Chapter 32: Safe Zone
They hadn’t gone far when the princess started with the questions. She kept glancing around at the wrecked buildings like she couldn’t quite believe what she was seeing.
"This world of yours," she said, her voice a bit softer now, less like she was about to order an execution. "It is... broken. Do you know what befell it?"
Nox shrugged. "Not really. There was this big earthquake, then those monster things started showing up. After that, everything just went to hell. That’s about all I got." He figured that was the simplest way to put it. No point getting into system messages and merging worlds with an elf princess he just met.
She nodded slowly. "A cataclysm, then. Our own seers spoke of... disturbances. Ripples in the fabric of realities. Perhaps this is the result."
’Seers? Ripples? Okay, she’s definitely not from around here,’ he thought. It was weird, talking about this stuff so casually, but then again, what part of his day had been normal?
They walked in silence for a bit, then she made a small sound, almost a wrinkle of her nose. "Human Nox," she said, and he braced himself. "Your... scent. It is rather potent."
He stopped and sniffed his own shirt. Yeah, she wasn’t wrong. He definitely stank after all he went through.
’Can’t blame her. I probably reek.’
"Been a rough couple of days," he said. "Showers haven’t exactly been on the top of my to-do list."
She didn’t comment on that, just kept walking. He fell into step beside her. The silence stretched for a minute, then she spoke again.
"You mentioned... someone informed you of my plight," she said, her eyes on him. "Who was this informant? How did they know of my presence here, and my predicament?"