”

One of them got pissed off and approached her. He appeared to be the captain.

“Who do you think you are? The food isn’t for you, so shut up.”

“Doesn’t matter whose it is. Look at your teeth, have you been eating coal your whole life?”

The kidnapper got really angry and grabbed Emilia’s neck.

“Even in the situation you are in, you still have a big mouth. I will have some fun with you before we throw you into slavery,” he said.

“You aren’t planning to kill us?” Ken asked.

“Manpower is valuable. Think twice before taking something that’s not yours.”

After a short silence, one of the soldiers suddenly stood up.

“Did anyone hear that? Someone’s here.”

The rest of them agreed and left their seats too. Ken listened and he heard some unusual bush rustling as well. The soldier in front of him finally released Emilia and headed back to the campfire.

“Go and investigate it guys, I will keep an eye on your food… and these idiots.”

Four soldiers walked away into the darkness and were searching for anything suspicious. When the captain sat down, Emilia silently giggled, as if she noticed something.

“What’s up? Have you found another way to make our situation worse?”

“Oh, come on. Just watch,” she said. “Hey, scary guy! You will keep an eye on their food? You mean you will make those inedible as well?”

The captain kept ignoring her, but surely he was fuming inside. Ken was still trying to figure out why is she provoking the guy. There was absolutely no reason to stir things up even more, until Ken noticed it as well. The guy’s right foot was just in the perfect position. If he was to carelessly stand up, the plank under him would propel the hot ash right at him. Emilia’s rant became useless, so Ken joined in.

“Even my eleven years old little sister could do it better than you!”

The captain snapped. He furiously stood up and stepped on the given plank, which made the hot ash fly at his face. He protected it with his arm, so that got heavily burnt instead, making him scream in pain. Emilia laughed.

“Well, what was the purpose of this, it’s not gonna help anyhow...” Ken thought, “Unless…”

The burn was quite bad, almost like an open wound, gently bleeding.

“You fuckers! Forget slavery, I think I will just kill you!”

“Hey, hey,” Ken said, “Calm down now, you can use the sword you took from me as icing for the burn.”

“Huh?” the captain looked desperate to reduce the pain, so he searched for the sword and unsheathed it. “I can really feel the cold.”

He looked at Ken, “If you are messing with me again, I will behead you both on spot.”

“Come on,” Emilia said, “Are you on his side or what?”

“Shh, if it works the way I think, we will be able to escape.”

“Oh?”

The captain pushed the ice sword to his wound, visibly getting relieved.

“Ahh, so nice… Hey boy, if you keep that bitch from acting up, I will try to sell you to a not-so harsh slave master!”

“What a simple minded idiot,” Ken thought.

A minute has passed while Ken kept closely watching the burned hand. The other four soldiers were still on patrol.

“Very nice, but it’s somewhat getting painful again, I guess I held it there for too long… Wait, why is my wound getting black? What is this? It’s spreading!”

Ken smiled. He relied on the captain dying fast enough after noticing.

The Cryth soldier loudly screamed in pain.

“Now you are done for!” he took his own sword with the infected hand and walked towards Ken. After a few steps, he lost the strength to hold the sword and dropped it. “Shit, I will make you pay for this!”

He picked up the sword with the other hand, but the curse was spreading fast throughout his body. A few steps away from Ken, the captain dropped dead on the ground.

“A-Amazing!” Emilia said, “Did you know this would happen?”

“I hoped it would…”

Ken crawled for the steel sword and after a bit of struggling, he cut the rope ties and freed himself, then Emilia. They collected their things and were about to run away. The rest of the soldiers were coming back and one of them had a dagger in the abdomen, bleeding heavily.

“Chief! The intruder attacked us, but we couldn’t retaliate- hey! what happened here?!”

The dead body was spotted and this time, Ken was ready to fight. However, it was still one against three, not counting the one who was bleeding. Emilia had nothing to fight with and couldn’t handle a sword, but picked it up anyway.

“If I manage to cut each of them at least once, then I will just have to wait for it to take effect,” Ken thought.

“So it was three of you all this time! Die, bastards!” a soldier said, when someone came from the darkness behind him and jabbed a dagger through his throat. It wasn’t possible to see exactly who it was, but seemed like a girl. When the soldier fell down, she wasn’t there anymore. Ken decided not to interfere.

“Who are you? Show yourself!”

The soldiers panicked and began wavering around their swords. After a while, the girl ran out of the shadows in between the soldiers and forcefully kicked one away. The other got his chest pierced, before she disappeared again.

“We should just leave while we can,” said Ken.

The girl went into the campfire’s light, this time without any hurried movements. She calmly walked towards the soldier who she kicked away before and was about to stand up. When he did, he swung at her, but she caught his hand and easily cut his throat. She made an eye contact with Ken. Such an expressionless face. Her hair was black and tied in a bun, eyes bright orange, just like the fire nearby. The light made her pupils get much narrower. Then there was the tail and cat ears covered in black fur.

“But she’s literally… a catgirl!”

The assassin approached the last soldier, who had the dagger in his abdomen.

“Please, don’t… I beg you…” he said.

She grabbed the dagger.

“This is mine,” she said and pulled it out, making the victim bleed to death.

Ken and Emilia stared at her while she sat down near the campfire, took a raw piece of meat and started grilling it on a stick.

“Thanks for saving us!” Ken said.

After a brief moment, the assassin answered, “Now we are even.”

“Huh, what do you mean?” Emilia asked.

“You distracted them from chasing me after I took their food.”

She was talking in a monotone, without eye contact, slowly and silently. Ken remembered he has heard someone running nearby before he found the sausages on the ground.

She continued, “I would have killed them all, but my leg began to hurt again and I could barely move.”

It seemed the Cryth were her enemies as well, so there was no point in asking why is she stealing from them.

“Do you often do this?” Ken asked.

“These men took our homes, our land… The food is essentially ours as well.”

Ken wasn’t sure if she knows about the rift and the situation around it, so he decided to bring that up first.

“I think you are aware that during the war with the Cryth, your people have escaped through a void rift, which led to a different world… We are from the other side, and just happened to wander in here. We are on our way back.”

Emilia added, “By the way, this is Ken, and I am Emilia. How should we call you?”

The assassin looked at Ken. Those killer eyes haven’t changed, showing no interest at all.

“I see,” she said and turned back to the fire. “I am Iris.”

“Well then, we will be going,” Ken said, “Come and join us, I am sure you will be happy to-”

“I’d rather not, if I were you. The forest takes on a life of its own during the night, so rest until sunset. I will stay here until then, I owe you that much.”