By the time the sun set again, Kai'Sa had already changed into a long robe.
With only her face showing, she didn't look nearly as frightening anymore.
Even though Kai'Sa's skin came from the Void and handled heat and cold equally well,
Caleb still felt that once she was dressed properly, she seemed a little friendlier.
After all, once they reached the Marrowmark Market, he and the caravan would be splitting up.
Kai'Sa looked a little distracted, as if she still hadn't figured out where she should go next.
"Do you have any way to find Taliyah's people?"
The question came out of nowhere.
Caleb had been drinking water, and he almost choked on the mouthful.
"Are you serious?" Caleb stared at her in disbelief. This girl's train of thought really was something else.
"If not, forget it." Kai'Sa turned her head away, picked up a toothbrush with toothpaste already on it, and started brushing her teeth.
"..."
Caleb suddenly felt like he'd been looked down on.
Caleb was offended. Caleb wanted to prove himself. Caleb... went right back into the wagon.
There was no helping it. Shurima was just too huge. If Caleb really agreed to something like that...
Then why was he bothering to escort Ziggs to Bandle City for Heimerdinger?
He should just head straight for Noxus and conquer the world with Swain instead.
Caleb could read out the trail of every tribe, and Swain could flatten them...
At that point it really would be "let the blood of our enemies honor mighty Noxus."
Caleb let out a sigh and said slowly, "You brush your teeth after meals... if that's hard to remember, just think of it as before bed."
"That's how it works?" Kai'Sa's big eyes blinked at him.
For no clear reason, Caleb suddenly felt exhausted.
Kai'Sa had no trouble communicating, she was incredibly strong, and her heart was still kind.
But her everyday common sense was lacking to the level of a seven-year-old girl.
Caleb honestly didn't even know what to say...
Having to remind a gorgeous woman every single day to do little things like brush her teeth was starting to mess with his head.
In no more than two days, they would reach Marrowmark.
And when that happened, he would be parting ways with the caravan too.
The people in the caravan reeked a little too much of money-grubbing, sure, but they had treated Caleb pretty well.
And these past few days, they had let Kai'Sa stay in the group too.
Part of that was their trust in Caleb, but part of it was also thanks to Zac, the helpful hero from Zaun who was always lending a hand.
If a humanoid blob of goo could help an old grandma cross the street, then how could a masked beauty possibly not be a good person?
It was just that when Kai'Sa wasn't speaking, she carried this cool, distant air, and with that ethereal, breathtaking face of hers,
who would dare walk up beside the Governor and try to start a conversation?
...
That night, it was Kai'Sa who woke Caleb again.
The sky above was full of brilliant stars, with the occasional meteor streaking down.
Rubbing his eyes, Caleb walked over to the campfire and held his hands out to warm them.
Kai'Sa sat there in silence, warming herself as well, though every now and then her eyes drifted toward Caleb.
"You can come out now."
Caleb's voice was quiet, soft enough not to disturb anyone else's sleep.
"As expected of you."
After two light claps, a graceful figure suddenly appeared in front of them.
Caleb lifted his eyes and looked at the red-haired woman with the scar across one eye, saying nothing.
Kai'Sa's skin, meanwhile, lit up with that unmistakable Void glow, she was already prepared to fight.
"Is it Swain who wants me dead, or General Du Couteau?"
Caleb didn't seem bothered in the slightest. He even stretched both hands toward the fire again.
Katarina. Back in his previous life, Caleb had happened to read this champion's story.
As for why... well...
Pure curiosity. He had just wanted to know how Katarina got that scar over her eye.
"Neither."
Katarina's voice held no warmth, but no real hostility either.
And the words that came out of her mouth were like her daggers, cold and sharp.
"If I take your head, the Twin Cities will be intimidated by Noxus."
"And I'll prove once again that I still have value to the empire."
Caleb wasn't especially surprised by what she said.
He pointed at the scar over her eye and sneered. "Forgot how you got that scar?"
During one of Katarina's missions, she had been dissatisfied with how unimportant the assigned target was.
So she openly disobeyed her father, General Du Couteau, and assassinated the enemy commander instead.
As a result, the original target she was supposed to kill led troops straight into the Noxian camp and nearly took her father's life.
In the end, she still executed the original target anyway, and the scar left by her arrogance remained over that beautiful eye forever.
Katarina's moment of distraction didn't last long. She drew two daggers, ready to fight for her life at any moment.
Caleb's sleeping state had been almost flawless.
Katarina's years of assassination and stealth training had made her especially sensitive to that sort of thing.
The moment she came within sixty feet of him, the woman beside him would almost instantly wake up.
And Caleb's own presence was no joke either. Even asleep, he had the steady gravity of a mountain.
Caleb himself hadn't even realized it, but because of his skills, the aura around him had long since become something far removed from ordinary people.
That was also why both the Undercity and the topside residents feared him so deeply.
"You're not worried General Du Couteau will send more assassins after you?"
There wasn't a trace of warmth in Caleb's voice.
Katarina could serve as a bridge into Noxus, and Caleb wasn't planning to kill her that easily.
But his patience had limits too. If this woman still refused to listen,
then he'd have no choice but to teach her one final lesson.
"Next time it won't be some second-rate nobody. The moment you hesitate, you'll be dead."
The desert night was bitterly cold, and every breath came out in mist.
Even so, Katarina's grip on her daggers never trembled.
"Put them down. You have no chance."
That was the last thing Caleb said.
If Katarina ultimately couldn't be useful to him, it wasn't a great loss.
At worst, he'd lose a convenient way to communicate with Noxus. It wasn't enough to be life or death.
When it came to people he didn't care about, Caleb treated their lives as if they weighed nothing at all.
Katarina stared at Caleb's face, lost in thought.
"If you really don't know what to do, maybe you should try finding Caleb."
Ambessa's words still seemed to echo in her ears.
Katarina hadn't been surprised when her father sided with Swain without hesitation during the coup.
Ambessa Medarda, on the other hand, had been overseas at the time, and her own son had even been executed for supporting the old ruler.
Yet she had only gone to Piltover, met the daughter she had once exiled, and after returning not only was she completely fine, she was even allowed to serve as the vanguard for the Ionian campaign?
Katarina had thought about it endlessly and still couldn't make sense of it. Fortunately, the two families had something of an old friendship.
So she had gone to ask for advice.
Then, after combining that with everything she had learned and observed about Caleb over the past few days, she had finally made up her mind to assassinate him.
A man who had made the infamous Urgot suffer two crushing losses, Caleb's head would be the perfect proof that she was still valuable to the empire.
And it was precisely because of the executioner's example, Urgot's fate, that the entire order of executioners had grown to fear Swain.
Did the other headsmen really think that after losing both lower legs and an arm, they could rise again from the worst prison in Zaun?
He was dead. What were they still hoping for?
Katarina came back to herself from her thoughts and saw that the killing intent in Caleb's eyes was almost tangible.
In the end, she lowered the two daggers.
"Kai'Sa, come here."
Like he was coaxing a child, Caleb beckoned Kai'Sa over.
"You'll catch cold in a minute."
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