Kael woke up feeling rather energized; the overwhelming pain and exhaustion were no more.
Most of his wounds had healed miraculously, but Kael was really not much of a believer of miracles.
He sat upright and scanned the area using [emotion sense]; at first, he didn't find anyone, but after about a minute of searching, he detected someone.
There was no malice coming from this person, so he let himself rest a bit since this individual wasn't in the cave yet.
Kael looked around a bit more to study details about his surroundings; the inside of the cave was marred with cracks and smashes, which served as evidence of a fight that occurred prior to his arrival.
He walked around and found some dismembered shadow hounds lying in a corner.
'Seems this person's been staying here for a while.'
Kael then checked his equipment and ally—his weapons were still in one piece, but Nyx was still recovering.
Her recovery progress rate showed 88% on the system display screen.
"Guess I'm on my own for now."
It sounded strange because he had been by himself for quite some time, gone through so many challenges on his own, and just met Nyx a while back.
Just having someone to count on completely was something rather new to him.
A slight grin appeared on his face.
Just then, he noticed that the individual had gotten close, so he got into a defensive stance just in case.
But by the time the figure came into view, he was quite surprised.
The figure in front of him was human; or at least on the outside, it was a girl who looked about a year or two younger than Kael.
The problem was that there were so many things wrong with the appearance of the girl standing in front of him.
First was the fact that while she looked human, her appearance was very different.
Her face was round and delicate.
Her skin glowed like porcelain.
But what caught Kael's attention most… were her ears.
They were tall.
Pointed.
Just like the elves from the fantasy books he read as a child. – but they all paled in comparison to what he saw before him.
Each step she took allowed the plain and torn out tunic she was wearing to flow in a rather graceful manner.
He could barely keep his eyes off her; her green eyes glowed like a pair of emeralds, and her smile was very captivating.
But what he noticed next made his instincts scream "Danger."
Even though his mind calmed and his body became still, a chill first ran down his spine.
With his [Inquire] ability, he couldn't see her system details, but with [essence sight], he could see that she was partially corrupted.
His mind ran through more than a few facts and conclusions immediately, but at the end he deemed her to not be a threat.
First, she didn't kill or throw him out of the cave when he had passed out.
Also, he had deduced that the level of decay wasn't enough to affect her mental state.
"Hmm, are you feeling good?"
Kael was snapped out of his thoughts by the voice of the girl.
"I'm sorry, who are you?"
The young girl smiled brightly, and Kael felt his heart skip once more.
"I'm Serin. I was really shocked when you appeared out of nowhere into this cave.
But it's been so long since I've been in any sort of company.
She glanced at his wounds and then turned to his face.
Oh, and I took the liberty of healing your wounds—you're welcome."
She smiled again.
Kael waited a few seconds before responding to her.
"I'm Kael; I got sucked in here by accident while working in the sea realm.
It's been a really tough trip to get to this place."
Before Serin could respond, Kael continued.
"Before we continue, can I ask you about a few things?
First, you're corrupted, aren't you? Also, how did you get there? Honestly, I have a lot of other questions, but those are the most important."
Serin paused for a bit before giving a response; her bright smile faded as she lowered her head slightly.
"How did you know? Well, I suppose there are people who have those types of abilities.
She paused for a bit again.
Yes, I'm corrupted—but I still know what I'm doing.
Sometimes I have these voices in my head, but I'm still in control of my mind.
And about how I got here? It's pretty much similar to your story, but I've been here for so long that I can't even tell how long it's been."
Kael still kept his guard up, just in case.
"So then how did you become corrupted? Was there something that happened to you here?"
"Well, I don't know really, but I think it began when I started hearing those voices in my head."
Kael cut her short.
"Wait, voices?"
"Yes."
He remembered what Nyx also said while she was still corrupted about voices in her head.
"But what do these voices say to you exactly?"
"That's the shocking part, actually; I don't understand it at all.
It's as if it's in a language I don't understand."
She turned towards the dismembered shadow hound corpses and smiled again.
"Before we continue this conversation, which I know is going to be quite long – would you like to have something to eat since you've been out for 3 days straight? Or would you prefer to take a bath first?"
Kael was surprised.
"3 days? I was out for that long, and you took care of me?"
She chuckled gently.
"Don't worry about it.
I was honestly overjoyed to see another living being even if it isn't an elf.
To be honest, I was really surprised because you didn't look like any creature I've ever seen."
Kael tilted his head slightly.
"Elf? That's what you are? No wonder you look so different from humans."
He had never seen an elf in person before, only in books and comics.
Though they were described as arrogant, they were very cautious of humans and lived in another dimension.
Kael always thought it was just fantasy; now he was sitting in a cave talking to an elf that looked more carefree than most humans he had seen in his life.
Serin chuckled innocently; it made Kael even more curious about how she became corrupted.
"Uhm, Serin? Do you remember how you actually got here?"
"Yes."
Her voice fell silent for a bit again.
"Listen, I'm not trying to force you; I just want to understand the situation a bit more, so I can help you out."
"No, it's not that, The thing is that when I remember it, it reminds me of my people as well.
Though she didn't cry, Kael knew that she was fighting hard to hold herself back from bursting into tears.
"I'm sorry for reminding you of those terrible moments."
Kael tore a piece of his already tattered outfit and wiped her teary eyes.
"Thank you.
Well, I was actually moving with my colleagues, hunting abyss creatures in an area we had scouted previously.
The hunt was going very well; we had taken down a few defiled creatures and were about to head back when we suddenly felt the shift in the atmosphere."
All this time, Kael was calmly listening but had to interrupt her when he realized something very surprising.
'This is a surprise
'She and her friends killed a few defiled creatures; that means much stronger than I thought.'
"Wait, you're from the elven realm, right?"
There wasn't much information about the other realms, not to mention about the situation of corruption.
Serin's lips curved up slightly, with a hint of sadness still in her peerless eyes.
"Yes, that's pretty obvious, right?"
"Well, to you maybe, but where I come from there is a control of the circulation of information, and most ordinary people know very little about the gates except the propaganda-fueled news that spreads.
There's not much difference between them and the awakened because those on the bottom end in terms of status and level don't have ways of getting legit info except going through brokers and other methods."
He paused a bit to take a look at the girl staring back at him.
"So I'd appreciate it if you assume I don't know anything while you're explaining."
He ended his statement with a gentle smile of his own.
"Okay, I'll keep that in mind.
So what was the main question you wanted to ask though?"
"Right, I almost forgot.
There's a lot of corrupted creatures and gates in your realm, right?"
"Yes, it's actually becoming very overwhelming.
There aren't enough transcendent and holy beings to help us eradicate these creatures.
At least while I was there, most of the realm was already being overrun.
And since I'm not sure of how long I've been here, I don't even know what the situation is."
She stood up and dusted her clothes.
"Now that we've talked enough about me, how about we talk about you for a bit then?
"I suppose that's only fai—"
Just as he was about to speak, their conversation was interrupted by the rumbling of the cave around them.
Just then, she froze.
Her ears twitched slightly.
The noise was quite deafening, making Kael cover his ears.
He looked up and saw Serin packing her things.
This made him tense up.
"What's coming?"
"Insect-type abyss creatures.
Be careful; they're really hard to deal with.
They are a real menace—even a team of ascended can't fully deal with them, so we need to run while we still can—unless you have a wide-range ability that can kill them at once."
"I'm afraid I don't."
"Well run, then."