“A furry?”

Beastkin to be exact. Her round beige fur ears stood on top of her head, nestling in between her sandy blonde hair. Other than that, she looked pretty normal like any human. Unless she revealed her canine teeth which were quite sharper and longer than the humans. And also not to forget the nails, or claws to be exact, but from Zane’s standpoint, those nails didn’t seem any different from those fake nails that women these days tended to like.

“Relax, I’m not going to hurt you,” Zane said. Gesticulating with his hands. Trying not to let the situation escalate. “Can. You. Understand. Me?”

The girl spoke gibberish. Spouting words that were just basically noises to him. But it did sound familiar.

Great. Now it sounded like Tagalog, and she doesn’t even look like a Filipino, Zane thought. As he gave a second look at this lass who had thick metal manacles with a long chain in between. Her olive skin and her facial features reminded him of the Egyptian or someone in the Middle East, and her speaking in Tagalog kinda threw him off a bit.

Then he remembered. He rummaged through his backpack and took out his phone. And he almost forgot about it with all the grinding he had made over the last hours. It was just like playing a game where you’re not bothered checking your phone every now and then.

The growl from her throat showed she was wary. But Zane signaled her to calm down, gesturing that it wasn’t dangerous. Just for this sort of situation, Zane was a step ahead. He had downloaded as many dictionaries as he could find on the web in all sorts of languages. At first, he thought of using a translation app, but realizing he couldn’t use the Internet, his only choice was going through the traditional way.

Zane opened up the Tagalog dictionary and started dishing out those words like a clueless beginner. “Hello . . . Um . . . How are you? Fine, thank you? . . . Shit, that isn’t right.”

While he struggled to try to connect. The beastkin drew closer as she sort of warmed up to Zane after seeing his effort in speaking her language. By the time she looked over Zane’s shoulder, the man suddenly jumped in surprise, almost fumbling the phone in his hand.

Frightened, the beastkin girl leaped away from him and readied in a battle stance. Claws were out and fangs were shown.

“Shit, you scared me,” he said. Hand on his chest. Heart beating wildly under those ribs of his. Noticing she didn’t understand, Zane searched for the word and pointed at her then at him back while repeating ‘scared’.

Seeing she retracted her claws, at least his effort got through her. Out of curiosity, he used Hi-Analysis.

[Fethea Lionel][Lv.27][Restrained]
[Class: Ranger(Lv.39]
[HP: 7/10]
[MP: 0/0]
[Strength: 5]
[Vitality: 5]
[Agility: 5]
[Arcane Power: 5]
[Perception: 5]

He raised an eyebrow as the stats and the high level was abnormal. The restrained status was probably the culprit for her weakened state and he figured those metal manacles had something to do with it.

[Slavers Manacle(Cursed)(5-Star). A pair of manacles imbued with the power to weaken the user’s state. Those who wear it are in complete obedience to the words of the Master. Effect: All stats revert five. Block mana usage.]

Wow. That went dark pretty quickly, Zane thought. Thinking that the girl might be wrongfully convicted due to her different appearance or something.

He pitied her. Her life must have sucked so bad with her freedom being robbed. And he didn’t want to imagine what kind of bad things she had to do considering she was quite a looker. Perverse thought was starting to emerge, but he snapped out of it with a self-slap.

“Fuh. Let’s not get any weird thoughts, Zane,” he reminded himself in his mother tongue.

“You speak Tigrisian?” the girl suddenly came closer and what came out of her lips was not something he expected.

He let out a long breath. Calming his nerve as he tried not to get overly excited. Even if it was short, the language barrier was really stressing him out, he was just glad he could now communicate without overtly relying on his amateurish miming skill.

“Yea, I kinda do. It just rolls off the tongue,” Zane said, smiling.

But Fethea was quick to change. Tilting her head to the side while pursing her lips, she questioned the man in front of her, “But something is odd,” she looked at him. Eyeing him up and down. “Why is a human like you know the language of the Tigris people? From what I know your kind isn’t exactly on speaking terms with the likes of the Tigris.”

Again, he was at a crossroads. It was either he came at it honestly, or he lied through his teeth. The latter would be easier as he could puke it out from his imagination but in the long road, it might bite him in the back.

“I identified myself as a Tigris,” Zane said with the straightest face. “It’s kinda the new trend these days, but I bet sooner or later you guys will catch up.”

Silence came and didn’t leave. It went on as both of them stared at each other. One was frowning and the other had his nose up high.

“What is this?” she asked. “What do you mean by that?” Fethea sounded annoyed. As the frown on her forehead grew deeper. It took her a while as she then realized it.

“Is this what you humans call a joke?” Fethea came closer. Eying Zane shoulder to shoulder as her height was just a tad shorter than his five feet nine.

Zane raised his open palms in the air. “Sorry bout that . . . I’m just trying to lighten the mood a bit,” Zane said. “Meeting the dark side of a fantasy world this quickly is a bit depressing if I must say. And it’s only my second trip here.”

He blurted it out without thinking much. And in a way, he kinda said it both in a lie and in truth. Not to mention he did just see a guy being murdered right in front of him so that’s one more dark thing about this world that he had to accept.

Uh, I think I need a break, Zane thought. As his mental capacity was being drained pretty quickly after this unfortunate encounter. Bringing up the cooldown timer only showed him the reality of it.

[Cooldown in progress]
[11:01:21]

Barely passed the twelve-hour mark as he still had a long way to go.

“I don’t know what you’re saying. But you’re weird,” Fethea said. “Still, your bravery saved my life and thus I’m indebted to you.”

“Oh, no. You don’t need to do that,” Zane shook his head. “Just accept it as a kind gesture, and I’m totally okay with it.”

“No,” Fethea rejected that notion. “I swear to my Ancient Pride, that I will pay the debt, no matter the time and place. But unfortunately not now. I need to leave this land and return back to my pride. For now, we’ll say goodbye, human man. I am Fethea. Fethea Lowe”

She handed out her hand for a handshake, waiting to be received. Zane glanced. Then he accepted it by the palm. He earned a weird gaze from her and it was not left unnoticed. Rather than asking about it, he had something else in mind.

That’s odd. Shouldn’t her last name be Lionel? He pondered for a second there. But he shrugged it off seeing that the furry must have the need to keep something a secret as he was still a stranger to her.

“I’m Zane, but shouldn’t you get those off first?” Zane glanced at the manacles. “I may be able to help you know.”

“I appreciate the kind gesture, but I’m afraid you cannot do anything about this,” she said. Showing him the manacles with the chain dangling. “Only a capable Spirit Smith could unshackle this devious chains.”

“Oh. That sounds worse,” Zane said. “Then I guess I’ll have to accompany you then.”

For a slight second, she narrowed her eyes. “I will be fine. With that man dead, I’ll be safe at least for another day,” she said.

She turned and was about to go.

“Wait,” Zane came to her side and smiled. “I’m not doing this to flirt or anything, but my conscious can’t really let you go out there alone in your weakened state. So tough luck for you, I’m coming along.”

Fethea stared at him for a while, trying to see what was inside that mind of his. Then she nodded. “Very well then,” Fethea said. “Just make sure to keep up.”

Before they left, Zane wondered whether he should loot the dead warrior. And he thought otherwise. That kind of thing was still a bit too dark for him even though it was common like in the games. Unlike monsters, humans had a different feel to them and it seemed he needed some time to get used to it. Next time, he thought.

He trailed behind Fethea, and surprisingly she was quite quick on her feet despite the debuff on her. Zane even had trouble keeping up with the beastkin lass. He even put up the question upfront, “does the manacle even work?”

“Do not . . . Underestimate . . . us beastkin . . . Zane,” Fethea said. Barely able to put out a word with her chest kept on heaving.

I take that back, it does work, Zane thought. Continuing his journey through Legan Forest as their path was rather unorthodox. Rather than running through a straight line, Fethea opted in zig-zagging through the forest floor, leaping over deadfall, sliding under a tree branch, running through a thicket. It was one hell of a trail. But the biggest question was, even after two hours of running in the forest, they still hadn’t met a single beast. Which quite frankly seemed rather interesting to Zane.

I’ve got a hunch she’s been steering us away from danger, Zane thought. And he had a couple of ideas about how she did it.

Another hour later, night had come. In the nick of time, they reached a clearing in the middle of the forest. A cabin stood at the center of it all. Smokes rose from the stony chimney graced by the light of the moonlight, a sign someone inhabited that cozy little home. Zane could see the warm orange light through those open windows as he drew closer with Fethea at the lead.

They entered the cabin, greeted by a rustic ambiance. The flames from the hearth brightened and warmed the wooden interior of the cabin. Near the hearth, a big-built man stood there with his back towards Zane.

“Whoa,” he exclaimed. The cabin owner’s height was impressive, enough to make Zane compare him with Thor Bjornsson, a man known to act as the Mountain in the Game of Throne.

The Mountain-like man turned and greeted Fethea in a rumbling tone. They spoke in the Latin-like language, leaving Zane clueless in the middle. From how the tone of the conversation was going it didn’t seem like a merry reunion between friends. Then they fell silent. The Mountain-like man stared at Zane with his stalwart face.

“Okayyy . . . Um, I don’t know what’s happening here but—”

A strong blow hit Zane at the back of his head. Then everything went dark.