A minute later, Rein was walking beside the woman who had introduced herself as Deski.
The forest thinned as they moved. The trees grew farther apart, their shadows stretched long across the ground. Sunlight filtered through without resistance, painting the dry leaves in dull gold. Rein kept his eyes forward, though his attention wandered constantly, catching on sounds, movement, the way Deski's footsteps never faltered.
She was tall. Taller than him by a head, maybe more. She moved with ease, The flail rested behind her back now, the chain hooked neatly so it would not sway.
The axe head hung at her side, its weight clearly familiar to her.
"S-so, rein" Deski said after a while, breaking the quiet.
Her voice still carried that uneven rhythm, as if the words had to push past something before escaping. "W-where are you from?"
Rein did not answer immediately.
He glanced back, just once, toward the place where the monster's corpse lay. They had put some, maybe a lot, distance between themaelves and it, but he could still see a dark shape against the pale ground. It had not moved. It would not move again.
'This is not my world....' rein thought, looking at the corpse of the monster.
The thought came with a sinking weight.
His mood darkened.
"Not from here"
'not from this world'
He did not elaborate.The words tasted sour enough as they were.
Rein hadn't been much of a fan of fantasy, infact he was not at all interested in it. Which didn't mean he didn't know anything about it, his little brother did, he was a huge fan of fantasy.... Especially the Isekai ganre. He had loved to ramble on and on about it. which rein, unfortunately, had to listen because he was stuck most of the time babysitting him.
Deski slowed her pace slightly, enough to walk beside him rather than ahead.
Rein could feel himself being observed. Not openly, not intrusively, but with intent.
"I actually don't know anything that's going on," he added.
He turned his head toward her as he spoke. He expected to look anxious. Expected to feel it. Instead, he found himself strangely steady. His pulse was even. His breathing controlled.
He looked composed.
That bothered him.
'this isn't The normal me'
The normal rein... As if he knew what the normal him was like. His own personality was like the surface of water, distorting and blurry.
Deski had removed her hood at some point without him noticing. Light blonde hair framed her face, cut unevenly, pulled back just enough to stay out of her eyes. The left side of her face was marked by a scar that ran from her brow down past her cheekbone. The eye beneath it was pale and unfocused.
Blind. At least from the left eye.
She noticed his glance and did not shy away from it. Instead, she offered a small smile. It did not quite reach her eyes.
"I-it's fine,I g-guess this is the first t-time you've had a e-encounter with a ghoul?"
"I don't know what those are."
The admission sat poorly with him. He felt exposed, stripped of something he did not know he had relied on. Acting calm felt wrong when he knew so little. Still, honesty seemed like the safest route. Or at least, the version of honesty that did not immediately paint a target on his back.
It was a habit rein took pride in. Being informed greatly in subject he found to be useful and not having to rely on others for the source of his knowledge.
Deski stopped.
She turned to face him fully now.
Confusion crossed her features, quickly followed by something more restrained. Doubt, kept deliberately in check.
"W-where, exactly are you f-from?"
Rein took a shallow breath.
He met her gaze without flinching. Let uncertainty seep into his posture, soften his voice just enough.
"I don't remember, Anything. I woke up here. Before that, it's just… fog. Like there's something covering my memories. I don't know who I was or where I came from."
Deski held his gaze for several seconds. Her expression did not change, but he saw it in the small things. The way her shoulders tensed. The slight shift in her breathing. The hesitation in her stance.
She did not believe him.
Rein had always been good at reading people. It was not something he had learned consciously. It had simply always been there. An awareness of how eyes moved, how weight shifted, how silence enveloped a sentence.... But something even beyond that. he could somehow gain very slight glimses of a person's emotion, just a instinctual sense which rein never truly put thought on.
Right now, the seed of doubt behind Deski's eyes had taken root.
He did not know what conclusion she was drawing. Only that it was not a favorable one.
"O-okay," she said after a pause
"I'm going to assume you k-know nothing. L-let's get to Monolithos first."
She hesitated, then continued.
"M-monolithos is a small s-settlement built around a spirit stone. I-it's not too far from here."
She turned and started walking again.
Rein followed. Choosing not to ask any more questions.
They had taken only a few steps when Deski stopped abruptly.
Stopped. Then Hesitated.
Rein noticed instantly.
Her posture shifted, feet grounding into the earth. Her breathing hitched for a brief moment. The fine hairs along her arms lifted.
Something was wrong.
Then Rein felt it too.
Not the same instinct he had felt before. This one was quieter, less invasive. A pressure at the edge of his awareness.
Deski's pupils dilated. Her head tilted slightly, as if she were listening to something Rein could not hear.
She reached back and unhooked the flail in one smooth motion, letting the chain slide free. The axe head settled into her grip as if it belonged there.
She turned south.
Back the way they had come.
The ghoul's corpse was still visible in the distance, dark blood staining the ground around it.
'…Is it the blood?' Rein thought.
Which was strange, rein could not smell the dark blood or the anything from the remains, so the chances of it attracting anything was supposedly zero.
Supposedly.
The words were barely out of his mouth when Deski spoke.
"You know how to use that sword, right?"
Her voice was low now. Focused.
"No, It's the first time I've held one."
She laughed.
"Alright, Then listen carefully."
She shifted her stance, feet spread, weight balanced. The chain of the flail slid through her fingers as she adjusted her grip.
"hit them, Don't get hit. Keep your stance firm. Hold your sword steady."
She glanced at him from the corner of her eye.
"And lastly, focus on doing damage. Not on cutting."
Rein frowned.
"That sounds like the same thing."
"It's not," Deski replied.